Welcome to CaturSaturday, March 7, 2026, and National Cereal Day. I rarely eat cereal, but when I do it’s usually Raisin Bran, Shredded Wheat, or my friend Betsy’s homemade granola. Below you can see most of how they make shredded wheat, but how the wheat shreds are converted into biscuits remains a trade secret.
DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME BEGINS AT 2 a.m. TOMORROW (i.e., 2 hours after midnight tonight)! Don’t forget to set your clocks forward before you go to bed tonight, and we’ll either lose an hour of sleep or be really tired on Sunday.
It’s also National Crown Roast of Pork Day and National Flapjack Day (American argot for “pancakes”).
Our ducks are still hear and have been well trained, swimming quickly to me for food when I whistle. I haven’t yet named them. Oh, and Simon, visiting relatives in Old Blighty, sent me a picture of a pint of my favorite British beer. But it does me little good just to look at a pint across the ocean:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the March 7 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Israel now seems to want to take out Hezbollah for good. They’ve increased their strikes on the terrorists in Lebanon, and even struck targets in Beirut. In the meantime, Israel has bombed (again) a bunker used by the vaporized ex-Supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
President Trump on Friday demanded “unconditional surrender” by Iran, saying there would be no negotiated end to the war, while Israeli officials said their forces had destroyed a Tehran bunker that had been used by Iran’s supreme leader, in a fresh wave of heavy strikes on Tehran.
The Israeli military also pounded the southern outskirts of Beirut and issued more evacuation warnings in Lebanon as it intensified its campaign there against Iran-backed Hezbollah militants. About 300,000 people in Lebanon have fled their homes since the bombing began, the Norwegian Refugee Council estimated.
Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social that there “will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” He made the post after Masoud Pezeshkian, the Iranian president, said that some countries had begun what he called “mediation efforts,” without elaborating on who was involved.
The comments highlighted the shifting U.S. stances in the war that began with U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran six days ago. Mr. Trump told The Atlantic on Sunday, “They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them.” And Iran’s intelligence ministry has reached out to the C.I.A. through intermediaries to discuss terms for ending the war, according to officials briefed on the outreach.
I guess there may be other theocrats hiding in a sub-bunker below the already-bombed bunker. As for Hezbollah, the Lebanese government is still trying to get it to go away:
For much of the past year, Lebanon’s government has walked a tightrope in its dealings with the Iranian-backed armed group Hezbollah as it has moved to disarm the militants and curb their influence in Lebanese politics.
Now, as Lebanon faces a rapidly escalating conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, the country is waiting to see if the government seizes on this moment to take decisive action against Hezbollah — and how the group will respond.
Overnight, the Israeli military pounded Hezbollah in the southern edge of the Lebanese capital with explosions that could be heard across the city. The bombardment displaced thousands of people from the densely packed area who spent the night on the streets of downtown Beirut.
“This is the tipping point,” said Sami Nader, the director of the Institute of Political Science at Saint Joseph University of Beirut. “Either we have the dark scenario where the army clashes with Hezbollah and there is civil strife, or Hezbollah abides by the government decision and they disarm.”
When it comes to Hezbollah, Lebanese officials have had to strike a delicate balance over the past year: appeasing demands from the United States and other allies to act quickly and decisively against the group while proceeding cautiously to avoid clashes between Lebanese soldiers and Hezbollah militants, a scenario that many fear could unleash civil conflict in Lebanon.
Hezbollah will not abide by the Lebanese government’s request, nor by the U.N. Security Council’s demand that they stop attacking Israel. What will happen? Given that Hezbollah is, like Hamas—a death cult whose member really do think they’re going to Paradise if they die—what impetus do they have to surrender? And the UN really should do its job, but the 10,000 UNIFIL soldiers in the country are cowards, pure and simple. They have a job to do but are too afraid to do it.
*I don’t know if this is an act of war, but it does show Russia supporting Iran by passing onto the Islamic Republic the locations of American military assets.
Since the war began Saturday, Russia has passed Iran the locations of U.S. military assets, including warships and aircraft, said the three officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.
“It does seem like it’s a pretty comprehensive effort,” one of the people said.
Reached by The Washington Post on Friday, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, declined to comment on the intelligence findings. Moscow has called for an end to the war, which it labeled an “unprovoked act of armed aggression.”
The extent of Russia’s targeting assistance to Iran was not entirely clear. The Iranian military’s own ability to locate U.S. forces has been degraded less than a week into the fighting, the officials said.
Six U.S. troops were killed and several others were injured by an Iranian drone attack Sunday in Kuwait. Iran has fired thousands of one-way attack drones and hundreds of missiles at U.S. military positions, embassies and civilians, even as the joint American-Israeli campaign has hit more than 2,000 Iranian targets — including ballistic missile sites, naval assets and the country’s leadership.
Iran is running out of missiles (I don’t know about drones), and if that’s the case Russian intelligence will be of little use. Russia won’t dare attack the U.S. itself, for we’re a member of NATO and that would trigger massive retaliation—World War III in effect. I’m not sure how we know that the Russians are giving info to Iran, but monitoring of other countries has grown very sophisticated. Iran has lost, as has Hamas, but in both cases the elimination of both terrorist groups is necessary if the U.S. wants stable and democratic regimes. That ain’t gonna happen in Gaza, and we have no idea what will happen in Iran. There are reports that the reliable Kurds are massing to help attack the Iranian regime. They won’t ever run Iran, but they have been plumping for their own state forever. Maybe they can carve one out of Iran in a settlement.
*The Wall Street Journal and other sources report an unexpected downturn in the economy, with the U.S. losing 92,000 jobs last month.
The U.S. lost 92,000 jobs in February, a sign that the job market continues to struggle across a broad range of sectors.
The employment numbers, reported Friday by the Labor Department, fell far short of January’s gain of 126,000 jobs. They were also much worse than the gain of 50,000 jobs that economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had expected to see.
The unemployment rate ticked slightly higher to 4.4%. While that is still low, the Friday report exposes troubling weaknesses in a labor market that has shown very little employment growth in recent months.
Healthcare jobs, which have propped up the labor market for months, collapsed. A strike in California was partly to blame, but it also highlighted problems in the rest of the market. Private-sector jobs fell by 86,000.
Employment growth slowed markedly last year, and the U.S. has now lost jobs in three of the past six months. Many employers have been unnerved by back-and-forth tariff policies. Expectations that artificial intelligence could reduce staffing needs have cut into hiring plans. What’s more, the Trump administration has also slashed the federal workforce.
“This is about a labor market that is so soft that it cannot withstand a strike” of 31,000 healthcare workers, wrote inflation Insights economist Omair Sharif in a note to clients. “Because no one else is hiring.”
Although my dad was an economist, I don’t know how serious this is, but a report of job loss will hurt the Republicans come November and also in the 2028 election. But what’s more worrisome is not who runs the country, but the plight of people who are out of work. Below is the WSJ’s figure on jobs growth and loss; note that the green bars below the line indicate job losses. This is the fourth loss during the Trump administration, but not the lrges, and a big difference from the Biden Administration’s record on this statistic.
*As usual, I’ll steal few items from Nellie Bowles’s weekly news-and-snark column in The Free Press, called this week “TGIF: Get them before they get me.”
→ Are those bomb instructions? Hasan Piker, a major (perhaps the top) progressive influencer in America, is now telling his followers how one could really easily practice drone warfare. See, suicide bombing is lame now, he explains, unless you’re really just in it for the love of the game (his words). Instead, try this: “Just make fucking drones. . . . You can purchase them in the online marketplace. China literally sells, like, explosive ordnance delivery mechanisms that you can put to a DGI [ed note: DJI] drone that you can purchase, like, at virtually no significant cost.” Wow, that’s so simple. It’s so easy. It’s almost like I, a disaffected bro in Flatbush who just lost his job to AI, should try that. Even terrorism is going remote. No self-respecting millennial would take an in-person terrorism job. It’s 2026; we’re outsourcing to Chinese marketplaces for terror.
→ NPR becomes HOW: NPR changed the iconic letters on their D.C. headquarters. A photo from the NYT’s Ben Mullin:
→ Not the “diversity is our strength” moment: After a knifeman from Chad went on a stabbing spree in Edinburgh, Scotland, this week, the leader of the Edinburgh City Council used it as a time to remind everyone how great diversity is. “Edinburgh is a proud, welcoming, and diverse city. Our biggest strength lies in those who live here—people from all walks of life, cultures, and backgrounds—and we all have a part to play in making sure it stays that way.” In other words, a classic diversity is our strength quote. I’m all for diversity, personally, but is this the exact right moment? When there’s still blood in the streets? As news comes that the stabber was trying to get into a nursery school, I wouldn’t make this a big political pro-immigration moment, no. Not me. But I guess I’m not the one on the Edinburgh City Council. When a man from Chad goes on a stabbing spree, we can just say it’s very bad and can’t happen. Then we save the diversity is our strength quote for like, a food festival.
*Many of us have been concerned about the erosion of free speech in the UK, largely propelled by dislike of so-called “hate speech”, which, in turn, derives from wokeness. The National Review reports on “A temporary respite for free speech in Britain” (article archived here, there’s another report of this incident at FIRE.) It’s about a Kurdish/Armenian asylum seeker who burned a Quran in London and was relentlessly pursued by the law:
In February of last year, a 50-year-old Kurdish-Armenian man named Hamit Coskun burned a Koran outside the Turkish consulate in London. In June, a court convicted him of a “religiously aggravated public order offense,” but this conviction was subsequently overturned in October. Last week, the High Court dismissed a Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) appeal of this overturning, effectively putting an end to the process, as the case has not been referred to the supreme court.
Coskun’s case represents a rare victory for free speech in Britain. Sadly, it is likely to be short-lived.Hamit Coskun is not the first person to have suffered legal trials due to burning the Koran. As early as 2010, a British schoolgirl was arrested for burning several pages out of a Koran on a video uploaded to Facebook. In Denmark, a man was convicted back in 2017 after filming himself burning a Koran, though outrage over this conviction led to the repeal of Danish blasphemy laws. In Sweden, Koran burner Salwan Momika was convicted of agitation against an ethnic group. Sadly, Momika was murdered while livestreaming on TikTok from his apartment the day before the conviction was to be announced (the suspect remains at large).
In the Coskun case, CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] bizarrely argued that the fact that Coskun was violently attacked by a man carrying a blade constituted proof that Coskun’s actions were offensive, which the judge agreed with. Had the conviction stood, a dangerous precedent would have been established.
From FIRE; get a load of this (my bold)
Coskun was soon attacked by two men including one carrying a knife, who told Coskun he was “going to kill him” and then beat and kicked him. That man later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 20 weeks in prison and community service, but his prison sentence was suspended. Ultimately, he would serve no time for the assault.
In June, Coskun was found guilty in the Westminster Magistrates’ Court and fined £240 ($321). Incredibly, Judge John McGarva argued “That the conduct was disorderly is no better illustrated than by the fact that it led to serious public disorder involving him being assaulted by 2 different people.” In other words, being the victim of an attack was evidence of his disorderly conduct because the attack was disorderly.
No jail time for the knife man! But Coskun could have gotten jail. And of course prosecution’s argument is completely bonkers! As FIRE notes correctly, there are no blasphemy laws in Britain, but punishing Coskun comes perilously close to that. And he wouldn’t have been punished at all if he’d burned a Bible or the Bhagavad Gita. We should pay attention to what’s going on in the UK because they are our closest “relatives.” Yet their treatment of free speech, which our founders saw fit to make the First Amendment to the Constitution, is completely wonky, and is out of control. Part of that is due largely to fear of offending Muslims, who could respond, as they did with Coskun, violently. That is not a reason to allow free speech for some but but not for others, even if they both involve criticizing religion. FIRE:
This is a notable win for free expression in a country where arrests for subjectively offensive speech have become alarmingly common. But UK citizens should remain deeply concerned about their ability to express their thoughts on important matters like religion or politics — even, or especially, in unpopular ways.
This chain of events, from the original charge referencing the “religious institution of Islam” to the guilty finding citing the attack against Coskun to prosecutors’ refusal to let this case drop, represent an alarming effort to enforce what certainly look like blasphemy restrictions.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is still asking Big Questions, but they somehow always manage to involve food:
Hili: Struggle with the adversities of fate, or curl up in a ball and go to sleep?
Andrzej: It is still early – keep fighting until dinner.
In Polish:
Hili: Zmagać się z przeciwnościami losu, czy zwinąć się w kłębek i zasnąć?
Ja: Jest jeszcze wcześnie powalcz do kolacji.
*******************
From The Language Nerds (you should understand this one):
From Now That’s Wild:
From This Cat is Guilty:
Andrzej posted a photo of him walking the upstairs lodgers’ d*g, with the translated Polish caption, “And in spring – let spring come, not Poland, I’ll see.” I’m baffled, but it’s a good photo.
Masih goes after Spain in Spain, which is taking Iran’s side (video is about 7 minutes long). Translation from the Persian (Masih speaks in English; do listen):
What Masih Alinejad did yesterday at the Spanish Congress was unparalleled. I can’t recall anyone supporting the people of Iran in Spain in this way, or so openly lashing out at the duplicity and hypocrisy of the Spanish government like this. El Mundo and El País have run multiple in-depth reports on her. She’s made headlines. It’s beautiful.
کاری که دیروز مسیح علینژاد در کنگره اسپانیا کرد بینظیر بود. به یاد ندارم کسی اینطور از مردم ایران در اسپانیا حمایت کرده باشه و اینطور عیان به این دودوزهبازی و ریاکاری دولت اسپانیا تاخته باشه. الموندو و الپائیس ازش چندین گزارش کارکردهن. رفته توی سرخط اخبار. زیباست. https://t.co/T60mbCBfUN
— موخیتو (@mohito_sin_alc) March 6, 2026
From Luana, who says, “Another lunatic let loose in New York City”:
One hundred and thir…. [Coffee spit] Excuse me? How many?!https://t.co/QANAZ4AOa1
(Also, Amtrak police with the arrest!) pic.twitter.com/kCbjS9xzox— Peter Moskos (@PeterMoskos) March 5, 2026
From Jez, another tweet explaining how Israel managed to track down the Ayatollah and bomb him and his associates:
Iran built the most comprehensive civilian surveillance network in the Middle East. Cameras on every street. Facial recognition at universities. License plate readers that automatically fined women for removing their hijab in their own cars. A mobile app called Nazer that let… pic.twitter.com/iLiTZnJr8L
— Shanaka Anslem Perera ⚡ (@shanaka86) March 4, 2026
Two from my feed. First, a cat who really loves music:
He’s living his best life 😻😻 pic.twitter.com/BDlEJu8jSF
— The Cats 𝕏 (@TheCatsX) March 5, 2026
Turkeys out for blood (or packages):
UPS delivery guys chased by turkeys 🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/q1TZ4CTWZW
— Wholesome Side of 𝕏 (@itsme_urstruly) March 6, 2026
One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:
This Dutch Jewish girl was gassed as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz. She was four years old, and would be 87 today had she lived. https://t.co/bhg5FnNklg
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) March 7, 2026
And two from Dr. Cobb, who is now somewhat richer. First, a video of a lovely fox who lives in Kew Gardens in London:
Timeline cleanse. This is Checko, a 4-year-old fox who lives in Kew Gardens
— Rowan Hooper (@rowhoop.bsky.social) 2026-03-01T14:47:33.353Z
Matthew disses herbivores!
It must be really boring being a herbivore – chompchompchomp all day long. If you’re a ruminant, you then have to lie down and chew your own spew (or if you’re a rabbit, stick your nose by your bum and eat your own poo so it goes through a second time). It all strikes me as rather dull.
— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-02-27T12:45:32.060Z
Wow. Winner’s circle for Edinborough (sp?) stabber from Chad. Chad doesn’t contribute much to international violence so it’s good they can make a showing this year. (sigh)
NPR is an obnoxious thing. I angry watch its sister network PBS Newshour’s direct translations of Hamas/Hezb press releases every stinkin’ night.
Ranting on this topic for a moment – while the media will tell you Israel is monstering Lebanon, they RARELY tell you it is in RESPONSE to predicate missiles sent to Israel. THIS is the media asymmetry I go on about (in my now republished by Jihadwatch.org article).
Hezb and the Pals between them have utterly wrecked a great country during my lifetime. Without them, I found it to be an excellent place.
D.A.
NYC
Edinburgh. You’re welcome.
The local media is saying that he was originally from Libya.
Andrzej’s line suggests an embrace of the universal over the particular; the emergence and renewal of life; a turning from the local disasters and complicated politics that plagued Poland in the 20th century. It struck me as a line from a Polish poet writing after one of Poland’s many wars.
Not being conversant in Polish, I asked AI to help. It first told me that no such line existed in Polish letters; on follow-up, it insisted that while the line sounded poetic, it was written by nobody of prominence. I then told AI not to focus on the specific language, but rather to engage the sentiment contrasting spring with Poland. (I explained my own interpretation.)
It then told me that the iconic line is adapted from Jan Lechoń’s poem “Herostrates.” Here, it claims, is the Polish line “A wiosną niechaj wiosnę, nie Polskę zobaczę,” and translated it as “And in spring, let me see spring, not Poland.”
Here is the AI interpretation of the line:
Spring as Reality: To Lechoń, “spring” represents the natural, unburdened beauty of the world. He wants to experience a season for what it is—flowers, warmth, and rebirth—rather than as a symbol of Polish hope or a reminder of Polish suffering.
The Burden of “Poland”: By saying “not Poland,” he isn’t being unpatriotic. Instead, he is rejecting the “messianic” duty where every sunset must be a metaphor for a fallen hero and every spring must be a prophecy of national resurrection.
A “Herostratic” Act: Just as Herostratus burned a temple to be remembered, Lechoń wants to “burn” the suffocating tradition of patriotic poetry to allow for a new, modern Polish identity that can simply be.
Jerry, maybe just post the original text in Polish here and I will translate.
Speaking of free speech in Europe, the Belgian news site 21News has gotten into trouble for publishing last year a complete transcript of J. D. Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference. “While acknowledging the outlet’s editorial freedom, the ethics council said the speech should have been ‘verified, contextualized, or corrected’ before publication.” “Corrected”?
Per AI, UNIFIL has been reauthorized for a final time (unless it’s renewed again), to end 12/31/2026. As is its wont, the U.S. has criticized UNIFIL. For whatever high-minded and noble reason(s) there are no U.S. military personnel in the force (though there are 20 U.S. observers in country).
The U.S. desires that the Lebanese armed forces rise to the occasion and in recent years has spent $2.5B toward that end. One hopes that Lebanon can and will walk the U.S. talk.
In the interim and prior to getting the Lebanese military up to speed (and to give legs to its incessant talk of “American Leadership”), perhaps the U.S. should send 10,000 or so troops to Lebanon and show us how it’s done.
Were bloviation the only qualification for successfully leading and accomplishing such a prospective U.S. mission, I can think of no one more qualified than that apotheosis of “American Exceptionalism,” Lindsay Graham.
Edinburgh council is ‘woke’, they joined Stonewall just as many other councils were leaving it. The thousands of pounds they gave them should have been spent on fixing potholes.
For years, Edinburgh has been a welcoming city for people from all over the world. We have long established Italian and Chinese communities and our supermarkets sell Polish products for our visitors and our Sikh community feed the poor. During the independence referendum there were campaign groups called “Africans for Indy”, “English for Indy”, “Poles for Indy”. We all worked together for Scotland and these communities have integrated, while also retaining their own culture and inviting us to share it.
Sadly this has been changing recently with an influx of people who do not want to integrate, and who wish to live here as they did in their home countries, with their own laws and standards of behaviour. This has been causing some concern.
The knife attacker, Kokoneh, a British Citizen, may just be a random criminal, so it is too soon to assume that this is a cultural issue. The anti-immigration protests are premature, and the council’s announcement is unwarranted, but I think it shows how sensitive some people are to this issue.
This wonderful video shows what can happen when you embrace across cultures. Check out The Snake Charmer’s other videos.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XK-wHSqus9g