Welcome to Tuesday, not the Cruelest Day this week because in America this “work week” has only four days.  It is September 8, 2026 and it’s National Ants on a Log Day. What is that? This “healthy snack” comes from my childhood, and consists of peanut butter spread on a celery stick and dotted with raisins. Wikipedia, which has an article on this comestible, says there are variants:

Ants on a log is a North American snack made by spreading peanut butter, cream cheese, ricotta cheese, or another spread on celery, pretzels or bananas and placing raisins, blueberries, or chocolate chips, etc. on top. The snack and its name are presumed to originate in the 1950s.  The classic peanut butter version of ants on a log is recommended as a healthy snack by the McKinley Health Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

. . .There are numerous variations of ants on a log, including:

• Gnats on a log: currants
• Ants on vacation: without “ants” (raisins)
• Ants on a Slip ‘n Slide: add honey on top of the peanut butter before adding raisins
• Ants on a canoe: substitute apple slices for traditional celery
• Pigs in a pen: substitute pimento cheese for peanut butter and replace “ants” (raisins) with bacon bits (pigs)
• Ants on a ranch: substitute ranch dressing for peanut butter and peas for raisins
• Fish on a stream: Hummus spread on a celery stalk and topped with Goldfish crackers

The “classic” version, not to be mistaken for the much tastier Chinese dish called “ants climbing a tree.”

It’s also International Literacy Day, National Ampersand Day (&), National Date Nut Bread Day, National Actors Day, and National Pledge of Allegiance Day (“The day takes place on September 8, marking the anniversary of the day the Pledge first appeared, in 1892, in The Youth’s Companion).”

To celebrate actors day, here are two of them in a great scene from the 1954 movie “On the Waterfront“: Marlon Brando (perhaps the greatest actor of our time) and Eva Marie Saint.  Saint is still alive at 102; it’s hard to believe that someone who acted with Brando in that movie is still with us. She won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, and Brando won for Best Actor. The film is seen as having popularized method acting—acting in which an actor’s life experiences and personal emotions are used to inform the role.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the September 1 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*A far-right German political party, the Alternative For Germany (AfD), trounced its rival in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, but in the German system that may not give it the power to govern. This victory, according to another NYT, may be a bellwether for far-right victories in other European countries.

The Alternative for Germany party dominated a crucial state election on Sunday, according to near-final results, but fell short of the absolute majority needed to become the first far-right party to govern part of the country since the Nazi era.

If those results hold, the AfD, as the party is known by its German initials, could still assume power in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt in the coming weeks, depending on the negotiations among rival parties that have vowed not to support an AfD government.

Saxony-Anhalt is a relatively small state, and the heart of the AfD’s power base in eastern Germany. But the election result sent shock waves through the country’s political system, which was designed after World War II to prevent extremist parties from ever returning to power.

“The AfD’s electoral victory in Saxony-Anhalt is less a reflection of the appeal of its political agenda than a stark demonstration of the political establishment’s failure to articulate a convincing vision for the state’s economic, political and social future,” said Jana Puglierin, the head of the Berlin branch of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

The political establishment has treated the AfD as a pariah. Still, the party tapped into voter frustration on a wide range of economic and social issues to win about 44 percent of the vote in the state, and was set to claim 39 of the 83 seats in the Parliament.

Remember that this was a small state (population about 2 million) and was absorbed into East Germany; it was re-constituted when Germany was unified. From the second link:

Rarely has the result of a regional election been viewed with such portent for the fate of democracy in Europe.

This wasn’t just any European country; it was Germany, a country that has relentlessly isolated far-right political parties since the calamity of Nazism. And it wasn’t just a strange outlier, but rather the latest step in a steady, decade-long march that has brought the far right ever closer to the fulcrum of power in Europe.

With elections scheduled across Europe next year, the striking success of the party, Alternative for Germany, could be a harbinger of further far-right victories, according to analysts, as well as a template for how they can be engineered. Its populist, anti-immigrant message echoes those of nationalist leaders in Britain, France, Italy and Spain, all countries where voters harbor many of the same grievances as those in Germany.

From the WSJ:

Germany’s Alternative for Germany scored a historic victory at a regional election on Sunday but was just short of the majority needed to form the country’s first far-right government since World War II, according to preliminary results.

The result will present other parties on the right and the left with a stark choice: continue banding together to keep the AfD out of power despite deep political differences—a decades-old strategy known as the firewall—or let the AfD form a minority government for the first time.

*Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal sees the Gaza situation over the last 7 months as one that “has been maintained by an unstoppable force colliding with an immovable object—the former being Israel’s determination not to give an inch of ground, the latter, Hamas’s refusal to disarm.” According to an unnamed source on the Trump-mandated Board of Peace, Israel now has four options:

The first is to keep the current policy, which “could lead to another October 7”: attacking Hamas but never fully destroying it, with Hamas still in control of the Gazan population, still fully armed, and with more terrorists than it had before the war began. I would quibble with the prediction of another October 7, but the reputational and alliance costs he didn’t explicitly mention are considerable.

The second option is to hand Gaza over to the PA. This is the preferred option of most of the Arab states and the UN, which is itself enough to disqualify it. I would count this as the most likely to lead to another October 7.

The third, according to them, is for Israel to conquer and control all of Gaza, assuming responsibility for 2 million Gazans with no international support and likely copious amounts of international hostility. The IDF would have to draft tens of thousands of reservists to take Gaza and even more to maintain their hold on the Strip. This we can agree is unviable.

The fourth and “only viable option,” they claim, is to cooperate with the Board of Peace and abide by the 20-point peace plan. It’s a “win-win for Israel,” they insist. Israel keeps the Yellow Line and does not withdraw. If Hamas fully disarms, the BoP and National Committee for the Administration of Gaza take control of Gaza, headed by President Trump. Israel withdraws fully only after Hamas is removed from governing and stripped of all its military capabilities. If Hamas does not fully disarm, then Israel has a green light to destroy it, while the BoP takes care of the population in areas outside Hamas control. No isolation for Israel, no bill for occupation.

. . .Yet for all my criticism of his framing, I don’t disagree. Israel needs to entertain the process and put the pressure back on Hamas to start moving on disarmament. Despite what newly minted Israel critics may claim, the country never had the luxury of unconditional support or a blank check. Uncompromising stubbornness comes at an incredibly high price, but Israel can reduce the bill with the occasional cooperation. It’s called give and take.

My take: see how many Kalashnikovs the BoP can collect, how many Hamas members they include in their police force, and proceed accordingly. Regardless, ensure Israel isn’t the one to blame if the process collapses. But as Kushner accurately diagnoses, none of this will happen before elections.

Segal, like me and “The Source,” sees option 4 as the best by far. This is not a “two state solution” but it’s the best that can be done right now.  Segal doesn’t think Trump gives a hoot what happens in Gaza, but Israel does! I cannot believe that, after all this, Hamas will disarm.

*Iran has widened the “exclusion zone” within which ships near the Strait of Hormuz are liable to Iranian attack.

The new head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council on Sunday said Tehran plans to announce an “exclusion zone” outside the Strait of Hormuz aimed at vessels it believes are attempting to transit the waterway.

Mohsen Rezaei’s comments to Iran’s state broadcaster came with few details, a day after the U.S. struck three Iranian oil tankers in response to Tehran launching ballistic missiles at U.S. warships. Experts called the launches a dangerous escalation after Iran’s previous attacks at sea targeted commercial shipping.

The new zone should be announced in the coming days and weeks and “will begin from the line of the U.S. naval blockade, extend toward the Strait of Hormuz, and from this side continue into the Persian Gulf,” Rezaei said. “Any ship that enters this area with the intention of passing through the Strait of Hormuz and is identified will be placed on our sanctions list.”

It is not clear where Iran defines the location of the weekslong U.S. blockade, which is aimed at Iranian ports and keeping Tehran from shipping out its oil. The U.S. military has said over 20 warships are supporting the blockade, which as of Sunday had redirected 92 commercial ships and disabled three.

The U.S. has been introducing new measures to increase the economic pain on Iran after negotiations collapsed and no end to the intermittent fighting appears in sight. Meanwhile, Iran continues to attack some ships trying to transit the strait, which has become an important source of leverage for Tehran in the war that began Feb. 28 with U.S. and Israeli strikes.

I wonder what the Iranian “sanctions list for ships” consists of.

*Mayor Zohran Mamdani promised free universal childcare were he elected, and there’s a small program for poor families with young kids. But as for the “universal part,” the WaPo reports that, based on New Mexico’s experience, it’s probably impossible.

A year after New Mexico launched free child care for all families, Dakota Rivera still can’t find a place to send her kids.

The mom of two was ecstatic when the state’s Democratic governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, announced last September that New Mexico would expand its day care assistance program to any family who wanted it.

But Rivera lives in a city with an acute shortage of child care centers. She still spends her days piecing together care with help from family members, canvassing social media and searching for babysitters.

She’s on 10 different waiting lists.

“I think the systems that they put in are great, sure, but it’s just not there yet,” Rivera said, as she triedto answer work emails while holding her 8-month-old daughter, who was cooing and waving a plastic giraffe. “In five years, maybe. For parents trying to do it now, it’s impossible.”

When Lujan Grisham first announced the programin a state with a majority-female legislature, it was widely praised as a historic step to address an issue that consumes the lives of parents everywhere — and their incomes. Costs for caring for an infant can often exceed a year’s rent, according tothe U.S. Department of Labor.

But the groundbreaking program, in part funded by the state’s sizable oil and gas revenue, has had a rocky debut.

The number of children who have enrolled has skyrocketed, far outpacing the capacity of day care centers in the state. Lujan Grisham has had to grapple with legal challenges, including a whistleblower case from the program’s chief financial officer, who says she was fired after flagging an $83 million budget deficit.

Critics have raised concerns that annual costs could balloon to more than $800 million — nearly $400 million more than when the program debuted. State legislative analysts have also found that newly eligible, higher-income families may be squeezing out some of the lowest-income recipients. The state’s GOP leaders dubbed the program“Nannies for Millionaires.”

The stakes could not be higher as more Americans say raising children is too expensive and as political leaders look to New Mexico as they try to address overwhelming child care needs. Vermont and Connecticut already have smaller-scale programs, and New York MayorZohran Mamdani (D) is rolling out free day care for thousands ofthe city’s 2-year-olds — a move that has also had a bumpy start.

When I asked Grok why the program had a rocky start, it told me this:

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s free 2-K program for 2-year-olds—the first phase of his campaign promise of universal childcare—has faced a rocky rollout because of delayed city payments and contract approvals that have left many daycare providers short of cash just days before the September 10, 2026 start date.

Providers report they have not received the usual August advance payments needed for furniture, supplies, teacher salaries, and utilities. Some have warned parents their sites may not open. City-offered interest-free bridge loans have also been slow to arrive, forcing operators to tap personal savings, 401(k)s, high-interest loans, or family members. One Bronx operator with four planned 2-K classes put it bluntly: the city created the program “but they didn’t set up the infrastructure to make it work.”

These delays are not new. New York’s early-childhood contracting system has struggled with late payments for more than a decade, beginning with the 2014 Universal Pre-K launch under Bill de Blasio. The problem worsened under Eric Adams after hundreds of staff—including instructional coordinators who worked directly with providers—were cut or reassigned. The Division of Early Childhood Education remains understaffed, and launching a new 2-K cohort on top of existing 3-K and pre-K programs added more contracts than the depleted office could process quickly.

Nobody believes that Mamdani will keep a majority (or any) of the pie-in-the-sky promises that got him elected. But neither do people care. He’s a socialist and hates Israel, and that is apparently what’s important to people.

*And the ever-reliable AP Odd News site reports a massive theft of Guinness Stout:

 British police have a stout task ahead: recovering 70,000 pints worth of stolen Guinness.

Two trailer truckloads of the famously creamy dark beer valued at 115,000 pounds ($155,000) were stolen from a depot near Liverpool in northwest England, the Cheshire Constabulary said Thursday.

“It is famously said that ‘Guinness is good for you,’ but that is only the case when it has been bought and paid for,” Det. Sgt. Gary McClatchy said. “We will settle for nothing less than the full recovery of all the items stolen.”

The Guinness had been destined for pubs, but was snatched Monday night by two drivers who pulled up to an industrial park in Runcorn and hauled away the trailers containing about 800 barrels of stout.

The value of the trailers was estimated at 50,000 pounds ($67,000).

The theft comes just weeks after a beer heist in the United States captured the public’s attention because of the brewer’s cheeky social media posts about the loss of roughly 34,000 cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

What I don’t understand is this: these are not cans or bottles of Guinness, but CASKS that were intended for pubs. So what is going to happened to the 800 barrels of purloined stout? You need a whole system (including a cool cellar) to tap these kegs, and there are hundreds of them.  It’s a very odd thing to steal!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the conversation is getting antiwoke:

Hili: And again, we’ve turned today into yesterday.
Andrzej: Please, don’t tell me that time is a social construct.

In Polish:

Hili: I znów zmieniliśmy dziś we wczoraj.
Ja: Proszę, nie mów, że czas to konstrukt społeczny.

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

From The Language Nerds:

From CinEmma:

From Terrible Maps:

From Masih; the fiancée of an executed protestor took her own life. Please remember these things when you think about Iran.

THEIR WEDDING WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THIS MONTH.

But Aida could not bear the pain of losing her fiancé to the regime’s bullets, and ultimately took her own life. 💔

Aida Heydari, 25, was engaged to Abolfazl Soleimani, a 27-year-old young man who was shot and killed by regime forces… pic.twitter.com/pqefuuF6up

— Masih Alinejad (@AlinejadMasih) September 7, 2026

From Luana. I don’t know what’s worse: people helping others to cheat who then lose their jobs, or people simply cheating. I suppose it’s the former.

Any way you want to look at this it’s insane:

“At its peak early this decade, at least 40,000 people in the city were being paid to do other people’s homework, researchers estimated” pic.twitter.com/10FvS3DEpu

— Thomas Chatterton Williams (@thomaschattwill) September 7, 2026

It looks like Milo Yiannopoulos has become Muslim. When he was gay (no longer, I think) he was violently opposed to Islam. Wikipedia says this:

Yiannopoulos is a frequent critic of Islam and has said the “fear of Islam is entirely rational”.^{[91][needs update]} He has blamed Islam, not just extremist groups and terrorists, for violence against women and homosexuals. Yiannopoulos said “I’m not talking about Islamists. I’m not talking about terrorists. I’m not talking about radical Islam. I’m talking about mainstream Muslim culture”.

The Prophet ﷺ said:

خيارُكم في الجاهليةِ ، خيارُكم في الإسلامِ إذا فقُهوا

“The best of you in the time of ignorance (Jāhiliyyah) are the best of you in Islam, if they gain understanding.”

— Sahih al-Bukhari 3383; Sahih Muslim 2378 pic.twitter.com/3aaSBugNt8

— MILO (@Nero) September 6, 2026

The Number Ten Cat looks as if he’s been ridden hard and put away wet:

My old pal @PoliticalPics caught me between naps https://t.co/PtfQj88cKX

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) September 7, 2026

One from my feed. Sound up to hear the otter’s squeals of joy:

Lola the baby otter tries fish for the first time

[📹 paulcuffaro] pic.twitter.com/45n60nu9ag

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) September 7, 2026

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

A Czech Jewish girl, here photographed at age 2, was gassed as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz ten years later. https://t.co/JJaFnNeXy4

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) September 8, 2026

Two from Doctor Cobb. Look at all those rays!

A circling school of Cownose Rays near the beach in Clearwater, Florida yesterday. Nature is Awesome! Notice the long trail of sediment being stirred up by the rays. Different marine life often leaves different tracks to follow just like land animals. #animals #wildlife #nature #florida #awesome

— See Through Canoe (@seethroughcanoe.bsky.social) 2026-09-07T13:59:16.175Z

Matthew took this photo himself, and I think I’ve been to this store!

Great antiques shop window in Edinburgh.

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-09-06T18:18:11.947Z

Welcome to Monday, September 7, 2026, and since it’s the first Monday in September, it’s Labor Day, an official government holiday.  Here’s a brief history of the one day a year dedicated to celebrating workers:

It’s also Grandma Moses Day, celebrating the painter born on this day in 1860 (she lived to be 101).  She started painting at age 77, older than I am now, and you can see some of her paintings here. It’s also National Acorn Squash Day, National Beer Lover’s Day (note that the apostrophe implies that the holiday celebrates only one lover of beer), and Salami Day.  Salami is of course an Eastern European treat, and, in the porkless form, beloved by Jews. Here’s a photo that was in the window of Katz’s Delicatessen in New York City in 2010 (it was clearly taken during WWII):

Finally, today’s Google Doodle celebrates Labor Day; click the icon to see where it goes:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the September 7 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*In a NYT op-ed, Margaret McMillan (“a historian and a former warden of St. Antony’s College, Oxford”) predicts a worldwide apocalypse, or perhaps even a world war, in a piece called “A new world order is coming. We aren’t ready” (article archived here).

Today, there are dead rats all around. Temperature records have been set and reset this summer, the earth has baked in droughts, and wildfires have raged. Debt across advanced economies is approaching historic highs. Cuts in medical and food aid, most significantly by the United States, have caused unnecessary deaths and helped the spread of diseases, one of which, sooner or later, could become another pandemic. Artificial intelligence continues its rapid, unregulated rise, threatening jobs, security and, in darker projections, human existence.

Revisionist powers flout rules and norms with impunity. Electorates are angry and volatile. Slow, deliberate, necessarily discreet diplomacy, which builds trust and understanding, has given way to a performative, brash style more suited for TikTok-addled attention spans or the playground.

The Uppsala Conflict Data Program recorded 65 state-based conflicts last year — the most since 1946. Great powers find themselves bogged down in asymmetric wars with countries that are making the most of new technologies. Russia’s war in Ukraine, meant to be won in a matter of days, is creaking through its fifth year. Iran, using inexpensive, mass-produced drones to attack American forces and allies, has gained control, perhaps permanently, over a crucial corridor of world trade, drastically reduced U.S. missile stocks and mired President Trump in a war of his own choice.

A world war is not inevitable, but the threat of a catastrophic conflict between big and well-armed powers is closer than it was for decades.

. . .But a new reality has arrived with startling speed. The world order that held together for most of our lives started to erode when those within it got too comfortable and complacent and when there was too much acceptance — even approval — of bad behavior.

We have arrived in a new age of disorder. We must prepare ourselves, beginning with being honest about the seriousness of the moment we’re in and accepting that our fragile system is faltering. That countries are already adjusting, for better and worse. And that any future of cooperation will have to look different.

McMillan ends on a hopeful note: perhaps we can rebuild something afresh, something that will not fail. Her example is what the Allies created after WWII.  Unfortunately, that lasted only 80 years.

*Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal gives us another dip on the roller-coaster ride of his Iran war coverage: this time he argues that although launches of drones and missiles from Iran have fallen substantially, they could in principle be replenished quickly:

By the tenth day of Operation Epic Fury, US officials assessed that Iranian drone launches had fallen 83 percent from their opening levels and ballistic missile launches by roughly 90 percent. But a recent report by the Hudson Institute’s Can Kasapoğlu argues that despite the seemingly optimistic numbers, Iranian drones and missiles can make a quick recovery.

His broader assessment is that attrition has hurt the IRGC badly without breaking it. Inventories are depleted and infrastructure damaged, but the order of battle, doctrine, discipline and cohesion have held. Despite the killing of much of the senior leadership in the first 24 hours of the war, the direct Mossad phone calls, and the apparent double agent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, there have been no senior defections and no organizational fragmentation. Precisely what is needed for an organization to rebuild.

Drones will come back first. The inputs are modular and substitutable, spread across universities, workshops, front companies and foreign vendors. Strikes can eliminate stockpiles, but so long as the knowledge and the suppliers survive, so will the drone threat. Kasapoğlu expects Iran to regain drone mass within months. They won’t be the highest quality, but it doesn’t take million-dollar drones to keep Gulf capitals up at night and the United States restrained.

Missiles will return more slowly, held up by a chemical chokepoint. Solid-propellant production depends on large planetary mixers and on sodium perchlorate from China. Rebuilding a bombed factory is the easy part. Restoring controlled chemical flows, specialized machinery and skilled production teams is not.

Whether that flow resumes depends less on Washington than on Beijing. China supplies the vast majority of Iran’s missile-fuel precursor and more than 60 percent of the electronics in the Shahed drone family, along with navigation modules, optics, batteries, machine tools and fibre-optic cable. Publicly, Beijing has assured Washington that no weapons will reach Iran; in practice, sanctioned Iranian ships have kept docking at Chinese ports.

None of this would matter much if not for one fact: US and Israeli interceptor stocks are stressed, and take far longer to replace than the cheap weapons fired at them.

Much of the mainstream media has hauled the battered Iranian boxer off the canvas, checked he’s still breathing, and declared him the winner for lasting a few rounds with the champion. It continues to insist, even as the effects of the blockade and sanctions have made it clear who has the upper hand.

My argument is simply not to swing from the doomerism of the past two months into triumphalism now. The lion may be trapped and starving, but it still has claws.

Well, does the U.S. have the upper hand? We haven’t stopped the Iranian nuclear weapons program for good, the Strait of Hormuz has a lot less traffic than before the war, and the Iranian people are still under the yoke. I call that something close to a standoff.

*Over at the Free Press, psychiatrist Sally Satel tells us what kind of verdict she thinks should have been handed down by the jury in the Lindsay Clancy case.

Clancy continues to be charged with three counts of first-degree murder. Her lawyer and the prosecutors will consider next steps while she remains in a mental-health facility.

Whatever comes next, the case is a reminder about the hazards of addressing mental illness challenges in the courtroom, the need for legal and psychiatric reforms, and the urgency of educating doctors as well as patients about psychosis in general and postpartum psychosis in particular. If Clancy is retried, here is why I hope the next jury will find her not criminally responsible.

. ., .The tragedy was the culmination of five months of anguish and help-seeking. Although Clancy said she initially felt well following Callan’s birth in May 2022, she saw a psychiatrist in late summer for help with depression, severe insomnia, and feelings of being overwhelmed by simple tasks like dressing or showering.Over time, she allegedly began having suicidal ideation and experiencing what have been variously described as “intrusive thoughts” and “auditory hallucinations” telling her that she was “damaged” and would “not be the same,” and that “the only option is to die.” In December 2022, she told her husband and mother that she had thoughts of harming her children and was worried that other people could hear those thoughts.

. . .Massachusetts uses the McHoul standard for insanity. It allows for a determination of “not criminally responsible” if a person with a mental disorder or defect (which every expert agreed Clancy had) lacks either the capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct or the capacity to conform her conduct to the requirements of the law. If the defendant presents evidence to support her lack of responsibility, the prosecutors bear the burden to prove her responsibility beyond a reasonable doubt. Some thought the prosecutors did not carry this burden; others thought they did.

I see particularly strong reasons to doubt Clancy’s capacity to conform her behavior to the demands of the law. After her husband left on the errand, she experienced an audible command to kill. She felt she had to “obey,” according to psychiatrist Phillip Resnick, an expert for the defense. Resnick also testified that Clancy suffered a “delusion of influence” (a formal term) just before and during the killing. “She felt that her body was taken over by an external force, where she was in a dream state and did not have control of her own body,” Resnick told the jury. “It was almost like she was a puppet and someone else was pulling the strings.” In short, this compulsion made it impossible for her to follow the law.

I could also make a case for solid skepticism that Clancy appreciated the wrongfulness of her conduct. This does not mean that she was ignorant of the law—she surely knew that murder was wrong and illegal. Rather, it means that she was acting on a deranged belief that her kids would suffer so greatly without her that they needed to die. Clancy genuinely believed, Resnick said, that she was protecting the children by taking them with her to heaven. Consistent with this formulation was Clancy saying to a hospital chaplain a week after the killings: “I am so glad my children are safe.”

In reaching these conclusions, I have accepted the truth of Clancy’s description of the voice she heard and her explanation of why she followed its command. I believe her account because absolutely nothing in her past foreshadowed her cataclysmic act.

Well, Clancy is responsible in the sense that she killed her kids, but to me that’s all a jury can decide, and it’s something that she already admitted. The second part of the justice system, which shouldn’t involve a judge or jury, is to determine how the accused is treated when convicted—treatment that can only be, in my view, for deterrence, sequestering a baddie from society, and for rehabilitation. Already there’s a parallel case in which a North Carolina woman did something pretty similar to Clancy, probably inspired by her (the woman was transfixed by the Clancy case). So yes, we may need deterrence. I can’t make a good case that Clancy remains a danger to society since she has no more children and is probably unlikely to attack strangers.  As for the cure, well, that’s the job of the therapists. If a woman’s mentally ill but no longer a danger to society, can she be locked up against her will?

*If you read here regularly, you’ll know that although formal affiliation with religion is dropping among Americans, many still claim they have a “god-shaped hole” in their soul that needs to be filled with some faux-religious activity. Now the Democratic Socialists of America are trying to fill that hole with social (and socialist) activity; this is reported in the WSJ article, “The DSA is using coffee with comrades and socialist softball to convert the curious” (nice alliteration!).  Sure enough, while I was thinking the above when reading the article, the word “church” appeared!

On a recent Saturday morning, a youngish group gathered around a table in the sun-dappled garden of a Brooklyn coffee shop. Beneath a bright blue sky they were sipping drinks, chatting—and building socialism.

The “Coffee With Comrades” was hosted by the Democratic Socialists of America. It was yet another in an endless buffet of social events the DSA uses both to attract new members and more closely bind existing ones to the movement.

*In the “Trilobites” biology column of the NYT, science writer Kate Golembiewski reports on insect fossils, noting that “The world’s first bugs had way more legs” (six is the standard number now). The article is archived here, and the Nature paper it summarizes is linked below (click the title to read).The word “bug” is unfortunate as Golemiewski really means “insects” (“true”bugs are insects in the order Hemiptera). This insect, from 324 million years ago, is identified as an insect because it shares “apomorphies” (derived traits common to all members of a group) with all insects, living or fossil; those traits are include “an ovipositor and a terminal filament but differ[ing] from crown-group insects, most notably with respect to the presence of multisegmented abdominal legs with paddle-like modifications.” The multisegmented legs and their position are not known in modern insects. An excerpt:

Erik Tihelka’s first glimpse of one of the world’s oldest insects came from an outdated Russian textbook that he bought on eBay.

In it, a small line drawing of a fossil, labeled as an early crustacean that had lived 324 million years ago, caught his eye. “The more I looked, the more intrigued I got,” said Mr. Tihelka, a doctoral student in paleontology at Cambridge.

For a fossil described as a crustacean, it seemed to have an awful lot of insectlike traits, such as a body split into three parts, a pair of antennae and six legs emerging from the central part of the body. Overall, it looked a lot like a modern silverfish.

But there was one big difference between this fossil and our current definition of an insect, which has six legs: This one had 24.

Today, insects make up more than half the known species of animals, but their early origins are shrouded in mystery. The many-legged fossil, unearthed in Texas and stored in the collections of the San Diego Natural History Museum since 1985, could represent a breakthrough. In a new study published in Nature, Mr. Tihelka and his colleagues propose that his discovery is one of the oldest insect fossils ever found, and that these early insects had four times the number of legs seen on a standard bug today.

Genetic analyses have shown that insects’ closest relatives are crustaceans, but they split off into their own group and moved onto land. Very little is known about this transition, because insects and their fellow six-legged arthropods are missing from the fossil record from roughly 385 to 322 million years ago. Paleontologists call this period the “hexapod gap.” But the insect-resembling fossil in Mr. Tihelka’s textbook was from 324 million years ago — just inside the gap.

Based on the illustration alone, he couldn’t be certain that he’d really spotted an early insect. “Although it’s a very nicely preserved fossil, it’s a black fossil on a black rock,” Mr. Tihelka said. “I had an inkling, but I thought, I have to make sure.”

. . .He took his first trip to the United States to examine the fossil in person. Using a microscope and specialized light polarization filters to highlight subtle features, he was able to confirm that the fossil had a combination of insect and crustacean traits. He hypothesized that the extra legs were “a holdover from its crustacean ancestors,” but the fossil was indeed an insect.

From the paper’s abstract:

Together, these stem-group fossils represent the earliest uncontested insects and partly reconcile the incongruence between molecular clock estimates and the fossil record. The unusual abdominal gill-like appendages of Chosha suggest a semiaquatic mode of life in at least some stem-insects and revise our understanding of the assembly of insect morphological organization.

Here’s a figure (with caption) from the paper, showing the 24-legged proto-insect (click to enlarge):

“Trilobite” gives this lesson: collections are important!

In addition to providing new insight into the history of life on Earth, Dr. Knecht said that the study highlights the importance of museum collections like the one where Chosha was kept for 40 years before being recognized as an insect. “It allows us to go back, revisit, and sometimes make big discoveries using new technologies or new insights that we didn’t have the first time we looked at the fossil,” Dr. Knecht said.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili isn’t ready for sleep:

Andrzej: It’s late already, time to go to bed.
Hili: Let’s read for another half an hour.

In Polish:

Ja: Późno już, pora iść spać.
Hili: Poczytajmy jeszcze pół godziny.

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

From Bad Spelling or Grammar on Signs and Notices; inappropriate apostrophes. The only possibly accurate one is “massage”:

From Meow Incorporated:

From the 2025 Darwin Awards!!!/Epic Fails!!!

From Masih; a sixteen-year-old girl beaten to death with batons by the Iranian police. Why? She was peacefully demonstrating, of course.

Let me introduce you to Sarina Esmailzadeh, another hero from my country, Iran.

She was 16 years old. And like so many teenage girls her age, she had a YouTube channel.

She filmed herself baking cookies. She vlogged about her life in Karaj. She talked about compulsory hijab,… pic.twitter.com/HPUHTBAMTB

— Masih Alinejad (@AlinejadMasih) August 31, 2026

From Malcolm; my dream (note that the tiger sounds like a buzzsaw):

A cat is a cat no matter the size pic.twitter.com/JdkFellG0D

— Posts Of Cats (@PostsOfCats) January 20, 2025

From Luana. People will believe anything, including that correlation proves causation. Also, maybe, over history, the rise of fascism is correlated with less food for both sexes.

Hollywood actress Hannah Einbinder blames “fascism” for women wanting to be slim.

“As we see a rise in fascism, there is a direct correlation with thinness to make women take up less space.” pic.twitter.com/0VTlRFqe2e

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) August 30, 2026

The Number Ten cat has a bit of hubris:

Magnifique! https://t.co/9Ng0bdldF7

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) September 3, 2026

One from my feed, and it’s a good one:

Norway’s Prime Minister rips apart Trump’s stupid letter. Love this!
Every leader that receives a letter like this from DJT should do the same.
Thanks for your attention to this matter! BRILLIANT! pic.twitter.com/dkytn3qp5t

— Helena (@HelenaGoransson) September 6, 2026

And one I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This Hungarian Jewish girl was gassed to death as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz. She was about eleven years old. https://t.co/B67izB4WK4

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) September 7, 2026

Two from Matthew Cobb. The first one he deems “accurate” (it’s a loon, of course).  Click on it to go to original, as I can’t embed it.

A series of “reincarnation” cartoons on this thread; they’re of varying quality. Here, the second is far better.

A bit late, but what even is time cosmically speaking?

— Adrian Brightmoore / The World Foundry (@theworldfoundry.com) 2026-08-31T06:16:15.385Z

Welcome to Sunday, September 6, 2026, the second day of a three-day weekend, for tomorrow is Labor Day in America. It’s also National Read a Book Day (note, they don’t say “Listen to a book”). I’m on a Maggie O’Farrell kick, and after reading and enjoying Hamnet and The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, I’m now reading her first novel, After You’d Gone.  I’ve just finished Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations, by Ronen Bergman, which is very good, fascinating, but scary.

It’s also Fight Procrastination Day (don’t worry, you can do it tomorrow), National Coffee Ice Cream Day, and Great Egg Toss Day, celebrating a day when people compete to toss an egg to a partner without breaking it. Here’s what the link says:

Great Egg Toss Day takes place on September 6th, because that was the day in 1981 that Risto Antikainen threw a fresh egg 317 feet, 10 inches, to Jyrki Korhonen. But, there is other evidence that a Guinness World Record was set in 1978 with a throw of 323 feet, 2 inches, in a toss from Johnny Dell Foley to Keith Thomas. This was listed by Guinness World Records until 2000, when they removed egg tossing from their book. The World Egg Throwing Federation currently holds egg throwing events, and contestants regularly toss eggs over 200 feet.

Here’s the World Championships in 2024, combined with another contest: Egg Roulette!

The Guinness Record is still posted, but if they stopped keeping records it’s reprehensible.

Posting will be light over the next week as I have a writing assignment I must complete. Bear with me; I do my best.

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

Da Nooz:

*As the war with Iran continues (described yesterday by Trump as “small potatoes”), the U.S. military says it hit three Iranian oil tankers in retaliation for Iran targeting two U.S. warships (article archived here).

The U.S. military said Saturday it hit three Iranian oil tankers, including one near Kharg Island, the country’s main oil terminal, after Iran launched missiles toward two U.S. Navy warships.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in the region, said in a statement that its strikes disabled an oil carrier off the coast of Kharg Island and another off Jask, and it destroyed a third one in the Gulf of Oman.

“Let the message to the IRGC be clear: If you shoot at two of our ships, we will impose an even higher economic cost — taking out three of yours,” said Adm. Brad Cooper, Centcom commander, referring to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. “We will not hesitate to defend American forces, and if necessary, destroy Iran’s limited and exposed oil fleet.”

Iranian state media earlier in the day reported that an oil tanker was hit by U.S. missiles near Kharg Island.

Iran’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Kharg Island, about 15 miles from the Iranian mainland in the Persian Gulf, is the centerpiece of Iran’s oil-based economy, with about 90 percent of the country’s oil exports moving through there.

Why don’t we attack Kharg Island directly, then, as it would be the most devastating thing we could do to Iran?  I suspect it’s because that would devastate the world oil market (and of course raise gas prices in the U.S.), because it would invite the harshest retaliation yet, and because to secure it might require the presence of “boots on the ground”, something the U.S. is unwilling to do. Trump could make a threat, of course, but he’d have to be prepared to carry it through when Iran calls his bluff.

Here’s a satellite image of Kharg Island taken in 2010; the T-shaped structures to the right are oil terminals:

*The Wall Street Journal declares that “Time is no longer on Iran’s side in the battle of the blockades.”

By squeezing the Strait of Hormuz, both the U.S. and Iran expected to outlast their foe, believing time would work in their favor.

Now, it looks like the trend is moving against Tehran.

The U.S. naval blockade has prevented Iran from shipping any oil from the Persian Gulf since July. At the same time, despite Iranian drone and missile attacks, Washington has been able to assist Gulf Arab states in moving significant amounts of their crude through the waterway, keeping global oil prices from surging above critical levels.

“The Iranian blockade is more leaky than the U.S. blockade,” said Samir Madani, co-founder of the maritime intelligence firm TankerTrackers.com. “The Iranians just aren’t able to shut it all down.”

The strategic question of whether time will eventually work in favor of Washington—or the Tehran regime—has yet to be settled. Iran retains ways of escalating what has now become a protracted conflict, raising costs for the U.S. and its allies. The U.S. military’s ability to maintain the naval blockade for many more months is also uncertain.

But now it is clear that Tehran’s calculation six months ago, as it shut down the Strait of Hormuz and bottled up one-fifth of the world’s crude oil supply, proved erroneous. The move didn’t trigger a worldwide economic crisis or force President Trump to end the war on Iranian terms.

Yet, Trump’s blockade of Iranian ports, imposed in April and reimposed in July, after a short-lived memorandum on reopening the waterway collapsed, hasn’t changed Iran’s behavior either. Despite growing economic disruption, the blockade didn’t spur a popular uprising against the Islamic Republic—and didn’t convince Tehran to reopen the strait to allow free navigation.

. . . For now, however, Iran’s leverage over the Strait of Hormuz is slowly but surely being eroded by the U.S. military campaign in the region. Crude oil prices remain below $100 a barrel on international markets, elevated but well below the critical threshold for the global economy. In part, this was due to China drawing on domestic reserves and reducing imports.

As the WSJ points out, “the clock is ticking more for the Iranians because they are under enormous economic strain.” Taking out Kharg Island’s facilities would make the clock tick really fast, and do we really need American troops on the ground to do that?

*Lindsay Clancy’s trial ended in a mistrial because apparently one juror held out for a “guilty” verdict while the other 11 wanted to declare her not guilty. But now, according to the NYT, she faces years of confinement. However, many Americans apparently want no confinement at all (article archived here).

Whatever happens next in the murder case against Lindsay Clancy after a Massachusetts jury failed on Friday to reach a verdict, it is certain that she will remain institutionalized for many months, if not years.

Even if she is not ultimately convicted, medical and legal experts have said that her future will be one of confinement.

Ms. Clancy does not deny strangling her three children with exercise bands in 2023. Her symptoms of postpartum psychosis in the months before she killed them were at the center of her defense. Her lawyers argued that she was not legally responsible for the deaths.

That view apparently persuaded most of the jury members in the monthlong trial. Notes from the jury suggested that 11 of the 12 jurors seemed ready to acquit Ms. Clancy. But one lone juror declined to join the rest, even after apparently expressing doubts about her guilt.

A similar debate has captivated and divided the American public for weeks. At its core is a fundamental disagreement about how Ms. Clancy should spend the rest of her life. Should she be labeled a criminal and imprisoned? Or should she be regarded as a victim of a sort, who should be provided treatment? In neither case would she go free. But to what end should her confinement serve?

Whatever happens next in the murder case against Lindsay Clancy after a Massachusetts jury failed on Friday to reach a verdict, it is certain that she will remain institutionalized for many months, if not years.

Even if she is not ultimately convicted, medical and legal experts have said that her future will be one of confinement.

Ms. Clancy does not deny strangling her three children with exercise bands in 2023. Her symptoms of postpartum psychosis in the months before she killed them were at the center of her defense. Her lawyers argued that she was not legally responsible for the deaths.

That view apparently persuaded most of the jury members in the monthlong trial. Notes from the jury suggested that 11 of the 12 jurors seemed ready to acquit Ms. Clancy. But one lone juror declined to join the rest, even after apparently expressing doubts about her guilt.

A similar debate has captivated and divided the American public for weeks. At its core is a fundamental disagreement about how Ms. Clancy should spend the rest of her life. Should she be labeled a criminal and imprisoned? Or should she be regarded as a victim of a sort, who should be provided treatment? In neither case would she go free. But to what end should her confinement serve?

. . .The murder charges against Ms. Clancy remain intact after the mistrial, and will keep her locked up in a local psychiatric hospital for now, while the state decides whether to try her again, according to her lawyer, Kevin Reddington.

In remarks after the judge declared the mistrial, Mr. Reddington said that Ms. Clancy would be returning to Tewksbury Hospital, where she was held during the trial. It is a state-run psychiatric facility about an hour’s drive from where Ms. Clancy was tried in Plymouth, Mass.

If Ms. Clancy is ultimately found not responsible for the crimes, experts say she may be sent to a high-security forensic psychiatric hospital — a center to treat people who have stood criminal trial — for long-term mental health care.

Several psychiatrists said that for many women, symptoms of postpartum psychosis are treated and resolved within a year. But even if she is found not guilty because of that diagnosis, Ms. Clancy will most likely be treated for other ongoing issues, such as suicidal thoughts and a potential diagnosis of bipolar disorder, which can be a risk factor for postpartum psychosis.

Dr. Katrina Furey, a reproductive psychiatrist, has treated patients with postpartum psychosis for about a decade. She said treatment could be conducted through a combination of drugs, and sometimes with electroconvulsive therapy, in which electricity is used to trigger a short seizure that can help “reset the brain.”

The treatment has a bad reputation from Hollywood movies, Dr. Furey said, but is routine and often effective.

“The end game of treatment is for mom to feel like her normal self again,” she added.

I agree that Clancy should be helped, not punished, but doesn’t that hold for all criminals? As a determinist and consequentialist, I see no point in retributive punishment, which assumes a nonexistent free will. To me, there are three valid reasons for confinement after conviction: deterrence of others, keeping bad people out of society lest they do harm, and rehabilitation. The third is important, and would seem to the most urgent in Clancy’s case.

Clancy is 36 years old and will almost surely have no more children, so the risk of this happening again is small. But she should be freed only after being pronounced “cured” by reputable therapists, and not be allowed ever again to have unsupervised contact with minors.

*In May of 2025, John Spencer‘s website, “War Scholar” (he’s teaches urban warfare at, among other places, West Point), had a useful article with Arsen Ostrovsky list “The top 7 lies about Israel and IDF operations in Gaza.”  It’s still useful. I’ll summarize the “lies” using quotes from the article (all indented), but there is more on each point on the site:

1. Lie: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

Genocide is the most serious crime under international law, defined by the 1948 Genocide Convention as acts committed with “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” Crucially, genocide requires specific intent — not simply that civilian deaths occur during war, but that they are intended as part of a broader plan to exterminate a people. This specific intent — known in legal terms as dolus specialis — sets a uniquely high bar that distinguishes genocide from even the most destructive military actions.

2. Lie: Israel intentionally targets civilians in Gaza.

Under international humanitarian law, the presence of civilian casualties in war — while tragic — does not equate to a war crime unless civilians are directly and intentionally targeted.

The IDF is one of the only militaries in history to systematically exceed the legal obligations to protect civilians.

3. Lie: The civilian-to-combatant ratio in Gaza proves Israel is committing war crimes.

One of the most dangerous and misleading claims is that civilian casualty figures alone prove Israel is committing war crimes. This is a fundamental distortion of international humanitarian law (IHL). Under the law of armed conflict, the legality of an attack is not judged by its outcome — such as the number of civilians killed — but by what commanders knew or reasonably could have known at the time of the attack. The legal test is proportionality: whether the expected incidental harm to civilians was excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.

4. Lie: Israel is starving Gaza’s population.

The accusation that Israel uses starvation as a weapon is flatly contradicted by facts on the ground — and by the sheer scale of humanitarian aid Israel facilitates even during wartime. Since October 7, according to COGAT (the Israeli government body coordinating humanitarian operations), almost 100,000 trucks have entered Gaza carrying 1.75 million tons of aid, including humanitarian supplies, medicine and food, at a volume that in some periods has exceeded pre-war levels. In addition, Israel has also facilitated the supply of water and fuel, and even enabled the construction of numerous field hospitals.

The real cause of humanitarian suffering in Gaza is Hamas, which systematically hijacks and weaponizes aid for its fighters, attacks crossing points, and manipulates civilians as human shields.

5. Lie: Israel indiscriminately attacks hospitals and schools.

International law protects hospitals, schools, and religious sites — but that protection is not absolute. If these facilities are used for military purposes — such as storing weapons, housing fighters, or command operations — they lose protected status.

Hamas has repeatedly, and systematically, turned Gaza’s hospitals into fortified military compounds and terrorist staging grounds, a grave violation of international humanitarian law.

6. Lie: Israel is illegally occupying Gaza.

The assertion that Israel occupies Gaza is a misrepresentation of the current geopolitical reality. In 2005, Israel unilaterally disengaged from the Gaza Strip, evacuating all Israeli civilians and military personnel, and dismantling its settlements. Since then, Hamas has maintained de facto control over Gaza, exercising both political and military authority.​

7. Lie: Israel violates Hamas prisoners’ rights under the Geneva Conventions.

The 3rd Geneva Convention defines Prisoners of War (POWs) as combatants who meet four key conditions: being part of a recognized armed force, carrying arms openly, wearing a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance, and conducting operations in accordance with the laws of war.

Hamas meet none of these standards. They hide among civilians, wear no uniforms, and routinely commit war crimes by targeting Israeli civilians, while shielding behind Palestinian ones, and embedding their combat operations within hospitals, schools, Mosques and residential areas.

I don’t know how many times I’ve had to make these points in arguments—and I’ve lost friends for making them—but anybody engaged in debate about the Israel/Gaza war should know the assertions as well as the rebuttal in this article.

*The conservative National Review calls for our culture to return to “biological realism,” which it defines as “a sensible acknowledgement of human limits and biological realities,” arguing that, “The normalization of extreme claims about humans’ ability to push past or ignore those realities has only increased in recent years, to the detriment of our common culture and common sense.”

The article gives several examples where “biological realism” was ignored. One is AOC’s freezing of her eggs, adding this:

. . . it remains a harsh biological reality that most women experience a significant decline in fertility after the age of 35, and the women most likely to achieve successful pregnancies using their previously frozen eggs are those who froze a lot of them before 35. If Ocasio-Cortez were intent on educating women of her generation about preserving their fertility (rather than turning her personal choices into yet another Instagram-enabled political stunt), she would have noted these biological realities. She might also have acknowledged that the largely unregulated fertility industry raises many ethical and legal questions and has been implicated in cases of abuse and fraud.

Well, one might say that the NR is being too hard on AOC, though if she wanted to inspire women, she should have pointed out the advantage of freezing eggs earlier. But there are other examples where the biology is unrealistic:

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reportedly paid a Canadian company, Nectome, a deposit of $10,000 to secure a spot on its waiting list to one day freeze his brain, with the expectation that the company will scan it and grant him some form of digitized immortality. “I assume my brain will be uploaded to the cloud,” he said. Altman is one of many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs on a quest for life extension and immortality. Transhumanist Ray Kurzweil has long predicted that humans, nanobots, and artificial intelligence will eventually merge to form a new species, while others in the AI successionism movement want AI to replace humanity.

Bryan Johnson, champion of the “Don’t Die” movement who is tracking and monitoring every possible bodily function he has while taking extreme measures to prolong his life, describes his journey as follows: “Conquering death will be humanity’s greatest achievement.” Talking to Ross Douthat on the Interesting Times podcast, Johnson described himself not as a man, but as “the first Don’t Die Homo sapien prototype.” Comparing himself to a self-driving car, he noted, “I’m building a self-driving body so it just automatically takes care of itself.”

The denial of biological limits is perhaps most prominent among transgender activists, who insist that biological men can become women and that those men should be allowed access to women-only spaces, including in women’s sports. Just as a child had to point out that the emperor wore no clothes, former NBA players Kanter and White highlighted the absurdities of men in women’s sports by declaring their intention to play on women’s teams. Their stunt was in part a response to criticism of professional athletes like WNBA player Sophie Cunningham for simply stating the obvious: Significant biological differences between the sexes make it unfair to allow men to compete against women. The overwhelming majority of Americans agree with her, and when Cunningham told reporters her position was “common sense,” she was correct.

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Common sense does not fare well when pitted against the ideological zeal of an extremely small minority — especially when that minority controls the levers of power in institutions. During a press conference, WNBA Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve hemmed and hawed but stuck to the ideological script, saying, “We need to protect trans kids.” Some WNBA players, like Golden State Valkyries player Gabby Williams, went so far as to claim she would “welcome a trans athlete on my team or against my team, anytime.” Even though the U.S. Supreme Court upheld states’ right to ban men from playing on women’s teams, the mainstream media and trans activists continue to push the message that biological men should be allowed to take spots on teams from women.

There are other examples as well; Luana and I pointed out some cases of biological unreality in our Skeptical Inquirer article. I am still flummoxed about why, among WNBA players, only Sophie Cunningham has spoken out against biological men playing in their league, while other players and coaches waffle.  Not only do most Americans frown upon biological men playing in women’s sports, but the data show the advantage of being a man, even one who has taken hormones to “transition.” But in this case, ideology outweighs the data. It’s simply against the progressive agenda to say that trans-identified men should not participate in women’s sports.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Szaron are both griping:

Hili: Tomorrow will be better.
Szaron: Yesterday’s tomorrow is today, and it’s not any better at all.

In Polish:

Hili: Jutro będzie lepiej.
Szaron: Wczorajsze jutro jest dziś i wcale nie jest lepiej.

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

From Waterfowl Addicts Anonymous (Ducks, Geese, and Swans) with the caption, “How fast was that duck going?”

From Jesus of the Day (the site gives no indication of whose cartoon this is, but it must be Steve Nelson, the artist who creates “Twonks”):

From Terrible Maps:

From Masih; a bunch of Iranian men and women mocking her activism. It’s a testimony to her power, though, that so many people make these videos and ensure that they get to Masih. She just laughs and posts them.

Translation from the Farsi. “White Wednesdays” are days on which women protesting the regime wear white.

Take a look at this creep in the videos I found, who was loudly claiming with all their might that they were in the “majority” and mocking the women who were engaging in civil disobedience during the White Wednesdays. Now they’re backpedaling hard now that they’ve realized they’re just a bunch of stray sex toys in the minority.

این عرزشی را در این ویدیوهایی که پیدا کردم ببینید که با قدرت می‌گفتند در «اکثریت» هستند و زنانی را که در چهارشنبه های سفید نافرمانی مدنی می‌کردند اینطوری مسخره می‌کردند. حالا به غلط کردن افتاده‌اند وقتی فهمیدند یک مشت آلت‌های جنسیِ سرگردانِ در اقلیت هستند https://t.co/oCl2IFkQfY pic.twitter.com/kDrYW1qqco

— Masih Alinejad (@AlinejadMasih) August 31, 2026

From Malcom; a potpourri of black cats:

black cats are just orange cats with intelligence pic.twitter.com/4InbNQjah1

— Why you should have a cat (@ShouldHaveCat) March 3, 2025

The Number Ten Cat protests Trump’s characterization of the war with Iran as “small potatoes”, and I agree with Larry that this was thoughtless wording:

Private Isabella Gonzales
First Lieutenant Tyler James Feehan
Captain Cody A. Khork
Sergeant 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens
Sergeant 1st Class Nicole M. Amor
Major Jeffrey O’Brien
Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan
Maj. John ‘Alex’ Klinner
Captain Ariana Savino
Technical Sergeant… https://t.co/VqDTJc80OW

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

Maarten Boudry describes his treatment at the University of Ghent in Belgium. And his Substack article is here, but you’ll have to pay (this excellent one is for free, though).

My own rector, Petra De Sutter, turned the “Gaza genocide” into official university policy, threatening anyone who dared to question it. Multiple professors emailed the previous rector behind my back, urging disciplinary action against me. Philosopher and former friend… https://t.co/AyTXfOkuMt pic.twitter.com/B6J5AZ8wWH

— Maarten Boudry (@mboudry) September 5, 2026

One from my feed; a botfly larva emerges from The White House (sound up):

OMG — This is so funny and hilarious! 😆 pic.twitter.com/43vGXsE9G8

— Lucas Sanders 👊🏽🔥🇺🇸 (@LucasSa56947288) September 5, 2026

And one I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This Norwegian boy was gassed to death as soon as he arrived in Auschwitz. He was seventeen years old. https://t.co/YThd9j23Yv

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) September 6, 2026

Two from Doc Cobb. First, a lovely set of photos with a biology lesson:

Night eyes 😎 Finally got proper pictures of this amazing phenomenon! Mantises change their eye color (and light sensitivity) at night by transporting pigments from the surface of each compound eye unit toward the deeper eye region. Same female Tenodera sinensis, two different times. #bugsky

— D. Allan Drummond (@dadrummond.art) 2026-09-04T21:17:03.981Z

. . . and a playful baby bear:

Toddler bear burning off some energy while mom rests just off camera.#mammals #nature #bears #love #trailcam #Seattle #goodmorning #PNW #nokings #babyanimals

— Menestune (@menestune.bsky.social) 2026-09-05T15:03:50.951Z

Welcome to CaturSaturday, September 5, 2026. It’s shabbos for Jewish cats and National Hummingbird Day. Here are five facts you didn’t know about hummingbirds, but even if you knew some of them, there is some nicc video here:

It’s also International Bacon Day, International Vulture Awareness Day, National Cheese Pizza Day, and World Samosa Day.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the September 1 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Mirabile dictu: the NYT has published an explicitly anti-Hamas op-ed, “To save Gaza, resist Hamas,” written by Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, identified as “a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.” (h/t Peggy, article archived here).  And the Atlantic Council is apparently a think tank established to promote amity between America and Europe.

Despite its posturing as an elite club, Hamas, from its inception, behaved like a mob of gangsters, brutalizing Palestinian women who violated its fanatic sense of morality, torturing and killing those who were suspected of opposing them and carrying out grisly suicide attacks against Israeli civilians, which weakened the Palestinian Authority and empowered the extremist right in Israel, which seized the opportunity to destroy hopes of a new Palestinian horizon or future.

Now, in the ruins of my once beautiful homeland, we are witnessing the coda of the group’s two decades of horrific rule. By agreeing in principle to a disarmament plan after their Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and slaughter of hundreds of civilians led to over two years of Israeli bombardment that killed tens of thousands of Gazans, including much of my family, Hamas is acknowledging what Palestinian leadership knew 30 years ago: that only peace could lead to freedom and armed struggle was a disastrous strategy.

Yeah, right. Hamas is supposed to acknowledge that peace is essential and armed struggle futile. Does this mean they’re going to stop terror attacks on Israel for good and renounce the parts of their charter calling for elimination of the Jews? I don’t think so. All they did was agree to disarm “in principle”. I’ll believe it when I see it. But wait; there’s more:

Hamas should have no role in Gaza’s future but, appallingly, so many in the West who consider themselves allies of the Palestinian people still see the group as honorable resistance fighters. Their support for, or failure to denounce, the group only helps perpetuate the degradation of Gaza.

. . . ““Hamas turned Gaza into a cautionary tale for Israel of what might happen under Palestinian self-governance. Revulsion at the group’s rockets, tunnels, smuggling and violence empowered Israel’s far right, which used Hamas’s actions to excuse their attack on the two-state solution.

Repeated wars killed thousands of Palestinians and wounded or displaced hundreds of thousands, locking Gaza into a cycle of destruction, reconstruction, resource theft and deeper Hamas entrenchment. Billions of dollars were wasted and the development that I saw emerging as a child was arrested.

This alone should have delegitimized Hamas among Western activists, academics, students, journalists, protesters, politicians and those who claim to be pro-Palestine. Yet after Hamas carried out the worst single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust on Oct. 7, 2023, triggering the worst catastrophe in modern Palestinian history, I watched with dismay and anger as activists, students, academics, politicians and writers expressed a chilling appreciation for the massacre.

. . .Gaza needs to be reimagined so it is no longer sustained by an NGO complex or a refugee framework. Gaza will need deep deradicalization across schools, mosques, media and public language to cultivate and produce builders and creators.

Once security issues are credibly addressed and Gaza is placed on a new path, Israel would no longer have the justification it has used for decades to restrict the free movement for people and trade and to treat Gaza as an occupied nation. U.S. and international pressure could push Israel to change its approach to Gaza.

A Palestinian miracle on the Mediterranean is within reach if Gaza rejects Islamism, Jihadism, Hamas and stale nationalist notions, all of which have left it devastated.

Yes, yes, a nice dream, but a pipe dream. This is not happening. Gaza is not on a new path; it is stagnating under Trump’s “Board of Peace,” nor do I think Hamas is anywhere near ready to lay down its arms. If anything is clear by now, it’s that the Palestinians do not want a two-state solution; they want a one-state solution in which Jews are expelled and Palestinians are in charge. What has Alkhatib been smoking?

*I liked John Fetterman as a straight-talking, shorts-wearing Democratic Senator (PA), and one of the few people in Congress who openly supports Israel.  However, it appears he’s not doing much as a Senator, at least to a WSJ article (not an op-ed) called, “Behind closed doors, John Fetterman shows little interest in the work of a Senator” (Subtitle: “Poised to be a possible swing vote in a divided Congress, he churns through staff as he dodges constituents, alienates fellow Democrats, and courts Israel lobby.”)

With his hoodie-and-shorts wardrobe and working-class appeal, Fetterman occupies a unique place in a Democratic Party increasingly populated by leftist insurgents. Fetterman often portrays himself as a “regular Democrat” calling out aspects of his party’s progressive fringe—just the profile that past centrists have leveraged in a divided Senate to cut bipartisan deals and score big wins.

But behind closed doors, the first-term senator shows little interest in doing the job beyond cultivating relationships with conservative media figures and advocating for Israel, according to interviews with more than a dozen former staffers and lawmakers, as well as text messages and other internal records.

With a pivotal election looming in November that could yield a split Senate and give Fetterman outsize influence, his office is staffed with a revolving door of aides who are constantly scrambling to keep up the face of a functional operation, the interviews and text messages show.

Fetterman keeps a light daily schedule, often refusing to meet with constituents and fellow lawmakers, or canceling at the last minute, records and interviews show.

. . .It marks a contrast to his 2022 campaign, when Fetterman spent long hours traveling to small rural communities, embracing people who felt left behind. “He won because he worked his heart out,” said Judy Hines, chair of the Democratic Party in Mercer County, in rural northwest Pennsylvania. Hines said she was worried about what she sees as a transformation in Fetterman in the years since the campaign.

In the background are concerns about Fetterman’s longstanding struggle with depression, which flared up after a near-fatal 2022 stroke that left him with lingering speech issues. Last year, Fetterman’s former chief of staff publicly aired concerns that Fetterman had stopped following his recovery plan, was damaging personal relationships, exhibiting paranoia, and addicted to his smartphone.

. . . Fetterman didn’t reply to multiple requests for an interview for this story. The senator walked away from a Wall Street Journal reporter at a public event in Erie, Pa., late last month, declining to answer questions. His office also didn’t reply to multiple emails summarizing the reporting for this story.

. . . In May, Fetterman publicly denied he’s considering a party switch, but recent news events have done nothing to stifle the speculation. In July, campaign filings showed he received money from a prominent conservative donor. In recent interviews, Fetterman has left open the possibility he could feel the need to leave the Democratic Party, if it adopts language in its platform on the one issue that has come to dominate his time in the Senate.

That month, he said: “If our party ever becomes…the anti-Israel party, you know, that’s when I would leave.”

I got news for Senator Fetterman: the Democratic Party already is the anti-Israel party. Is he going to become a Republican, an Independent, or not run for re-election at all? This is all very demoralizing, but if he doesn’t even do his job as Senator, I can’t really support his remaining in the Senate, regardless of his stand on Israel. As for me, I’m not voting for any Illinois Congressperson or governor who doesn’t support Israel. Fortunately, our state will go Democratic no matter who runs, so I can always write in a candidate and keep my conscience while knowing I’m not promoting the election of a Republican.

*As usual, I’ll pick a few items from Nellie Bowles’s weekly news-and-snark column in the Free Press, called this week, “Once postpartum, always postpartum.”

→ Lindsay Clancy jury deadlocked: I know the Lindsay Clancy trial is not technically the most consequential story of the week, but in my circles (moms) it is The Only Conversation, so bear with me. The jurors are deadlocked. Twice they have gone to the judge to say the jury cannot come to a decision. If they cannot reach a verdict, the judge could declare a mistrial. There are some clues as to what may be happening. For example, at least three of the female jurors were spotted curiously wearing pink, the color worn by Clancy supporters who think she is the victim of pharmacology and maternal stress and believe that—after a stint in a healthcare facility where she will be declared no longer a danger, which, by the way she has already been declared—she should go free. The deeper idea being proposed here seems to be that moms should kind of be able to kill their kids. Like, if they’re really, really stressed. In Canada, that’s the law already. If a parent kills a kid under the age of 1, it’s a maximum five-year sentence. We’re now going to see a movement to bring that to the U.S., and also to expand it to older kids. Death cults will death cult.

Here’s the CBC this week. They called up criminal law expert Isabel Grant, a professor at the University of British Columbia, to say how this is a perfect example of how the infanticide law should expand to older kids.

Technically, in Canada, Clancy could have raised infanticide as a defense for the murder of Callan, who was eight months old, said Grant, the criminal law professor at UBC. But the killing of Clancy’s older children could not be defended as infanticide even if she hadn’t recovered from the birth of the youngest child when she killed them, she added. “That is a shortcoming in the Canadian law.”

A shortcoming in the law, says the law professor, is that a mom might be in jail longer than five years if she kills a bunch of kindergartners since the postpartum might not carry over to each killing. Maybe postpartum should last until the kid’s 18, right? Maybe moms—if they’re under a lot of pressure and like, super, super stressed and changing Zoloft dosages and can’t figure out the Snoo—should be able to kill her offspring at any age?

Nellie predicts that Clancy will walk free. As of yesterday, the judge has declared a mistrial and the prosecution must decide what to do next.

→ Good lawsuit moving forward: An Asian American student just won a key little procedural victory in his lawsuit alleging universities engaged in “racially discriminatory admissions practices that disadvantage highly qualified Asian American applicants.” Stanley Zhong was rejected by 16 of the 18 colleges he applied to, despite having a 4.42 weighted GPA, a successful tech start-up, and an SAT score of 1590. Yes, 1590! And you know his parents probably asked him what happened to those other 10 points. Stanleys are made, and I salute Mr. and Mrs. Zhong.

Stanley should’ve been heading a lab right now but, batted away from college, Google hired him as a software engineer out of high school. Spokespeople for the UC system have denied using race to inform their admissions decision. But again, Zhong didn’t get into any of the UC schools. He and his dad filed a bunch of lawsuits, and his suit against the University of Washington, at least, is moving forward.

“With that ruling, we can now proceed into discovery, request internal documents, internal communication and, most importantly, admissions data,” Zhong’s father said. I’m not saying that college should just admit based on SATs and grades. But there is so much anti-Asian racism built into the admissions systems at every level, and it’s just totally accepted by both sides of the political aisle, because Asian success is not helpful for the affirmative action supporters, nor is it helpful for the white supremacy supporters, since in general whites don’t win the IQ test (sorry!).

→ Burning Man is old people now: Burning Man, that incredible desert festival in Nevada, has gone from its early years of wild artists building a city (amazing) to. . . being the hot spot of the tech rich who paid those artists to build them a city (fun!) to. . . middle-aged people hauling their RVs to the desert to help with their wrist arthritis (might as well go visit your parents). The always great contrarian data scientist David Shor brings us the grim reality. He writes: “Burning Man peaked in size in 2019 and has been in decline since then—at this point the median age is 40 and the share of people in their 20s is a third of what it was a decade ago.” Which means it’s so 38-years-old for me to say that I still think Burning Man is cool! Look at their Instagram! Why not go to the desert and frolic naked and then dance around a fire? And my joints do hurt a little, so that nice, dry heat sounds good. Don’t 40-year-olds deserve nice-ish things too? Don’t we deserve to wobble around on a bike covered in dust, searching desperately in our cargo shorts for our electrolyte packets? We don’t care if Burning Man is lame now. We prefer that. It’s why we feel safe there. Maybe next year this can be our family vacation. Can you imagine Bar’s beefy bodyguard following her around the playa and fishing her out of the mosh pit? Me too.

Bari Weiss has a six-person detail of bodyguards!

*Maarten Boudry has caught another person with their pants down using AI, this time a famous Belgian physician, Marc Van Ranst, whom Boudry calls the “Belgian Anthony Fauci”.  It’s extra bad because it was a newspaper column;  look at the sentences (in Dutch) that he used!

English translation:

“Hey  @vanranstmarc

, I hope you’ve rewarded your ChatGPT for this nonsense too, with a digital sugar cube or something? I think your AI is secretly laughing at you, by putting sentences like these in your mouth: “Stupid people are the result of choices: speed over care” “Complexity costs energy”. “Thoughtfulness (just like this column) often sits behind a paywall” Did you let a Claude spin out of control?”

Hé @vanranstmarc, ik hoop dat je je ChatGPT ook hebt beloond voor deze onzin, met een digitaal suikerklontje of zo?

Ik denk dat je AI stiekem met jou aan het lachen is, door je zulke zinnen in de mond te leggen:
“Domvolking is het gevolg van keuzes: snelheid boven… pic.twitter.com/s8XsiCw0qj

— Maarten Boudry (@mboudry) September 4, 2026

*And one I analyzed with Pangram.  As you see from my tweet below, I analyzed some of Rawan Osman‘s Facebook posts for AI content, and there is substantial content of that type in some posts. The latest FB post, below, was deemed 100% written by AI.  I also found 100% AI or substantial AI in her blog posts published by the Times of Israel.

As Wikipedia notes,  Osman is “a Syrian-born German political activist and influencer. She is a self-described Arab Zionist and advocates for the normalization of relations between Arab states and Israel.”  In the last year or so, I read her writings and became an admirer. Now, however, the wind is out of my sails. I still admire her politics, ideology, and zeal (she goes around the world speaking about Israel and the Arabs). But somehow finding out this kind of AI analysis makes me less willing to read her, for reading “her” is reading whatever the bot trawls up from the literature. 

.@RawaneOsmane. I was disappointed to see that Rawan Osman, whom I much admired as an advocate of Israel, is posting some Facebook content that appears to be largely written by AI. Here’s Pangram’s analysis of the latest post, which is an astounding 100% AI. pic.twitter.com/W7AbESQUFe

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) September 4, 2026

The same goes for anyone who uses AI but won’t say so (if you do, you must admit it, for they are not your words). I will not read them.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has the blues:

Hili: I’m depressed.
Andrzej: Why?
Hili: Just because.

In Polish:

Hili: Mam depresję.
Ja: Z jakiego powodu?
Hili Tak sobie.

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

From Pyers; Canada strikes back, and be sure to get the pun:

From CinEmma:

From America’s Cultural Decline into Idiocy:

From Masih; the travails of two Iranian women facing long prison terms or execution for protesting. The torture is unbelievable. Cases like this are what convince me that the U.S. should be aiming at Iranian freedom, difficult as that may be.

The heartbreaking story of two young sisters who protested in Iran and were reportedly sexually assaulted in detention.

Twin sisters Taraneh and Romina Rahimi were just 20 years old. One dreamed of opening her own equestrian club. The other worked in a shoe shop.

Today, one is… pic.twitter.com/Io5bVKSRLZ

— Masih Alinejad (@AlinejadMasih) September 4, 2026

The Number Ten Cat speaks truth to fashion:

Fur is for animals – let’s keep it that way https://t.co/1kp64ybwWr

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

From Jeff Maurer. Now most people dislike “brat” but I always hated it. Do you think I fell out of a coconut tree or something?

The people have spoken! I shall not become brat. https://t.co/QPHTrQWmup

— Jeff Maurer (@JeffMightBWrong) September 3, 2026

From Malcolm. Is this a passel of jokes that someone put on the air?

News bloopers!
You gotta laugh!😂😂 pic.twitter.com/4v08WqXdD9

— MAGA Jessie🇺🇸 (@Jessie63335515) August 10, 2026

One from my feed. Inflation is rampant in Iran, but these people are risking arrest:

Across Iran, a new kind of video is circulating. People film themselves holding up what they have just bought, name the price, and then dance.
Four eggs and one sausage, 500,000 tomans. A soda and a packet of crisps, 350,000. Six eggs and a tin of tuna. Three small bags of… pic.twitter.com/9qK0k2i7He

— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) September 4, 2026

And one I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This Polish Jewish boy was gassed to death as soon as he arrived at Auschwitz. He was about four years old, and would be 88 today had he lived. https://t.co/T8P5s300zt

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) September 5, 2026

Two from Dr. Cobb. This first video is stunning:

Dolphins swimming in bioluminescence, Merritt Island, Florida.IG: @patricke_lao Taken with a Sony Alpha a7S II

— Luca (@lucagalletti.bsky.social) 2026-09-03T21:06:57.085Z

And a lovely murmuration. Matthew and I both love these formations.

A murmuration of starlings above Sardinia, Italy. One of my favorite natural phenomena.

— Jen , the MT liberal bird lady (@liberal-jen.bsky.social) 2026-09-03T18:57:48.183Z

Welcome to Friday, September 4, 2026, and National Wildlife Day. Today you should not just photograph the animals with your iPhone camera and move on, but stop to look at the animals. (This is one of my pet peeves about visitors to Botany Pond.) Here are three species of cats I photographed in game reserves in South Africa almost exactly two years ago:

It’s also National Macademia Nut Day (along with cashews, this is the top of the nut scale), Eat An Extra Dessert Day, and National Chianti Day.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the September 4 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The Trump Administration has taken yet another step in its anti DEI policies, saying it will strip the tax exemption from any schools, public or private, that discriminate on the basis of race or national origin (article archived here).

The Trump administration has proposed stripping private schools of their tax-exempt status if they consider race, furthering the administration’s intense pressure on institutions that have sought diversity in their classrooms.

President Donald Trump’s administration has repeatedly targeted efforts to benefit Black and other racial–minority students, saying many such policies violate the law in the wake of a 2023 Supreme Court ruling banning the use of race-consciousadmissions. It recently has accused several medical schools of discriminating against White and Asian students in admissions, and has opened investigations into numerous universities.

The IRSand Treasury Department proposal announced Thursday would eliminate tax-exempt status for private schools that discriminate “on the basis of race, color, or national or ethnic origin in administration of its educational, admissions, scholarship, athletic, or other policies.”

The agencies estimate that if it takes effect, the rule could affect as many as 18,000 primary and secondary schools, colleges, universities, professional schools and trade schools.

. . .Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a written statement that the administration is ensuring racial discrimination has no place in American education. “Schools rebranding race-based preferences as equitable, inclusive, or diversity-enhancing does not change their discriminatory nature,” he wrote. “Today’s Treasury and IRS proposed regulations establish a clear standard, and the institutions that continue to use discriminatory practices will no longer receive the benefits of federal tax-exempt status.”

Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, said if the proposal takes effect, it would be hugely impactful.“But it’s not going to come to pass.”

In 1983, the court ruled that Bob Jones University and the Goldsboro Christian Schools in North Carolina were not entitled to tax-exempt status because they practiced racial discrimination — the university prohibited interracial dating and marriage, and the schools did not admit Black students.

Well, doesn’t that cut both ways, i.e., does illegal discrimination go only one way?

The Trump administration proposal still would allow schools to help disadvantaged students in admission or financial aid using race-neutral criteria such as family income, hardship or academic achievement.

*After five days of deliberation, the jury in the case of Lindsay Clancy, who pleased not guilty to strangling her three young children on the grounds of “postpartum psychosis,” is still deadlocked (article archived here).

Jurors in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial are expected to return for a sixth day of deliberations on Thursday, after growing indications that their impasse could prove unbreakable.

The judge presiding over the case, William Sullivan, read them what is known as a “dynamite charge” on Wednesday afternoon, in a last-ditch attempt to break their deadlock, and then sent them home a little over an hour later.

The jurors, nine women and three men, have now deliberated for about 30 hours over five days, and twice told the judge that they could not come to a unanimous decision as to whether Ms. Clancy should be convicted of murdering her three children.

A hung jury would result in a mistrial, and Judge Sullivan has urged the jurors to keep trying. On Wednesday, he read a set of instructions saying that they should work toward consensus and “consider that it is desirable that the case be decided.”

He has also thanked jurors for their work, noting the extent of the evidence and witness testimony presented during the monthlong trial, which featured often heart-wrenching details.

In the event of a mistrial, prosecutors would decide whether to try Ms. Clancy all over again in front of a different jury, for first-degree murder or less serious charges. Considering their options could take a week or more, experts have said.

. . .Rosanna Cavallaro, a Suffolk University law professor, said that judges “walk a tightrope” when they read the formal “dynamite” instructions to a deadlocked jury.

The goal is to nudge the jurors forward toward consensus, she said, “without making them feel coerced by a judge’s criticism.”

I can understand the jury’s difficulties, as there are at least four different judgments that could be made, including “not guilty,” and the jurors must rule unanimously. But if there’s a mistrial, then the whole expensive and multi-week show has to be repeated, and perhaps with the same outcome. At that point Clancy will apparently walk free, and though she’s partly paralyzed from her suicide attempt, she will suffer no punishment, or even psychiatric treatment in a confined space, for killing her children.

*This is surprising; the WSJ reports that “Hundreds of colleges are sending acceptance letters to kids who didn’t even apply.”

Hundreds of colleges are sending students letters of admission—without even requiring an application.

Schools are increasingly agreeing to admit students based on a handful of criteria, like high school transcripts. Known as “direct admissions,” this expedited process is free and omits required essays, questions about extracurriculars and mandated standardized tests.

In turn, the colleges—which are seeking ways to attract more students amid broader financial headwinds—gain exposure to prospects who may never have heard of them otherwise. They then woo the young people into enrolling.

Proponents call the approach a solution for both sides.

“Instead of a student applying to the institution, the institution applies to them,” said Angel Perez, chief executive of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. “It’s a way for students not to have to jump through hoops in order to get into college.”

Direct admission has ballooned in popularity, particularly among less-selective private schools vying for a shrinking pool of college-goers. On the Common App, the number of participating institutions has more than tripled since 2023-24, representing about a fifth of the app’s partners, said Chief Executive Jenny Rickard. More than a dozen states now have direct-admissions initiatives.

Colleges across America are reckoning with the demographic cliff as the pipeline of 18-year-olds dwindles. Lesser-known campuses sit at the forefront of these enrollment challenges, though cracks are spreading throughout. And since most colleges admit more than half of applicants—the acceptance rate in the U.S. topped 70% among four-year, not-for-profit schools in a 2023 NACAC report—supporters say direct admissions is a no-brainer.

The process aims to be straightforward: students interested in direct admissions fill out a form—not a full application—on various sites that essentially act as matchmakers. The students, or their high schools, also submit their transcripts. From there, the offers roll in automatically. (As with the traditional pathway, though, colleges can yank acceptances if a teen’s grades tank in their senior year.)

I wish they had this process when I was applying to college, as I had good grades and SATs in high school, and it would have saved me some trouble. On the other hand, I applied formally to only one school—William & Mary—for early admission, and I was successful, so I was spared a lot of worry during my senior year of high school.  (I really wanted to go to Princeton because I was enchanged by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s first book, This Side of Paradise, but my parents said they couldn’t afford to send me to Princeton. In the end, I think I did better by going to William & Mary. And I still love Fitzgerald. As for this automatic acceptance, well, it seems to apply mostly for schools that are hurting for students, and I have no opposition to it. If the plan doesn’t work, we’ll see.

*In honor of Gloria Steinem’s death, reader Jez mentioned a 2019 article she wrote in the journal Woman’s Reproductive Health, called “If men could menstruate.” It’s not only accurate but hilarious, and you can read it for free at the link. Here’s an excerpt:

What would happen, for instance, if suddenly, magically, men could menstruate and women could not?

The answer is clear—menstruation would become an enviable, boast-worthy, masculine event:

Men would brag about how long and how much.

Boys would mark the onset of menses, that longed-for proof of manhood, with religious ritual and stag parties.

Congress would fund a National Institute of Dysmenorrhea to help stamp out monthly discomforts.

Sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free. (Of course, some men would still pay for the prestige of commercial brands such as John Wayne Tampons, Muhammad Ali’s Rope-a-dope Pads, Joe Namath Jock Shields—“For Those Light Bachelor Days,” and Robert “Baretta” Blake Maxi-Pads.)

Military men, right-wing politicians, and religious fundamentalists would cite menstruation (“menstruation”) as proof that only men could serve in the Army (“you have to give blood to take blood”), occupy political office (“can women be aggressive without that steadfast cycle governed by the planet Mars?”), be priests and ministers (“how could a woman give her blood for our sins?”) or rabbis (“without the monthly loss of impurities, women remain unclean”).

Male radicals, left-wing politicians, and mystics, however, would insist that women are equal, just different, and that any woman could enter their ranks if she were willing to self-inflict a major wound every month (“you MUST give blood for the revolution”), recognize the preeminence of menstrual issues, or subordinate her selfness to all men in their Cycle of Enlightenment. Street guys would brag (“I’m a three pad man”) or answer praise from a buddy (“Man, you lookin’ good!”) by giving fives and saying, “Yeah, man, I’m on the rag!” TV shows would treat the subject at length. (“Happy Days”: Richie and Potsie try to convince Fonzie that he is still “The Fonz,” though he has missed two periods in a row.) So would newspapers. (SHARK SCARE THREATENS MENSTRUATING MEN. JUDGE CITES MONTHLY STRESS IN PARDONING RAPIST.) And movies. (Newman and Redford in “Blood Brothers”!) Men would convince women that intercourse was more pleasurable at “that time of the month.” Lesbians would be said to fear blood and therefore life itself—though probably only because they needed a good menstruating man.

There’s more, but I’ll let you have the pleasure of reading it yourself. Back in my youth, I saw a cartoon of a man in a bookstore looking for funny books, and the woman behind the counter saying, “I’m sorry, sir, but we have no humor section: this is a feminist bookstore.”  Steinem shows that that’s wrongheaded.

*I’ve started investigated whether someone’s prose involved AI by putting it in the reliable source Pangram (it’s been tested thoroughly), and you get three free tries per day. Disappointingly, many of the people whom I follow on Facebook, and admire for their political or ideological stands, use a lot of AI.  When I see that, I lose interest. (Some nonpolitical sites are 100% AI.). But my philosopher friend Maarten Boudry takes the cake for finding an entire published short story that is not only AI generated, but won a prize! Here’s his tweet:

From Maarten Boudry,

It seems that literary magazine @themothmagazine has awarded its 1st prize to a short story that is 100% AI-generated, according to @Pangram: https://t.co/5kJJrTMIAw

I read the story. I ain’t no literary critic, but it’s kinda lame. It’s superficially poetic and atmospheric, but… https://t.co/dzkCn0BmMS pic.twitter.com/vr4vTCT14N

— Maarten Boudry (@mboudry) September 2, 2026

From Maarten’s email to me: “A literary First Prize has been awarded to a short story that is 100%. AI. Do you know Moth Magazine? Never heard of them, but they have 12K followers on X and have a WikiPedia page, so it’s not completely fringe. Maarten’s tweet gives the story, “The Shoulder,” by Jeffrey Michael Kane, and it’s still up.

Maarten added this:

It’s fascinating to read the short story: it’s superficially coherent and vaguely poetic, but once you reach the end you realize it’s going nowhere. Using AI for a literary prize is much worse than for an FB post: it’s cheating, and unfair to the other contenders.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is down on philosophers again:

Hili: I feel, therefore I am.
Andrzej: That’s rather obvious.
Hili: Not to philosophers.

In Polish:

Hili: Czuję więc jestem.
Ja: To raczej oczywiste.
Hili: Nie dla filozofów.

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

From Clyde, who said, “This is a beast that I found lurking in the White River in Indianapolis.”

From Cats Doing Cat Stuff:

From TherionArms:

From Masih; a young Islamic man, who already had his eye shot out, may lose his life as well. The charge? “Corruption on earth.”

The Islamic Republic shot out his eye. Now it wants to take his life.

Branch 23 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court has sentenced Ali Zarei, a survivor of the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising, to death on the charge of “corruption on earth.” The sentence was reportedly communicated to… pic.twitter.com/24RobUtz34

— Masih Alinejad (@AlinejadMasih) September 2, 2026

From Colin Wright on the Nature editorial I wrote about yesterday. Read the whole tweet and be sure to look at the screenshots of Nature articles.

Seeing lots of surprised reactions to the absurd Nature editorial on Jason Arday. Frankly, I’m surprised people are surprised.

Nature has been totally captured by wokeness for a while now. I’ve been trying to call attention to this for nearly a decade. There are no serious… pic.twitter.com/jEbGZPh3zM

— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) September 2, 2026

From Luana. Is this the State Department trolling the administration? “Deadnaming”?

It was brought to our attention that Lake America was erroneously labeled as Lake “Ontario” on our website.

We have corrected this mistake and apologize for deadnaming the lake. pic.twitter.com/WJP7nA7AqQ

— Department of State (@StateDept) August 29, 2026

From Malcolm; “gifts” from cats:

When your cat brings you their finest offering 😂 pic.twitter.com/vZNWmwMXrK

— smooth (@Smoothfund) August 10, 2026

One from my feed, and yes, it features a cat:

I BOUGHT THIS VIBRATION PLATE FOR MYSELF BUT THE ONE WHO USES IT THE MOST IS MY CAT. pic.twitter.com/zUgl7urwKr

— Cats with aura (@Catsworldtweet) September 2, 2026

And one I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This French Jewish girl was gassed to death as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz. She was three years old, and would be 86 today had she lived. https://t.co/wl7Ik2b5ED

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) September 4, 2026

From Matthew: Nice arthopods on the sand. Note the first Latin binomial..

Lots of action around exposed sand banks at Allerthorpe Common @yorkswildlife.bsky.social reserve today. Astata boops seems well established there now and Green Tigers, Ammophila sabulosa, Anoplius nigerrimus all very active in the sun. Super little reserve. 🙂 @ynuorg.bsky.social #hymenoptera

— Ian Andrews (@suillia.bsky.social) 2026-08-26T18:25:24.955Z

A cool paper in which scientists used fossil insects to reconstruct their calls:

THE SOUND OF JURASSIC INSECTSReconstruction of an extinct soundscape reveals ultrasonic communication in the Jurassicwww.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/…

— (@dactylioceras.bsky.social) 2026-08-26T16:29:25.241Z

Welcome to Thursday, September 3, 2026, and it’s Welsh Rarebit Day, celebrating the British concoction of toasted bread covered with melted cheese. It’s supposed to give you weird dreams, which is the subject of Winsor McCay’s fantastic comic strip of the early 20th century, “Dream of the Rarebit Fiend.” The theme: someone would eat a rarebit before bed, and all bets were off: horrible dreams would inevitably ensue. The strip is famous for its unique artistry, especially for the time; here’s one example, and note in the last panel the attribution of the dream to eating a pre-bed rarebit. I’d recommend getting a whole book of these marvelous cartoons.  Click twice to enlarge:

It’s also International Cabernet Sauvignon Day as well as National Baby Back Ribs Day. I used to buy BBQ rib tips on the South Side (the ends of baby back ribs), and Uncle John’s was by far the best place. It went extinct when pitmaster Mack died, but then his relatives opened a joint just as good, and pretty close to me on 47th Street: “Uncle J’s BBQ.”  That too is gone, and there is no longer a place to get world-class rib tips in Chicago.  What’s the point of living?

The bearded guy to the left is geneticist Michael Turelli, who was visiting and wanted to sample Chicago’s best BBQ:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the September 3 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*As expected given the exchange of fire the other day, attacks between the U.S. and Iran are intensifying, with Iran claiming that one American attack killed four people and injured many more at a wedding (this claim could not be verified; NYT article is archived here).

The United States carried out a new wave of attacks against Iran on Tuesday, the latest surge of violence to puncture weeks of relative calm as President Trump has tried to pivot from a military campaign to one of strangling Iran’s economy.

U.S. Central Command said it had struck military targets in Iran in retaliation for attacks on ships and American forces in the region. Hours later, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps said in statements that it had launched missiles on an American military base in Jordan and U.S. military equipment warehouses in Iraq. It warned of fierce retaliations on U.S. interests in the region.

The new strikes came three days after the United States and Iran traded fire for the first time in a month. The latest strikes were far broader and more intense, according to initial reports, and Iranian officials said civilians had been killed, including at a wedding. While it was unclear if the violence would escalate further, the hostilities underscored how remote a durable solution to the conflict remains, six months into a conflict that Mr. Trump once predicted would last a few weeks.

Mr. Trump, in a social media post referring to the Strait of Hormuz, said the U.S. attacks were “large and powerful, and in retaliation for the Iranians’ failed attempt at adding sea mines to the Strait.” He added that “if the failed Nation of Iran retaliates for this very justified attack, they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level.”

U.S. Central Command said in a statement that it had struck air defense sites, radar systems, maritime assets and facilities, mine laying capabilities and communications sites.

Iranian state media said projectiles had hit sites in Chabahar and Konarak, southern port cities east of the Strait of Hormuz. Two Iranian officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the U.S. attacks, said the strikes had also hit several other sites across Iran’s southern shores, including a military base in Bandar Abbas, the perimeter of the commercial airport on Qeshm Island and targets in the cities of Sirik and Jask. The officials said the attacks had caused significant damage.

Are you getting tired of a war conducted in dribs and drabs, one that never seems to end? Join the club. But Iran never seems to level “fierce retalizations on U.S. interests in the region,” as its missiles and drones are always shot down.

*Democratic Representative Tom Suozzi (NY) writes in the Free Press why “Democrats must reject the DSA” (Democratic Socialists of America). His reason:

Millions of Americans are losing faith in their government, their institutions, and an economic system that no longer seems to reward hard work. They struggle to afford housing, healthcare, and education while watching wealth become increasingly concentrated at the top. They’re mad as hell, in other words, and they’re not going to take it anymore.

But if Democrats are going to earn the confidence of these Americans this November and beyond, the answer will not be found in the Democratic Socialists of America’s (DSA) platform. Although relatively small in number—the organization counts 120,000 members in a country of some 330 million people—the DSA is aggressive and disciplined. Candidates affiliated with the group are winning Democratic primaries. But we cannot allow them to drag our party to the far left.

Modern political history offers two stark warnings about what can happen when a determined ideological movement catches a party divided, complacent, or unprepared. We’ll start with the Republicans.

In 1964, GOP leaders badly underestimated Barry Goldwater, a fiercely right-wing Arizona senator. Many considered his views too conservative and his appeal too narrow. But Goldwater’s supporters were better organized and understood that party contests can be won by mobilizing passionate voters while the broader electorate remains divided or disengaged.

Goldwater won the Republican presidential nomination but then suffered one of the largest defeats in history that November. Lyndon Johnson carried 44 states and more than 60 percent of the popular vote.

Eight years later, Democrats experienced their own ideological takeover.

South Dakota senator George McGovern was a decent man, a decorated veteran, and a principled opponent of the Vietnam War. His campaign inspired activists who believed the party needed fundamental change.

But his supporters were more representative of the activist class than of the general electorate. His campaign mastered new primary rules while traditional Democrats divided their support and failed to recognize his strength until it was too late.

McGovern won the nomination in 1972 and President Richard Nixon defeated him easily, taking 49 states and more than 60 percent of the vote. At the same time, however, more moderate Democrats defeated Republicans in a slew of downballot races, retaining control of the House and even expanding their majority in the Senate.

The lesson is not that parties should silence ideological movements. It is that intensity is not the same as broad public support, and success in a primary is not the same as electability in November. That distinction could determine control of Congress in this year’s elections.

I remember both of these election, particularly the second as I campaigned for McGovern. I remember sitting in the Rockefeller University student lounge next to the famous philosopher Saul Kripke as the election results rolled it, and it was a rout. As I recall, McGovern won only Washington D.C. and Massachusetts.  But the fact is that “progressives” have won Democratic nominations for both the House and Senate over more moderate Democrats, and it may well happen that those “progresives” (do I have to keep putting the word in air quotes?) will take over the Senate this fall. Where Suozzi goes wrong is in the last paragraph, for some of these progressive victories are in states that are reliably Democratic, so in those cases victory in a primary is prety much the same as victory in November. See the next item:

*Speaking of progressivism, an 80-year-old progressive who’s in favor of biological men competing in women’s athletics, walloped a younger liber in the Democratic Party primary for a Senate seat (sound familiar)? The other day I wrote about 80-year-old Ed Markey, who takes a position on this one transgender “right” that is opposed by a majority of Americans.  Well, Massachusetts apparently either approves of or doesn’t mind Markey’s stand, as he handily defeated 47-year-old Seth Moulton.(article archived here).

Senator Edward J. Markey, a progressive Massachusetts Democrat who has served in Congress for a half-century, swept past a much younger rival in a primary race on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.

The victory by Mr. Markey, who at 80 is the oldest senator in his state’s history, came at a moment when many Democratic voters are anxious for the party’s aging leaders to make way for a younger generation. Mr. Markey used a fiercely progressive message and the support of many younger left-wing leaders to ward off Representative Seth Moulton, 47, a moderate Democrat who had campaigned on a message of generational change.

With nearly 80 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Markey led Mr. Moulton by about 30 percentage points.

Mr. Markey will be an overwhelming favorite to win the November general election in deep-blue Massachusetts, positioning him to serve in the Senate until he is at least 86.

. . . This year, Mr. Markey targeted Mr. Moulton over his position on transgender rights. The younger congressman had urged his party after the 2024 election to shift its stance on transgender girls’ participation in girls’ sports, saying he did not want his daughters “getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete.”

Mr. Markey, in turn, campaigned as a strong supporter of trans rights, declaring that his opponent had thrown trans kids “under the bus.” Mr. Moulton said he was sorry if his comments had hurt anyone, but he stood by their substance.

Elected Democrats, aware that polls indicate that most Americans do not think trans athletes should be allowed to play in girls’ sports, have almost universally shied away from the issue since 2024. But in a primary in a deeply Democratic state, Mr. Markey appeared to have found a winning argument, saying that “I believe you can be right, but too soon.”

A progressive cavalry also rallied to Mr. Markey’s cause. Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts joined him on the campaign trail. And he received endorsements from younger progressives such as Representative Ayanna Pressley of Boston and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who is selective about wading into Democratic races.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, 36, issued a statement hailing Mr. Markey as an “inspiration to many of us who are committed to building a better future for all.”

And an inspiration for those who are committed to ruining women’s sports as well.

*Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal describes how Shin Bet (Israel’s internal security organization) captured the head of Hamas’s internal security organization.

Early yesterday morning, under the cover of air strikes, Shin Bet forces raided a building in the heart of Gaza City and walked out with Moain al-Arabid—the head of Hamas’s Internal Security Apparatus. The man is Hamas’s equivalent to Shin Bet Chief David Zini, but where Zini protects the citizens of Israel, al-Arabid is a central node in the oppression of Gazans, his primary tasks involve purging collaborators, enforcing loyalty, and protecting the leadership.

Before Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed the operation had succeeded, every Hamas channel was boasting that “alert resistance members” had foiled the raid through sheer vigilance. When further details surfaced, they pivoted to damage control: yes, a hostile force had been exposed and made to pay, and yes, three collaborators were arrested—but the Israelis had only managed to grab an unnamed “senior member” who “happened to be present at the scene,” not the figure they were after.

Now that a picture of a captured al-Arabid has been published, Hamas is working to downplay him as a mere commander within the apparatus rather than its head. But official Hamas publications named him head of internal security for Gaza City back in 2015—eleven years and dozens of targeted killings of senior officials ago. He and most of the current Hamas leadership owe Israel’s security forces a debt of gratitude: most of their promotions were provided by the IDF. By any account, he is a treasure trove—the custodian of secrets on the security of Hamas’s leadership, its counter-espionage, its network of collaborators.

there is a more important point made by this operation. Change the setting from Gaza to Hebron or Jenin and the story becomes considerably less extraordinary—Shin Bet and IDF forces routinely extract terrorists from the hearts of those cities. Not to diminish the tradecraft behind the operation, but its success is, in essence, the fruit of the security regime Israel has established in Gaza over the past three years.

Shin Bet is a good organization with many contacts on the “other side”, and members of Hamas still in Gaza, particularly the bigwigs, will be a bit rattled by this.

Right now I’m reading a fascinating yet disturbing book, Rise and Kill First (Ronen Bergman, 2018), about the history of Israel’s targeted assassinations. These involve not just Shin Bet, but also Mossad as well as the IDF’s intelligence division (Israel has three separate intelligence groups). It’s mesmerizing but, in cases where killings went wrong and many civilians were eliminated instead of the “target”, it shows the moral problems surrounding such endeavors.

*From the AP’s odd news section, we learn of the oldest person to complete hiking the Appalachian Trail. It was a guy who was 91!

More than 14 million older adults fall every year in the U.S., perhaps none so often as 91-year-old Dale Sanders.

By his count, Sanders fell 71 times while reclaiming his record as the oldest hiker to complete the Appalachian Trail. Six were what he calls hard falls, including one that led to a brief hospitalization and another just 200 yards from the finish. But none were enough to permanently divert him from the 2,193-mile (3,530-kilometer) trail that runs between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine.

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy defines a thru-hike as completing all of the trail’s sections in any order within a year, allowing for pauses. Sanders started Sept. 6 in West Virginia, hopscotched around with some brief breaks and finished Monday atop Maine’s highest peak, where he paused to pray at the sign marking the summit.

“I had to thank God, and I had to thank my support team and everybody that got me here,” he said.

. . .Sanders was born in Kentucky in 1935, two years before the Appalachian Trail was completed. Bullied as a child for his small size, he gained confidence in solo sports like acrobatics and swimming. He later served in the Navy and retired in 2002 after a long career in parks and recreation.

Sanders holds numerous other age-related records, including becoming the oldest person to paddle the entire length of the Mississippi River, an 87-day trip he started on his 87th birthday.

Here’s the intrepid old git!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej had to clean the windows by himself, without divine help:

Hili: Was it you who washed the windows on the veranda?
Andrzej: Yes, because the angels have already flown off to warmer countries.

In Polish:

Hili: To ty umyłeś okna na werandzie
Ja: Tak, bo anioły już odleciały do ciepłych krajów.

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

From The Language Nerds:

From CinEmma:

From Cats That Have Had Enough of Your Shit:

From Masih, another nonviolent protestor sentenced to death, and after torture:

This woman is about to be executed in Iran.

Her name is Taraneh Rahimi. 20 years old. From Isfahan.

Her crime? Joining the January uprising and stopping the beating of another protester.

Sentence: DEATH after being tortured with electric shocks and threatened with rape in… pic.twitter.com/La4RHQV4a7

— Masih Alinejad (@AlinejadMasih) September 1, 2026

Maarten Boudry found a lot of AI in a Skeptical Inquirer article by Armadeo Sarma (see below), including the use of two nonexistent quotes. The whole piece was 78% AI, and I’m peeved as Luana and I published a piece in there (with no fake quotes!). The journal has issued a correction, but the correction is in the middle of the piece (see here).

The two quotes cited in this paragraph from a @SkeptInquirer article don’t appear to exist. The only Google hits lead back to the Skeptical Inquirer piece itself. Looks suspiciously like AI hallucinations:

– The sentence “To deny Africans the universality of rational knowledge… pic.twitter.com/8EFb9AJNhQ

— Maarten Boudry (@mboudry) March 29, 2026

From Simon, who says, “It’s that time of year again”:

Trump announces the start of pumpkin spice season. pic.twitter.com/2FCPQkIQsX

— Joe G (@EastEndJoe) August 30, 2026

Well I hadn’t heard from Milo Yiannopoulos for a long time, but it looks like ICE got hold of him and deported him for overstaying his visa. Larry the Cat reacts:

Translation: “I liked it happening to other people but didn’t like it happening to me” https://t.co/pBCrF1a7yP

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) September 1, 2026

Two from my feed. First, what a little water can do.

Translation from the French:

UNUSUAL: A man discovered a hollow in a tree that he filled with water during the heatwave. He set up a camera trap there for a week to show just how much a simple little water source can be a lifesaver for wildlife. 

🇫🇷 INSOLITE : Un homme a découvert un creux dans un arbre qu’il a rempli d’eau pendant la canicule. Il y a posé un piège photo pendant une semaine pour montrer à quel point un simple petit point d’eau peut être salvateur pour la faune. ❤️… pic.twitter.com/riJuhlqHez

— Wolf 🐺 (@PsyGuy007) September 1, 2026

I love baby skunks! (I had a pet skunk once that I got as a baby; it was descented). Look at their threat displays.

Spicy baby skunks..🦨😅 pic.twitter.com/WHPdMxdTWx

— 𝕐o̴g̴ (@Yoda4ever) September 1, 2026

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This Romanian Jewish boy was gassed to death as soon as he arrived in Auschwitz. He was eight years old. https://t.co/hpjRyJHktn

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) September 3, 2026

From Matthew; this well known museum is closing for good, and it’s very sad:/audrajwolfe.bsky.social/post/3muhvtq7gmk2j’

x

Welcome to a Hump Day (“Dina Punuk” in Javanese), Wednesday, September 2, 2026, and National V-J Day, celebrating the surrender of Japan in WWII, ending the war for good. When I was in Hawaii in 2018, I visited the ship U.S.S. Missouri where the surrender document was signed. Here’s a photo of the spot where the war ended, along with the ship itself (you can walk around the living quarters on your own) and a photo from the ship of the surrender:

Here’s a short video of the surrender, showing the ceremony at the end:

It’s also National Blueberry Popsicle Day, National Grits for Breakfast Day (do not eschew the tasty grit), and World Coconut Day, which we’ll celebrate with a very short clip:

. . . and it’s going to be a hot one in Chicago, with a predicted high of 93°F or 34°C. It was hot and humid yesterday, too, and the ducks don’t like it. They had little appetite and were resting in the shade (remember, they’re wearing permanent down jackets). The squirrel were prostrate, too. Here’s one of my sciurid friends flattened under a banch:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the August 1 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*By a vote of 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the liberal justices on the losing side, the Supreme Court decided that Trump can continue demolishing the East Wing of the White House to build his ridiculous ballroom (archived article here).

A divided Supreme Court on Monday allowed construction to continue on President Trump’s luxury White House ballroom, which has been steadily rising to replace the East Wing the president tore down last fall.

In a 5-to-4 vote, the court said the preservationists who challenged the construction of the planned 90,000-square-foot ballroom did not have legal grounds known as standing to bring their lawsuit because they were not directly harmed by the project, estimated to cost $400 million.

The majority emphasized that its order was not addressing the legality of the project and instead the question of who could sue to try to block it. But in practical terms, the order was a significant setback to the most serious legal challenge to the project, meaning the president seems likely to be able to complete construction. Halting the project now would probably require a fresh lawsuit from an individual or group with standing, such as Congress, which would be a nonstarter while Republicans control the House and Senate.

In an unusual lineup, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the court’s three liberal justices dissented, saying the construction was “likely unlawful.”

The White House is “an iconic American building whose symbolism and history are wrapped up in its architecture,” the chief justice wrote in a lengthy dissent that quoted from Winston Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt. “All the more reason to ensure that those responsible follow the rules in deciding what to tear down and what to build up at the People’s House.”

Monday’s order reversed lower-court rulings that would have halted aboveground construction because the judges found that the administration had exceeded its authority by moving ahead with major changes to the White House campus without congressional approval.

It’s effectively all over; by the time this gets adjuciated with the plaintiffs having genuine “standing,” the ballroom will be built. And don’t all Americans have standing, as the White House is owned by the government: us? Aren’t we harmed by our representatives not having a say in this demolition and reconstruction project?

*The jurors in the Lindsay Clancy case have been unable to reach a verdict.

The jury in Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial did not reach a verdict Tuesday and was instructed by the judge to return to court Wednesday for a fifth day of deliberations.

The jury requested to be excused for the day hours after telling Judge William Sullivan that it was deadlocked and could not reach a unanimous decision. Sullivan had told the jury to continue deliberating.

After returning to the courtroom briefly just after 3:30 p.m. ET, Sullivan excused the jury.

Clancy, wearing a green top, looked at the jurors as Sullivan thanked them for their work in the case.

Under Massachusetts law, Sullivan can encourage the jury to go back to the jury room, but not more than twice unless the jury consents to it. If the jury still cannot reach a unanimous verdict, the judge can declare a mistrial.

. . .The jury is weighing whether to convict Clancy of first-degree murder after she was accused of using exercise bands to strangle her three children — Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months — in the basement of their Duxbury home in January 2023. Her then-husband, who was running errands at the time, found her outside underneath a second-story window following a suicide attempt that left her paralyzed from the waist down.

. . . The jury also has the option to convict her of lesser charges, including second-degree murder and manslaughter, or absolve her of the crime or deem her not guilty by lack of criminal responsibility. If the jury finds her not criminally responsible, that means that jurors believe she could not control her actions because she was in psychosis.

If there is a mistrial, the state then has to decide whether to give up or ask for another trial, which will be as long and laborious as the first one.

*The WSJ announced that two oil tankers were hit by rockets as they tried to transit the Omani-controlled waters of the Strait of Hormuz.

Two tankers carrying Saudi oil were hit by rockets and other munitions within minutes of each other while trying to make a midnight crossing of the Strait of Hormuz, maritime security firms said.

Vanguard said a Liberian-flagged tanker was hit by three rockets off the coast of Oman. Eight minutes earlier, a Saudi-flagged vessel also took multiple hits, Marisks said.

Both were traveling through the southern reaches of the strait along a corridor the U.S. has set up to break Iran’s chokehold of the waterway. Iran began attacking ships in the corridor just weeks after signing a preliminary deal with the U.S. in mid-June to reopen the strait.

“The near-simultaneous incidents represent a further escalation in the threat environment within the Omani corridor,” Marisks said. “The incidents also further undermine any assumption that the Omani corridor represents a reliably protected or lower-risk passage.”

The targeted vessels, Liberian-flagged Senegal Prosperity and Saudi-flagged Sidr, both loaded 2 million barrels of crude from the Saudi port of Juaymah near Ras Tanura a few days ago, according to commodities-data provider Kpler.

No one claimed responsibility for the attacks, but Iran has been firing regularly at ships to assert its hold on the waterway, a crucial conduit for energy exports, which Tehran has crimped since the beginning of the war.

. . .The U.S. says it is shepherding several ships a day through the strait to help ease pressure on global oil supplies. The ships typically cross at night with their transponders off to make them hard to track.

Iran is continuing to strike ships nonetheless. It hit a Kuwaiti tanker last week, among more than a dozen fired at during August.

The Liberia-flagged Senegal Prosperity is managed by a unit of Sinokor Maritime of South Korea, according to its safety-certification provider, Bureau Veritas. The Saudi-flagged Sidr is owned and operated by the national shipping carrier of Saudi Arabia, Bahri, according to the company’s website.

I’m not sure why Saudi Arabia, which owns one of the tankers, isn’t really ticked off, and why Oman, whose territorial waters were being traversed, isn’t equally angry. These would seem to be war crimes, and for sure they’re Iran’s proclamation that they think they control the Strait of Hormuz. We really should bomb Kharg Island now, as this dribbling out of attacks serves no clear purpose.

*The Washington Post gives a list of 15 college and universities that charge undergraduates over $100,000 per year for tuition, housing, books and fees (article is archived here). The University of Chicago is #3, and several schools charge between $99,000 and $100,000 (they’re apparently like stores that give sticker prices like “$4.99”).

With remarkable speed, more colleges and universities are crossing a new threshold: charging undergraduates over $100,000 for tuition, housing, books and fees. Fifteen schools cost six figures now, whereas a year ago there were only two, according to the Princeton Review.

At least nine other colleges are on the cusp of joining the $100K club, and higher education experts say the trend will only continue.

But how much does that matter? And what does it say about the state of college affordability?

The prevalence of six-figure institutions seems to give credence to the sentiment that higher education has become unaffordable, but college pricing is far more nuanced than the numbers suggest. In fact, research shows that while the cost of attendance is going up, the actual amount students pay has stagnated or even ticked down a bit for most families.

Sticker prices — the total cost of attendance — are published and widely circulated, but they are not the best indicator of what many families will pay because colleges offer scholarships and grants based on financial need or academic merit that reduce the cost.

One of the best ways for families to figure out whether they can afford a college is to check out the net price — what students pay after grant aid is applied. Net price calculators create estimates based on family income and other financial details.

Some of the most expensive schools provide some of the most generous financial aid to students from low- and middle-income households.

Take the University of Chicago, where the sticker price is $103,821 for the 2026-2027 academic year, but the average need-based scholarship for undergrads is $78,651. The university also covers tuition for families earning less than $250,000 a year — a growing trend among prestigious (and expensive) schools. A Washington Post analysis found nearly 1,000 colleges and universities that offer free tuition (see the list here).

Here’s the chart below; note that all colleges reduce that fee substantially based on need, but, as far as I know, foreign students have to pay the full fare. For others, the highest out-of-pocket price apepars to be at Fordham University, at a bit more than sixty thousand dollars per year. That’s still nearly a quarter of a million dollars over four years.

Elizabeth Weiss, writing at Skeptic Magazine, argues that “Repatriation and reburial of sht needs to be stopped.” Yes, she means actual human feces (why the asterisk?), and gives another example of ridiculous sacralization of Native American “relics” (h/t Luana).

Through the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA),¹ the U.S. Department of the Interior’ National Park Service at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado plans to repatriate bags of human feces to tribes for reburial.

NAGPRA was passed in 1990 to assist federally recognized modern tribes in claiming affiliated human remains, funerary objects, sacred entities, and materials of cultural patrimony from federally funded institutes, such as museums, national parks, and universities. Human remains and these specific types of artifacts insufficiently linked to a modern tribe through a preponderance of evidence, which included historic documents, biological evidence like DNA, archaeological data, geographic links, and oral histories, were to remain at the institutes for further research and exhibition.

Artifacts and other materials found at sites that were not funerary objects, sacred objects or objects of cultural patrimony, regardless of the links to modern tribes, were to remain in institutions for research and exhibition. The definitions for these categories are clear. Funerary objects are “objects that, as a part of the death rite or ceremony of a culture, are reasonably believed to have been placed with individual human remains either at the time of death or later.”² Thus, for an item to be a funerary object, the object had to be placed in the grave intentionally, for an individual deceased person.

Prior to 2024, these decisions were made by archaeologists based on the archaeological record, historic documentation, and ethnographic data. Then, tribes were consulted about repatriation of the materials determined to fit into these categories.

The consultation first system has led to a list of absurdities. The latest of which include a notice of inventory completion from Colorado that identifies “bags of human feces” as “funerary objects” and, thus, subject to repatriation.⁴ From Mesa Verde National Park, Montezuma County, Colorado:

At site 5MV640 (Spruce Tree House) “[t]he 148 associated funerary objects are 91 human-chewed fiber quids, one bag of human feces, and 56 animal bones.”
At site 5MV650 (Square Tower House) “one bag of human feces” was listed as a funerary object.
At site 5MV1200 (Long House) “46 lots of human feces” were listed as funerary objects.
At site 5MV1452 (Badger House) “one bag human feces” was listed as a funerary object.

. . . One may wonder whether Native Americans really did intentionally bury their ancestors with feces. Are feces funerary objects? No archaeological evidence of this practice exists in the Americas. There are many articles on coprolites, paleofeces, and feces in the archaeological literature, but none of them point to evidence that feces were funerary objects in the Americas.

. . .Regardless of the reason for the increase in repatriation of feces, there’s clear evidence that feces–whether human or other species–are not funerary objects. By accepting the repatriation and reburial of feces, archaeologists are opening the door to even more absurd repatriations. The field will be lost to activists–if it has not already been lost. Narratives about America’s past will be controlled by those with no interest in the truth.

When all the collections–from human remains to feces–are reburied, our ability to truly understand the past–and, therefore, our shared humanity–will be buried too.

You can read about all this mishigas, in which the sacralization of Native Americans keeps objects out of the realm of scientific and historical study, in Weiss’s book Reburying the Past: The Effects of Repatriation and Reburial on Scientific Inquiry. Needless to say, she’s been drummed out of her job because of her stand. 

*Clickbait for me: ducks and insomnia together! Here’s a book that just came out, and though the author is E. B. White (1899-1995), it’s a children’s book based on a poem that White wrote. Click on the cover to go to the publisher’s page:

The publisher’s notes (their bolding):

Even the most restless reader will find peace and quiet in this breathtakingly illustrated book about the magic of nature, nighttime, and a duck who can’t sleep, based on a poem by the renowned E.B. White which was published in The New Yorker in 1928 and now appears for the first time in book form.

How surprised I was to see

A duck as wide awake as me.

Long past bedtime, two creatures sleeplessly wander around and around the reservoir in New York’s Central Park. What woes and wonders keep them awake so late?

Based on a poem originally published in The New Yorker by the legendary author E.B. White, and marvelously illustrated by two-time Caldecott Honoree Melissa Sweet, the book you hold is a love letter to nature in unlikely places, a testament to the power of imagination, and a balm to restless readers everywhere.

The poem was called Natura in Urbe (“Nature in the City”) can be found at this site, but only if you have a New Yorker subscription.  I’d love to see it!

From an archived article in the Portland Press Herald:

White’s latest book, published some 40 years after his death, is called “The Duck Can’t Sleep.” The text is a poem he wrote for The New Yorker magazine in 1928 called “Natura in Urbe,” with new art by Portland author and illustrator Melissa Sweet. It’s full of whimsical wonderings about a sleep-deprived duck and what might be keeping him awake. It goes on sale Sept. 1.

Martha White, who lives in the Midcoast, rediscovered the poem and thought it would make a good children’s book, with its fun rhymes and vivid images. The duck swims around New York’s Central Park reservoir long after dark, while the rest of the natural world is in slumber, his “head a-wobble” and his “tail a-bobble.” In the poem, White seems worried about the duck and what was weighing so heavy on his mind.

“I wondered if he’d left his kind / Because of something on his mind / A midnight sail to clear his vision / And help him reach some duck decision.”

The duck is a male, of course; nobody has any respect for hens.  Remember that White wrote both Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web.

. . . “The Duck Can’t Sleep” includes a two-page foreword by Martha White, tracing her grandfather’s love of waterfowl back to childhood trips to Belgrade Lakes, where his family rented a camp on Great Pond. He raised squabs at the family home in Mount Vernon, New York, and later, after buying his farm in Brooklin, Maine, in the 1930s, he raised “gray geese for the table and Muscovy ducks for fun.”

She explains that her grandfather was a young bachelor living not far from The New Yorker offices and the Central Park reservoir when he published the poem in 1928. In his own journal, he had written about having trouble sleeping, and walking around the reservoir to figure things out. On one walk he debated whether to quit his job. The New Yorker is now well known for its writing and wit, but at that time it was just three years old.

“Like the small duck in this poem, White was a man who worked out his word tangles or life’s conundrums by perambulating, and he was never a sound sleeper,” Martha White wrote. “He’d once had a mattress delivered from the Algonquin Hotel (in Manhattan) to his place in Maine because he had enjoyed an unusually good night’s sleep while there for work.”

Sweet decided to write her book about White after illustrating several picture book biographies. She was fascinated with how White wrote three children’s books that, in her mind, were masterpieces: “Charlotte’s Web,” “Stuart Little” and “The Trumpet of the Swan.” As a children’s book writer herself, and a fellow Mainer, she wanted to know how he did it.

This book would make a great Christmas (or Hanukah or Coynezaa) present for a duck lover.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Andrzej have a cuddle:

Hili: You finally tore yourself away from the computer.
Andrzej: Yes, because I have to do the dishes.
Hili: But you picked me up.
Me: Because it puts off a less pleasant task.

In Polish:

Hili: Nareszcie oderwałeś się od komputera.
Ja: Tak, bo muszę pozmywać naczynia.
Hili: Ale wziąłeś mnie na ręce.
Ja: Bo to oddala mniej przyjemne zajęcie.

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

From CinEmma:

From Cheryl’s Amazingly Positive, No Politics Allowed, Interesting People Grouop:

From Funny and Strange Signs:

From Masih: Another death sentence from Iran for nothing serious, only closing a curtain shop and going to a protest.

Death sentence for joining making this video.

Look at this video. What could possibly be more peaceful than this?

Ali-Asghar Peyghambari simply closed his curtain shop and joined a bazaar strike protesting Iran’s devastating economic conditions. He filmed this peaceful act of… pic.twitter.com/MMwSaZ9oBi

— Masih Alinejad (@AlinejadMasih) September 1, 2026

From Luana; another day, another made-up story from Jason Arday:

NEWS: Jason Arday Lied About Having a Masters From Birkbeck University

I filed a freedom of information request to Birkbeck University to check the claim Jason Arday made in the video below in 2022 that he had a masters in psychodynamic practice from the university.

Birkbeck… https://t.co/0UTAFMx4Cq

— Benjamin Ryan (@benryanwriter) September 1, 2026

From Loretta, a captcha:

I will fail this CAPTCHA 100000% of the time. pic.twitter.com/MHkDe1zonI

— The Redheaded libertarian (@TRHLofficial) August 28, 2026

From Anna; Canada is poaching the wrong academics, and hiring for equity rather than excellence is costing Canada a lot of money.

Canada just spent half a billion dollars poaching 64 academics, three-quarters of them from the U.S., and then CTV put the most revealing quote on TV

Talia Bettcher (trans philosophy / gender studies) is leaving Cal State LA for a taxpayer-funded chair at Waterloo because, in… pic.twitter.com/CqN1PjoPU5

— cbcwatcher (@cbcwatcher) August 30, 2026

Two from my feed. First, cygnets!

This is so beautiful pic.twitter.com/YJwqzfUzo8

— Science girl (@sciencegirl) August 31, 2026

And then, religiously based immorality:

This girl is only 11, but the foul old man who owns her has gotten her pregnant anyway. This is a child, and if by some miracle she survives the birth, she’ll be pregnant again before she turns 13.

And what do liberal “feminists” do? They put on hijab when they speak to Muslim…

— Diana Alastair💚🤍💜 ⚢ ❌❌✡️ (@sappholives83) September 1, 2026

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This man, Paul Kremer, was a German doctor who was a war criminal. Tried at the Auschwitz Trials, he was sentenced to death, which was commuted to life imprisonment. He was released in 1958. Nearly all the people arriving at this transport were gassed to death, as Kremer… https://t.co/HUctKwRV7F

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) September 2, 2026

One from Doctor Cobb; the Nepal deluge:

The sheer force and scale of the Nepal landslide is far beyond anything I've seen before. New footage from @ pilulaespacial on IG.

— Dave Vetter (@davidrvetter.bsky.social) 2026-08-30T18:54:53.563Z