Welcome to a Hump Day (“Haftanın Ortası” in Turkish): Wednesday, April 1. Don’t worry, I’m not going to fool you even though it’s April Fools’ Day. Instead, I’ll show below the lovely April page from the fifteenth-century Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, showing elegant people at The Château de Dourdan.  A University of Chicago site describing the depictions says this about the page:

The arrival of spring, hope and new life – the grass is green and a newly betrothed couple are exchanging rings in the foreground, accompanied by friends and family. The chateau is another one of the Duc’s, that of Dourdan.

You can see what remains of the château in this article.

It’s also Holy Wednesday, National Sourdough Bread Day, National One Cent Day (but the pennies are gone! Bring ’em back!), Poetry and the Creative Mind Day, National Trombone Players Day, and, most important, Atheist Day (who is the one atheist they’re celebrating? Let us raise a glass and a middle finger to all those blockheads who tell us that New Atheism is dead).  And don’t forget that Passover begins at sundown tonight. Stock up on matzos while you can.

Here’s a short video of my favorite jazz trombonist, Jack Teagarden, playing “Basin Street Blues” with his band:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the April 1 Wikipedia page.

And there’s a Google Doodle today marking the expected launch of the Artemis 2 crewed moon-circling voyage, expected to launch at about 6:24 Eastern US time today. The mission has a two-hour luanch window with backup windows through April 6. The mission will last ten days.  Click below to see where the Doodle takes you:

A notice: AT 85, Richard Dawkins refuses to slow down. He’s traveling to both New Zealand and Australia in November, and his schedule is below. Click on the screenshot to go to the page where you can buy tickets:

Da Nooz:

*Yesterday’s war news from It’s Noon in Israel, called “The IDF’s accidental game changer.”

It’s Tuesday, March 31, and the thirty-second day of Operation Roaring Lion. The global price of oil has reached $113, up less than one percent since yesterday. Here are the latest developments while you were asleep:

• Last night, Donald Trump shared a clip of a massive strike on Isfahan on social media. According to Ynet’s Ron Ben-Yishai, what initially appeared to be a strike on ballistic missiles may have in fact been the burial of enriched uranium deep underground in a way that will prevent the Iranians from accessing it. The U.S., it seems, has given up on prolonged ground action that would also entail many casualties.
• According to the AP Lebanon has requested that Ukraine’s embassy in Beirut hand over a Syrian-Palestinian man with Ukrainian citizenship suspected of working for the Mossad. The man was originally detained by Hezbollah in September after allegedly parking a motorbike rigged with an explosive device near Beirut airport. He escaped to the Ukrainian embassy on March 6 after an Israeli airstrike on an adjacent building gave him an avenue of escape.
• Four soldiers from the Nahal Reconnaissance Unit were killed yesterday evening after their force engaged terrorist cells in close-range combat in southern Lebanon. Capt. Noam Madmoni, 22, from Sderot, was the team commander. Sgt. Maj. Ben Cohen, 21, was from Lehavim; Sgt. Maj. Maksim Antis, 21, was from Bat Yam; and Staff Sgt. Gilad Harel, 21, was from Modi’in-Maccabim-Re’ut all fell in the engagement. IDF fatalities rise to 11.
• Internal Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s law supposedly mandating the death penalty for terrorists convicted of deadly attacks passed the Knesset 62–48 last night. In reality, the law achieves little and is more a political stunt than a meaningful step toward the implementation of capital punishment.

Now, on to the details.

“If you had a time machine,” I ask the senior Israeli minister, “and you knew a month ago that this is what would happen, would you still vote in favor of war?”

“First of all, yes,” he replies. “You have to understand, this was a cold and calculated gamble. The Iranians were planning to move their entire nuclear and missile industry underground, in a way that would have made it nearly impenetrable. In any case, we would have attacked this year—but with the Americans by our side, there was no dilemma.”

“The main achievements of the war are the severe damage to ballistic missiles and their production. This time, after hitting the entire production chain, it will be much harder for them to recover.”

“It’s also worth remembering,” the official added, “that for years, the nightmare scenario in Israel was a multi-front war with hundreds of casualties on the home front. Last year, in ‘Rising Lion,’ in 12 days of war against Iran alone, there were 30 fatalities. Now, in a war with three times as many fronts and three times as many enemies, there are 20. What is that if not proof that ‘Rising Lion’ was not in vain—and neither was ‘Roaring Lion’?”

. . .According to IDF intelligence, the regime’s political leadership now believes there is no way to repair the war damage; Iran simply lacks sufficient funds.

It reportedly has broken the spirit of many in the regime. The assessment is that, given a prolonged economic recovery after the war that will inevitably consume the vast majority of state budgets, massive protests will erupt.

It appears that Trump is reading the same intelligence, which may explain why the threats in his ultimatums have shifted from military targets to the gray area of civilian/military infrastructure, specifically Iran’s energy and oil facilities.

Still, as the minister told me regarding regime change at the outset of the war, “there were more optimistic and less optimistic assessments, but no one could guarantee that while bombs were falling on Tehran, the masses would take to the streets. There is no doubt that the war has brought the regime closer to its end—but I cannot tell you whether that will happen before Trump finishes his term, or before Netanyahu finishes his.”

I suspect we all want a regime change in favor of more democracy, but it’s certain that we differ in whether we think that will ever happen. I don’t think the people will take to the streets so long as the government threatens to kill them if they do, and that is still an active threat.

*Given that the negotiating positions of Iran and the U.S. are far apart, and apparently widening, the Free Press prepares us for what’s to come in a piece called, “The Battle of Hormuz Approaches.”

. . .And should it refuse to agree to terms acceptable to Trump, the president could conceivably attempt to declare victory while leaving Iran with de facto control of the Strait of Hormuz and in possession of its “nuclear dust,” as he likes to put it. But after all his past rhetoric about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the idea of allowing Iran to retain a nuclear stockpile will be a hard sell—and leaving Tehran in effective control of the Strait is simply not strategically feasible. After all this, the Iranians would retain the ability to torture the global economy with mischievous glee.

Enter the Marines—and elements of the 82nd Airborne Division plus, reportedly, Army Rangers and Navy SEALs. The exact numbers of elite American ground troops being sent to the region are only beginning to come into focus, and we could see a head count in the five figures in the days to come. This is not enough troops to “invade Iran” in the sense that we invaded Iraq in 2003. It is not even enough to seize and hold terrain on the Iranian mainland for more than a limited period of time, even given conditions of near–air dominance.

But islands are a different story. The principal goal of a battle to control the Strait of Hormuz and its flanking seas will be to flip the current economic situation, where the world’s commercial traffic is restricted while Iran’s flows with few obstacles. Iran should have to fight for its economic life, while the world gets to use the Strait for free commerce.

It would be preferable, for political reasons, to accomplish such a task through air and sea power alone. It is possible that military planners have no intention of putting these troops in combat in the Gulf, and the deployments to the region are simply to provide options for emergency scenarios, or are in service of a potential raid targeting nuclear sites on the Iranian mainland. But military planners may have concluded that the Iranians must be denied the use of terrain that they have been using to control maritime traffic in the Strait, and that they need boots on the ground to accomplish that. Larak Island, a piece of rock and sand that in recent weeks has gained the nickname of the “Tehran toll booth” due to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) reported use of it to manage the Strait, is an obvious potential target. Nearby Qeshm Island is also strategically relevant to the movement of traffic, but quite large, and putting troops there would run greater risks than seizing smaller islands like Larak. And there are numerous other small pieces of land relevant to questions of sea control: Abu Musa, Lesser Tunb, and Greater Tunb to the west, and Hormuz Island itself at the top of the Strait.

There’s also Kharg Island, but destroying or attacking that could have substantial effects on world oil prices, as Kharg is the principal exit point of Iranian oil.  More:

. . .Such ground deployments, should they occur, would supplement a broader naval and air campaign to reassert control of the waters stretching from Kuwait to the Arabian Sea—a major undertaking for any navy. And while the risks to American forces doing limited ground operations on islands would be less than those for operations on the Iranian mainland, there would still be very significant risks.

It is not clear that our military has yet learned the lessons of warfare being taught in Ukraine since 2022. That we are slow students is most apparent in our unpreparedness for defending economically against cheap Iranian drones, with which we can be sure any troops fighting in the Gulf will be targeted. (This, despite the fact that the drones being used by Russians in Ukraine originated in Iran.) The failure to be attentive students, tied to an ideologically driven dismissiveness of the cause of Ukraine and an arrogant belief that we will just fight differently (and better) than the Ukrainians—an oft-encountered view in the Pentagon—may not look so defensible in hindsight.

The advantages of a successful Battle of Hormuz would be the restoration of regular shipping through the Strait and some calming of markets, plus the reduction of Iranian revenue to the point where it is hard to see how the regime could survive in the middle to long run. The best-case outcome is an Iran so weakened that it can no longer cause America and its allies strategic dilemmas as we (finally? maybe?) shift our focus to China.

. . .The disadvantages of even a successful fight are that it could be costly, could produce casualties, and could have a protracted tail—the escort operation to keep the Strait of Hormuz open in the 1980s lasted over a year. And there remains the question of what to do about Iran’s nuclear stockpiles, buried deeply in the interior of the country, the military options for which are even riskier than anything involved in operating along Iran’s coast.

You can see why President Trump would prefer a deal.

To me, a deal that leaves the present Iranian regime (or even part of it) in power is not a successful outcome to the war. And I suspect Trump knows that. But what do I know: I’m just a humble country biologist, not a political pundit.

*Speaking of negotiations, Iran is denying virtually everything Trump has said about negotiations.

The United States is in direct talks with Iranian leaders over terms for ending the war, including exchanges with parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Ghalibaf, President Donald Trump said Monday.

Asked if Ghalibaf was someone the U.S. could work with, Trump said in an interview with the New York Post, “We’re gonna find out … in about a week.”

In a flurry of claims over the past two days, Trump also said that Tehran has agreed to many of the 15 demands he transmitted last week through Pakistani mediators.

. . .Iran denied virtually all of Trump’s assertions. There have been no “direct” talks, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said Monday in Tehran, only messages sent through intermediaries. He described U.S. demands, which include an end to Iran’s uranium enrichment program, the surrender of more than 900 pounds of highly enriched material and strict limits on ballistic missiles, as “very excessive, unrealistic and irrational.”

In a social media post, Ghalibaf, who has previously denied reports that he was speaking to the U.S., derided the president’s claims as “so-called ‘news’ or ‘Truth’” and “just a setup” to lower the rising cost of oil.

Amid widely disparate accounts of who is talking to whom about what, both sides have begun targeting each other’s energy facilities in a significant escalation of the conflict. Iranian strikes hit Israel’s largest oil refinery in Haifa early Monday, while Iran acknowledged Sunday night attacks on its electricity grid that temporarily disrupted power in Tehran and nearby areas.

As Trump continued to weave between threats to extend the war and reassurances that it was close to ending, he said in a Monday morning post on his Truth Social platform that “great progress” had been achieved in “serious discussions” with a new, “more reasonable” collection of leaders in Iran.

But if a deal was not reached “shortly” and the Strait of Hormuz was not opened, he threatened, “we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet ‘touched.’” Kharg Island, off the Iranian coast in the Persian Gulf, is Iran’s main oil shipping terminal.

Trump’s view that there is a pressure point at which Iran will capitulate is not universally shared.

Intelligence analysts have assessed that Iran’s view is that it has the upper hand in the conflict and therefore is not likely to respond to U.S. threats of force, said two people familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive information. The president has been briefed on that assessment, one of the people said.

As I said, I’m no pundit, but I think the war will go on so long as Iran has the enriched uranium, controls the Strait of Hormuz, and murderous theocrats are in power. He may ignore the last one, but he’s made very strong statements about the first two, and he’d look bad if he ended the war before they were resolved. I say this on the basis of Trump carrying not about what’s right, but about his own reputation.

*For some indiscernible reason, Trump, feeling his oats, is trying to destroy Cuba, largely by denying it oil.  On Monday, however, he allowed one measly oil tanker to bring about 730,00 barrels of oil to Cuba, which won’t much alleviate the tremendous hardships experienced by the Cuban people.

The United States Coast Guard is allowing a Russian tanker full of crude oil to reach Cuba, delivering a critical supply of energy to the island nation after months of an effective oil blockade by the Trump administration, according to a U.S. official briefed on the matter.

The tanker, which is carrying an estimated 730,000 barrels of oil and is owned by the Russian government, was within several miles of Cuban territorial waters on Sunday evening, according to MarineTraffic, a ship-data provider. At its speed of 12 knots, it could reach its expected destination of Matanzas, Cuba, by Monday night.

The Russian ship’s arrival would shift the trajectory of a rapidly accelerating crisis in Cuba, buying the island nation at least a few weeks before its fuel reserves run out, analysts said.

It would also reduce pressure on a Cuban government facing a looming economic collapse and escalating threats from Washington, and show that, at least for now, the island can still depend on its longtime ally Russia.

The Trump administration had been enforcing what amounted to an oil blockade around Cuba since January, threatening nations that had been sending fuel to the country and, in one case, escorting a tanker heading toward Cuba away from the island.

The Coast Guard has two cutters in the region that could have attempted to intercept the Russian tanker. Yet the Trump administration did not order those vessels to act, according to a U.S. official briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operations. Barring orders instructing it otherwise, the Coast Guard planned to let the tanker reach Cuba as of Sunday afternoon, the official said.

Cuba is in big trouble, and one tanker is not going to solve it. The country needs a continuous infusion of oil, and almost certainly will have to capitulate to Trump, even becoming a democracy, without that infusion.  I hope that is the case, for Cuba is full of good people under a bad regime.  But one has to ask what right Trump has to keep trying to effect regime change in country after country (he failed in Venezuela).  Cuba would be transformed if it were a democracy, but of course it would be transformed into a Caribbean vacation paradise, with all the charm it has ruined by tourism. But the people should be able to decide themselves what happens to their country.

*A federal judge has halted Trump’s construction of a huge ballroom on the site of the now-destroyed East Wing of the White House.

A federal judge ordered a halt to construction of President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom, ruling that Trump lacks authority to fund the estimated $400 million project through private donations.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon disagreed with the Trump administration’s argument that the president has broad authority to make changes to the White House without congressional approval, including projects on the scale of his planned, 90,000-square-foot ballroom.

“The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner!” Leon wrote in a 35-page ruling issued Tuesday afternoon.

“No statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims to have,” he wrote.

Leon, an appointee of President George W. Bush, also wrote that Trump has not identified a law that allowed him to demolish the White House’s East Wing last year without congressional approval.

He stayed his order for two weeks and ruled crews could continue construction necessary to ensure the safety and security of the White House.

Within hours, the Trump administration notified the court it would appeal Leon’s decision, which the White House called “egregious.”

“President Trump clearly has the legal authority to modernize, renovate, and beautify the White House – just like all of his predecessors did,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement, adding: “We … are confident we will prevail.”

And, according to the news last night, Trump isn’t just going to clean up the site until Congress weighs in: he’s going to keep the construction going:

Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump told reporters that Leon was “so wrong” for ruling that the ballroom needed congressional approval. He suggested that many parts of the project would move forward, such as the ballroom’s bulletproof glass and anti-drone installations on the roof, citing Leon’s decision that the White House could proceed on efforts to ensure safety and security.

“I’m allowed to continue building as necessary,” Trump said. He also attacked the group that brought the lawsuit, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, on social media.

So who’s going to stop him now? The Supreme Court?  According to his demented interpretation of the law, he could destroy and rebuild the entire White House (no doubt putting “TRUMP” in big letters over the door) if he so wished.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has criticisms of the EU:

Hili: The State of Palestine nominated the European Union for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Andrzej: For what?
Hili: Formally for the obligation to attach caps to cartons of milk and other beverages, contributing to the preservation of the Earth and peace worldwide.

In Polish:

Hili: Państwo Palestyna wysunęło kandydaturę Unii Europejskiej do Pokojowej Nagrody Nobla.
Ja: Za co?
Hili: Fromalnie za ustawę o obowiązkowym  przymocowaniu zakrętek do kartonów z mlekiem i innymi napojami, co przyczynia się do ratowania Ziemi i pokoju na całym świecie.

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

From Now That’s Wild:

From Give Me a Sign:

From Jesus of the Day:

And from Norm. Clearly the Jews are the ones responsible for making gas prices go up! This was reportedly seen in Ohio, and appears to be real. Look at that schnoz!

Masih shows five more Iranian protestors set for execution:

The regime’s execution machine has sped up and is rapidly executing innocent prisoners.
With every additional day the terrorist regime stays in power, more people are executed and tortured.
In recent days, many people have been executed.

Five Iranian protesters sentenced to… pic.twitter.com/RikEFmsB45

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) March 31, 2026

Luana contributes one highlight from the recent convention in Winnipeg of Canada’s New Democratic Party (NDP). I’ve watched some of the convention, mostly with my jaw hanging open. To read more about how a party for workers has been taken over by wokers, see the Quillette article, “The tragicomic death throes of Canada’s (former) workers’ party” (article archived here).

Currently in Taiwan, my favourite country on earth, thinking about how 16 years ago I made the decision to leave here and immigrate to a nation balanced on a precipice, about to plunge into total clown land and make itself an international laughing stock.
pic.twitter.com/fk8TRlk5dD

— Mia Hughes (@_CryMiaRiver) March 30, 2026

From Emma; “NGL” means “not gonna lie”. And you probably heard about the theft of 12 tons of KitKat bars somewhere between Italy and Poland. (What are the thieves going to do with them?)

NGL, I expected this to end in KitKats. https://t.co/JhT7mgwXZN

— Emma Hilton (@FondOfBeetles) March 31, 2026

Larry the Cat is clearly no fan of Trump:

Translation:
“I started something I can’t finish and broke something I can’t fix so I’m going to walk away and pretend it’s your fault” pic.twitter.com/mdd0aXwNCC

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) March 31, 2026

One from my feed. I love quokkas (a marsupial), though I’ve never seen one:

Translation:
“I started something I can’t finish and broke something I can’t fix so I’m going to walk away and pretend it’s your fault” pic.twitter.com/mdd0aXwNCC

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) March 31, 2026

One I retweeted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

A pair of Dutch twin girls, Jewish of course, were gassed to death as soon as they arrived in Auschwitz. They were fourteen years old. https://t.co/yNSCMZfTuG

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) April 1, 2026

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb, still on hols. First, a book he recommended that I read (I don’t think he read it, but we’re both interested in the Amelia Earhart story:

What happened to Amelia Earhart? New book takes on the case.. Rachel Hartigan on her eminently readable new book, "Lost: Amelia Earhart’s Three Mysterious Deaths and One Extraordinary Life." arstechnica.com/science/2026…

— Jennifer Ouellette (@jenlucpiquant.bsky.social) 2026-03-30T13:46:37.291Z

This reminds me of a human log-rolling contest. Poor turtles!

Please enjoy the two minute crucible that is this turtle trying to get on to a log that other turtles are on.

— Chris Person (@papapishu.bsky.social) 2026-03-30T02:25:51.520Z

As usual, I watched the NBC Evening News last night, even though some of its reporting has seemed slanted against Israel.  Since I wrote about the Guardian article yesterday, though, I’ve become more sensitized to how the media uses language to express political opinions—even in supposedly objective news reports.

Here’s a video showing all the NBC Evening News from last night, but you don’t have to watch it all unless you want to see bodycam video of a clearly inebriated Justin Timberlake being arrested for DUI (17:05).  The part that made me prick up my ears is at 4:07, when the news shows cute little Lebanese Muslim kids getting presents at the end of Ramadan. But they are not in their homes.  The narration says this (bolding is mine):

While across the Muslim world, the end of Ramadan means presents for children.  These kids are among the one million people displaced in Lebanon by Israel’s expanding offensive against Hezbollah.

The rest of the short segment seems designed to evoke the viewers’ sympathy for Lebanese people—especially the kids—displaced by the wicked Jewish state.  And indeed, it’s sad that people have to flee their homes. HOWEVER, the report neglects to mention that there had been a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah that largely held until March 2 of this year. Then, on March 2, three days after the U.S. and Israel struck Iran, Hezbollah in fired a barrage of missiles and drones from Lebanon at northern Israel, explicitly saying that this was in response to the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and what Hezbollah called were “repeated Israeli aggressions” (there were minor attacks by both sides during the ceasefire, with UNIFIL and the Lebanese government failing to rein in Hezbollah, as they are supposed to. Israel responded big time, but to construe that as an “expanding offensive” minimizes the defensive nature of Israel’s attacks, designed to stop Hezbollah’s rockets and drones for once and for all.

Again, it’s a small remark, but a telling one. “Expanding offensive” implies that Israel started the attacks in Lebanon going on now.  It didn’t, just as Israel didn’t start the war with Hamas on October 7.

But at the end you might want to see the inevitable “there’s-good-news-tonight” segment (several nice pieces starting at 18:05, with an especially moving bit at 19:54 as a woman is assigned to take the final call from an Air Force officer as he leaves the military—an officer who happens to be her dad).    As the world is falling apart, nearly all the major television news stations like to leave viewers with a good taste in their mouths.

I’m not sure who Frederick Alexander is, but he’s written an intriguing article at The Gadfly (click below to read for free)

Alexander lists five types of “progressives”, and although their characteristics are distinct, he avers that their natures interlock to reinforce “progressivism”, which he sees, as most of us do, as performative wokeness that serves as a form of virtue signaling.  And yes, two of the subspecies really believe the ideology. I’ll give the five types (indented), but it’s fun to try to think of examples of each one.  I have omitted some of the descriptions in the interest of space.

The True Believers are the rarest and most dangerous type. Usually found in university admin or HR, they genuinely think that questioning any aspect of progressive orthodoxy constitutes harm. The moment they make eye contact with reality, their pupils dilate, and they assume a glazed, faraway look like someone’s talking to them through an earpiece only they can hear.

It’s the Tavistock clinician who dismissed parents’ concerns about rushing children into transition as “transphobia”. It’s the university administrator who considers “women” a radioactive word and the niqab an expression of female empowerment. It’s the civil servant who enforces unisex toilets because questions of “dignity” matter more than safeguarding.

The Careerists know it’s all nonsense but have mortgages. They privately roll their eyes at the latest pronoun updates but champion them in the board meeting with the enthusiasm of a North Korean newsreader.

Examples include the BBC editor who knows “pregnant people” is absurd but issues the apology on behalf of the female presenter who corrected the autocue to “women”. It’s the museum curator who rewrites exhibition labels to acknowledge “problematic legacies” to satisfy the demands of the True Believer, who controls the money.

The Cowards are everywhere. They know exactly what’s happening, hate it, but will never say so out loud. They’re the sort who’ll text you “100% agree!” after you’ve been fired but somehow missed every opportunity to back you up before the True Believer called you in about your unconscious bias.

When Kathleen Stock was hounded out of Sussex University, the Coward thought it was outrageous right up to the moment they realised they could be next. Then they recalibrated the events in their mind and took a different view.

. . .The Opportunists don’t care either way but have spotted the angles. Young, ambitious, and morally vacant, they add a dozen causes to their personal website and say things like “centring marginalised voices” without meaning a word of it.

The Opportunist will launch a DEI consultancy today and charge an HR True Believer ten grand tomorrow to tell a roomful of Careerists they’re racists. Or they’ll be the author who went from wellness influencer to decolonisation expert in 18 months and set up a podcast in between. It’s the academic who discovered that adding “queer theory” to their research proposal tripled their funding chances.

. . .The Fanatics think they’re True Believers except they dial it up to eleven. Pronouns and watermelon emojis in the bio, sure. But they also believe in decolonising logic and think the world is going to end tomorrow if we don’t do what they tell us. Every cause connects to every other cause, and all causes connect back to the same enemy.

It’s the student activist who screams at a Jewish classmate for three hours about Zionism, then files a complaint claiming she felt unsafe. It’s the protester who glues himself to a motorway, causes an ambulance delay, then calls the criticism “ableist”. The Fanatic cannot maintain eye contact except when talking about Palestine, at which point his eyes fix unblinkingly on yours, daring you to push back on his claims of genocide.

I could name a specimen of each of these, but will refrain on the grounds that you wouldn’t know most of them. Fanatics, though, include Robin DiAngelo, and True Believers the many biologists who assert that sex is a spectrum. (Some of the latter could be “careerists” as well, knowing that they can sell books and write articles, advancing themselves, by supporting nonsense.

Then, in an analysis that I like a lot, Alexander explains why these types are self-reinforcing, advancing “progressivism” as a whole (I hate calling it that; how about “wokeness”?):

Identifying these types isn’t an exact science, and they overlap to various degrees. The crucial thing to understand is that they need each other.

True Believers provide the moral authority, write the policies, and enforce the rules with genuine conviction. They absorb the ideology and give it form. Without them, it would all feel like a game of pretend (which it is).

Careerists provide the manpower. They actually implement the nonsense without stopping to think much about what any of it means.

Cowards provide the silence and the illusion of consensus, allowing the system to expand unopposed.

The Opportunists provide the raw energy, finding new ways to monetise moral exhibitionism because they see progressive orthodoxy as a business opportunity. Celebrity activists – indeed the whole entertainment industry – fall into this category.

Fanatics provide the threat. They’re the enforcers who make the Careerists think twice about cracking a joke since every joke has a victim. The Coward looks at them and thinks at least I’m not that person in an effort to assuage the sense of disgust at their own lack of integrity.

The system rewards all of them. True Believers get authority. Careerists get promotions. Cowards keep their heads down and Opportunists get book deals. Fanatics get the attention they crave, which is why we’re forever seeing clips of them in our social feeds waving Palestinian flags or throwing soup at Van Gogh.

What they all get – every single one – is protection from consequences.

Why? Because progressive orthodoxy is sustained by particular incentives. It’s got nothing to do with the strength of the ideas, most of which are obviously terrible when examined under daylight. It’s about the incentives that come with compliance and the costs that come with dissent.

In the end, Alexander still thinks the ideology is doomed to disappear:

The good news is that every protection racket collapses eventually – and progressivism will be no exception. The lawsuits will become too expensive, the backlash too loud to ignore. Those politicians who told us that men can be women will explain with a frown that these were “challenging times” rather than a gruesome display of moral cowardice. Pronouns in bios will become so mortifyingly embarrassing that those who had them will pretend, even to themselves, that they never dreamt of anything so silly.

Well, I’m not so sure he’s right here, but one can hope. The Democratic Party has been influenced too long by “progressivism,” and that shows no signs of disappearing. Indeed, it’s growing, to the point where Nate Silver lists Gavin Newsom and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as the two top Democratic candidates for President. (Remember, though, that it’s early days.) AOC is clearly a progressive, a combination of Fanatic and Careerist, while Gavin Newsom used to be progressive but, starting to realize he can’t win the Presidency that way, has been moving towards the center. He’s clearly a combination of Careerist and Opportunist.

In the meantime, have fun by listing below individuals falling into the five classes given above.

Welcome to Thursaday, February 19, 2026, and Iwo Jima Day, marking the American invasion of that Japanese-held Pacific Island on this day in 1945.  Four days later, five marines climbed Mt. Surabachi (the island’s high point) and planted the American flag on top.  You all know the classic photo by Joe Rosenthal, which won the Pulitzer Prize for that year and was made into an iconic statue that sits in Virginia across the Potomac from Washington D.C.  Several of the soldiers shown below did not survive the battle:

But did you know there was a movie filmed by Sergeant Bill Genaust at the same time that Rosenthal was snapping his photo? Here it is. (I find it amazing that this iconic moment was captured by two people.) The crucial moment is about 29 seconds in.

It’s also International Tug of War Day, National Arabian Horse Day, and Natioonal Chocolate Mint Day. 

There’s a Google Doodle for women’s figure skating at the Olympics today. U.S. women haven’t won a medal in that event since 2006, but the news says there are several candidates this year. Click to see where this goes:

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

Da Nooz:

*You could see this coming!  Probably unable to pass his “wealth tax” on NYC residents, as that would drive the wealthy out of the city, Islamist Mayor Zohran Mamdani is now threatening to impose a 9.5% property tax on many residents, and not just the rich.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday proposed to raise property tax rates in New York City by nearly 10 percent, a measure he is preparing as a “last resort” to be deployed if he cannot persuade Gov. Kathy Hochul to raise income taxes on the wealthy.

The suggested 9.5 percent increase would affect more than three million single-family homes, co-ops and condos and over 100,000 commercial buildings, Mr. Mamdani said as he delivered his preliminary spending plan.

The mayor acknowledged that his proposal would not merely force the wealthy to pay more taxes, but would also be a “tax on working- and middle-class New Yorkers,” and stressed that this was not his first choice.

But he noted that New York City mayors had little authority to raise taxes without the governor’s and Legislature’s acquiescence, and said that a city property tax increase — combined with raiding the city’s reserve funds — was the only way to address a looming budget deficit projected to reach $5.4 billion over two years.

“If we cannot follow this first path,” he said, referring to his proposed income tax hike on wealthier New Yorkers, “we will be forced onto a much more damaging path of last resort — one where we have to use the only tools at the city’s disposal: raising property taxes and raiding our reserves.”

“The second path is painful,” he added. “We will continue to work with Albany to avoid it.”

If other options surface, Mr. Mamdani may yet water down or abandon the proposed tax increase as the June 30 city budget deadline draws closer — a possibility that Ms. Hochul alluded to on Tuesday, as she played down the likelihood of city property taxes rising.

“That’s their prerogative to look at that as an option,” she said, suggesting that cost-cutting measures and updated accounting might make such an increase unnecessary. “He’s required to put options on the table; that does not mean that’s the final resolution.”

Is this a surprise? Of course not! The budget was in trouble before Mamdani took office. What is new is that Governor Hochul now seems less willing to levy a new tax on the rich.  In the face of this budget crunch, Mamdani’s promises, which got him elected, may well come to nought.

*Colin Wright’s new post on his Substack site discusses a distressing side effect of “affirmative care” applied to adolescents: permanent sterility. The article suggests that many who choose this option, and are even told of its consequences for fertility, nevertheless still hope to have their own children in the future. They won’t.  And this is a sad irony.

Over the past decade, pediatric “gender-affirming care” has been adopted widely in clinical settings despite a remarkably weak evidence base. Systematic reviews from several countries have consistently found that the research supporting puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and related interventions in minors is of low quality, lacking reliable long-term data on physical or psychological outcomes. Meanwhile, the severe and often irreversible side effects of these treatments are well documented. Chief among them is the loss of fertility.

Because of this risk, clinical guidelines recommend that adolescents be counseled about infertility and offered fertility preservation before beginning medical transition. In theory, this gives them the choice to protect their ability to have biological children in the future. In practice, however, only a vanishingly small number of “transgender and gender-diverse” (TGD) adolescents actually pursue fertility preservation, even when counseling is provided.

This creates an odd set of seemingly contradictory facts. Survey-based studies show that while few adolescents choose to preserve their fertility, a significant number hope to become parents later in life. Follow-up studies of adults who began medical transition as teenagers confirm that the desire for children often increases with age, leaving many to deeply regret not preserving their fertility when they had the chance.

. . .A new retrospective cross-sectional study published in the Journal of Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology helps clarify this issue by tracking patients from their first counseling visit through referral, specialist consultation, and—if it occurred—completion of a fertility preservation procedure.

The study followed 311 “transgender and gender-diverse” patients between the ages of 10 and 24 who presented for initial gender-related medical evaluations at a pediatric gender clinic between 2020 and 2023. During the intake process, patients were asked about their “fertility goals” and how important biological children might be to them in the future.

The attrition rate was steep. Of the 311 patients, 25 (8 percent) agreed to a referral to a reproductive endocrinology and infertility (REI) specialist. Nineteen of these 25 actually attended the REI consultation, and only eight ultimately completed fertility preservation. In total, this is roughly 2.5 percent of the entire group.

But the most revealing detail is who those eight patients were. All were biologically male, opting for sperm cryopreservation. Not a single female patient underwent egg or embryo preservation. As the authors note, this disparity “likely reflects the relative simplicity and lower cost of sperm cryopreservation compared with oocyte preservation.”

. . . . The literature on fertility preservation exposes a central flaw of the pediatric “gender-affirming” model. Interventions are aggressively promoted despite low-quality evidence, highly uncertain long-term benefits, and increasingly well-documented harms. The model also operates on the pseudoscientific premise biological sex is mutable, can meaningfully conflict with a person’s “brain sex,” and can be medically altered to resolve that conflict. The difficulty adolescents face in preserving fertility is not an incidental side effect of this model but a predictable consequence of it.

Puberty blockers cause sterility while they’re being administered, but often that effect is reversible if blockers are stopped without further treatment. But if blockers lead to cross-sex hormone treatment, as they often do in “affirmative care”, sterility cannot be reversed.  This is one more reason why gender transitioning should be delayed until the transitioner is of age to consent and fully apprehend the consequences. This article shows that patients often don’t grasp those consequences.

*The White House has rejected the latest proposal from Democrats to put limits on ICE agents, and, in the absence of an agreement, the partial government shutdown continues (ICE itself won’t shut down, as it has billions of dollars), but imporant aspects of the government will not be funded until the Democrats and Republicans forge a compromise on ICE:

The White House on Tuesday rejected the latest offer from Democratic lawmakers on proposed new constraints on federal immigration officers, the latest sign that there would not be a quick resolution of the stalemate that has left the Department of Homeland Security without funding since Saturday.

A White House official who provided a statement on the condition of anonymity to describe private negotiations said the two parties were still far apart, adding that President Trump’s team remained interested in continuing good-faith talks to resolve the impasse.

In response, aides for the Democratic leaders in Congress said that Republicans had largely ignored the guardrails the public was demanding, and urged them to start negotiating in good faith as they said their side had been doing.

Both White House officials and Democrats on Capitol Hill have kept largely confidential the specifics of their offers to end the standoff that allowed funding for the agency to lapse as of 12:01 a.m. Saturday.

The outlines of the Democratic demands, however, are well known: limits on masked police, an end to random sweeps, new requirements for judicial warrants, putting “sensitive locations” such as churches, schools, hospitals and polling places off limits to Immigration and Customs Enforcement among them. The offer was given to the White House Monday evening but brushed aside by the White House less than 24 hours later.

“These are common sense,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said Sunday on CNN about the Democratic proposals. “Police departments across America use them. We have a rogue agency. Why don’t we rein them in? That’s what the American people are asking Republicans.”

It seems to me that there is room for compromise here, as several of the Democratic demands make sense for any law enforcement (e.g., no masks, strict requirement for warrants), while the Democrats could compromise on, say, areas where ICE agents aren’t allowed.  So long as both sides dig in their heels, though, there will be no compromise and no funding for TSA, the Coast Guard, or FEMA.  This has apparently become a hill to die on for both sides, but the people who will suffer are us—the average Americans.

*Two UK men were jailed last Friday for concocting a plot that would have killed “hundreds of Jews.”—a massacre that could have been worse than Australia’s Bondi Beach shooting. The plotters were given life sentences, while the brother of one of them was sentenced to six years for not disclosing information about terrorism.

Two men have been jailed for life after attempting to stage one of the UK’s deadliest terrorist attacks before it was thwarted by an undercover operative.

Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, who had sworn allegiance to Islamic State (IS), planned a marauding firearms attack targeting Greater Manchester’s Jewish community.

On Friday, the pair were sentenced at Preston crown court after being found guilty of preparing acts of terrorism between December 2023 and May 2024.

The prime mover in the plot, Tunisian-born Saadaoui, of Abram, Wigan, was ordered to serve a minimum of 37 years.

Hussein, of no fixed address, was ordered to serve at least 26 years.

Saadaoui’s younger brother, Bilel Saadaoui, 37, of Hindley, Wigan, was sentenced to six years in prison for failing to disclose information about the plan.

All three had denied the offences in a trial lasting almost three months last year, in which jurors were told they were Islamist extremists with a “visceral dislike” of Jewish people.

Walid Saadaoui, a former Italian restaurant owner and hotel entertainer, arranged for the purchase and delivery of semi-automatic rifles, conducted reconnaissance and identified targets, but the man supplying them with the weapons was an undercover operative.

The operative, known to them as Farouk, had infiltrated jihadist social media networks and convinced Saadaoui that he was a fellow extremist.

Saadaoui was arrested in a counter-terror strike involving more than 200 officers as he attempted to take possession of two assault rifles, a semi-automatic pistol and almost 200 rounds of ammunition in the car park of the Last Drop hotel in Bolton on 8 May 2024. The weapons had been deactivated.

The court heard that Saadaoui hero-worshipped the IS terrorist Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who orchestrated the 2015 Paris terror attacks in which 130 people were killed and hundreds more injured in gun attacks.

Saadaoui and Hussein planned to disguise themselves as Jews and attack an antisemitism march in Manchester city centre before heading to suburbs north of Manchester city centre that are home to one of Europe’s largest Jewish communities.

These plotters are truly evil, and thank Ceiling Cat that their plot was stopped in its tracks.  And kudos for “Farouk”, a brave man who risked his life to pose as an extremist—and probably saved the life of many Jews. He must have been a convincing terrorist, and it’s very lucky that the plotters didn’t get hold of some real extemists with fully activated weapons.  But, for a Jew, it’s tiresome to see this kind of stuff day after day.  It’s not like Jews all over the world are plotting to slaughter Muslims, you know. And it’s clear that the target wassn’t Zionists, but Jews.  As one of my friends said, “‘Globalize the intifada’ is here.”

*And from the WaPo news summary:

• For the past two nights: Colbert has roasted his own network, saying that lawyers stopped him from airing an interview with Texas state Rep. James Talarico  [a Democrat]—watch here.
• The disagreement: Colbert said the segment was blocked because of FCC rules requiring broadcasters to provide equal opportunity to candidates. CBS has disputed his account.

The first mention:

In response, the studio audience booed.

“Then I was told, in some uncertain terms, that not only could I not have him on, I could not mention me not having him on,” Colbert continued. “And because my network clearly does not want us to talk about this, let’s talk about this.”

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej has worked himself too hard, but he says it’s a mild flu.

Hili: Better cook enough for a few days.
Andrzej: Why?
Hili: The flu is catching up with you.

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

From Stacy, a story that appears to be true  Only in America!

From Terrible Maps. Oy vey!

From Cats, Coffee, and Chaos:

From Hillel Neuer, head of UN Watch, showing Masih giving a powerful speech. But do note the “Community Note”:

This meeting in Geneva was held by UN Watch, a private group not affiliated with the UN. Its name and setting often mislead audiences. The board’s claim here is deliberately false—these remarks were not read at the UN and carry no official legitimacy.

The speech (NOT at the UN); I’m not clear why Hillel Neuer would say that. Still, Masih’s words are stirring:

Rare Moment of Truth at UN: Iranian women’s rights activist @AlinejadMasih takes the floor at United Nations @GenevaSummit to blast European politicians who for years failed to call out the regime’s terrorism and gender apartheid, points to victims in the room shot by the regime. pic.twitter.com/zvgdS2J8Ld

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) February 18, 2026

From Malcolm: very talkative cats:

cats being the funniest creatures everpic.twitter.com/Uvnp7Z7g9F

— Antidepressant Content (@depressionlesss) January 23, 2026

From Bryan, 3D photos (here’s a video on how to view them without special glasses):

Beautiful Northern Ireland (in 3D for those with viewers or who can free fuse) – Stereo photos of castles, coastlines, greenery, and Giant’s Causeway. https://t.co/R1HO9n043w pic.twitter.com/OeB0jsfBIL

— Steven Pinker (@sapinker) February 18, 2026

This is a pretty dire story, as the tweet notes:

A nurse with a 30-year unblemished record didn’t want to get undressed in front of a man – and she told him so.
Of all the gender ideology stories I’ve covered, the witch hunt of Sandie Peggie is the most insane and enraging.
I met her for @thetimes https://t.co/NZU75EDXm4

— Janice Turner (@VictoriaPeckham) February 14, 2026

An adorable one from my feed:

love in the purest form 🤍 pic.twitter.com/TC3jv7ULQy

— Kitty Cat Empire (@KittyCatEmpire) February 17, 2026

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This French Jewish girl was gassed as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz. Had she lived, she’d be ninety today. https://t.co/1Co9llPU2G

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) February 19, 2026

. . . and two from Dr. Cobb.  First, the history of Aylesbury ducks (yes, they are a real breed):

What's with all the ducks?

— Buckinghamshire Archives (@bucksarchives.bsky.social) 2026-02-17T13:03:33.565Z

As far as I know, this is a real Trumpian statement:

Yes, this is a real thing posted by the deranged lunatic today.It must be so embarrassing to have to try to defend this nutjob

— Mark Lemley (@marklemley.bsky.social) 2026-02-10T02:17:00.780Z

There are many courses in universities that seem not to be exercises in objective teaching and learning, but rather courses designed to foist certain political ideologies or points of view on students. One of them at this university was called to my attention by several in our community; it seems to be a course on how it’s justifiable to use violence to resist oppression. It was and is still taught by Alireza Doostdar, director of our Center for Middle Eastern Studies and Associate Professor of Islamic Studies and the Anthropology of Religion. I’ll just cover what must be one of Doostdar’s biggest areas of interest: the settler-colonialist, genocidal, and apartheid state of Israel.  Does that justify the violence of Hamas? You’d have to take the course to see, but from the syllabus it looks like terrorism against Israel is not demonized in the course.

Doostdar is one of the handful of professors here who have taken an active and visible role in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, and was, I believe, one of the 28 faculty and students arrested for trespassing at the admissions office in 2023 (disruption #3 described here; the city later dropped charges).  His brother, Ahmadreza Mohammadi Doostdar, was arrested in 2018 for spying for Iran, and was sentenced to 38 months in prison, 36 months of supervised release, and given a fine of $14,153.

Over the past couple of years Alireza Doostdar has issued a number of tweets showing his animus towards Israel, but then took them down, which is either an act of cowardice, contrition (which I doubt) or ambition (getting rid of stuff that makes you look bad). Here are three of them.  First, plaudits for Iranian missiles:

Two more Doostdar tweets I posted that have now vanished:

The thought that Iranians will rise up against their government doesn’t seem so insane now, does it?

It is clear that the man has no love for Israel, promoting as he does the false narratives of Israeli “apartheid” and “genocide.” There is, of course, no opprobrium for Hamas or other terrorist organizations.

Here’s the first page of the syllabus for one of Doostdar’s courses, which is still listed as a “Human Rights” course in the college catalogue:

Look at that image of the buff Palestinian man wielding a sling à la David and waving the Palestinian flag!  Here’s a description of the course (bolding is mine):

From 18th century slave rebellions in the Americas to 20th and 21st century anticolonial revolutions, oppressed peoples’ struggles for liberation have often incorporated violent tactics, even against noncombatants. This course examines anticolonial violence in light of the work of the Martiniquan revolutionary Frantz Fanon and some of his interlocutors. We study specific freedom movements: the Haitian and Algerian revolutions against French colonialism, Nat Turner’s slave rebellion and John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, Russian and American anarchism, Malcolm X and the Black Panthers’ mobilization against white supremacy and police violence, and the ongoing Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid. Throughout, we will pay attention to how revolutionaries evaluated the place of violence in their own movements, including criteria for justifiable and unjustifiable use of force.

Here are the readings for the section on Palestine. I haven’t looked all of them up, but looked at about a dozen, and all the ones I saw damned the apartheid, genocidal, settler-colonialist state of Israel.

None of the sources I examined condemned Hamas (the course, after all, is about justifiable violence), and all I saw were resolutely anti-Israel.

What is my conclusion? Well, first, Doostdar surely has a right to teach this course; to prohibit it because it may peddle hatred and lies (“apartheid”, “genocide,” etc.) would violate academic freedom.  All I can do is say, that as a fellow faculty member, I think the course is biased and promotes misunderstanding and hatred. Is this an academic or a polemic course?

I would add that if any Jews want to take the course (and some of course should—to see what other side is arguing), they will not emerge having learned that there’s anything good about Israel, or that the IDFs war in Gaza was justifiable. It’s ironic since Israel’s response to the attack on October 7 could also be seen as “liberatory violence” in response to yearslong Palestinian attacks on Israel, though either missiles or acts of terror.

My inspection of the syllabus and perusal of the reading suggest that this is an example of the “one-sided” syllabi that I discussed in a post last year. The authors of the study I described looked at 27 million syllabi. I summarized their results thus:

The upshot is what you might expect: “anti-progressive” (or “conservative”) works were assigned with progressive ones far less often than were works that buttressed the progressive point of view. Conclusion: liberal academia is not exposing students to credible alternative points of view (and yes, the authors took care to examine cite only works that academically credible).

Classic “progressive” works used in their analysis include the following; you won’t know the critical views so much but you can see them in the paper. I’d recommend reading the big unpublished paper if you have time as it has a lot more data.

1.  The classic progressive views of racism in the criminal-justice system:  Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book Between the World and Me
2.  The classic progressive view of the Israel/Palestine conflict (and oppression of Arabs in general): Edward Said’s book Orientalism
3.  The classic progressive “pro-choice” paper: Judith Jarvis Thomson’s paper “A Defense of Abortion“

In short, “progressive” courses did not assign views counter to the course’s own ideology nearly as often as they assigned papers buttressing that ideology. This seems to be the case in Doostdar’s course. Make of it what you will, but it looks like an example of “myside bias.“