Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Today we have part 2 of Ephraim Heller’s photos of arachnids taken on a recent trip to Trinidad and Tobago (part 1 is here). Ephraim’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
Spiny orb-weavers (genus Micrathena) include over 119 species. What immediately distinguishes micrathena from other orb weavers is the bizarre armature of the female’s abdomen: an array of hardened spines and conical tubercles that give these small spiders an alien appearance. These spines have evolved independently at least eight times within the genus and likely function as anti-predator defenses, making the spider difficult or unpleasant to swallow.
The tropical orb weaver (Eriophora ravilla) is a large, nocturnal species. What makes eriophora ravilla distinctive among orb weavers is its strictly nocturnal web-building behavior. Each evening after dark, the spider constructs an enormous orb web with a main support thread that can stretch over 18 feet, then tears down the entire interior webbing before dawn. During the day, the spider hides in a rolled leaf bound with silk, invisible to casual observers. I was attracted by the shape and coloration of these spiders:
The genus Meri belongs to the family Sparassidae, the huntsman spiders. Huntsman spiders are characterized by their laterally extending, crab-like legs, rapid movement, and hunting lifestyle. They do not build webs. Instead, they actively pursue and overpower prey, relying on speed and ambush tactics. Sparassids are among the fastest-running spiders. Though their venom can cause local swelling, pain, or nausea in humans, huntsman bites are rarely medically significant. This handsome individual is perhaps Meri trinitatis:
Switching from spiders to their distant arachnid cousins, the harvestmen (order Opliones), the key differences are:
– Body plan. Spiders have two distinct body segments: a cephalothorax (prosoma) and an abdomen (opisthosoma), joined by a narrow waist called the pedicel. Harvestmen have a fused body in which the cephalothorax and abdomen are broadly joined, giving them a single, compact oval shape.
– Eyes. Most spiders possess six to eight eyes arranged in species-specific patterns. Harvestmen typically have just two eyes, often mounted on a raised turret (ocularium) atop the body.
– Venom and fangs. Spiders possess venom glands connected to their cheliceral fangs, which they use to subdue prey. Harvestmen lack venom glands entirely: they are completely harmless to humans.
– Silk. All spiders produce silk from spinnerets, whether they build webs or not. Harvestmen cannot produce silk at all.
– Respiration. Spiders breathe through book lungs and/or tracheae. Harvestmen breathe exclusively through tracheae, with spiracles located near the base of the fourth pair of legs.
– Reproduction. Male spiders transfer sperm indirectly via modified pedipalps. Male harvestmen possess a true penis and transfer sperm directly, a rarity among arachnids.
– Defense. When threatened, many harvestmen secrete noxious chemicals from specialized scent glands (ozopores) on the prosoma, producing a distinctive acrid odor. Spiders rely on venom, retreat, or urticating hairs (in tarantulas) for defense.
The harvestmen I photographed belong to the genus Phareicranaus in the family Cranaidae. Cranaids are stout, heavily armored harvestmen, very different in appearance from the daddy longlegs familiar to North Americans. I believe these are Phareicranaus calcariferus:
What makes this species notable for a harvestman is its parental care behavior. Field observations in Trinidad documented both maternal and possibly biparental care of young, a rare finding. Adult females were observed guarding clusters of nymphs, and in some cases, both a female and a male were present with young. This kind of prolonged parental investment is unusual among arachnids and speaks to the selective pressures – particularly predation by ants and fungal infection of eggs – that have driven the evolution of parental care in Neotropical harvestmen.
Finally, an unidentified harvestman:
Note: all of these photos were taken using a Nikon Z8 or Z9 camera, a NIKKOR Z MC 105mm ƒ2.8 VR S macro lens, and a Nikon SB-5000 Speedlight flash.
Welcome to Thursday, March 19, 2026, and it’s National Poultry Day, and you know what “poultry” includes:
Today we celebrate poultry: domesticated birds that are raised for their meat and eggs, and sometimes also for their feathers. Besides referring to the bird itself, the name may also refer specifically to the meat of the bird. Birds such as chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese are considered to be poultry, while birds such as parrots and songbirds are not. Other birds considered poultry include quail, pheasants, and guineafowl. Birds that are hunted, known as game birds, are usually not included in the definition. The word “poultry” goes back to the Latin word pullus, which means “small animal.”
And so I’ll declare it National Duck Day, a celebration of wild ducks—ducks not raised for meat or eggs. And here again is the photo of the World’s Finest Mallard, Honey, celebrated in three Chicago Tribune columns by Mary Schmich. Honey had a big brood but also, in 2020, ducknapped the entire brood of another hen, Dorothy—and raised them all (17 ducklings) to fledging! (Dorothy, initially bereft, went on to nest again and raise her own brood of seven.) Here’s Honey and her 17 babies resting on the cement circle that used to be in the middle of Botany Pond:
Ali Larijani, Iran’s top security official, strolled confidently in dark sunglasses and a black coat Friday through a rally of regime loyalists in central Tehran. It was his first public appearance in a war in which he was a known target. “Brave people. Brave officials. Brave leaders. This combination cannot be defeated,” he wrote later on X.
Four days later, he was dead. Early Tuesday morning, Israel’s intelligence services found Larijani gathered with other officials at a hideout on the outskirts of Tehran and killed him with a missile strike.
That same night, Israel got a tip from ordinary Iranians that the leader of the feared Basij militia, Gholamreza Soleimani, was holing up with his deputies in a tent in a wooded area in Tehran. It was the sort of payoff Israel had been hoping for after blowing up Basij headquarters and command posts for more than two weeks, forcing its members to gather out in the open. Soleimani, too, was struck and killed.
Israeli and American leaders said at the outset that the war with Iran would create the conditions for Iranians to topple their regime. The killings early Tuesday——followed by the Israeli announcement a day later that Iranian Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib had also been killed—were milestones in that campaign made possible by the fast-accumulating damage from airstrikes and a growing harvest of intelligence about possible targets.
With thousands of regime members killed—from top leaders to street-level grunts—Iranians are reporting that a sense of disorder is starting to take hold. Security forces are under stress and on the run as they threaten protesters to stay off the streets and direct strikes at the U.S., Israel and Arab neighbors across the Persian Gulf.
But where there’s good news, there’s also bad news:
So far Israel says it has dropped 10,000 munitions on thousands of different targets, including more than 2,200 related to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Basij and other internal security forces. It believes thousands have been killed or wounded.
The advanced technology deployed by Israel and the penetration of Iranian society by its agents are combining to create the greatest threat yet to a deeply entrenched regime.
But decades of military experience show it is difficult if not impossible to dislodge a government from the air. And if the Iranian regime survives, it could emerge emboldened and more dangerous. “It will be a clear victory for the regime with both predictable and unforeseen circumstances,” said Farzin Nadimi, an Iran-focused senior fellow with the Washington Institute, a U.S.-based think tank.
I didn’t realize that ordinary Iranians could tip off Israel with the whereabouts of high state officials. How do they do that? Or are there Iranians spying for Israel? It is true that everybody with any power in the regime has a target on his back—they’re all men, of course—but it’s also true that regime change simply by bombing would be very hard. How would the people take control of their government. They’d need both organization and a leader, and they have neither, save for the son of the late Shah who is not in Iran.
*For those like me feeling down about the war with Iran, it’s heartening to read Bret Stephen’s op-eds at the NYT. Today’s is called, “For once, with fight with an equal ally.” That ally, of course, is Israel, and I’ve noticed an increasing number of claims that Israel manipulated Trump into this war, something I don’t believe. Stephens:
For most of the postwar era, the United States has gone to war with partners whose military contributions ranged from moderately helpful to mainly symbolic. Britain in Afghanistan and Iraq comes to mind in the first case. Germany in the 1999 Kosovo war comes to mind in the second.
The war against Iran is different. As of Monday, Central Command reports that the United States had struck over 7,000 targets inside Iran. Israel, for its part, had carried out some 7,600 strikes, according to a representative of the Israeli military. This may be the first time since the Second World War that Washington has had an equal partner with which to share the burdens of war.
That’s a good starting point from which to consider the claim that the U.S. war with Iran is really a war for Israel. Past administrations have, in fact, gone to war for other countries. In the early 1990s, we went to war in the Persian Gulf for the sake of freeing Kuwait and defending Saudi Arabia — two countries that couldn’t defend themselves — from Iraq. Later that decade, we went to war in the Balkans after Europe proved shamefully unable to police its own neighborhood.
In both cases, American presidents believed they were serving the national interest. But the military helplessness of our allies was a major factor in the decision to intervene.
As for Israel, the charge that the United States has gone to war for it isn’t new. . .
. . .Those charges always sat awkwardly with the facts. Israel stayed out of the gulf war under heavy U.S. pressure, despite being hit by Iraqi missiles. As for Iraq, Ariel Sharon, then the Israeli prime minister, told the journalist Nadav Eyal that George W. Bush was fighting “the wrong war.” Sharon thought Iran was the more dangerous enemy in what was then called the war on terror.
In the case of Iran, the idea that crippling its capacity to threaten its neighbors is some sort of purely Israeli interest is belied by every Iranian missile or drone that falls on Dubai, Doha, Manama or Riyadh, not to mention U.S. and NATO military bases in the region. In October 2024, Kamala Harris called Iran our “greatest adversary,” adding that one of her “highest priorities” as president would be to ensure that Iran never became a nuclear power. Was she, also, just another of Benjamin Netanyahu’s little stooges — a manipulated American politician with no mind of her own?
That charge is now being leveled at Donald Trump, never mind that the president first expressed a desire to thwack the Iranian regime in 1980, during the hostage crisis at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and repeated the point over decades. Whatever one thinks about the wisdom or the timing of Trump’s decision to go to war, it was, plainly, his decision — one for which he needed little convincing from Netanyahu, or, for that matter, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, who, The Times reports, is urging Trump to “keep hitting the Iranians hard.”
. . . What is true is that the United States is going to war with Israel, not for it. That’s something many Americans, MAGA-type conservatives most of all, often claim to want: an ally that pulls its weight, shares the risk and contributes meaningfully to victory.
. . .But the central point is that Israel, population 10 million, is behaving as an equal partner to America, population 342 million, in a war that the elected leadership of both countries believe is in their respective national interests. Whatever else that is, it isn’t the tail wagging the dog.
The killing of Larijani may help dispel the odd gloom that’s descended on a war that is persistently dismantling Iran’s ability to put up a meaningful fight, beyond the desperate play of seeking to shut the Strait of Hormuz. That, too, won’t last long, thanks to the United States achieving what’s known among war planners as “escalation dominance.” Good thing that, in this war, the United States for once had a bold and competent ally to help us achieve it.
The accusation that Israel manipulated Trump into going to war smells of antisemitism—the view of Jews as puppeteers who control Hollywood, the press—indeed, all of America. And the accusation doesn’t jibe with the facts. As far as the “odd gloom” goes, well, it’s because it looks like we’re in a war that is going to last a lot longer than we though, and against a regime that, like Hamas, is unwilling to surrender. Stephens does a good job here of dispelling the myth of Israel as a puppeteer, but, given the situation, I find his column oddly optimistic.
*More war news, but pessimistic. Israeli historian Benny Morris, whose takes on the war seem accurate and sensible, if not optimistic, has his latest take in Quillette: “War in straitened circumstances,” with the subtitle, “After nineteen days of war, Israel and America face a grinding conflict with Iran and Hezbollah, and there is no clear end in sight.” The long but well-worth-reading article is also archived here, so I don’t have to give extensive quotes. Some short excerpts (the piece is pessimistic):
After a fortnight of war-making against Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, the rocketing of Israel by the Islamists has come to seem almost routine. Here in the Jewish state, people have been growing increasingly pessimistic. Some are despondent. The widespread jubilation that characterised the first days of the war—which saw the surprise Israeli–American decapitation of the Iranian military leadership, including the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, on 28 February and the subsequent devastation of the Islamic Republic’s air defences and ballistic missile capabilities—has given way to a realisation that neither Iran nor Hezbollah will be easily brought to heel. We have reached Day 19 of the conflict and both adversaries are still proclaiming that they will continue the fight until Israel and America are defeated. Meanwhile, people in Israel’s populous centre around Tel Aviv and in the frontier villages and towns bordering Lebanon continue to live under periodic, albeit small, barrages of ballistic missiles and short-range rockets and drones, which continue to disrupt the economy and education system, and render normal life impossible.
Yesterday (17 March), Israelis had a moment of uplift when Defence Minister Israel Katz announced the assassination in Tehran of Iran’s strongman, Ali Larijani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, and the almost simultaneous killing of Gholamreza Soleimani, the commander of the Basij militia, which was prominent in January’s brutal repression of the Iranian opposition demonstrations. But such killings are unlikely to have any effect on the emerging strategic big picture.
At the start of the war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the joint Israeli–American assault on Iran would pave the way for an uprising of the Iranian masses and the fall of Tehran’s internally tyrannical and externally aggressive Islamist regime. And should Hezbollah join the fray, he added, Israel would demolish or at least disarm the Lebanese fundamentalists once and for all. But the brutal suppression of the mass anti-government demonstrations by the Islamic Republic’s police, Basij militia, and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in early January, which claimed many thousands of lives, left would-be protesters afraid to return to the streets, while Hezbollah began rocketing Israel on Day 3, in revenge, they declared, for Khamenei’s assassination. On 9 March, the Islamic Republic named Ali Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, the new Supreme Leader—but Mojtaba has yet to be seen in public and is believed to have been seriously wounded on 28 February. In effect, Larijani managed the war. Meanwhile, despite massive Israeli and American bombardments, neither the Ayatollahs nor Hezbollah have even hinted that they might eventually concede defeat.
. . . For the moment, it is unclear whether and how Trump intends to continue his war-making. Given his mercurial personality, he could well order a halt tomorrow or the day after and claim victory. If the Americans called things off, Israel would almost certainly have to do so, too—though it would probably continue its counter-offensive against Hezbollah. But if, as appears likely, Trump is resolved to continue the war for weeks or even months, he could deploy Marines to occupy the coastal area of Iran bordering the strait to enable its re-opening or to attempt to conquer Kharg. Marine battalions are already on their way to the Middle East. But any such operation would run counter to Trump’s traditional opposition to any war involving boots on the ground.
. . . according to reports, the Israelis are suffering from munitions shortages, especially of long-range Arrow Two and Arrow Three anti-ballistic missile interceptors. Israel’s anti-missile defences are bolstered by one or two American THAAD anti-missile interceptor batteries. But America reputedly also has only a relatively small stockpile of THAADs. This may turn out to be a major factor in determining the length of the war, alongside the international and internal American pressures bearing down on Trump. Over the past few days, both Trump and Netanyahu have spoken of “two or three more weeks” of warfare. But at the moment it is unclear whether Iran will accede to such a timetable.
Morris is clear-headed and experienced, and a good historian of the Middle East. When he’s pessimistic, I’m pessimistic. But it’s in the nature of Jews to be pessimistic. Jewish pessimist: “Oy, things couldn’t get any worse!” Jewish optimist: “Sure they could!”
*We will have a vacant Senate Seat in Illinois (Democrat Dick Durbin is retiring), and there was a bitter Democratic primary for it, for whoever wins the primary will likely, given that Illinois is a diehard Democratic state, wind up in the Senate. Yesterday Juliana Stratton, the sitting Lieutenant Governor, won that primary. (I didn’t vote for her as she’s a progressive, but I did vote for a good left-centrist.)
Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton won the Democratic primary race for Senate in Illinois on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, riding the power of political and financial help from her chief patron, Gov. JB Pritzker, to prevail in a bitter three-way contest.
Ms. Stratton defeated two veteran members of Congress, Representatives Raja Krishnamoorthi and Robin Kelly, in a race marked by efforts from Mr. Krishnamoorthi’s allies and Mr. Pritzker’s detractors to split Black voters and hand the nomination to Mr. Krishnamoorthi.
I watched a lot of ads and read the stands of the candidates, but I didn’t see anything that looked remotely like an attempt to split black voters (Stratton is black). What I did see were completely negative campaign ads, with every one of them mentioning the promoted candidates’ opposition to both Trump and ICE I guess it’s more effective to attack someone than to promote the positive things in your platform. (I think psychology has shown that.) And here’s what I saw:
Ms. Stratton, 60, will be heavily favored to win the general election in deep-blue Illinois, where no Republican has won a statewide election since 2014. She would be just the sixth Black woman to serve in the Senate, and her potential arrival could mean that three Black women serve together in the chamber for the first time in U.S. history.
She has spent most of her political career inside Mr. Pritzker’s orbit, having won election to a single term in the Illinois State House before he chose her to be his running mate in the 2018 election.
The primary in Illinois to fill the seat being vacated by Senator Richard J. Durbin, who is retiring after five terms, was defined early by personal animosity among the candidates and Mr. Pritzker.
And in the closing weeks, groups backing Mr. Krishnamoorthi and Ms. Stratton unleashed large amounts of spending on ads — with some Krishnamoorthi allies trying to elevate Ms. Kelly in an effort to tank Ms. Stratton.
The three candidates had no major policy differences, only degrees of separation. Mr. Krishnamoorthi pledged to “abolish Trump’s ICE,” Ms. Stratton said she would eliminate U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement entirely and Ms. Kelly introduced legislation to impeach Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary who was later fired by Mr. Trump.
It must be nice to be a shoo-in for the Senate, for I’d bet big bucks that Stratton beats whoever runs on the Republican side. Well, she’s not an AOC type of progressive, and for sure I’ll vote for her over whatever hapless Republican is chosen to lose.
A meteor exploded Tuesday morning north of Cleveland over Lake Erie.
The American Meteor Society received hundreds reports of a visible meteor from the Eastern Shore of Maryland to Kentucky; it was widely visible across Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and western New York state, too.
Though the meteor occurred during the daylight hours, it was bright enough to be seen for about 5½ seconds. Tens of thousands of people across northern Ohio heard a loud boom, and some people even felt the ground shake. That may have been the meteor’s sonic boom orthe sound of it actually exploding. A seismometer, or earthquake-measuring instrument, detected subtle shaking of the ground at 8:56 a.m. in Lorain County, Ohio.
. . .It’s too early to know the approximate size or trajectory of the meteor, or whether any fragments reached the ground.
This does happen from time to time, however. On Jan. 16, 2018, a meteor exploded over Michigan, producing shaking equivalent to that of a 1.8-magnitude earthquake. Fragments were found after the fact, and debris could even be seen on weather radars.
And here’s a news report showing several videos of the meteor:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili looks as if she doesn’t want Andrzej to be too skeptical. But look at that cute cat!
Hili: Careful, you’re losing your sense of proportion. Andrzej: In what?
Hili: In how suspiciously you examine reality.
In Polish:
Hili: Uważaj tracisz miarę.
Ja: W czym?
Hili: W podejrzliwym przyglądaniu się rzeczywistości.
Before some analysts in the West rush to rebrand him as a “moderate” or a “pragmatist,” it is important to establish who Esmail Khatib actually was.
I speak not as an observer, but as someone who has been arrested and interrogated by Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and who has… pic.twitter.com/ZvKoEXt1jd
Luana found this from the world’s wokest physicist. What does “non-trinary” mean for neutrinas. And who ever said the binary is “inherently natural” in the laws of the universe? The biological sex binary is an observation, not a law, but it happens to be true.
Taking a stand against nonbinary erasure, astrophysicist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein asserts: “Also, particles have non-binary features! Neutrinos are non-trinary! The binary is not somehow inherently natural to the laws of the universe!”
Two from my feed. First, the care taken with Israeli strikes:
Israel’s intelligence is next-level:
4 IRGC commanders in Lebanon tried to hide. They booked 15 hotel rooms under false names, and used only 1 room. They disabled all hotel security cameras.
All 4 were killed today with a single missile to their room. No hotel guest was harmed. pic.twitter.com/eD30rfEzng
That cat intentionally dives into a pile of puppies because it enjoys the attention; every living being wants to feel loved. 🐾pic.twitter.com/bkMaL3SLut
This French Jewish girl was gassed to death as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz (89% of her transport met the same fate). Arlette was three years old, and would be 87 today had she lived. https://t.co/I0ygwZfRNi
An an adorable wasp larvae. It even has a cute little face!
Meet the king of the Weird Little Guys, the Butternut Woollyworm (Eriocampa juglandis), native to North America.They're the larval form for a wasp-like sawfly & they secrete tufts of wooly substance from epidermal glands to aid in camouflage.All hail the king!(📷: Robert Gromotka)
We had an unexpected snowstorm last night, dropping less than an inch but still covering the ground, as it’s below freezing. Fortunately the weather has warmed up today.
Armon and Vashti were starving this morning because of the cold, and were waiting for me at the “feeding spot” at the north end of Botany Pond. They had a huge breakfast, and gave me the gift of their tracks in the snow. This is the only way I know they walk around on the ground when I’m not there.
I can’t get enough of Duck Tracks in the Snow. In fact, that would be a good title for a song. . .
Since I was in an upsetting kerfuffle with the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF, and I call the squabble “The KerFFRFle”), over which I resigned from its Honorary Board along with Steve Pinker and Richard Dawkins, I haven’t paid much attention to the organization. I do get their alerts, for they’re still doing good work in upholding the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, reinforcing the wall between church and state. Their condemnations, like the one I highlight here, don’t usually accomplish much, but their lawsuits or amicus briefs have been effective, and the FFRF does raise awareness about Constitutional violations. Yes, they are overly woke, which is why I resigned (see the first link), but that doesn’t mean that their overall effect is bad. It isn’t!
I noticed the other day that they’ve gone after New York City’s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who I see as both an antisemite and an Islamist. And by “Islamist” I mean a Muslim who is active in trying to make countries adopt Islam as part of their system of governance. In this case, Mamdani is mixing Islamic religious celebrations with city business: a violation of the First Amendment. I have little doubt that he would like the U.S. to become the Islamic Republic of America.
Click the screenshot below to read:
An excerpt:
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is again warning New York City’s mayor that the Constitution prohibits government officials from using the machinery of public office.
FFRF has sent its second letter in a couple of months to Mayor Zohran Mamdani after receiving a complaint from a New York City employee regarding a recent religious event organized through official city channels. The national state/church watchdog previously contacted Mamdani in February after he posted on the official New York City Mayor’s X account about participating in a suhoor meal and praying with Department of Sanitation workers during Ramadan. [JAC: he appears to have deleted the tweet, and if that’s the FFRF’s doing, good for them],
Despite that warning, FFRF has now learned that the mayor’s office held a “City Workers Iftar” on March 12 to “celebrate workers who keep New York City running while fasting.” The event notice was emailed to city employees by Interim Commissioner Melissa Hester and it noted that the event included a call to prayer.
A city employee who contacted FFRF observed that it is “completely inappropriate for a government agency to have a religious celebration.” The employee expressed concern that events like this may create the perception that the mayor’s office favors one religion and that employees attending city-sponsored events may be expected to participate in religious activities.
“While you are entitled to observe your faith in your personal capacity, the Constitution prohibits government officials from organizing, promoting or participating in religious exercises in their official roles,” FFRF Legal Counsel Chris Line writes to Mamdani. “Hosting a religious observance for city employees of one religion and facilitating a call to prayer through official government communications and personnel crosses the line between private religious expression and government-sponsored religious worship.”
FFRF emphasizes that city employees work under the authority of elected leadership, creating a dynamic where even “voluntary” religious events can carry implicit pressure. “Public employees should not be placed in a position where they may feel compelled to attend a religious event or appear supportive of a particular faith tradition to maintain favor with their employer,” the letter states.
I oppose Mamdani not only because of his Islamism and apparent antisemitism, but because he’s a faux Democrat, promising much but likely to deliver little. (See his latest gaffe on St. Patrick’s day!) And I worry that because the Democrats are so befuddled and besotted by “oppressor/victim” ideology (Mamdani, being a Muslim, is seen as “oppressed”), he will have a future in politics beyond being mayor. He could become a Congressman, though fortunately not President, as he wasn’t born in the U.S.
Anyway, be aware of what’s going on in NYC, and kudos to the FFRF.
Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “Minor 2” came with a note that it’s “a resurrection today, from the more innocent time of 2007.”
This is a good strip because it makes the point that the claims of many “standard” religions, when laid out in black and shown to someone who hasn’t been religious, seem just as silly as the claims of Scientology, which do involve Xenu, space travel, volcanoes, and hydrogen bombs. (They don’t tell that to novice Scientologists.) For example, Wikpedia lays out the beliefs of Scientology in its “Xenu” article:
Xenu (/ˈziːnuː/ZEE-noo), also called Xemu, is a figure in the Church of Scientology‘s secret “Advanced Technology”, an esoteric teaching held sacred by adherents. According to the “Technology”, Xenu was the extraterrestrial ruler of a “Galactic Confederacy” who brought billions of his people to Earth (then known as “Teegeeack”) in a DC-8-like spacecraft 75 million years ago, stacked them around volcanoes, and killed them with hydrogen bombs. Official Scientology scriptures hold that the thetans (immortal spirits) of these aliens adhere to humans, causing spiritual harm.
These events are known within Scientology as “Incident II”, and the traumatic memories associated with them as “The Wall of Fire” or “R6 implant“. The narrative of Xenu is part of Scientologist teachings about extraterrestrial civilizations and alien interventions in earthly events, collectively described as “space opera” by L. Ron Hubbard. Hubbard detailed the story in Operating Thetan level III (OT III) in 1967, warning that the “R6 implant” (past trauma) was “calculated to kill (by pneumonia, etc.) anyone who attempts to solve it”.
The Church of Scientology normally only reveals the Xenu story to members who have completed a lengthy sequence of courses costing large amounts of money. The church avoids mention of Xenu in public statements and has gone to considerable effort to maintain the story’s confidentiality, including legal action on the grounds of copyright and trade secrecy. Officials of the Church of Scientology widely deny or try to hide the Xenu story. Despite this, much material on Xenu has leaked to the public via court documents and copies of Hubbard’s notes that have been distributed through the Internet.
Scientology has done a lot to try to prevent its dictates from being known, but it’s too late. And those dictates are not that much sillier than the Christian myth of a scared Jesus who was God/Son of God, came to Earth, was killed, came back to life, and ascended to Heaven, with belief in this being helping you to have a pleasant eternal life rather than burning in hell. Every faith I know of, down to those of Cargo Cults, is based on irrational beliefs or unproven claims about the supernatural (some forms of Buddhism may be exceptions so long as they don’t belief in karma or successive rebirths).
Today I’m putting up an animal cam in lieu of Readers’ Wildlife Photos because I need to conserve the latter: I have only about two batches left. If you have some, send them in!
But this is one of the best animal cams I have seen, for it shows in real time a very rare animal: a brooding female kākāpō and her chick (Strigops habroptilus). This is the world’s only flightless parrot, and is found in New Zealand, where it evolved in the absence of mammalian predators. Now it’s highly endangered, with only a few hundred individuals left, but an intensive conservation effort by New Zealand is bringing them back. This effort includes putting all kākāpōs onto islands where potential predators birds have been removed. As Wikipedia notes,
The kākāpō is critically endangered; the total known population of living individuals is 236 (as of 2026). Known individuals are named, tagged and confined to four small New Zealand islands, all of which are clear of predators; however, in 2023, a reintroduction to mainland New Zealand (Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari) was accomplished. Introduced mammalian predators, such as cats, rats, ferrets, and stoats almost wiped out the kākāpō. All conservation efforts were unsuccessful until the Kākāpō Recovery Programme began in 1995.
Newsweek, via reader Ginger K, offers us a link to a live kakapo cam. This is the only such bird ever to be livestreamed with a cam, and here’s some information about the video below from Newsweek. I find the feed mesmerizing, and watched the female sleep for a while last night (it was day in New Zealand), sitting on her fluffy white chick and occasionally grooming herself and the chick.
Newsweek:
A quiet underground nest on a remote island off New Zealand’s coast is captivating viewers around the globe as the world’s largest parrot species is livestreamed.
The YouTube livestream, Kākāpō Cam, offers a continuous view inside the nest of Rakiura, a 24-year-old female kākāpō—one of just 236 left worldwide. Rakiura has been living beneath a rātā tree on Codfish Island, also known as Whenua Hou, off the country’s southern coast, where she hatched two chicks this breeding season.
Since January, the footage has offered unpolished, intimate glimpses of the nocturnal, flightless parrot. Rakiura shuffles in the nest, preens her green feathers, settles her body protectively over her chick, and occasionally leaves under the cover of darkness to forage before returning to feed. At times, the screen shows little movement at all—just the soft rise and fall of a bird resting, giving viewers a rare, real‑time look at a species most will never see in person.
“This is the only camera in a kākāpō nest this season, and the only nest we’ve ever streamed live,” Deidre Vercoe, operations manager for Kākāpō at New Zealand’s Department of Conservation (DOC), told Newsweek. “Kākāpō Cam provides insights that help guide us to support their recovery, while also giving people around the world a chance to connect with this incredible species.”
. . .While most female kākāpō choose new nesting spots each breeding cycle, Vercoe said Rakiura has returned to the same site every season—allowing conservationists to reinforce the nest and carefully plan a reliable camera setup months in advance through the DOC’s Kākāpō Recovery team.
Hands‑on fieldwork began in October 2025 and will continue for most of the year, involving around 30 DOC staff, specialist support teams and 105 volunteers, each donating two weeks of their time.
The team also added drainage and a small access hatch to protect eggs and chicks without disturbing her natural behavior.
The camera was first trialed during the 2022 breeding season, but this year’s stream went live in time to capture egg‑laying and hatching for the first time.
Rakiura successfully hatched two genetically important chicks on February 24 and March 2, though the older one was later transferred to a foster mother so she could focus on raising the remaining chick, Nora‑A2‑2026, now the star of the livestream. The team will check on the chick every three days until it is one month old.
Okay, enough information. Watch below live NOW. If mother Rakiura is out, you’ll still see the chick. When I put this up at 8:15 a.m. Chicago time, it will be 2:15 a.m. in New Zealand, and it looks like mom is still sleeping. Watch from time to time so you can see the chick. She’s very solicitous of it and grooms it often.
Lagniappe: a tweet on this season, a great one for baby parrots, from New Zealand Conservation
And one of the best animal videos ever: a male kākāpō, Sirocco, shagging biologist Mark Carwardine while Stephen Fry looks on and narrates. This was from the BBC show “Last Chance to See,” about endangered species:
When I went to New Zealand a while back, I really wanted to see these birds, but you really can’t: you need a good reason to get to the islands where kākāpō are kept. To do that, you have to be somehow involved in their conservation. You can volunteer to live on the island for several months and help monitor the birds, but that’s a big commitment just to see them. However, if you want to help save them, you can donate here.
Welcome to a hump day (“Горб кече” in Meadow Mari): Wednesday March 18, 2026, and National Sloppy Joe Day. I love them (a vmore hamburger-y version in the Midwest is often called “loosemeats”), but haven’t had one for years. It was a staple of cafeteria school lunches when I was young. Here’s one with coleslaw:
National Lacy Oatmeal Cookie Day celebrates lacy oatmeal cookies, commonly known as lace oatmeal cookies. They differ from regular oatmeal cookies in two ways: they are particularly thin cakes, similar to wafers, and they are often topped with Sorbet or ice cream.
Oatmeal cookies, which are healthy but not tasty, are the rhubarb pies of cookies. And they’re even worse when they put raisins in them (another desperate attempt to make a healthy cookie).
Oh, and there’s a Google Doodle put up yesterday celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. Click below to see where it goes:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the March 18 Wikipedia page.
Paul R. Ehrlich, an eminent ecologist and population scientist whose best-selling book, “The Population Bomb,” was celebrated as a prescient warning of a coming age of food shortages and famine but later criticized by conservatives and academic rivals for what they called its sky-is-falling rhetoric, died on Friday in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 93.
His death, at a nursing facility in the retirement community where he lived, was caused by complications of cancer, his daughter, Lisa Marie Daniel, said.
As a young professor of biology at Stanford University in the mid-1960s, Dr. Ehrlich was known for his absorbing lectures on evolution, in which he described what plants and animals faced on a planet stressed by industrial pollution and rapid population growth. He distilled those lectures into an article published in December 1967 in New Scientist magazine.
Six months later, encouraged by David Brower, the executive director of the environmental group the Sierra Club, to write a book on the subject, Dr. Ehrlich published “The Population Bomb.” In 233 pages, he asserted that the planet’s condition began to deteriorate rapidly in the 1950s, when the rate of population growth exceeded the increase in food production — or, as he put it, when “the stork passed the plow.” He called on couples to limit their families to one or two children.
Witty, knowledgeable and not at all reticent, Dr. Ehrlich gained a huge audience on television, especially on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” which he appeared on roughly 20 times. His forecast of food riots in the United States and of imminent global famines caused by escalating population growth found a worldwide readership.
One of the best-selling nonfiction books about the environment to date, “The Population Bomb” sold three million copies and transformed Dr. Ehrlich, who was 37 at the time, into one of the global environmental movement’s most recognized leaders. His influence motivated international governments to convene conferences on controlling population, and his message was heard in private homes across the industrialized world as couples conceived fewer children.
Dr. Ehrlich expanded on his thesis in “The End of Affluence” (1974), which he wrote with his wife, Anne H. Ehrlich, who wrote or edited 15 books with him. The book forecast a “nutritional disaster” in the 1970s, predicting that “before 1985, mankind will enter a genuine age of scarcity.”
Ehrlich was a good scientist (he studied butterflies) who became The Chicken Little of Biology, and perhaps in love with his fame. His predictions of overpopulations and famine were not met, but perhaps for reasons he couldn’t predict. Here’s an op-ed in the LA Times (click to read; you’ll have to block ads):
An excerpt from the LAT article:
Perhaps the most remarkable thing is not that Ehrlich turned out to be so wildly wrong, but that he was so obviously wrong from the beginning. My old boss Ben Wattenberg battled Ehrlich throughout the 1970s and 1980s. His feud began with a 1970 article for the New Republic titled, “The Nonsense Explosion,” in which Wattenberg explained that even as Ehrlich was writing about soaring birthrates, birthrates were already declining.
Ehrlich’s defenders — and they are legion — argue that he was a true prophet in that prophets issue apocalyptic warnings that, if heeded, can be avoided. This is more nonsense. He said mass “die-offs” were unavoidable with even the best policies, and the anti-growth fads he supported largely made things worse.
Simply put, his pessimism was simply too big to fail.
*War news. Israel says it’s targeted and killed two important figures: Ali Larijani, an important official in running Iran since the death of the Ayatollah and the injury of his son, and Gholamreza Soleimani, the head of the Basij (Iran’s plainclothed police who killed so many protestors in January).
Iran’s top security official and the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ volunteer force were killed in overnight strikes in Iran, Israeli officials said Tuesday, claiming to have eliminated two of Tehran’s most senior remaining officials.
Ali Larijani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, and Gholamreza Soleimani, commander of the Basij, were “eliminated” in strikes overnight, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement.
Iranian authorities did not immediately comment on the strikes or Israel’s claims. A post on Larijani’s X feed appeared to show a handwritten tribute to Iranian Navy servicemen ahead of their funeral this week, but it was not clear when it was written.
Larijani’s death would mark one of the highest-level assassinations of Iranian officials since the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a strike on his Tehran compound on the first day of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.
The military campaign has decimated Iran’s political and military leadership, destroyed critical infrastructure and damaged civilian buildings, but the weakened Iranian regime maintains its grip on power and has stifled shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, sending oil prices spiking.
The Israel Defense Forces also announced the deaths in separate statements Tuesday, saying Larijani was killed in an airstrike near Tehran. Iran’s “de facto leader” led national security coordination across the country, including the repression of anti-government protesters, the IDF said.
Larijani had recently shared photos and videos that appeared to show him in Tehran on Friday for a march marking Quds Day, a day of solidarity with Palestinians held on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.
Here’s the WaPo diagram of the government hierarchy of Iran and those who have been eliminated (click to enlarge). They really need to know the proper meaning of “decimated,” which has come to mean “destroying everyone/every thing” instead of its original meaning.
That’s pretty good striking, but how does Israel know Iranian leaders are dead before Iran even confirms it? Spies? Those without “killed” labels should be shaking in their slippers. At any rate, the regime is not collapsing yet and I’m scared to think that this war will end like the one in Gaza, with many of the oppressors still in power. (Hams still controls a lot of Gaza with its armed goons patrolling the streets).
Despite more than two weeks of relentless airstrikes, U.S. intelligence assessments say, Iran’s regime likely will remain in place for now, weakened but more hard-line, with the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps security forces exerting greater control.
The United States and Israel have significantly degraded Iran’s missile capability and navy, removed the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and wiped out scores of top military and intelligence leaders. But the war’s costs are mounting — at least $12 billion so far and 13 U.S. troops killed. Iran’s viselike grip on the Strait of Hormuz has slowed shipping traffic to a trickle, creating a historic oil disruption.
Western officials and analysts who study Iran said they see little near-term prospect of a “regime change” end to the 47-year-old Islamic republic or the rise of a more democratic government. The latter is a goal cited by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and sometimes by President Donald Trump, who has said he’ll know the war is over “when I feel it in my bones.”
U.S. intelligence assessments issued since the war began predict Iran’s regime will remain intact and possibly even emboldened, believing it stood up to Trump and survived, according to two people familiar with the assessments, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity. U.S. Arab allies in the Persian Gulf, meanwhile, are angered and alarmed at being the targets of retaliatory barrages of Iranian ballistic missiles and drones.
One European official said the likeliest postwar scenario is a “rump IRGC regime” in Tehran that will retain some nuclear and missile capability as well as the support of regional proxies, though the regime will be “degraded enough that we’re in a better place than we were.”
Trump has been receiving “very sobering briefings” on the U.S. intelligence, said one of the two people familiar with the assessments. And he was told of the likelihood of a more entrenched IRGC before he gave the go-ahead to jointly launch the war with Israel, this person said.
“It wasn’t just predictable,” they said. “It was predicted. He was told in advance.”
He got the predictions, and they might be right or they might be wrong. Nobody knows what will happen save that we have at least several other weeks of war ahead of us. In the meantime, I wonder what the good people of Iran are thinking and feeling now that they haven’t yet been liberated, and perhaps never will be. But note that one by one, the leadership is being eliminated. What will happen when there’s not enough left to “consolidate”?
Last month in Toronto, at one of the largest synagogues in North America, I stood in the back of a dimly lit auditorium and listened to law expert Natasha Hausdorff speak at length about Israel, antisemitism, and threats to Jewish life in Canada. To attend the event, guests had to pass through a police checkpoint, wait in freezing temperatures to get an entry badge, and then go through metal detectors. The venue was teeming with security both inside and out.
This has become the norm in Canada, and for good reason. Just weeks later, that same synagogue, along with two others in the city, was riddled with bullets. Then, in what police are calling a “national security incident,” two suspects shot at the U.S. consulate in Toronto, leading to beefed-up protection for U.S. and Israeli diplomatic buildings in the city.
The question many Jewish Canadians are now asking is, how long before we experience our own Tree of Life or Bondi Beach attack? Virtually everywhere I turn, Jews in Canada are not only wondering whether this country can remain our home, but if it’s ever truly been ours to begin with.
. . . . Yet, since the terrorist attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023, that has been turned on its head, and the expectation of Jews for safety, security, and acceptance in Canada now feels like a shattered illusion. There are no warning sirens alerting us to run to bomb shelters like in Israel, but we live with a general unease that comes with isolation and a growing sense of abandonment and betrayal. Jews in Canada have been forced to recognize that, making up just one percent of the population, they are no less a minority than their ancestors were in Kishinev, Baghdad, or Kielce, and now may face the kinds of threats that drove Jews away from the places that they once called home.
According to a report published by B’nai Brith Canada in April 2025, there were 6,219 antisemitic incidents in Canada in 2024, or an average of about 17 incidents of harassment, vandalism, and violence per day, or nearly one incident an hour for every hour of the year. Data released by Statistics Canada confirms the severity of the situation, showing that between 2020 and 2024, antisemitic hate crimes in Canada nearly tripled.
At the time of writing, it is not yet mid-March, and already 22 antisemitic incidents have been reported in Toronto alone, accounting for nearly 65 percent of all hate crime reports in the city. In addition to multiple shootings of synagogues, numerous Jewish-owned businesses in Montreal were recently vandalized with antisemitic graffiti, and earlier this year in Winnipeg, Manitoba, a synagogue and childcare center were spray-painted with swastikas and other hate symbols.
A bit more:
Heather McPherson, a sitting Member of Parliament, is sponsoring a petition asking the current government of Canada to investigate Canadian citizens who have served in the IDF—effectively including almost all immigrants from Israel, where military service is mandatory—on suspicion that they may have committed war crimes.
There are also the weekly demonstrations across the country, veiled as Palestinian activism, which often include vile antisemitic content and images reminiscent of Nazi Germany, calls for Jews to “go back to Poland,” direct threats to “Zionists,” and a wide range of libels used to vilify Jews and Israel. Virtually none of this is considered a “hate crime” here, yet it all fuels a deep and growing sense of seclusion, helplessness, and alienation.
From coast to coast, demonizing and targeting Jews has become so normalized that large swaths of the Jewish community are beginning to retreat inward.
The situation in Canada has become so dire for Jews that Iddo Moed, Israel’s ambassador to Canada, recently described the country as one of the world’s leading “centers of antisemitism.”
You could tell similar stories about Belgium and Spain, and to a lesser extent France. Nobody loves the Jews, or, as Dara Horn said in her book, they love only the dead ones.
*Here’s a video of Barbra Steisand, now 83, paying tribute—and offering a bit of singing—to Robert Redford at the Oscars on Sunday. Redford died last September at 89. I love Babs, one of the two greatest female pop singers of my lifetime (the other was Karen Carpenter), as well as a great actor and director. Redford was, in my view, the handsomest actor of our era, and also a very good one. They starred together in only one movie, “The Way We Were”, a romantic tearjerker from 1973. The song she sang at the Oscars. written by Marvin Hamlisch, was the theme of that movie theme (original release here). Her voice has gone, but what do you expect at that age? She retired from singing long ago, but managed to come up with a tune for this tribute.
The final bittersweet scene, when Hubbell (Redford) meets ex-wife Katie (Streisand) in front of New York’s Plaza Hotel, where Katie is demonstrating to ban the bomb. They haven’t seen each other for years, have a sad, extended goodbye, and slip out of each other’s lives. If you look into the dictionary under “handsome”, you’ll see Redford’s picture.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili plays Galileo:
Hili: And yet it moves. Andrzej: Some are still not sure.
In Polish:
Hili: A jednak się kręci.
Ja: Niektórzy nadal nie są pewni.
*******************
From Jesus of the Day, with the caption, “While many are feeling green and rather drunk, I prefer St Gertrude of Nivelles,patron of cats and gardeners.” ” St. Gertrude died on St. Patrick’s day in 659, aged 30 or 31, and the cat attribution is a bit questionable.
From Masih. The gang-rape of nurses appears to be true (see here and here). Not a good look for Starmer:
A Sky News editor and representatives of prime Minister of UK @Keir_Starmer’s government attended a party at the Iran’s regime embassy in London celebrating the anniversary of the Islamic Republic. On the same days the regime’s security forces stormed a hospital and gang-raped… pic.twitter.com/GnImr8JwL3
I can’t remember where I found this, but it’s very sad. I wonder what will happen to the soccer players who tried to defect and then decided to go back home. Iran was horrible enough to arrest their families just to get lure them back in the country.
Just so people understand what happened here:
These women claimed asylum because they were likely to be tortured and killed for a gesture standing up to the regime. The regime then started kidnapping their families instead to force them to come home and face likely execution. https://t.co/vPlEVc0jsC
Matthew says this is the third Guardian article about Colossal in the last year. Is the paper credulous?
I can see every ancient DNA scientist in the world currently cringing about @itiscolossal.bsky.social scientists' lack of gloves when sampling moa bones 🤦♂️ http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026…
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