Welcome to The Cruelest Day: Tuesday, April 21, 2026, and National Chickpea Day, honoring one of the main ingredients of hummus. a delicious dish, and good for you, too. When I was in Israel I spent a lot of time trying to find the best place for hummus, which to me was Hummus Ben Sira in Jerusalem. I don’t have my photos of the place here, but here’s what hummus looks like: superb with lots of hot pita bread and raw onions and pickles:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the April 21 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The WSJ says that Trump now has five options vis-à-vis Iran:

1. Stick to his guns: Trump has presented Iran with demands to freeze enrichment of uranium for at least 20 years and remove highly enriched uranium from its territory, as well as fully end its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. These are red lines for the president, senior administration officials said.

Weeks of U.S. and Israeli strikes devastated Iran’s military and the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports is ratcheting up pressure on an already weakened Iranian economy, administration officials said. But so far, the Iranian government has refused to ease its blockade of the strait and signaled it will not abandon its nuclear enrichment program.

If Trump refuses to budge on these demands, there’s a chance that Iran relents in negotiations—but also a risk Iran refuses and war breaks out again.

2. Buy some time: Both sides could walk away from the talks in Islamabad without a final deal, but at least a “memorandum of understanding” that outlines the broad parameters of what an understanding could entail in the future and an agreement to extend the 10-day cease-fire in the war again. This would buy time for more diplomacy.

3. Compromise: There are ample ways to hash out a compromise, officials and analysts said. One idea negotiators are floating: Iran agrees to a 20-year freeze on enriching uranium to higher levels, but after the first 10 years can conduct nuclear-related research or produce a modest amount of low-enriched uranium for at least another 10 years.

Other variations of compromise could include Iran agreeing to give up its stockpile of 60 percent or 20 percent enriched uranium, but keeping its stockpile of lower-enriched uranium.

It’s unclear if Trump would accept compromise proposals here. There’s no discounting the likelihood Iran secretly enriches to weapons-grade levels again in the future.

4. Restart war: Trump has warned that he isn’t inclined to extend the cease-fire again if talks in Pakistan fail. Renewing the war would open Iran to another round of devastating strikes, but it carries risks for the U.S., too.

The war is controversial at home, opening rifts within the Republican Party and driving up energy prices and inflation across the U.S. Defense officials have also raised fears of the U.S. running low on critical munitions in the Iran war that would be needed for the U.S. military in other parts of the world.

5. Walk away: Trump’s fifth option to just walk away from the whole endeavor is the most unlikely, U.S. officials and people close to the White House said, but it’s a fear that senior Arab and European officials have raised in private discussions among one another after the first round of talks failed.

*Carl Zimmer at the NYT reports on a new Current ‘Biology paper with a stunning result.  A male kea (Nestor notabilis), the world’s only alpine parrot (From New Zealand) lost his upper beak, probably in a rat trap.  That injury would normally prove deadly, but Bruce the Kea has learned to compensate for the loss in two ways. It was known previusly that Bruce, who lives in a wildlife reserve, was already famous for using a tool to groom himself: he put a pebble between his tongue and lower beak and groomed his feathers that way. Now he has a new behavior, one he’s used to become the dominant bird in the group:

Last year, Bruce delivered a second surprise.

Male keas fight for dominance. Those who lose fall to the bottom of the circus hierarchy, and they experience stress as a result. The alpha male ends up with the lowest stress levels.

To measure the stress among the nine male keas at the reserve, Dr. Taylor and his colleagues analyzed certain hormones in their blood. Much to their surprise, the male kea with the lowest levels was Bruce.

“We never expected him to be right at the top of the males,” said Alexander Grabham, a zoologist at the University of Canterbury and an author of the study.

The surprise prompted Dr. Grabham and his colleagues to look more closely. Reviewing videos, they discovered that Bruce had risen to the top with a new style of kea combat.

Male keas typically bite one another around the neck. Bruce can’t bite; instead, he has learned to joust. He rushes his opponents and slams his lower beak into their bodies.

Jousting proved a clever strategy. Bruce consistently won his fights, and the other males deferred to him. One perk of becoming the alpha male: Bruce got to visit the bird feeders first.

“Nobody ever tried to jump him or displace him,” Dr. Grabham said.

After enjoying a meal, Bruce permits lower-ranked males to preen his feathers and clean his bottom beak. “And when Bruce is done, he’ll give a kick or a little joust to say, ‘Right, that’s it, I’m done,’” said Dr. Grabham. “That to me is a sign of dominance.”

Here’s a video of Bruce jousting:

. . . and Bruce using a pebble to clean himself:

*The NYT Style Magzine‘s pretentiously named “How to be cultured” segment gives the opinions of actors Marcia ‘Gay Harden, Stephen Root, and Wendell Pierce about “11 unforgettabls film performances.”  (Article archived here.) How many have you seen?

1. The supporting cast of “The Wizard of Oz.” (1939)
2. Jimmy Stewart in “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946_
3. Bette Davis in “All About Eve” (1950)
4. Paul Newman and Robert Redford in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1950)
5. Faye Dunaway in “Chinatown” (1974)
6. Al Pacino in “Dog Day Afternoon” (1975)
7. Meryl Streep in “Sophie’s Choice” (1982)
8. James Earl Jones in “Fences” (1987)
9. Cynthia Erivo in “Wicked” (2024)
10. Eva Victor in “Sorry Baby” (2025)
11. Michael B. Jordan in “Sinners” (2025)

I’ve seen all but #9 and #10, but this list is for punters, containing as it does three movies from the last year.  And, for crying out loud, how about Marlon Brando in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Robert DeNiro in “Raging Bull,” Jack Nicholson in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” Humphrey Bogart in “Casablanca,” or, if you want to go modern, Jessie Buckley in “Hamnet”.  Oh, and of course Peter O’Toole in “Lawrence of Arabia.”  Don’t take your lessons on “How to be cultured” from the NYT!

*I’m getting stiff in my old age, so of course I clicked on a WaPo article called, “Just 2 minutes a day of this type of exercise may help you live longer.”  The key, or so DOCTORS SAY *the same ones who told us not to drink wine, perhaps) is to up the intensity of your exercise for brief periods. (The article is archived for free here.)

A recent study in the European Heart Journal looked at people who didn’t engage in formal exercise and found that just one to two minutes a day of vigorous activity, accumulated in short bursts, was associated with a significantly lower risk of chronic disease and death.

Not a workout class. Not a training plan. Just everyday life, done with a bit more intensity.

Exercise physiologists call this vigorous physical activity, or VPA. Sometimes referred to as vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity (VILPA), it includes things most people don’t think of as exercise: climbing stairs quickly, carrying heavy groceries, walking uphill with purpose or hurrying to catch a train.

These moments are brief, but they matter. Huffing and puffing, even for short periods, can shape long-term health.

This is not the same as high-intensity interval training, or HIIT. HIIT is structured and deliberate, performed in an exercise setting. VPA is opportunistic. One builds fitness and the other reinforces it throughout the day.

Two minutes can sound almost too simple. But physiologically, it makes sense. When you push your body harder, even briefly, you activate systems that don’t get challenged during lower-intensity movement. Your heart rate climbs, your muscles recruit more fibers, your mitochondria (which are like the battery packs to your cells) proliferate and your metabolism shifts. These adaptations drive improvements in cardiovascular fitness, strength and resilience.

The good news is that you don’t need long workouts or extreme training to tap into these benefits. Even small, manageable doses of intense movement can help counter the effects of aging. That could mean burpees at the gym, if that’s your thing. But even if it’s not, short bursts of effort in everyday life still make a difference.

For Joan [a walker], we made a simple adjustment. She kept her daily walks but added short intervals. Every few minutes, she picked up the pace for 20 to 30 seconds — not a sprint, but a brisk effort that made it harder to speak in full sentences. Then she recovered and repeated.

At first, it felt uncomfortable. That’s the point. Intensity should feel like work. But within a few weeks, she noticed a difference. She felt stronger. Her energy improved. Even her regular walking pace became easier.

As I tell my patients, “Pushing yourself means getting comfortable being uncomfortable. It’s the only way to grow. Mentally, physically and physiologically.”

I already do this; I’m gonna live forever!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is and Andrzej differ about Nature, with Andrzej touting its advantages of “love, beauty, and passion.”

Hili: Nature is cruel.
Andrzej: Yes, but it also has certain advantages.

In Polish:

Hili: Natura jest okrutna.
Ja: Tak, ale ma również pewne zalety.

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

From CinEmma:

From Things With Faces:

From The Language Nerds:

Masih disses the Democrats, save the renegade Senator John Fetterman (whom she calls “the Big Man with Hoodie”), for their attitude towards Iran:

ONE OF THE ONLY DEMOCRATS TALKING ABOUT TRUTH

WATCH: Iranian Activist and Journalist @AlinejadMasih says ‘thank you’ to Dem @SenFettermanPA for exposing Iran’s evils, supporting military action to prevent nuclear threat pic.twitter.com/G2VkF9VfxS

— The Story (@TheStoryFNC) April 20, 2026

From Luana, who says, “Chicago is screwed.” Indeed. This is an arrant violation of institutional neutrality in Chicago’s schools (read the article):

Chicago Public Schools declare May 1 a ‘day of civil action’ for students https://t.co/aqe70IeALr pic.twitter.com/fuBGuKZRiG

— New York Post (@nypost) April 20, 2026

From Malcolm: one minute of introverted cats:

Introvert car pic.twitter.com/pJm3COUpbd

— We don’t deserve cats 😺 (@catsareblessing) April 1, 2026

Two from my feed.  This first one is of course AI, but well done–and creepy:

Which bed are you picking?pic.twitter.com/zblmiFVcG2

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) April 20, 2026

A lovely murmuration:

Incredible starling murmuration gracing the Italian skies over Sassari, Sardinia. 🇮🇹 pic.twitter.com/Myz1femvfQ

— James Melville 🚜 (@JamesMelville) April 20, 2026

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This French Jewish boy was gassed as soon as he arrived in Auschwitz. He was twelve years old. https://t.co/pQIU4y5K3a

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) April 21, 2026

From Matthew, the first post on a thread about ‘Able Seacat Simon. Below that is an audio version:

The Dickin Medal is the highest award that can be issued to animals in British military service. Bearing the words "We Also Serve" it has been awarded 75 times since its creation in 1943.Only one cat has ever received the award. This is the story of Able Seacat Simon, of HMS Amethyst. 🧵 1/25

— John Bull (@garius.bsky.social) 2024-08-06T12:36:52.079Z

Just to note that if you'd prefer an audio version of the story of Able Seacat Simon, the only feline recipient of the Dickin Medal (animal Victoria Cross) then I did one on Youtube a while back.That's here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v5N…

— John Bull (@garius.bsky.social) 2024-08-06T13:14:11.179Z

Welcome to the Sabbath that was made for goyische cats: Sunday, April 19, 2020, and Rice Ball Day.  Here’s my favorite kind of rice ball:  zongzi, rice wrapped around a savory or sweet filling and steamed in bamboo leaves. Here’s one unwrapped and one still in the bamboo leaves. It looks as though it’s filled with red beans.

It’s also Bicycle Day, National Amaretto Day, National Chicken Parmesan Day, and National Garlic Day.

I am now in Savannah, Gerogia for some R&R. Food reportage in the offing but Hili is truncated today. And oy, is it hot! Temperature predicted to reach 89° F (32° C) tomorrow.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the April 19 Wikipedia page.

Oh, and there’s a Google Doodle for the NBA playoffs; click to see where it goes. Basketball in April! This conforms to Coyne’s Sports Theory: “All major sports—baseball, football, basketball and hockey—will eventually be played at one time, as their seasons will overlap.”

Da Nooz:

*Well, the Strait of Hormuz is closed again, at least according to Iran:

Iran said Saturday that it had reasserted control over the Strait of Hormuz because the United States was maintaining a naval blockade, just hours after Iranian officials and President Trump had said that the critical waterway was open, raising hopes for an end to the six-week war.

The announcement added more confusion to the status of transit through the strait, where Iran had choked global energy supplies by menacing nearby ships during the war with the United States and Israel. Iran’s military, in a statement carried by government media, said it was now “under strict control” unless the United States ended its own blockade of Iranian ports.

A day earlier, Iran’s foreign minister called the strait “completely open.” At the same time, however, Iranian officials had insisted ships would still need Iranian permission and must travel an Iranian-designated route.

Nonetheless, Mr. Trump framed the Iranian announcement as a breakthrough and presented the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran as all but concluded. He immediately added, however, that the American naval blockade of Iran’s ports would remain in place until a deal was reached to end the war.

The president has often made overly optimistic claims about the war, which began in late February. Although Mr. Trump expressed confidence late Friday about the negotiations with Iran that he said would be happening over the weekend, no new face-to-face talks were announced as of Saturday morning.

Mr. Trump also claimed in a phone interview with CBS that Iran had “agreed to everything.” But Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, quickly denied Iran had agreed to any of their adversaries’ core demands.

And Iran fired on two Indian ships:

On Saturday, India summoned the Iranian ambassador about what it called “a serious incident” involving two Indian-flagged ships that were fired on. TankerTrackers.com, a company that monitors oil shipments, said two Indian-flagged vessels sailing through the strait had turned around.

A shipping monitor run by the British Navy, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, said it had received a report that one tanker had come under fire from two Iranian gunships. Another vessel, a container ship, was hit by an “unknown projectile,” it said.

The gratuitous Trump-dissing is par for the course at the NYT, but they happen to be right. The most egregious lie from the “President” is his claim that Iran really has undergone regime change, implying that the government could be taken over by the people and turned into a modern democracy.  Ain’t gonna happen,

*The latest from the WSJ is that the U.S. Navy is preparing to board ships going to or coming from Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, and seize the commercial ships.  And apparently those ships can be boarded anywhere in the world!

The U.S. military is preparing in coming days to board Iran-linked oil tankers and seize commercial ships in international waters, according to U.S. officials, expanding its naval crackdown beyond the Middle East.

The planning comes as the Iranian military continues to tighten its grip on the Strait of Hormuz, attacking several commercial vessels on Saturday as it declared the waterway was being “strictly controlled” by Iran. The developments sent shipping companies scrambling a day after Iran’s foreign minister said the strait was fully open to commercial traffic—an announcement that was welcomed by President Trump.

The Trump administration’s decision to step up the economic pressure on Tehran is intended to force the regime to re-open the strait and make concessions on its nuclear program, which has been the focus of negotiations between the U.S. and Iran.

Trump said Friday that Iran has already agreed to hand over its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to the U.S., though Iran has rejected that claim. Also at stake is how long Iran might agree to forgo enriching uranium and whether Tehran would receive billions of dollars in frozen funds from foreign countries as part of a deal.

The U.S. has already turned back 23 ships that have sought to leave Iranian ports as part of a naval blockade of Iranian ports, according to U.S. Central Command. The broadening of the campaign will enable the U.S. to take control of Iran-linked vessels around the world, including ships carrying Iranian oil that are already sailing outside the Persian Gulf and those carrying arms that could support the Iranian regime.

Whether this will precipitate more violence in the war is unclear. I’m still worried that Trump is now backing off, and won’t insist that Iran completely abandon its mission to produce nuclear weapons.  That prohibition was declared Goal #! in the Iran campaign, at least in Trump’s initial announcement.

*I didn’t know that this series was running at the NYT, but apparently each month they give you links to five good movies you can watch for free.  Here are the latest five (with links): films that will discomfit you:

Safe (1995). Stream it on Tubi.

Are you allergic to the 20th century? Suffering and lost, Carol (Julianne Moore), a housewife from the San Fernando Valley, takes the flier bearing this message that she hopes will lead her to a solution about the mysterious physical maladies plaguing her. But ultimately, this is an omen for the century to come, for our pervasive sense of unease and overload in times that leaves you alienated at best, and perhaps genuinely sick at worst.

In Todd Haynes’s haunting masterwork, we follow Carol, struggling with an onset of various medical illnesses, as she goes down a rabbit hole to find answers. Decades later, a question still stirs fans: Is Carol actually sick?

The Parallax View (1974) Stream it on PlutoTV.

A cheerleader, a barn, naked bodies, Hitler. Connect those images as you see fit — that’s the ominous montage flashing before Joseph Frady (Warren Beatty), a kind of psychological test, in this searing scene from Pakula’s film.

During this sequence, Frady, the cowboy journalist investigating a mysterious string of murders following a political assassination, has perhaps reached some inner sanctum. And yet, the quietly devastating revelation of “Parallax” is that there really isn’t one. When he follows the trail of the group’s latest violent conspiracy, he is only met by more shadows and the barrel of a gun at the end of a dark tunnel.

The Conversation (1974). Stream it on YouTube.

Coppola wrote the script before Watergate, but this is a defining work of the paranoid reality the scandal opened our eyes to, one in which you never know who’s listening and what’s operating in the dark. In the film, Harry (Gene Hackman) is an expert audio bugger who slowly spirals after believing he’s learned of a murder plot in a conversation he’s been hired to record.

Even if you already know where the movie goes, what makes it spellbinding each time is its profound sense of melancholy in observing Harry’s solitary life. When you know that anyone might be watching or listening, it’s only logical to not only accept but insist that it’s better if we’re all alone in this world.

Blow Out (1981). Stream it on Tubi.

“Nobody wants to know about conspiracy, I don’t get it!” says Jack Terry (John Travolta) in Brian De Palma’s spiraling stunner. After inadvertently recording the audio to a car crash that kills an American governor and presidential hopeful, Jack begins to suspect foul play. A sound man for B-movies, he uses his footage to meticulously reconstruct the sequence of events, like a filmmaker mapping out the montage to a murder scene.

But is anyone paying attention? As Jack’s rabbit hole leads him to the film’s thrilling climax at a patriotic Philadelphia parade, full of stars and stripes, he’s the only one attuned to the possibility of sinister agents — everyone else is too busy marveling at the fireworks.

The Assistant (2019), Stream it on Tubi.

For both how harrowing and humdrum Kitty Green’s film is, it stands as one of the best works to speak to the #MeToo era. As we follow Jane (Julia Garner), an assistant to a production executive, across one single day in the office, we observe the small signs that begin to tell her of the routine sexual harassment that happens behind closed doors.

We never see what really happens or who her boss is, but instead how the casually manipulative and misogynistic rhythms of the corporate setting make these dark realities just part of the furniture of a workplace. The more Jane reacts, the more she’s glaringly out of step with the program. Green is intentional about the film’s structure, never really moving the story into a climax or reveal — the insidious mundanity of it all is what is most horrifying.

I’ve seen only “The Conversation,” but it’s a fantastic movie.

*Tabloid item! Who remembers Kyrsten Sinema, the renegade Senator who didn’t run again and has dropped out of sight? The Wall Street Journal reports that she likely had an affair with her married security guard, and the guard’s wife is suing Sinema not for adultery, but for “homewrecking.”

In October 2024, Heather Ammel found a message from another woman on her husband’s phone. “I miss you. Putting my hand on your heart. I’ll see you soon,” it said.

Ammel decided to write back: “Are you having an affair with my husband?” she texted from her spouse’s phone. “You took a married man away from his family.”

Then Ammel took a surprising step: She sued—not her cheating husband, but the woman who was having a romantic relationship with him. This was Kyrsten Sinema, the former U.S. senator from Arizona. Ammel’s husband, Matthew Ammel, was employed as a security guard for Sinema at the time.

North Carolina, where the Ammels lived, is one of just a handful of states with a “homewrecker law” that allows a jilted spouse to sue a third party for damages for a marital breakup. And it isn’t just illicit lovers who might find themselves in the crosshairs. Meddling in-laws, persuasive friends, even a therapist or clergy member are all fair game.

To win an “alienation of affection” claim, as it is known legally, a plaintiff must prove three points: that there was genuine “love and affection” between the spouses before the third party intervened. That this love and affection was alienated and destroyed. And that the defendant’s “malicious acts” caused the loss of affection.

. . .Notably, plaintiffs don’t have to prove that adultery was involved, as the alienation-of-affection claim covers emotional persuasion. A sexual affair is covered by another homewrecker charge—called “criminal conversation”—that many spurned spouses file simultaneously.

While proponents of these cases say that they support and strengthen marriage—serving as a deterrent for bad behavior—most states have scrapped them as relics of a distant past.

A few other states have such laws, but they’re not as “aggressive” as North Carolina, which once awarded a wife who sued her husband’s mistress $30 million.  I wondered what Sinema had been up to since she left the Senate. And do you think that the mistress should be the one to be sued? I guess a wife can’t get monetary damages from suing her husband; most states have “no fault” divorce laws in which the cheated-upon spouse gets no extra assets because of the adultery,

*The news is thin as the Middle East wars in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran are in a pause.  So let’s look at an item just auctioned for nearly a million dollars: a lifejacket worn by a woman who got off the sinking Titanic in a lifeboat.

 A life jacket worn by a passenger on RMS Titanic as she escaped the sinking steamship on a lifeboat sold at auction on Saturday for 670,00 pounds ($906,000).

The flotation device was worn by Laura Mabel Francatelli, a first-class passenger on the doomed ocean liner, and is signed by her and other survivors from the same lifeboat.

It was the star among items in a sale of Titanic memorabilia by Henry Aldridge & Son auctioneers in Devizes, western England, and sold to an unidentified telephone bidder for well over the presale estimate of between 250,000 and 350,000 pounds.

A seat cushion from one of the Titanic lifeboats sold at the same auction for 390,000 pounds ($527,000) to the owners of two Titanic museums in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, and Branson, Missouri.

The prices include an auction-house fee known as the buyer’s premium.

“These record-breaking prices illustrate the continuing interest in the Titanic story, and the respect for the passengers and crew whose stories are immortalized by these items of memorabilia,” auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said.

A short video:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is licking her chops

Hili: What a beautiful little bird.
Andrzej: I’m afraid you’re hiding your true thoughts.

In Polish:

Hili: Jaki piękny ptaszek.
Ja: Obawiam się, że ukrywasz swoje prawdziwe myśli.

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

From America’s Cultural Decline into Idiocy:

From Now That’s Wild:

From Jesus of the Day:

Masih reminds us not to forget the executed protestors of Iran:

A hundred days since a massacre in Iran, and you know what? The bodies didn’t disappear, they just disappeared from your timeline.

We’re talking about body bags stacked in hospitals across Iran. This is only one video that I have received from one hospital in Tehran thanks to… https://t.co/BbrtJve7c5

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) April 18, 2026

From Simon; the Strait of Hormuz, rated:

lol who did this. pic.twitter.com/UVeCZwCBYU

— Brandon Beylo (@marketplunger1) April 18, 2026

From Luana, who is particularly interested in “Fat Studies” these days as its proponents often tell outright lies:

A new paper in Fat Studies is fighting for “social justice and equity in death” for fat people, and claims that fat people are “particularly likely to die of anti-fatness” (as opposed to obesity-related health complications?).

According to the author, fat people face “postmortem… pic.twitter.com/5FrV7zjqNM

— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) April 16, 2026

From Malcolm; cats that have grown up with d*gs:

Cats that grew up with dogs be like pic.twitter.com/T7PivkteOV

— Cat Knows Nothing (@CatKnowsNth) March 23, 2026

One from my feed; don’t mess with ‘roos! (Sound up.)

People don’t talk enough about how scary kangaroos are. pic.twitter.com/6jS20KouOO

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) April 17, 2026

And one I reposted ffrom The Auschwitz Memorial:

A Czech Jewish boy and his mother were likely gassed as soon as they arrived in Auschwitz. He was thirteen years old https://t.co/GLclOb1YuN

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) April 19, 2026

One from Dr. Cobb, sent with a frown emoticon:

The Pompei galleries in the Naples Archaeological Museum are endless, amazing and also so sad. Here’s Terentius Neo the Baker and his wife looking intellectual. You hope they got out, or simply weren’t there that terrible day.

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-04-18T09:07:07.546Z

Welcome to CaturSaturday, April 18, 2026. It’s shabbos for Jewish cats, and here is an Orthodox Jewish cat from ChatGPT:

It’s also National Animal Crackers Day and Piñata Day.  The original animal crackers, devised in 1902, are known as Barnum’s Animals, and Wikipedia notes this about them:

The number and variety contained in each box has varied over the years. In total, 53 different animals have been represented by animal crackers since 1902. In its current incarnation, each package contains 22 cookies consisting of a variety of animals. The most recent addition, the koala, was added in September 2002 after being chosen by consumer votes, beating out the penguin, walrus and cobra.

Here are some of them:

I am flying to Georgia for a week, and posting will be light until my return. Bear with me; I do my best.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the April 18 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The latest war news from It’s Noon in Israel, called “Quiet in the Middle East.”

It’s Friday, April 17, and as of midnight, for the first time since Feburary 28 there is no fighting in the Middle East. While this 10-day ceasefire agreement ostensibly returns the northern front to a pre-Roaring Lion status quo—where Israel can routinely strike Hezbollah targets—it is decidedly not Jerusalem’s preferred outcome.

Nor is it the preference of the Israeli public: 61 percent oppose the current ceasefire deal according to a poll by the Institute for National Security Studies. But if U.S. public opinion wasn’t going to stop Trump, I doubt Israel’s will.

The ceasefire isn’t a sign of realignment, just different priorities and different timelines. The U.S. is looking to extract Iran’s nuclear materials, and Israel’s war in Lebanon was hindering that removal. But the ceasefire was only the first step in Trump’s plan.

The second is the White House meeting between Trump, Lebanese President Joseph Auon, and Netanyahu, expected next week. It is designed to project a united front and avoid unnecessary public escalation—a diplomatic optic Israel accepts as preferable, even as it resents the diversion from its own military objectives.

The third step is an American push to promote a broad political arrangement in Lebanon, an ambition Israel is deeply skeptical of, given Hezbollah’s continued dominance in the country. Furthermore, Hezbollah’s noted preference for maintaining a limited level of friction could preclude a return to full-scale conflict—provided it successfully keeps its provocations below Trump’s threshold of tolerance.

The fourth step involves stabilizing the arena through coordinated, extended ceasefires. Israel is especially unenthusiastic about this outcome. Jerusalem is functioning on a significantly more compressed timeline than Washington. Now that the Strait of Hormuz is at least partially reopened, the immediate pressure on the U.S. has abated somewhat. Meanwhile, the shadow of Hezbollah is still cast over Israel’s north. While Israeli society has miraculously rebounded to normalcy after the war, living for an extended period under the looming threat of escalation isn’t a condition any country accepts joyfully.

The two key questions right now are: What is the effect of the ceasefire in Tehran, and what is its effect in Beirut?

Regarding Iran, the assessment in Jerusalem is that Trump remains firm on the nuclear issue. The diplomatic gestures in the Lebanese arena are intended to clear the board—creating the space for the U.S. to focus less on fielding Iranian complaints over Lebanon, and more on hammering Tehran into surrendering its nuclear program.

In Lebanon, meanwhile, IDF forces remain in place. The immediate question is whether the ceasefire will be extended to maintain the current holding pattern, whether renewed escalation will necessitate further military action, or whether advancing diplomatic talks will require an eventual IDF withdrawal.

Ultimately, the question of whether this ceasefire was worth it can only be answered in Islamabad. If negotiations there are successful and the regime is effectively neutered, Lebanon will have been a small price to pay.

Amit Segal is being optimistic here. What are the chances that the reimg is “effectively neutered.”  It angers me when Trump keeps proclaiming that there’s been “real regime change” in Iran.

*Trump’s Arch de Triomphe—or should I say “Arch of Trump”—was given preliminary approval yesterday by a panel comprising mostly sycophants appointed by Trump. The 250-foot structure, higher than the Lincoln Memorial nearby, will sit on an island in the Potomac River. But it’s not certain that it will be built.

A fine arts commission gave preliminary approval to President Trump’s plans for a triumphal arch in Washington, but the panel’s vice chairman suggested significant changes, including losing the statues of golden eagles and a winged angel atop the structure that account for a third of its height.

The Commission of Fine Arts, which is filled with Mr. Trump’s appointees, has an advisory role on the design of the project, but no enforcement power. It asked the administration to return with updated drawings before a final vote on the project.

The outcome reflected the tension at the heart of Mr. Trump’s efforts to leave his imprint on the architecture of Washington. Even as the president has sought to defang the entities that might normally stand in the way of his plans, the sheer scale and lack of consultation on his designs have fueled intense public resistance.

James C. McCrery II, the vice chairman of the panel who was also the original architect for Mr. Trump’s $400 million ballroom, took issue with the statues at the top of the 250-foot arch. Removing the statues would decrease its size considerably, to about 166 feet.

“I wonder if you need those up there,” Mr. McCrery asked, suggesting it might be “even a better, more Washingtonian design” without the statues.

Mr. McCrery, who while working on the ballroom project objected to its ballooning size, also asked for the replacement of the statues of gold lions included lower down on the arch.

“Work on the lions and find replacements for them,” he said. “As I said earlier, they’re not of this continent. They’re noble, they’re courageous, and they’re strong. They’re all those things. But maybe there are alternatives.”

He also raised concerns about a 250-foot tunnel that architects have planned to build underneath the arch as a path for visitors to cross under the busy roundabout. Mr. McCrery described it as “less than ideal” and a “security risk.

Before the vote, Thomas Luebke, the panel’s secretary, informed members that they had received a deluge of nearly 1,000 messages from the public: “One hundred percent of the comments were against the project,” he said.

Here’s who has to approve it further:

Plans for the arch have yet to go before the National Capital Planning Commission, which reviews structural proposals around the National Mall and is also led by Trump allies. There is also the question of whether the administration will seek congressional approval.

A group of Vietnam War veterans has sued to stop construction, citing a lack of congressional authority and arguing that the arch would obstruct the view between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery.

The plaintiffs maintain that Mr. Trump cannot build it without the authorization of Congress. They cite the Commemorative Works Act of 1986, which details a multistep process for authorizing and designing commemorative works in the District of Columbia and says any such work must be “specifically authorized” by Congress.

Here’s spokesperson Karoline Leavitt, who can’t pronounce “arch”, nor has the ability to hold the picture right-side-up, announcing the monstrosity at a press conference:

*Ethan Norton, a senior at Wesleyan University, has written an op-ed at the Washington Post that is guaranteed to get me clicking: “Why Democrats are failing to reach young voters like me.”  It’s that the Dems can’t produce clickbait!

Arguing over party strategy and leadership in debates that raged even after replacing Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison.

That diagnosis overlooks the real problem: It’s not just what they’re up against, but how they’re communicating. Crying “constitutional crisis” won’t win votes — it’s hardly enough to get likes.

In the digital age, attention is earned, not assumed. In 2025, Media Matters reported that right-leaning digital programs commanded audiences nearly five times the size of those on the left — a disparity amplified by placement on social media. As MS NOW host Chris Hayes puts it, “if you can’t be heard, it doesn’t matter what you say.”

I know from experience. I study film and digital media, and as a young voter, I’ve scrolled past lifeless Democratic content, noticing how much more engaging posts from conservatives feel. It’s like eyeing your dinner companion’s unhealthy meal — you know it’s not good for you, but it looks so much better than what’s on your plate.

Friends who claim they don’t care about politics consume right-leaning media largely because it’s funnier and easier to share, such as the stand-up series Kill Tony — one of 80 right-leaning programs identified by Media Matters that are categorized as “comedy, entertainment, sports, or other supposedly nonpolitical topics.”

. . .Some Democrats understand how to capitalize on social media. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s vertical shorts propelled him into office. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) answers questions from followers on Instagram. Even Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) — hardly a digital native — shows up daily with YouTube videos, Instagram clips and shareable quotes.

Contrast that with Vice President Kamala Harris missing a chance to appear on Joe Rogan’s podcast in 2024. Some saw it as a tacit surrender, leaving a huge swath of the electorate untouched. This episode also underscores a misunderstanding of the attention economy.

Yes, but I loved watching Kamala Harris because she’s just completely out of it, and I guess she’s been that way since she fell out of a coconut tree.

Like everyone else, young voters are looking for authenticity. And right now, that boils down to one question: Does this person understand how to reach me?

Too often, the answer from Democrats is no.

Conservatives do not have an ideological grip on young people. They just have our time and attention.

So get creative.

Stop obsessing over what the message is, and focus on how it’s being delivered.

Yep, the medium is the message, and to hell with substantive content. Gen Z has spoken: put candidates on Joe Rogan’s show. (That’s not a bad idea, actually.)

*As always, I’ll steal three items from Nellie Bowles’s weekly news-and-snark column in the Free Press, called this week, “TGIF: The Luddite Party.”

→ NYC’s new government grocery stores: New York mayor Mamdani announced the first site identified for a city-owned grocery store. It shall be in an East Harlem marketplace called La Marqueta. Cute! It’s opening in 2029. The city will spend $30 million on the store.

In his 100 Day Address, the mayor said: “Some will insist that city-owned businesses do not work, that government cannot keep up with corporations. My answer to them is simple: I look forward to the competition. May the most affordable grocery store win.”

So, lemme get this straight: The La Marqueta store will pay no rent. It will pay no real estate taxes. And the city is putting $30 million into developing it. Totally fair and normal competition going on, nothing to see here. I’m so curious which will be cheaper, the stores that have to pay rent and property taxes—or the one that doesn’t!

→ A mystery that will never be solved: After affirmative action was banned and universities had to start judging kids on test scores and grades again, something strange happened at Johns Hopkins.

→ Quote of the week: “I was standing in front of my parked car on I-684 cutting the penis out of a road killed raccoon, thinking about how weird some of my family members have turned out to be. . . . My kids waited patiently in the car.” Who else could it be? It’s Robert F. Kennedy Jr. For those of you who might be freaked out by the admission, don’t worry. Bobby was cutting off the genitals of a dead raccoon apparently to “study them later.” It was research, heard of it? He’s a budding zoologist. It’s called primary sources. Onward.

*I found this video about Steinway Tower, the world’s thinnest skyscraper completed in 2022 in New York City. But nobody wants to live there! The 12.5-minute video below tells you why. I sure wouldn’t live there, even if I did have the dosh!  There are 59 luxury residential units in the building, and many are unoccupied. As Wikipedia says,

The tower’s early condominium owners included the government of Canada (which bought an apartment for its consul general) and the developer Christian Candy. Sotheby’s International Realty took over as the building’s condominium sales agent in July 2024, and Bonhams auction house leased the former piano showroom that September. The building had 10 unsold apartments by April 2025, and two of the original condo owners were recorded as having sold their apartments by August.

It’s all about construction and wind and I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live on the top floors, where swaying is intense.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is peeved:

Hili: It’s not easy to preserve dignity when you feel like biting someone.
Andrzej: Amen to that.

In Polish:

Hili: Trudno zachować godność, kiedy ma się ochotę kogoś ugryźć.
Ja: Święte słowa.

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

From The Language Nerds:

From Meow, Incorporated:

From The 2025 Darw2in Awards!!!/Epic Fails!!!:

Masih is quiet, but the #10 cat makes a double entendre:

Keir Starmer should go immediately…

…to the shops to buy me some cat treats.

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) April 17, 2026

*From Luana, the fraught field of fat studies, many of whose activists insist that obesity does not produce morbidity.

A new paper in Fat Studies is fighting for “social justice and equity in death” for fat people, and claims that fat people are “particularly likely to die of anti-fatness” (as opposed to obesity-related health complications?).

According to the author, fat people face “postmortem… pic.twitter.com/5FrV7zjqNM

— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) April 16, 2026

From Ginger K., a civil discussion between a gender activist and Alex Stein, apparently a professional comedian.  There’s some conflation between sex and gender.

This is a pretty extraordinary clip. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a trans ally going this far into the argument . Fair play to her for at least having the conversation, but it’s no surprise when she finally taps out where she does. pic.twitter.com/6FDlZNzdEL

— Graham Linehan (@Glinner) April 16, 2026

From Malcolm, a cat doctor. Seems dubious to me, but I do like cats making biscuits.

In Russia, a woman notices that her cat comes every night and kneads her throat. Days later, she develops a slight swelling in her neck and, after seeing a doctor, learns that she has a thyroid issue. 🐾
When she looks into it, she comes across a fascinating idea: cats are… pic.twitter.com/HctQeL5fua

— Dailymeow (@Dailymeoww1) April 5, 2026

One from my feed.  That’s one freaked-out kestrel!

A group of young Kestrels seeing a butterfly for the first time pic.twitter.com/5fiof5IrWH

— Today In History (@historigins) April 16, 2026

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This French Jewish boy and his mother were gassed as soon as they arrived in Auschwitz. He was four years old. https://t.co/AW6ntXsf5y

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) April 18, 2026

And two from Dr. Cobb, soon to go to Chile. First, hammer-headed flies (the males are the ones with the long heads). Males in other but similar species butt heads as a way of sizing each other up:

And Matthew recommends this 5½-minute video as a good explanation of the expanding Universe:

Welcome to Friday, April 17, 2026, and Ellis Island Family History Day.  Here’s a record that I believe is marks the arrival of my grandmother, Sali Mermelstein, at Ellis Island from Hungary on May 4, 1904.  I am not 100% sure this is her, but if it is she was ten years old on arrival. My mother was born in 1919, which would make my grandmother 25 when she gave birth to my mother. Also, Sali went by “Sadie” in the U.S. I put the red box in; click to enlarge.

It’s also International Haiku Poetry Day, Malbec World Day, National Cheeseball Day, and National Crawfish Day.  Here’s are two Jewish haiku (not mine):

Yom Kippur-forgive
Me, God, for the Mercedes
And all the lobsters.

No fins, no flippers,
The gefilte fish swims with
Some difficulty

I leave for a week tomorrow (Savannah) so there may not be a Hili dialogue tomorrow. However, I will do my best to post as I have time.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the April 17 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Trump has announced a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Lebanon. What’s that?, you say.  For the government of Lebanon is not Hezbollah, and Hezbollah has to agree.  Presumably it did

President Trump announced on Thursday that the leaders of Israel and Lebanon had agreed to begin a 10-day cease-fire at 5 p.m. Eastern time. If it indeed takes effect, the cease-fire could remove a major hurdle to the broader peace talks with Iran.

A truce would pause the war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group. Neither immediately confirmed Mr. Trump’s announcement. The negotiations are complicated by the fact that Israel is discussing a cease-fire only with the Lebanese government, which does not have control over Hezbollah, a group considered more powerful than Lebanon’s own military. Hezbollah has long rejected any direct talks with Israel.

However, such a dynamic is not without precedent.

The cease-fire that ended the last war between Israel and Hezbollah, in November 2024, was negotiated indirectly between Israel and Lebanon’s government through U.S. mediators. Even though Hezbollah was not a formal signatory to the deal, the agreement would not have worked without its consent.

The fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has threatened to upend the cease-fire between the United States and Iran, which is set to expire next week. Hezbollah is Iran’s most powerful proxy in the Middle East and Iran has repeatedly insisted that the truce should extend to Lebanon. The United States and Israel have rejected that demand.

It was not clear whether more than a million residents who have been displaced in southern Lebanon would be able to return home; Israel has signaled recently that it was planning to occupy large parts of the area even after the current conflict with Hezbollah.

More than 2,100 people have been killed in Lebanon during the current conflict, Lebanese authorities have said. At least 13 Israeli soldiers have also been killed, along with two civilians, according to the Israeli authorities.

This is a cease-fire that will not last, especially if Hezbollah is not ordered to disarm, as a 2006 UN Security Council resolution stipulated. And Iran’s insistence that an Israel/Hezbollah truce be part of their own agreement with the U.S. and Israel shows more than anything that Iran still wants to support terrorism in the Middle East. That Trump agreed to this finally shows that he just wants the war to be over and doesn’t care much about the security interests of Israel.

UPDATE: The cease-fire began at midnight in Lebanon, and thousands of Lebanese are heading to their homes in the south. Hezbollah, though it stopped firing rockets, has not said it will abide by the truce. Nor has it said it will disarm, and since the truce is with the Lebanese government, that government would have to force Hezbollah to disarm. There is no obvious way to do so. Netanyahu has made disarming a sine qua non for any agreement, so once again we reach an impasse, one that will last ten days.

*On Wednesday, and by a narrow margin, the Senate blocked a resolution to prevent Trump from attacking Iran.

The Senate rejected a resolution Wednesday to block President Donald Trump from ordering further strikes on Iran, even as some Republicans raised increasing concerns about Congress’s lack of input on the war.

The vote was the latest test of lawmakers’ support for the unpopular conflict since Trump threatened last week to destroy Iran’s “whole civilization” then hours later agreed to a two-week ceasefire. Democrats have forced votes on three other war powers resolutions since the war’s start, all of which have failed.

Wednesday’s procedural vote was defeated 52-47, with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) joining Democrats to support the resolution and Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania) voting against it. Sen. Jim Justice (R-West Virginia) did not vote.

Some Republicans who opposed the resolution said they nevertheless want Trump to consult Congress as the war approaches the two-month mark — an important legal deadline.

The War Powers Resolution of 1973 — the law Democrats are using to force the votes — requires presidents to remove U.S. forces from any conflict that Congress has not authorized within 60 days. Trump can obtain a 30-day extension if he certifies that it is an “unavoidable military necessity.”

Trump predicted shortly after the war started that it would be over within four or five weeks, but the 60-day deadline, which arrives May 1, is rapidly approaching. He has sent mixed signals about how long the conflict will go on, telling Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business on Tuesday that he the war was “very close to over” even as he imposed a naval blockade on Iran and sent thousands more troops to the Middle East.

“The president recognized ahead of time when he first went into Iran that this was going to be a short-term thing, right?” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said. “We’re probably not going to be dealing with 60 days. Well, here we are.”

If three votes had been changed in favor of the resolution, it would have passed, though I don’t know what force the resolution would have had.  Would Trump have stopped attacking Iran for good? I doubt it.  And even if both houses of Congress turn Democratic in the midterm, Trump can still attack other countries, since the stipulation that only Congress can declare war no longer seems to be in force. Fetterman’s and Paul’s votes were predictable, and canceled each other out. Fetterman, much as I like him, is not going to be reelected should he choose to run.

*From It’s Noon in Israel, we now learn that the Democratic Party officially hates Israel:

It’s Thursday, April 16, and last night, the U.S. Senate voted on a pair of resolutions aimed at blocking $447 million in arms and bulldozer sales to Israel. While the measures ultimately failed, the final tally demonstrated a seismic political shift. The Democratic Party voted overwhelmingly in favor, with 40 of 47 Senate Democrats backing the embargoes. In the end, the sales were only saved by unified Republican opposition.

The resolutions were proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders. While similar measures brought by Sanders were rejected out of hand in 2024 and 2025, the political landscape has clearly shifted. The number of Democrats voting alongside the Vermont independent has more than doubled in less than two years.

Contrary to the media’s lamentations, Israel and the United States did not lose the war to Iran. Who decided that the temporary survival of a regime constitutes a victory?

The Middle East is full of despotic Muslim dictatorships that have never interested the United States, and rightfully so. America is the world’s policeman, not its educator. If a leader wishes to destroy the lives of their citizens, the U.S. military will not be sent to protect them. The strongest army in the world and the strongest air force in the region destroyed $200 billion worth of Iranian military assets because the country posed an existential threat.

Yet, on a different front, Israel suffered a worrying loss: the war for American public opinion. The scope of this shift is historic. For the first time since polling on the issue began, the number of Americans holding an unfavorable view of Israel has eclipsed those with a favorable one, tipping the scales at 48 percent to 46 percent.

The percentage of Israel’s supporters dropped to a low not seen since 1989, and the percentage of detractors hit an all-time high.

If there is a mitigating circumstance, it is that Israel’s global standing historically deteriorates during prolonged military conflicts. We saw this during the First Intifada with its knives and stones, the Second Intifada with its exploding buses, and the Second Lebanon War. The current decline is deeper primarily because the war is longer. However, there is reason to expect a recovery once the regional fighting concludes—hopefully soon, and with a decisive victory. Furthermore, Israel’s national standing is still faring slightly better than that of its leader: Netanyahu currently sits at minus 23 percent, compared to a positive 9 percent just two years ago.

But that’s not all. According to a CNN poll, the majority of Republicans under the age of 50 now view Israel negatively: minus 16 percent, compared to plus 28 percent just four years ago.

The primary negative development is the rise in support for the Palestinians. Thirty-seven percent of Americans view them favorably, a record high since measurements began in 2000. This indicates a profound shift—not necessarily localized anger toward Israel, but authentic support for its enemies. Netanyahu believes that those in America who have a problem with Israel have a problem with America itself. Meaning, it is not an issue of public diplomacy (hasbara) but a matter of the progressive worldview.

The last paragraph is distressing; if there is one earmark of a “progressive” Democrat, it is a loathing of Israel (and for some, of the West in general). Note that this is not a gift, but a sale to Israel.  I’m a lifelong Democrat, and am deeply depressed at where my party is going. I won’t be driven into the arms of Republicans, but how do I vote for a candidate with the ideology of Bernie Sanders.

*Hasan Piker is a far-left “influencer”, and by far left I mean he harbors a love of Communism and a deep, deep hatred of Israel.  He’s posing a problem for Democrats who are loath to align with his stands, but some want to have some of his “influence” rub off on them, and that includes Ezra Klein. Over at The Free Press, Peter Savodnik dissents, arguing that “Actually, Hasan Piker is the Democrats’ enemy.”

Democrats have a Hasan Piker problem. They seem not to know what to do with the über-lefty streamer-influencer with millions of followers—to engage or not to engage; to campaign with him, or to pretend he doesn’t exist. That is the question!

In recent days, Piker has doubled down on his claim that Israel is worse than Hamas and declared that the collapse of the Soviet Union was one of the greatest catastrophes of the 20th century. Last month, he took part in a propaganda mission to Cuba. In November, he was in China promoting all the Chinese Communist Party’s good works.

One would think Democrats would have no trouble dispensing with this radical chic retread.

And yet Piker is being defended by some of the most prominent voices on the American left—including, most recently, Ezra Klein, who has penned a column originally headlined “Hasan Piker Is Not the Enemy.”

Actually, if you believe that Donald Trump and his cult of personality pose a dire threat to the Constitution, if you believe that America needs a serious, substantive liberalism that narrows the gap between the 1 percenters and everyone else, then Hasan Piker is the enemy.

He’s the would-be savior of the Cuban people who showed up in Havana with his $1,300 Cartier sunglasses.

He’s the wannabe revolutionary who on October 8, 2023, while the Israelis were still counting corpses, issued a breathless defense of the freedom fighters of Gaza overthrowing the shackles of their oppressors. “You cannot push people into a fucking corner their whole lives and not expect them to fight back at a certain point,” he ranted. This was followed by a manly “Suck my dick,” after which Piker accused Israel of “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing.”

And yes, he’s the perfect distillation of the new left antisemitism (his protestations to the contrary notwithstanding). You do not get to obsess over the Jewish state—amplifying its every misstep, deleting or distorting the long history of Jews across the Middle East—while claiming you are not obsessing over the Jewish state. (In his column, Klein defends Piker against the antisemitism charge by arguing that he’s just an “anti-Zionist” whose anti-Zionism, he later notes, “is rising as a response to what Israel is doing”—although, oddly, Klein fails to note that Piker had taken to calling Israel “genocidal” before it responded to the October 7, 2023, attack.)

The new Democratic Party has forgotten what the party is meant to be—why there is an American left. It has become weak, stupid, enamored of whatever the barely pubescent influencer class tells it it should be enamored of. It is far more vulnerable to the manipulations of the brand-builders: Believe all women. Take a knee. Or, more recently, declare that you’ll never take a dime from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbying group. These are all gestures, forms of appeasement, ways of signaling to the radicals (intentionally or not) that the mainstream of the Democratic Party is not safely cordoned off from its radical flank.

Piker poses an even greater threat to Democrats than the Black Panthers and Weathermen and Students for a Democratic Society ever did.

Ezra Klein, apparently, is unaware of all of the above. Or unfazed by it. His column reads like a whitewash, a carefully worded statement meant to legitimize Piker, make him more palatable.

Make no mistake about it: Piker’s support is not going to make or break the Democratic Party.  But I’m surprised that Ezra Klein would endorse such a hateful person—and on the grounds that he’s “just a Zionist, not an antisemite.”  I have no respect for somebody who thinks it’s fine to be Jewish but it’s not fine to agree that the established Jewish state is legitimate.  If that were the case, then Piker should be saying that all the explicitly Muslim Middle East states (like the Islamic Republic of Iran) are also invalid. And of course Israel is not a theocracy like many of those states.

*Over at the NYT, Carl Zimmer reports on a new paper in Nature by David Reich and many colleagues. The upshot is that humans are still evolving as measured by genetic change (that is evolution). It’s no surprise to an evolutionist, for we’re facing many new environmental challenges, though we have medicine to deal with many former sources of mortality.  Click below to see the paper, but I will quote Zimmer.

Many scientists have contended that humans have evolved very little over the past 10,000 years.

A few hundred generations was just a blink of the evolutionary eye, it seemed. Besides, our cultural evolution — our technology, agriculture and the rest — must have overwhelmed our biological evolution by now.

A vast study, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, suggests the opposite. Examining DNA from 15,836 ancient human remains, scientists found 479 genetic variants that appeared to have been favored by natural selection in just the past 10,000 years.

The researchers also concluded that thousands of additional genetic variants have probably experienced natural selection. Before the new study, scientists had identified only a few dozen variants.

“There are so many of them that it’s hard to wrap one’s mind around them,” said David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School and an author of the new study.

He and his colleagues found that a mutation that is a major risk factor for celiac disease, for example, appeared just 4,000 years ago, meaning the condition may be younger than the Egyptian pyramids.

The mutation became ever more common. Today, an estimated 80 million people worldwide have celiac disease, in which the immune system attacks gluten and damages the intestines.

Here’s a genome-wide scan from the paper showing the loci on all 23 chromosomes likely to have been subject to directional selection (the authors used statistical tests as well as simulations to determine this). All bars that rise above the dotted line are considered genomic regions showing evidence for that selection to a significant degree. There are, by the report, 479 of them.

The question I get most often when lecturing on evolution is “Are humans still evolving?” The answer is “yes,” of course; we would stop only if there was no genetic variation adapting us to new environments (or anything else). ;This is the reference to give if you get asked that question.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has a revelation:

Hili: Leaves are solar panels.
Andrzej: That is indeed true, unlike so many other reports.

In Polish:

Hili: Liście to panele słoneczne.
Ja: To akurat jest prawda, w odróżnieniu od tak wielu innych doniesień.

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

From Now That’s Wild:

From Animals in Random Places:

From Jesus of the Day (do you think she’ll call back? And what was a duck doing with his pants?):

This Iranian woman and her husband are scheduled for execution—for protesting.  It’s a capital crime in Iran, you know.

Breaking: Iran’s Regime Moves to Execute a Female Protester

Bita Hemmati, a young Iranian woman, is reportedly at imminent risk of execution by hanging alongside her husband.

She was arrested after taking part in the nationwide anti-regime protests in January, part of a wave of… pic.twitter.com/fePfqHOgYp

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) April 16, 2026

From Luana: Democratic districts get richer:

The vivid partisan sorting of US house districts by income and party — 2005 -2024 pic.twitter.com/fWkvbsHkm6

— Tom Wood (@thomasjwood) April 15, 2026

From Cate: This is patience, but the animals are rewarded:

This guy spent 14 hours waiting for a squirrel to set off this Rube Goldberg Machine pic.twitter.com/9HYCvRVmEQ

— Nature Unedited (@NatureUnedited) April 15, 2026

From Larry the #10 Cat, who might have a case of defamation here:

I have some concerns with your choice of picture for this story @BBCNews pic.twitter.com/Xfll0cZtcb

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) April 16, 2026

From Malcolm; cats imitating hoomans:

A funny compilation of cats hilariously copying human actions and behaviors

pic.twitter.com/LhKp6EIaFW

— Science girl (@sciencegirl) March 7, 2026

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This Hungarian Jewish girl was gassed to death when she arrived at Auschwitz. She was about ten years old, and would be 82 years old today had she lived.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2026-04-17T10:35:09.505Z

And two from Dr. Cobb. Here’s a guy who really loves his cats. But do the cats love the ride?

Morning Kittens

— Democrat Cats (@democratcats.bsky.social) 2026-04-15T15:28:58.955Z

Guys: would you shove a stick of radium up your willy?  This is a real ad, says Matthew:

Welcome to Thursday, April 16, 2026 and Save the Elephant Day.  Here’s a group of elephants (don’t know the formal term) digging for water in a lake bed in Kruger National Park (photographed in August of 2024). The cute thing was that the mother would dig a hole and then let the babies drink first.

It’s also Day of the Mushroom, International Pizza Cake Day (yes, it’s a cake that looks like a pizza), National Ask An Atheist Day (the answer is “no”), National Eggs Benedict Day,  National Librarian Day, and National Orchid Day.

The bunnies (Eastern Cottontails) are out! On my way to work I passed by two furry lumps standing like statues only about ten feet away from me. They were bunnies! I silently moved away from them to allow them to forage.  An iPhone photo:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the April 16 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*At It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal describes the talks between Lebanon (not Hezbollah) and Israel as a “resounding success”:

The highest-level direct talks between Israel and Lebanon in history have concluded with neither side getting what they wanted. Regardless, the summit was a resounding success.

Lebanon entered the negotiations hoping to achieve an immediate ceasefire, reportedly threatening to walk away from future talks unless this condition was met. Israel, meanwhile, came to the table demanding a concrete commitment and a clear timeline for the disarmament of Hezbollah north of the Litani River. While neither delegation walked away with their demands fulfilled, further talks are already confirmed. As U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted after the meetings, this will take time; the talks “are a process, not an event.”

In statecraft, as in life, you cannot expect others to treat you with respect if you do not first respect yourself. For the first time in decades, Lebanon’s government is asserting itself as a sovereign entity, and for the first time in decades, Washington is officially recognizing it as such. Prior to yesterday, whenever Washington needed something done in Beirut, it dialed Damascus, Tehran, Doha or Riyadh.

The question is whether the government is actually in charge.

The mere fact that the Lebanese government chose to engage in the negotiations is a good sign. Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem explicitly warned against the summit, labeling it “futile” and declaring it a “stab in the back to the resistance.” Had Hassan Nasrallah issued a similar warning in 2021, his word would have been an insurmountable veto. But two years of relentless Israeli military pressure, coupled with the succession of the significantly less imposing Qassem, has considerably defanged the organization.

Still, breaking the psychological hold Hezbollah maintains over the country requires the Lebanese government to treat it like the paper tiger it has become, rather than the actual tiger it once was.

Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter addressed the media following the meeting, claiming that the officials on both sides discovered they are actually on the “same side of the equation” and are “united in liberating Lebanon.” Most intriguingly, Leiter suggested that once the security situation is resolved, the two nations “can embark on a harmonious relationship” akin to the Abraham Accords countries.

The penultimate paragraph is the important one.  The Lebanese government is largely under the sway of Hezbollah, but the Lebanese people are sick of the terrorist organization.  Still, don’t see a ceasefire or disarming of Hezbollah, any more than I see a disarming of Hamas. But it’s a start.

*Michael B. Horn at the Free Press tells us “Your local college is running out of cash.” This is true even at the University of Chicago, where strict budgetary restrictions have been imposed.

It’s no secret that higher education is reeling. The litany of challenges is long. Among them: struggles over free speech, antisemitism, and ideological uniformity; President Donald Trump’s many attacks on the sector;, a replicability and peer review crisis in research, and declining public confidence in colleges.

Then there’s also student debt, a declining percentage of high school graduates enrolling in college, low graduation rates, increasing questions around a college education’s return on investment, and a free-for-all in college athletics.

I could go on. But there’s one piece of the puzzle that’s received relatively less attention, however: the fiscal health of many colleges themselves. To put it simply, a tremendous number of colleges and universities are on the fast path to insolvency, which stands to quickly transform not only America’s higher-education landscape but also the many communities built around these institutions.

In 2013, the late Harvard Business School professor Clay Christensen and I wrote a piece in The New York Times predicting that within 15 years, 25 percent of colleges would close or merge. The claim rested on patterns observed in other industries where rising expenditures, declining demand, and structural change eventually forced institutions to consolidate or declare bankruptcy and restructure.

Since then, over 15 percent of the 4,724 degree-granting colleges or universities that existed at the time we made the prediction have shut their doors.

Yet college leaders seem not to grasp the scale of the problem and, in public, dismiss the danger to their institutions. Yes, enrollments might soften. Yes, some institutions might struggle. But higher education is resilient. We’ve heard rumors of insolvency before, they would say as they dismissed our claims.

But the math is about to get a lot worse for many schools.

The number of traditional college-age students in the United States is projected to decline for at least the next two decades as the smaller birth cohorts following the Great Recession move through the education pipeline. For an industry built around steady enrollment growth, that demographic shift alone guarantees increasing financial pressure.

But demographics alone won’t determine which institutions survive. The more immediate threat is simpler: cash.

And a recent study says this:

. . . Even assuming enrollments remain steady—an optimistic scenario given the coming demographic decline—more than one-third of the colleges studied have less than five years before becoming fiscally insolvent without significant changes. That means they will have less money coming in annually than they are spending, and will need to start drawing down their unrestricted endowments, or borrowing—if they can—to keep operating. On average, those schools have less than a year before their financial position falls into that territory.

. . .In most industries, leaders would immediately recognize this situation as a liquidity crisis. In higher education, it is often treated as a temporary dip that strategic plans or enrollment initiatives will eventually solve.

That optimism is difficult to reconcile with demographic reality.

The “elite” colleges will fix the problem by belt-tightening, but most schools are not “elite”. Horn offers a number of solutions, including deep-sixing under-enrolled majors or even merging colleges with other colleges. Our own school is going the former route, plus ratcheting back on hiring.  No matter what:  we are going to see a revolution in higher education, including the inimical effects of AI on all subjects, especially the humanities.

*I’ve always found Bret Stephens’s take on recent wars, be they in Gaza or Iran, quite sensible. His latest NYT column tells us “How Trump can wrap up the war” (column archived here). Stephens offers four suggestions. Excerpts:

First, Trump should put Iran’s regime to a fundamental choice: It can have an economy. Or the regime can attempt to have a nuclear program while trying to control the Strait of Hormuz. But it can’t have both.

“Iran’s central bank has warned President Masoud Pezeshkian that rebuilding the country’s war-damaged economy could take more than a decade,” reports Iran International, an Iranian opposition news site based in London. The bank anticipates up to two million additional people left jobless by the war, along with inflation as high as 180 percent. An inflation rate of over 40 percent was what sparked January’s mass protests. As for the effects of the blockade, the site reports, it would wipe out “an estimated $435 million in daily economic activity,” and force “oil field shutdowns within weeks.”

. . .Second, Trump must bear in mind what precipitated the current crisis with Iran — not its nuclear programs, but the murder ofthousands of Iranian protesters in January. What Iran’s leaders fear more than economic collapse is the wrath of their own people.

Administration policy should be geared to exploit that wrath. That begins by breaking the information blockade the regime has sought to impose through an internet blackout. Fully restoring funding to Radio Farda, the Persian-language service of Radio Free Europe that the Trump administration slashed last year during the tenure of the incompetent Kari Lake would be one place to start. Flooding Iran with additional Starlink terminals — too many for the regime to stop — would be the next. What would not help, by contrast, is to target civilian infrastructure, particularly power plants, whose destruction could only bring misery to ordinary Iranians.

The most important step Trump could take would be to warn the regime publicly — and in a way that gets communicated to Iran’s people — that it will intervene militarily if it again attempts a bloody crackdown on public protests. The United States cannot bring about regime change in Iran. But it can do what it can to tilt the scales in favor of the millions of disaffected Iranians who can.

This is my own main goal of the war: freeing the Iranian people, who want to be modern, from the oppressive theocracy. Two more:

Third, if the regime wants to link the current cease-fire with an end to Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon, then it must itself desist from arming and financing the terrorist group.

The principle is simple: Israel will get out of Lebanon the moment Iran gets out of Lebanon. Failing that, the United States should give Israel a green light to continue degrading Hezbollah’s capabilities until it can no longer initiate wars against Israel, as the group did in 2006, 2023 and again this year. If other states, particularly France as Lebanon’s former colonial power, object to this, they can always volunteer to send their own troops to enforce the U.N. Security Council resolution that Hezbollah has been violating for nearly 20 years.

There may already be French troops among the thousands of UN troops supposedly enforcing the resolution. But they’re doing bupkes. Finally,

Finally, Trump can offer the regime a grand bargain: what I’ve long called “normalization for normalization.”

Iran could get an end to both war and blockade, full relief from international sanctions, the resumption of diplomatic and commercial relations with the United States and every other benefit that Tehran used to enjoy before the Islamic revolution of 1979. In return, all that would be asked of Iran is to behave like a normal country: no efforts to support armed militias throughout the region, or harbor Qaeda leaders, or send hit squads to kill or kidnap enemies abroad, or declare “death to Israel” and “death to America” as foundational principles of the regime while trying to build nuclear weapons.

Does any of that sound outrageous? Of course not. The outrage is that the regime’s current leaders would almost certainly dismiss the proposal out of hand because ideological militancy, rather than fidelity to the interests of the Iranian people, is what has defined them for the past 47 years.

Aye: there’s the rub. We are dealing with a hard-line Islamic theocracy, and only regime change can bring about Stephens’s goals. As usual these days, I see no solution, though these suggestions are good. But they require the administration to stick to goals other than its own popularity.

*At his Substack site Reality’s Last Stand,” Colin Wright tells us that “The war on biology is far from over.” The war, of course, involves pushback against the (true) binary nature of sex in animals and plants. The article is free, but subscribe if you have the dosh.

The war against biology has not slowed down. Despite the chatter on X that woke ideology is dead or at least in retreat, a brief internet search reveals that activists are still flooding the zone with sex pseudoscience.

Just in the last few weeks, we’ve seen several examples. Princeton anthropologist Agustín Fuentes published a piece in Science Politics arguing that government efforts to define sex as a biological binary are based on “falsehoods and erroneous assertions.” IFLScience ran an article claiming there is “no clean definition” of biological sex. The Trans Advocacy & Complaints Collective published a piece insisting that “sex does not fit neatly in boxes.” And now a peer-reviewed paper in BioScience claims that teaching students what the authors call “the diversity of biological sex” makes LGBTQIA+ students feel more included and enjoy biology more.

That last example is particularly concerning, because peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals carry more weight than newspaper think pieces or activist blog posts. They influence how biology is taught, how future teachers are trained, and regularly serve as the basis for public policy.

The BioScience paper presents itself as offering a more “accurate” way to teach about biological sex, but what it actually offers is the same sex pseudoscience activists have been pushing for years. It promotes confusion about what sex is, arbitrariness in how it is defined, and a conflation of exceptions and variations with the category itself.

In reality, the concept of sex (i.e., what defines an individual as male or female) is not complicated. In species that reproduce sexually through anisogamy—that is, by fusing gametes of two different sizes—males are the sex with the biological function of producing small gametes (sperm), and females are the sex with the biological function of producing large gametes (ova). That is what the sexes are. Chromosomes, hormones, genital morphology, and secondary sex traits are all related to sex, but they are not included in the definition of sex. Rather, they are either upstream developmental determinants of sex or the downstream expression of it.

This is the central point the BioScience paper obscures.

. . .But the definitions of the sexes has long been established, with no serious alternative definition of sex in biology that is logically coherent or explanatorily useful. Scientists can debate all kinds of things about sex determination, sexual development, or unusual disorders of development, but the meaning of male and female is not some open-ended philosophical question. Male and female are grounded in reproductive function. The only people who question this or claim the definition isn’t “settled” are those trying to distort biology to fit their radical political agendas. But as I stated in a recent scholarly article, “while biology can and should inform policy, policy preferences should never be used to dictate biology.”

The paper also confuses the definition of sex with the mechanisms that determine sex.

. . . But a manufactured consensus is impossible to maintain forever, because the truth doesn’t just go away. Activists are now increasingly being forced into the kind of direct engagement they have long tried to avoid, because while fashionable sex pseudoscience can sound persuasive on its own, it quickly disintegrates on contact with informed opposition.

I’ve read all these papers myself and yes, they’re sorely misleading. But it’s ideology, Jake! Another area in which politics has pushed science aside is the efficacy and benefits of transgender hormone therapy and surgery.  I wrote about that yesterday, and even the AMA can’t decide whether to go with the science (i.e., results as of yet unclear) versus ideology (rah, rah, go transition!).

*On March 18, the Williams Record, the student newspaper of Williams College (where Luana teaches) published an op-ed (“Gender gap in economics department persists despite faculty interventions”) showing that, compared to the sex ratio of student enrollment at the school (52% female) the proportion of women majoring in economics has historically been lower (35% in 2022).  Here’s the graph they give:

The tenor of the article is that this “inequity” must be corrected as it reflects a problem that needs correction, implicitly bias against women and explicitly (and patronizingly) ignorance among females about economics. Two quotes from the op-ed:

Professor of Economics Sarah Jacobson told the Record that she has been working to even out enrollment between female and male students in the major since arriving at the College in 2010. “It is difficult to not notice that when you walk into an economics classroom, certain identities are strongly underrepresented … professors notice it, and students notice it,” she said. “While many other STEM fields have gotten more diverse on both race and gender over the last couple of decades, economics has really lagged behind.”

. . . “The idea [in the UWE study] was to try to find out why women were not concentrating or majoring in economics as much as men were,” [Nobel-winning economist Claudia] Goldin said in an interview with the Record. “We discovered it was generally that women thought that economics was mainly about finance and not about people. They didn’t understand what it was really about.”

Well, we know the problem of jumping from inequities to concluding both bias and the existence of a problem that needs to be fixed. The “progressive” view is that, given a “blank slate” view, inequities must be fixed so all groups should be represented in proportion to their existence in a population. The “people verus finance” trope might, indeed, reflect differential interests.

Luana has pushed back on that with the most obvious response for differences between sexes: they could reflect interest, not bigotry. She wrote a response to this op-ed called, “Why sex-ratios in majors might be more than just bias.”  An excerpt:

Humans are not blank slates, and many studies show that males and females have, on average, different preferences and behaviors which can affect their choice of major and profession. While some of these differences are influenced by societal norms, others have been molded by a billion years of the evolutionary process of sexual selection. True fairness in representation lies not in achieving parity, but in respecting individual preferences.

The persistent underrepresentation of women in economics (36 percent in the department’s 2023 internal report) is real. But the sources in the article try to explain this “imbalance” by lack of access, lack of incentives, or outright discrimination against women. A more evidence-based explanation should include the awareness that sex differences in educational and vocational preferences have been documented across decades of psychological research.

It is undeniable that society’s incentives and prohibitions guide what is a permissible career path for each sex. However, as someone who studies evolutionary biology, I also note that millions of years of sexual selection have produced average differences in behavior and preferences between the sexes — differences that appear early, are cross-cultural, and persist even in the most egalitarian societies today. Past sexual selection produced not only different body sizes and strengths, but also different behaviors. In mammals, females bear the far higher reproductive costs — pregnancy, lactation, and extended parental investment — while male investment in most species is limited to a brief copulation and sperm delivery. Over millions of years, this asymmetry has favored greater male risk-taking, aggression, and drive for resources — all things that could enhance chances of acquiring a mate.

. . . . Society accepts — without outrage — majors and professions that are heavily female-dominated. Today psychology and biology routinely exceed 60 to 80 percent female nationally, and fields such as nursing and several medical specialties are also overwhelmingly female. We also do not lose sleep over male-dominated professions like policing or trucking. So, why single out economics (and, similarly, political science) for criticism when in fact the overall distribution of majors must balance out to result in an overall 50 percent of women in the College?

There is danger in assuming every inequality reflects bigotry rather than choice. 

There should be a name for this fallacy. At any rate, Luana’s fighting it in the trenches.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili’s scrutinizing the garden:

Hili: These tulips were a different color last year.
Andrzej: We live in a world of illusions.

In Polish:

Hili: Te tulipany miały w zeszłym roku inny kolor.
Ja: Żyjemy w świecie złudzeń.

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

An AI photo made by Mark Richardson with the details (remember Sinead O’Connor tearing up the Pope’s picture on Saturday Night Live? You can see it here.):

Your AI rendition of Trump as Satan on Hili this morning was serendipitous. Plus funny!  Last night, while musing about Trump’s battle with the pope, I was reminded of the time in ’92 when Sinead O’Connor ripped a photo of pope John Paul II live on SNL. I watched as it happened, and even though I was an atheist back then and had no truck with religion, I still remember being shocked.

 So (mostly to make my wife laugh) I went to ChatGPT’s photo renderer and asked: have Trump rip a photo of the pope like Sinead O’Connor did on Saturday Night Live.

Attached is the photo. Not bad eh?  I know the context is off since O’Connor was protesting the Catholic pedophile cover-up and Trump’s protest is just narcissism run amuck, but it was worth the 30 seconds it took to render.

From CinEmma:

From Meow, Incorporated.:

From The Dodo Pet:

From Masih, who calls out Iranian government official Masoumeh Ebtekarv to Anerson Cooper:

Live on CNN, where you, @ebtekarm_ir, gave multiple interviews to promote the Islamic Republic and called out millions of Iranian women simply for removing their hijab, you once laughed at me when I exposed your hypocrisy, now, I couldn’t hold back my grin as I watched you… https://t.co/JZ82lwhCnm pic.twitter.com/vQUr3pAyRs

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) April 15, 2026

From Simon; a good one, referring to when Lydon B. Johnson “lost America” because Walter Cronkite said the U.S. was mired in a stalemate.  Simon titles this, “When you lose Sarah Palin.” Indeed!

pic.twitter.com/Y9TozqBRH9

— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) April 14, 2026

From Luana; click on the screenshot to go to the most unhinged AI video ever (it can’t be embedded here):

From Malcolm; the amazing reaction time of cats:

Cats are highly skilled predators with a strong instinct to hunt, even if they are well-fed domestic cats.

They have exceptionally fast reaction times, ranging from approximately 20 to 70 ms, significantly faster than humans (around 250 ms).pic.twitter.com/Ykj7cSBhc9

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) March 30, 2026

One from my feed:

“Bunch of fucking amateurs” pic.twitter.com/yGGlHCXsDZ

— Paul Bronks (@SlenderSherbet) April 15, 2026

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This German Jewish girl was gassed to death as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz. She was eleven years old. https://t.co/bgXOawP3pt

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) April 16, 2026

Two from Dr. Cobb, soon off to Italy and Chile. First, a 1948 cat photo (Bluesky was down this a.m., so you might not see these):

📸 Édouard Boubat. Réunion des chats1948. Paris Cats

— 2️⃣0k 😊 Paris FB (@parispaname.bsky.social) 2026-04-11T15:57:50.146Z

The problem is that RFK, Jr. is not a zoologist:

OK, there are lots of reasons to dislike RFK, but I've worked with plenty of zoologists who would consider this to be perfectly normal behaviour.

— Markus Eichhorn (@markuseichhorn.bsky.social) 2026-04-15T10:07:56.546Z