Welcome to the first Monday in May: May 4, 2026, and Bird Day in the U.S. A bit about the holiday:
Bird Day was established by Charles Almanzo Babcock, the Oil City superintendent of schools, in 1894. It was the first holiday in the United States dedicated to the celebration of birds. Babcock intended it to advance bird conservation as a moral value. It is celebrated on May 4 of every year.
Here are the prettiest birds I’ve seen personally in 2026, and right outside my building, hanging around Botany Pond:
It’s also Anti-Bullying Day, International Firefighters’ Day, International Respect for Chickens Day, National Orange Juice Day, National Candied Orange Peel Day (I don’t know who thought of doing this, but it was a great idea, as I love the stuff), and Star Wars Day (the site says, “The eponymously-titled first film of the series was released on May 25, 1977. Later gaining the title Episode IV: A New Hope, the film became a worldwide cultural phenomenon and helped usher in the concept of the blockbuster movie”).
Reader Jez writes, “Greenpeace is organising an online birthday card for David Attenborough’s 100th birthday on Friday that anyone can sign. Here’s the link, just in case you’re interested. I was, and I signed it.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the May 4 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Amit Segal at It’s Noon in Israel discusses something I didn’t know was in the works: trials of the perpetrators of the October 7, 2023 massacre and kidnappings are being planned by Israel. (Read more here about how the cases is being built.)
It’s Sunday, May 3, and two months ago, the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee convened for a pivotal discussion on one of the most sensitive questions of the post-October 7 era: how will the trials of the perpetrators be conducted? According to a compressive report by Yedioth Ahronoth’s Guy Asif, the committee is currently refining a bill that will serve as the legal, organizational, and moral framework for what is destined to be the largest and most complex judicial event in Israel’s history.
Amidst the legislative debate, the human dimension remains profoundly raw. Carmit Palty-Katzir, a daughter of Kibbutz Nir Oz, offered harrowing testimony to the committee. Her family was shattered: her father was murdered, her mother was kidnapped and died shortly after her release, and her brother, Elad, was murdered in captivity after 99 days. “I walk around with unsolved murder mysteries,” she told the committee, voicing a pain shared by hundreds of families seeking closure. While demanding that the perpetrators face the full severity of the law, she also issued a warning. She argued against the trials devolving into a “media circus” or a “gladiator arena,” urging that the pursuit of truth not be eclipsed by a “stampede toward the death penalty.”
Palty-Katzir’s concerns underscore the dilemmas of the Prosecution of Participants in the October 7 Massacre Events Bill. Having passed its first reading in January, the legislation is now being prepared for its final stages. Yet, even as the Knesset’s summer session approaches, several complex questions remain.
How public should the proceedings be? The judiciary must balance the public’s right to see justice served with the necessity of protecting survivors from secondary trauma.
What standard of evidence should be required? Applying the threshold of “beyond a reasonable doubt” to the scale of a mass massacre leaves a distinct possibility that a known perpetrator could walk free if the case isn’t perfectly airtight.
And then there is the most potent question of all: what punishment is truly appropriate? The prospect of the death penalty—a historical rarity in the Israeli legal system—remains the central point of debate.
. . .When it became clear that the civilian courts could not absorb the weight of hundreds of parallel cases, the responsibility shifted to the military. While the IDF didn’t want touch such a controversial process, it was the only viable option. The military possesses the unique ability to draft seasoned prosecutors and judges into reserve service, creating an instant, elite legal force. Furthermore, military infrastructure is inherently designed to manage the high-risk transport and detention of dangerous detainees—a logistical requirement that would paralyze any standard city courthouse.
The next question: where?
The Prison Service lobbied for a site near Ktzi’ot Prison for convenience, while others suggested the Gaza Envelope for its symbolic weight. Ultimately, the decision landed on Jerusalem. Plans are now underway to transform a massive industrial site in Atarot, north of the city, into a sprawling judicial complex. This “hangar city” will house a primary courtroom, multiple halls for parallel hearings, and dedicated viewing areas for the public. The court is expected to operate with an unprecedented focus: five days a week, eight hours a day, with judges dedicated exclusively to these cases. The goal is to begin within a year of the legislation’s passing and conclude the primary proceedings within a few years.
The trials promise to reveal investigative materials far more harrowing than anything yet released to the media. For the first time, victims will take the stand to testify, often face-to-face with the perpetrators. This brings a painful paradox to the forefront: the public’s right to historical truth versus the victims’ right to privacy.
. . . The prosecution faces the historic burden of framing a national narrative, but the primary challenge remains the “resolution” of proof: linking specific defendants to individual victims amidst the chaos of a mass massacre. Investigators have reportedly solved this issue by creating an exhaustive mapping system that catalogs every detainee by their military unit and infiltration point, cross-referencing their confessions with terabytes of bodycam footage, digital media, and forensic scene reconstructions.
This wil undoubtedly demonize the IDF more, but one would hope that terrorists’s own testimony would alert the world to the war crimes committed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. But it won’t.
*A federal appeals court has blocked mail access to the abortion drug mifepristone, and the pill’s makers have filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court.
The makers of the abortion pill mifepristone filed an emergency appeal at the Supreme Court on Saturday urging the justices to pause a lower-court ruling that temporarily blocked Americans from accessing the drug through the mail.
The fast-track case, filed with conservative Justice Samuel Alito, puts the drug and the issue of abortion back on the high court’s docket less than two years after the justices rejected a similar challenge — a decision that allowed the drug to remain widely available.
The rush appeal comes a day after the conservative 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a nationwide requirement that the medication be obtained in person, undermining access to the method of abortion that has grown more widespread since the court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 precedent that established a constitutional right to abortion.
The lower-court ruling, Danco Laboratories told the Supreme Court in its appeal Saturday, “injects immediate confusion and upheaval into highly time-sensitive medical decisions.”
“What happens when patients arrive for scheduled appointments this weekend and beyond, or walk into pharmacies in New York, Minnesota, Washington, and many other states today to obtain Mifeprex that was prescribed by a provider yesterday?” the company’s attorneys wrote. “What should a patient do if she cannot obtain an in-person appointment immediately?”
Danco urged the Supreme Court to issue an “administrative” stay that would immediately pause the 5th Circuit’s decision. It also urged the Supreme Court to case the case up on the merits.
GenBioPro, the maker of the generic version of the drug, filed a separate emergency application later Saturday. The court is likely to handle the two cases together.
And from CNN:
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, abortion-seekers have been able to obtain mifepristone – one of the two drugs in the medication abortion regimen – through telehealth appointments. President Joe Biden’s administration finalized rules that ended the requirement that the pills be obtained through an in-person doctor’s visit in 2023, after the US Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe precedent protecting abortion rights nationwide with Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
The Supreme Court had earlier blocked a request that the FDA ban the drug everywhere in America—based on a bogus claim that it was dangerous (there’a a lot of data showing that milfepristone is both effective and safe, and it’s now used in 2/3 of all abortions.) I’m not an expert on this, but although individual states can block the drug from being recommended or dispensed by doctors, or dispensed by pharmacies, the U.S. Mail is a national organization, and there’s I can’t see any constitutional grounds to prevent it from shipping a drug that is not federally banned. It will be interesting to see if a conservative court sides with the manufacturer or with the religious /anti-choice people who banned the drug in 15 states.
*A Washington Post/Ipsos/ABC poll reports that Trump’s approval ratings are lower than they’ve ever been, with just a 37% overall approval and not much better on any other matter (in fact, worse on most important issues):
Trump’s approval on economic issues, which were critical to his political comeback in 2024, has fallen since he launched the Iran war in late February.
Americans disapprove of his handling of the situation with Iran by 66 percent to 33 percent. His rating on the economy has declined by seven points, to 34 percent, as gas prices have spiked. His approval rating on inflation has fallen five points in that time to 27 percent and his lowest rating comes on perceptions of his handling of the general cost of living, with 23 percent approving vs. 76 percent disapproving.
Trump’s overall approval now stands at 37 percent, largely the same as the 39 percent figure in February. But his disapproval has reached 62 percent, the highest of his two terms in office. Among Republicans, Trump’s approval has held steady at 85 percent, but his ratings among Republican-leaning independents have reached a new low of 56 percent. His approval rating stands at 25 percent among independents overall.
. . . Trump gets his best ratings for handling immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border (45 percent approval and 54 percent disapproval). His ratings for handling immigration overall are worse at 40 percent approving and 59 percent disapproving, hardly changed from 40 percent positive vs. 58 percent negative in February, though that marked the worst for his second term.
The president’s weak approval ratings put the Republicans’ slender House majority in grave danger and now threaten their Senate majority as well. Among registered voters, Democrats hold a five-point advantage on the question of which party people favor in House elections. That is up from a two-point edge in February and October.
I’m surprised that the ratings are so low for both immigration and U.S.-Mexico border immigration, but that may largely be attributable to the ICE shootings. However, given the political divisions in the U.S. most Democrats are simply going to disapprove of Trump’s performance in any area.
This is going to sting the GOP in the midterms unless more centrist voters don’t cast a ballot at all, but that’s unlikely. Pundits are saying that the House is likely to go Democratic, and the Senate less likely but still possible.
*The NYT’s Ross Douthat is both a conservative and religious, and not smart about either stand. But even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and Douthat is on the mark with his new op-ed, “Slouching toward Kamala Harris.” Oy, just the headline gave me shpilkes in my kishkas!
. . . The third [statistic that helps us understand the Democrats in 2026] is polling for the 2028 Democratic presidential primaries, in which the leading Democratic candidate is consistently Kamala Harris, the face of the party’s 2024 debacle.
All three numbers are linked to the dominant mode in Democratic politics right now. It’s not the rebellion or radicalism manifest in, say, Hasan Piker’s Twitch-streamer Marxism or Zohran Mamdani’s telegenic democratic socialism. Notable as those tendencies may be, the Democrats’ fundamental condition is a late-Trumpian stasis — in which the president’s stark unpopularity encourages his opponents to imagine that they can keep everything basically as it was in the Biden era, with the same broad priorities and deference to activists and interest groups, and float back to power automatically.
The continuing appeal of Harris is a useful indicator of this stasis. Yes, she is unlikely to be the 2028 nominee, and part of her support is name recognition; Mitt Romney did well in such polls in 2013 and 2014. But she seems to want a second run more than Romney did, and if she goes for it, she will have one notable advantage: the fact that many Democrats who find her renomination unthinkable are nonetheless incapable of acknowledging the real reasons that she lost.
I’ll list some of those reasons. First, her party was seen as too beholden to progressive activists on a range of issues, including immigration, crime, education, energy and the transgender debate. Second, Harris’s vice presidency was itself a creation of the 2020 identity politics moment, without which Joe Biden never would have picked her, and she succeeded him without a fight in part because no one wanted to acknowledge her painful limits as a politician. Finally, she tried to solve both the policy problem and the identity politics problem through evasion and distraction and yet more identity politics, with empty rhetoric of “joy” and circumlocution about her past positions and a mediocre Midwestern white guy running mate.
Despite being on the record taking radical positions, Harris was never a radical politician. Rather, she was a perfectly hapless embodiment of a Democratic establishment that aspired to manage its base without ever strongly resisting its demands and that aspired to win moderate voters not by moderating on the issues but through a change of affect or a change of subject.
That’s still clearly what Democratic elites would prefer to do, and it’s also what you see in many of the figures contending for influence in the party, outsiders and insiders alike. Politicians as distinct as Graham Platner, Gavin Newsom, James Talarico and Abigail Spanberger have all offered new directions for the Democrats that are primarily image-based. The theory is always: What if we had the same basic policy orientation that makes moderates distrust us, except that this time we’ll talk like a bearded oyster farmer … or like Trump himself on a social media bender … or like a sunny youth pastor … or like a former C.I.A. officer?
[To hold their gains and govern successfully], Democrats first need to consistently win over enough former Trump voters to claim a meaningful Senate majority — something the polls don’t show them doing yet. And then they need a theory of governance that doesn’t immediately alienate those voters — something that is nowhere in evidence at the moment.
I’m still groping about for a candidate (as in years gone by, I favor Pete Buttigieg), but I know one thing: the Democrats will not win with Kamala Harris, an unpalatable alternative to even the low-polling Trump. And I still resent those Democrats who pretended that she was a good candidate—one who even brought them “joy.” Are we really that dumb?
*Timmy the stranded humpback whale who was rescued in a water-filled barge, towed out to sea, and then released, all at great expense, seems to be doing okay, at least for now. I’ve read that a GPS sensor was affixed to it, so we’ll know more later. But nobody’s willing to predict that Timmy will be fine.
“He is doing well,” Mr. Gunz [one of the millionaires who funded the rescue] said in a message, adding that the whale had blown a “great fountain” as it swam away.
. . . . Though rescuers said that they expected Timmy to recover in his more suitable habitat, more than 200 nautical miles from where he was stranded, experts said there was no guarantee that it would survive for long.
“Even short-term survival is very questionable,” said Burkard Baschek, the director of the Ocean Museum Germany and the scientific coordinator of the second and third rescue efforts. The whale was extremely weak, having made very little movement over the past few weeks, and suffered from other issues in addition to the freshwater skin disease, he said.
The stress of being in a barge, including the loud echo of the water splashing against the steel hull, was also probably difficult for the whale, Dr. Baschek said.
“I know how sad it is to have an animal dying at the beach where you can watch it,” he said. But the rescue, he added, was “not increasing its survival chances.”
Dr. Baschek said that he was heartened by how much empathy for the whale had spread over Germany and the world. But he noted that more than 300,000 whales and dolphins die every year after becoming entangled in fishing nets. He hoped that attention in the future would focus not on rescue operations but on making oceans safer for marine life.
Timmy has become a symbol of determination, and I want it to live, for even though lots of whales die every year from entanglement, this is one life that we know about. If it recovered and swam the open North Sea, it would be a palliative in these troubled times.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is a keen weathercat:
Hili: It’s terribly dry.
Andrzej: Apparently it’s supposed to rain next week.
In Polish:
Hili: Strasznie sucho.
Ja: Podobno za tydzień mają być deszcze.
*******************
From CinEmma:
From Terrible Maps:
From Strange, Stupid, or Silly Signs:
From Masih; Iran hanged this 21-year-old karate athlete for protesting. He was not a criminal, just a critic.
Arrested. Silenced. Hanged at dawn.
This is Iran in 21st-century: A photo of the lifeless body of the heroic martyr Sasan Azadvar, who was executed for protesting.
Imagine building a life for 21 years and losing it to a system that treats human beings as disposable.Twenty-one.… pic.twitter.com/HsvENKjbrI
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) May 3, 2026
David Reich on prehistoric “colonialism”. It doesn’t fit the narrative, of course, but so be it:
David Reich on how much ancient DNA evidence has overturned so much consensus thinking how ancient cultures spread.
“It wasn’t peaceful, it wasn’t friendly, it wasn’t nice.
Some of our archaeologist co-authors were just really distressed.” pic.twitter.com/JRuOeWDIuk
— Dwarkesh Patel (@dwarkesh_sp) May 2, 2026
From Luana; a tweet that proves once again that academics don’t have to be savvy. Mohamed Abdou was at Columbia University (of course) and apparently still is.
🚨 BREAKING: “Death to America” Comes to @virginia_tech
At Virginia Tech tonight, Mohamed Abdou opened his “Death to the Akademy” speech by declaring, “We are in a war, a racial religious war since 1492.”
He told students America is “the larger monster,” praised “General… pic.twitter.com/bQwLsy0fRt
— Stu Smith (@thestustustudio) May 2, 2026
Two from my feed. First, a jailbreak:
Breaking free #Caturday pic.twitter.com/Q7wQQZk1FM
— Jurassic Snark (@underhandrea) May 2, 2026
Bird dances to phone rings:
おもしろすぎて何度も再生してしまうwwwww
— まだ面白い (@madaomoshiroi) May 3, 2026
One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:
This French Jewish girl was gassed to death upon arriving at Auschwitz. She was 2 years old and would be 84 today had she lived. https://t.co/04YZMyfHbB
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) May 4, 2026
Two from Dr. Cobb. First, a great optical illusion:
The footsteps illusion-like pausing and sticking illusionThe rectangles in the upper half appear to move to the right and stop periodically; however, they are moving to the right at a constant speed in the same way as the rectangles in the lower half.
— Akiyoshi Kitaoka (@akiyoshikitaoka.bsky.social) 2026-05-03T09:28:49.225Z
Interspecies friendship:
We have a wild hedgehog who lives in our garden and is friends with our cat (this isn’t their first meeting, they know each other well)
— Juliet Turner (@juliet-turner.bsky.social) 2026-05-02T09:25:30.008Z
“[T]rials of the perpetrators of the October 7, 2023 massacre and kidnappings are being planned by Israel”
This is good news. A difficult emotional struggle for the Israeli people, but a necessary part of the healing process. And, as difficult as the process will be, it is necessary to place the evidence before the global community. Perhaps I am naïve, but I hope that the process will open the eyes of many who have, so far, been fooled by pro-terrorist propaganda.
I hope that you are right, but I find it difficult to hope that any of those excusing Hamas for responsibility of this war will be convinced. October 7 was possibly the most documented atrocity in history, including, in many cases, by the perpetrators themselves for bragging rights. None of that makes an impression on the Israel-haters. I think that the trials, if they happen, may provide closure to the families of the victims and other Israelis, but that is about it.
A major step in that direction would be an officially government commission of inquiry, as allowed in Israeli law, to investigate the policies and procedures in Israel leading up to these events and their aftermath. The Netanyahu government has steadfastly refused such a commission.
Abdou apparently was booted from Columbia where he was visiting faculty a couple of years ago and appears now to be engaged in an international hate tour self-affiliating his shows with well known unis. Recent NYPost article at url
https://nypost.com/2026/04/25/us-news/jihadist-ex-columbia-prof-on-vile-college-tour-tells-nyu-students-to-be-proud-of-hating-america/
The post-war view of prehistoric migration was no less wishingful thinking than the Nazi view was. It’s almost as if there is an unchanging human nature. The progressives don’t like that.
Map shows that indeed, in the Arab world a man’s honor is his mustache. Facial hair is de rigeuer there for dudes who take themselves serious. (Not girly men like me!) Islam also: recall it was forbidden for men in the (first) Taliban regime to be clean shaven.
The brief excerpt above of David Reich on Dwakish Patel’s podcast: listen to the entire (long) interview if you’re interested in the human story and genetics. Excellent.
D.A.
NYC
That wood duck clearly knows perfectly well that he is the most stylish, sexiest fellow around.
I looked at the illusion from the long edge of my screen and at an extreme view angle. The pause went away – so, the rectangles appeared to move in unison into the distance…
Reminiscent in fact of the Star Wars opening ‘crawl’. Known fact : George Lucas himself says that ‘crawl’ idea came directly from the original Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. It’s also in Cecil B. DeMille’s Union Pacific (1939).
May the Fourth Be With You
The Democratic Party really wants to run a female candidate. The platform will be based on finally electing a woman, and the implication will be that anyone voting for a white male is a Neanderthal sexist. The hope is that this will mobilize the female vote and guilt enough “progressive” men into voting Democrat. Any questions about this person’s competency or policies can therefore be batted away as sexist.
And if this female candidate is a “person of color”, well then you get double super bonus points for that. Questions about competency can therefore be batted away as sexist AND racist*.
This is why Kamala Harris, one of the most untalented people ever to grace national politics, is still being considered as a serious candidate. The Dems feel that the Republicans cannot possibly win after Donald Trump, so now is the best opportunity they have to achieve this longstanding goal of a female (and preferably non-white) chief executive. A ham sandwich should be able to win.
This will also solidify the Democrats as the Party of Women. I believe that the male vs. female dichotomy is becoming as a large a force as any in modern politics.
*The major risk of this strategy is that such a candidate will seem to be doing better than they actually are. Meaning, people may not like the candidate but will not publicly say so, for fear of being seen as sexist/racist. But when they actually have to vote it will be a different story.
I knew that Israel was planning a series of trials for the October 7 perpetrators, but I had no idea of its scope. It sounds like they’re planning another Nuremberg trial. Trials are needed, but will they be “show” trials? The Israeli public may want them to be a national event, but the rest of the world will use them to demonize the country.
Kamala Harris. Yes, I’ve seen some commentary (other than Douthat) suggesting that Harris may end up being the Democratic candidate by default. I certainly hope not. Douthat calls her “hapless:” she also seems clueless. I don’t have a candidate in mind, but I am expecting that candidates will emerge—maybe even some we haven’t thought much about. My hope is for a centrist candidate to be the Democratic standard bearer. Hope springs eternal. The Presidential election is more than two years away, so a lot can happen.
I listened to Abdou’s manifesto, mostly because I was a professor at Virginia Tech from 1983 to 1996, so the tweet caught my attention. I’d be surprised if he has many supporters there, but a lot of water has passed under the bridge since I was there. A big difference is that the Internet gives a nut like Abdou a global stage.