Welcome to the first TGIF of April: Friday, April 3, 2026, and it’s Good Friday, the day on which, as the story goes, Jesus was crucified. I don’t believe a word of that story (your mileage may differ), but it was the subject of nearly all of the art of medieval Europe. Here’s a later painting of the crucifixion (1632), but a good one, and one by one of my favorite artists: Diego Velázquez. They sure took the trouble to make a fancy sign for the cross—in three languages! Later today I’ll post a discussion between Ross Douthat and Bart Ehrman where they differ on whether Jesus was the son of God, divine, and worked miracles.
It’s also the second full day of Passover, and I need to get some matzos, stat! (I eat them thickly slathered with butter, the only way they’re edible.) Further, it’s Fish Fingers and Custard Day (explained below, n.b. for Doctor Who fans), National Chocolate Mousse Day, and Tweed Day.
Fish Fingers and Custard Day commemorates the introduction of the Eleventh Doctor on the television series Doctor Who, as well as the memorable fish fingers and custard scene from the episode in which he arrives. The episode, which was released on April 3, 2010, is the first from Series 5 of the show, and is titled “The Eleventh Hour.” BBC declared the first Fish Fingers and Custard Day to take place on the second anniversary of the release of the episode. The following year, Birdseye even put the Doctor, who was played by Matt Smith, on their boxes. The day is marked by people eating fish fingers and custard and sharing photos and videos of them doing so.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the April 3 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Breaking news (well, sort of): Attorney General Pam Bondi has been deep-sixed by Trump—another cabinet member gone.
Attorney General Pam Bondi had a pretty good idea her days were numbered.
President Trump had complained too freely, too frequently, to too many people about her inability to prosecute the people he hates. She was falling short of Mr. Trump’s unyielding, unrealistic demands for retribution against his enemies. She had made mistake upon mistake in her handling of the Epstein files. Her critics were in the president’s ear.
Last month, Ms. Bondi told a friend that Mr. Trump’s willingness to fire Kristi Noem from her post as homeland security secretary meant she might be in jeopardy too.
But Ms. Bondi had not expected Mr. Trump, the man responsible for elevating her to one of the most powerful positions in the country, to drop the curtain quite so soon, according to four people familiar with the situation.
On Wednesday, the 60-year-old Ms. Bondi, downcast but determined, joined Mr. Trump for a glum crosstown drive to the Supreme Court, where they watched arguments in the birthright citizenship case. In the car, Mr. Trump told her it was time for a change at the top of the Justice Department.
Ms. Bondi hoped to save her job or, at the very least, buy a little more time — until the summer — to give herself a graceful exit.
She ended up with neither, and grew emotional Wednesday in conversations with friends and colleagues after she realized she was out. The next morning, Mr. Trump made it official, and fired her via social media post.
She is being replaced temporarily by Todd Blanche, Trump’s personal attorney who has defended him in several criminal cases. Neither Bondi nor Blanche has the qualifications to be an Attorney General, but so it goes.
*Yesterday morning’s NYT newsletter summarizes what Trump said in his speech about Iran, and I quote:
Here’s what he talked about:
The end of the war. Trump did not offer a clear timeline for that. He said that “discussions are ongoing” but that in the meantime, the U.S. would continue to bomb Iran. “We are going to hit them extremely hard,” he said. “Over the next two to three weeks, we’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.” He also threatened to strike “each and every one” of Iran’s power plants, an act widely considered a war crime, if Iran refuses a deal to end the fighting. (Iran has said there are no direct talks with the U.S.)
The economy. “Remarkably, Trump barely acknowledged the economic consequences of his war, as Americans around the country continue to feel the sting of high gas prices,” wrote Tony Romm, an economics reporter. Trump’s sanguine about that: “This is a true investment in your children and your grandchildren’s future,” he said of the war.
Iran’s remaining nuclear material. Trump indicated that he was in no hurry to retrieve it after bombing Iran’s nuclear sites into dust. As my colleague David Sanger put it: “Perhaps this is deception, and he will attempt to seize that cache. If not, he will have left the nuclear material exactly where it was before the war started — underground, and within Iran’s reach.”
Venezuela. Trump recalled how well the operation to unseat President Nicolás Maduro had gone. It’s his model for success in Iran. “That hit was quick, lethal, violent and respected by everyone all over the world,” he said in the speech, adding that the United States and Venezuela were now “joint venture partners” and “getting along incredibly well.”
The Strait of Hormuz. That waterway is not America’s problem, Trump said, because our oil and gas does not move through it. He urged those nations that depend on oil moving through the strait to just go take it. “We will be helpful, but they should take the lead in protecting the oil that they so desperately depend on,” he said.
For context, it’s worth comparing those talking points with the five objectives for the war that Trump laid out on its first day. My colleague Ed Wong has an assessment of where the war stands based on those goals.
Here’s Wong’s summary of the regime-change goal:
This came near the end of Mr. Trump’s video address. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel had promised Mr. Trump in the run-up to the war that his country could help galvanize a popular uprising that would lead to the overthrow of the Iranian government. That revolt has not materialized.
Mr. Trump said he had carried out “regime change,” and pointed to airstrikes that have killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and other senior officials.
However, the newly appointed supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the deceased cleric, is a hard-liner aligned with a powerful arm of the Iranian military. The current government remains theocratic, authoritarian and anti-American, and continues to wage a war of resistance.
Of course the NYT would promote a negative view about how the war is going, and I didn’t hear Trump’s speech, but if he sees the present hard-line theocratic regime in Iran as “regime change” simply because the ‘Ayatollahs aren’t in control, well, he’s distorting things completely, and the Iranian people still aren’t free.
*The WaPo reports on a Republican plan to end the Department of Homeland Security shutdown without having to get Democratic approval.
The approach would allow him to bypass Democrats, who have spent weeks demanding new guardrails on those agencies in exchange for voting to fund them. Instead, Republicans could pass a funding bill with a simple majority and avoid a Democratic filibuster.
“We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won’t be able to stop us,” Trump wrote in a social media post.
Lawmakers have been at an impasse over DHS funding for 47 days in the longest partial shutdown on record, which the public has mostly encountered through long security lines at airports. Pressure has been building to resolve the shutdown, with polling indicating that Republicans are shouldering more of the blame.Democrats had been demanding new restrictions on federal immigration agents operating in major cities, after they killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January.
The approach that Trump endorsed Wednesday would also fund the rest of DHS — which includes the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Coast Guard — through September. Then Republicans would start work on the reconciliation process to fund ICE and Border Patrol, which would take weeks.
This circumvention going to get the Democrats hopping mad if it works (Republicans will still need a majority in both houses of Congress), but some of the Democrats’ proposed restrictions on ICE, like bodycams and not wearing masks, were fine with me. Remember, the government was not shut down as a whole—just the DHS part. But my friends who are flying say that those 5-hour security lines are gone now, for TSA workers are already back on the job.
*If you’ve been conditioned by the MSM to think that we’re mired in another Vietnam in Iran, the Free Press has a counterargument, “Victor Davis Hanson: The war—and the war on the war,” with the subtitle, “Militarily, the war is going as well as could be envisioned, yet Democrats seek to turn it into another Vietnam or Afghanistan—hoping to win control of Congress at the expense of national security.” (Hanson is identified as “an American classicist, military historian, and conservative political commentator.”) Trigger warning: overt conservatism. A few excerpts:
Are we “losing”?
This is the claim made by Trump’s political opponents. It is absurd, Orwellian.
Most of the military objectives are already met or soon will be. The campaign has been brilliantly conducted without substantial casualties. So popular outcry from Democrats and the global left arise not from military realities of the war, but mostly from both politics and existential hatred of Donald Trump.
The midterms are just seven months away. Historically, they should see the incumbent administration lose seats in the House and Senate, if not control of Congress. The left seeks to create such abject chaos that it can only be alleviated by the political destruction of Donald Trump. So the anti-war hysteria follows the pattern of the left’s embrace of Tesla vandalism, violent demonstrations against ICE, the incoherent “No Kings” protests, and three government shutdowns. Such nihilism shares a common trait of offering no positive counter-agenda.
What about regime change?
Critics are claiming that for all that ostensible American success, the regime remains defiant and in control. Indeed, the war’s opponents further state that the bombing only made popular protests more difficult.
Some supporters of the war argue that any cessation without the elimination of the mullahs would prove the war effort was all in vain, or at best is but a brief interlude in the Iranian theocracy’s otherwise long march to control the entire Middle East and blackmail the West with nuclear weapons.
But regime change was never listed as a Trump administration war aim. The reason was ostensibly our poor record at nation-building in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, as well as our more recent success at removing Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela and leveraging the remnants of his dictatorship, without prompting an invasion or civil war.
That said, the continual Israeli elimination of dozens of theocratic and military officials has in itself been a regime change, at least in the sense that anyone associated with the regime who identifies himself is likely to be dead within days.
BOGUS! Regime change means a democracy with the Iranian people free. And Trump explicitly told the Iranian people in his initial statement that the government was theirs to take—and that they should go ahead and take it. I think he said that again the other night. At the end Hanson says that we don’t have regime change, but it’s more likely than before. True, but how much more likely?
What about the closing of the Strait of Hormuz?
War critics argue that without the American-Israeli bombing, the Strait would still be open for business. That simplistic rationale ignores the reality that Iran’s prewar non-harassment of Western shipping was implicitly predicated on appeasing the theocracy—mostly by Westerners staying quiet when Iran staged or funded terrorist attacks, or flagrantly multiplied its ballistic missile fleet and upped its uranium enrichment with impunity.
If the U.S. decided that Iranian control of the Strait is too egregious a danger to global commerce, then as it leaves the theater, it can threaten Parthian shots at Iran’s easily combustible oil industry to ensure they back off the Strait.
Or alternatively, America can tell our Western allies (who made it evident they want no part in demilitarizing Iran) that the hard work of neutering the Iranian military is now over. And as importers of Iranian oil, Europe and the Asian democracies must handle the easier task of internationalizing the Strait.
The other two questions asked and answered are, “Is Israel using Trump?” and “What about NATO?” You’ll have to see the answers for yourself. Here’s the pro-Trump ending:
In the end, we are left with an indisputable truth. Prior presidents all warned about the dangers of a theocratic Iran’s mounting efforts to become nuclear, witnessed its incessant terrorism, and feared its apocalyptic aims. And yet they did little or nothing.
Donald Trump did, and did so successfully, convinced alone among Western leaders that it was a now or never moment, and the U.S. military was more than up to the risky endeavor.
And history will likely prove him right.
*My friend the Belgian philosopher Maarten Boudry reports on Facebook that three Belgian universities, including the one he studied and worked at (U Ghent), have given honorary degrees to an odious woman, Francesca Albanese, the blatantly antisemitic and pro-Hamas UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories. His post (I’ve added the tweets he interpolated):
Three Flemish universities are disgracing themselves today by awarding an honorary doctorate to a mendacious antisemite. That’s what happens when academia gets hijacked by far-left ideologues. As Holocaust historian Norman Goda writes:
“The Flemish universities, whether they admit it or not, will convey the sanction of university-recognised expertise to a deeply dishonest and fraudulent individual who has vilified an entire society as well as those persons, including many in Belgium who view themselves as connected to it.”
And yes, I don’t shy away from the word “antisemite” this time. Before she was appointed UN rapporteur, Albanese liked to fantasize about how the world was “subjugated by the Jewish lobby”. She just learned not to say the quiet part out loud since her UN mandate. And of course, the blatant double standards she applies to the only Jewish state in the world is damning in its own right.
As I predicted yesterday on the Belgian TV shows De Afspraak, the ceremony is descending into farce. Albanese openly contradicts the rector’s assurance that the award is “not against Israel,” to loud hoots and cheers. Meanwhile, the usual anti-Israel activists—more emboldened than ever—are shouting over any speaker whenever anything falls short of their maximalist demands: “Stop funding genocide! Stop funding genocide!”
The rector was openly humiliated on the stage by Albanese and the audience. Well, what did they expect? Didn’t I warn them this was exactly what was going to happen?
Let’s hope the Flemish rectors will not be so inconsiderate as to say anything critical about Hamas in the presence of their Honorary Dr. @FranceskAlbs. An Italian mayor tried it once—and got eye rolls, facepalms, and a stern reprimand: “Don’t do it again.” https://t.co/TAYvZrEHFy
— Maarten Boudry (@mboudry) February 27, 2026
I didn’t watch the whole speech, but of course Albanese repeats the same litany of distorted quotes from Israeli leaders allegedly proving genocidal intent: the “human animals” quote (which was about Hamas, not Palestinians), the Herzog line about “an entire nation that is responsible” (which is exactly what Holocaust historians say about Germany regarding the Holocaust, and in eveny event Herzog insisted that there are many innocent civilians who will NOT be targeted). See my piece here..
More outrageously still, Albanese claims that casualties in Gaza are “75%-80 women and children”, a complete lie. Not even Hamas has ever claimed such a high figure, and its own fabricated “70% women and children” has been widely debunked and officially retracted by Hamas itself. Deaths are overwhelmingly male and combat age. None of the distinguished rectors and academics batted an eye. Pure desinformation again, certified by three universities.]
Did you notice that the myth of “70% women and children” has been quietly retreated, just like every other Hamas claim parroted by Western media, without any correction or accountability? Even according to Hamas’ (updated) lists, fatalities are overwhelmingly male and combat age. https://t.co/jARig0PkYc pic.twitter.com/M1qAtJ2aV9
— Maarten Boudry (@mboudry) September 27, 2025
And of course we only got obsequious softball questions from the interviewer. “How were you so right and prescient from the beginning?” “How is it so difficult for people to agree with you?” (I’m paraphrasing) Well, I sympathize with the interviewer. Any genuinely critical question would’ve been met with deafening jeers and shouts from the audience.
Honestly, I’ve never been more ashamed to be a UGent alumnus. This honorary PhD is a craven and foolish decision that will be ruinous to our international reputation.
Maarten also tweeted that “I just got a heartbreaking message from a Jewish professor who says that she will leave Antwerp and possibly the country. The hatred is too overwhelming, and even targeting young children.” (Have a look at the rest of the tweet.)
I hope you’re aware what’s happening in the Low Countries.
*Finally, there’s good news today—well, not really good but not dreadful. The AP’s Odd News tells us that a famous surfing dog—the first canid inducted into the Surfer’s Hall of fame—has died. But she had a good long life (16 years), and a good run in the waves:
Sugar The Surfing Dog, the first canine inducted into the Surfer’s Hall of Fame, who spent her days outside the water comforting veterans as a dedicated therapy dog, died Monday after battling cancer.
The 16-year-old rescue dog from Huntington Beach, California, who was a five-time dog surfing world champion, died “in her daddy’s arms,” a post on her Instagram said.
“She lived to put smiles on faces, volunteer, to send it !! to change dog surfing forever !!! thank you for loving Sugar,” the post said. “Good bye my Sugar., i can’t believe in writing this .. i’m going to miss you so much.”
Sugar was found as a stray and over the years her love of the waves and natural talent took dog surfing to new heights.
Dressed in a life jacket, spectators would watch the furry white canine in amazement as she balanced on her surfboard, riding wave after wave back to the shore, sometimes with her owner, Ryan Rustan, by her side and other times all on her own.
In 2024, her paw prints joined the hand and footprints of many other renowned surfers immortalized in concrete in Huntington Beach when she was inducted into the hall of fame.
“This is just incredible. Dreams do come true even for a surfing dog and guys like me,” Rustan said at the ceremony.
Here’s a video from better days:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej doesn’t like Hili trying to catch birds (note the extruded tongue; I’ve made this image into my Twitter avatar):
Hili: A sparrow has made a nest in the hedge.
Me: Fortunately, you can’t reach it.
Hili: And that’s a bit of a problem.
In Polish:
Hili: Wróbelek założył w żywopłocie gniazdko.
Ja: Na szczęście tam się nie dostaniesz.
Hili: I to jest pewien kłopot.
*******************
From Terrible Maps: the countries in red are anagrams. For example, “Spain” can be rearranged to “pains”. Figure out the rest of them!
From This Cat is Guilty:
From The Language Nerds:
From Masih: Iran hanged an 18-year-old protestor:
Heartbreaking 💔
This morning, right after President Trump’s speech, the Iranian regime moved fast and hanged 18-year-old protester.Yes, Mr. President @realDonaldTrump, there are no “less radical” leaders in Iran.
From the courtroom to the prison cell, from the interrogator to… pic.twitter.com/fk0gF6p1NQ
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) April 2, 2026
From Luana, and verified by CNN, who published this:
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Tuesday she would vote against sending any military aid to Israel, including defensive supplies, a marked shift from a Democrat deemed a potential 2028 presidential candidate.
Ocasio-Cortez told members of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America Tuesday that she would commit to voting no on any military aid spending for Israel, a spokesperson for the lawmaker told CNN.
I will never vote for her; I would write in some other Democrat instead (remember, I live in a reliably Democratic state).
Her remarks, first reported by City & State, were made at a private forum as members considered whether to endorse her re-election bid.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just committed to voting to strip civilians in Israel of protection from rocket attacks.
This is not a vote against the government of Israel, or Netanyahu. This is collective punishment against ten million civilians, Jews, Muslims, and Christians.… https://t.co/wjvjnAoUz9 pic.twitter.com/lVO8mTv7Ez
— Eric Adams (@ericadamsfornyc) April 1, 2026
A funny tweet from Larry the Cat:
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present exhibit A pic.twitter.com/QA7Vw8sGaO
— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) April 2, 2026
Two from my feed. First, a singing raven:
Ravens can talk but sometimes they even know how to sing, like this one trained by Giuseppe Cassini.pic.twitter.com/fRyhwSp8ym
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) April 2, 2026
. . . and a wonderful plane’s-eye-view of the Artemis II launch:
Passengers on a commercial flight captured the launch of Artemis II on camera
The plane happened to pass near the launch trajectory at the exact moment of liftoff, giving passengers a rare view of the rocket launch right from their windows.pic.twitter.com/8Bewtm8aFg
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 2, 2026
One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:
This Czech Jewish girl was gassed as soon as she got to Auschwitz She was 14 years old.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2026-04-03T10:19:18.342Z
Two from Dr. Cobb. This is from a site that gives people’s favorite tweets from Twitter, though it’s on Bluehair:
MASSIVE fan of this one:
— Altrincham Dry Cleaners (@altydrycleaners.bsky.social) 2026-04-02T13:27:33.632Z
Be sure to check out the Science paper to see some lovely and bizarre animals, including the first bilaterians. For a quick link, go see the blurb and photos at the Oxford University site. The “Cambrian Explosion” of animals has been shifted back 4 million years, to the tail end of the Ediacaran.
At last! Ediacarans and Cambrian animals in the same site! Amazing! http://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/…
— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-04-02T18:11:56.569Z
I was watching an interview with Sam Harris a couple of weeks ago – maybe with Coleman Hughes. In any case Sam’s comment that has stuck with me was along the lines of”2 billion Muslims; 10 million Jews. What do you think tic tok is going to look like?”
That the overwhelming majority of Muslims may have some objections towards their Jewish fellow humans but are not very willing to do anything against them. Mostly because they live too far away from the contested lands.
Good point, but more germane is the fact the PR China run the TikTok algorithm – still – which is 98% pro-Pal/anti-Israel.
There have been many bust ups in the M.E. prior to that company’s utter capture of young brains and NONE had the kind of effect this one did: mass protests regularly, campus poo encampments, etc. TikTok is Israel’s biggest enemy in the big picture.
D.A.
NYC 🗽
Regarding the Ediacaran-Cambrium double fauna. The God of the gaps has to make a retreat again. But Casey Luskin to the rescue (in the near future)!
Although he is a geologist and he seldom comments on mainstream geology, far more often about sciences as far away from his expertise as cows and jazz music go.
I think if we were to leave the mullahs in place, we would not lose the war, but our victory would be less complete. Time and money will see them re-emerge as a problem. I also think that when people say “regime change” it has come to mean that we have to go in and foster a new regime. We do very well at killing leaders; we suck at creating them. Let’s stick to what we do well. While we could argue that we aren’t achieving our objectives and that that is losing, there is no calculus by which you could argue that Iran is winning.
Iran is wining. They control the Strait. Some version of the extremist Islamic regime is still in power. Iran still has enriched uranium. There has been no popular uprising. Can you blame the Iranian people? More than 30k were killed by their govt in a matter of days.
Trump is chickening out. No surprise. He cowers in the presence of Putin. Despite what he says, he surrendered to the Taliban. When things get hard, he moves on. Unless he commits ground troops, the USA will lose another one. He can blow up all the bridges, buildings power plants he wants. They will be rebuilt…as they were in North Korea and Vietnam.
Unless the Iranian regime surrenders, game…set…match Iran.
Ravens are so cool. I wish I kept birds, I’d have a bunch – a whole choir full!
AOC — and the stupid Times — are local disasters here (sigh). I’ll give Money to whoever is running against her, provided it isn’t a(nother) terrorist or communist. Her district is a little north of me but includes part of quite Jewish, v. middle/upper class Westchester. Not just “Da Bronx” which she likes to pretend she’s from.
So there’s hope.
Did the Times mention there has been no real proof of life of Mojtaba Khomeini? I think he’s dead or in a vegetative style, indisposed.
D.A.
NYC 🗽
Or the Iranians want you to believe he is dead or incapable of human actions, so he is save from those uberclever Mossad agents.
Trump’s speech was a rehash of the multiple and shifting reasons he started the war with Iran. The media always treats his words as if there is some careful strategy in place when in fact he acts on whims. We’re not losing but we’re not winning and Iran is doing a good of fighting an asymmetrical war. We’re spending millions of dollars on missiles to down drones that cost only thousands of dollars. Trump alienated our allies but now is calling on them to “take” the Strait of Hormuz.
And Trump’s words today: “With a little more time, we can easily OPEN THE HORMUZ STRAIT, TAKE THE OIL, & MAKE A FORTUNE. IT WOULD BE A ‘GUSHER’ FOR THE WORLD???”.
Enough said.
Jerry is correct that butter (and salt, for those who are not concerned about trivia like health) is the best way to eat matza. But hey, as the Swedish neuroanatomist said: “taste is cloven like the buttocks”.
So, a few options:
Butter with preserves;
Cream cheese, plain or with smoked salmon;
Bleu cheese of any type, plain or with marinated cocktail cherries (sounds disgusting, but try it);
Bulgarian or feta cheese. For all cheeses, it is best to have them at room temperature temp., as spreadability is a factor.;
Aged Gouda. No way to spread that, just take a chunk with a piece of matza.;
Kids in Israel like matza with chocolate spread, like Nutella.;
And there are those who eat it with pieces of pickled herring, with pickled onions and capers on top.
Some of these make matza tolerable. None of them, IMO, make matza a favorite food. It’s just bland—I would rather have it than calves foot jelly or pig trotters or chocolate-covered ants, but it would not be my first pick.
My childhood memories have matzoh with whipped butter and cherry preserves. We only had whipped butter on passover. And also break up matzoh to soak in milk and pour mixture into buttered frying pan for kosher for passover french toast…smear pancakes with strawberry preserves and sprinkle with cinnamon/sugar.
I liked these for pesach as a child and still have them once or twice a year as an adult.
Passover, and a Jew, sitting on a park bench, takes out a piece of matzah and starts eating. Feeling friendly, he offers a piece of matzah to his sightless neighbor sitting next to him on the park bench. After a moment, the blind man turns to his benefactor and says, “Who wrote this garbage?”
My way to eat matzos: margarine plus grated/shaved parmesan cheese. Could this be a dim memory from Italian ancestors named Galantuomo?
I feel for Maarten Boudry. He is an island of moral and intellectual sanity in an ocean of insanity. It is shockingly surreal and disheartening.
One of the comments to his tweet is this:
I almost choked when I saw this quote on the commenter’s bio:
The beam in his eye…
Maarten Boudry is a voice of reason in the ever-increasing babble of woke nonsense that the humanities and social sciences have become. And that babble is leaking into the sciences as well.
Just to thank Maarten for his writings and also thank Jerry for bringing Maarten to the WEIT site.
I suspect there are huge things happening in Iran that we know nothing about. For example, I assume there are underground resistance networks that we are helping by providing arms, etc.
Even if the regime does not fall in the next few weeks, I think its days are numbered.
Quite a few in the Israeli press, citing intelligence experts, are saying the same—that regime collapse may happen after the war ends. I hope they are right, because the war on its own won’t topple the current government. People may topple, but the government structure and apparatus will remain. How long until the theocratic regime comes to an end? No one knows.
And once the U.S. pulls out, will Israel stop fighting as well? Yes, they will—until Iran starts showing signs of rebuilding. I don’t think that Israel is done. Further Israeli action may over time continue to weaken the regime.
Matzos with peanut butter is excellent! I buy a five-pound box of Israeli matzos each year, which contains five one-pound boxes. Five pounds lasts the entire year. Fresh to the last box!
I watched a recording of Trump’s speech, which took place during the Seder we attended. Much of the media said it was poorly delivered, boring, and nothing new. I read it a bit differently. It appears to me that the President was telling us that the war is almost over, that we’ve in effect won, that the new leadership may be more moderate, that we might end the war even before the Strait of Hormuz is opened because it’s Europe’s problem not ours, and that we need just a bit more time before we can end the conflict. The speech was a request for patience from the American people and a reassurance that the economy will soon go back to normal. Whether one believes him or not is one’s own business, but it seems to me that he was setting expectations for an end to the war. We’ll see what the enemy has to say about it.
Once we leave there will be endless debate about whether we won or not. Wars often end with this kind of ambiguity.
I very much rely on peanut butter for my Matzoh. One other trick is to melt cheddar cheese on it and make Matzoh nachos.
Fish Fingers Day, eh? Anyone else catch the bit about climbing fingerling-size fish climbing waterfall walls?
“That revolt has not materialized.” While this statement by NYT’s reporter Wong is undeniably true, it is also dishonest in its complete lack of relevant context that would call into question the journalist’s implication of failure. What might a disinterested journalist have reported? Let’s try this:
While some are surprised (and others gleeful) that Iranians have not revolted against their oppressive leadership, the military commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East is not. U.S. CENTCOM commander Admiral Bradley Cooper issued a public release on March 8 saying that “U.S. forces strongly urge civilians in Iran to stay at home.” Opposition leader Prince Reza Pahlavi echoed this warning three days later, asking Iranians to stay indoors until they heard his “final call.” Admiral Cooper reiterated his message in a March 22/23 interview with the opposition-leaning media outlet Iran International: “Continue to heed our advice … We’ve had multiple messages that have come out that have said … You need to stay inside for right now … there will be a clear signal at some point, as the president has indicated, for you to be able to come out.” And only six days ago Reza Pahlavi, in a speech to the politically conservative CPAC conference, once again said he would reissue his January call to the Iranians for them to rise against their leadership but only once it was safe for them to do so.
It didn’t take me more than 15 minutes to gather the original source material for what I record above. When trained journalists fail to do so, something else is going on. But most readers of WEIT already know that.
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202603232131