Welcome to the butt end of the work week: it’s Friday, November 13. 2026 and it’s National Indian Pudding Day—my favorite indigenous American dessert. I have eaten many of these, mostly at the now-extinct Durgin Park Restaurant in Boston, but I’m told that the still extant Union Oyster House still has it. Here’s a description and a photo from Wikipedia (it’s basically a thick slurry of cornmeal, eggs, molasses, and milk with some spices).

Indian pudding is a traditional American dessert, “a cold-weather classic” in the cuisine of New England. It was commonplace in the colonial era and enjoyed a revival as part of Thanksgiving Day celebrations in the late 19th century. It was found in most American cookbooks before 1900. The 20th century’s commercial puddings with their industrially perfect smooth consistency displaced Indian pudding, and its cooking time had little appeal for the modern home cook. It is still associated with autumn holidays and occasionally revived by restaurants. It is usually served warm and sometimes accompanied by vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Yes, don’t forget the ice cream. The one below looks weird to me: it should be a uniform dark brown with no raisins or nuts.  You can find a good recipe here along with pmore accurate photos and tips as well as a section called “What makes Indian Pudding so incredible?” It is!.

It’s also National Bread Pudding Day, which is also good, World Kindness Day, and Sadie Hawkins Day. the day in the Li’L Abner comic strip that goes like this (from Wikipedia):

In Li’l Abner, Sadie Hawkins was the daughter of Mayor Hekzebiah Hawkins, one of Dogpatch‘s earliest settlers and the “homeliest gal in all them hills”. She grew frantic waiting for suitors until she reached age 35 and was still a spinster, and her father was worried about her living at home for the rest of her life. In desperation, he called together all the unmarried men of Dogpatch and declared it “Sadie Hawkins Day”. A foot race was decreed with Sadie pursuing the town’s eligible bachelors. If Sadie caught one of them, he would be forced to marry her. She was specifically interested in a handsome boy named Adam who was already in a courtship with Theresa, whose father was the area’s largest potato farmer. Unlike Sadie, Theresa had a number of courtship offers.

As the event became a tradition in the comic strip, Capp added more story elements. Each year, the Sadie Hawkins storyline begins with a prophecy by Old Man Mose, who gives Li’l Abner a cryptic clue about the end of the storyline, which always comes true in a roundabout, surprising way. The storyline sometimes also includes the Sadie Hawkins Eve Dance which is held on the previous evening, when the young women wear hobnailed boots and stomp on their partners’ feet, to make the bachelors run slower during the event.

This storyline would never appear today, but I remember it from when I was a kid. Here’s a cover of the comic from The Pioneer; the original Sadie Hawkins is at the lower right.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the November 13 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The NYT notes that 11 Democrats were absent during the vote on Pete Hegseth’s impeachment, and had they shown up but not many of the 7 missing Republicans did, then Hegseth would have been impeached (remember “impeachment” just means to bring charges; the trial is in the Senate, where the Democrats would lose.  This is causing recriminations in my party!

*I’ve not written about Jensen Huang, the CEO of the chip company Nvidia, who was in trouble because he had two extramarital relationships, one with a Chinese woman accused of being a spy for China (they want our chip technology).  This story seemed a bit sordid, but the fact is that Nvidia is the second company in the world (after Apple). And now Huang has been ousted by Nvidia’s board. Although the headline says he was “ousted”, the text says he “resigned”. You know what that means: he was voted out but told he could save face.

Nvidia NVDA -4.54%decrease; red down pointing triangle Chief Executive Jensen Huang has resigned after two extramarital affairs, including one with a suspected Chinese spy and another with an employee.

The company said Thursday that finance chief Colette Kress had agreed to serve as interim CEO until a permanent successor is named. The board is starting a search for the company’s next CEO and will consider internal and external candidates.

Nvidia’s board also appointed longtime director Harvey C. Jones to become its first ever chair. Jones, a venture investor and chip-design executive, joined Nvidia’s board in 1993, the year the company was founded.

“I recognize that this has been an extraordinarily difficult period,” Kress wrote in an internal email to Nvidia staff seen by The Wall Street Journal. She promised employees more information in coming days about “our future together” and said she would host a company meeting on Nov. 18.

“We play a vital role in building the technology that is powering the AI revolution, and we have important work ahead of us,” Kress added.

. . . The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday reported that the board was preparing to oust Huang.

His exit brings down the curtain on an era during which he stoked the global artificial-intelligence boom and became a geopolitical star. It leaves one of the world’s most valuable companies in need of a new leader.

. . .The chipmaker’s importance to global customers made Huang a worldwide celebrity. He frequently met with top U.S. and Chinese officials, and was regularly mobbed by adoring fans when he visited Taiwan, his birthplace and the global manufacturing hub of the chip industry.

Then, on Sunday, Huang acknowledged in a letter to staff that he had been unfaithful to his wife and apologized for violating his family’s and his employees’ trust. That affair involved Alice Huang, an executive at the Singapore-based data company Megaspeed, which has been a major Nvidia customer and who U.S. intelligence officials believe is working for China’s intelligence services.

The Nvidia CEO also had an affair with Kimberly Powell, a senior executive at Nvidia who runs the company’s healthcare business, according to a person familiar with the matter. The New York Times earlier reported the second affair. Powell didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Alice Huang and the CEO have the same last names but aren’t related.  And while the company has the right to oust anyone who’s eroding its reputation, I wouldn’t have thought that adultery was a good reason. But it was adultery not only with someone accused of being a spy (there’s no proof of that yet), but also a work subordinate.  The problem is that there’s nobody at Nvidia ready to step into Huang’s shoes, and it will be very hard to find another CEO. So it goes.

*Just a few days ago Trump implied he was still negotiating with Iran over a cease-fire. Now he says that no more diplomacy is needed, but a tightening of the naval blockade and imposition of a land blockade to increase the economic strangulation of the country. But other countries in the Middle East don’t like that.

From the WaPo:

President Donald Trump suggested Thursday that he was dialing back diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict with Iran and ending a dealmaking effort by Vice President JD Vance in favor of leaving a naval blockade in place and continuing to pressure the Iranian economy.

Vance in recent days had started outreach to hard-liners in Tehran to explore the possibility of a negotiated end to the conflict that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and impose limits on Iran’s nuclear program after more than eight months of war.

The war — and the jump in gas and food prices that has come with it — is deeply unpopular among U.S. voters, who delivered a historic defeat to Republicans in the midterm elections last week. The day after the election, Vance made an unusual public break with the president, writing that the war had been one of the causes of the election loss.

Vance’s outreach effort to Iran was one of the ways in which he was trying to resolve the war — and potentially rescue his chances of a successful 2028 presidential run.

“We don’t need a deal with Iran. Those days have long since passed. We’ve got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we’ve got their Strait!” Trump posted on Truth Social on Thursday.

He said he was asking Vance to focus his attention elsewhere.

Vance isn’t going to like that. Trump’s still trying to financially squeeze Iran into a deal, but many of our “allies” in the Middle East aren’t on board. From the NYT:

To me it looks like Trump has lost interest in the war, and that’s why he’s proclaiming in American victory. But it isn’t, and I still think we should continue going after Iran without committing ground troops. True, most Americans want us to surrender and stop fighting, but down the line I think they’ll regret it. And if Iran gets the bomb, well, they’ll have tremendous leverage and you can say goodbye to Israel.

*Believe it or not, homosexuality and lesbianism were crimes in Trinidad and Tobago—until this week, when a British court struck down that law. But similar laws remain in other Western countries:

A ruling by a British-based court has invalidated laws criminalizing homosexuality in Trinidad and Tobago, setting a precedent for those challenging similar laws in other nations in the Caribbean and possibly beyond.

The ruling was handed down on Tuesday by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London, which serves as the highest court of appeal for dozens of crown dependencies, overseas territories and former British colonies.

Five British judges unanimously upheld a 2018 decision by a lower court in Trinidad that had found two sections of the Caribbean country’s 1986 law targeting private, consensual same-sex relations to be unconstitutional. An appeals court in Trinidad had reversed the lower-court decision in 2025.

Trinidad’s attorney general had argued that the law preserved traditional family values in the country, and had leaned on a legal mechanism called “savings provisions,” which kept many laws from the British colonial era.

The decision delivered a hard-fought victory to advocates for L.G.B.T.Q. rights in Trinidad. Jason Jones, an L.G.B.T.Q. activist who had been a key plaintiff against the law since 2015, called the ruling a “vindication.” He said it would provide hope to young L.G.B.T.Q. people in his country who are living in fear of legal and societal discrimination.

Still, Mr. Jones noted ruefully, to challenge the colonial-era law, his lawyers had to seek intervention from a court based in Britain — decades after Trinidad gained independence, in 1962.

Why go to a British court if Trinidad was independent? The article explains:

*A newly-elected Congressman from Philadelphia has refused to comment on condemn last weekend’s antisemitic protests in his very district when bicyclists targeted six restaurants because they were Jewish. The Congressman, Chris Rabb, is, of course, a Democratic Socialist.

A bicycle protest in Philadelphia last weekend against several Jewish- and Israeli-owned businesses in the heart of Philadelphia set off a wave of condemnations from elected officials across the Keystone State — with some notable exceptions.

Most prominently, Rep.-elect Chris Rabb (D-PA), the Democratic Socialists of America member and state lawmaker who will represent the Philadelphia district where the protest took place, has not issued a statement or responded to numerous requests for comment from Jewish Insider throughout the week.

State Sen. Nikil Saval (D-PA), another DSA member who represents the district, had not publicly addressed the situation prior to initial publication of this piece but subsequently condemned it. But Rabb’s silence in particular has frustrated and disappointed members of Philadelphia’s Jewish community who had hoped for a better start to his relationship with his Jewish constituents, given that he has long been a vocal critic of Israel, and his candidacy raised concerns with members of the Jewish community.

Organizers of the bike rally are planning to repeat the demonstration on upcoming weekends.

Allan Domb, a former city council member and mayoral candidate and the owner of Schlesinger’s Deli, one of the restaurants targeted by the protesters, told JI, “I wish [Rabb] had spoken out, I’m not sure why he didn’t.”

“He’s going to be my congressman,” Domb continued. “When an owner of a business in his district, who happens to be Jewish, is threatened by a group of people who say they want to shut me down, it seems to me that my congressman should speak up about that.”

Others were sharper in their language.

“He’s a sack of s***, and that’s for the record, and I hope you’ll print it,” said Shanin Specter, a prominent attorney and son of former Sen. Arlen Specter, who began his career as a Democrat and became a Republican before ending his time in the Senate as a Democrat. “His silence speaks volumes, and it’s extremely regrettable that he is going to be representing Philadelphia in the United States Congress.”

Specter called Rabb’s silence a “declaration of war on the Jewish community in Philadelphia.”

As Melissa Steinberg Brodsky said, “Chris Rabb could’ve said one sentence. Jewish businesses in my district shouldn’t be targeted because they’re Jewish. How hard was that?”

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili rests beneath a pear tree. And here’s a recycled Hili dialogue:

Hili: Am I bothering you well enough?
Andrzej: Exceptionally well.

In Polish:

Hili: Czy dobrze ci przeszkadzam?
Ja: Wręcz doskonale.

*******************

From Bad Spelling or Grammar on Signs and Notices:

From Funny and Strange Signs; a happy roll!

From CinEmma:

Masih’s quiet, but J. K. Rowling is explaining her position once again:

Nobody’s denying that you’re human or that you shouldn’t have the same rights as every other human. What you aren’t entitled to is everyone else’s agreement that you are what you claim to be, compliance with your quasi-religious views or the removal of women’s sex-based rights. https://t.co/cumYKp8T53

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) November 12, 2026

From the Number Ten Cat. No, Hegseth did not apologize, though he should have kept his group quiet (I don’t know who was laughing and talking loud). But he said nothing and let the Pentagon do the talking:

The family of that young guard should be very proud of him. Hegseth never misses an opportunity to besmirch his office and should apologise immediately.

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) November 11, 2026

A tweet from the “Secretary of War”:

We love soldiers.
We love standards.
Well done, Specialist.

Carry on Patriots. https://t.co/Uk6ek6oOso

— Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (@SecWar) November 12, 2026

Two from my feed. First, what kind of parents would force their children into confronting soldiers and even striking them?  (The filming is a giveaway; it’s almost as if they want their kids to be hurt!).

Palestinians claim that Israeli soldiers are cold-blooded baby killers. Then why do Palestinian parents push their own children to confront said soldiers while standing behind and filming?

There are dozens of videos like this. Something is not adding up. https://t.co/BkhU2D2WWK

— Dr. Maalouf ‏ (@realMaalouf) November 11, 2026

Cat wins! Cat wins!

there is only one king 👑 https://t.co/ZSff1quLzL

— Antidepressant Content (@depressionlesss) November 12, 2026

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

A Dutch Jewish girl, Liane, was gassecd together with her older sister Eva as soon as they arrived in Auschwitz. Liana was 5 years old.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2026-11-13T11:45:08.444Z

Two from Dr. Cobb. The first is a bit salacious. . .

If it weren't for the fact that my pension is probably tied up with the fate of Nvidia I’d be cackling about how the global economy maybe got borked because some fool couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-11-12T14:02:10.614Z

Monet indeed:

Monet.

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-11-12T10:23:30.314Z

.

Welcome to Thursday, November 12, 2026, and I can feel December coming on fast. It’s National Pizza with the Works Except Anchovies Day, and that’s good because anchovies are dreadful—especially on pizza. But here’s a pizza with the works (including pineapple: don’t judge me!) that I shared with a friend at Dragon Pizza in Somerville, MA.

It’s also Chicken Soup for the Soul Day, Fancy Rat and Mouse Day, Guinness World Records Day, International Tempranillo Day (it’s a wine grape), and National French Dip Day.

There’s a Guinness World Records YouTube channel, with lots of cool and bizarre achievements, Here’s an nine-minute video of the best records from 2025, and you should definitely watch it:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the November 12 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*On his Substack site, Jesse Singal has his take on “The midterms, a week later“, and most of it appears to be free to read.  (it’s where I found Lozada’s article that follows this piece). Excerpts

In this case, though, the election was a very clean test of voters’ response to “stuff Trump did.” That’ll get you most of the way to explaining what happened. And it’s hard to overstate how unusual, direct, and obvious this got. Because of a mix of the decades-long expansion of executive power, Trump’s narcissism, and a Congress that offered as much pushback and balance as a single sheet of paper blowing gently in the wind, never before has the connection between a POTUS and his policies been clearer.

These policies, particularly Trump’s tariffs, the immigration crackdown, and the war with Iran, tended to have very obvious effects. As I am the eight zillionth person to point out, in many cases they had a disproportionately negative impact on key parts of Trump’s own coalition — many Latinos who had recently swung toward Trump because they wanted some enforcement at the border hated the mass deportations, and what more even needs to be said about the harm inflicted on a subset of rural Trump voters, in particular, by the tariffs?

. . .Remember when Democrats embraced weird and unpopular views on race and sex and gender and other stuff? Remember when they started talking like robots — insufferable, smarmy robots? The sorts of robots who call your boss to try to get you fired?

The most straightforward explanation for that period was that Dems, awash in the panic inflicted on liberal and leftist America by Trump’s first election, listened to their younger staffers, to social media, to The Groups (overlapping categories). They lost sight of what Americans care about most and got into some pretty weird, esoteric stuff.

I don’t want to overstate the impact of wokeness on recent Democratic travails. In fact, the Dems had a very good 2018 midterm, won the 2020 election, and had a less-bad 2022 midterm than expected, given the fundamentals. But still: No one is even bothering to deny that things got quite weird. Witness Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s annoyingly flip, borrowed “Woke 1 was crazy” comment; witness Zohran Mamdani’s transition toward status-quo positions on policing now that he is running the NYPD instead of yelling into a megaphone about it — a shift that started during his campaign.

Perhaps most importantly, witness how mealymouthed or suddenly quiet the vast majority of Democrats running last Tuesday’s races got about transgender issues, which until recently were touted as the most important civil rights issue of our day, and one where compromise or moderation was morally unthinkable. Witness all the moderate candidates running on pro–law-enforcement platforms. Witness all the backtracking. Not “I was wrong,” in most cases, but rather quiet shifts in tone and framing.

. . .Now Republicans face their own attempt to play the part of Homer backing quietly into the hedges, except it’s going to be much, much harder. Republicans have signaled far more fealty to Trump than most Democrats ever did to woke ideals. Trump is their party — still — even if Tuesday marked the beginning of the end of that era. It’s definitely possible that in the case of figures like AOC, their woke-era comments were so weird that they will permanently hinder their attempts at higher office. I distrust politicians who get batted around by the culture-war winds that easily, especially if they refuse to explain their changes in position.

But politicians flip-flop all the time. Republicans tried desperately to make this election about woke excess, and it just didn’t work. Does that mean anti-woke campaigning won’t ever work? Of course not. In a more favorable climate, it might.

. . .What all this adds up to is a generational opportunity, and I don’t think this party is going to blow it by pulling the kente cloths out of the closet. Forces in the party who want moderation and who want the big tent can point to what just happened and say, “Isn’t this nice? Don’t you like winning? Is dying on the hill of, like, self-ID in high-school sports so important to you that you’ll trade Senate seats in Texas and Mississippi for it?”

Of course they won’t.

And so it goes: back and forth. Since I can’t read the end, I can’t see the conclusion, but the long bit that produced the excerpts above suggest that a. Trump has hurt the Republicans for several election sycles, and b. the Democrats should learn their lesson and get back to non-crazy business, but to Singal that’s unlikely.

*From the NYT in August, we had this op-ed headline. Click to read, or find it archived here. I’ve brought up this issue before, but nobody seems to care whether progressives like AOC who are changing their tune because they want a higher position in politics, really believe the new tune or they’re just singing it while keeping their real beliefs quiet.

An excerpt:

There is a difference between changing your mind and shifting your tactics, between evolving in your views and abandoning them because they’ve become unpopular or politically perilous.

When Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, quoting a political ally, recently suggested to ABC News, with a laugh and a smile, that “Woke 1 was crazy,” she became the most prominent progressive figure distancing herself, whether subtly or overtly, from what is known as wokeism — from the stringent positions on race, policing, gender, identity, social justice and language that constituted progressive orthodoxy over the past decade or so. Ideas once upheld in doctrinaire terms, with dissenters dismissed as lazy (do the work) or inhumane (you literally don’t want me to exist), are now treated as an embarrassing phase, the gawky formative years of cultural and political progressivism.

. . . . In her interview, Ocasio-Cortez attributes the excesses of the woke era in part to the pressures of pandemic restrictions, saying that “of course, rhetoric in that time is not rhetoric that we would use today.” But that’s just a canny restatement of her shift, not an explanation for it. Would Ocasio-Cortez not use the same rhetoric today because she no longer buys it — or because she can no longer sell it?

. . . . James Talarico, the Texas Democrat running for a U.S. Senate seat, has admitted that “there are some statements that I’ve made that I certainly regret,” and that some of his old comments may now seem “cringey.” (All this when a journalist asked him about his past assertion that God is “nonbinary,” a claim Talarico now says was “intentionally provocative.”) Some commentators on the left have joined in the revisionism, acknowledging, for example, that cancel culture may have occasionally gone too far and that, yes, elements of the woke agenda may appear silly in hindsight.

. . .So, before that time goes farther down the memory hole, discarded as just one of so many vibe shifts, I have one question for the formerly woke:

If you can dismiss it so casually now — all the defunding and abolishing, the BIPOCing and Latinxing, the canceling and decentering and my truthing — how much of it did you truly believe at the time? How much was conviction, how much was a pose, how much was groupthink, how much was fear?

. . .If you did believe it, jettisoning it now should take something more than a sheepish grin. If you didn’t believe it and yet declared it with such passion, with such pretensions to moral clarity, with such disdain for contrary perspectives, then the least you can do now is acknowledge that dissonance. You should explain the shift, not just explain it away.

Some writers and thinkers have admitted that they supported certain progressive verities — or didn’t push back against them — because they felt cowed by their audiences, or because they feared for their careers. My hope is for a modicum of such intellectual accountability from the political class, too, just enough grace to blush.

You won’t get it. Politicians are experts at evading tough questions, but as “formerly woke” candidates emerge in the next two years, the press should be asking them these questions. Yes, much of the MSM are liberal and “progressive,” and might ask softballs, but they should remember their job, and that voters want to know. 

*The Kennedy family is trying to prevent the construction of Trump’s huge “Triumphal Arch,” by the Potomac river in Washington, D.C., claiming that it would overshadow the graves of their family at Arlington National Cemetery and block the line of sight from the eternal flame by JFK’s grave.(Both of my parents are buried near JFK’s tomb as well, as my dad was a veteran.)

The Kennedy family is joining the efforts to block the construction of President Trump’s 250-foot triumphal arch between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.

Nine members of the Kennedy family are the latest parties to challenge the development of an arch near Arlington National Cemetery, according to a Tuesday legal filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The Kennedy family members said the massive arch would “permanently cast shadows” over the graves of their relatives and those of fallen American servicemembers and obstruct the designed sightline from the eternal flame at President John F. Kennedy’s gravesite.

“We believe Donald Trump has violated the laws and procedures established by Congress to protect this most sacred national memorial,” Rory Kennedy and Maxwell Kennedy, children of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy, said in a joint statement Tuesday.

“A towering arch casting shadows across the graves of our father, mother, and uncles, as well as the graves of so many who have served our country, would also cast a shadow over our democratic principles, undermining the safeguards established by our elected representatives to protect this hallowed ground for generations to come,” they added.

“It is unfortunate to see that some members of the Kennedy family have joined the litigation against the Arch as the project is intended to honor our heroes who rest in Arlington Cemetery,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement.

A federal district judge temporarily blocked construction of the arch last week. The decision came after the National Capital Planning Commission, led by Trump appointees, approved plans for the project. The triumphal arch, as Trump calls it, is being constructed to honor the nation’s 250th anniversary, according to the National Park Service. Trump has said it would also serve as a military complex with snipers and drones.

We all know that the arch was not intended to honor “our heroes,” but rather to honor Donald Trump. Although I guess the White House has scuppered plans to sequester both drones and snipers in the arch, there are still at least four lawsuits against it in the works. I know this area well, as I grew up near it, and the arch at that location (or anywhere, really) would be an abomination.

*The NYT reports a dramatic fall in the number of Ph.D. degrees given in STEM areas in America, concurrent with a fall in research support given by the Trump administration. It’s not archived, so you’ll have to subscribe to read the whole long article. The thesis:

For nearly a century, the United States has been the global leader in cultivating young scientists, training them at the nation’s vast network of universities and harnessing their talents to ensure American dominance in research and innovation.

But now that Ph.D. pipeline is in turmoil.

An analysis by The New York Times of university and federal data found that the Trump administration, in its broader dismantling of the American scientific machinery, has undermined opportunities for young scientists.

Many of the nation’s top research universities, facing uncertainties in federal funding, are offering fewer Ph.D. spots across the sciences. Federal programs created long ago to finance doctoral students are mired in chaos. Widespread grant cancellations and funding delays have made it harder for recent graduates to find jobs and start new labs. Some institutions have managed to adapt by marshaling funds from elsewhere, but the sudden instability of federal support has led many others to scale back their Ph.D. programs.

This is all true; moreover, American scientists are fleeing to other countries, especially in Europe, who have tendered attractive offers.

. . .But interviews with dozens of early-career scientists — Ph.D. applicants, doctoral students and newly minted graduates — revealed deep concern that even two years of disruption could permanently alter the storied success of federally funded science in the United States.

Facing uncertainty in the flow of federal funding, many university departments significantly reduced the size of their incoming Ph.D. student classes last year, even as the number of applications rose.

The Times analyzed data from 27 of the nation’s top research universities. Between 2024 and 2025, new Ph.D. enrollments declined by about 18 percent in engineering programs and by about 10 percent in science and health disciplines. New enrollments in math and computer science programs also dropped by roughly 10 percent.

Overall, these declines are steeper than those seen in other fields, such as economics and anthropology.

Here’s the data:

I’m confident but not certain that American science will recover after Trump is gone. After all, the drop is measured only between 2023 and 2024, but the latest are about the same as in 2021 and 2022.  But the dismantling of American science won’t create a level playing field all over the world just because American scientists go overseas. Only the best ones do, and given everything, there is less opportunity for science to be done here. What that means is that the total quantity of science in the world will decrease.

What the NYT ignores, though, is another important factor reducing the amount of science done in America: the decreasing size of labs because it costs too much to support graduate students. That support is usually via federal grants, but the yearly price of harboring a student, including tuition, is nearly $100,000 in some places.  Since federal grants (used to support students) are waning in both quantity and size, labs are shrinking. And the rise in stipends is often caused by the demands of graduate-student unions, who regard a Ph.D. as a job, not an apprenticeship.  But you won’t find the NYT emphasizing that aspect.

(This article is part of a three-part series on “science under siege.” You can find the other two articles here, and here.)

*George Will, the house conservative columnist at the Washington Post, discusses four problems the Democrat-dominated Congress will run into when it’s seated in January, but what he’s really going after is “progressive” Democrats (column is archived here).

In November, Democrats did well with voters, but beginning on Jan. 3, reality gets a vote. Consider four subjects: climate change, campaign finance, Medicare-for-all and racial gerrymandering.

Democrats’ autumn campaigning featured scant talk about what many of them have called the “existential” crisis of climate change. Fear of the extinction-level threat of global warming was displaced by indignation about … the high prices of fossil fuels (oil, gasoline, diesel).

Lower prices would increase consumption. But a hypothetical climate apocalypse is less disagreeable than a here-and-now $100 fill-up.

. . .Michigan’s Democratic Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed is another progressive vowing to get “money out of politics.” As the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a New York Democrat, was given to saying about progressive promises of government-driven wonders: “That will not happen.”

Regarding their promised government limits on political contributing and spending, progressives exemplify what Moynihan called “the leakage of reality from American life.” Progressives are not going to overturn or evade repeated Supreme Court affirmations of the obvious:

All political spending is for the dissemination of political speech. In a continent-spanning nation, this requires money. When government limits political spending, government enforces its belief about the proper amount of speech, which is incompatible with the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.”

. . .Progressives’ promises of “Medicare-for-all” elicit rapturous approval from progressive audiences. There is, however, this intractable reality: A large majority of Americans have private health insurance, and a large majority of this majority like their plans. Medicare-for-all must supplant these, which often are untaxed compensation provided by employers.

During World War II, companies competing for scarce labor evaded congressional limits on wages by offering health insurance as untaxed (the IRS agreed to this in 1943) compensation. Medicare-for-all would vitiate many of organized labor’s subsequent achievements. That will not happen.

What he means here is that organized labor secured health plans as part of the benefits offered by companies, and people (I’m one example) don’t want my health plan supplanted by Medicare for all. Medicare for Some would be okay if people don’t have these benefits or can’t afford health insurance. Finally: gerrymandering, which I’ve always objected to. Will sees it as not only patronizing but unnecessary:

Well. Columnist Quin Hillyer, a Louisiana native and resident, notes the following:

As you see, Will is objecting to “progressive Democratic views,” though some more centrist Democrats also favor these plans. And I think he has a point (the climate-change issue, however I see as more serious than he does), which is why he’s had such a long tenure at the Post. He ends this way:

Progressives should acknowledge all this. That will not happen.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili rests beneath a pear tree, but here’s a recycled old one from Andrzej:

Andrzej: According to experts, cat hair in food is unhealthy.
Hili: That’s an argument from authority, you need to test it.

In Polish:

Ja: Zdaniem ekspertów kocia sierść w jedzeniu jest niezdrowa.
Hili: To argument z autorytetu, musisz to przetestować.

*******************

From Stacy:

From Cheryl’s  Amazingly Positive, No Politics Allowed, Interesting People Group. Actually, when I checked the meme below, I found the story is fake but does have a core of truth. I therefore left up the meme.

Google AI says this:

The viral story of a man named Dylan Raines attempting to rob a liquor store in Pensacola, Florida, using an avocado painted to look like a grenade is fake (“AI slop”). [1]

• • The Rumor: Social media posts and AI-generated memes claimed a 29-year-old man named Dylan Raines tried to rob “Gulf Coast Spirits” in Pensacola and was tackled by a mixed martial artist cashier named Marcus Bell. [1]

From Bad Spelling or Grammar on Signs or Notices:

From Masih. The Jerusalem Post names the committee:

The United Nations General Assembly elected the Islamic Republic of Iran to the UN Committee for Programme and Coordination on Wednesday, giving Tehran a seat on a key body responsible for reviewing and coordinating the organization’s programs and priorities, despite its record of human rights abuses and support for terrorist organizations.

How can a terrorist regime that blinded these women, sexually assaulted these political prisoners, and subjected them to mock executions be nominated to a UN committee that helps shape programs on human rights?

This is not just a slap in the face to the people of Iran. It is an insult to every democratic nation that claims to stand for human rights.

We are standing in German Parliament with a mother whose daughter was executed with a woman whose brother was executed by this regime.
They are holding the pictures of protesters who received death sentence.
Now imagine telling these women and men that the very regime responsible for their suffering has been nominated to a UN committee that helps shape the organization’s programs and priorities.

How can you look these women in the eyes and still call this human rights diplomacy?

— Masih Alinejad (@AlinejadMasih) November 11, 2026

From Luana, relevant to grad-student salaries discussed above (the Harvard Crimson article is here; two events were disrupted and canceled):

Harvard grad students are withholding their “labor” and disrupting classes because they make *only* $51k/yr and have to live with roommates and budget for fall vacations.

Harvard’s response? Keeping paying them and ask them nicely to please stop.

The whole thing is a LARP. https://t.co/xKOyqAt2qP

— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) November 10, 2026

From Jay: a Tom Jones spoof about women cats:

He knows what he is looking for in a lady.

She’s a Lady – Tom Jones https://t.co/KIRxAy660Z

— ILikeToasters (Latent Creations) (@LikeToasters) November 10, 2026

Once again the Number Ten Cat takes down Trump’s bragging:

Today is Remembrance Day, when we pause to remember the horrific sacrifices of war made on our behalf by the generations that came before. Donald the draft dodger has demanded that we do not use that name. As with so much else, he should be ignored. https://t.co/gq2ryzcFdT

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) November 11, 2026

From Malcolm: kitten rescue!

When the cat realized it was a rescue, she brought all her kittens, one by one, to be saved.
They were all adopted and even gained a crab friend🥹 https://t.co/hn0yNmtbVT

— We don’t deserve cats 😺 (@catsareblessing) September 7, 2025

One from my feed: a song about sending the Jews to the Moon:

I wrote this song because, for generations, the world has told the Jews to leave.

So imagine we all went to the moon. Within 50 years, we’d turn its lifeless craters into thriving cities filled with science, innovation, music and life.

And what would happen? The world would look up and accuse us of colonising the moon!

Because wherever Jews go, we build, create and transform.

The problem was never where the Jews lived. It was that some people couldn’t accept our existence.

We will shine wherever we are. Even on the moon. 🌙🇮🇱

— Yehuda Meitav (@YehudaMeitav) November 11, 2026

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This German Jewish girl was gassed to death as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz. She was 11 years old.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2026-11-12T12:15:45.138Z

And two from Doctor Cobb. First, a bizarre coloring book.  It’s AI for sure, but is it sold as a serious work for kids?

Here’s a real sheet from a colouring book someone tried to sell me.

— The Boooook Shepherd 👻 (@thebookshepherd.bsky.social) 2026-11-11T01:01:21.557Z

How to pick up a duck. Click on the screenshot to go to the original.  I think it’s wrong; the duck could fall, and it won’t work with ducks that can fly:

Music:  Stephen Stills discusses three guitarists who greatly influenced him: Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Neil Young. Stills is quite eloquent and thoughtful about these choices.

.

Welcome to a Hump Day (“Сряда – преломният ден от седмицата” in Bulgarian), Wednesday, November 11, 2026 and it’s Veteran’s Day, an official federal holiday in America.

It’s also Origami Day, Pocky Day (celebrating the Japanese snack), and National Sundae Day. According to Guinness, this is the world’s largest ice cream sundae:

The largest ice cream sundae was one weighing 24.91 tonnes (54,917 lb) made by Palm Dairies Ltd under the supervision of Mike Rogiani in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada on 24 July 1988. It consisted of 20.27 tonnes (44,687.64) of ice cream, 4.39 tonnes (9,678.28) of syrup and 243.7 kg (537.2 lb) of topping.

I have no photos of that behemoth, but here’s a FB video of what’s surely the largest sundae in Chicago, available at the fabled Margie’s Candies. I haven’t eaten one, but I’ve seen one. If you’re in Chicago and you want an old-fashioned ice cream parlor, I heartily recommend this place. The ice cream, hot fudge, and turtle sundaes are terrific. Have a gander:

As for origami, I asked my friend Robert Lang, physicist and origami master, to contribute one of his pieces in honor of Origami Day, and I got this:

Or, for something entirely different, this is “The Distance of the Sun,” a mobile of origami representations of transportation across history, culture, and imagination, a collaboration with artist Glenn Kaino (who conceived and spearheaded the project), installed at the Los Angeles Metro Connector train station (the connection station between LA’s light rail system and the Los Angeles Airport people-mover). The description is here.

The original was modeled in paper, but this large installation is of course made of more durable materials.

.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the November 11 Wikipedia page.

Oh, and there’s a Google Doodle celebrating Veteran’s Day today. Click below to see where it goes. Note that the medals change, beginning with the Medal of Honor.

Da Nooz:

UPDATE: The first item below is now obsolete as yesterday evening the Republicans in the House unified to deep-six the impeachment charge against Hegseth.

House Republicans on Tuesday blocked an effort to impeach Pete Hegseth, rejecting allegations that the defense secretary had repeatedly violated the constitution through his handling of the Iran war and other conflicts globally.

The vote came a week after Republicans lost control of the Senate and House of Representatives in their worst midterm election in more than a half century, and underscored how lawmakers remain wary of crossing Donald Trump, who has signaled his continued support for Hegseth.

Thomas Massie, a Republican congressman who lost his primary after breaking with the president, had proposed impeaching Hegseth in September, alleging an array of illegal acts, including killing civilians in Iran, launching unauthorized operations in Venezuela and Yemen, and retaliating against a Democratic senator.

Top Democrats announced their support for the resolution, but Republicans moved to kill it by referring it to the judiciary committee. Their motion succeeded on Tuesday, by a 211-204 vote, largely along party lines. Massie was the sole Republican to oppose the motion, along with all Democrats.

*“Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth has at best a mixed record, but has soured his relationship with Congress and much of the public with his grandstanding and dumb decisions.  The Democrats, fired up by midterm victories, are trying to impeach him, with a Republican Congressman having prepared an impeachment proposal centered largely on the war with Iran:

Rep. Thomas Massie moved Monday to force a vote to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, pressing his fellow Republicans to remove one of the Trump administration’s most prominent figures following sweeping election losses blamed in part on fallout from the war in Iran.

Massie, a Kentucky Republican, read the impeachment resolution from the House floor just hours after it opened for the first day of sessions after the midterms. It largely focuses on the war in Iran but also includes references to Hegseth’s role in carrying out military actions in Yemen and Venezuela.

The congressman, who was defeated by a Trump-backed challenger in a primary earlier this year, said Hegseth’s actions amounted to “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Hegseth, he said, “knowingly executed and implemented unlawful orders” and “remains a threat to the Constitution.”

A vote in the House could come by mid-week, but next steps are highly uncertain. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries supports the measure. If most Democrats follow him, Massie would only need support from a few Republicans to impeach Hegseth.

. . . . If the House votes to impeach, it would fall to to the Senate to either dismiss the charges or hold a trial. Republicans remain in the majority in both chambers, until the new Congress convenes in January with Democrats in control.

But Hegseth will not go quiet into that good night:

.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dug in for a fight Tuesday against his potential impeachment in Congress, contending that a rogue lawmaker is undermining American troops in war zones by targeting him over mere “policy disagreements” and not the high crimes required in the Constitution for his possible removal.

The embattled Pentagon chief has launched a counteroffensive against outgoing Republican Rep. Thomas Massie’s effort to force him from office over his handling of the unpopular Iran war and other actions. A House vote on whether to move forward with the impeachment is expected later Tuesday.

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Hegseth gave a defiant and politicized defense of his stewardship of the U.S. military in his first news conference at the Pentagon in six months. He chose to hit back at the rising bipartisan anger over battlefield strategy while offering few details about intermittent operations against Iran or fatal strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in Latin America.

Not a good move, Democrats, especially not now.  While it’s barely possible that the House could vote to impeach him, the trial would be in the Senate, which requires a 2/3 majority vote to convict. The Democrats have only 54 seats there after January, and the impeachment will fail. It will be a show trial, and smacks of retribution when the Democrats should be moving forward. Believe me, if Hegseth were to go (VERY unlikely) Trump will, in further retribution, replace him with somebody worse.

JAC THIS MORNING: I told you so!  But they can try again after the newly-elected Congress takes its seats in January. But the Senate will not vote to have an impeachment trial, so if Republicans continue to stick together, it’s all futile.

*In a referendum, California rejected America’s first attempt to tax accumulated wealth: the so-called “billionaire’s tax.” This represents a setback for “progressive” Democrats, who want to level out incomes by taxing the rich.

California voters rejected a billionaire tax, The Associated Press determined on Monday, rebuking a measure that would have created the nation’s first wealth tax by targeting the assets of residents with a net worth beyond $1 billion.

Under the tax measure, Proposition 40, the state would have imposed a one-time, 5 percent tax on the personal assets of billionaires and devoted most of the revenue to health care.

The Democratic voters who dominate the California electorate generally support the concept of making wealthy people pay higher taxes. But Democratic leaders were divided over the proposal — Gov. Gavin Newsom opposed it while the California Democratic Party endorsed the tax. And some of the California billionaires who stood to pay the tax contributed heavily toward a campaign that slammed the proposal with attack ads on TV throughout October.

Proposition 40 also suffered from having a weak coalition of supporters who could not compete with those ads and relied on cheaper methods, such as social media and influencer campaigns, to rally support.

The race was not called until almost a week after the election as California counted mail ballots at a deliberate pace. Though the vote gap shrank as more ballots were tallied, the measure ultimately failed to get enough support despite it being a hugely

Here’s the vote as of yesterday afternoon:

It’s pretty close, but I would have expected it to pass given the public’s increasing denunciation of economic inequality. But the taxes haven’t worked in places they’ve been tried (which include several European countries) as they don’t raise a ton of revenue, and cause the very rich to simply leave the area for others. In addition, they impose double taxation on rich people who have accumulated wealth by paying, say, capital gains taxes.  Billionaire’s taxes, a plank in the Democratic Socialist and “progressive” Democratic platform, may sound good, but the Democrats should stay away from them, too.

*Lauren Boebert (R-CO), probably the dumbest person in the House, was finally defeated by a Democrat, even after Boebert tried to retain her seat by moving to a more conservative district.

Retired Rear Adm. Eileen Laubacher, a Democrat, will flip Colorado’s 4th District, CNN’s Decision Desk projects, ending conservative firebrand Rep. Lauren Boebert’s tenure in Congress.

Boebert’s loss comes after she elected to run in a more conservative district last cycle in an effort to preserve her political future. But Laubacher, who served more than three decades in the Navy, capitalized on the national headwinds against the GOP and focused her campaign on affordability issues.

The win denies Boebert, an ally of President Donald Trump and one of the most outspoken conservatives in the House Republican conference, a fourth term. Boebert was first elected in 2020, after she upset a fifth-term Republican incumbent in a primary.

. . . In that time, she has emerged as one of the most recognizable, and at times polarizing, faces of the GOP’s MAGA wing, drawing attention from both Democrats and Republicans. Former President Joe Biden, whom she heckled during his 2022 State of the Union address, once billed her as “one of the leaders of this extreme MAGA movement.” The 39-year-old has also been a source of frustration for Republican speakers Kevin McCarthy and Mike Johnson.

Good riddance.  (Remember that she’s also infamous for canoodling in a movie theater and getting kicked out.) Here’s the vote from CNN: which is pretty close, but remember that the district is conservative. Boebert has not yet conceded the election even though 98% of the votes are in.

*British entertainer Russell Brand, 51,was convicted of rape and sexual assault and was sentenced two days ago to 10½ years in prison. Over at the Free Press, Douglas Murray says that this marks the end of an undesirable era of British culture (Murray’s article is called “Russell Brand ran out of enablers”).

Brand emerged at a very peculiar moment in British life. The “lads’ mags” culture of the 1990s was still around and leaking into the 2000s. It was a period where a certain type of male—never female—promiscuity was admired and even encouraged. Brand himself was crowned “shagger of the year” several years in a row by Britain’s leading tabloid. Even a future Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister boasted in those days of the number of women he had managed to get into bed.

It was also a time when the nudge-nudge, wink-wink, say-no-more sauciness of British humor was still alive but not well. Elderly BBC executives imagined that perhaps in Brand’s effeminate, piratical popinjay persona they had stumbled on the much-coveted “voice of youth.” It soon became clear that their chosen voice was a liability.

. . . Sadly, there was nothing that Brand’s detractors could do. The political left in the UK fell in love with him. Writers like Guardian columnist Owen Jones enabled him and did public events with him, and each puffed the other’s books with absurd hyperbole. Brand labeled Jones “this generation’s Orwell,” showing that Brand had never read George Orwell. Jones returned the favor by describing Brand’s work as “funny, full of charm, and engaging.” Britain’s leading magazine of the political left, the New Statesman, gave Brand a guest editorship of the magazine and had him photographed with the staff sitting around him in wonder in a tableau meant to represent Jesus and his disciples.

. . . .Brand rose and fell because he emerged from a strange, highly specific, and confusing culture which still existed in the 2000s and started to dwindle in the mid-2010s. That was when, for better and worse, men—including, sometimes, famous men—were made to account for their past actions. Whether Hollywood is a good place to either set or reset the sexual ethics of the era is a question which was pretty much answered during the #MeToo era: yes and no. Yes, in that there are people who got away with things because they were “powerful.” No in that the entertainment industry is a very untypical ecosystem. A world in which Brand could whip his member out in a BBC studio or play the lothario title character in the lackluster and unneeded remake of the Dudley Moore vehicle Arthur was a time quite content with boundaries being crossed. Those who sought to enforce boundaries were denounced as “stick-in-the-muds” and “prigs.”

But then the music changed. The once-cheering supporters and partners slunk away or spoke out too late. The laughter died. Many questions remain in the rise and fall of Russell Brand. But the most obvious is why the culture so relentlessly celebrated and promoted him in the first place.

I neither worshiped him nor hated him, for I never watched him. Now he has his just deserts, and will be forgotten when he emerges from prison at age 61.

*And a quickie: a deer rescue recounted in the UPI’s odd news:

Animal rescuers in the Detroit area announced a deer with a plastic Halloween pumpkin stuck over its face has been rescued after over a week of sightings.

The Detroit Animal Welfare Group said members had been tracking sightings of the deer for about 10 days before they caught up to the animal on Sunday in Westland’s Hines Park.

AD

The deer, initially thought to be a doe but later revealed to be a young button buck, had been repeatedly sighted with the plastic pumpkin over its face, which rescuers feared would affect its ability to eat and drink.

The rescue team followed the deer through the woods and waded through a 20-foot-wide river “not once, not twice, but four times,” the DAWG said on social media.

The deer was tranquilized and the bucket was removed. The rescuers administered fluids to the deer before reversing the tranquilizer and releasing the animal back into the wild.

A yellow tag was placed on the deer’s ear to warn hunters about the tranquilizer.

“We will finally get some sleep tonight even though we are cold, wet and smell like swamp,” DAWG officials wrote.

Here’s a two-minute video and Ceiling Cat bless the rescuers!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili rests beneath a pear tree. And we resurrect an old Hili dialogue:

Hili: Why are you so stuck on the Sisyphus myth?
Andrzej: Because I’m trying once more to reconcile with the absurdity of continuance.

In Polish:

Hili: Czemu się uczepiłeś tego mitu Syzyfa?
Ja: Bo próbuję raz jeszcze polubić absurdalność trwania.

*******************

From Bad Spelling or Grammar on Signs and Notices:

From Cats Doing Cat Stuff:

From Terrible Maps.  Actually, besides the U.S. and Palau, three other countries use Fahrenheit: Belize, Bahama, and the Cayman Islands.

From Masih about her “brother in arms”, Garry Kasparov:

My brother in arms, Garry Kasparov, could not join us in Berlin Freedom week that we created together because of serious threats to his life. Putin’s regime still wants him dead.

When a dictator fears your voice so much that he wants to silence you forever, that is a badge of honor.

Garry, they may keep you away from the room, but they will never silence your voice.
@Kasparov63

— Masih Alinejad (@AlinejadMasih) November 10, 2026

From Luana, one of many challengers that will undoubtedly vie for Fetterman’s seat. This one was born in Gaza.

My name is Ahmed Moor and I’m running for US Senate here in PA (election 2028). I’m running to end the war in Iran and to promote the dignity agenda: free healthcare, free childcare, and affordable housing.

I’m calling for accountability for genocide, for ICE and for corruption. And finally, for the protection of our civil liberties in America. Join the fight at https://t.co/gM0uBwST6b

— Ahmed Moor (@AhmedMoor) November 9, 2026

From Barry, a hilarious AI cat-and-music video:

The neighbor’s cat at midnight. https://t.co/IuprywFwNV

— fatedwanderer84 (@fatedwanderer84) November 10, 2026

Larry speaks up about Russell Brand:

“Whatever women wear, wherever they go, whatever they drink, they retain the right to say no and demand justice in the criminal courts when sexual predators act without their consent”

Mr Justice Bennathan, while sentencing Russell Brand to a decade in prison for rape and sexual assault.

Amen.

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) November 9, 2026

One from my feed. English translation from the Russian:

A large Hamas demonstration was supposed to take place in Brisbane, Australia. When Māori activists heard about it, they immediately organized a spirited haka in support of Israel at the site. As always, the Hamas crowd ended up being too chickenshit to show up for the demonstration. Thank you, my dear Māori people, from childhood! 🙏❤️🙏

В Брисбене, Австралия, должна была пройти масштабная демонстрация хамасовцев. Когда активисты из народа Маори узнали об этой демонстрации, они немедленно организовали на этом месте энергичную хаку в поддержку Израиля. Хамасовцы, как всегда в итоге зассали прийти на демонстрацию.

Спасибо, родные, с детства за маори! 🙏❤️🙏

— David Ilnitsky (@DavidIlnitsky) November 9, 2026

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial

This Dutch Jewish girl was gassed to death as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz. She was fourteen years old.

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) November 11, 2026

And two from Dr. Cobb. We must look up this category!

important category on wikimedia commons

— depths of wikipedia (@depthsofwikipedia.bsky.social) 2026-11-09T20:13:42.904Z

A squirrel with gas. Matthew swears this is genuine:

Nothing says the weekend like a squirrel farting in the bath.

— SlenderSherbet (@slendersherbet.bsky.social) 2026-11-07T14:10:09.333Z

.No music today; few seem to listen.

Hili dialogues are back today, at least for a while, as Andrzej has resurrected a bunch of the cat’s philosophical musings. See below.

Welcome to The Cruelest Day: Tuesday, November 10, 2026 and National Vanilla Cupcake Day, which shows what a blah day it is. But it’s also the Báb’s Birthday (see below), honoring ʻAlí-Muḥammad Shírází (1819-1850), also know as “the Báb”, founder of Babism and one of the central figures of the Baháʼí Faith, which teaches that sequential prophets will occur, including Jesus, Muhammad, and, of course, the Báb.  He was executed for apostasy at the age of 30, but there are still 7-8 million followers of Bahái.

But the Báb was really born on October 20, so it’s unclear why his birth is celebrated today.

Here’s what Wikipedia calls “a historical depiction of the Báb”, and I’m not sure if its a drawing or a drawn-over photograph.

It’s also Area Code Day, the Birth of the Báb,

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the November 10 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*There’s an op-ed by Megan McArdle in the WaPo that has a clickbait title, “Democrats won the midterms. Republicans may have won something bigger.”  WHAAAT?  The subtitle gives one part of the answer: “Social Security and Medicare will force painful choices for the party in control.”

But the biggest win may have been for the Republican Party. Now look, guys, I know it doesn’t feel that way. You not only took an epic thumping; you’ve probably lost any hope of holding the presidency in 2028. That doesn’t feel great, especially because Democrats are already murmuring about retribution. So I don’t blame you for failing to look on the bright side. But there is a bright side. In fact, there are two.

McArdle points out that several suggested solutions—raising the cap on payroll taxes and raising the retirement age—will tick people off and the Democrats will get blamed. Her solution is for Democrats to tackle this question NOW, but Trump will be President for two more years. I suspect that the next President will be a Democrat, so the party better get its act together now.

*The NYT reports that Joe Biden won’t be very active in promoting his new biography as he has metastasized prostate cancer (article archived here).

Former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said Sunday that his health would prevent him from making as many public appearances to promote his forthcoming memoir as he had hoped.

The former president, 83, whose health has faced scrutiny since his time in the White House, was diagnosed last year with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that spread to his bones. Mr. Biden underwent radiation therapy and surgery to remove skin cancer lesions, and his son Hunter Biden said in an interview over the summer that his condition was worsening and causing him pain.

Mr. Biden said he had started writing the memoir, “Promise Me, America,” which covers his years as president, when he received the diagnosis. He indicated afterward that he felt intense pressure to finish quickly as he battled the disease, saying he was “working like hell” with his publisher.

Now, he says his cancer will also affect his ability to promote the book.

“Some days are better than others. It hasn’t stopped me. But sometimes it slows me down,” Mr. Biden wrote Sunday in a post on X. “What that means is, unfortunately, I won’t be able to do as many conversations about my book as I’d hoped.”

He added, “My doctors continue to be encouraged by how I’ve responded to treatment.”

Mr. Biden’s age and health set off an intense debate during his final year in office. Mr. Biden ended his re-election bid after a disastrous June 2024 debate performance against President Donald Trump, during which Mr. Biden repeatedly lost his train of thought.

Hunter Biden said on a podcast in July that he believed his father was unknowingly suffering from cancer during that debate. (Medical experts who were not involved in Mr. Biden’s care said it was unlikely that his debate performance was affected by the cancer diagnosed months later.)

This looks pretty much as if Joe doesn’t have that long to live, especially because he had to rush completing his book.  Although I’m not happy when anybody is suffering, Democrat or Republican, and I voted for Biden, we should prepare for his death, as I’m sure the NYT obituary section is doing.

*Texas voted Democratic (“blue”) in the midterms, but the Free Press claims that what went through Texas was a “purple tornado.”

Texans like [Suzanne] Bellsnyder have always had an independent streak, and the pent-up frustration that had been building for years toward establishment Republicans and the status quo finally reached a breaking point last week.

Abbott was swept out after three terms, James Talarico became the first Texas Democrat to be elected to the Senate since 1988, and Democrats won control of the state House for the first time since 2003. It was the first time any Democrat has been elected to statewide office in Texas in over 30 years.

While many pundits are calling what happened in Texas a blue tsunami, it was more like a purple tornado: a shift among moderate voters weary of extremism, cronyism, and corruption. Every single county in Texas—and there are 254 of them, the most of any U.S. state—swung toward the Democrats, but that doesn’t mean traditionally conservative Texans were swept away by the promises of the party’s ascendant left.

“Democrats didn’t necessarily win rural counties, but there was a shift in a lot of counties that made all the difference,” Bellsnyder said. “Rural Republicans have served as a firewall for the party for the last couple of decades, and the Republican Party lost their insurance policy last Tuesday.”

Much of Texas still appears solidly red on maps that show the election results based on which party earned a simple majority of the votes. Still, the results also show rising shades of purple in even the reddest and most conservative rural counties. An analysis by The Texas Tribune concluded that turnout increased by a lower amount in rural counties than in urban and suburban ones. The swing toward Democrats in some of the reddest counties was dramatic.

. . .What will political life in Texas look like now that Democrats have swept the state? Bellsnyder welcomes the return to a bipartisan Texas government, with Democrats in the governor’s mansion and in control of the board of education and state House, but Republicans still in charge of the state Senate.

. . . .“Whether it is the Republicans or Democrats, single-party rule isn’t healthy for democracy,” Bellsnyder said. Newly elected Democrats and other party leaders in Texas hopefully realize that they must deliver the bipartisan results that they campaigned on, because “if the blue doesn’t do what they said they were going to do, then I guarantee we’re going to go back red.”

Well, that’s clear, and if there’s any lesson for Democrats from the midterms, they are going to have to unify to some degree and deliver—and by that I don’t mean allowing men to participate in women’s sports or create free public transportation.  Somehow I sense the Democrats are going to have a big dust-up over their priorities, at least for a while.

*If the pro-Palestinian and anti-“Zionist” bike rally intended to shake up Jewish businesses, it was a miserable failure.

Massive crowds of counterprotesters waving Israeli flags and holding signs condemning antisemitism responded Sunday morning to a bicycle “boycott ride” targeting Philadelphia businesses that organizers said were owned by supporters of Israel.

State and local leaders widely condemned the bikers’ demonstration, saying it was targeting six Jewish-owned businesses. The cyclists on Sunday were met by what appeared to be hundreds of people protesting the ride, sparking some verbal confrontations in Pennsylvania’s largest city.

“Show your faces!” one counterprotester shouted as he flipped off a group of bikers in Rittenhouse Square in the heart of Philadelphia’s Center City neighborhood. Many of the bikers were wearing disposable face masks, helmets and sunglasses. Several bikers held Palestinian flags and were draped in keffiyehs.

Michael Balaban, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, decried the scene.

“When people come to attack the Jewish community, we want to meet those attacks tenfold, a hundredfold with people,” Balaban told CNN affiliate WPVI. “Philadelphia is the city of brotherly love and we want to make sure it stays that way and get the haters out of here….Don’t protest us because we’re Jewish.”

On one side of the road on Walnut Street downtown, a woman quietly held a sign above her head reading: “HATE is not Brotherly LOVE.” A few dozen feet away on the same side, a man held one that said: “Money loving Zionists.”

The protest was organized by Philly Bike On Your Left, a group describing itself as “anti-Zionist.”

The group has rejected the criticism, saying it was “grossly misrepresented” and is “firmly against racism and oppression of all forms, including fascism, antisemitism, islamophobia, and colonialism.”

“Ride around Rittenhouse with us as we show these zionist business owners that we see them for the disgusting humans they are,” the group said in its original October 30 Instagram post announcing the ride.

You’ll want to see it, of course, and there’s a long and boring video on YouTube, but I’ve put a short Here’s a short news video of the demonstration.  There seems to have been very little violence, although of course there was animosity on both sides.  Fortunately, in the main the peace was kept, and the restaurants were apparently packed. Note the trop of “Money loving Zionists”, which of course really means “Money loving Jews”: an obvious blood libel. And the cowardly protestors were largely masked, and you know why (I didn’t see any masked counterprotestors!):

I love this screenshot I took from one video, showing Jewish self-deprecating humor of the protestors:

*At It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal details the countdown to form a government coalition in Israel.

It’s Monday, November 9, and for all the frenzy in the country, the electoral process is far from instant. Last night, Gadi Eisenkot was handed the mandate, and a 91-day timer began.

Thirteen weeks. That’s how long coalition negotiations could drag on: six weeks for Eisenkot, four for Benjamin Netanyahu and three more for the rest of the Knesset.

“No one will be able to meet all the commitments they made,” Eisenkot declared last night at the President’s residence. “And all of us will be required to compromise.” “We must form a national emergency government” he added, “this will require creative and unconventional political steps.”

Eisenkot made three promises at the outset of this election: no Arabs, no Haredim, no Bibi. Last night’s speech gave little indication of which commitments he will meet and which will require compromise and creativity.

For months before the election Eisenkot signaled a creative approach to the Arab parties. His original plan for a “national emergency government” was, in reality, binational, resting on 19 Arab votes from parties that reject Israel’s Jewish statehood and refuse to label Hamas a terrorist organization.

That was until Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Lieberman pulled a sharp 180 and proposed a softer form of anti-Zionist support: the ultra-Orthodox. For reference, imagine the Democratic Party conceding a national abortion ban in exchange for evangelical support to oust Donald Trump. The man who triggered Israel’s political crisis in 2019 over his refusal to sit with the Haredim has chosen to don a shtreimel rather than a keffiyeh to defeat Netanyahu, in effect challenging Eisenkot to a game of chicken.

Eisenkot has already broken one promise; he would like to avoid breaking a second on the chance he is thrown into further elections.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog appointed Eisenkot (former head of the IDF and head of a centrist party) to try forging a consensus. Eisenkot ruled out using the Arab and ultra-Orthodox parties to do that, but it may not be possible, and he’d have to choose one, and it look likes he’s leaning on putting the ultra-Orthodox into a ruling coalition. But of course the ultra-Orthodox are at odds with the government because, in violation of government decree, most of them refuse to serve in the IDF or in alternative service; they think that Israel should honor their desire to spend their time studying the Talmud. As a formally secular state, Israel should not allow that, nor give the group a stipend for their religious labors.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej has just collected a bunch of old Hili posts in a Substack section called (in Polish) “Philosophy on four paws”, so let’s have one bit of wisdom a day for a while. Today she shows off her learning.

Hili: Horace was right.
Andrzej : About what?
Hili: Almost everything.

In Polish:

Hili: Horacy miał rację.
Ja: W jakiej sprawie?
Hili: Prawie w każdej.

*******************

From Kitty Litterposting:

From Science Humor.  Whenever I see a Facebook post starting, “I’m honored to. . .”, I know some bragging will ensue.

From Give Me a Sign:

From Masih, who introduces Iranian protestors in the German Parliament (in the tweet with a Farsi title, Masih speaks in English):

Today, we are at the German Parliament alongside brave women from Iran, Afghanistan, and other countries living under dictatorship, standing together to be the voices of our people behind bars, especially political prisoners facing the death penalty.

We are calling on Western governments to stop appeasing the murderers and perpetrators of repression and, instead, engage with the brave women who are fighting for freedom and justice.

We urge you to stand on the right side of history. History will judge you.

— Masih Alinejad (@AlinejadMasih) November 9, 2026

From my feed: The Italian Prime Minister and her cats:

🇮🇹 Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is a super cat lover!

Meloni has shared her affection for her own cats, Martino, a Scottish Fold, and Micia, a rescued female cat who became especially close to her daughter.

Meloni has also attended cat shows in Rome, supported rescue organizations and encouraged families to adopt homeless cats.

In 2019, she helped promote a cat adoption area at the SuperCat Show. 🥰🧡

— No Cats No Life (@NoCatsNoLife_m) November 9, 2026

From Luana. Colossal is plowing old ground with the “woolly mice” because, I get, their progress on making Woolly Mammoths and dodos is slow. Look how they tout these mice, not saying that more than half of the edited changes came from mutant mice and not elephant or mammoth genomes. Let’s see them make an elephant look like this–and then add big tusks, physiological tolerance, and a surrogate mother!

Meet Chip & Dale, the Colossal woolly mice.

They kinda blew up, so we got them headshots.

These tiny stars helped show we can engineer cold-adapted traits on the road to the woolly mammoth.

Write us a great letter about how much you love them, and we might send you one. 😆 https://t.co/q7uAwwbtSy

— Colossal Biosciences® (@colossal) November 9, 2026

From Malcolm, interspecies love:

This rabbit was abandoned by its biological mother as a baby and now sees an orange cat as its mother. https://t.co/Gjvzzp5jwS

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) October 20, 2026

A Diwali post from the Number Ten Cat:

Wishing a very happy Diwali to all my friends celebrating around the world. May light always triumph over darkness. https://t.co/UfEahgUf0k

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) November 8, 2026

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial: a survivor who turns 97 today:

A survivor of Thesienstadt, Mauthausen, and Auschwitz, this Czech Jewish woman turns 97 today. She's one of the few survivors who is still with us.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2026-11-10T11:49:49.071Z

Two from Dr. Cobb. First, office safety. I can’t say I squealed with laughter, but it was funny. Another tweet gave its source: “It’s a 1991 Barr Films instructional video from the ‘Excellence in Training’ series, I don’t think any of the actors are famous.”

“Office Safety”If you don’t squeal with laughter five seconds into this you may be clinically dead.

— David J (@damjef.bsky.social) 2026-11-08T12:33:58.545Z

A murmuration:

saw some starlings

— Lev Parikian (@levparikian.bsky.social) 2026-11-07T19:14:33.113Z

Music, from reader Bryan, who calls this rehearsal video “Best rare Beatles I’ve heard for a long time!” The song is by Harrison and it’s “For You Blue” from the Beatles’ Let it Be album.  

For my money, this is the most underrated Beatles track. https://t.co/jDeXkf2v4d

— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) November 8, 2026

Welcome to the start of another “work” week: Monday, November 9, 2026, and they’re already putting up Christmas decorations nearly two months in advance.  We’re not even at Thanksgiving yet!  It’s British Pudding Day, though, and the Brits make the best puddings (I’m referring to real puddings, not the generic British term for “dessert”). My favorite is sticky toffee pudding, especially with vanilla ice cream, as in this photo from the Wikipedia article:

SIt’s also Carl Sagan Day (he was born on this day in 1934), National Fried Chicken Sandwich Day, National Greek Yogurt Day (cultural appropriation), and National Scrapple Day (I love the stuff).

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the November 9 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*BREAKING NEWS: The Philadelphia bike ride against “Zionists” was a bust: Jews and their supporters lined the streets around the “Zionist” eateries, and, though nonviolent, the loud and numerous counter-protestors apparently prompted the protest to end early. More later.

*The NYT explains newly-elected Texas Senator James Talarico’s “progressive” Christianity (article archived here).

Mr. Talarico slew his own giant this week, ending decades of Republican control in Texas with a decisive win that carried multiple other Democrats in the state to victory. He did it in part by speaking easily and openly about how his Christian beliefs inform his politics, starting with the biblical command to love God and “love thy neighbor,” as the sign on his lectern read on Tuesday night.

He was one of many successful Democrats across the country who framed their politics in terms of their Christian faith. The Methodist pastor Adam Hamilton pulled off a similar upset in Kansas. Two ordained ministers, Sarah Trone Garriott and Lindsay James, flipped House seats for Democrats in Iowa.

. . . More than a quarter of adult Texans are self-described evangelicals. But the state is also home to progressive Protestants like Mr. Talarico, millions of Catholics, and politically active Black congregations, including one in Dallas whose pastor was elected to Congress as a Democrat this week.

. . . .In a town hall hosted by CNN in October, a voter from his hometown of Round Rock, Texas, pressed him “Christian to Christian” about provocative past statements like “God is nonbinary.”

“Do you believe that the Bible is the absolute source of truth and God’s final authoritative word, even when our culture says otherwise?” she asked.

“Yes,” Mr. Talarico answered.

The Bible was written by humans, is full of bad stuff, and is historically inaccurate, as well as leaving out a number of things (e.g, the existence of disease-causing microbes) that surely a beneficent God would have wanted us to know.  How could Talarico have possibly answered “yes” to that question? And where did he get the idea that “God is nonbinary”? Seriously, if he can believe stuff like this, can he be trusted to be absolutely rational in his political life?  A bit more:

This week, some in the state wondered if they were seeing the end of one era of Texas Christianity, and the beginning of another.

“If that form of conservative Christianity was going to die out, this is what it would look like,” said Joseph Locke, an historian at the University of North Texas and the author of a recent book about religion in the state.

“It would start with these isolated victories, and you could see the cracks forming,” he said.

Well, good riddance to evangelical Christianity, but I have to say that I’m dubious about someone that religious. I wouldn’t not vote for them just because of that, but I would think less of them.  People like Talarico are simply interpreting the Bible, which paints the picture of a not wholly admirable God, in light of their liberal politics. He’s forcing the words of the Bible into the Procrustean bed of his liberal political views.

*According to the Times of Israel (and other sources), Shin Bet, the Israeli internal security agency, is in the process of doing away with everyone it can identify as having participated in the October 7, 2023 massacre (Mossad had a similar mission to track down the Palestinian killers of the Israeli Olympic team in Munich in 1972).

As Israel continues to target Hamas operatives in Gaza, the Shin Bet security agency reportedly has been calling members of the terror group ahead of strikes, offering them a choice: Leave their homes and be killed alone, or be killed along with their family members.

The report published Thursday in the Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat stated that such incidents occurred at least five times in recent months, citing Palestinian sources familiar with the cases, which could not be independently verified.

The Shin Bet and Israel Defense Forces have not commented on the report, which came amid intensifying scrutiny over civilian killings in the Gaza Strip that Israeli officials say are a result of Hamas’s tactics to embed its fighters and weapons caches within civilian areas.

The report said Mohammad Alyan al-Bayouk, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis on Wednesday, was on the roof of his home when he was targeted. Before the strike, he received a phone call from Shin Bet officers, who allegedly told him to choose between being hit alone on the roof and sparing his family, or staying inside.

Al-Bayouk, who the IDF on Friday identified as a member of Hamas’s elite Nukhba Force, chose to go up to the roof, where he was killed.

The military said al-Bayouk was one of four Hamas operative killed Wednesday in IDF strikes across southern Gaza. It named the other three operatives as Hammam Jaber al-Sayed Abu Labda, Mahmoud Abu Naameh and Mohammed Hamad Shariq Abu Sultan, who the IDF said were together at the time of the strike in Rafah.

Later Friday, the IDF confirmed it also killed two terror operatives on Thursday in central Gaza’s Nuseirat, including Ihab Jamil Abu Taqiya. The military said he was a Hamas commander involved in holding hostages taken during the October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel that sparked the Gaza war, including Raya Rotem, Hila Rotem Shoshani, Emily Hand, Ohad Ben Ami, Noa Argamani, Andrey Kozlov, Shlomi Ziv, Almog Meir Jan, Maxim Herkin, Yosef Haim Ohana, Segev Kalfon and Alex Lobanov.

The war against Hamas is not over, and will not be until they surrender and give up their weapons. Those involved in the October 7 attack must also face justice. But al-Bayouk was given a choice: die with his family or die alone.  If this was a genocidal war, he would not have been offered that alternative: the whole family would have been killed.

*Incoming “progreessive” Democrats want Chuck Schumer dumped as the likely Senate Majority leader, for he’s a symbol of the “old” politics.  But it looks as if Schumer is going to keep the job. First, from the Guardian:

Incoming Democratic senators want someone other than Chuck Schumer to become the next majority leader in the US Senate, although Schumer likely still has enough votes in his caucus to remain the top Democrat.

Annie Andrews, the Democratic senator-elect from South Carolina, told Fox News’s Bret Baier on Thursday that the Democratic party needs new leadership. When asked whether she would support Schumer’s leadership bid, she replied: “I still very much believe it’s time for generational change on both sides of the aisle.”

Adam Hamilton, the senator-elect from Kansas, told CNN on the campaign trail that he would not support Schumer as the party’s leader. Hamilton, the first Democrat to win a Kansas Senate seat in 94 years, had pitched himself as independent from the Democratic party.

Abdul El-Sayed, the senator-elect from Michigan, again declined to support Schumer as the majority leader on CNN on Thursday and said he wanted to consider other options.

Other incoming Democrats have also declined to support Schumer, including James Talarico, the senator-elect from Texas; Juliana Stratton, the senator-elect of Illinois; Chris Pappas, the senator-elect of New Hampshire; Peggy Flanagan, the senator-elect of Minnesota; and Troy Jackson, the senator-elect of Maine

Democratic voters have indicated they want newer and younger leadership in the party. Over the last two years, progressive Democrats have scored major victories in local and state elections.

It’s led some lawmakers to push for similar changes in decade-old leadership. Schumer, 75, has served as the Democrats’ leader in the Senate since 2017.

And here’s the NYT report Schumer will probably keep the job:

Last year, Democratic interest groups and voters berated Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, for backing off a spending fight with President Trump rather than forcing a government shutdown early in his term.

Activists called for Mr. Schumer’s ouster. Some Democratic lawmakers seethed. Protesters jeered outside his Brooklyn home. The outcry reached such a pitch that he postponed public appearances to promote a new book he had written and hunkered down amid questions about whether he could continue as the Democratic leader.

Twenty months later and in the wake of a sweeping electoral victory he engineered and funded, Mr. Schumer’s aides say he has locked down another term in that post, having secured commitments of support from enough Democratic senators to be elected majority leader in a private vote scheduled for next month.

Senate Democrats have gained at least seven and potentially nine seats to capture the largest majority they have enjoyed since Barack Obama’s presidency.

None of it has quelled the outcry from the left against Mr. Schumer, 75, who was viewed favorably in a May New York Times/Siena poll by only about one-third of Democrats. Among Democrats in the Senate, there is still some resistance to his continuing at the top — including by some of the newly elected members — but no Democrat has emerged to challenge him.

I’m okay with Schumer, who has pushed through some important legislation when he was Majority Leader, and hasn’t made any notable gaffes. He’s a known quantity, surely helped promote the Democratic landslide, and it’s telling that the Republicans don’t like him because they see him as pushing the Democratic agenda. I’d just as soon have him stay on than risk him being replaced by a “progressive.”

*The WSJ names upcoming Democratic “stars” who won in the midterms and have the chance to run for President in two years.

Democrats have emerged from a resounding midterm victory with a deep bench and rising stars who have reinvigorated the party. But as they pivot to a 2028 presidential primary contest already informally under way, things could get messier.

Fresh faces helped Democrats swing deep-red states ahead of a primary that is expected to be among the most wide open in a generation for Democrats, with some candidates expected to announce their bids in the coming months.

With a sprawling field expected, the nomination race threatens to expose divisions unsettling Democrats: establishment vs. outsider, moderate vs. progressive, pro-Israel vs. Israel skeptics and youth vs. experience. And the party’s sweeping midterm success will allow for multiple interpretations of how it should move forward on politics and policy.

The “midterm stars” include James Talarico, Abdul El-Sayed, Bob Sand, and Jon Ossoff. I’ll highlight one in each category.

Sen. Jon Ossoff’s massive re-election victory this week—he won by 18 points in battleground Georgia—has spurred even more speculation about a presidential bid in 2028. Ossoff’s Sunday night rallies and viral short-form videos drove fundraising and attention—recall his reference to White House aide Natalie Harp. The senator has said he has “zero interest” in a presidential campaign. But if he changes his mind, he would be formidable.

It’s interesting that El-Sayed is not touted as a real candidate, but as a “valuable endorsement.” Doesn’t that depend on what he does in the next two years?

The “Obama/Biden alums” include Kamala Harris, Pete Buttiegieg, Rahm Emanuel, and New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu.  Mayor Pete has long been a favorite of mine:

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a 2020 presidential candidate, was among the most in-demand surrogates in 2026 across the ideological spectrum, traveling to 38 states and campaigning for 102 candidates (so far, 90 have won). Buttigieg said in an interview that his midterm work was focused on “expanding the map and competing in more conservative places—it’s often about generational change—new people stepping up to make a difference.” Early polling has shown Buttigieg well-positioned in New Hampshire, slated to be the third state on the Democratic calendar.ble.

The governors include J. B. Pritzker, Gavin Newsom, Andy Beshear, Josh Shapiro, and Wes Moore. You can rule out Shapiro and Pritker because they’re Jewish. I like Pritker, though:

If he runs for president, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker won’t have to aggressively court big-donor money. The billionaire, an heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune, won a third term on Tuesday and has invested hundreds of millions into his own campaigns. He used the midterms to make additional friends as a major party donor, giving Democrats and allied causes more than $38 million during the two-year election cycle, according to a person familiar with his giving. Pritzker rolled out a 75-page policy proposal the day after the election making suggestions to Congress.

Finally, the people on the hill include AOC, for whom I have no use (her big accomplishments are pushing herself forward on social media), Mark Kelly, Raphael Warnock, Ruben Gallego, Elissa Slotkin, Cory Booker, Chris Van Hollen and Ro Khanna. Slotkin is out because she’s a “Zionist” and several of these are too “progressive” for me.

Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona campaigned in 23 states for Democrats during the midterm election cycle, his aides said, while helping raise more than $15 million for efforts to win back the majority. His military service and time as an astronaut—along with his advocacy work on gun safety alongside his wife, former Rep. Gabby Giffords, who survived a 2011 assassination attempt and mass shooting—would give him a unique role in any campaign.

But it’s early days, and we have a few years for a dark horse to emerge.

*Willie Nelson is 93, and despite his lifelong consumption of weed and other drugs, he’s still going strong. In fact, his autobiography, The Last Leaf (a great title, also with the subtitle: Reflections on Late-Life Creativity and My Longest Love Affair) comes out tomorrow.

In the book, Nelson looks back on his artistic journey, particularly within the last decade. Over the past 12 years, the prolific songwriter has created 21 studio albums and 50 new songs, and performed hundreds of live shows.

How does he do this? “Looking to the future as I look to the past,” Nelson writes in the book, per its synopsis. “I stay in the present.”

Nelson, however, also takes on mortality within the pages of The Last Leaf. The musician reflects on his “almost-certain death” during the COVID-19 pandemic — and how his wife, Annie D’Angelo, kept him grounded.

“The backbone of this book is a love story,” Nelson tells PEOPLE. “The heroine is my wife, Annie, who kept me alive when I was sure I was gone. COVID nearly got me. I was hurting so bad I wanted out. But Annie wouldn’t let me go. The years I’ve lived since then are because of Annie. And so is this book.”

, , , , Nelson has published several books over the last few years, including 2021’s Willie Nelson’s Letters to America, his 1988 autobiography Willie: An Autobiography and the 2022 memoir Me and Paul: Untold Stories of a Fabled Friendship. Nelson and his wife collaborated on 2024’s Willie and Annie Nelson’s Cannabis Cookbook.

The Last Leaf, however, showcases Nelson’s current mindset — and the joys within.

“In every great book, at least ideally, the last chapter is the best chapter,” the book’s synopsis reads. “The Last Leaf shows how true that can be.”

Click on the cover below to go to its Amazon link:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili rests beneath a pear tree. But Andrzej republished a Hili dialogue from 2018 on his Facebook page:

Hili: If you’ve been looking for me, here I am.

Me: Really?

*******************

From Stacy:

From Terrible Maps; Paraguat is the only exception in the world (see below):

Here’s the flag (from reddit Vexillology):

From Beth on Facebook:

From Masih: Iran has once again hanged three young and innocent protestors: three this time.

Again, we Iranians woke up this morning to horrifying news:

The Islamic Republic has hanged three more innocent protesters.

Shocking that how hanging human beings for speaking, for demanding Freedom has become the Islamic Republic’s new normal. Worse, the world seems to be getting used to it.

Today, Hassan Dioband, Hamid Kazemi, and Reza Zanganeh were executed over January’s protests.

Three lives taken. Three families shattered.

Stop normalizing executions in Iran.

#StopExecutionsInIran

— Masih Alinejad (@AlinejadMasih) November 8, 2026

From Luana, an oldie but goodie from The Onion:

From Bryan. Here, in an interview, Eminem tells us that the word “orange,” long said to have no rhymes, can, with some rapper’s latitude, actually be made to rhyme:

Everyone says nothing rhymes with “orange.” Eminem, who never made it past ninth grade, rhymed it in a single sentence.
He doesn’t change the word. He changes how you say it.

If you take “orange” at face value, nothing rhymes with it. But if you enunciate it and stretch it into more than one syllable, the word starts to bend.

Then he proves it: “I put my orange four-inch door hinge in storage and ate porridge with George.”

He says it bothers him when people claim “orange” doesn’t rhyme with anything, because he can think of plenty of things that do.

Asked if he thinks about rhymes all day, he says yes. It drives him insane.
He didn’t break the rule. He found the loophole.

Is it a real rhyme, or just a trick of enunciation?

— Myroslav (@Myrvexo) November 7, 2026

From Malcolm, a remarkable video of Buffalo Bill Cody communicating with a Lakota Chief who was his friend:

Buffalo Bill in conversation with Oglala Lakota Chief Iron Tail.

William F. Cody and Oglala Lakota Chief Iron Tail shared a remarkable friendship that lasted nearly twenty years. Speaking different languages, they communicated through Plains Indian Sign Language. https://t.co/jP1M7NCpFG

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) October 22, 2026

One from my feed: how to peacefully disarm a boycott by haters.  This is lovely—from yesterday’s Philadelphia “Boycott of Zionists”

Pro-Palestine activists tried to cancel Jewish-owned restaurants in Philadelphia today with a boycott ride.
Instead? Massive lines wrapped around the block to support them.
You try to intimidate our local businesses, the community shows up in force.
You love to see it! 🇺🇸 https://t.co/ghpxMVy7ZA

— Ryan Fournier (@RyanAFournier) November 8, 2026

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial. This one remembers the November pogrom by the Nazis, which included Kristallnacht:

9-10 November 1938 | The November Pogrom – a pogrom against the Jews throughout Nazi Germany. Hundreds were killed (or died by suicide), 30,000 men arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps, over 1,000 synagogues burnt, over 7,000 Jewish businesses destroyed or damaged.

In an article on the evening of 11 November, Joseph Goebbels ascribed the events to the “healthy instincts” of the German people: “The German people are anti-Semitic. It has no desire to have its rights restricted or to be provoked in the future by parasites of the Jewish race.”

The pogrom changed the nature of the Nazi persecution of Jews from economic, political & social to physical with beatings, incarceration & murder. In this view, it is not only as a large-scale pogrom but also a critical stage within a process which led to genocidal stage.

Reichspogromnacht is also known as the Kristallnacht (“Crystal Night”). This name comes from the shards of broken glass that littered the streets after the windows of Jewish-owned stores, buildings and synagogues were smashed.

Only three years after the November Pogrom the physical extermination of Jews began in Germany & German-occupied European territory – first the murder was perpetrated in the East by shooting of the Einsatzgruppen & later in gas chambers of extermination camps, such as Auschwitz.

Exactly 4 years after the November Pogrom – on 9 November 1942 – a transport of 1000 Jews deported by the Germans from District of Białystok arrived at Auschwitz. 190 men & 104 women were registered. The remaining 706 people were murdered in gas chambers.

— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) November 9, 2026

And two from Dr. Cobb. First, a rolling orang:

Orangutan just rolling through life: #AGoodPlaceSource: http://www.reddit.com/r/NatureIsFu…

— Michelle says: Be kind. Always. ❤️ (@snarkysillysad.bsky.social) 2026-11-08T11:56:07.125Z

And look at all these rays!:

Underwater footage of the massive Cownose Ray gathering near Tampa, Florida this year. The camera is attached to a long carbon fiber pole, which is in turn connected to a drone with rope. The pole eliminates the possibility of a ray getting caught in the rope. #nature #animals #naturephotography

— See Through Canoe (@seethroughcanoe.bsky.social) 2026-11-08T14:11:58.327Z

.

***************************

Music: Here’s Willie singing “September Song“, written by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson, and released in 1938.  I think it’s the best version, for his voice is incredibly plaintive and it’s appropriate, as the object of the song could be his beloved wife.

Welcome to Sunday,  November 8, 2026 and National Cappuccino Day, Here’s mine (actually a latte) in my cat-themed book mug:

It’s also Diwali for Indians, Harvey Wallbanger Day (a drink), National Pupusa Day in El Salvador, World Pianist Day, and International Tongue Twister Day. Here’s one in Spanish:

Tres tristes tigres tragaban trigo en un trigal en tres tristes trastos. En tres tristes trastos tragaban trigo tres tristes tigres.

The Google translation is: “Three sad tigers were eating wheat in a wheat field out of three sad containers. Out of three sad containers, three sad tigers were eating wheat.”

Are we giving up on the “Readers’ Widlife” feature on this site? Where are all my photographers. I know you’re out there and have pictures!

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the November 8 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Trump has surely signaled that he has no desire to be conciliatory by replacing his Chief of Staff Susie Wiles with a divisive and combative Stephen Miller, architect of Trump’s immigration “policy,” such as it is.

After a brutal election that gutted Republican power in Washington, President Trump has chosen one of his most loyal and divisive advisers as the new White House chief of staff, signaling a combative posture for the final two years of the Trump era.

Stephen Miller, a fierce political operative who has been at Trump’s side for more than a decade, has been a vocal advocate of the no-holds-barred style of governing that delighted the president’s most die-hard MAGA supporters—and was repudiated by much of the rest of the country on Election Day. He succeeds Susie Wiles, who was seen as a moderating force on a sometimes impulsive president.

Miller, 41 years old, was the architect of the aggressive immigration enforcement policies that turned off many voters, according to polls, contributing to Republicans’ historic losses on Tuesday. His elevation signals that the president has no intention of backing away from the immigration agenda on which he built his political brand.

Miller is expected to push a maximalist approach to executive power now that Democrats control Congress. In the days after the election, Trump sent early signals that he would work with Democrats, but Miller has long advocated for a confrontational response to the wave of investigations that the newly ascendant opposing party is expected to launch.

Though Miller has at times pushed for a muscular foreign policy, particularly in South America, he has suggested they wind down the deeply unpopular war in Iran, according to people familiar with the discussions, and called for refocusing on policies like immigration that made Trump popular with his base.

Since Miller is a tough-on-immigration Republican, it’s clear that Congress won’t forge a new and sensible immigration policy—or any immigration policy—in the next two years.  So much for the new and “conciliatory” Trump.

*Andrew Sullivan’s message this week is clear (and apparently free): “Resign, Mr. President.” It’s a letter to Trump.  Some of it:

That 13 percent margin of victory for the not-exactly popular Democrats? That’s a once-in-a-century margin. That’s the biggest public repudiation of any party since the 1974 Watergate election. You have to go back to 1926 to find a margin that’s bigger.

That makes you a once-in-a-century loser, sir.

I’ve seen this for a decade now, Mr President, but you don’t read, of course, so let me reprise what so many of your voters now finally, finally see. You’re a liar and a conman who preys on the weak and the poor. You’ve made the GOP toxic for an entire generation, and divided it into warring factions that are just kicking into internecine gear. The gains you and your party made with Hispanics, blacks, and other minorities in 2024 have been wiped clean. That remarkable new multiracial, working-class coalition of two years ago? Vaporized. Even men turned blue this time.

You needlessly dummy-mandered far more seat losses than you gained. You yanked viable, popular candidates and replaced them with hacks, crooks, cronies, and losers. You turned 60 percent support from young men to 60 percent opposition. Texas now has a Democratic governor and senator. A man you demonized as a “jihadist” beat the crap out of you in Michigan. “Talafreako” moderated and kicked your party’s ass. You made the South competitive again. You lost Mississippi! And even Kansas, which hasn’t elected a Dem Senator since 1932.

Large swathes of your own base have come to loathe you — and for very good reason. You had two defining policies for many — no more forever wars, and a better economy — and you blithely tore up that promise for a cheap stab at dumb glory based on “farcical” intelligence. You know how much contempt you have for the working men and women who took you at your word? You didn’t even bother to tell them about the war in advance. And you’ve never offered a coherent case since. Contempt is the word. And they finally see it. Thank God they finally see it.

. . .You have hurt your allies more than your foes. You’ve discredited the religious right more thoroughly than Jimmy Swaggart ever could. You gave the neocons the kiss of death, destroyed the Israel alliance, while presiding over a wave of foul antisemitism — right and left. You made fools of those earnestly trying to build a new right-of-center coalition. The National Conservatives and the post-liberals and the Claremonsters and the AIPAC loonies all tried to find some string of policy coherence, and today? Well, they all look like idiots, and some of them are figuring that out. There is no coherent thread that connects the past ten years except your ego, stupidity, and cruelty.

And deep down, you know it. You know you have no business running the country. You know, deep down, that you’re completely out of your depth, and all your absurd bloviations and hyperboles merely prove the fathomless insecurity beneath. You were played by Netanyahu and the neocons like a fiddle: your vanity, stupidity, and recklessness were all they needed to hand Iran a strategic victory. Putin has you wrapped around his little finger, keeping his war effort afloat, and Xi took you to the cleaners on trade.

. . . Of course, today you went into fight mode. Making Stephen Miller your chief of staff after this catastrophe of an election is classic Trump. Fight! Fight! Fight! But responding to this election collapse by picking one of the key architects of the immigration overreach and the war is effectively telling the American people to go fuck themselves.

. . . So do the sane thing and quit. It’s not impossible. A president who lost the country as profoundly as you have did it within our lifetimes. Heck, even a Pope resigned. Get out, go back to Florida, rollick in the billions you have fleeced from public service, get the whores you miss, and wallow in the undying bubble of adulation you require. Declare the last two years “the greatest two years in the history of the presidency,” as you did this week, with ever-more-demented poignancy — and leave.

But surely Sullivan realizes that his words will have no effect on Trump, who won’t even read them. This is Sullivan blowing off steam, though maybe it will have the salubrious effect of changing the minds of some of his pro-Trump Republican readers.  If Trump resigns, we’ll have Vance as President for two years, which I suppose is marginally better.

*The NYT editorial board has “8 bold ideas to fix America” that Democrats should enact,” and not all of them will please centrist Democrats (article archived here). I’ve just quoted a short bit from each suggestion, so read the original, with much longer explications.  Each piece is written by a different member of the Times editorial board.

1.) Build housing.

They should start with housing.

Americans spend more money on housing than on anything else, and prices keep rising because in many cities, housing is hard to find. In recent decades, the nation hasn’t built nearly enough to keep pace with population growth. . .

2.) Lower Prices. Now. 

People are clearly angry that housing, gasoline, health care, transportation and food have become painfully expensive. What Congress should do is straightforward: quickly pass an Affordability Act, dare the president to veto it, and if he does, invite Republicans to make it veto-proof. If it becomes law, so much the better; if not, it becomes the blueprint for a Democratic administration that can finish the job.

3.) Stop giving OpenAI and Anthropic a Free Pass. 

Artificial intelligence companies should be held liable for their models’ actions. If a bot hacks a website or misbehaves, the company should face consequences. If a chatbot encourages a person to commit suicide or defames someone, Congress should ensure that there are appropriate criminal and civil penalties.

Congress should simultaneously scale back Section 230 immunity — which protects online platforms from significant liability — for social media companies. . .

4.) Pass Medicare for All, but for Kids. 

Democrats could finally be in a position to forge a real, substantive consensus on health care. Undoing the damage from Mr. Trump’s Medicaid cuts is a good start, but it isn’t enough. What’s needed is universal health care coverage for children.

Four million American children are uninsured. An estimated three million more are expected to lose insurance over the next decade because of Republicans’ Medicaid cuts taking effect in 2027. And although health care costs consistently rank among the top concerns for American voters, Congress has offered them no meaningful relief since the Affordable Care Act.

5.) Expand the Supreme Court. 

The Supreme Court is broken. It has become overtly partisan and has lost touch with the country’s politics. It has used its shadow docket to issue consequential orders without explanation. The justices have no enforceable code of ethics, and reports have emerged of some members taking large gifts from political donors or people who could have business before the court. The usual fixes offered — term limits and partisan court packing — would almost certainly get vetoed by Mr. Trump.

There’s an easier way Congress can address these problems: by uncapping the court’s size and providing for a new justice every two years, indefinitely.

6.) Stop Elon Musk from Making Political Contributions. 

On the stump and in ads, Democrats said they would make fighting corruption a priority. But what policies will they propose? Here’s one that would bite: a real, tough ban on political spending by federal government contractors, such as Elon Musk.

Today the federal government pays private companies $1 trillion annually, nearly half of all discretionary spending. When this much money is at stake, pay-to-play political spending can grossly distort public spending.

A ban on campaign contributions by federal contractors is already on the books, but it’s riddled with loopholes. A new statute should ban companies with federal contracts — as well as their top executives, shareholders, subsidiaries and other corporate affiliates — from giving campaign donations, as well as gifts to inauguration committees and presidential libraries.

7.) End the Iran War.

Almost $50 billion spent. Thousands of lives lost. The Iran war has been a strategic failure. It’s time to end it. For nearly a year, the Republican majority in Congress has ceded its constitutional role in declaring war and controlling the budget to President Trump. That must change after Democrats wrest control of the House and Senate.

A new majority should withhold spending until the White House provides answers about the administration’s militarism around the world, particularly the illegal and unwinnable war with Iran.

8.) Legalize Undocumented Immigrants. 

There are plenty of ways for Democrats to go about this. They could legalize some or all of the unauthorized immigrants currently in the United States — as in the “amnesties” of the past. They could give anyone who has had authorized status or held a work permit for a certain number of years a way to apply for a green card. They could update the “registry date”: a provision that allows anyone who has been in the United States since a certain date to simply register for permanent status.

The point is to make immigration law match the way so many Americans — the millions who’ve never had to experience it firsthand — think it already works.

Some of these are fine, while for me two are contentious (expanding the Court and apparently legalizing all undocumented immigrants), and I don’t agree that the war should be ended without at least one more try—with a new strategy (I’m told the regime is weaker than the MSM reports, though I don’t of course have the inside dope).  The NYT sensibly says that Trump won’t favor any of these, of course, but argues that it lays out a pathway for Democrats and underscores where people need to be educated.

*Today is the day that antisemites in Philadelphia plan bike demonstration in Rittenhouse Square (the “Boycott Ride”) targeting six Jewish-owned businesses in and demanding that “these Zionist establishements must go”, i.e., close or leave the city (h/t Ginger K). The businesses are Mac Mart, Huda (Huda Burger), Schlesinger’s (Schlesinger’s Deli), Goldie, K’Far Cafe, and Dizengoff.

As news spread this week that a planned Sunday “Boycott Ride” bike rally aimed at driving Jewish businesses out of Philadelphia, myriad officials and civic leaders – from Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker to the state restaurant association – responded with statements condemning the event and urging solidarity with the embattled Jewish business community.

The Rittenhouse Square rally – publicized in flyers emblazoned with antisemitic slogans like “No business for Zionists! These Zionist establishments must go! Not in our city!” – was apparently organized by Philly Bike On Your Left, an activist group that has since taken down its Instagram page promoting the rally, which declared that the event would “show these zio business owners that we see them for the disgusting humans they are.” The group did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Michael Balaban, president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, said the planned action is “antisemitism, plain and simple. I don’t see anyone lining up in front of an Iranian restaurant or to protest Russian-owned businesses, to name other conflicts across the globe … It is Jew hatred, and they can disguise it any way they want as politics, but it’s not.”

“As an American, I respect the First Amendment – and if you have an issue with the government, go protest at an embassy, a consulate, but don’t target a Jewish-owned business or an Israeli-owned business,” he added.

. . . And the event’s date, Nov. 8, is the eve of the anniversary of Kristallnacht – a vast, state-sponsored pogrom that destroyed thousands of Jewish businesses, homes and synagogues across Nazi Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland (part of modern-day Czechia) on Nov. 9-10, 1938, and seized and deported 30,000 Jews to concentration camps.

The heartening thing is that the Governor, the state’s Attorney General, the Mayor, the city District Attorney (see tweets below) and the head of the City Council have all expressed concern about this and its antisemitic overtones, and, while peaceful protests are legal, the level of hatred is scary. I tried to find out if the establishments are Zionists, and the best I can do is that the owners of three of them have given financial or moral support to Israel, and two others have said they “support’ Israel, while MacMart’s owner has said nothing about Israel at all.  Even support for Israel is not Zionism, of course, which I see as “recognizing the right of the State of Israel to exist,” which is slightly different.  But we shouldn’t be parsing Zionism from Judaism, because “Zionist” (or “Zio”) is clearly a euphemism for “Jew”. The example of Mac Mart, which sells macaronis and cheese, makes this clear.  Most Jews support the right of Israel to exist (as the UN did when it approved of the state), and although there are some errant Jews who don’t think Israel should exist, we can for all practical purposes take “anti-Zionist” to me “Jew hater.”

Here’s the Mayor of Philadelphia’s statement on the boycott. Cops will be watching closely, and Jewish lawyers will be out in force to document anything unseemly that happens. I hope the people of Philadelphia pack these restaurants today!

*The UPI’s “Odd News” site reports an amazing feat: a runner ran a mile in four segments and solved a Rubik’s cube in short breaks between laps. His total time was just over five minutes!

A British runner combined his skills at sprinting and puzzle solving to finish four Rubik’s cubes while running a mile in just over 5 minutes.

George Scholey made his attempt Oct. 12 and earned the Guinness World Record for the fastest time to complete a puzzle cube mile when he completed four cubes and his run with a time of 5 minutes and 9.25 seconds.

Scholey previously earned titles including the most rotating puzzle cubes solved on a skateboard, 500;

the most rotating puzzle cubes solved in 24 hours, 6,931; and the most rotating puzzle cubes solved while running a marathon, 520.

The marathon record has since been broken by Spanish runner Toti Moragas Pardell, who finished 561 cubes during his run.

Scholey’s latest record required him to solve a cube, run one lap on a track, and repeat until he reached four cubes and a full mile.

Here: watch the whole thing for yourself:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili rests beneath a pear tree.

*******************

From Meow Incorporated:

From Things With Faces:

From Terrible Maps, with each country’s equivalent of the phrase (“when pigs fly”, meaning “it’ll never happen”):

Masih is quiet today.  We’ll begin with a tweet in the spirit of Masih found by Luana:

I was usually the ONLY WOMAN in my convoy in Afghanistan. Not only was I a military police team leader, I was the one who searched the Afghan women.

Those women told me things their husbands never would. They also told me things they wouldn’t tell their husbands. They let me hold their babies and talk to their kids. These women had NO voice in that country. No rights. They were men’s property.

40 months in a Muslim country taught me this: Sharia doesn’t “coexist.” It TAKES. And here in the USA, it will take from women FIRST.

Ladies, it starts with your voice. DO NOT hand it over. It wasn’t very long ago at all that we fought for and WON our freedom here in America. We owe it to our daughters not to go backwards. 🇺🇸🪖

— Connie Lee (@RealConnieLee) November 5, 2026

A tweet from Malcolm. Do be aware that many bee species are endangered, and of how important bees are!

While grocery store shelves remain stocked with honey, the broader reality is that global bee populations are in severe distress. Official endangered designations for several critical bee species have marked a pivotal turning point for global biodiversity, threatening both natural ecosystems and international food security.

It is important to note that while not every single bee species faces imminent extinction, numerous primary pollinators have officially been added to environmental protection lists. These vulnerable insects range from the rusty patched bumblebee in North America to various wild honeybee species across Europe. Decades of unmitigated habitat destruction, widespread pesticide overuse, climate disruptions, and devastating disease outbreaks have combined to drive catastrophic population crashes among these native species. By issuing these historic listings, conservation agencies are establishing crucial legal protections that unlock essential government funding, drive massive habitat restoration initiatives, and enforce stricter regulations on harmful agricultural practices.

The stakes of this environmental crisis could not be higher for human survival and global economic stability. Pollinators play an indispensable role in global agriculture, contributing hundreds of billions of dollars to crop production every single year.

In terms of daily consumption, bees are directly responsible for pollinating roughly one out of every three bites of food that humans eat, including a vast majority of essential fruits, nuts, and vegetables. Because of this profound impact, conservationists emphasize that safeguarding endangered bees is no longer just an environmental aspiration. Instead, protecting these insects has become an urgent, non-negotiable priority to preserve global food security and maintain resilient natural ecosystems nationwide.

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) October 22, 2026

Olivia Reingold at the Free Press has been covering Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign. Here she reports that the “Americans are losing good things because of Israel” trope that was in the campaign ad made by Cenk Uygur is in fact El-Sayed’s own belief.

Thanks for all the feedback on my last tweet—here is my reply: last night Abdul El-Sayed doubled down on the claims that got him in hot water last week, mainly the idea that rising costs in America are because of US funding of “genocide,” as he put it last night.

He made versions of this claim not once but 3 times.

— Olivia Reingold (@Olivia_Reingold) November 3, 2026

One from my feed: the Philly DA speaks about tonight’s boycott:

Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner releases a statement about the upcoming boycott of Jewish businesses in Philly this weekend. https://t.co/yjBAByGfsc

— Incidental 41 (@Incidental41__) November 7, 2026

From Simon; a tweet with a link to the Babylon Bee piece.

After Seeing Election Results, Trump Announces Retaliatory Tariffs On Americahttps://babylonbee.com/news/after-seeing-election-results-trump-announces-retaliatory-tariffs-on-america/?utm_source=fediverse

— The Babylon Bee (@babylonbee.gameliberty.club.ap.brid.gy) 2026-11-05T18:01:25.000Z

One from my feed. The English translation from the Polish is this:

A wild experiment going around the internet: you upload a picture like this to your AI model and give it this command: “Fill this room with what you know about me” I have to admit, my result surprised me. I mean, I’ve always known they collect information about us… but knowing it is one thing, and seeing it in a picture like this is another. It kind of sends chills down your spine 😉

Mocny ekesperyment lata po necie:, wrzucasz do swojego modelu AI taki obrazek i komendę: „Wypełnij ten pokój tym, co o mnie wiesz”

Przyznam, że mój wynik mnie zaskoczył, to znaczy zawsze byłem świadomy, że oni zbierają informacje o nas… ale co innego być świadomym a co innego zobaczyć to na takim obrazku, trochę mrozi krew w żyłach 😉

— Jakub Szymczuk (@jakub_szymczuk) November 7, 2026

And the result from ChatGPT, with its caption. I don’t know what Peezus is doing there!  And there’s no Hili!

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This Dutch Jewish boy and his sister were gassed as soon as they arrived in Auchwitz (note the stars). He was eight years old and would be 92 today had he lived.

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) November 8, 2026

. . . and one from Dr. Cobb. Look at that photo!

This is a radio telescope image of a protoplanetary system.In other words, this is an image—a real image—of a solar system forming.

— Paul Byrne (@theplanetaryguy.com) 2026-11-06T23:52:08.548Z

Music:

by Linda Rondstadt x

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_O%27Day

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylark_(song)

“Skylark” is an American popular song with lyrics by Johnny Mercer and music by Hoagy Carmichael, published in 1941.^[1] The lilting melody has attracted many jazz interpretations for its technical complexity which, when mastered, delivers an expressive peacefulness. Mercer wrote the romantic lyrics following his affair with Judy Garland.^[2]

x

Welcome to Friday, November 6, 2026 and National Nachos Day. It’s time once again to learn where that name came from:

Nachos originated in the city of Piedras Negras, Coahuila, across the Mexco-U.S. border from Eagle Pass, Texas.  In 1943, Ignacio Anaya was a maître d’ at a restaurant called the Victory Club, when a group of women whose husbands were officers stationed at the nearby U.S. Army base Fort Duncan, traveled across the border to eat there.  Seeking to serve food to them quickly, but unable to find the cook, he cut fried tortillas into triangles, added shredded Colby cheese and sliced pickled jalapeño peppers  and heated them. When asked what the dish was called, Anaya responded, “Well, I guess we can just call them Nacho’s Special”; Nacho is a common nickname for Ignacio.

Here is Ignacio Anaya, the man who will forever fuel televised football games:

And an elaborate version, labeled on Wikipedia as “Nachos with chicken, with salsa and jalapenos on the side”.  I’d deep-six the cilantro and replace the chicken with ground beef. (or no meat at all):

It’s also Fountain Pen Day,

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the November 6 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Although Trump (and Vance) blame the Republican’s huge midterm losses on the war with Iran, the AP reports that, as James Carville wrote on the wall at Clinton campaign headquarters in 1992, “It’s the economy, stupid.” And so it appears to be. (Of course many voters see the Iran war, or the war between Israel and Hamas, as responsible for higher prices.)

President Donald Trump was publicly humbled by inflation in the midterm elections, as rising prices provoked a blistering set of losses for Republicans in House, Senate and gubernatorial races.

Most voters said that Trump’s own policies had smothered growth and driven costs even higher, according to The AP Voter Poll, a survey of roughly 100,000 midterm voters. The president’s message that the fault lay with his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, didn’t land. Americans saw prices start to climb with Trump’s chaotic rash of tariffs last year, and energy costs spiked after he launched a war with Iran in February.

About two-thirds of voters said Trump’s own policies had fueled inflation. By contrast, only about half of 2022 midterm voters said this about Biden’s policies, according to AP VoteCast.

Voters in states from California to Mississippi were broadly in agreement that Trump’s taxes on foreign imports have done more harm than good.

The election results matched what voters had been telling pollsters for months, but Trump had campaigned with a decidedly deaf ear.

“I’ve done a great job,” Trump said at one of his final midterm rallies in Iowa. “Prices are coming way down.”

LOL. He knows that ain’t gonna happen.  More:

Democratic victories in Tuesday’s midterms signaled that most voters don’t believe the economy or Trump is working for them.

Consumer prices are up 3.7% over the past 12 months, compared to an inflation rate of 3% when Trump began his second term. The president told reporters on Wednesday that the Iran war “drove the gasoline up a little bit short-term,” but he felt the choice to fight Iran was worth it because of its push for nuclear weapons. “If I had to do it again, I’d have to do it again,” he said.

There is no guarantee that a House and Senate with a Democratic majority can fix an economy pestered by uncomfortably high inflation. Trump and Congress would likely need to work on a bipartisan basis, or simply keep the economy stable enough to allow the Federal Reserve to ratchet down inflation through its setting of interest rates.

Reread that last paragraph. Democrats have limited power so long as Trump is President, and we’re not sure who will be elected President in 2028. Here’s the breakdown from the AP by party affiliation.

*I am not politically savvy enough to know how Trump’s actions can be limited after January, when the new Democratic-majority Congress is seated. He has the veto, and can issue executive orders, but the specter of impeachment (see below) looms over his administration. The WSJ discusses these issues in a piece about “Trump’s tough new reality.”

If Trump wants to accomplish anything durable going forward, he will have to accept limits to his authority and compromise—things he’s shown little interest in doing during his political career.

Republicans who have long aligned themselves with him—including those in his administration with future political aspirations—will face enormous pressure to create more distance from him following a historic bipartisan rebuke from voters. Trump’s longtime advisers expect the backbiting and interpersonal squabbles that defined much of his first term in office could come roaring back.

Meanwhile, Trump faces two years of investigations from the newly ascendant Democrats. And while he’s said he is prepared to work with the opposing party, reaching compromise in an increasingly toxic political environment will be challenging.

. . .He will soon be reckoning with fallout from the election. The newly empowered Democratic caucus on Capitol Hill has promised investigations into the president, his family and his allies that could poison any hopes for cross-party collaboration.

“The next two years for him I think are going to be two of the most difficult years of his life,” said former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican who ran against Trump in the 2016 and 2024 presidential contests and briefly worked for him in the run-up to his first term.

But Trump and his advisers say the president still has the power of the federal government at his disposal—and won’t be afraid to use it. On Wednesday morning, the official White House X account posted an image of Trump looking defiant in the Oval Office with the caption: “PSA: TRUMP IS STILL YOUR PRESIDENT.”

Advisers are already drawing up plans to aggressively flex his executive authority, according to administration officials, and Trump has said he’s ready to veto legislation he opposes.

“Whatever the midterm results, President Trump remains the most powerful force in American politics,” said Danielle Alvarez, a White House spokeswoman.

He is also trying to leave a mark on Washington, increasingly conscious of how he’ll be remembered after he’s gone.

It’s that last line that worries me, for I don’t think Trump has any inkling of what people will remember. The article mentions, as do others, that personnel changes may be in order, including “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride!

*What is the likely agenda of the Democrats after January? The WP notes that the party’s aims (beyond investigating corruption in the present administration) are vague, but gives a few hints.

But Democrats also argue they cannot — and will not — only be the anti-Trump party when they take control of both chambers in January with majorities larger and more ideologically diverse than anticipated. They have repeatedly stated they must materially improve the lives of voters or risk quickly losing Congress again.

“The American people have chosen House Democrats because they want to see a dramatic change in direction,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York), who is likely to become the nation’s first Black speaker, said Wednesday at a news conference with his leadership team. “That’s exactly what House Democrats will deliver.”

The party’s policy agenda remains vague. Though Democrats pledged on the campaign trail to tackle affordability, they have been light on legislative specifics, floating broad plans to reverse Trump’s cuts to health care funding, roll back his sweeping tariff regime and block his ability to wage war in Iran.

*The NYT has an article called, “On the Democrats’ agenda: Investigations of Trump and his family” (article archived here). It looks as if the Dems are getting ready for revengs.

*More on impeachment from the WaPo:

But Democrats sounded cool toward [a plan to impeach Trump] in the midterm campaign of 2018, too. (“For those who want impeachment . . . that’s not what our caucus is about,” said California Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi.) They got over it. A little more than a year after those elections, a Democratic-controlled House voted to impeach Trump a first time. They may get over it again, as both the facts and political convenience lead them to impeach first the president’s subordinates, such as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and then the boss himself.

The Constitution gives Congress wide latitude over the matter. It has the power to impeach officials, including the president, when it judges them guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” What those are is a matter of debate. The Founders rejected the idea that running the executive branch badly was enough reason to remove a president. But James Madison suggested that abuses of power could be impeachable even when they don’t violate any federal statute. Such transgressions featured in each of the four presidential impeachments that have passed the House in U.S. history.

Because Congress has a broad power to exercise its judgment, and because Trump habitually disregards legal and moral constraints on his conduct, Democrats will have plenty of possible bases from which to launch an inquiry. Corruption, systematic misuse of the pardon power and launching a war without congressional authorization are all good candidates. Most voters aren’t eager for impeachment, according to a Wall Street Journal poll, but another survey from Politico found that 80 percent of Democratic voters would support it. A majority of all voters think Trump has committed impeachable offenses.

Democratic voters, happy to have won the midterms, will give their new representatives some leeway. But fast-forward a few months. If Trump decides to maintain his tariffs, continue the war in Iran or return to confrontational immigration enforcement, there’s no guarantee the Democratic Congress will be able to stop him. Given that so many pols spent their campaigns promising to “fight Trump,” how would they explain inaction on impeachment to voters? Such a posture would doubtless create an opportunity for Democratic presidential candidates to rebuke the Democratic Congress for cowardice.

I am not gung-ho about impeachment, but I am not dead set against it either. Remember, impeachment is just the charges themselves, brought by a majority vote of the House of Representatives, which the Democrats have. The trial itself takes place in the Senate, which needs a 2/3 vote to effect a conviction.  Three Presidents have been impeached (Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Trump [twice]) but none successfully. Nixon undoubtedly would have been convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors, but he resigned before a trial could take place.

*******************

From Give Me a Sign:

From Meow Incorporated:

From The Babylon Bee courtesy of reader Anna: Republican strategies to win the midterms (too late!):

From Masih, who got another well-deserved award. She’s dedicating it to Iranian women’s rights activist Mojgan Keshavarz, still in prison for her “crimes” though she was granted a five-day bailout in October.

Honored to receive the 2026 Wiesenthal Award of Valor in Toronto.

I dedicate it to my hero, @mozhgankshavarz, who was arrested, beaten, sexually assaulted, and subjected to mock execution for sending me videos of herself protesting against compulsory hijab.

This photo is a middle finger to the torturers of the Islamic Republic.

Last night, I stood beside her in front of more than 1,700 people. She received flowers instead of blows. Applause instead of threats.

To her torturers: Look at her now.

You wanted to make her an example of what happens to women who resist. Instead, she became a symbol of courage, and you became symbols of cruelty and cowardice.

I will proudly share every international stage I have with women like Mozhgan.

Dictators fear women standing together. That’s why we must never let go of each other’s hands.

Woman. Life. Freedom. ✌️❤️

— Masih Alinejad (@AlinejadMasih) November 5, 2026

The Number Ten Cat continues to denigrate Trump, as he has for years:

Trump pictured with all the Republicans he helped get elected in the midterms:

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) November 4, 2026

From Richard Dawkins via Luana. I didn’t know of this law, but you can find the Torygraph article archived here.

A new law that risks criminalising parents who question whether their children are trans must be scrapped, MPs, peers and experts have demanded.
‘Gender’, as opposed to sex, is an anti-scientific myth. If a child with a penis announces that he is really a girl, parents and teachers have a positive duty to educate him in the scientific truth that he is a boy.
Of course no parent should use physical or psychological abuse for any reason. But if anyone should be prosecuted it is those who abuse their duty of care by encouraging children in the anti-scientific delusion that they can choose their own sex.
https://t.co/ZVpDwMsmcH

— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) November 3, 2026

From Malcolm; cat vs. d*g:

A video analysis of the difference between dog joining cat and cat joining the dog. https://t.co/lwnKdfHSrh

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) October 22, 2026

Steam train! Translation from the French: “Turn up the sound; it’s magnificent!”

Mettez le son, c’est magnifique ! https://t.co/ssLNwsdGey

— Manon 🇨🇵 🕊 (@manonbymanon_) November 4, 2026

One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:

This Hungarian Jewih girl was gassed to death as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz. She was one year old and would be 84 today had she lived.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2026-11-06T11:13:27.263Z

And two from Herr Doktor Professor Cobb.  First, a cat:

There's a YouTube channel called 'Ferrovia de Jardim' ("backyard railroad") owned by two model train enthusiasts, Daniel & Chico, in Barbacena, Brazil.They also have a cat named Titinho ("little uncle"?) who shares the space with occasionally hilarious results.😺🚂(www.youtube.com/@ferroviadej…)

— c0nc0rdance (@c0nc0rdance.bsky.social) 2026-11-04T23:57:45.144Z

Bob Dylan and the Pope! But why is Dylan dressed like that?

The Great Lakes region contains multitudes, but these are two of its types of guy.

— Fuzzy Dunlop (@angrybingo.bsky.social) 2026-11-04T18:05:55.579Z

And since it’s Dylan, I’ll post one of my favorites, recorded and released in 1965.  Al Kooper is in the organ and Mike Bloomfield on guitar.