Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili is as happy as a cat can be:
Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili seems to be in a bad mood:
Hili: You’d better not annoy me.
Kulka: What annoys you?
Hili: You’re getting into my eyes.
In Polish:
Hili: Ty mnie lepiej nie denerwuj.
Kulka: Czym cię denerwuję?
Hili: Włazisz mi w oczy.
by Matthew Cobb
PCC(E) is still in the internet-less wilds of Ultima Thule, but he will be back.
Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili is musing on the apparent immutability of the universe:
Hili: Everything seems to be the same.
Me: Yes, and sometimes that’s very annoying.
In Polish:
Hili: Wszystko wydaje się być takie same.
Ja: Tak i chwilami to jest bardzo irytujące.
To keep you all busy, here’s a challenge. Explain magnetism, or gravity, both of which are basically magic.
Gravity is a no-brainer. We* don’t know what it is or how/why it works. Magnetism, we* have a better idea, but it is still profoundly mysterious. To give you some idea of the problem, here’s Feynman explaining the inexplicable, posted by Tuomas Pernu in reply to me on bsky:
*We = physicists. I have no idea.
Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili is grappling with one of the fundamental forces (also, gravity seems to be stronger in Poland than the UK – no apples falling here).
Hili: That damn gravity again. And who is supposed to pick it up?
Me: Don’t worry, we have a great friend, he’ll take care of it.
In Polish:
Hili: Znowu ta cholerna grawitacja. I kto to pozbiera?
Ja: Spokojnie, mamy wspaniałego przyjaciela, on się tym zajmie.
Jerry writes from the Far North: “internet is terrible and I may not be able to post travelogues (or anything else) in the next few days”. You have been warned!
Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili is being keeping an eye on parking habits:
Hili: Tell Mariusz that Julia’s car should be parked properly.
Me: I agree, this car is parked in a very irritating way.
In Polish:
Hili: Powiedz Mariuszowi, że samochód Julii ma być porządnie zaparkowany.
Ja: Zgadzam się, zaparkował ten samochód w irytujący sposób.
I am off to Svalbard this morning, taking a 3-hour flight from Helsinki to the archipelago’s capital of Longyearbyen, though Svalbard (previously known as “Spitsbergen)” is part of Norway.
Svalbard (/ˈsvɑːlbɑːr(d)/ SVAHL-bar(d),[4] Urban East Norwegian: [ˈsvɑ̂ːɫbɑr]), previously known as Spitsbergen or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago that lies at the convergence of the Arctic Ocean with the Atlantic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it lies about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group range from 74° to 81° north latitude, and from 10° to 35° east longitude. The largest island is Spitsbergen (37,673 km2), followed in size by Nordaustlandet (14,443 km2), Edgeøya (5,073 km2), and Barentsøya (1,288 km2). Bjørnøya or Bear Island (178 km2) is the most southerly island in the territory, situated some 147 km south of Spitsbergen. Other small islands in the group include Hopen to the southeast of Edgeøya, Kongsøya and Svenskøya in the east, and Kvitøya to the northeast. The largest settlement is Longyearbyen, situated in Isfjorden on the west coast of Spitsbergen.
And Longyearbyen is described as “the world’s northernmost settlement with a population greater than 1,000″ (the 2023 population is given as 2,395.
Here are the islands (dark green) and their location (all from Wikipedia). Norway is in light green, and our final destination is Iceland
And the location of Longyearbyen:
Two views of Longyearbyen from Wikipedia, though we have 3.5 hours on our own after our plane lands before we board the ship Ultramarine (max. 200 passengers), so I’ll take plenty of photos (Note: I’m not sure how easy it will be to post photos from the ship, as its internet may not be able to handle them.)
This one is captioned “These are all the buildings of this kind (“spisshusene”) left standing after the avalanche disaster in 2015.” That avalanche killed one person, injured 9, and buried about ten of the brightly-colored houses.
I think I’ll be able to see the whole town in 3 hours.
The town, as you see, is huddled by the sea in a valley: Wikipedia notes that “It stretches along the foot of the left bank of the Longyear Valley and on the shore of Adventfjorden, the short estuary leading into Isfjorden on the west coast of Spitsbergen, the island’s broadest inlet.”
And a section on Svalbard’s nature:
In addition to humans, three primarily terrestrial mammalian species inhabit the archipelago: the Arctic fox, the Svalbard reindeer, and accidentally introduced southern voles, which are found only in Grumant. Attempts to introduce the Arctic hare and the muskox have both failed. There are 15 to 20 types of marine mammals, including: whales, dolphins, seals, walruses, and polar bears.
Polar bears are the iconic symbol of Svalbard, and one of the main tourist attractions. The animals are protected and people moving outside the settlements are required to have appropriate scare devices to ward off attacks. They are also advised to carry a firearm for use as a last resort.
Yep, our bear-watching sojourns will always have a guide carrying a gun, and at this time of year we have to stay at least 300 meters from a sighted bear. Wikipedia reports that there are onl 300 polar bears resident on Svalbard.
Da Nooz:
*Mostly duck nooz today: yesterday morning’s verbatim report from the duck tender. Esther came back!
Update on the brood! Yesterday in the morning two of the ducklings were around, but Esther was gone, they seemed a bit out of sorts, skittish and not very interested in food. In the afternoon Esther had come back and it was a fairly normal feeding.This morning [Monday] it was just Esther in the pond. There were some workers doing landscaping, not cleaning the algae but a handful around doing various things so she wouldn’t come too close.
This is just the morning report, and I will of course add updates as I get them.
*Over at Murtadd to Human (a “recovering from Islam” site), author Anjuli Pandavar, whose articles and book Malgorzata translated into Polish, has a nice remembrance of her (our) friend. Click below to read it. In the photo, I believe Malgorzata is wearing the University of Chicago tee-shirt I brought her.
An excerpt:
Many will remember Małgorzata Koraszewska, the strong-willed Polish translator who worked non-stop. I did not know her as her lifelong friends did, but I did know her as a complex, lovable, strong-willed woman who never really dropped her emotional guard, except when she talked about her cat, Hili, when she told me about her childhood flight into deepest, frozen Siberia and how she eventually made her way out of there, and when, mid-sentence, she would vanish into the depths of their house to retrieve yet another book, find the page and complete the sentence. Despite all her accomplishments, she was not someone given to blowing her own trumpet. Only now and then, I got a hint of those accomplishments, such as when she showed me the little books in which she kept a record of all the many, many translations she had done for so many big-name Western writers, Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker and Daniel Dennett being but a few. She translated my book, Islam: Faith and Humanity, for publication in Polish, when I could find no English publisher, and made my essays on Murtadd to Human available to Polish readers. But whenever I wanted to share some hearty schadenfreude about someone, Małgorzata was always a good person to call. I’d like to remember her for that.
She adds the first part of Andrzej’s memories of Malgorzata, the bit dealing with how they met and called “Diary Found in an Old Head.” It’s a piece that I’ve already posted.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is angry at what she sees as the widespread antisemitism of Ireland. Andrzej tells me that “Brendan” is Brendan O’Neill.
Hili: The three-leaf clover is a symbol of Ireland – why are those Irish people such scoundrels?
Andrzej: Not all of them. I know some great ones, think of Brendan.
In Polish:
Hili: Trzylistna koniczyna jest symbolem Irlandii – dlaczego ci Irlandczycy są takimi łajdakami.
Ja: Nie wszyscy. Znam wspaniałych, pomyśl o Brendanie.
From Annie. Got a relative you don’t like?
From Now That’s Wild:
From Things With Faces: a crazy ostrich:
Maarten Boudry sent me this tweet. Sadly, the original article is in Dutch, but he summarizes it in English. Maarten and I and one other person were “canceled” at the University of Amsterdam (where we were to talk about the ideological infection of science) because we had previously showed too much sympathy for Israel!
Muslims at @UvA_Amsterdam are being intimidated, shunned & threatened. The university tells them to stay home—for their own safety. This is outrageous & unacceptable!
Wait, did I say ‘Muslims’? I meant Jews. Oh well, it’s fine then, those filthy Zionists deserve it, right? pic.twitter.com/zsmpQGRSzw— Maarten Boudry (@mboudry) July 7, 2025
Th-th-th-that’s all, folks! See you in Svalbard!
Good morning on Monday, July 7, 2025, and it’s National Fried Chicken Day. While other countries have forms of this dish, I will go out on a limb and say that America’s is best. Here’s a Southern version from Wikipedia, labeled “Fried chicken with side dishes, fried okra, and macaroni and cheese.” in the American South, mac and cheese is considered a vegetable.
Again we will have a very short Hili today (the dialogue, not the cat!). First, the dialogue, featuring Paulina, one of the upstairs lodgers and half of the staff of Kulka.
Paulina: Would you like to be petted?
Hili: Yes, please.
Paulina: Pogłaskać cię?Hili: Tak, poproszę.
Da Nooz:
*Ducks first: I have a report from Botany Pond that yesterday three of the remaining five ducks were gone. You may remember that there were seven for two months: Esther and her brood of six. Two ducklings left, appropriately, on Independence Day, and the remaining five were observed flying with confidence on the pond on July 6. Well, I have this report from yesterday from a member of Team Duck:
Two on the pond this morning – neither of them Esther. [A duck tender] was there this morning. The two were not very interested in pellets, but she gave them lots of mealworms.
No other ducks.I hope your flight went well.
Ah, but the appropriate wish is that the ducks’ flight went well. I am sad that they are leaving, but, after all, that is the goal of duck tending. It’s just that they left too soon, and especially that Mother Esther apparently went with them. I had hoped she would stay and undergo her yearly molt, which, since her flight feathers are shed and regrown
She was an absolutely terrific duck mom, and never left Botany pond once for the whole two months of fledging. We had slim hopes for her as a mother because, after all, instead of nesting safely on a ledge, she scraped a crude nest out of the dirt under a tree. But thanks to the kindness of the people in Facilities, they put a fence around the tree so she could incubate her eggs in peace. They hatched on May 6, and hit the water swimming the next day. It takes ducks about two months from hatching to fledging, and they kept that schedule. Farewell, my fethered children!
*The death toll in the floods in Texas hill country continues to increase. First it was 12, then 20, and now it’s over 80:
Rescuers rushed on Sunday to find more survivors of devastating floods that killed at least 81 in Central Texas, as dramatic tales emerged of those who experienced the disaster and endured the agonizing wait for news of loved ones.
Survivors and family members shared stories about rescues and reunification, as well as accounts that ended in tragedy. In Kerr County, the hardest-hit region, a Christian girls’ summer camp was a hub of loss. A veteran high school teacher camping with his family near the Guadalupe River, which rose 20 feet in two hours on Friday, was also killed. So was a woman driving to work at Walmart when her vehicle was caught in rising waters.
Dozens more people — at least 41 — are still missing, and rescuers, volunteers and family members braved renewed downpours to search for them on Sunday, navigating fields of debris with helicopters, drones, boats, golf carts and horses. One man said his hopes were revived after a body that had initially been identified as his brother-in-law turned out not to be him.
On Sunday, some parts of Central Texas saw heavy rain, but the areas already hit the hardest, including Kerr County, appeared to avoid more devastation. Meteorologists said that there was an uptick in thunderstorms in Bexar County, which includes San Antonio, but that chances of more flooding in the Hill Country had decreased.
I’m sure some of you, like me, wondered how Christians would react when pondering their god’s intentions in flooding a religious girls camp and killing many campers, but let’s face it: all these horrible deaths, religious people or not, bspeak the mindless and often destructive face of nature. The suffering going on in Texas right now is unimaginable.
*An Israeli negotiating team is in Qatar once again trying to iron out details with Hamas of a ceasefire in Gaza, while PM Netanyahu is in Washington about to hold talks with Trump.
An Israeli negotiating team was set to travel to Qatar Sunday for indirect talks with the Hamas terror group on a hostage release and ceasefire deal, as mediators bear down on the sides amid intensifying efforts to clinch an agreement.
The Prime Minister’s Office announced the plans late Saturday, but also cautioned in a statement that Hamas had suggested several “unacceptable” amendments to a brewing US- and Israel-backed proposal.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dispatched the team to Qatar just as he was set to depart for Washington to meet with US President Donald Trump Monday for talks on Gaza, Iran and other subjects.
Hamas on Friday gave a “positive” response to the framework proposal on the table, which would see about half of the living hostages and about half of the dead hostages held by terror groups in Gaza returned to Israel over 60 days, in five separate releases. (Eight living hostages would be freed on the first day and two released on the 50th day, according to an Arab diplomat from one of the mediating countries. Five slain hostages would be returned on the seventh day, five more on the 30th day and eight more on the 60th day. That would leave 22 hostages still held in Gaza, 10 of them believed to be alive. It is not clear whether Israel or Hamas would determine who is to be released.)
The source said that Hamas wants the agreement to say that talks on a permanent ceasefire will continue until an agreement is reached; that aid will fully resume through mechanisms backed by the United Nations and other international aid organizations; and that the IDF withdraw to positions it maintained before the collapse of the previous ceasefire in March.
I doubt this will work, for Hamas’s demands once again mean that it stays in power, a lingering and existential threat to Israel. If there is to be any peace in this region, Hamas must be destroyed.
*In related news, a coalition of sheikhs in the West Bank has made its own proposal to carve out Hebron as an area that accepts the Abraham Accords and recognizes Israel as a legitimate state, something that neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority has done.
“We want cooperation with Israel,” says Sheikh Wadee’ al-Jaabari, also known as Abu Sanad, from his ceremonial tent in Hebron, the West Bank’s largest city located south of Jerusalem. “We want coexistence.” The leader of Hebron’s most influential clan has said such things before, as did his father. But this time is different. Sheikh Jaabari and four other leading Hebron sheikhs have signed a letter pledging peace and full recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Their plan is for Hebron to break out of the Palestinian Authority, establish an emirate of its own, and join the Abraham Accords.
“The Emirate of Hebron shall recognize the State of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people,” the sheikhs write, “and the State of Israel shall recognize the Emirate of Hebron as the Representative of the Arab residents in the Hebron District.” Accepting Israel as a Jewish state goes further than the Palestinian Authority ever has, and sweeps aside decades of rejectionism.
If this plan was followed by Gaza and the other parts of the West Bank, it could provide a framework for true peace. The two problems with it are that it requires Hebron to deny the leadership of the Palestinian Authority, which the PA will not tolerate, and that Israel is rightly suspicious of yet another state on its borders—at least right now. This offer has not been widely discussed in the media, which also makes me think that it doesn’t really have legs.
From Cats That Have Had Enough of Your Shit:
I sent this Jesus of the Day cartoon to Heather Hastie on December 22, 2019. She didn’t make it, and died 3 years later. She was fond of Legos, and I still have a kit she asked me to
From CinEmma:
Retweeted by JKR. Where are the Western feminists—and especially the United Nations and UN Women?:
For over four years, Afghan women have been deprived of all their rights — education, work, freedom, and participation in society — while world leaders and the UN remain silent.
The lost years cannot be restored or forgotten.
This global silence in the face of such oppression… pic.twitter.com/3EvxfKaOC0— WDI.Afghanistan (@WDIAfghanistan) July 6, 2025
One from Luana, I hope you get the last line:
From Malcolm: a prisoner cat. Somebody should adopt it STAT!:
his face 😭 pic.twitter.com/fPjAbZhNWb
— The Cats 𝕏 (@TheCatsX) June 25, 2025
From my feed: Ozzy Osbourne does his last concert, unable to stand. As Wikipedia notes:
Osbourne played his final show, billed as “Back to the Beginning“, alongside the original lineup of his band Black Sabbath, at Villa Park in Birmingham on 5 July 2025. The band and Osbourne each played a short set, watched by a crowd of over 40,000 spectators and a peak livestream audience of 5.8 million. Having been rendered unable to stand from Parkinson’s disease, Osbourne performed seated on a black throne. All proceeds from the event will be donated equally to the Cure Parkinson’s foundation, Birmingham Children’s Hospital, and Acorn Children’s Hospice.
Last night Black Sabbath made history at their final show.
There are other videos in the thread that follows this one:
A thread 🧵
1. This is how Ozzy came out on stage pic.twitter.com/5unX1TCMW3
— 🎸 Rock History 🎸 (@historyrock_) July 6, 2025
And two from Dr. Cobb, the first from the Auschwitz Memorial:
6 July 1940 | A Hungarian Jewish boy, Istvan Ferenc Reiner, was born in Miskolc to Bela and Livia.In June 1944 he was deported to #Auschwitz and murdered in a gas chamber after the selection.
— Auschwitz Memorial (@auschwitzmemorial.bsky.social) 2025-07-06T11:01:29.877Z
This is why you should do your research instead of relying on ChatGPT. This is an Irish seizure of cocaine, and note that the ship is called the MV Matthew:
