Welcome to CaturSaturday, May 9, 2026: shabbos for Jewish cats and National Lost Sock Memorial Day. I don’t know where the errant socks go, but I do check the washer and dryer during each bout of laundry and I still lose socks. I have been thinking of throwing an old, useless sock into the washer at the beginning to propitiate the Sock God who is undoubtedly taking my socks, but I haven’t tried it yet.
It’s also Iris Day, celebrating one of my favorite flowers, International Migratory Bird Day, Martin Z. Mollusk Day in Ocean City, Maryland, National Butterscotch Brownie Day, National Moscato Day (best as a sweet Australian “stickie” from a good producer, Tear the Tags Off the Mattress Day, American Indian Day, National Train Day, and World Belly Dance Day.
Here’s a belly dance that’s received about 42 million views on YouTube. The abdominal action begins about a minute in, and I have to say it’s impressive:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the May 9 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*After exchanges of fire with Iran on Thursday, Trump announces that the ceasefire is still intact.
“They trifled with us today. We blew them away.”
Trump said a deal with Iran “might not happen, but it could happen any day. I believe they want the deal more than I do.”
Speaking to reporters Friday in Rome, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. is expecting a response from Iran “today at some point.”
“We’ll see what the response entails. The hope is it’s something that can put us into a serious process of negotiation,” he said, adding: “I hope it’s a serious offer. I really do.”
The U.S.’s “self-defense strikes” came after the destroyers USS Truxton, USS Rafael Peralta and USS Mason were attacked with “multiple missiles, drones and small boats,” U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, said in a statement.
No American vessels were hit, the statement said, and U.S. forces responded by striking Iranian military facilities deemed responsible, officials said in the statement. They included missile and drone launch sites, command-and-control locations, and positions from which Iranian forces were surveilling U.S. forces and gathering intelligence, the statement said.
What a euphemism: an exchange of fire is a “trifle”! I wonder how long it’s going to take before Trump realizes that Iran is not going to give up the ability to make nuclear weapons. And even if he does realize that, and agrees to to it, he’ll find a way to couch the loss of his main war aim as a “victory.”
*Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal reports what’s going on with the promised demilitarization of Hamas. It ain’t being demilitarized, of course. (Segal also described a planned but failed Kurdish overthrow of the Iranian regime that was aborted.):
Hamas is currently dividing into three factions, observes a senior official in the Peace Council: those who want to die as martyrs, those who do not want to die as martyrs, and those who want to buy time without the population rebelling against them. The first faction shrank significantly during the war because, as we know, most of them indeed got what they asked for. The question of whether the demilitarization of Gaza will succeed depends heavily on the current balance of power.
Hamas has discovered a very different kind of American than the ones they encountered during the hostage release negotiations last year. Last year, they were spoken to as equals, befitting an entity holding dozens of Israelis. Now, the Americans look down on them and issue direct orders.
Last year, the whole world courted them, and they enjoyed the mediation services of numerous countries seeking proximity to the center of global attention. Since then, four Arab countries have already announced the severing of ties with Hamas. It is no coincidence that these are four countries that were attacked by Iran. “We are being bombed and you remain silent?” they raged at Hamas.
The most prominent of these is Qatar, which effectively expelled Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas official. The man left Doha and has not been allowed to return since. Senior Hamas officials are now relocating their residences to Turkey, their last remaining supporter in the world. We’ll always have Istanbul.
All this is well and good, but what will actually come of it in the Gaza Strip? After all, an atmosphere of gloom prevails in Israel amid claims that Hamas is strengthening its position in the areas it still controls within the Strip. When Hamas wants to cheer itself up, it reads the Hebrew press, and when Israelis want to cheer themselves up, they go on social media to look at accounts from Gaza.
Well, the Peace Council believes that in the coming months (even before Oct. 27, for the attention of reader Netanyahu), some areas of Gaza will be cleared of weapons and tunnels and formally handed over to the new entity. Israel will be required to withdraw only after the entire cleanup is complete, certainly not at its start. The pressure is heavy, backs are against the wall, international isolation is worsening—all that remains is for Hamas to be convinced as well.
Don’t look forward to Gaza as a peaceful entity at any time in the near future, and you can forget about a two-state “solution.”
*As usual, I’ll steal a few items from Nellie Bowles’s news-and-snark column at the Free Press, called this week “TGIF: Too crazy and not crazy enough.”
→ Add a billy into that bill: Ol’ Trumpo has said many times that the new White House party ballroom will be paid for by private donors, but it looks like taxpayers might just have to add a tiny touch to the total. Just a pinch from the tax base, just enough to cover a chandelier or 20. In a big $72 billion border package, the administration slipped a $1 billion ballroom “security adjustments and upgrades. . . relating to the East Wing Modernization Project,” including “above-ground and below-ground security features.” Now, I’m actually pro-ballroom and pro-security. Because I’m pro–White House ragers and anti-assassinations. I would personally like to make it home from my trips to the nation’s capital. I know that’s controversial these days, but I do think American electeds should be able to gather without being killed off by whichever substitute teacher went haywire that day. But! However! Just consider for a moment how everyone would react to Kamala Harris tapping an extra billion from the tax base for her ballroom. I think with Trump, we’ve grown accustomed to occasional real estate mayhem. Paving over the Rose Garden, getting freaky with the plaques in the West Wing. As any chronic renovator understands, these things always take twice the time and four times the money. Did I spend a year creating a small deck? Yes, I did. Did it bring me endless heartache, then joy? Also yes. We knew what we were getting into here.
→ Interesting response to the random stabbing of Jews in London: After a Somalian-born British man allegedly rampaged through a heavily Jewish London neighborhood, stabbing two Jewish men, many public intellectuals have been reflecting. Much to consider about that. Here’s Mehdi Hasan, who runs the very successful Zeteo news organization, arguing that violence is bad but the real issue is the Jews: “It becomes more complicated because, of course, many people in the Jewish community do support Israel and that becomes a problem. I think we need to be able to have these conversations, but at the same time all agreeing that violence is never the solution.” A guy stabs Jews on the street, and this is the response. It becomes more complicated because, of course, many people in the Jewish community do support Israel and that becomes a problem. The Jew-stabbing, it’s not good, but we should talk more about why they might be Jew-stabbing, because they have a point. The real problem is not the Jews getting stabbed, but the bad, bad thoughts in the Jews’ heads, and what we’re going to do about them.
→ What’s the use of college anyway?: With the arrival of ChatGPT and Claude, we are really having to confront what the heck college is, and what it’s good for. There’s an easy solution to all the ChatGPCheating, which is to make kids take tests in person, pen-to-paper, ass in seat. But colleges are now run by people who think that’s crazy, unfair, wrong. What about the kids with no hands? And certainly every student has a letter from a doctor saying they have a condition that bars them from timed exams. Those are table stakes. Anyway, two great essays on it this week: One in The New Yorker on “Will AI Make College Obsolete?” and one in New York magazine called “Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College.” For the crime of writing that New Yorker piece, Jay Caspian Kang has been the villain of Bluesky all week. He wrote this very funny take on X: “Bluesky really is the weirdest social media site ever created. It’s like the most toxic liberals built themselves a prison and then locked themselves up in it and now have 10 riots a day. Why would you do that lol.” It’s fascinating how the next tech wave is shaking out politically. Electric, self-driving cars that will make less air pollution are being coded as right-wing (more on that later). And using artificial intelligence in school, which undermines the entire existing knowledge economy and might turn our brains into a banana puree, is being coded as left-wing. Very curious outcome. The anti-knowledge, anti-testing movement has gone so far that it is now comfortable letting kids just not think at all. Full brain death is the most equitable. So the student copy-pastes the essay prompt into Claude, then copy-pastes the response into an email to the professor, who copy-pastes it back into Claude for a grade. Education: SOLVED. Playing field? Leveled. Moving on!
Note the accurate characterization of BlueHair above!
*An article in the National Review condemns yet another anti-Israel action of NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani: “Mayor Mamdani’s shameful condemnation of a Manhattan synagogue.”
On Tuesday night, the preschool attached to Park East Synagogue closed early because staff could not ensure a safe dismissal. Outside, protesters had gathered to demonstrate against an aliyah event, a gathering where Jews could learn about fulfilling the commandment of living in Israel. Some of the rioters chanted antisemitic slogans; some carried Hezbollah flags. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani had just issued an official statement explaining, in essence, that even though he would begrudgingly allow police protection, the synagogue really had it coming.
Mamdani’s office said he was “deeply opposed” to the event because it allegedly promoted property in West Bank settlements, which the statement called “illegal under international law.” That statement was wrong in three ways.
First of all, Mamdani’s job is not to pronounce on international affairs, and second, promoting moving to Israel (even to the West Bank, where some Jewish settlements exist “legally”, is not itself a violation of international law. Mamdani doesn’t know what he’s talking about. But I digress: Mamdani spoke out of turn in several ways:
First, it defies the logic of basic governance. When a crowd targets a house of worship, the mayor’s job is not to explain why the crowd has a point. It is to protect the people inside. That duty does not depend on whether the mayor approves of the sermon, the speaker, or the politics of the people attending. It extends to synagogue members, guests, staff, clergy, and the children who could not get home. Security is not a favor. It is the job.
Second, it violates the Constitution. Government officials speak with public authority. Their words signal enforcement priorities, invite public pressure, and chill protected activity. That is why the First Amendment treats official hostility differently from private opinion. A mayor may criticize Israeli policy, condemn settlements, and oppose any foreign-policy position he likes. What he may not do is use the authority of his office to declare that a lawful, religiously significant event at a synagogue is morally suspect because of the viewpoint or identity commitments of the Jews inside.
The Supreme Court has been clear on this. In Rosenberger v. Rector (1995), it held that the government may not treat speech differently based on the viewpoint of the speaker — and a mayor who singles out a synagogue event because it reflects Zionist commitments is doing exactly that. In Bantam Books v. Sullivan (1963), it recognized that official condemnation can chill protected expression without any formal prohibition. In NRA v. Vullo (2025), decided last year, the Court reaffirmed unanimously that officials may not use public authority to pressure others into punishing disfavored speech. The Constitution is not fooled by informality. What a mayor cannot do by ordinance, he cannot do by statement directed at a religious institution while a mob gathers outside it.
Aliyah is not unlawful because Mamdani dislikes Zionism. For most Jews, connection to Israel is not a detachable political position. It is bound up with history, peoplehood, theology, and memory. In Masterpiece Cakeshop (2018), the Supreme Court held that official hostility toward religious motivation itself constitutes a constitutional violation, regardless of whether formal action follows. Mamdani’s statement, issued as his constituents could not get their children home safely from synagogue, fits that pattern precisely. The government does not get to decide which Jewish gatherings are acceptable and which deserve condemnation. And the harm here was not abstract. A Jewish preschool closed early because administrators were worried about getting the children home from school safely. That is what chilled religious life looks like in practice.
Tuesday night was not an aberration. It was a pattern producing a result: A Jewish preschool closed early, and the mayor’s first move was to explain the grievance of the people outside. When a public official uses his office to condemn Jewish institutions at the very moments those institutions need protection, courts and citizens are entitled to ask whether the government is acting neutrally. Under Monell v. Department of Social Services (1978), a city bears direct liability when an equal protection violation flows from official policy or custom rather than individual misconduct. That is what a pattern of deliberate, documented choices looks like. He is building the case against the city himself.
Lastly, consider the law Mamdani actually invoked. International law gives the mayor of New York no license to condemn lawful synagogue activity. And even on his own theory, he was wrong. The provisions most often cited in this debate come from Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which regulates the conduct of an occupying power — deportation, forcible transfers, and state-directed population movement. They say nothing about private individuals relocating voluntarily. They say nothing about a Manhattan synagogue hosting a discussion of aliyah. Invoking them to justify official condemnation of a Jewish community event is not legal reasoning. It is absurd.
This is a substantial extract because I dislike Mamdani and consider him an antisemite. Second, I want to show that he’s sticking his nose in where he doesn’t belong—and yet the Jews who voted for him apparently love it! Finally, he’s positioning himself, I think, for higher office in the party: perhaps a Representative or, Ceiling Cat forbid, a Senator. It would be a sad day if a Jew-hater like him wins a Democratic seat in Congress.
*The Supreme Court of the state of Virginia dealt a blow to Democrats yesterday when they struck down a voter-approved redistricting (read “gerrymandering”) measure that would have given the Democrats several extra seats in the House of Representatives.
Virginia’s top court on Friday struck down a congressional map drawn by Democrats and recently approved by voters, dealing a major blow to the party as it struggles to keep pace with Republicans in the nation’s redistricting battle.
The ruling will wipe out four newly drawn Democratic-leaning U.S. House districts in Virginia and means that Republicans will enter the midterm elections with a structural advantage from their moves to carve out more red districts across the country.
Congressional maps have for generations been drawn once a decade, after the census, to account for population shifts. But last year, President Trump started a rare, mid-decade gerrymandering war when he persuaded Texas officials to draw a new map to help Republicans as they face midterm headwinds. California countered with a map favoring Democrats. Other red and blue states followed.
After the Virginia map passed in a statewide referendum late last month, Democrats thought that they had battled Republicans to a draw, or that they had even eked out a small advantage. Then a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court prompted several Southern states to work to pass new maps, which will favor Republicans.
Now, the rejection of the new Virginia map means that across the country, Democrats stand to lose half a dozen safe seats, and possibly more, from redistricting alone.
Still, Republicans face a challenging political environment in their bid to retain control of their slim House majority, including worries about the economy, the unpopular war with Iran, high gas prices and Mr. Trump’s sagging approval ratings.
Gerrymandering is gerrymandering, whether it’s based on party lines or ethnicity. In my view, it’s always wrong, whether when practiced by Democrats or Republicans. Mathematicians have devised ways to divide up states into roughly equal population districts without this kind of geographical contortion. The states should be using them, but of course they won’t because state governments have their own interests.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili abhors a mess like nature abhors a vacuum:
Hili: Why is garbage so irritating?
Andrzej: Because amid the world’s chaos, tidiness creates a sense of order.
In Polish:
Hili: Dlaczego śmieci są tak irytujące?
Ja: Ponieważ w chaosie świata schludność daje wrażenie ładu.
*******************
From Stacy:
From CinEmma:
From Bad Spelling or Grammar on Signs and Notices:
I believe I missed this post from Masih reporting three Iranian protestors hanged by the regime the other day:
All these three Iranians have been hanged today. This is a campaign of terror and the world is watching like it’s just another Netflix series, waiting to see how many episodes it takes before anyone actually does something.
The Islamic Republic has executed three more men,… pic.twitter.com/R3gHZZcXwb
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) May 4, 2026
From Elizabeth Warren. I’ve never liked her breathless progressivism, as I don’t think she’s sincere. Here, knowing that Spirit Airlines was ging under, she pushes it further down.
I’ve warned for months that a @JetBlue–@SpiritAirlines merger would have led to fewer flights and higher fares.@JusticeATR and @USDOT were right to stand up for consumers and fight against runaway airline consolidation.
This is a Biden win for flyers! https://t.co/lJFGS3ucv3
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) March 6, 2024
From Luana; I’ve added a reply for context. However, eventually robotic devices will replace the hands of surgeons in most operations (or so I think):
Neuralink devices are investigational and not FDA approved. This video features voluntary clinical trial participants sharing their personal experiences, which may not reflect all participants or future outcomes.
— Neuralink (@neuralink) May 6, 2026
Two from my feed. First, a possible source for Michael Jackson’s dancing
Watch Bob Fosse’s snake performance in “The Little Prince” from 1974 and tell me you don’t see Michael Jackson’s entire dance career born in real time.
Wild to see the source material…pic.twitter.com/CmsAJpiS68
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) May 8, 2026
I wonder how they got the bird to display in such close quarters. . .
A beautiful and very noisy Bird of Paradise repeatedly interrupts David Attenborough, who turned 100 today. pic.twitter.com/cB6SHDHEkN
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) May 8, 2026
One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:
This Dutch Jewish boy was gassed to death along with his mother and family as soon as they arrived at Auschwitz. He was four years old. https://t.co/n34LLkT2uo
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) May 9, 2026
Three from Matthew on Sir David’s 100th birthday yesterday:
Sir David Attenborough turns 100 today 🎉💯 A champion for planet earth, guiding us through jungles, oceans and other wonders of our planet. 🌍 #HappyBirthdayDavidAttenborough
— Simon's Cat (@simonscatofficial.bsky.social) 2026-05-08T13:02:42.452Z
Commiserations to Sir David Attenborough on his 100th birthday, as he is now too old to be allowed to play with LEGO.
x
And a photo of Matthew with The Great Century Old man:
. . . and a photo of Matthew with the Great Century-Old Man. They know each other because Matthew helped Attenborough update life on Earth (see below the photo).
From the intro to Life on Earth:
Well, here in Virginia, the Dems tried to actually bring a gun to the Republicans’ perennial gunfight of gerrymandering and kinda sorta made progress or so it seemed for a few weeks. The bi/non-partison redistricting done a couple of years ago after a big push by our Sen Tim Kaine, corrected a Republican-gerrymandered 9-2 R majority in the House to 6-5 D in our clearly blue-leaning purple state. I was pleased because I think that 6-5 D is about right. But wanting to weaponize against the states that trump had already had gerrymandered even further (texas), VA Dems held a special election last month for the sole purpose of gerrymandering to what looked to be a 10-1 D House majority. That is what the court has called us on.
Does the NYT article mention that the reason the VA referendum was struck down was that it violated the process laid out in the Virginia Constitution? Including that Constitutional changes have to be voted on in two separate legislative sessions? The court’s opinion is worth reading.
I have watched selective enforcement of the law over many years in VA. Simply put, the 6-1 majority Republican-appointed Supreme Court needed only to decide what excuse they wanted to use to overturn. Had the partisanship fallen the other way the interpretation of the law would have flipped 180 degrees.
Blazing Saddles: “I didn’t hear a harrumph from you!
Harummph!
Watch your ass”
My theory, which is mine, is that the errant socks that go missing in the dryer are proof of the Everett (multiverse) interpretation of quantum mechanics. They obviously disappear into a parallel universe after some quantum event.
At a lecture once Richard Dawkins made a joke about the “tyranny of matched socks” and even wore a pair of unmatched socks as a sight gag. Classic!
D.A.
NYC 🗽
Mamdani does seem like a creep and an antisemite, but he’s been clever enough so far just to skirt around the edges. Let’s see if he eventually steps in it.
No. A two-state solution is ridiculous. But Hamas may eventually fade from prominence even if it doesn’t disarm, so long as Israel—and the Peace Council, whatever that is, really—keeps a lid on them. I know that this is a form of “mowing the lawn,” which I’ve long decried, but maybe if the Israelis clip the grass short enough… .
My wife doesn’t like using herbicide to control the dandelions on our front lawn, and neither do I. Simple mowing doesn’t work of course because many of the flower heads are too short to get caught by the reel even with it adjusted low. So I use an electric weed whacker with a miniature rotary blade. Unfortunately this digs into the turf leaving bare dirt around insolently grinning dandelion stems, and still needs repeating but at least they don’t seed. I think Gaza will have to look like my lawn. But it beats digging each dandelion out with a fork. That used to work, sort of, but there are just too many of them now. They breed faster than I can dig and they have pretty much replaced the grass. There’s a moral in there somewhere.
As to the Iranian military sites destroyed in President Trump’s retaliation, consider that:
To take your dandelion analogy: I cleared my lawn quite effectively a few years ago when I had the moat put in (that is what it looked like, at least. Actually a stepped footing 2m down) for the new barn. Everything was torn up, so I turned it all under. Then, steamed the top layer of soil. Steam kills everything. The soil stays fertile, though, so a quick reseed with clover and grass mix (the clover peeved one of my neighbors, but he encourages English Ivy….), then covered until it started to pop, and several weed free years.
But they are back. They snuck in from the outside. They took over again. Neighbors that prefer weed killer and have resistant strains after decades, or just ignore the weeds. Crabgrass. Dandelion. Virginia creeper. Toxidendron. English ivy. Now Jimsonweed, tearthumb (mile a minute weed), and oniongrass.
It is a losing battle, unfortunately, against an uncontrolled assault from the outside. I can salt or steam the soil again, killing the good with the bad, but to what purpose. I have no solution.
As a side note, the unkillable crabgrass, Ivy, tearthumb, and oniongrass is truly a blight. Nothing short of steam touches these here, as they are glyphosate tolerant and 2,4-D hasn’t touched them for many years. My farmer friends (I dabble, at best) are a bit worried over the last few years.
What have I been ranting about here for a long time now? Yep. The Hamas representative that has a side hustle as mayor of NYC. (sigh)
My first apartment in NYC was on the Upper East Side, where that Jewish center is, also right near…. Hunter College. My guess is the mob came in part from there – there’s no lawn at Hunter so the idiot kids have to let their antisemitic steam off somewhere.
And in agreement with that excellent legal argument above, Mayor Hamas Mandami has no business doing MOST of what he does here. Worst mayor ever.
D.A.
NYC 🗽
Trump is minimizing the shooting in the Iran war because he doesn’t want to go to Congress to extend the war past the sixty days permitted without Congress.
He’s afraid that they might not authorize it, given how unpopular the war is and with midterms coming up.
I continue to hope for the regime to collapse. If the blockade holds, it just might. But the blockade may require some shooting to enforce.
Going to Congress cuts two ways. If he goes to Congress he risks them rejecting the war. If he goes to Congress and they vote to continue the war, he sets the precedent of needing to go to Congress whenever he wants to act. So, yes, he is downplaying the intensity of the shooting.
The British Parliament abolished rotten boroughs in 1832 (after a 50 year campaign for reform). But in the US, gerrymandered electoral districts are not merely legal, but encouraged and conventional. Similarly, the vast and secret corruption of US Political Action Committees is allowed, under the fiction that they pretend not to “coordinate” with their reasons for existing.
What explains the overt, brazen corruption of our political system, which seems unique among advanced democracies? It must be something in the culture that developed in the New World. Is it, I wonder, due to the growth of new wealth based on land acquisition and sale, as opposed to the Old World’s original wealth system based on aristocratic land inheritance? In that case, Canada benefited from reaching independence of Britain only after the cultural shift represented by the historic Reform Act of 1832.
I’m glad that Lego made an edit for Sir David, slightly disappointed that they didn’t do it for Jimmy Carter, on whose 100th birthday the same “too old” comments were made. I guess we can draw our own conclusions
Wonderful that Sir David is still healthy and doing what he can to wake us up to the beauty and fragility of nature. Darin Penneys and I named a new plant species after him, Blakea attenboroughii, and I got to present him with a picture of it at a joint talk we did at the Linnean Society in London. One of the best experiences of my life. He is very open and friendly and curious, and asked good questions. No pretension at all. Happy birthday David.
After that talk we were invited to visit Linnaeus’ original collections. Linnaeus not only pressed and preserved plants, we also found pressed FISH!!! Big blood/oil stains on the paper. Imagine what his mother must have put up with when he was a kid.
The bellydance video suggested a related video by the Mayyas. This is the most incredible thing I have ever seen.
I suspect the bird of paradise may have been hand reared and imprinted on people.