Welcome to CaturSaturday: it’s September 28, 2024, and National Drink Beer Day.  In England, that means a few pints of this, the world’s best session beer.  The Beer Advocate says this of Landlord:

The drinkers’ favourite, a 4.3% classic pale ale with a complex citrus and hoppy aroma. A recent survey revealed that Landlord has the highest proportion of drinkers who call it their favourite ale. And it has won more awards than any other beer, winning both CAMRA’s Champion Beer of Britain and the Brewing Industry Challenge Cup four times. The ABV in bottle is 4.1%.

It’s also National Strawberry Cream Pie Day (don’t buy any if the second word is spelled “Creme”), Museum Day, National Wildlife Ecology Day, Fish Amnesty Day, International Rabbit Day, and International Right to Know Day. 

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the September 28 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The war is Lebanon is heating up as the IDF says it bombed Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut. (And there are unconfirmed reports that the head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, was been killed in an Israeli airstrike yesterday.)

Israeli forces destroyed several residential buildings south of Beirut, the Lebanese capital, on Friday afternoon, asserting that the central headquarters of Hezbollah was underneath them.

The airstrikes came shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel gave a defiant speech at the United Nations General Assembly, defending his government’s handling of wars in Gaza and Lebanon and vowing to continue fighting despite international calls for a cease-fire.

The target of the strike was Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, according to two Israeli and two American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence. It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Nasrallah was in the buildings when they were hit.

Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad, said that the strikes had caused the “complete decimation” of four to six residential buildings, adding that the number of casualties in hospitals was so far low because most people were still trapped under the rubble.

“They are residential buildings. They were filled with people,” Mr. Abiad told The New York Times. “Whoever is in those buildings is now under the rubble.”

It was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes on buildings in the Dahiya, a group of crowded neighborhoods south of Beirut where Hezbollah dominates, and one that is also home to shops, businesses and apartment buildings.

Najib Mikati, the Lebanese prime minister, said the latest attack south of Beirut proved that “the Israeli enemy pays no heed at all to the efforts and international calls for a cease-fire.”

Israel’s chief military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the strike had come after almost a year of Hezbollah firing rockets and drones at Israel. “Israel is doing what every sovereign state in the world would do,” he said.

Admiral Hagari said that Hezbollah had deliberately embedded its military operations in “the heart” of these residential neighborhoods, using Lebanese civilians as human shields.

I hope they got Nasrallah, because the optics of this, to the world, won’t be so great otherwise. And even if they got Nasrallah, you can hear the howls of rage that civilians were killed, even though Hezbollah, like Hamas, puts its headquarters among the civilian population. Hezbollah said it will stop firing rockets as Israel if Israel gets out of Gaza. But didn’t they learn the lesson that Israel has started retaliating seriously instead of timorously?

*As always, I’ll steal three items from Nellie Bowles’s weekly new summary in The Free Press, called this week “TGIF: Kink shaming.”

→ Trump will solve the national debt with this one weird trick: This week, Trump came up with a solution to the national debt via. . . cryptocurrency. No, you aren’t on the worst Hinge date of your life. This is real. And yes, the future of crypto could be the end of our national debt, according to the man who once was president and may be again. Take it from here, Trumpo: “Future of crypto? What does it look like?” he said at a recent cryptocurrency conference. “Well, I think it’s a good future. You know who knows about anything today. I’ll tell you what you look at values you look at where it’s come and where it came from. I think crypto’s got a great future. Maybe we’ll pay off the $35 trillion. I’ll write on a little piece of paper, ‘$35 trillion crypto.’ We have no debt.” Thirty-five trillion crypto. This is like when Michael Scott declared bankruptcy on The Office by declaring the word bankruptcy. Trump wants to mint a special DEBT COIN and try it that way, which it turns out is a pretty mainstream idea. Honestly, I have no idea how the debt works, so, you know what, sure. Why not. Let’s see.

→ Supreme Leader of Iran, King of Restraint: Did you know that Hezbollah is a benevolent community that never wants to use its power? Did you know that Israel is all but forcing Hezbollah to do violence?

What did Sky News publish as their headline?  “Hezbollah has been provoked like never before by Israel and may be tempted to unleash its firepower.” They deleted it.

Here’s how The New York Times puts it: “Iran has so far refused to be goaded by Israel into a larger regional war that its supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, clearly does not want, analysts say.” Iran, which funds Hamas and Hezbollah, is being goaded. The Supreme Leader wants no trouble, says The New York Times. He just wants to kick back and enjoy his evening prayers and certainly doesn’t want conflict with what he calls “The Great Satan” or “The Little Satan.” Why would you think that?

See, Israel, by not graciously accepting those rockets on their cities, is tempting Hezbollah. Jews are supposed to be weak and the world is supposed to mourn their deaths, but if Jews fight back it’s always evil (you’ll find that even the battle with Hezbollah is now being framed as “genocide”). . .

→ Swiss suicide pod: If the news depresses you a little and you want to really de-grow, then a group of Northern Europeans have a new, relaxing (suicide) pod. But this week the suicide pod people are in trouble because they placed it in a Swiss forest and let an American woman come and, well, suicide in the pod, which is illegal. They weren’t properly licensed. It’s very interesting to me how certain regions are becoming kind of death tourist destinations. We all have specializations, I guess. The Danes are the biggest sperm exporters in the world (no explanation needed). The French have beautiful specialty cheeses and wines. And Switzerland and Canada are where you go to end it all. Okay, the Swiss also have chocolate. The death pod seems pleasant enough, and the method is nitrogen gas, which also sounds pleasant enough. In New York, we’re subletting a beautiful old apartment with an extremely old stove that recently was leaking so much gas I felt light-headed and my lips started tingling. But do you know what I also felt: Kind of good! It felt like no more deadlines, no more laundry. It felt nice and warm and—okay, moving on!

*Once again I feel a kinship with Andrew Sullivan, who, in his latest column (“Harris for President“) says that he’ll hold his nose and vote for Kamala, because Trump is a known and dangerous quantity. (The difference is that I haven’t decided if I’m going to vote got President at all, or perhaps write in Gretchen Whitmer. And please don’t tell me I have to vote for one of the two.)

Looking back over the many presidential elections I’ve now witnessed in my life, I don’t think I’ve ever been as heartsick about the choice as this year. We live in a critical moment; the era of globalization and neoliberalism is coming to an end; the familiar structures of the post-Cold War settlement are being tested; climate and demographic change is generating an epic mass migration, as the global south moves relentlessly north.

And in the most important power center of the West, we have to choose between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, the venal or the vacuous, the awful or the empty, the malignant or the mediocre. I’ve tried and tried to be impressed by the Harris campaign so far, as have the handful of genuinely conflicted voters, and remain distinctly underwhelmed. Even in sycophantic interviews, Harris cannot answer a direct question, lurches from canned phrases to puréed pablum, offers policies that seem oddly estranged from our current discontents, and keeps her distance from any truly spontaneous or lively interaction.

Yes, “venal” for Trump and “vacuous” for Harris sounds about right. No, I don’t feel any “joy” about Harris, but I do feel revulsion for Trump. So does Sully:

. . . . we do not have a serious Republican candidate.

We have the most shameless charlatan in American political history — and there are plenty of competitors. He is unfit in every respect to be president of the United States. To say this is not a function of “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” It is not about being upset by “mean tweets” or grotesque rhetoric. It is not the same as falling for some of the worst Resistance myths — that Trump is a longtime Soviet/Russian asset. I’ve steadfastly called out the excesses of the Resistance. They have done as much harm to liberal democracy as good. I haven’t thrown out all my conservative principles as some have. But I can also see what’s directly in front of my nose.

Trump does not merely break norms. He has broken the norm, the indispensable norm for the continuation of the republic, the norm first set by George Washington when he retired from office, the norm that changed the entire world for the better: accepting the results of an election. This is the meaning of America, and Trump despises it. I do not think this is even within his personal control. He is so genuinely psychologically warped that he has never and will never agree to the most basic requirement of public office: that you quit when you lose; and that the system is more important than any individual in it.

He is not lying when he insists that he won in 2016 and 2020 by massive landslides in the popular vote. He believes it. He believes he will win by a landslide in November, and there is no empirical evidence that could convince him otherwise. If he loses the election, he will call it a massive fraud one more time, and foment violence to protest it. We know this more certainly than we know anything about Kamala Harris. He tried to leverage mob violence to disrupt our democracy once. If that was not disqualifying, nothing is. And nothing done by his opponents or enemies can justify or mitigate it.

But he doesn’t think much of Harris, either, though she’s not “venal”:

There’s something missing here, and that is not entirely surprising given the circumstances of Harris’ rise. In California, she existed within the hot-house of a one-party state, with no serious competition from the right. In the Senate, she played it safe. In 2020, her presidential campaign collapsed before the first primary, after she attacked Biden from the left on race. She became vice president only after Biden explicitly ruled out any men from his search, and then implicitly any white women, undercutting his veep’s credentials from the get-go. She then became the least popular vice president in polling history. Her signature issue — the Southern border — is the greatest single liability for the Democrats, after inflation.

And so the rushed coronation always felt a little forced, the “joy” a little contrived, and the enthusiasm a product more of relief at Biden’s departure than Harris’ arrival. She gave a terrific convention speech, and decided simply to ignore almost all her previous far-left positions, without explicitly renouncing them. She’s just about getting away with it. At best, she represents a continuation of generic Democratic rule in the White House, a female Biden with a very different, but just as American, ancestry. (And this is a great thing, however tainted it has been by the stain of DEI. For America to have a female president at long last, and one who has not campaigned explicitly on those identity lines, is something to celebrate. I will gladly do so.)

How will Harris resolve the open-ended war between Russia and Ukraine? What is her strategy for containing China’s nationalist aggression? How will she handle a Jewish state digging itself into a deeper and deeper hole in the Middle East? I have no idea, except to guess a replay of Biden’s manifestly flailing improvisation.

Domestically, she seems wedded to something like the industrial and immigration policies of the Biden administration as of 2024 — a bigger role for government in the economy, and some small tightening of asylum rules alongside a general amnesty. In the culture war, we know exactly what she is: an equity leftist, a strong believer in race and sex discrimination today to make up for past race and sex discrimination yesterday, and a politician who favors redefining womanhood to include biological men, and conducting medical experiments on gay, autistic and trans children, based entirely on self-diagnosis. These are her values, they are the values of every Dem special interest group, and she assures us they have not changed. I believe her.

In other words, she represents the status quo. She is the standard-bearer of our current elites, who have launched a sustained campaign to promote and excuse someone who is very much one of them. She is the daughter of leftist academics, reared in Berkeley and Montreal, championed by the Dem machine in California, a protégée of Willie Brown, a darling of Nancy Pelosi. She didn’t forge a path like Obama, or grasp the center as he did; she rose with the machine and will not trouble the machine. I have yet to hear her say a single interesting or memorable thing in her entire career. Have you?

What about “What can be. . . unburdened by what has been”? LOL!

At any rate, Sullivan decries Harris’s wokeness, but spends most of the column damning Trump. You can see how conflicted he is, for he sees Trump as having ruined the conservatism that Sullivan embraced most of his adult life. And so, when he goes to the polls, he’ll tick the box for Harris:

So I will vote for Harris, despite my profound reservations about her. Because I have no profound reservations about him. I know who he is and what he is. I know what forces he is conjuring and the extremes to which he will gladly take his own personal crusade. To abstain, though temptingly pure, is a cop-out. I vote not for Harris as such, but for a conservatism that can emerge once the demon is exorcized.

And exorcize it we must. Now, while we still can.

*Actress Maggie Smith, one of the greats, has died at 89.

Maggie Smith, one of the finest British stage and screen actors of her generation, whose award-winning roles ranged from a freethinking Scottish schoolteacher in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” to the acid-tongued dowager countess on “Downton Abbey,” died on Friday in London. She was 89.

Her death, in a hospital, was announced by her family in a statement issued by a publicist. It did not specify the cause of death.

American moviegoers barely knew Ms. Smith (now Dame Maggie to her countrymen) when she starred in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” (1969), about a teacher at a girls’ school in the 1930s who dared to have progressive social views — and a love life. Vincent Canby’s review in The New York Times described her performance as “a staggering amalgam of counterpointed moods, switches in voice levels and obliquely stated emotions, all of which are precisely right.” It brought her the Academy Award for best actress.

She won a second Oscar, for best supporting actress, for “California Suite” (1978), based on Neil Simon’s stage comedy. Her character, a British actress attending the Oscars with her bisexual husband (Michael Caine), has a disappointing evening at the ceremony and a bittersweet night in bed.

In real life, prizes had begun coming Ms. Smith’s way in the 1950s, when at 20 she won her first Evening Standard Theater Award. By the turn of the millennium, she had the two Oscars, a Tony, two Golden Globes, half a dozen BAFTAs (British Academy of Film and Television Awards) and scores of nominations. Yet she could go almost anywhere unrecognized.

Until “Downton Abbey.”

She was of course the “breakout star” of that series, and I did watch a few episodes. But I still remember her mesmerizing performance in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” (1969), which nabbed her a Best Actress Oscar. The movie made me read Muriel Spark’s book, which was equally good.  The whole movie is on YouTube, and I’ll put it below. If you haven’t seen it, watch it!

You may remember Oliver’s recording of the movie’s theme song, “Jean,” also released in 1969. It’s schlocky but I like it a lot, and here it is. (It was written by Rod McKuen, who recorded an inferior version.)

*Pygmy hippos (Choeropsis liberiensis, one of only two species of hippo) are endangered, but are also adorable, especially the babies. And one of them in a Thai zoo, Moo Deng, has gone viral; I expect you’ll have heard of her. The AP’s story:

Only a month after Thailand’s adorable baby hippo Moo Deng was unveiled on Facebook, her fame became unstoppable.

Fans unable to make the two-hour drive to Khao Kheow Open Zoo from the Thai capital Bangkok to see her in person can watch her video clips online, or simply scroll through social media to savor meme after meme.

Zookeeper Atthapon Nundee has been posting cute moments of the animals in his care for about five years. He never imagined the zoo’s newborn pygmy hippo would become an internet megastar within weeks.

Cars started lining up outside the zoo well before it opened Thursday. Visitors traveled from near and far for a chance to see the pudgy, expressive 2-month-old in person at the zoo about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southeast of Bangkok. The pit where Moo Deng lives with her mom, Jona, was packed almost immediately, with people cooing and cheering every time the pink-cheeked baby animal made skittish movements.

. . . Moo Deng, which literally means “bouncy pork” in Thai, is a type of meatball. The name was chosen by fans via a poll on social media, and it matches her other siblings: Moo Toon (stewed pork) and Moo Waan (sweet pork). There is also a common hippo at the zoo named Kha Moo (stewed pork leg).

“She’s such a little lump. I want to ball her up and swallow her whole!” said Moo Deng fan Areeya Sripanya while visiting the zoo Thursday.

Look at this cutie!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili once again sees signs of winter coming on:

Hili: The last apple fell from this apple tree.

A: So what?

Hili: It’s safe to walk here.

Hili: Spadło ostatnie jabłko z tej jabłonki.

Ja: I co z tego?

Hili: Tu można już bezpiecznie chodzić.

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

From Cat Memes:

From America’s Cultural Decline into Idiocy. Kids!!!

From Jesus of the Day:

Did you know that Masih could sing? She does so, but mainly for political reasons. Here she is as one of the “warm-up” acts for Richard Dawkins “His Last Bow” tour. She sings, too!

If Lady Gaga were born in Iran, she’d be in jail right now, just like Zara, who’s imprisoned for daring to sing one of her songs.
I couldn’t sing Gaga’s anthem at this event, but I raised Zara’s voice by singing a love song to see if men would get ‘aroused.’ Yes, this is the… pic.twitter.com/ZwkVGC5eyX

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) September 26, 2024

From Luana, who says, “Take a look at the comments!”

We are thrilled to announce the launch of Muslims for Harris and have an amazing lineup of speakers. Please register using the following link https://t.co/4DldAFi3AG#MuslimsforHarris #MuslimWomenforHarris #HarrisWalz2024 pic.twitter.com/rdyHsdajEg

— Muslims for Harris (@Muslims_Harris) September 26, 2024

From Simon, who says, “Well, that should focus the mind.” Indeed; I heard it on the news on Thursday night:

Taylor County asking residents who defied the mandatory evacuation order to write their name and birthday on their arm or leg in permanent marker so they can be identified. A sobering message. #Helene #FLwx pic.twitter.com/ynblAw4I5C

— Florida Tropics (@FloridaTropics1) September 26, 2024

Also from Simon, who suspected (correctly) that I’d approve of this message:

Governing Mayor of Berlin @kaiwegner gives a straight forward answer to “why is there an Israeli flag hanging outside your office?”.

More like this please. pic.twitter.com/6yVrvtx0cT

— The Mossad: Satirical and Awesome (@TheMossadIL) September 24, 2024

From Malcolm. I think this is very interesting but I worry that they killed all the ants by doing this:

Over the course of 3 days scientists pumped 10 tons of cement into an abandoned ant hill. After weeks of digging, the colony’s intricate & impressive structure is revealed. This one

[From: Ants! Natures Secret Power]https://t.co/heShSCF3bm

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) September 23, 2024

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:

A ten-year-old French girl was gassed to death on arrival at Auschwitz. Her smile was gone forever. https://t.co/AkHG58RKQn

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) September 28, 2024

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. First, an amazing poem:

oh my god pic.twitter.com/U89qPtVLig

— Joseph Fasano (@Joseph_Fasano_) September 26, 2024

Make mine mayo instead of vinegar (though I like lemon on the fish.

What type of chip topping person are you?https://t.co/A3onoDicj0 pic.twitter.com/cUyDuYHAix

— VeryBritishProblems (@SoVeryBritish) September 26, 2024

There will be no “Readers’ Wildlife” today as we are down to two sets of photos and I must hold onto them. If you would like photos featured more regularly, please send them in.

Welcome to the first Hump Day (“Araw ng umbok” in Filipino) of autumn: it’s September 24, 2024, and National Lobster Day.  Here is the incredible March of the Lobsters:

Lobsters are opportunistic predators that eat almost everything on the seafloor. To avoid being eaten, they take shelter during the day in their caves, with only their head and two large antennae protruding, thus protecting their vulnerable abdomen. However, when autumn arrives, the lobsters living near the island of Bimini in the Bahamas must migrate to deeper waters to avoid the hurricane season. During this migration, they have to traverse very smooth sandy bottoms where they would be highly exposed.

The ancestral solution to this problem is that the lobsters gather on the seafloor, forming long queues of up to fifty animals that interweave with each other. In this way, the antennae of the lobster behind protect the abdomen of the one in front. These formations move at a cruising speed, but if a threat arises, they quicken their pace and can reach speeds of up to five meters per minute. To avoid falling behind, the lobsters hook their first pair of legs onto the tail of the individual in front, preventing separation. In this way, they manage to cover 80 km in a week, reaching deeper waters away from the fury of hurricanes.

A video from PBS, which includes a mock camera-toting “spy lobster” used to film. :

It’s also National Quesadilla Day, National Cooking Day, National Crab Meat Newburg Day, and National Women’s Health and Fitness Day. 

There’s a Google Doodle today in which you play an animated game against people throughout the world (dozens, if you wish!); it involves popcorn and I’ll be darned if I can figure it out. Click on the screenshot to begin playing.

Google’s rationale:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the September 23 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The war between Israel and Hezbollah continues, with Reuters reporting that an Israeli strike killed the head of Hezbollah’s rocket division, Ibrahim Qubaisi:

An Israeli airstrike on Beirut killed a senior Hezbollah commander on Tuesday as cross-border rocket attacks by both sides increased fears of a full-fledged war in the Middle East.

Israel’s military said the airstrike on the Lebanese capital killed Ibrahim Qubaisi, who it said was the commander of Hezbollah’s missiles and rocket force. Two security sources in Lebanon described him as a leading figure in the Iran-backed group’s rocket division.

From the “As Lebanon reels from Israeli attacks, the future is murky for a wounded Hezbollah.”

Swaths of southern Lebanon are smoldering ruins. Highways are clogged with thousands fleeing the possibility of an even bigger war between Israel and Hezbollah. As towns and villages prepared for funerals on Tuesday, Lebanon was just beginning to grapple with the fallout from its deadliest day in decades.

A vast wave of Israeli airstrikes on Monday targeting parts of the country where Hezbollah holds sway killed hundreds of people and plunged Lebanon into a deep state of uncertainty over what Israel would do next, how deeply the militia had been damaged and what sort of response its remaining forces could muster.

Israel said it had hit more than 1,000 sites, mostly in southern and eastern Lebanon, aimed at the fighters and military infrastructure of Hezbollah, the Lebanese political party and militia it has been fighting along the Israel-Lebanon border for 11 months. At least 558 people were killed in the strikes, including 94 women and 50 children, Lebanon’s health minister told reporters on Tuesday.

That toll marked a terrible milestone for Lebanon: Monday was the country’s deadliest day since its 15-year civil war, which ended in 1990.

“The victims of a strike by the Israeli enemy on the village of Arnoun. Targeted in their homes!” read text over a photo shared on social media of three women killed in one of the strikes.

The death toll given by the health ministry did not differentiate between fighters and civilians, and the strikes overwhelmingly hit parts of the country where Hezbollah dominates, suggesting that Israel had struck another fierce blow to the group. That capped a week in which Israel also blew up electronic devices distributed by Hezbollah, killing dozens of people and injuring thousands more, and assassinated a group of its military leaders in an airstrike near Beirut.

Some experts on Hezbollah suggested that Israel’s recent attacks had largely debilitated the group, leaving its membership in disarray.

All I can say is that Lebanon shouldn’t have provoked Israel by firing daily barrages of rockets into northern Israel. And, according to Malgozata’s back-of-the-envelope calculations below, the ratio of civilians killed to Hezbollah fighters killed is very low for warfare. I sent her the article and she sent back this:

I did a short and primitive calculation. They say that there are 558 killed, among them 94 women and 50 children. I assumed that all women were non-Hezbollah and that the same number of killed men were non-Hezbollah. And the result of my calculation was that Israel killed 328 Hezbollah members and 238 civilians. Not even a one to one ratio! Lowest in the world! This means that Israel’s targeting was extremely precise. They report should have included  that.

Of course you can question the assumptions, but Israel does have a reputation for a very low proportion of “collateral” killings. But never mind: the world is gong to come down on Israel for “provoking” a wider war.

*Controversial law professor Amy Wax has been suspended for a year (on half pay) by Penn for inappropriate remarks. This is one fight in which I truly don’t have a dog, because I haven’t followed the Wax case at all.

The University of Pennsylvania is suspending Amy Wax, a tenured law professor accused of making racist, sexist and antigay comments, in a case that has tested the limit of academic freedoms and freedom of speech.

The outcome of the closely watched case, following more than two years of university proceedings, marked a rare instance of a tenured U.S. professor being severely reprimanded for their comments. However, the decision fell short of her being let go, which some student groups have called for over the years.

Persuaded by arguments that new DNA testing exonerated Williams, Greitens appointed a board of inquiry to investigate the new claims. The board was abruptly disbanded in 2023 by Greitens’s’ successor, Gov. Mike Parson (R), before it issued a final report. Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) set a 2024 execution for Williams.

Well, Glassman doesn’t mention the reason I think careerism is ruining college, and it’s that I favor a liberal-arts education.  I got one, and at a terrific school (The College of William and Mary) that was full of teachers whose speciality was not research but teaching. I was on an education high for four years, learning ethics, Old English, fine arts, philosophy, and so on, and the desire to keep educating myself in these subjects has stuck with me. I can’t imagine that kind of experience if you’re just obsessed with finance or computers.  I don’t diss those people who are fixed on getting that kind of job, but I do think they’re missing something about the wonder of life and human thought, and though I knew I wanted to be a biologist by the end of freshman year, I also wanted to learn about. . well, nearly everything.

*And from the AP’s “oddities” section, we have an article called “The birth of a spectacled bear bring joy to a farming community in Peru.” (By the way, spectacled bears are called, in Spanish, “Osos de anteojos”, as “anteojos” (“in front of the eyes”) is the word for spectacles. For some reason I love that Spanish name.)

 A spectacled bear was born in a rescue center built by a Peruvian farming community that has protected these animals for more than two decades.

The bear cub, which does not yet have a name, was discovered after park rangers in the community of Santa Catalina de Chongoyape, in northern Peru, noticed that a female bear named Lola did not leave her den.

“They heard different noises and only these days the little bear has begun to come out with its mother,” said Edivar Carrasco, the president of the community.

Born in mid July, the little bear is the second birth after a female was born six years ago in a fenced area of several hectares where food and care are provided to ailing bears.

The farming community manages an ecological reserve where spectacled bears (Tremarctos ornatus) and other animals such as the white-winged guan (Penelope albipennis) are not hunted and can find a safe habitat for their lives in its carob trees and other types of flora.

The spectacled bear is a vulnerable species, according to the Red List of Threatened Species released by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

It is known worldwide thanks to Paddington Bear, a children’s storybook character created in 1958 by British writer Michael Bond.

Here’s the cub!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZohDj7e7iM

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is worried that winter is coming:

Hili: Is the night warm?

A: There is no frost.

Hili: That’s not what I asked.

Hili: Czy to jest ciepła noc?

Ja: Mrozu nie ma.

Hili: Nie o to pytam.

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

From Cat Memes:

From Things With Faces:

From Strange, Stupid, or Silly Signs:

From Masih, we have an honest reporter. I don’t think telling the reporter to move is legal, though I can understand the Iranians’ concern. Listen to what she says at the end!

US security officials outside the New York hotel where the Iranian presidential delegation is staying told @IranIntl_En‘s @NegarMojtahedi not to film in front of the building to avoid having the hotel in the background of her footage. pic.twitter.com/JBmgb4bCSf

— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) September 23, 2024

From Orli.  SJP has been banned on a number of campuses, and I suggested in a letter to the student newspaper that we might consider this at the University of Chicago because of SJP’s repeated violations of protesting rules. Instead, the organization got a slap on the wrist: a note in its dossier.

Breaking: The University of Illinois has unrecognized their chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine.

Not a single American tax dollar should go to any universities which tolerate an SJP on their campus. pic.twitter.com/loRtjqyL8j

— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) September 24, 2024

From my feed. I think it’s an elk, and remember that most deer shed their antlers every year, which means a huge metabolic investment in regrowth. It’s sexual selection, Jake! Antlers help you leave more copies of your genes.

that was the softest shedding I’ve seen. pic.twitter.com/4YSIQdu4fB

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) September 24, 2024

From Malcolm, ducks + watermelon = fun.  Sadly, the Botany Pond mallards didn’t much care for melon. Click on the screenshot, and leave the sound up:

A heartwarmer that may make you tear up (sound on):

Girl who used to be paralyzed visits the nurse who took care of her pic.twitter.com/zcW5UtPbux

— Historic Vids (@historyinmemes) September 24, 2024

From the Auschwitz Memorial; if you’re never going to visit (it’s near Krakow, Poland), I highly recommend you take this live guided tour. Going there was one of the most emotional moments of my life, and everybody should see it one way or another. It’s only 14 Euros, is live, and lasts 2.5 hours:

You can visit the Auschwitz Memorial online. Live guided tours in English start daily at 14:00 (CEST)

60 PLN / 14 EUR

The tour lasts about two hours. The guide also uses multimedia & video testimonies of Survivors.

Book here: https://t.co/Qm5G7nXxKH pic.twitter.com/IkhaYzXjxN

— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) September 25, 2024

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. First, another heartwarmer. Can you imagine the experience of hearing your daughter’s heart beat in another person?

Un padre escucha los latidos del corazón donado por su hija en el hombre cuya vida ella salvó…

🥹🥹🥹

pic.twitter.com/WN9x6PDq9S

— El Club del Arte 🎨📷📚🖼🕍🎼 (@Arteymas_) September 23, 2024

And noisy cane rats. (Sound up, of course):

Sound up! Last week in South Africa I stumbled across three greater cane rats and was able to film them up close. In addition to the chewing, you can hear their chirrup to one another. I had no idea they did this and it was incredible to experience. pic.twitter.com/MVHVNUgmJc

— Dr Dave Hone (@Dave_Hone) September 20, 2024

Welcome to the Cruelest Day: Tuesday, September 24, 2024, and National Cherries Jubilee Day. As Wikipedia notes,

The recipe is generally credited to Auguste Escoffier, who prepared the dish for one of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee celebrations, widely thought to be the Diamond Jubilee in 1897.

It’s also National Bluebird of Happiness Day, Schwenkenfelder Thanksgiving (for members of the Pennsylvania Schewenkenfelder Church, a small denomination centered on Philadelphia), Kiss Day, National Horchata Day (a delicious sweet rice drink; try it with Mexican Food), and National Punctuation Day.

In honor of Bluebird of Happiness Day, I present this Gary Larson cartoon that I had in my office for years:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the September 24 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*There’s no doubt that what’s going on between Israel and Hezbollah is effectively a “war”, and Israel, I think, is trying to deter Hezbollah from mounting a huge missile attack by showing them what Israel is capable of doing.

Israeli airstrikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon killed hundreds of people and injured more than 1,000 others on Monday, Lebanon’s health ministry said, in the deadliest day of Israeli attacks there since at least 2006, when Israel last fought a war with the Iranian-backed militant group.

The Israeli military said in a statement after midnight, early on Tuesday, that its Air Force had struck about 1,600 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon on Monday and was continuing to attack.

The main roads to Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, were clogged with people on Monday fleeing to what they hoped would be the safety of the metropolis, witnesses said.

The pace and intensity of the airstrikes on Monday outstripped that of the devastating 2006 war, when more than 1,000 Lebanese were killed over an entire month. The health ministry, which compiles casualties reported by hospitals, said at least 492 people had been killed on Monday and about 1,640 were wounded. Officials did not indicate how many of the dead were Hezbollah fighters but said that dozens of women and children were among the casualties. The casualty numbers could not be independently confirmed.

The scale of the bloodshed staggered Lebanon, which was already reeling from a week of Israeli attacks on Hezbollah, including via exploding pagers and walkie-talkies, that killed scores and wounded thousands across the country.

As Israeli warplanes raced through Lebanon’s skies, air-raid sirens rang out across northern Israel as roughly 165 rockets and other munitions crossed into Israeli territory from Lebanon, according to the Israeli military. Most were intercepted by Israel’s antimissile defense system, and there were no reports of deaths or serious casualties.

Hezbollah has been firing rockets and drones at Israel since a devastating war broke out in Gaza last year after the deadly Oct. 7 attacks led by Hezbollah’s ally, Hamas. Israeli counterattacks on southern Lebanon had been common, but Israel ratcheted its assaults on Hezbollah over the past week, raising fears that the current fighting could escalate into a full-scale war involving ground troops.

Note that Israel, trying to defend itself by stopping Hezbollah, is of course being warned by many that they could escalate the conflict into a “full scale war” involving ground troops.  What that really means is that Israel should just sit there and take the repeated, year-long onslaught of Hezbollah missiles and anti-tank weapons, responding tepidly but not mounting a large-scale defense that would seriously damage Hezbollah. Note too that Hezbollah, a terrorist organization, has been committing war crimes and violating a binding UN resolution (1701), with nobody ever Hezbollah for those war crimes. Has Hezbollah been taken to the International Court of Justice? Of course not!.  This is profound hypocrisy.  My prediction, though, is that Israel will limit this to an air-and-missile war, with no Israeli books on Lebanese territory. Lebanon won’t cross the border, either, for the UN forbids that (but since when has that worked?), and if they do, they’ll be massacred. What really worries me, as I’ve said before, is the possibility that Iran will join the war against Israel. If THAT happens, I would expect the US, as Blinken promised, to defend Israel. But again, does Blinken even know what he says or thinks?

*Two other items. First, the AP reports that Israel is asking the UN to enforce the binding Security Council Resolution 1701, which Hezbollah has been violating for years but the UN has failed to enforce.

Israel’s foreign minister has urged the U.N. Security Council to implement a 2006 resolution calling on Hezbollah to move its forces far from the Israeli border.

Resolution 1701 ended a monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah. The resolution required Hezbollah to move some 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, but it has refused, accusing Israel of failing to carry out provisions.

In a letter to the council, Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the council “must act to bring about a full implementation” of the resolution. He warned that Israel would not tolerate the “ongoing war of attrition” with Hezbollah.

“Israel is not interested in a full-scale war,” he wrote. “However, we will take all necessary measures to protect ourselves and our citizens in accordance with international law as part of the ongoing armed conflict against Hezbollah.”

He also called for international sanctions against Iran, saying the Tehran government is the “mastermind” behind Hezbollah’s attacks.

No chance of that. In other news, the U.S. is beefing up its troops in the Middle East:

The U.S. is sending additional troops to the Middle East, the Pentagon said Monday.

Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder would provide no details on how many additional forces or what they would be tasked to do. The U.S. currently has about 40,000 troops in the region.

“Due to the unpredictable nature of ongoing conflict between Hezbollah and Israel and recent explosions throughout Lebanon, including Beirut, the U.S. Embassy urges U.S. citizens to depart Lebanon while commercial options still remain available,” the State Department cautioned Saturday.

I’m hoping the troops will be tasked with defending Israel and, perhaps, enforcing Resolution 1701, which is really the UN’s job with its UNIFIL troops. But those troops are too cowardly to take on Hezbollah. I can’t imagine that U.S. troops would be used to defend Hezbollah’s interests.

*The rumors that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is dead have not been confirmed. As 7 Israel News reports, the rumor that Sinwar was dead probably started when the IDF recovered a number of bodies in Gaza tunnel, victims of the IDF, and said that they were checking if any were Sinwar. But they were wrong, and Sinwar is still on the loose.

The IDF brought several bodies of Hamas terrorists who were killed during combat operations in the Gaza Strip to Israel to investigate if one of them was Hamas leader and October 7 massacre mastermind Yahya Sinwar, Channel 12 News reported.

The test results showed that none of the bodies examined were Sinwar.

On Sunday night, Kan News reported that Israel is examining the possibility that Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar was killed as a result of an IDF airstrike on the Gaza Strip.

According to the report, there is no intelligence supporting such a report, and there is a disagreement between defense officials about whether the October 7th mastermind was again just cut off from his communications or was indeed eliminated.

This is a pity, as Sinwar’s death would have, I think, led to Hamas’s dissolution, if not surrender. Given that he’s said to be surrounded by living Israeli hostages, either apprehending or killing him may be very difficult without attendant deaths of hostages.

*The guy who was caught with a gun hanging around the fence outside Trump’s golf course has now been investigated more thoroughly, and it’s clear that he was attempting to kill the former President on the links.

A man who allegedly tried to kill Donald Trump on a Florida golf course had been planning for months to shoot the former president, keeping detailed lists of Trump’s whereabouts and writing a note in case the assassination attempt failed, prosecutors said Monday.

“Dear World, This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I am so sorry I failed you,” the handwritten note from Ryan Wesley Routh said. “I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster. It’s up to you to finish the job; and I will offer $150,000 to whomever can complete the job.”

Federal prosecutors included a photo of the note in a new court filing as they urge a judge to keep Routh detained while his court case proceeds.

A witness found the note inside of a box that Routh had dropped off months before the Sept. 15 golf-course encounter. The witness opened the box, which also contained ammunition, tools and a metal pipe, after learning that Routh had been accused of trying to kill Trump.

The note was one of several new revelations about Routh’s plans in the months and weeks before a Secret Service agent allegedly saw him pointing a semiautomatic rifle through a golf-course fence while Trump was playing a few holes away.

Routh had compiled a handwritten list of dates and places where he expected the Republican nominee to be present, and had arrived in Florida more than a month before the encounter, prosecutors said. Cellphone records showed he had on multiple days traveled near the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach—about 5 miles from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence—between Aug. 18 and the incident on Sept. 15.

Routh, 58 years old, is expected in federal court later Monday morning, where prosecutors will point to those details as evidence he should remain jailed.

Officials said Routh hid undetected near the golf course for nearly 12 hours that day, before the Secret Service agent spotted him and opened fire. Authorities don’t think Routh fired a shot. He had been roughly 400 yards away from the Republican presidential nominee, but didn’t have a direct line of sight to him, officials said. He sped off in a black Nissan but was captured soon after as he fled north on Interstate 95.

Authorities found a loaded semiautomatic SKS-style rifle with a scope, two backpacks and a bag of food in the area where the suspect had been hiding near the course. On Monday, prosecutors revealed they had also found two additional license plates and six cellphones, one of which contained a google search for how to travel from West Palm Beach to Mexico, an indication that he had hoped to flee.

Trump should consider himself lucky, and kudos to the Secret Service agent who saw the gun’s barrel sticking through the fence, as well as the passerby who photographed the alleged perp’s car and its license plate, which led to Routh’s being apprehended.  The Justice Department rules imply that Routh could have committed a capital crime for “attempting to kill or kidnap the President,”

*The Washington Post maps out eight ways either Trump or Harris could win the election. I couldn’t be arsed to go through them all given that it’s still early in the season, but one possibility intrigued me:

An electoral college tie

Finally, we’d be remiss not to mention the possibility of a tie in the electoral college. It’s true that this scenario is more of an election nerd obsession — like contested conventions — but given how close the election is, it’s a scenario we should be at least somewhat prepared for.

There are multiple ways this could happen, but the most relevant scenarios involve the two states that assign their electoral votes differently: Maine and Nebraska. They are not winner-take-all, but instead allow candidates to win individual electoral votes if they win a congressional district.

This meant that in 2020, Biden won Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, which contains Omaha and its suburbs, even as Trump won the state by almost 20 points. Similarly in Maine, Trump won its more rural 2nd Congressional District, while Biden won the state by nine points. But if Republicans are successful in changing how Nebraska assigns its votes, this scenario would actually become even likelier, because then Harris winning Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan would lead us straight to this outcome.

How this happens: If Harris wins Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, she wins 270 electoral votes exactly. But if she loses Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, there’s a tie in the electoral college; Both candidates would have 269 electoral votes, as illustrated in the map above. The same thing would happen if Trump wins Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina but loses Maine’s 2nd Congressional District. But the congressional districts aren’t the only way this happens. As we described in Scenario Seven, if Trump wins all the Rust Belt states and Nevada, we also end up with a tie.

Pitfalls: None of these scenarios are particularly likely.

But of course you’ll be asking, “What if this really happens?” Who decides the Presidency then? The Post tells us:

But even though none of these scenarios are likely to happen, it’s important to know that if there were a tie in the electoral college, the House of Representatives would decide the election, and it’s likely Trump would win in this situation. House members vote by state delegation, and based on the current polling, Republicans are likely to continue to hold the majority of House delegations after the election.

Right now the election remains too close to call, though Harris apparently has “momentum.” I do wish she’d quit avoiding interviews and press conferences, though. Her avoidance simply reinforces the message that she can’t articulate her “vision” when faced with reporters.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is, as usual, feeling peckish

Hili: The pantry has to be checked carefully.

A: Why?

Hili: I’m afraid there is a lack of stuff cats like best.

Hili: Trzeba dokładnie sprawdzić zasoby.

Ja: Czemu?

Hili: Obawiam się, że brakuje tego, co koty lubią najbardziej.

And a photo of the loving Szaron. You’ll be glad to hear that the cyst on his back, which was drained by the vet, has not returned.

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

From Richard:

From Cat Memes:

From Science Humor, a true story (see the article at the Guardian):

Masih gives a brief rundown of four mothers who were imprisoned simply for objecting to the deaths of their sons, killed as dissidents by the Iranian regime:

Breaking : Attacks on Grieving Mothers: Diplomatic Hypocrisy at the UN

As the Islamic Republic’s so-called reformist president is welcomed at the United Nations, granted U.S. visas, the real story in Iran is a war against grieving mothers. While the regime puts on a diplomatic… pic.twitter.com/dK6q2voHDj

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) September 23, 2024

Yes, biological men have an advantage over women in fencing too, including a longer reach and greater height.  So they win in women’s fencing.

Male fencer Anna Rose Suchoski claimed the women’s runner-up title at this month’s Fortune Fencing Regional Championships.

Despite starting fencing just 6 months ago, he triumphed over all but one veteran female fencer. He joins over 7 known male fencers winning elite women’s… pic.twitter.com/y22fdI3spb

— ICONS (@icons_women) September 21, 2024

Wait for the knife. . .,

Reactions of dogs that were given less food…

One of them pulled a knife. 😂

pic.twitter.com/8bc2f2ny7L

— Figen (@TheFigen_) September 22, 2024

From Luana, who finds this hilarious:

This is the best video on the internet right now. pic.twitter.com/ISSg5JJ024

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) September 22, 2024

From Malcolm: A dog fosters a tiny kitten. Amazing!

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I retweeted:

A six-year-old German boy was gassed to death upon arrival at Auschwitz. https://t.co/xbJ7ATPK51

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) September 24, 2024

Two tweets from the newly retired Dr. Cobb. First, a great duck post; click the arrow for animation:

pic.twitter.com/iL5iz1UsbC

— Shitpost 2077 (@shitpost_2077) September 22, 2024

And model meets mimic:

Worker European Hornet – Vespa crabro meets female Hornet Hoverfly – Volucella zonaria, in this morning’s moth trap. Outcome amicable. pic.twitter.com/QII72n0Jqh

— Richard Lewington (@rlewington2) September 20, 2024

Welcome to another damn week: it’s Monday, September 23, and National Great American Pot Pie Day. (I’m not sure what distinguishes American pot pies from the many other versions throughout the world (the UK has them, and they’re a great pub lunch)

It’s also Fish Amnesty Day, Museum Day, National Snack Stick Day, National Wildlife Ecology Day and International Rabbit Day. 

Here are the first four week’s in the life of a bunny:

And my laundry bag scared me this morning, looking like a scary face:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the September 23 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*It seems that Israel is about to retaliate against Hezbollah’s repeated rocket attacks, but in a major way. Malgorzata sent this short video message from IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, warning Lebanese civilians near Hezbollah facilities to move. Malgorzata says, “An IDF appeal to civilians in Southern Lebanon to move out of the harm’s way. There were also TV and radio appeals in Arabic, text messages etc. It seems an Israeli attack is imminent.”  Places like the WaPo are characterizing this as an “offensive action,” implying that Israel is widening the war, but as we all know, it was Hezbollah who has been firing missiles into Lebanon by the dozens, and has done so since October 8 of last year. See next Nooz item, too.

From this morning’s NYT:

Israeli warplanes struck at least 300 sites across Lebanon on Monday in an exceptionally fierce bombardment targeting the militant group Hezbollah. Lebanon’s health ministry said the strikes had killed at least 100 people and injured more than 400, as rapidly accelerating violence brought the two sides ever closer to all-out war.

Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, fired dozens of rockets and drones into northern Israel, setting off air-raid sirens in the city of Tzfat and around the Sea of Galilee, a day after its deputy chief pledged to continue attacking until Israel ended its military campaign in Gaza. Israeli leaders, for their part, have announced “a new stage” of the war intended to stop Hezbollah from firing at Israeli border communities.

*Hezbollah has decided to retaliate big time for Israel’s beeper attack and increased bombing of missile launchers.  In effect, a war is going on, though neither side has crossed any borders on foot:

Some 85 rockets were launched by Hezbollah from Lebanon at the Haifa area in northern Israel on Sunday morning, following overnight launches at the Jezreel Valley, the terror group’s deepest rocket fire into Israel since the beginning of the war in October.

A teenager was killed when he crashed his vehicle as sirens sounded in the early hours of the morning, and at least three people were injured as a result of the rocket fire.

The military said that some of the rockets fired toward Haifa were intercepted, while others impacted Kiryat Bialik, a suburb of the northern coastal city, injuring three people.

The victims were a man in his 70s who was in moderate condition, and another man in his 70s and a 16-year-old girl who were lightly hurt. All three were taken to Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center for treatment.

One rocket hit a home in Moreshet in the Lower Galilee, causing significant damage but no injuries.

In a statement, Hezbollah claimed that the rocket fire targeted a Rafael defense firm facility in the Haifa area.

The Iran-backed terror group said the rockets were in response to the pager and walkie-talkie blasts in Lebanon last week, which killed more than 30 members of the terror group and wounded thousands of others. The attack was attributed to Israel, which has not commented.

. . . The expanded range of the rocket attacks put some two million Israelis — a fifth of the population — in range of the strikes. “Hundreds of thousands of people had to take refuge in bomb shelters” across northern Israel, military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told AFP after the strikes overnight and early in the morning.

In the wake of the rocket fire, the IDF said it was carrying out a new wave of strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon while aerial defenses remained in a high state of alert.

The thing is, many of Hezbollah’s missiles were fired at towns that were not Jewish but Arab, including Nazareth, comprising almost entirely Druze Arab and Christian Arabs. The Arab Muslims are killing other Arabs, most of them Muslims.  Now I’m not overly worried about Hezbollah, which I think is cowed, though their missile supply seems to be inexhaustible. Instead I’m worried about Iran getting into the show. Although Secretary of State Blinken said that nobody should take advantage of Israel when it was engaged in Gaza (translation: Hezbollah should cool it), Blinken has since become a tool of the ignorant “two staters”, and, in fact, I’m not sure he even cares what happens to Israel.  Right now, in fact, the U.S. should be putting pressure on Hezbollah. Why hasn’t it?

*A prime example of the reportorial violence of the NYT, an article called “For Mideast foes, diplomacy takes a back seat to military force“. An excerpt:

This is basically a big sleazy lie. The Olmert deal fell apart because Arafat walked away from the table, as the Palestinians have walked away from the table many times before. Israel has never preferred war over diplomacy; it is the country that always offered deals to the Palestinians, who have expressed their intention to get rid of Israel. Finally, Israel has never attacked Palestine unless in retaliation for an attack or to forestall imminent violence. I detect the strong odor of mendacity.

*I can’t resist highlighting this WSJ op-ed column after Laura Helmuth said I criticized Scientific American‘s increasing ideological corruption simply because “Jerry has a lot of time on his hands.”  I won’t respond to her on a family-oriented site, but you can imagine how I feel about a stupid statement like that.  At any rate, the WSJ piece is called “The Political Scientific American: A very unscientific Harris endorsement shows why voters don’t trust scientific elites.” The entirety:

The scientific clerisy fret about eroding public trust in science, but what do they expect when they act like political partisans? The latest exhibit is an editorial this week endorsing Kamala Harris by the formerly esteemed publication Scientific American.

The magazine has a rich 179-year history of highlighting emerging technology and scientific debates in ways the lay public can understand. So it’s sad to behold its transformation into another progressive mouthpiece, broadcasting opinions on such subjects as gun violence, climate policy and identity politics that masquerade as science. Its Harris endorsement is a classic of this genre.

The editorial repeats favorite straw men on the left—for instance, that Mr. Trump “ignores the climate crisis in favor of more pollution” because he supports rolling back burdensome regulations and green-energy subsidies. Never mind that emissions declined during the Trump Presidency as cheap natural gas from hydraulic fracturing replaced coal power.

It also criticizes Mr. Trump’s support as President for “a work requirement as a condition for Medicaid eligibility.” By contrast, the editorial says, Ms. Harris supports “science” and would “improve health” by expanding Medicaid coverage. Who knew “science” supports a bigger welfare state?

Most of the magazine’s swipes at Mr. Trump aren’t related to science or health. “He goads people into hate and division, and he inspires extremists at state and local levels to pass laws that disrupt education and make it harder to earn a living,” the editorial avers.

By disrupting education, the editors don’t mean the Covid school shutdowns backed by teachers unions. They refer to state laws that ban critical race theory in K-12 schools.

The editorial continues: “Even after Trump was injured and a supporter was killed in an attempted assassination, the former president remained silent on gun safety.” Are the editors implying Mr. Trump is partly at fault for his second assassination attempt? They also parrot the mischaracterization of JD Vance’s remark regretting that school shootings have become a “fact of life.”

The more scientists and their magazines imitate an MSNBC roundtable, the more Americans will distrust anything they say.

In fact, I would agree that a Harris administration would be more science-oriented than a Trump administration, and so don’t agree with all the defense of Trump. My point wasn’t that: it was that science magazines shouldn’t do endorsements at all, which have no palpable effect except to reduce trust in both the magazines and science itself. It was, after all, Helmuth who okayed article after woke article having nothing to do with science (see a list here or here), including editorials saying that Mendel, Darwin, and E. O. Wilson were racists (I don’t think Mendel ever said a racist word, much less encountered a person of color). If I have too much time on my hands, Helmuth has too much wokeness in her magazine. (Have a look at this piece, for example, if you want a laugh. It is pure performative Social Justice, having nothing to do with Trump or Harris.)

*When the Taliban took over Afghanistan, I predicted that all the liberal reforms they promised for women would turn out to be lies. And, in fact, that’s exactly what happened, Women can’t go to school, have to cover their heads, faces, and hands, and can’t even speak in public. But things are going further, as the WaPo reports that the Taliban is starting to come down on men, too. They are, as one could have predicted, turning into an Iranian-style theocracy—but worse!

As the Taliban starts enforcing draconian new rules on women in Afghanistan, it has also begun to target a group that didn’t see tight restrictions on them coming: Afghan men.

Women have faced an onslaught of increasingly severe limits on their personal freedom and rules about their dress since the Taliban seized power three years ago. But men in urban areas could, for the most part, carry on freely.

The past four weeks, however, have brought significant changes for them, too. New laws promulgated in late August mandate that men wear a fist-long beard, bar them from imitating non-Muslims in appearance or behavior, widely interpreted as a prohibition against jeans, and ban haircuts that are against Islamic law, which essentially means short or Western styles. Men are now also prohibited from looking at women other than their wives or relatives.

As a result, more are growing beards, carrying prayer rugs and leaving their jeans at home.

These first serious restrictions on men have come as a surprise to many in Afghanistan, according to a range of Afghans, including Taliban opponents, wavering supporters and even members of the Taliban regime, who spoke in phone interviews over the past two weeks. In a society where a man’s voice is often perceived as far more powerful than a woman’s, some men now wonder whether they should have spoken up sooner to defend the freedoms of their wives and daughters.

“If men had raised their voices, we might also be in a different situation now,” said a male resident of the capital, Kabul, who like others interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity or that only their first names be used due to fears of drawing unwanted scrutiny from the regime. “Now, everyone is growing a beard because we don’t want to be questioned, humiliated,” he said.

This can be attributed only to religion. And in this case, a dictatorial, authoritarian, and completely delusional belief in a fictitious book supposedly dictated by an angel to an illiterate Arab sitting in a cave. Because of that book, millions and millions of people have been and will be deprived of freedom. Think of all the women whose dreams have been crushed! Now the men, too, lose their freedom of not just appearance, but of behavior.

*Princess Kate made her first public appearance since she was diagnosed with cancer after abdominal surgery in January. Well, that’s the AP’s headline, but in fact she’s made two appearances:

Kate, the Princess of Wales, made her first public appearance Sunday since she announced she had completed chemotherapy and would return to some public duties.

Kate and her husband, Prince William, were seen Sunday attending church with King Charles III and Queen Camilla near their royal Balmoral estate in Scotland.

Kate, 42, announced on Sept. 9 that she had completed treatment six months after revealing she had an undisclosed type of cancer. Her announcement came six weeks after Buckingham Palace announced that the king was being treated for cancer.

In a video announcing her progress, she said the path to full recovery would be long and she would take it day by day. She said she would undertake some limited engagements through the end of the year.

While she stepped away from most public duties during her treatment, Kate made two appearances earlier this year. First, during the king’s birthday parade in June, known as Trooping the Colour, and most recently during the men’s final at Wimbledon in July, where she received a standing ovation.

Her announcement that the path of recovery would be wrong makes me believe that she had a pretty serious diagnosis, and I can’t help speculating about what form of cancer she had. Since it was discovered during abdominal surgery, it could be colon or stomach cancer, or even ovarian cancer—or, really, almost anything else. Regardless, she’s only 42, has three young kids, and her father-in-law also is being treated for cancer. I wish her well.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili, who is after all a Jewish cat, shows one of a characteristic feature of Jews: anxiety.

Hili: I’m worried.

A: What about?

Hili: Does it matter?

Hili: Jestem zmartwiona.

Ja: Czym?

Hili: A czy to ma jakieś znaczenie?

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

From Cat Memes:

From Richard:

Another one from Cat Memes!:

From Masih: This is a pretty bad mine accident, and Masih pins the blame on the slipshod standards of the Iranian regime:

The lives of workers and innocent people mean far less to the Islamic Republic dictatorship than saving the lives of Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists.

A deadly methane gas explosion at a coal mine has killed at least 51 people and injured 20 others.

The people of Iran are… pic.twitter.com/cg8Nt7WZH0

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) September 22, 2024

Trump is selling Trump Coins, a “testament to the resistance of strength of the American people.” It’s the Greatest Coin in the History of the World! They will make history in America!

This video of a politician using the trappings of patriotism to sell things for personal profit somehow coexists with a movement that purports to hate sell-out politicians. https://t.co/Xe5IZPzwvX

— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 21, 2024

From Simon, who says this is funny but you can’t unsee it:

When it’s your turn to do lab meeting and you don’t have new results to showpic.twitter.com/Asae4ObIj5

— Oded Rechavi (@OdedRechavi) September 21, 2024

I used to think that AOC was just a dumb progressives. Now I think she’s an anti-semite without any empathy (but plenty of ambition). She never mentioned those dozens of Druze kids killed in Israel by Hezbollah rockets, either.

This is a home in Northern Israel, a family lived here. The home has now been destroyed by a Hezbollah rocket.

AOC condemned Israel within hours of the pager operation, it has been nearly 20 hours and she has not said a word about the tens of rockets shot at Israel civilians. https://t.co/TOwSo2YytY pic.twitter.com/uNaMYDiPdH

— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) September 22, 2024

This is a fantastic idea, and I think it’s worked well every place it’s been tried:

They should do this program in every prison. pic.twitter.com/2TG0LTTR4O

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) September 21, 2024

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I retweeted:

A six-year-old German girl, Jewish of course, was gassed to death upon arriving at Auschwitz. https://t.co/E1gUleU54G

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) September 23, 2024

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. The first one he calls “bizarre and sad“:

TIL https://t.co/vfmYWMKWnw pic.twitter.com/iJhGCCZHNc

— Timothy B. Lee (@binarybits) September 22, 2024

Matthew screened a screenplay:

“Timothy Lea”, who also scripted a couple of Bond films, was contracted to write a screenplay of The Double Helix. I am one of the few people to have read it. It was execrable and not even “funny” in a Confessions kind of way. https://t.co/ECh4jJ5hQQ

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb) September 20, 2024