Welcome to the Cruelest Day: Tuesday,  March. 25, 2025, and International Waffle Day. The home of the waffle in America is, of course, Waffle House, with more than 2,000 locations.  Here’s Anthony Bourdain with Sean Brock eating at the Waffle House for the first time. Bourdain was dubious, but, as you’ll see, liked it! It’s the quintessence of America.

It’s also Pecan Day (see pecan waffle above), National Lobster Newburg Day, and National Medal of Honor Day, honoring the recipients of the nation’s highest military honor.  My father was friends with one medalist: Lew Millett, who led the last American bayonet charge during the Korean War.

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

Da Nooz:

*At the NYT’s “The Conversation” between Bret Stephens and Gail Collins, they talk about many things, including Chuck Schumer:

Gail: About Schumer, by the way: I think we agree that he did the right thing in voting with the Trumpians to keep the government operating. I’ve always liked Schumer and the things he stood for. But should he continue to be Senate minority leader? If so, he has to rally the Democrats around a serious message of reform. And by that I don’t mean tax cuts.

Bret: Schumer did something genuinely brave: He took a bullet for his party. A government shutdown would have been blamed on the Democrats, giving Trump the talking point that the absence of government was wholly the result of the Democrats caring more for ideology than they do for the country. And it would have given the president carte blanche to decide for himself what parts of the government he deems critical — and which parts are even more disposable.

Gail: Absolute agreement.

Bret: The larger question you raise is whether Schumer is the right messenger for reform. And I guess my answer is whether the next Democratic leader will be someone in the Elizabeth Warren progressive mold or a centrist like Colorado’s Michael Bennet. If the former, I’d say to Chuck: Hold on with your fingernails.

So who would you prefer as the reformer? And what would be your message of reform?

Gail: Tough question, which the Democrats in Congress are far from together answering. I’d love to see the caucus acknowledge that it’s not a bad thing to cut some funding for programs that haven’t been trimmed down in a while. After coming up with new plans to accomplish the original goals.

I’m pretty much with Stephens on this one. Schumer did a brave thing that also helped the Democrats, although the “progressives” are now screaming for him to resign. That’s misguided. And I also agree with Stephens about Bennet over Warren. I’ve never trusted Warren since she lied about her “indigenous” background.

*This morning, based on some news that the gene-sequencing/ancestry company 23andMe is going belly-up, I went over to the site, signed in, and told them to eliminate all my data before they sell it to some other company (there’s already been a data breach at that company).  Now the WSJ tells us that the company is filing for bankruptcy:

23andMe, the buzzy consumer technology startup that convinced millions of people to spit into test tubes to determine their ancestry, filed for bankruptcy late Sunday night and announced the resignation of its chief executive.

Shares dropped about 50% Monday after the late Sunday bankruptcy filing. It marks a stunning fall for a health technology company that more than 15 million consumers have used to gain new insight into their lineage and health risks.

CEO Anne Wojcicki, who is stepping down from her position but remaining on the board, has so far tried unsuccessfully to rescue the business by buying it back.

Wojcicki said in a late Sunday post on X that she still aims to buy the company’s assets. “I remain committed to our long-term vision of being a global leader in genetics and establishing genetics as a fundamental part of healthcare ecosystems worldwide,” she wrote.

23andMe traded at $0.91 per share early Monday afternoon, the second time its stock has fallen below $1. The company did a reverse 20:1 share split in October to boost its price above the threshold needed to comply with listing requirements for Nasdaq.

The company said its chapter 11 filing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Missouri is “the best path forward to maximize the value of the business.”

23andMe’s global database has grown into a virtually unprecedented repository of human genetic information that could be sold in bankruptcy proceedings.

Why did it go bankrupt? Because of a bad business model:

Six years ago, 23andMe was one of the hottest startups in the world. Its tests had won the support of the Food and Drug Administration, and, with an affordable price tag, became popular Christmas stocking stuffers.

Accounts of test-takers discovering life-altering details about their lineage—siblings they never knew or finding unknown parents—led to news stories and namechecks on Saturday Night Live and in a chart-topping song. Its tagline “welcome to you” sold users on the promise of learning more about themselves.

But 23andMe never solved its central business problem: Customers only need to take its DNA test once.

It tried alternative business strategies, including selling subscriptions, but those never caught on. It also sought to license its data to outside pharmaceutical companies to help with their drug-development efforts. But there, too, it struggled to find significant recurring revenue.

I’m glad I got rid of my data, as it includes personal details as well as DNA sequences. I know what I need to know already (I’m 98% Ashkenazi Jew and the other 2% Eastern European, probably Jew as well), and that is all ye need to know.

*An article in the Friends of Animals tells us that it’s time to stop hunting ducks.

I get a kick out of seeing mallards upend themselves, tail feathers to the sky, while they search for tasty plants and insects. I don’t take it for granted that I can see these ducks, as well as osprey, blue heron, kingfishers, cardinals, robins, tufted titmouse, and other birds whenever I want at this marvelous land trust property.

That’s why it was troubling to learn this week that ducks, who were once a conservation bright spot, are now declining in the U.S., according to the 2025 State of the Birds Report released by the North American Bird Conservation Initiative (NABCI). The report reveals the total number of dabbling and diving ducks is down about 30% from 2017. Loss of grasslands habitat and a prolonged drought affecting the wetlands of the Great Plains’ prairie pothole region have taken a toll, the report says.

Among all the waterfowl, numbers are down 20% since 2014, the report found. Overall, at least 112 North American bird species have lost more than half their populations in the past 50 years.

Commenting on the report, co-author Mike Brasher of the duck-hunting group, Ducks Unlimited, said, “These are the very real consequences if we are unable to conserve and protect the crucial habitats that birds need.”

Of course, Friends of Animals agrees that we need to protect wetlands and grasslands, but how about not shooting ducks? How about banning duck hunting in the U.S. and then studying their populations?

Brasher conveniently neglects to mention hunting as a stressor on ducks, since Ducks Unlimited was founded by hunters in 1937. The majority of DU’s financial contributors and 90 percent of its members are hunters.

If that weren’t the case, perhaps we’d see “Stop Shooting Ducks” at the top of the list of the of actions people can take to help protect birds in decline. It’s sickening to know that people can shoot mergansers, mallards, pintails and gadwalls for fun, the creatures that make the preserve near me so magical.

I sent the article to my friend Jim, who commented, with a point: ”

But the duck article failed to mention how hunting fees pay for habitat, or how daily limits are set based on population sizes, which to me says that the author knew the conclusion before ever starting.  Back in the 1980s, you could shoot 10 pintails in a day (if those were your only ducks).  The population plummeted, and the limit has been 1 pintail per day for a couple of decades.  Next year, it looks like it will go to 3 here.  I can assure you that any attempt to ban duck hunting will result in an ever stronger support of the Republican party.  Of course, an attempt to ban hunting of any kind will never get off the ground – hunting is a sport for the elite and wealthy, who can influence politics.

All I know is that I personally could not shoot a duck.

*Arizona state legislatures appear to be largely immune from criminal and civil charges if they’re committed when the legislature is in session. Now there will be a bill about this insupportable regulation. It’s not just traffic tickets, either.

Soon after his black sedan was clocked speeding 18 miles an hour over the limit through a western-themed town north of here, Arizona state Sen. Mark Finchem (R) wanted to make sure he would not be treated like an ordinary person.

Writing on his office letterhead, Finchem sought assurances from a police chief that he would be spared from a traffic ticket. He cited a provision in the state constitution that shields lawmakers from certain penalties while the legislature is in session.

“Perhaps the officer is unaware of the law in this regard,” he wrote about his Jan. 25 citation. “For my part, I was unaware that the stretch of the road I was driving on was 30 MPH … Regardless, under Article 4, Part 2, Section 6 of the Arizona Constitution, I ask that the citation be voided and stricken from the record.”

The senator was one of three MAGA Republicans in the state pulled over for speeding over the past year who benefited from legislative immunity that either shielded them from punishment or delayed it.

By using the law in their favor, they have sparked debate about the fairness of a constitutionally enshrined justice system that protects those in power from the same type of immediate consequences their constituents face every day. Their moves have been received by some members of their own party and Democrats as evidence they were acting with impunity. Supporters of the immunity provision say it ensures that those in power cannot use the law — even in the form of traffic violations — to target critics.

But a Republican Arizona House member wants to end the two-tiered justice system for traffic scofflaws. Rep. Quang Nguyen has introduced a resolution that would let voters decide during the 2026 midterm election whether lawmakers should continue to be immune from traffic violations while they are in session. The resolution passed the House this month with bipartisan support, but its fate in the Senate is unclear.

And it’s not just traffic violations, either:

In Arizona, legislators are free from arrest and questioning in all cases except for treason, felony and breach of the peace, starting 15 days before the legislature convenes and lasting throughout the session. In 2011, police said a Republican senator claimed immunity after a fight with his girlfriend; he disputed the allegation, according to press reports. He later pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge.

The upcoming bill should prevent immunity for all violations, not just traffic tickets. Oh, and it’s not just in Arizona:

In 1996, a Virginia Republican state lawmaker invoked the privilege during the legislative session after exposing himself in a Richmond park. He got a charge of indecent exposure against him thrown out, but it was reinstated after the General Assembly adjourned, according to press reports. In 2019, a Democratic lawmaker from West Virginia claimed the privilege and then avoided a misdemeanor charge after he was accused of forcefully opening a door into a capitol employee and elbowing a colleague.

Nobody, but nobody, should be immune from the law, and that includes the President. If America means anything, it is supposed to mean that we are all equal under the law.

*A while back, an 18-carat solid gold toilet was stolen from Blenheim Palace, birthplace of Winston Churchill. But at least two potty thieves have been arrested and now convicted. You can see the toilet in the video below:

A thief who swiped a golden toilet from an English palace was convicted Tuesday along with an accomplice who helped cash in on the spoils of the 18-carat work of art insured for nearly 5 million pounds (more than $6 million).

Michael Jones had used the fully functioning one-of-a-kind latrine as he did reconnaissance at Blenheim Palace — the country mansion where British wartime leader Winston Churchill was born — the day before the theft, prosecutors said. He described the experience as “splendid.”

He returned before dawn on Sept. 14, 2019, with at least two other men armed with sledgehammers and crowbars. They smashed a window and pried the toilet from its plumbing within five minutes, leaving a damaging flood in their wake as they escaped in stolen vehicles.

“This was an audacious raid which had been carefully planned and executed,” prosecutor Shan Saunders said. “But those responsible were not careful enough, leaving a trail of evidence in the form of forensics, CCTV footage and phone data.”

The purloined potty has never been recovered but is believed to have been cut up and sold.

As Wikipedia notes (it of course has an article on the precious potty), it was put in Blenheim Palace after being shown (and used) at the Guggenheim Museum:

Maurizio Cattelan created the toilet in 2016 for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. It was made in a foundry in Florence, cast in several parts that were welded together. Made to look like the museum’s other Kohler toilets, it was installed in one of the museum’s bathrooms for visitors to use.  A special cleaning routine was put in place.  The museum stated that the work was paid for with private funds.

According to the museum, over 100,000 people waited in line to use America, and a security guard was posted outside the bathroom. According to Cattelan, the work was made of 103 kilograms (227 lb) of gold, which in September 2019 was valued at more than four million dollars as bullion.  As an artwork, it has been estimated as high as six million.

In September 2017, when the museum declined a White House request to loan its 1888 Van Gogh painting Landscape with Snow for then President Donald Trump’s private rooms, curator Nancy Spector offered to loan America instead. Any reply by the White House was not reported.

In September 2019, America was installed at Blenheim Palace in the United Kingdom, where it was available for use as part of an exhibition of Cattelan’s works. It was placed in a water closet formerly used by Winston Churchill.

From Wikipedia, the precious john:

A video showing the theft is below. The toilet was apparently broken up and sold; it is an ex-commode, flushing in the Bathroom Invisible:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is hunting for Kulka, but if she finds Baby Kulka, a hissing spat will ensue:

Andrzej: What are you doing?

Hili: I’m hunting for Kulka

Ja: Co ty robisz?

Hili: Poluję na Kulkę.

And here’s Baby Kulka; I hope Hili doesn’t find her!

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From Jesus of the Day:

From Meow:

From The Absurd Sign Project:

Nine minutes of Masih telling Maria Bartiromo about the assassination attempts on her, as well as her views on the politics of the Middle East, particularly Iran.

Last week I faced my would-be assassins, men sent by @khamenei_ir, who wants to kill me on U.S. soil. This morning, I joined @MariaBartiromo to share the story. I have no fear but this is bigger than me. We must stand together against one of humanity’s greatest threats. If they… pic.twitter.com/6SOYxgG4U6

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) March 24, 2025

From Luana, “Jerry, be nice.”

pic.twitter.com/9qmOYqPuRM

— 🎞️ shitposts.mp4 🎞️ (@shitposts_mp4) March 23, 2025

From Colin Wright, an absurdity:

A growing trend in academic publishing is “positionality statements” where authors list all their intersectional forms of privilege/oppression.

This one is particularly absurd.

“All authors are cis-gender menstruating individuals who identify as intersectional feminists.” pic.twitter.com/gSr5x4oVXN

— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) March 22, 2025

And from Luana, a heartwarmer, at least to me.  Thank you, Simon.

I see this guy every Sunday at the NYC hostage rally. Today I finally asked him his story.

His name is Simon, and he was born in South Sudan. When he was 9 years old, he was kidnapped and spent 3 years as a slave. He’s been living in New York for many years now, and on Oct 7th… pic.twitter.com/K0ex3WVjEb

— Yael Bar tur 🎗️ (@yaelbt) March 23, 2025

Two from my feed. They’ll be afraid of this little guy soon enough:

First day at work. pic.twitter.com/XIsJiv2pRQ

— The Figen (@TheFigen_) March 23, 2025

Baby tigers!

All babies are the same 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/JYMv886Paa

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) March 23, 2025

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:

If this French Jewish boy, aged six, hadn't been murdered upon arrival at Auschwitz, today would be his 89th birthday.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-03-25T10:30:02.674Z

One from Matthew today; snow leopards!

Footage of four, rarely-seen snow leopards clambering up snowy cliffs in northern Pakistan has created a frenzy of excitement among conservationists.www.cnn.com/2025/03/18/a…

— Tom Fitton (@tomfitton.bsky.social) 2025-03-20T17:12:03.501Z

Welcome to CaturSaturday, cat shabbos and March 22, 2025. It’s also International Day of the Seal.  Here’s a photo of a seal I took in March, 2022 in Antarctica. Because it has external ears, it’s not a “true” seal, but either a sea lion or fur seal. I’m guessing the latter, but readers can help.

It’s also National Broccoli Day, a vegetable I absolutely refuse to eat, as well as World Water Day and National Bavarian Crêpes Day, whatever they are.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the March 22 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Given that for several years the NYT pushed the “wet-market” theory for the origin of Covid and poo-pooed the lab-leak theory, this NYT piece by Zeynep Tufekci, “We were badly misled about the event that changed out lives,” should have been an article rather than an op-ed. At least they’re falling in line with the evidence, which increasingly points to the Hunan lab as the source of the virus. An extract:

Yet in 2020, when people started speculating that a laboratory accident might have been the spark that started the Covid-19 pandemic, they were treated like kooks and cranks. Many public health officials and prominent scientists dismissed the idea as a conspiracy theory, insisting that the virus had emerged from animals in a seafood market in Wuhan, China. And when a nonprofit called EcoHealth Alliance lost a grant because it was planning to conduct risky research into bat viruses with the Wuhan Institute of Virology — research that, if conducted with lax safety standards, could have resulted in a dangerous pathogen leaking out into the world — no fewer than 77 Nobel laureates and 31 scientific societies lined up to defend the organization.

So the Wuhan research was totally safe, and the pandemic was definitely caused by natural transmission — it certainly seemed like consensus.

We have since learned, however, that to promote the appearance of consensus, some officials and scientists hid or understated crucial facts, misled at least one reporter, orchestrated campaigns of supposedly independent voices and even compared notes about how to hide their communications in order to keep the public from hearing the whole story. And as for that Wuhan laboratory’s research, the details that have since emerged show that safety precautions might have been terrifyingly lax.

Among those people who tried to quash the lab-leak theory, using their authority rather than evidence, were Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins, whose reputations have been besmirched. But wait! There’s more!

That’s a start. The C.I.A. recently updated its assessment of how the Covid pandemic began, judging a lab leak to be the likely origin, albeit with low confidence. The Department of Energy, which runs sophisticated labs, and the F.B.I. came to that conclusion in 2023. But there are certainly more questions for governments and researchers across the world to answer. Why did it take until now for the German public to learn that way back in 2020, their Federal Intelligence Service endorsed a lab leak origin with 80 to 95 percent probability? What else is still being kept from us about the pandemic that half a decade ago changed all of our lives?

To this day, there is no strong scientific evidence ruling out a lab leak or proving that the virus arose from human-animal contact in that seafood market. The few papers cited for market origin were written by a small, overlapping group of authors, including those who didn’t tell the public how serious their doubts had been.

The article is not conclusive, and we may never know the answer. But the lesson, as Collins himself tried to make in his new book, is that we need open discussion. His very behavior during this controversy, though belies his advice.

*According to the Times of Israel, Egypt has declared itself willing to take up to half a million Gazans as residents (there are about two million Gazans altogether). But it’s not verified, and residence seems to be temporary:

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has informed other Arab leaders that he is willing to temporarily relocate half a million residents from Gaza to northern Sinai in a designated city as part of the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, according to a Friday report.

According to the report in the Lebanese Al-Akhbar newspaper, Sissi made his willingness known during meetings held by Arab leaders in recent weeks in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. There was no confirmation of the report from any other source.

The Egyptian State Information Service denied the report, saying, “Egypt’s position is firm in its absolute and final rejection of any attempt to displace Palestinians, and the Cairo Arab Summit’s emergency plan for reconstruction is based on it.”

In public statements, Sissi and Jordan’s King Abdullah have repeatedly rebuffed US President Donald Trump’s assertion that the two Arab countries could take in Palestinian refugees on a permanent basis under his plan to empty the Gaza Strip of its residents and turn it into a “riviera.” The issue is of crucial significance for Jordan and Egypt, which fear that an influx of Palestinians will destabilize their countries.

Throughout the recent two-month ceasefire between Hamas and Israel — which collapsed this week — Arab leaders held several summits regarding Gaza and their vision for “the day after the war.”

At an Arab League summit in Cairo in early March, Egypt presented its plan for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip and emphasized that it would not include the displacement of residents.

The upside of this is that one-quarter of Gazans are removed from the war zone, so there will be less ancillary killing of civilians, and those people would presumably live better off than in Gaza. The downside is that it’s not at all certain, and if they return and Gaza is still run by Hamas, the enmity and fighting will continue. But at least it gives Gazans a choice of whether they want to stay.  However, the more I ponder this the less I think it will come to fruition.

*As usual, I’ll steal a few stories from Nellie Bowles’s wonderful weekly news-and-snark summary at the Free Press, called this week: “TGIF: Passed Peak Intelligence.”

→ This WaPo Israel reporter literally supports Hamas: Legacy newspapers look so nice, so calm. Their design is so beautiful. The typeface, enchanting. Which is why it’s always so unsettling to read a story and then google the reporter. Honestly, try it. Any story.

For example, what about the Washington Post reporter bringing us our trusted, important news on the Israel-Hamas war? What has she posted on her personal time? Just normal stuff like this: “Call me a Nazi, call me a terrorist, call me backward, but still, fuck your illegal ‘state’ of #Israel.” The reporter, Heba Farouk Mahfouz, once posted that she will “always and forever” support Hamas. She called her critics “Zio-Nazis.”

It’s so hard to parse her politics—she’s playing it so close to the chest. She’s like a modern Walter Cronkite. Woodward, but more private. At this point, the better the design of the website, the less I trust the news I’m reading. I try to explain this to our new head of product, like, listen, Daniel, keep it crappy. I need half the links broken. I need five different fonts. I need it to make Drudge look like The Paris Review. He nods and says “totally” and then ignores me, which is why I know we’re on the edge of fake news. The homepage is a little too elegant. I’m trying to hold on, though: All new hires still have to pass my litmus test, where I casually say “chemtrails cause autism” and see if they blink.

In other notes, Brown University professor and Lebanese national Rasha Alawieh was deported by the Trump administration as part of their effort to eject terrorism supporters. In a panicked article, The New York Times explained that she was a “valid visa” holder and a kidney transplant specialist. It’s so messed up that she was randomly deported! Well. The Times didn’t think it was relevant to mention that Rasha Alawieh was a pretty big Hezbollah fan and had traveled to Beirut to go to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s funeral. (Fine, they later covered it.)

The do-gooder lawyers who took Rasha’s case have since dropped her, stating it comes “as a result of further diligence,” a line I’m telling Suzy to use on men instead of ghosting them.

→ That’s beautiful: Axios this week blessed us with a magical Trump quote, from a story called “Trump Unplugged: What He Says Behind Closed Doors.” And what does he say?

The Diet Coke button. The Village People obsession. The tans. The pageantry. The pettiness. The Liberace aesthetic. It’s been said, but: Just as Bill Clinton was our first black president, Trump is truly our first gay one.

→ Dark new polls for the Dems despite all the opportunities: The Democratic Party’s popularity is hitting new lows. Only 27 percent of voters say they have a positive view of Dems, the lowest rating for Dems in NBC polling history, and only a brave 7 percent say they have a very positive view, according to an NBC News poll. CNN similarly reported a record low favorability rating for the Dems.

I love the 7 percent who think the Democrats are doing great. That’s the 7 percent of Americans who don’t read the news and live happy, good, peaceful lives. That’s the 7 percent of Americans who make lemongrass tea from their garden, and they go to an Episcopal church with rainbow stained glass windows, and they have zero grandchildren and three Subarus, but you know what? It’s a good life. They are the Mel Robbins people, shouting Let them! every time a Democrat dies on the hill of gender-affirming healthcare for illegal immigrants. The Democrats are committing slow-motion suicide and 7 percent of voters are all, That’s their truth, and I love them not despite it, but because of it.

Meanwhile, ol’ Trumpo enjoys a 48 percent approval rating this week. That’s despite making America’s debutantes (all my friends and me) aghast and alarmed by our collective portfolio performance. “It’s not fair!” we shriek. “You said he was the businessman president! Why is line going down? Line supposed to go up!”

*This tweet by Brian Soucek, Professor of Law at the University of California at Davis, notes that the entire University of California System will no longer be asking for diversity statements in hiring, explaining that they weren’t useful. But three years ago they were mandatory in the system. (My friends at some campuses have said that even when they were required, departments simply ignored them completely, so hiring was done purely on merit.)

The announcement acts as if some rogue departments within UC have been doing this on their own. But compare this 2022 report from the Office of the President, which the previous Provost presented to the Regents. DEI statements were mandatory at the majority of the ten campuses. pic.twitter.com/Nqyl0CJfbq

— Brian Soucek (@BRSoucek) March 20, 2025

The NYT verifies this:

The University of California said on Wednesday that it would stop requiring the use of diversity statements in hiring, a practice praised by some who said it made campuses more inclusive but criticized by others who said it did the opposite.

Diversity statements typically ask job applicants to describe in a page or so how they would contribute to campus diversity. The move away from them, by one of the biggest higher education systems in the United States, comes as the Trump administration escalates an attack on higher education over diversity programming.

For a decade, the 10-campus system was a national leader in using such statements, as universities increasingly came under pressure from those who wanted more diverse student bodies and faculties.

“Our values and commitment to our mission have not changed,” Janet Reilly, the chair of the system’s Board of Regents, said in a statement late Wednesday. “We will continue to embrace and celebrate Californians from a variety of life experiences, backgrounds and points of view.”

Of course that last paragraph means that if departments did actually use DEI statements in hiring, they’ll find a way to keep diversity on the front burner, and by “diversity” they mean “racial diversity”, no matter what they say.  If their “values and commitments” haven’t changed, then they’ll try to do what they did before.

*The NYT has an official review of the controversial Disney remake of the “Snow White” film. It’s a generally favorable though rather tepid review, and there’s one bit that stopped me in my tracks:

Disney’s new “Snow White” is perfectly adequate, though the scene when our heroine stands alongside Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez chanting “no justice, no peace” did admittedly give me pause.

WHAAAAT?  Why is that in there? Anybody who says this movie isn’t woke is immediately refuted by that line alone.  But otherwise the review is okay:

Yes, this live-action redo of its 1937 feature-length animated film has been called out as woke, but by the end, the overall damage from Snow White’s liberation struggle proves minimal. She still smiles and sings, whistles and works, rejects evil and rescues seven potential incels. Snow White no longer trills about a prince, true, but heteronormativity still has its happy ending. Huzzah!

The Snow White in the new movie isn’t coded as anything other than sweet and spunky. Like her predecessors, she comes with the usual princess prerequisites: a royal patrimony, a dead mother, a killer stepmom and a guy waiting, at times riding in from the wings on a white horse. As in the original film — the studio’s first full-length animated feature — this Snow White is born to a King and Queen who are expediently sidelined. The Evil Queen (as she’s called), who’s played by Gal Gadot with less animation than the typical cartoon royal, talks into a mirror and doesn’t like what she hears. She subsequently makes life miserable for Snow White, who remains spirited enough to sing while mopping.

Zegler has enough charm and lung power to hold the center of this busy, overproduced movie with its mix of memorable old and unmemorable new songs. Directed by Marc Webb and written by Erin Cressida Wilson, Snow White 2.0 dusts off Disney’s take on the Grimm fairy tale, modernizes it with girl empowerment and tosses in a bit of “Les Mis”-style storm-the-barricades uplift. Oddly, while the prince in the first film shows up only near the start and end, Zegler’s Snow White has to deal more forcefully with her insipid love interest, presumably to pad the story. He’s a smiler, Jonathan (Andrew Burnap), who’s been demoted to a commoner and leads a merry band of dancing-and-singing thieves.

But then there are those computer-generated dwarfs, who cost real dwarfs acting jobs:

it’s also true that Disney’s remakes often introduce new problems. That’s teeth-grindingly true here of the dwarf characters, whose bodies were created with a combination of performance capture, puppetry and computer generated imagery, using actors to voice them. The results are, er, grim. The delicate, flowing lines of the original’s animation style softened every edge to beautiful effect and made even potentially scary moments inviting for tots. The eerie photorealistic look in the redo, by contrast, emphasizes every craggy line and tumescently bulbous nose; weirdly, Grumpy (voiced by Martin Klebba) looks like a ragged, very angry Dermot Mulroney.

In an essay pegged to Disney’s unhappy 2019 live-action version of “Aladdin,” the critic Aisha Harris wrote in The New York Times that “shoehorned-in progressive messages only call more attention to the inherent crassness of Disney’s current exercise in money-grabbing nostalgia.” That was true then and it remains the case with “Snow White,” which is neither good enough to admire nor bad enough to joyfully skewer; its mediocrity is among its biggest bummers.

Well, I ain’t paying to go to no mediocre movie with computer-generated “little people” and especially with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is snapped through the window:

Hili: These pictures taken through the window are strange.

A: But they are funny.

Hili: Te zdjęcia przez szybę zawsze dziwnie wychodzą.

Ja: Ale są zabawne.

And a photo of baby Kulka. Notice4 that she has more white on her face than Szaron does:

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From Facebook; LOOK AT THIS ADORABLE PALLAS’S CAT (Ocotolobus manul)!

From Reese. They’re eating the ducks!

From Jesus of the Day. Heterospecific twins!

From Masih. Two of the assassins that Iran sent to murder her in the U.S. have been convicted! It’s the headline in the New York Post:

Good morning everyone!
The day after two assassins sent to kill me by the Islamic Republic of Iran were convicted in US Federal Court.
Truly an American Dream…Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Thank you America! For being a Light to the World.

❤️✌️💃🏾💃🏾💪 pic.twitter.com/YYL9dYP6qn

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) March 21, 2025

From Malgorzata, the eloquent Elica Le Bon (not Jewish) explains her pro-Israeli activism:

Many of us are very familiar with the amazing Chris Kenny of @SkyNewsAust. And most of us love the incredible @elicalebon who has been such an immense and inspiring voice throughout the last 17 months.

Now watch her awesome interview with Chris from last night. She’s wonderful… pic.twitter.com/0SqtXUj7kT

— Cheryl E 🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🎗️ (@CherylWroteIt) March 18, 2025

From Barry, “The laziest cat fight ever”:

Laziest cat fight ever 😂

— Luca (@lucagalletti.bsky.social) 2025-03-13T01:56:38.396Z

From Malcolm; I wonder if this worked:

Mama cat adopts an orphaned puppy..🐈🐾🐶🥺😊❤️ pic.twitter.com/HWWXS5e3Ql

— 𝕐o̴g̴ (@Yoda4ever) March 14, 2025

From my feed: a d*g saves a cat!

A dog saves a small stray kitten by taking it home… pic.twitter.com/xXPw3hYajM

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) March 21, 2025

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:

A Dutch Jewish girl was gassed upon arrival at Auschwitz. She was ten years old.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-03-22T09:44:28.033Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. First, Mars:

Beautiful shot captured yesterday by Curiosity in the canyon between Gould Mesa and Texoli Butte#Mars Mar. 18, 2025 (Sol 4484) 🧪🔭Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/fredk

— Daniel Pomarède (@pomarede.bsky.social) 2025-03-19T23:04:31.773Z

. . . and a slow-moving nudibranch:

Because sometimes you just need to watch a nudibranch floof around the seafloor for a whole minute 🥰Tritonia tetraquetra can grow to 22 centimeters (about eight inches) in length. The two horn-like structures on Tritonia's head are rhinophores that help locate the sea slug's prey—deep-sea corals.

— MBARI (@mbarinews.bsky.social) 2025-03-20T20:44:45.338Z

Welcome to a dreary Monday: March 17, 2025: St. Patrick’s Day and National Corned Beef and Cabbage Day.  The latter dish, odiferous but loved by my father, was often on offer at the Coyne dinner table. But I much prefer my corned beef in a sandwich–on rye with hot mustard, as served at Katz’s Deli in New York. As for Saint Paddy’s Day, Chicago is the American city most famous for celebrating it, for once a year they dye the Chicago River a lurid green with a nontoxic dye. It looks like this:

There’s also a Google Doodle celebrating the day; click on it below to see where it goes:

It’s also Act Happy Day and Submarine Day. Here’s why the latter is celebrated today:

On March 17, 1898, St. Patrick’s Day, Irish-born engineer John Philip Holland demonstrated a submarine he designed, the Holland VI, for the U.S. Navy Department, off the coast of Staten Island. During the demonstration, the vessel was submerged for 1 hour and 40 minutes. Holland launched the submarine the year before, on May 17, 1897, after it was built at the Crescent Shipyard in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The submarine was noteworthy for having features that would become the standard for submarines in future years. It and other of Holland’s submarines are also noteworthy for being the first to run on electric batteries when submerged, but on internal combustion engines when on the water’s surface. We celebrate the Holland and all other submarines on March 17 each year.

Here’s the Holland VI, which cost the Navy $150,000

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

Da Nooz:

*Trump ordered large-scale military strikes on the Houthis in Yemen, saying that this was intended as a warning for Iran, who backs the Houthi rebels. And it gives a hint that Trump himself might order strikes on Iran designed to take out their capacity to build nuclear weapons.

The Houthi militia in Yemen has vowed to retaliate after President Trump ordered large-scale military strikes on targets controlled by the group that it says killed at least 31 people.

The group, which is backed by Iran, said that women and children were among those killed in the strikes on Saturday, the most significant U.S. military action in the Middle East since Mr. Trump took office in January.

For more than a year, the Houthis have launched attacks against Israel and threatened commercial shipping in the Red Sea in solidarity with their ally Hamas, which led the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that set off the war in Gaza.

The U.S. airstrikes targeted Houthi-controlled areas across Yemen, including the capital, Sana, as well as Saada, al-Bayda, Hajjah and Dhamar Provinces, according to reports from Houthi-run media channels. The strikes killed at least 31 people and wounded 101, “most of whom were children and women,” said Anis al-Asbahi, a spokesman for the Houthi-run health ministry.

The casualty figures could not be independently verified, and the United States has not given any estimates for the number of people killed or wounded in the strikes.

. . . The U.S. Central Command, which posted a video of a bomb leveling a building compound in Yemen, said that the United States had employed precision strikes to “defend American interests, deter enemies and restore freedom of navigation.”

U.S. airstrikes also targeted a power facility in the northwestern town of Dahyan, in Saada Province, causing a nightlong electricity blackout, residents said.

. . . . Mr. Trump said in a statement on his Truth Social platform that the strikes were also intended as a warning to Iran, the Houthis’ main backer.

“Support for the Houthi terrorists must end IMMEDIATELY!” he wrote. He also warned Iran against threatening the United States, saying, “America will hold you fully accountable, and we won’t be nice about it!”

*The WaPo reports that both non-Canadian and Canadian foreigners are cancelling trips to the U.S., the former out of fear and the latter out of reprisal. It is, of course, entirely due to Trump, and it hurts Americans in the tourist industry. First, the non-Canadians:

International travel to the United States is expected to slide by 5 percent this year, contributing to a $64 billion shortfall for the travel industry, according to Tourism Economics. The research firm had originallyforecast a 9 percent increase in foreign travel, but revised its estimate late last monthto reflect “polarizing Trump Administration policies and rhetoric.”

“There’s been a dramatic shift in our outlook,” said Adam Sacks, president of Tourism Economics. “You’re looking at a much weaker economic engine than what otherwise would’ve been, not just because of tariffs, but the rhetoric and condescending tone around it.”

And the Canadians:

As with any sense of betrayal, there is distress, incomprehension and anger.

Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has launched broadsides against Canada, America’s closest ally. He has repeatedly said Canada should be the 51st state, talked about erasing the border and started a trade war.

Trump’s rhetoric and actions have left many Canadians baffled and infuriated. Some have responded by canceling their trips to the United States — and in certain cases, they’re writing messages to let Americans know how they feel.

Canadians have sent notes explaining their decisions to U.S. hotels, tourism agencies and elected officials. “The hurt is what comes through the most,” said Heather Pelham, a Vermont tourism official who estimates that her office has received about two dozen such missives.

It’s not just individuals changing their plans, but also school districts, law firms, businesses and nonprofits. While it’s too soon to say how large or enduring the effect of such cancellations will be, they’ve already shown up in airline data.

Flight Center Travel Group Canada, one of the country’s largest travel agencies, said that over the past three months, about 20 percent of preexisting leisure trips to the United States were canceled. In February, bookings to the United States by Canadian vacationers fell 40 percent compared to the same month last year. Both figures are unprecedented in the agency’s 30-year history apart from during the pandemic, said Amra Durakovic, a company spokeswoman.

This is all sad, and I want to tell foreigners, “Hey, we’re not all like that!”  It’s worse with Canada since Trump has stupidly said he’ll make it our 51st state, and you can imagine how that resonates with Canadians. And most Americans LIKE Canadians and laugh at the “51st state” trope.  The only upside is that maybe if enough Republicans get burned by Trump’s policies like this, Vance won’t be elected President in 2028.

*Speaking of which, Trump continues to deport immigrants who, he says, were criminals, even though I don’t think we have that evidence for many of these. And this despite a federal judge’s order:

The Trump administration has transferred hundreds of immigrants to El Salvador even as a federal judge issued an order temporarily barring the deportations under an 18th century wartime declaration targeting Venezuelan gang members, officials said Sunday. Flights were in the air at the time of the ruling.

U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg issued an order Saturday blocking the deportations but lawyers told him there were already two planes with migrants in the air — one headed for El Salvador, the other for Honduras. Boasberg verbally ordered the planes be turned around, but they apparently were not and he did not include the directive in his written order.

“Oopsie…Too late, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, a Trump ally who agreed to house about 300 migrants for a year at a cost of $6 million in his country’s prisons, wrote on the social media site X above an article about Boasberg’s ruling. That post was recirculated by White House communications director Steven Cheung.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who negotiated an earlier deal with Bukele to house migrants, posted on the site: “We sent over 250 alien enemy members of Tren de Aragua which El Salvador has agreed to hold in their very good jails at a fair price that will also save our taxpayer dollars.”

The law, invoked during World Wars I and II and the War of 1812, requires a president to declare the United States is at war, giving him extraordinary powers to detain or remove foreigners who otherwise would have protections under immigration or criminal laws. It was last used to justify the detention of Japanese-American civilians during World War II.

The ACLU, which filed the lawsuit that led to Boasberg’s temporary restraining order on deportations, said it was asking the government whether the removals to El Salvador were in defiance of the court.

“Oopsie”?  To be sent to a place where you’ve never lived? If that’s to be done, it has to be done legally, after a court decision. I heard yesterday on NPR that Trump had even mentioned sending American criminals to Honduras. Now that is without a doubt illegal.  The man knows no limits.

*The Wall Street Journal announced that “There’s a good chance that your kid uses AI to cheat.”  It’s easy!

A high-school senior from New Jersey doesn’t want the world to know that she cheated her way through English, math and history classes last year.

Yet her experience, which the 17-year-old told The Wall Street Journal with her parent’s permission, shows how generative AI has rooted in America’s education system, allowing a generation of students to outsource their schoolwork to software with access to the world’s knowledge.

I wish there were a way to embed the use of AI programs in text, like a written watermark, to identify cheaters. But I don’t see how that could be done. And note below that it’s getting almost impossible to detect, even using detection programs. If this goes on, grades, already inflated, will become more and more meaningless.

Carter Wright, a high-school English teacher outside of Houston, Texas, said he has spent hours chasing AI plagiarism, using free trials of detector software and checking edit histories in students’ Google Docs. His students always seemed always one step ahead.

“It’s almost impossible for me to stop all the cheating unless we were to completely get rid of the technology,” Wright said.

*And from the BBC, an example of how every bit of popular culture has to be sanitized these days. The article is “Will Snow White be a ‘victim of its moment?’ How the Disney remake became 2025’s most divisive film.” I had no idea!

You wouldn’t think that the war in Gaza would have much impact on a Disney remake. But the live-action Snow White, a revamped version of the 1937 animated classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, has become a flashpoint for social and political divisions, even before its global release next week.

There was some backlash to the casting of Rachel Zegler, of Colombian descent, as the heroine. More recently, there has been blowback both about Zegler’s pro-Palestinian comments and about pro-Israel comments by Israeli actress Gal Gadot, who plays Snow White’s stepmother, the Evil Queen. And there is an ongoing debate about whether there should have been dwarfs at all, live or CGI. The film’s director, Marc Webb, said in Disney’s official production notes, “I think all good stories evolve over time. They become reflections of the world that we live in”. He has likely got more than he bargained for, as reactions to Snow White inadvertently reflect the most polarised aspects of the world today. Like political rhetoric in countries around the world, responses to the film’s production have been loud, irate and sometimes ugly.

Oh for crying out loud! Do politics really have to cause such a ruckus in art?  You’re supposed to suspend disbelief!  There’s more!

Snow White has been in the works since 2019, and began in earnest with Zegler’s casting in 2021. Since then attacks on its so-called “wokeness” have proliferated, making the film a lightning rod for opinions that have little to do with the fairy tale it is based on. A recent Hollywood Reporter article asked, “Have some PR missteps combined with anti-woke outrage turned marketing the film into a poisoned apple?” And alongside such measured reporting there have been heated responses in the media. The editorial board of the New York Post – owned by Rupert Murdoch, the conservative mogul whose company also owns Fox News – weighed in this week, declaring the film a financial disaster before it has opened, writing: “Disney ‘Snow White’ controversy proves it again: Go woke, go broke!”

The original film needed an update if it was going to be remade at all. In its day it set a high bar for Disney’s future animated films, but it also introduced the song Someday My Prince Will Come, blighting the expectations of generations of girls by setting them up to wait for a Prince Charming to make their lives complete. Meanwhile, Snow White happily sweeps the floor for the dwarfs until he shows up to rescue her with a kiss after she bites the Queen’s poisoned apple. Soon after her casting announcement, Zegler told the television show Extra that in the old Snow White “there was a big focus on her love story with a guy who literally stalks her”. In fact, the original film states that he “searched far and wide” to find her after falling in love at first sight, and he disappears for most of the film, so no need to take that comment too seriously. Zegler was excited and laughing when she said it

Some people also rejected the idea that a Latina actress could play a character called Snow White; alongside criticisms of such non-traditional casting, Zegler was subject to racist trolling. This was a similar reaction to that experienced by the black actress Halle Bailey when she was cast as Ariel in 2023’s The Little Mermaid.

The film stumbled into more trouble simply because its lead actresses expressed political opinions. On X in August 2024, Zegler thanked fans for the response to the Snow White trailer, adding, “and always remember, free Palestine”.

Gadot has posted her support for Israel on social media, and especially since the 7 October attacks by Hamas has been outspoken in defence of her country and against anti-semitism. That led to some short-lived calls by pro-Palestinian social media users to boycott the film simply because she is in it.

And then there are the dwarfs. Ableism! But real people with dwarfism are complaining about losing roles because Disney’s new dwarfs are CGI (“computer-generated imagery”).  Bolding below is mine:

Even when people reacting to the film have agreed on a basic principle, like more opportunities for actors who have dwarfism, they have disagreed on how to get there. Peter Dinklage, perhaps the world’s most well-known actor with dwarfism, questioned the entire project before many details were known, calling the 1937 film “a backwards story of seven dwarfs living in a cave together”. Disney announced the next day, “To avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film, we are taking a different approach with these seven characters.”

As it turned out, the seven characters are CGI, and Disney has reclassifed them as “magical creatures”, not dwarfs. What do they look like? Even a glimpse at the trailer reveals that they look exactly like CGI dwarfs. They are still named Happy, Grumpy, Sleepy, Sneezy, Doc, Bashful and Dopey.

The changes have caused a backlash from some people with dwarfism, who have rebutted Dinklage and accused Disney of depriving them of acting roles. As recently as this week, one told the Daily Mail, “I think Disney is trying too hard to be politically correct, but in doing so it’s damaging our careers and opportunities.”

If stuff like this is going on (and it should be waning if wokeness is waning), then all art will be leveled out into anodyne, inoffensive pablum. And you ask why I’m depressed!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Kulka and Hili and squabbling again. Hili blames Kulka!

Kulka: Do we have to fight with each other?

Hili: It’s not me who is the aggressor.

Kulka: Czy musimy ze sobą walczyć?

Hili: To nie ja jestem agresorem.

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

From Cat Memes. Put those marshmallows in a S’more and toast them!

From the Absurd Sign Project:

From The Language Nerds:

From Masih, who loves the Kurds but hates Iran:

This is the beautiful people of Kurdistan, preparing to welcome the new year in Iran This is the true spirit of Woman, Life, Freedom; a culture of joy, resilience, and renewal.

In contrast, Islamic regime represents nothing but death.

Fuck Islamic Republic !
بژی کردستان pic.twitter.com/fXeasWrW9v

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) March 15, 2025

From Jez (a Brit), who adds, “Doesn’t say much for the British media’s coverage of the conflict.”

General Sir John McColl, KCB, CBE,DSO, KStJ after visiting Israel/Gaza:

“Basing my views about the Israel-Hamas war on UK media coverage, I arrived in Israel critical and sceptical of their military operations… I came away from the trip satisfied that the IDF’s operations and… pic.twitter.com/YxVp3evQWJ

— Kosher🎗🧡 (@koshercockney) March 15, 2025

From Luana. The problem is really quite bad in California:

He’s helping people to be homeless. Great success actually. https://t.co/Re1PSfnukd

— Climate Warrior🐬 #ClimateJustice🇵🇸🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 (@ClimateWarrior7) March 15, 2025

From Malcolm, a passel of adorable kittens:

the last kitten forgot that he’s a cat pic.twitter.com/eSoji0UBCr

— Abim (@underect) March 14, 2025

From my feed, a pissed-off Amazon driver:

Does your Amazon delivery driver hate you this much? pic.twitter.com/EDVujuWo82

— Alex Stein #99 (@alexstein99) March 15, 2025

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I retweeted:

17 March 1937 | A French Jewish girl, Michel Erdelyi, was born in Rouen.She arrived at #Auschwitz on 13 February 1943 in a transport of 998 Jews deported from Drancy. She was among 802 people murdered after selection in a gas chambers.

— Auschwitz Memorial (@auschwitzmemorial.bsky.social) 2025-03-17T03:00:05.742Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. Matthew says this first one is true:

The Beginning and End of Philosophyexistentialcomics.com/comic/593

— Existential Comics (@existentialcomics.com) 2025-03-10T16:13:50.904Z

It took me a while to get this one:

Yes I have.

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2025-03-12T15:50:18.790Z

Welcome to The Cruelest Day:  it’s Tuesday, March 11, 2025, and I am weary and lower than a snake’s belly. But it’s also National “Eat Your Noodles” Day, with the scare quotes implying that you only have to pretend that you ate noodles. But I would eat these!

It’s also Debunking Day, Johnny Appleseed Day (he supposedly died on this day in 1845), and Oatmeal Nut Waffles Day.

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

Da Nooz:

*A Palestinian who, as a former student at Columbia, engaged in considerable activism, has been snatched up by ICE and is being held in Louisiana.  But he also has a green card, and I think this detention is one more illegal act of the Trump administration:

U.S. immigration agents arrested a Palestinian graduate student who has played a prominent role in pro-Palestinian protests at New York’s Columbia University as part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s promised crackdown on some anti-Israel activists.

Mahmoud Khalil, a student at the university’s School of International and Public Affairs, was arrested by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents at his university residence on Saturday evening, the Student Workers of Columbia labor union said in a statement.

His wife is a U.S. citizen, eight months pregnant, according to news reports, and he holds a U.S. permanent residency green card, the union said. His arrest was condemned by civil rights groups as an attack on protected political speech.

In an interview with Reuters hours before his arrest on Saturday about Trump’s criticism of student protesters, Khalil said he was concerned that he was being targeted by the government for speaking to the media.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio shared a news report of Khalil’s arrest on social media on Sunday, adding the comment: “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.” He did not elaborate and spokespeople for Rubio did not respond to questions.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a social media post that it had arrested Khalil because he has “led activities aligned to Hamas,” without elaborating. DHS spokespeople did not respond to Reuters questions.

U.S. law forbids providing “material support or resources” to groups the U.S. has designated as terrorist organizations, including Hamas, the Palestinian-nationalist Islamist group that governs Gaza and controls the territory’s militant wing. That law does not define or prohibit “activities aligned to” these groups, and DHS spokespeople did not respond to questions about their accusation.

. . . . Khalil’s detention is one of the first efforts by Trump, a Republican who returned to the White House in January, to fulfill his promise to seek the deportation of some foreign students involved in the pro-Palestinian protest movement, which he has called antisemitic. The Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023 and subsequent U.S.-supported Israeli assault on Gaza have led to months of pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protests that have roiled college campuses in the U.S. and overseas.

Well, if they can find any evidence (I don’t think there is any) that Khalil has actually given any support to Hamas, that’s one thing, but what we seem to have here is someone with permission to live in the U.S.–a green card is about as close as you can get to being a citizen–being detained for speech. Much as I deplore Khalil’s speech and sentiments, and much as I deplore the pro-Palestinians’ desire to dismantle America, what ICE did seems to me a Constitutional violation of the First Amendment. In fact, a 2023 article notes that ICE itself has two memos warning against this kind of stuff (h/t Jean):

 Constitutional Considerations Relating to Proposed Enhanced Vetting of Aliens in the United States for Counterterrorism Purposes analyzes the constitutional frameworks that constrain government agencies’ “counterterrorism vetting” programs. Significantly, the memo recognizes that non-U.S. persons in the United States have due process rights and “can invoke protections under the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause.”

Inadmissibility Based on Endorsing or Espousing Terrorist Activity: First Amendment Concerns

A relevant tweet claiming he’s pro-Hamas:  https://x.com/EFischberger/status/1898953421048193345

*Anybody interested in women’s issues, and especially in the “MeToo” movement, knows about Gloria Allred, a lawyer who has represented many women who accused men, prominent or other wise, of sexual assault or harassment. The WSJ, however, has a new article showing that Allred isn’t the figure of consolation everybody seems to know, a piece called, “The high-pressure tactics Gloria Allred uses—on her own clients ”

For decades, Allred has hugged and comforted her clients while they give tearful accounts of their alleged abuse at press conferences. But that public image is often at odds with the lawyer’s behavior behind the scenes. There, clients said, Allred and her firm ignored their wishes and pushed them to agree to confidential settlements.

Some clients said they were shocked at the disconnect between Allred’s image as an advocate who empowers women and gives them choices and her private approach. They said they contacted her firm at the worst moments of their lives, when they felt vulnerable and alone. They now question whether retaining the firm was in their best interest, both emotionally and financially, and whether decisions were made primarily to benefit Allred and her firm.

Few details are public about what happens between Allred and her clients, mostly women, without the cameras. The reason: Clients are told to keep discussions secret and are required to sign agreements that bar them from suing the firm in court or publicizing disputes with their lawyers.

This account is based on audio recordings, documents and interviews with more than four dozen people, including women who have approached Allred for her services, former clients who have retained her firm, people in whom clients confided during their experiences and lawyers who have worked both alongside and against the firm.

The people said that while Allred consoles women on camera, in private she scolds and intimidates them and threatens to drop them as clients if they disobey her. Some said the firm’s lawyers repeatedly conveyed the idea that the women were lucky to be talking to them. And even though Allred publicly says she wants women to speak out about injustice, some were told to delete text and video evidence, and several said her firm pressured them to sign nondisclosure agreements that protect predators.

. . . . More than a dozen women described similar interactions with the law firm, which included having their requests dismissed, being limited from speaking about their experiences—publicly but also with family, other victims or therapists—or being made to fear interactions with the media without Allred. Some questioned whether their payouts were as high as they could be, or whether they received justice through the process.

Lest you think this will stop the flow of clients to Allred, think again. She has a reputation (and makes $1200 an hour), and that reputation alone may prompt those accused to settle. So it goes.

*Since I’ve lived in Chicago, a number of mayors, aldermen, and state and Federal Representatives have gone to jail. This includes one governor (who also served as a U.S. Repersentative for six years), the infamous Rod Blagojevich. “Blago,” as he was called, was convicted in 2009 of, among other things, trying to sell Barack Obama’s Senate seat, and was sentenced to 14 years in stir, which he began serving in 2012. However, President Trump, in his first term, commuted Blago’s sentence in 2020. That effaced the sentence but not the felony conviction. Last month, however, Trump gave the corrupt governor a full and unconditional pardon.

Now, in the Free Press, Blago has announced Big Ambitions in an article called “Jailed. Pardoned. Now Rod Blagojevich wants to be a ‘Trumpcrat‘.”

Blago has never admitted fault, despite the fact that he was caught on a federal wiretap speaking to an adviser, calling the opportunity to fill Obama’s seat “fucking golden.”

Within five minutes of meeting the governor at his home late last month, he told me: “I didn’t do it”—before I even had a chance to ask. For 16 years, he’s been beating this drum—to other reporters, juries, judges, anyone who will listen.

No one believed him, he said, except Trump.

Betting on Trump has been the best decision Blago has ever made. That became clear five days after Trump’s inauguration this past January.

A pardon for an already free man is a mostly symbolic act—unless you’re a politician. For Blagojevich, it now means that at 68 years old, he can run for office again. Though he is barred from running for state office, he could throw his hat in the ring to be mayor of Chicago—or even president of the United States. What’s more, not all races require him to declare what seems obvious: that he is no longer a Democrat.

“If you’re running for the mayor of Chicago, you don’t have to declare a party,” he told me. He added that even in deep-blue Chicago, voters “would be open to somebody like me.”

Meanwhile, Roger Stone, the longtime Trump adviser, is publicly encouraging Blagojevich to run for mayor of Chicago on X. Blago told me that multiple donors, local businessmen, and even a former Chicago politician have all called to ask him if he has given running for mayor “a thought.”

Sweet Ceiling Cat on a bike! A convicted felon running for mayor of Chicago?  Well, if any place would vote a miscreant like Blago back into office, it would be Chicago. But I would hope that my fellow residents are not that dumb.

*We’re not having politics today as I find it depressing. Besides, a friend just called me and told me this story, and I didn’t believe it was real–or even possible. But it is! Texas is angry that a small group of people bought ALL THE TICKETS, and, after taxes, won $25 million. I would have thought that that couldn’t be true because the expenditure on all tickets would exceed the payout. I still don’t know how it worked, but it did. (Article archived here.)

The unusual circumstances surrounding two of the largest Lottery jackpots in Texas history have touched off a furious debate about the unorthodox methods used to snag the prizes and have led the governor and attorney general to announce investigations.

On April 22, 2023, someone won a $95 million Lotto Texas jackpot by spending $25 million to buy nearly every possible number combination in the draw. The winner, identified only as a business entity called Rook TX, of Scotch Plains, N.J., ended up claiming the lump-sum payment of $57,804,000 before taxes.

I won’t describe the other clever trick; just this one:

In early 2023, as the jackpot in Lotto Texas ballooned over months without a winner, someone figured out a way to almost guarantee a win, according to Ryan Mindell, executive director of the Texas Lottery Commission.

In the run-up to the drawing, the person or persons — it is not clear how many were involved — worked with four retailers in Texas to order a “significant” number of lottery terminals, enough to pump out roughly 25 million tickets and cover nearly every possible number combination, Mr. Mindell said.

Then, in the three days leading up to the drawing, people went to the stores and entered millions of number combinations using QR codes that had been loaded onto iPads, Mr. Mindell said. The Texas Lottery app allows customers to generate QR codes that can be scanned at participating retailers to generate tickets.

The operation caused a giant spike in sales, with about 27 million tickets sold in less than 72 hours, compared to about 2 million in a typical Lotto Texas drawing, Mr. Mindell said.

“I remember waking up that Thursday morning and seeing the sales numbers and thinking, ‘What the hell is happening?’” he said.

One of the tickets contained the winning combination — 3-5-18-29-30-52 — for the $95 million jackpot, the third-largest in Lotto Texas history. Officials have not disclosed who was behind Rook TX, the entity that claimed the prize. Texas law allows those who claim Lottery prizes of $1 million or more to remain anonymous.

. . . . “This is probably the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on the State of Texas by any group,” Senator Paul Bettencourt said at the hearing. “We gave up, probably on a fraudulent win, $57.7 million.”

Mr. Mindell said that the Lottery had taken steps to thwart similar “bulk-buying” operations by limiting the number of terminals that retailers could order in a short period and capping the number of tickets each terminal can print per drawing.

This is NOT A FRAUD. It was clever, but clearly legal, and the winners get to keep their money. But of course they’re putting procedures into place to prevent it from happening again.

*I hate getting stuff dry-cleaned, and thus I was glad to see the NYT piece, “All the things you don’t need to dry clean, even if the label says you do.” Save money! Here are a few.

Cashmere. Cashmere is frequently thought of as a material that must be dry-cleaned. However, the experts we spoke to for our guide to washing cashmere insisted that hand-washing is actually better for your garment in the long run, because dry-cleaning typically involves harsh chemicals that can damage cashmere fibers.

You also needn’t hand-wash your cashmere that frequently. We recommend against doing it after every wear; instead, we suggest washing it after every seven to 10 wears and then again before storing it away at the start of summer as added protection against moths.

Washing cashmere properly requires a sink or basin large enough to fully submerge the garment and either a drying rack that allows the garment to lay completely flat (like this mesh one from OXO) or a white bath towel that’s large enough for the garment to lay flat upon. (Avoid using colored bath towels, which could transfer dye onto cashmere.) You’ll also need a gentle soap, such as baby shampoo, or a hand-washing detergent, like our pick, Soak (which doesn’t need to be rinsed out).

I use baby shampoo (unscented) as I do for silk

Silk (high quality or lightly colored).Believe it or not, the more expensive a silk garment is, the better a candidate it probably is for hand-washing over dry-cleaning. Although price doesn’t always correspond to quality, water can generally make cheaper silks lose their shape in the long run, either by stretching them out or shrinking them.

To quickly determine if your silk is a good candidate for hand-washing, gently scrunch it up into a ball and then let it go. If it opens up smoothly, it’s likely okay to wash by hand. If it instead stays creased and shows wrinkles, it probably should be dry-cleaned.

You should also consider your silk’s color and pattern. The darker the color, the better off it is at the dry cleaners. The same goes for silks that feature colorful patterns or dark-light contrasts, as darker dye can leak into the lighter parts during hand-washing.

Once you’ve determined that hand-washing your silk is the way to go, you can get the job done in a sink with a detergent designed for delicates,

Wool sweaters, blankets, and suits (after you check the lining). Dry-cleaning chemicals can be overly abrasive on finer wools. Most modern wool garments (including the base layers and wool blanket we recommend) have been treated, so they can be machine-washed without shrinking. The same can’t be said about vintage wool items, however, so make sure to check the manufacturer’s care instructions before cleaning.

Though you may already know that laundering wool in the coldest water possible is key, here’s another hot tip: Make sure to use your machine’s gentlest setting, because heavy agitation and severe spin cycles are also culprits when it comes to shrinking wool.

Your suit can also probably skip the trip to the cleaners. The best way to tackle any dirt on a suit is usually with spot-cleaning.

If your wool suit or coat is more wrinkled than it is dirty, you can have your suit steam-pressed, instead of dry-cleaned, to restore its crispness.

Down comforters, vests, jackets, and sleeping bags. Down is another material that can be damaged by dry-cleaning chemicals—yet frustratingly, we’ve found that machine-washing down items might void their warranties in some cases. As we wrote in our guide to the best comforters, “We’ve machine-washed the dry-clean-only Brooklinen (one of our picks for the best down comforter) for testing purposes and it worked beautifully, but Brooklinen does not advise doing this.”

The best way to machine-wash a down comforter is in a front-loading washer with a mild detergent on a cold, gentle setting. Then run it again on a shorter cycle with no soap, to make sure all detergents are gone, since they can also shorten down’s lifespan.

For more best practices on washing and drying down at home, see the “Care and maintenance” sections of our comforter guide or our insulated jacket guide.

I wash my with Nikwax Down Wash, a special down detergent, and dry it on low using a dozen clean tennis balls to plump up the down. It’s the only way to go.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili makes a riposte:

Hili: This sofa remembers better times.

A: A sofa remembers nothing, only living creatures remember.

Hili: And computers.

Hili: Ta sofa pamięta lepsze czasy.

Ja: Sofa niczego nie pamięta, pamiętają istoty żywe.

Hili: I komputery.

And a photo of a sleepy or sad Baby Kulka:

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

From Stacy, a diagram that the FFRF needs to put on their webpage:

From Cats Make Me Happy:

From Cats Without Gods:

X still seems to be down a bit, as I’ve lost the ability to directly embed tweets. I will use screenshots or URLs until the feature returns:

From Masih, who’s eager to testify against her accused Iranian-funded assassins. Click on screenshot, with sound up.

From Simon, who says, “I’d laugh, but it’s almost plausible”:

America lost an hour this morning due to the President's attempt to put a tariff on time.

— God (@skeetofgod.bsky.social) 2025-03-09T15:17:01.022Z

From Malgorzata: anti-Semitism in Israel:

Two from my feed; I didn’t know that Israeli women were banned from the Woman’s March, but it wouldn’t be the first time:

Sound up to hear this happy penguin (click on screenshot to go to video tweet):

From Malcolm; cats eating (on FB). Sound up!

One from the Auschwitz Memorial that I retweeted. A Czech Jewish girl murdered by cyanide gas upon arriving at Auschwitz. She was ten.

10 March 1934 | A Dutch Jewish girl, Carla Bromet, was born in The Hague.On 26 February 1944 she was deported from Westerbork to the Theresienstadt ghetto. She arrived at #Auschwitz on 6 October 1944 in a transport of 1,500 Jews. She was murdered in a gas chamber.

— Auschwitz Memorial (@auschwitzmemorial.bsky.social) 2025-03-10T21:00:30.284Z

Two from Matthew. First, a lovely leatherback sea turtle:

Leatherback sea turtles can grow up to 1.8 metres long and weigh up to 450 kilograms. That’s heavier than a grand piano 🐢😲🎥: ausmashmash

— Lewis Pugh Foundation (@lewispughfdn.bsky.social) 2025-03-10T09:04:06.094Z

I wish somebody would take that copepod off!

Another great parasitic copepod on a rattail! These dives haven't disappointed in the parasite department. @schmidtocean.bsky.social dive 803 #SouthSandwichIslands #MarineLife

— Lisa (@tuexplorer1.bsky.social) 2025-03-10T02:03:07.448Z

Welcome to the Cruelest Day: Tuesday, January 28, 2025, and National Blueberry Pancake Day.  There is no chance that I will get any of these, but I do have a piece of shoofly pie (made by Pennsylvania Amish) for breakfast. It’s the perfect accompaniment to coffee.  Here from Wikipedia is the closest photo I have to celebrate the day—pancakes with blueberry sauce:

It’s also Rattlesnake Roundup Day, a horrible day on which people collect gazillions of rattlesnakes and then KILL THEM.  This is not good. Here’s a video of the slaughter (warning: cruelty and rattlesnakes getting their heads chopped off. I don’t know how pcople can do this:

And it’s International Lego Day and National Kazoo Day , which has its uses according to Wikipedia:

The kazoo is played professionally in jug bands and comedy music, and by amateurs everywhere. It is among the acoustic instruments developed in the United States, and one of the easiest melodic instruments to play, requiring only the ability to vocalize in tune. In North East England and South Wales, kazoos play an important role in juvenile jazz bands. During Carnival, players use kazoos in the Carnival of Cádiz in Spain and in the corsos on the murgas in Uruguay.

In the Original Dixieland Jass Band 1921 recording of Crazy Blues, what the casual listener might mistake for a trombone solo is actually a kazoo solo by drummer Tony Sbarbaro

Here’s “Crazy Blues” by the Original Dixieland Jass Band from 1921 (yes, “Jass” is the spelling”, can you hear the kazoo solo? I think it starts about 1:10 and continues.

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

Da Nooz:

Let me first retract something I posted the other day: a note that a sex-after-death law had been passed. In Egypt. (It was supposedly allowing a man to have sex with his dead wife for up to six hours after her demise.) The tweet I put up:

pic.twitter.com/0dB2TwjG8b

— Azat (@AzatAlsalim) January 24, 2025

Egyptian members of Parliament have denied it, and this appears to have all emanated from a single source.  My bad.

*After Colombia refused to accept U.S. planeloads of deported Colombian migrants, Trump launched a trade war against them. But it never got off the ground before the situation was resolved. (Article is archived here.). Things got pretty hot!

Trump certainly is moving fast.  I agree with the deportation of those convicted of crimes, but haven’t yet decided how I feel about non-criminal immigrants who are here illegally in other circumstances. Those who have been here for a long time, and have made a life for themselves, surely should deserve a chance to stay (can this can be adjudicated on a case by case basis?), but deportation of very recent immigrants who are deliberately missing their court dates and avoiding the law doesn’t overly upset me. There is huge variation in how people feel about different cases, but clearly something has to be done, and so far Congress has avoided doing it (most likely because Democrats don’t want to do anything that doesn’t resemble an “open border” policy).

*A number of fiber-optic cables have been cut around Scandinavia, and people suspect (of course) Russia and Putin. (A similar breakage occurred off Taiwan, and perhaps China is responsible for that one.) NATO has now gotten involved in the investigation:

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization mounted its first coordinated response to the suspected sabotage campaign against critical infrastructure, after another underwater data cable was severed in the Baltic Sea.

NATO vessels raced to the site of a damaged fiber-optic cable in Swedish waters on Sunday morning, where a trio of ships carrying Russian cargo, including one recently sanctioned by the U.S., were nearby. All three vessels are now being investigated as part of a probe into suspected sabotage of the fiber optic cable, according to several European officials. One ship was detained Sunday.

The incident is the latest in a string of alleged underwater attacks in the region that prompted NATO to announce earlier this month the formation of a surveillance mission called Baltic Sentry. It includes regular naval patrols, as well as enhanced drone, satellite and electronic surveillance of Baltic areas that are crisscrossed by critical infrastructure such as data and power cables, along with gas pipelines and offshore wind farms.

Western officials have said they suspect Russia is fighting a shadow war against the West. Russia has denied it is behind such an effort.

“We have seen elements of a campaign to destabilize our societies. Through cyberattacks, assassination attempts, and sabotage—including possible sabotage of undersea cables in the Baltic Sea,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said earlier this month.

Evidence gathered so far in the Baltic investigations hasn’t been conclusive enough to result in prosecutions or arrests, officials familiar with the investigations said.

Latvia dispatched its navy to the site of the incident Sunday, while the Swedish coast guard detained one of the three ships within hours of the incident, according to Latvian and Swedish officials. A Dutch warship was also involved in the operation to combat alleged attacks on deep-sea assets.

I love the international cooperation, but how are they going to arrest Russia if they find out it’s responsible? Would they go to the ICC?

*As I mentioned earlier, the CIA has now joined the FBI and DOE in regarding the lab-leak theory as the most credible explanation for the Covid outbreak. Despite confidence in the lab theories being “low” in all cases, it is higher than confidence in the alternative wet-market theory, which was pushed by the Biden Administration, Anthony Fauci, and NIH director Francis Collins as being sacrosanct. Jonathan Turley describes how many people vigorously defended the wet-market theory, so vigorously that it became heresy to question it.

Every modern president seems to promise transparency during their campaigns, but few ever seem to get around to it. Once in power, the value of being opaque becomes evident. We will have to wait to see if President Donald Trump will fulfill his pledges, but so far this is proving the cellophane administration. Putting aside his constant press gaggles and conferences, the Administration has ordered wholesale disclosures of long-withheld files from everything from the JFK investigation to, most recently, the CIA COVID origins report. That report is particularly stinging for both the Biden Administration and its media allies, which treated the lab theory as a fringe, conspiratorial, or even racist theory.

Newly-confirmed CIA Director John Ratcliffe released the report, which details how it views the lab theory as the most likely explanation for the virus. Expressing “low confidence,” the agency did not reject the theory over the natural origins theory, which was treated as sacrosanct by the media and favored by figures like Anthony Fauci. (Other recent reports have contradicted the equally orthodox view on the closing of schools, showing no material benefit in terms of slowing the transmission of COVID).

The BBC reported that “the CIA on Saturday offered a new assessment on the origin of the Covid outbreak, saying the coronavirus is ‘more likely’ to have leaked from a Chinese lab than to have come from animals. But the intelligence agency cautioned it had ‘low confidence’ in this determination.”

The low confidence finding shows that the agency found the evidence fragmented and fluid. However, the point is that the natural origins theory and the lab theory were both viable theories. Neither was disproven or rejected. Other agencies like the FBI seemed to have a higher confidence in the lab theory over the natural origins theory.\

Turley then gives a bunch of examples of how the lab-leak theory was mocked (and, indeed, was deliberately denigrated by government officials who questioned the credentials of those who refused to rule it out.  Here are a few:

This follows a recent disclosure in the Wall Street Journal of a report on how the Biden administration may have suppressed dissenting views supporting the lab theory on the origin of the COVID-19 virus. Not only were the FBI and its top experts excluded from a critical briefing of President Biden, but government scientists were reportedly warned that they were “off the reservation” in supporting the lab theory.

As previously discussed, many journalists used the rejection of the lab theory to paint Trump as a bigot. By the time Biden became president, not only were certain government officials heavily invested in the zoonotic or natural origin theory, but so were many in the media.

Reporters used opposition to the lab theory as another opportunity to pound their chests and signal their virtue.

MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace mocked Trump and others for spreading one of his favorite “conspiracy theories.” MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt insisted that “we know it’s been debunked that this virus was manmade or modified.”

MSNBC’s Joy Reid also called the lab leak theory “debunked bunkum,” while CNN reporter Drew Griffin criticized spreading the “widely debunked” theory. CNN host Fareed Zakaria told viewers that “the far right has now found its own virus conspiracy theory” in the lab leak.

NBC News’s Janis Mackey Frayer described it as the “heart of conspiracy theories.”

The Washington Post was particularly dogmatic. When Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark) raised the theory, he was chastised for “repeat[ing] a fringe theory suggesting that the ongoing spread of a coronavirus is connected to research in the disease-ravaged epicenter of Wuhan, China.”

I have no dog in this fight, and in fact used to find the lab-leak theory more credible. Now I’m leaning the other way but, like these agencies, don’t find the evidence dispositive. Still, the government behaved badly here, and it wasn’t because of fast-moving changes in scientific knowledge.

*The Free Press, which many dismiss as a “right wing site,” but one I see as classical liberal centrist, has reaffirmed its values in a new statement called “Our promise to you.” The promise, as I read it, is to maintain honesty and objectivity in the face of slanted news from the MSM. Readers can judge how successful Bari Weiss & Co have been. An excerpt:

The Free Press was started as an outlet by and for people who said: no. Who insisted: The old values still matter. In this way, it has always been a new publication doing a very old-fashioned thing.

Whereas many in the legacy press took the election of Trump itself as evidence that the media failed, we see our jobs differently. None of us got into journalism to work for political candidates. None of us became reporters, writers, or editors to be mouthpieces for a party. We became journalists to pursue the truth—and to tell it, plainly, when we discover it—knowing full well that tomorrow might bring new facts to light requiring revision and correction, because truth is not a fixed absolute. It cannot be distilled in a test tube, or replaced by a narrative, though many these days are trying to do just that.

There will be plenty of publications who will, once again, become #Resistance warriors under this new administration. Others who have promised independence are sounding more like MAGA cheerleaders. If that’s what you seek, there will be plenty of options.

We are promising something different.

From us, you can expect the same sharp, fierce, honest news and opinion that we have worked hard to deliver since the day we started. You’ll get deep investigations, gimlet-eyed humor columns, and erudite British Sundays. You’ll also get corrections, because we fully expect to make mistakes, and counterarguments, because if we knew the answers in advance, we wouldn’t be The Free Press.

And a bit some readers won’t like:

And as the legacy media is finding, once you’ve kicked over the guardrails, it’s very hard to ever go back. Case in point: PBS NewsHour.

The publicly funded network’s flagship news show sees itself as a paragon of journalistic sobriety. But on the very first day of the new administration, NewsHour reported that: “Billionaire Elon Musk gave what appeared to be a fascist salute Monday,” adding that he raised his hand “in a salute that appeared similar to the ‘Sieg Heil’ used by the Nazis at their victory rallies.”

Watch the video with audio. Musk says, “My heart goes out to you,” after he hits his chest and thrusts his arm out. It might be a little intense, a little awkward. (Not exactly out of character for Musk.) Trying to start an Elon Musk is a Nazi doing literal Nazi salutes panic demonstrates how little the media has changed—and why so few people trust it. Musk, a person with historic levels of power, is worthy of fierce and sustained scrutiny. But the legacy media continues to discredit itself with cheap shots, and continues to find itself defanged when it lands on something right, something people should really pay attention to. How seriously will anyone take PBS the next time it has a story about Musk? The logic here isn’t rocket science. When journalists ditch their old values, they lose their old credibility.

I subscribe to the Free Press and will continue to do so unless or until I see its news being slanted in a particular direction. Some people on social media already call it “alt-right.” I don’t agree.

*Just for fun (though the results were tragic), here’s a mislabeled video from HuffPo (I went over to HuffPo after reader Norm said he looked at it for the big red headlines). Is there any way the headline can make sense?

*From Merilee we have Mayor Pete’s (actually, Secretary of Transportation’s) “chilling farewell speech” as a cabinet member, summing up what his office accomplished. It’s 16.5 minutes long, and chilling only because this guy would have made a good President.  This was made before the Inauguration.  Buttigieg was my second most favorite candidate after Gretchen Whitmer. As one commenter said,

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili isn’t keen on being groomed:

Hili: How much longer?

A: I have to comb you properly so you do not leave your hair in the bed.

Hili: And who cares?

In Polish:

Hili: Długo jeszcze?

Ja: Muszę cię porządnie wyczesać, żebyś nie zostawiała sierści w łóżku.

Hili: A komu to przeszkadza?

And a photo of Baby Kulka:

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

From I Love Cats:

From Things With Faces. Man, that cone looks human!

From Strange, Stupid, or Silly Signs. I suspect this is a real ad.

And from Facebook, a serious post:

From Masih, more Iranian women defying the regime, here in at least three ways (no headscarf, music, and dancing). Ceiling Cat bless them! (sound up)

Two teenagers arrested in Iran، for moving their bodies to music and sharing joy with the world, for dancing. This is the regime the U.S. and Europe tried to negotiate with. A regime so brutal it fears its own youth. Trust me, a system that crushes its people shows no mercy to… pic.twitter.com/Ij70yC6r5V

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) January 27, 2025

From Luana. Oops, the ACLU didn’t do due diligence; I guess they were charged with vetting people to be pardoned.

So, Biden’s staff didn’t double check the ACLU’s list of “nonviolent drug offenders” and gave clemency to a drug lord in Connecticut who murdered an 8 year old boy and his mother to stop them from testifying.

CT Sen. Blumenthal : “someone dropped the ball… This was a really… pic.twitter.com/DpAhBCyfFX

— Max Meyer (@mualphaxi) January 26, 2025

From Malcolm; what I wouldn’t give to be that man! (sound up):

I’m a lion… ‘m a lion.. I’m a small
lion….I’m a cat… Yeeees, I’m a Cat pic.twitter.com/RrMoyAZgTc

— Posts Of Cats (@PostsOfCats) January 7, 2025

A heartbreaker from my feed:

On #HolocaustMemorialDay I always remember Istvan Reiner, and I post this photo and say his name as I look into those wide eyes of innocence and that face of beaming joy. He had no idea of the hell that awaited, and was murdered just days later in #Auschwitz at the age of four.🕯️ pic.twitter.com/O0TpGCOMCX

— Adrian Hilton (@Adrian_Hilton) January 27, 2025

This deserves to be watched on a regular basis by everybody. It always brings tears to my eyes:

This is one of the most beautiful moments you will ever witness.

Sir Nicholas Winton helped 669 children — most of them Jewish — escape the Holocaust.

His humanitarian accomplishments would remain unknown and unnoticed by the world for nearly 50 years.

Then in 1988 he… pic.twitter.com/J05mzmSkBs

— dahlia kurtz ✡︎ דליה קורץ (@DahliaKurtz) January 27, 2025

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:

Died in the camp around 14 or 15. Look at that smile!

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-01-28T11:37:44.298Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. First, racing ducks:

#MosaicMonday #AncientBluesky #RomanHistoryFrom the Villa Romana del Casale, Sicily, some rather alarmingly sized chariot-racing ducks. They bred them big back then – had special calipers for it and everything!

— James Coverley (@jamescoverley.com) 2025-01-27T16:28:04.069Z

Everything is the Big Bang’s fault:

This is really all the big bang's fault when you think about. Stupid big bang, causing existence and all.

— Existential Comics (@existentialcomics.com) 2025-01-27T02:53:41.862Z

Welcome to CaturSaturday, January 4, 2025, and National Spaghetti Day.  Here’s how they grow it in Switzerland:

Yes, of course it’s a hoax—by the BBC. The YouTube notes say this:

The spaghetti tree hoax is a famous 3-minute hoax report broadcast on April Fools’ Day 1957 by the BBC current affairs programme Panorama. It told a tale of a family in southern Switzerland harvesting spaghetti from the fictitious spaghetti tree, broadcast at a time when this Italian dish was not widely eaten in the UK and some Britons were unaware that spaghetti is a pasta made from wheat flour and water. Hundreds of viewers phoned into the BBC, either to say the story was not true, or wondering about it, with some even asking how to grow their own spaghetti trees. Decades later CNN called this broadcast “the biggest hoax that any reputable news establishment ever pulled.”

It’s also Dimpled Chad Day, National Trivia Day (my question: World Hypnotism Day, Fruitcake Toss Day (or give it to some other hapless soul), and World Braille Day. 

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

Da Nooz:

*This was a squeaker: Republican Mike Johnson was reelected Speaker of the House after losing a preliminary vote, but then getting enough votes back to secure his position.

Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday won re-election to the top post in the House, salvaging his job in a dramatic last-minute turnabout by putting down a revolt from conservatives who initially voted to block his ascent.

Mr. Johnson barely mustered the majority he needed to win re-election on the first ballot, with help from President-elect Donald J. Trump, who interrupted a golf game to lobby holdouts by phone. That allowed the speaker to avoid the humiliation of a multiday slog of failed votes like the one his predecessor Kevin McCarthy suffered through before ultraconservatives relented and elected him two years ago.

*I have never worried about getting cancer from drinking, because at best I’ll have a glass of wine or two several nights a week, and I don’t have an addictive personality. Nevertheless, the WSJ reports that, since booze is associated with SEVEN kinds of cancer, the Surgeon General of the U.S. is calling for cancer warnings to be affixed to alcoholic beverages.

The U.S. surgeon general said alcoholic beverages should carry cancer warnings to increase awareness that the drinks are a leading cause of preventable cancers.

An act of Congress would be required to change the existing warning labels on bottles of beer, wine and liquor. Today, federal rules require only a warning against drunken driving and drinking while pregnant, as well as a general warning that alcohol “may cause health problems.”

“Alcohol is a well-established, preventable cause of cancer responsible for about 100,000 cases of cancer and 20,000 cancer deaths annually in the United States,” Dr. Vivek Murthy said in his advisory issued Friday. “Yet the majority of Americans are unaware of this risk.”

Alcohol industry groups didn’t immediately comment Friday.

Alcohol consumption is the third leading preventable cause of cancer in the U.S., after tobacco and obesity. The link between alcohol consumption and cancer risk has been established for at least seven types of cancer, including breast, colorectum, esophagus, liver, mouth, throat and voice box, Murthy said.

The recommendation, in the final days of the Biden administration, follows a yearslong debate within the health and scientific community about how much consumption of wine, beer and spirits is safe for adults.

“I’m not sure if we truly know the answer to that question,” said Dr. Jamie Koprivnikar, an oncologist at Hackensack Meridian Health in New Jersey, who often advises patients to cut back on their alcohol consumption. “There is data that links even one drink per day to increased risks of cancer.”

For nearly three decades, federal dietary guidelines have said it is safe for men to have two or fewer drinks a day, and for women to have one. That could change this year when the Agriculture and Health and Human Services departments update recommendations that are part of federal dietary guidelines.

Well, that’s just peachy! Now I have something else to worry about. But I swear, I will not give up my glass or two of wine with dinner. I don’t smoke cigars any more, so what gustatory pleasure is left for me? Eggs, I suppose (see below), but eggs are no substitute for a glass of good Rioja or a gutsy Rhone. Live isn’t worth living. HOWEVER, a new review by the National Academies of Science gives an opposite result; moderate drinking is good for you:

A report that is intended to shape the next edition of the U.S. Dietary Guidelines has broken sharply with an emerging scientific consensus that alcohol has no health benefits.

The evidence review, by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in December, revived a once-dominant hypothesis that moderate drinking is linked to fewer heart attack and stroke deaths, and fewer deaths overall, compared with never drinking.

The Pecksniff Scientists are up in arms, however, as they don’t want anybody to enjoy themselves. I’m going with the National Academies.

*As always, I’ll steal three items from Nellie Bowles’s weekly news summary in the Free Press, called this week “TGIF: Three days in, two terrorist attacks, and a subway shove.”

→ Trump is the CCP’s cheapest date: Trump is scrambling to save TikTok. He’s filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court asking them to treat him like he’s already president and to stop this terrible ban of his favorite piece of Chinese spyware. As The Wall Street Journal editorial board puts it: “The brief is extraordinary in several ways, none of them good.”

As background, Trump was against TikTok until. . . TikTok investor Jeff Yass and his wife Janine dropped about $100 million into Republicans in recent years. And then, what do you know, he’s all in for TikTok! Trump asked the Supreme Court not to act all sus on TikTok’s rizz.

Shadow president Elon Musk has deep business entanglements with China, so it’s a given he’s going to be compromised on this. But Trumpo—Mr. CHYNA—made nationalism his whole thing. And all it took was one Republican donor with cash, but not even that much for China, to continue the colonization of teenage American minds through the infectious disease known as TikTok. Democrats at least genuinely believe in the CCP. Like, they prefer it on an intellectual level. Republicans don’t; they’re just for sale, and cheap.

→ Release all the corruption pictures, quick: This week, the National Archives released a ton more pictures of Joe Biden hanging out with Hunter and Hunter’s business associates. The business is obvious: Hunter was clearly paid to give foreign business interests access to Joe. Joe Biden has, for years, denied it quite strongly. “They’re lies,” he has said. (Here’s a helpful list of all the times he totally denied these meetings ever took place.) Nevermind that Hunter himself wrote that his father was involved in the business, that Hunter would text “sitting here with my father” and then get multimillion-dollar wire transfers. I’m sure that was just because of his very fine work.

Now here we have a bunch of pictures showing Joe Biden meeting Hunter’s business associates:

It’s so kind of the National Archives to release these pictures from 2013 now that the election is over. I guess they were hiding under a cabinet or something!

→ Eggs are now healthy: America received a wild revelation last week. Not that Santa isn’t real (he is), but that the FDA thinks that eggs are healthy again. Talk about whiplash. Just yesterday, if my kids had asked for eggs for breakfast, I’d slowly wag my finger at them and say, “FDA says nay.” But the cholesterol in eggs does not pose the risk our health overlords once thought it did. So, eggs galore! The President of the American Egg Board (I love that this exists—more Egg Presidents, less Reality Czars in 2025, please) couldn’t be happier:

Whether you’re scrambling them for breakfast, grabbing them hardboiled for a quick lunch on the go, or enjoying some egg-and-veggie fried rice at dinner, Americans now know for certain that eggs are one of the healthiest foods for your family.

Amen, Egg President. Beef is back in vogue too, apparently. Expect cigarettes to be next; gin martinis too. I’m waiting for the Chair of the Office of Amphetamines to declare victory. The year 2025 just dropped, and it’s time for our diets to get with the times.

I’m not scared of eggs! And if they weren’t so damn expensive I’d eat a lot more of them!

*The AP reports that the Bidens, but especially Jill, got tons of expensive gifts from foreign leaders this year. They still have to pay taxes on them, though:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and his family were given tens of thousands of dollars in gifts from foreign leaders in 2023, according to an annual accounting published by the State Department on Thursday, with first lady Jill Biden receiving the single most expensive present: a $20,000 diamond from India’s leader.

The 7.5-carat diamond from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was easily the most costly gift presented to any member of the first family in 2023, although she also received a brooch valued at $14,063 from the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States and a bracelet, brooch and photograph album worth $4,510 from the president and first lady of Egypt.

The U.S. president himself received a number of expensive presents, including a commemorative photo album valued at $7,100 from South Korea’s recently impeached President Suk Yeol Yoon, a $3,495 statue of Mongolian warriors from the Mongolian prime minister, a $3,300 silver bowl from the sultan of Brunei, a $3,160 sterling silver tray from the president of Israel, and a collage worth $2,400 from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Federal law requires executive branch officials to declare gifts they receive from foreign leaders and counterparts that have an estimated value of more than $480. Many of the gifts that meet that threshold are relatively modest, and the more expensive ones are typically — but not always — transferred to the National Archives or put on official displays.

What’s your guess: will that diamond and the brooch wind up in the National Archives or Smithsonian?

*If you have an iPhone and use Siri, you may be in for a bit of dosh, since Apple has agreed to settle a lawsuit involving Siri listening to your conversations. But even if the fine is huge, it’s a drop in the bucket for Apple:

Apple has agreed to pay $95m in cash to settle a proposed class-action lawsuit claiming that its voice-activated assistant Siri violated users’ privacy, listening to them without their consent.

iPhone owners complained that Apple routinely recorded their private conversations after they activated Siri unintentionally, and disclosed these conversations to third parties such as advertisers. A preliminary settlement was filed on Tuesday night in the Oakland, California, federal court, and requires approval by US district judge Jeffrey White.

Voice assistants typically react when people use “hot words” such as “Hey, Siri”. Two plaintiffs said their mentions of Air Jordan sneakers and Olive Garden restaurants triggered ads for those products. Another said he was served ads for a brand name surgical treatment after discussing it, he thought privately, with his doctor. The plaintiffs alleged Apple did not receive consent before recording their conversations and in fact could not receive consent from one of the plaintiffs because they were a minor without an Apple account at the time of the recording.

The lawsuit alleged the violations ran from 17 September 2014 to 31 December 2024. It began when Siri incorporated the “Hey, Siri” feature that allegedly led to the unauthorized recordings. Class members, estimated in the tens of millions, may receive up to $20 per Siri-enabled device, such as iPhones and Apple Watches.

Apple denied wrongdoing in agreeing to settle. The company has persistently emphasized the importance it places on privacy. In 2018, Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, accused other tech companies of surveillance and said “[t]he desire to put profits over privacy is nothing new.” The company furthered contended in a letter to Congress in 2018 that Apple’s iPhone devices do not “listen” to users except to detect the audio trigger “Hey Siri.”

A whistleblower turned in the company for this nefarious behavior, which is nothing more than violation of privacy in the interests of profit. But get this: “The $95m is about nine hours of profit for Apple, whose net income was $93.74bn in its latest fiscal year.”  Nine hours of profit!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili still hates Kulka, who is sitting on the outside windowsill. I don’t understand this animosity since Hili loves Szaron. Cats are unfathomable:

Hili: Can you make her disappear?

Andrzej: Why is Kulka bothering you?

Hili: She casts spells.

Hili: Czy możesz sprawić, żeby ona zniknęła?

Ja: Czemu ci Kulka przeszkadza?

Hili: Rzuca czary.

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

From Cat Memes:

From The Cat House on the Kings:

From Now That’s Wild:

From Masih; Iranians sing and dance in the streets to music (all three forbidden) to usher in the New Year. Can we hope for the regime to disappear this year?

Iranians dance in the streets to welcome 2025

This video was sent to me by a citizen in Tehran. Dancing and joy are everyday occurrences in most parts of the world, but in my beloved homeland, Iran, they serve as a manifesto against the backwardness and hollow authority of the… pic.twitter.com/iWrihP54yf

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) January 3, 2025

From Luana, another act of lunacy in the DEI world:

A researcher who worked for the UK government tried to whistleblow about the grooming gangs but was sent to diversity training course instead

You cannot make this stuff up. We are beyond parody and satire https://t.co/tqQRDHH3yc pic.twitter.com/29xsc9nuyD

— Melissa Chen (@MsMelChen) January 2, 2025

From Bryan. You call that surfing? Now this is surfing! Look at that wave!

23-year-old Californian Alessandro Slebir may have broke the world record for largest wave ever surfed.

The wave was part of the storm that demolished the Santa Cruz Wharf last month.

The wave is believed to be 108 ft tall, according to Mavericks Rescue Team, which would beat… pic.twitter.com/VRhtvbeYpS

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) January 3, 2025

From Malcolm: Einstein’s letter to Schrödinger in which Albert asserts that quantum mechanics cannot be a description of reality:

1950: A. Einstein’s Letter to Erwin Schrödinger where he talks about the famous Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment 🐈 pic.twitter.com/A89YhshuHl

— Physics In History (@PhysInHistory) November 24, 2024

From my feed:

Her reaction was one of the sweetest moments at the Olympics. 😂

pic.twitter.com/aGGhDXt1gm

— Figen (@TheFigen_) January 1, 2025

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted.

A phenol injection in the heart was used to kill people in addition to the gas chambers. Phenol is a rough way to go, and here's a family murdered both ways.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-01-04T10:58:35.207Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. First, a beautiful seed, but you’d need a microscope to see its beauty.

Today my colleague shared with me the most EXQUISITE image of a seed the size of a dust particle, collected from a rare plant called Xylanche in Nepal, and photographed using scanning electron microscopy. Wow.

— Chris Thorogood (@christhorogood.bsky.social) 2025-01-03T15:22:14.707Z

And I added a comment to this post sent by Matthew:

They forgot both the wood duck and the mandarin duck!

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-01-03T19:34:36.493Z