Friday: Hili dialogue

April 3, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to the first TGIF of April: Friday,  April 3, 2026, and it’s Good Friday, the day on which, as the story goes, Jesus was crucified.  I don’t believe a word of that story (your mileage may differ), but it was the subject of nearly all of the art of medieval Europe. Here’s a later painting of the crucifixion (1632), but a good one, and one by one of my favorite artists: Diego Velázquez. They sure took the trouble to make a fancy sign for the cross—in three languages!  Later today I’ll post a discussion between Ross Douthat and Bart Ehrman where they differ on whether Jesus was the son of God, divine, and worked miracles.

Wikimedia Commons, public domain

It’s also the second full day of Passover, and I need to get some matzos, stat! (I eat them thickly slathered with butter, the only way they’re edible.) Further, it’s Fish Fingers and Custard Day (explained below, n.b. for Doctor Who fans), National Chocolate Mousse Day, and Tweed Day.

Fish Fingers and Custard Day commemorates the introduction of the Eleventh Doctor on the television series Doctor Who, as well as the memorable fish fingers and custard scene from the episode in which he arrives. The episode, which was released on April 3, 2010, is the first from Series 5 of the show, and is titled “The Eleventh Hour.” BBC declared the first Fish Fingers and Custard Day to take place on the second anniversary of the release of the episode. The following year, Birdseye even put the Doctor, who was played by Matt Smith, on their boxes. The day is marked by people eating fish fingers and custard and sharing photos and videos of them doing so.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the April 3 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Breaking news (well, sort of): Attorney General Pam Bondi has been deep-sixed by Trump—another cabinet member gone.

Attorney General Pam Bondi had a pretty good idea her days were numbered.

President Trump had complained too freely, too frequently, to too many people about her inability to prosecute the people he hates. She was falling short of Mr. Trump’s unyielding, unrealistic demands for retribution against his enemies. She had made mistake upon mistake in her handling of the Epstein files. Her critics were in the president’s ear.

Last month, Ms. Bondi told a friend that Mr. Trump’s willingness to fire Kristi Noem from her post as homeland security secretary meant she might be in jeopardy too.

But Ms. Bondi had not expected Mr. Trump, the man responsible for elevating her to one of the most powerful positions in the country, to drop the curtain quite so soon, according to four people familiar with the situation.

On Wednesday, the 60-year-old Ms. Bondi, downcast but determined, joined Mr. Trump for a glum crosstown drive to the Supreme Court, where they watched arguments in the birthright citizenship case. In the car, Mr. Trump told her it was time for a change at the top of the Justice Department.

Ms. Bondi hoped to save her job or, at the very least, buy a little more time — until the summer — to give herself a graceful exit.

She ended up with neither, and grew emotional Wednesday in conversations with friends and colleagues after she realized she was out. The next morning, Mr. Trump made it official, and fired her via social media post.

She is being replaced temporarily by Todd Blanche, Trump’s personal attorney who has defended him in several criminal cases.  Neither Bondi nor Blanche has the qualifications to be an Attorney General, but so it goes.

*Yesterday morning’s NYT newsletter summarizes what Trump said in his speech about Iran, and I quote:

Here’s what he talked about:

The end of the war. Trump did not offer a clear timeline for that. He said that “discussions are ongoing” but that in the meantime, the U.S. would continue to bomb Iran. “We are going to hit them extremely hard,” he said. “Over the next two to three weeks, we’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.” He also threatened to strike “each and every one” of Iran’s power plants, an act widely considered a war crime, if Iran refuses a deal to end the fighting. (Iran has said there are no direct talks with the U.S.)

The economy. “Remarkably, Trump barely acknowledged the economic consequences of his war, as Americans around the country continue to feel the sting of high gas prices,” wrote Tony Romm, an economics reporter. Trump’s sanguine about that: “This is a true investment in your children and your grandchildren’s future,” he said of the war.

Iran’s remaining nuclear material. Trump indicated that he was in no hurry to retrieve it after bombing Iran’s nuclear sites into dust. As my colleague David Sanger put it: “Perhaps this is deception, and he will attempt to seize that cache. If not, he will have left the nuclear material exactly where it was before the war started — underground, and within Iran’s reach.”

Venezuela. Trump recalled how well the operation to unseat President Nicolás Maduro had gone. It’s his model for success in Iran. “That hit was quick, lethal, violent and respected by everyone all over the world,” he said in the speech, adding that the United States and Venezuela were now “joint venture partners” and “getting along incredibly well.”

The Strait of Hormuz. That waterway is not America’s problem, Trump said, because our oil and gas does not move through it. He urged those nations that depend on oil moving through the strait to just go take it. “We will be helpful, but they should take the lead in protecting the oil that they so desperately depend on,” he said.

For context, it’s worth comparing those talking points with the five objectives for the war that Trump laid out on its first day. My colleague Ed Wong has an assessment of where the war stands based on those goals.

Here’s Wong’s summary of the regime-change goal:

This came near the end of Mr. Trump’s video address. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel had promised Mr. Trump in the run-up to the war that his country could help galvanize a popular uprising that would lead to the overthrow of the Iranian government. That revolt has not materialized.

Mr. Trump said he had carried out “regime change,” and pointed to airstrikes that have killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and other senior officials.

However, the newly appointed supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the deceased cleric, is a hard-liner aligned with a powerful arm of the Iranian military. The current government remains theocratic, authoritarian and anti-American, and continues to wage a war of resistance.

Of course the NYT would promote a negative view about how the war is going, and I didn’t hear Trump’s speech, but if he sees the present hard-line theocratic regime in Iran as “regime change” simply because the ‘Ayatollahs aren’t in control, well, he’s distorting things completely, and the Iranian people still aren’t free.

*The WaPo reports on a Republican plan to end the Department of Homeland Security shutdown without having to get Democratic approval.

President Donald Trump endorsed a plan Wednesday to end the nearly seven-week-old shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security by going around Democrats to fund parts of the agency.

Trump urged Republicans to send him a party-line bill by June 1 to fund two agencies within the department — Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol — using the reconciliation process.

The approach would allow him to bypass Democrats, who have spent weeks demanding new guardrails on those agencies in exchange for voting to fund them. Instead, Republicans could pass a funding bill with a simple majority and avoid a Democratic filibuster.

“We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won’t be able to stop us,” Trump wrote in a social media post.

Democrats had been demanding new restrictions on federal immigration agents operating in major cities, after they killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January.

The approach that Trump endorsed Wednesday would also fund the rest of DHS — which includes the Transportation Security Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Coast Guard — through September. Then Republicans would start work on the reconciliation process to fund ICE and Border Patrol, which would take weeks.

This circumvention going to get the Democrats hopping mad if it works (Republicans will still need a majority in both houses of Congress), but some of the Democrats’ proposed restrictions on ICE, like bodycams and not wearing masks, were fine with me. Remember, the government was not shut down as a whole—just the DHS part.  But my friends who are flying say that those 5-hour security lines are gone now, for TSA workers are already back on the job.

*If you’ve been conditioned by the MSM to think that we’re mired in another Vietnam in Iran, the Free Press has a counterargument, “Victor Davis Hanson: The war—and the war on the war,” with the subtitle, “Militarily, the war is going as well as could be envisioned, yet Democrats seek to turn it into another Vietnam or Afghanistan—hoping to win control of Congress at the expense of national security.” (Hanson is identified as “an American classicist, military historian, and conservative political commentator.”) Trigger warning: overt conservatism. A few excerpts:

Are we “losing”?

This is the claim made by Trump’s political opponents. It is absurd, Orwellian.

Most of the military objectives are already met or soon will be. The campaign has been brilliantly conducted without substantial casualties. So popular outcry from Democrats and the global left arise not from military realities of the war, but mostly from both politics and existential hatred of Donald Trump.

The midterms are just seven months away. Historically, they should see the incumbent administration lose seats in the House and Senate, if not control of Congress. The left seeks to create such abject chaos that it can only be alleviated by the political destruction of Donald Trump. So the anti-war hysteria follows the pattern of the left’s embrace of Tesla vandalism, violent demonstrations against ICE, the incoherent “No Kings” protests, and three government shutdowns. Such nihilism shares a common trait of offering no positive counter-agenda.

What about regime change?

Critics are claiming that for all that ostensible American success, the regime remains defiant and in control. Indeed, the war’s opponents further state that the bombing only made popular protests more difficult.

Some supporters of the war argue that any cessation without the elimination of the mullahs would prove the war effort was all in vain, or at best is but a brief interlude in the Iranian theocracy’s otherwise long march to control the entire Middle East and blackmail the West with nuclear weapons.

But regime change was never listed as a Trump administration war aim. The reason was ostensibly our poor record at nation-building in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, as well as our more recent success at removing Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela and leveraging the remnants of his dictatorship, without prompting an invasion or civil war.

That said, the continual Israeli elimination of dozens of theocratic and military officials has in itself been a regime change, at least in the sense that anyone associated with the regime who identifies himself is likely to be dead within days.

BOGUS!  Regime change means a democracy with the Iranian people free. And Trump explicitly told the Iranian people in his initial statement that the government was theirs to take—and that they should go ahead and take it. I think he said that again the other night. At the end Hanson says that we don’t have regime change, but it’s more likely than before. True, but how much more likely?

What about the closing of the Strait of Hormuz?

War critics argue that without the American-Israeli bombing, the Strait would still be open for business. That simplistic rationale ignores the reality that Iran’s prewar non-harassment of Western shipping was implicitly predicated on appeasing the theocracy—mostly by Westerners staying quiet when Iran staged or funded terrorist attacks, or flagrantly multiplied its ballistic missile fleet and upped its uranium enrichment with impunity.

If the U.S. decided that Iranian control of the Strait is too egregious a danger to global commerce, then as it leaves the theater, it can threaten Parthian shots at Iran’s easily combustible oil industry to ensure they back off the Strait.

Or alternatively, America can tell our Western allies (who made it evident they want no part in demilitarizing Iran) that the hard work of neutering the Iranian military is now over. And as importers of Iranian oil, Europe and the Asian democracies must handle the easier task of internationalizing the Strait.

The other two questions asked and answered are, “Is Israel using Trump?” and “What about NATO?” You’ll have to see the answers for yourself. Here’s the pro-Trump ending:

In the end, we are left with an indisputable truth. Prior presidents all warned about the dangers of a theocratic Iran’s mounting efforts to become nuclear, witnessed its incessant terrorism, and feared its apocalyptic aims. And yet they did little or nothing.

Donald Trump did, and did so successfully, convinced alone among Western leaders that it was a now or never moment, and the U.S. military was more than up to the risky endeavor.

And history will likely prove him right.

*My friend the Belgian philosopher Maarten Boudry reports on Facebook that three Belgian universities, including the one he studied and worked at (U Ghent), have given honorary degrees to an odious woman, Francesca Albanese, the blatantly antisemitic and pro-Hamas UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories. His post (I’ve added the tweets he interpolated):

Three Flemish universities are disgracing themselves today by awarding an honorary doctorate to a mendacious antisemite. That’s what happens when academia gets hijacked by far-left ideologues. As Holocaust historian Norman Goda writes:

“The Flemish universities, whether they admit it or not, will convey the sanction of university-recognised expertise to a deeply dishonest and fraudulent individual who has vilified an entire society as well as those persons, including many in Belgium who view themselves as connected to it.”

And yes, I don’t shy away from the word “antisemite” this time. Before she was appointed UN rapporteur, Albanese liked to fantasize about how the world was “subjugated by the Jewish lobby”. She just learned not to say the quiet part out loud since her UN mandate. And of course, the blatant double standards she applies to the only Jewish state in the world is damning in its own right.

As I predicted yesterday on the Belgian TV shows De Afspraak, the ceremony is descending into farce. Albanese openly contradicts the rector’s assurance that the award is “not against Israel,” to loud hoots and cheers. Meanwhile, the usual anti-Israel activists—more emboldened than ever—are shouting over any speaker whenever anything falls short of their maximalist demands: “Stop funding genocide! Stop funding genocide!”

The rector was openly humiliated on the stage by Albanese and the audience. Well, what did they expect? Didn’t I warn them this was exactly what was going to happen?

I didn’t watch the whole speech, but of course Albanese repeats the same litany of distorted quotes from Israeli leaders allegedly proving genocidal intent: the “human animals” quote (which was about Hamas, not Palestinians), the Herzog line about “an entire nation that is responsible” (which is exactly what Holocaust historians say about Germany regarding the Holocaust, and in eveny event Herzog insisted that there are many innocent civilians who will NOT be targeted). See my piece here..

More outrageously still, Albanese claims that casualties in Gaza are “75%-80 women and children”, a complete lie. Not even Hamas has ever claimed such a high figure, and its own fabricated “70% women and children” has been widely debunked and officially retracted by Hamas itself. Deaths are overwhelmingly male and combat age. None of the distinguished rectors and academics batted an eye. Pure desinformation again, certified by three universities.]

And of course we only got obsequious softball questions from the interviewer. “How were you so right and prescient from the beginning?” “How is it so difficult for people to agree with you?” (I’m paraphrasing) Well, I sympathize with the interviewer. Any genuinely critical question would’ve been met with deafening jeers and shouts from the audience.

Honestly, I’ve never been more ashamed to be a UGent alumnus. This honorary PhD is a craven and foolish decision that will be ruinous to our international reputation.

You can see the YouTube video of all four honorary degrees here. I’m watching the live feed now with Albanese banging on about the Israeli “genocide”.

Maarten also tweeted that “I just got a heartbreaking message from a Jewish professor who says that she will leave Antwerp and possibly the country. The hatred is too overwhelming, and even targeting young children.” (Have a look at the rest of the tweet.)

I hope you’re aware what’s happening in the Low Countries.

*Finally, there’s good news today—well, not really good but not dreadful.  The AP’s Odd News tells us that a famous surfing dog—the first canid inducted into the Surfer’s Hall of fame—has died. But she had a good long life (16 years), and a good run in the waves:

Sugar The Surfing Dog, the first canine inducted into the Surfer’s Hall of Fame, who spent her days outside the water comforting veterans as a dedicated therapy dog, died Monday after battling cancer.

The 16-year-old rescue dog from Huntington Beach, California, who was a five-time dog surfing world champion, died “in her daddy’s arms,” a post on her Instagram said.

“She lived to put smiles on faces, volunteer, to send it !! to change dog surfing forever !!! thank you for loving Sugar,” the post said. “Good bye my Sugar., i can’t believe in writing this .. i’m going to miss you so much.”

Sugar was found as a stray and over the years her love of the waves and natural talent took dog surfing to new heights.

Dressed in a life jacket, spectators would watch the furry white canine in amazement as she balanced on her surfboard, riding wave after wave back to the shore, sometimes with her owner, Ryan Rustan, by her side and other times all on her own.

In 2024, her paw prints joined the hand and footprints of many other renowned surfers immortalized in concrete in Huntington Beach when she was inducted into the hall of fame.

“This is just incredible. Dreams do come true even for a surfing dog and guys like me,” Rustan said at the ceremony.

Here’s a video from better days:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej doesn’t like Hili trying to catch birds (note the extruded tongue; I’ve made this image into my Twitter avatar):

Hili: A sparrow has made a nest in the hedge.
Me: Fortunately, you can’t reach it.
Hili: And that’s a bit of a problem.

In Polish:

Hili: Wróbelek założył w żywopłocie gniazdko.
Ja: Na szczęście tam się nie dostaniesz.
Hili: I to jest pewien kłopot.

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

From Terrible Maps: the countries in red are anagrams. For example, “Spain” can be rearranged to “pains”. Figure out the rest of them!

 

From This Cat is Guilty:

From The Language Nerds:

From Masih: Iran hanged an 18-year-old protestor:

From Luana, and verified by CNN, who published this:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Tuesday she would vote against sending any military aid to Israel, including defensive supplies, a marked shift from a Democrat deemed a potential 2028 presidential candidate.

Ocasio-Cortez told members of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America Tuesday that she would commit to voting no on any military aid spending for Israel, a spokesperson for the lawmaker told CNN.

I will never vote for her; I would write in some other Democrat instead (remember, I live in a reliably Democratic state).

Her remarks, first reported by City & State, were made at a private forum as members considered whether to endorse her re-election bid.

A funny tweet from Larry the Cat:

Two from my feed. First, a singing raven:

. . . and a wonderful plane’s-eye-view of the Artemis II launch:

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This Czech Jewish girl was gassed as soon as she got to Auschwitz She was 14 years old.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2026-04-03T10:19:18.342Z

Two from Dr. Cobb. This is from a site that gives people’s favorite tweets from Twitter, though it’s on Bluehair:

MASSIVE fan of this one:

— Altrincham Dry Cleaners (@altydrycleaners.bsky.social) 2026-04-02T13:27:33.632Z

Be sure to check out the Science paper to see some lovely and bizarre animals, including the first bilaterians. For a quick link, go see the blurb and photos at the Oxford University site. The “Cambrian Explosion” of animals has been shifted back 4 million years, to the tail end of the Ediacaran.

At last! Ediacarans and Cambrian animals in the same site! Amazing! http://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/…

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-04-02T18:11:56.569Z

Do astronauts carry suicide pills?

April 2, 2026 • 10:45 am

This is a question I’ve entertained for a long time, probably because I’m preoccupied with death.  But I was curious about what would happen if astronauts, like the ones going around the Moon now, found themselves stranded in space with no way to get home, facing death from oxygen depletion or starvation. Or what would happen if the astronauts who were on the Moon years couldn’t start up the Lunar Module to get back to the Command Module and then back to Earth? Would they have been carrying something that would allow them to commit suicide quickly, avoiding a prolonged death?

I asked Jim Batterson, our resident NASA expert, and he didn’t know the answer.  I then turned to the AI bot Grok, which I got for free when X (“Twitter”)—for reasons unknown—gave me a free blue checkmark.

My question to Grok  is in bold below, and the short answer (indented) is that no, American astronauts don’t carry anything to do themselves in, though one Russian astronaut did.  Grok went though the data in 11 seconds, and spat out the following. Note that there are references (the bot gives you the links, which I haven’t included) to check the statements.

Do the astronauts carry cyanide capsules or anything they can use to commit suicide if they are stuck in space?
Thought for 11s

No, astronauts do not carry cyanide capsules or any dedicated suicide pills as standard equipment.

iflscience.com

NASA has never issued suicide pills (sometimes called “L-pills” or cyanide capsules) to its astronauts, including during the Apollo lunar missions or on current ISS and Artemis programs. Astronaut Jim Lovell (Apollo 13 commander) explicitly debunked this long-standing rumor: “Since Apollo 13 many people have asked me, ‘Did you have suicide pills on board?’ We didn’t, and I never heard of such a thing in the eleven years I spent as an astronaut and NASA executive.”

iflscience.com

The idea appears to stem from spy-movie tropes, urban legends, or sci-fi (e.g., the film Contact), but it has been consistently denied by NASA and astronauts. Multiple sources, including direct statements from astronauts, confirm that no such pills have ever been part of U.S. spaceflight medical kits.

quora.com

Why the rumor persists, and why pills aren’t needed anywayIn a worst-case scenario of being stranded in space with no rescue possible (e.g., a failed re-entry or detached during a spacewalk), astronauts have pointed out that the vacuum of space itself provides a relatively quick way to end life if someone chose to—by simply opening a suit valve or venting the spacecraft’s atmosphere. This would cause unconsciousness in seconds and death shortly after, making a pill unnecessary.

theguardian.com

NASA’s focus is on prevention and survival: rigorous psychological screening, crew training, rescue protocols (e.g., multiple docked return vehicles on the ISS), and detailed medical kits. Those kits contain painkillers, anti-nausea drugs, antibiotics, etc., but nothing lethal like cyanide.

nasa.gov

If an astronaut were to experience a mental health crisis in space (e.g., becoming suicidal or psychotic), NASA has written procedures: crewmates are instructed to restrain the person with duct tape and bungee cords, monitor them, and administer sedatives like Haldol or Valium (orally or by injection if needed). The goal is stabilization, not euthanasia.

cbsnews.com

One historical exception (Soviet side) The only verified case involves Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov (the first person to spacewalk, in 1965 on Voskhod 2). He stated that he was issued a suicide pill for that specific high-risk mission—in case he couldn’t re-enter the spacecraft and his crewmate had to leave him behind in orbit. His suit ballooned during the walk, and he barely made it back inside after partially depressurizing it. This was not standard practice for the Soviet program overall, and no evidence exists of it being routine for cosmonauts then or now.

iflscience.com

In short, modern astronauts (NASA, ESA, Roscosmos, etc.) rely on engineering, training, and international rescue plans rather than personal suicide options. No agency equips crews with cyanide or equivalent for “stuck in space” scenarios.

My article in Skeptic: Coyne vs. Shermer on Free Will

April 2, 2026 • 9:30 am

In mid-February, Michael Shermer wrote a piece in Quillette called “The truth about free will,” the truth being that we have it, but in the compatibilist rather than the libertarian sense.  This article was a shortened version of a free-will chapter included in Shermer’s new book,  Truth: What It Is, How to Find It, and Why It Still Matters. 

I thought that Shermer’s article was confusing, largely because his own definition of free will seemed to smuggle in a bit of libertarianism, but also because the argument for free will seemed to say this: “We have free will because we feel like we have free will.”

Shermer then responded in the pages of Skeptic, the magazine he founded in 1992 and still edits; his response was called “Free will, determinism, and compatibilism: Shermer responds to Jerry Coyne.”  He once again argued for compatibilism, buttressing his argument with statistics showing that most philosophers accept compatibilism (59.1%), with minorities being libertarian free-willers (13.7%), determinists (12.2%, I’m in this camp though I’m not a philosopher), and those who are “other” (14.9%).  The gist of his argument seemed to be this:

I agree with Jerry and Dan that we live in a determined universe governed by laws of nature. But I disagree with Jerry that this eliminates free will, or if you prefer “volition” or “choice” (again, this entire field is, to use Jerry’s term, “muddled” with confusion of terminology). My compatibilist work-around is “self-determinism,” in which while we live under the causal net of a determined universe, we are part of that causal net ourselves, helping to determine the future as it unfolds before us, and of which we are a part. My compatibilist position is based on the best understanding of physics today. Let me explain.

Physicists tell us that the Second Law of Thermodynamics, or entropy, means that time flows forward, and therefore no future scenario can ever perfectly match one from the past. As Heraclitus’ idiom informs us, “you cannot step into the same river twice,” because you are different and the river is different. What you did in the past influences what you choose to do next in future circumstances, which are always different from the past. So, while the world is determined, we are active agents in determining our decisions going forward in a self-determined way, in the context of what already happened and what might happen. Thus, our universe is not pre-determined in a block-universe way (in which past, present, and future exist simultaneously) but rather post-determined (after the fact we can look back to determine the causal connections), and we are part of the causal net of the myriad determining factors to create that post-determined world.

Free will, Shermer wrote, is somehow to be found in billions and billions of neurons, (to paraphrase Sagan):

Coyne is unhappy with my invoking of “emergence” and says I’m being rude to him and Sapolsky and Harris in accusing them of “physics envy,” but that’s what it is! Here, for example, is Sapolsky defending his belief that free will does not exist because single neurons don’t have it: “Individual neurons don’t become causeless causes that defy gravity and help generate free will just because they’re interacting with lots of other neurons.”

In fact, billions of interacting neurons is exactly where self-determinism (or volition or free will) arises. This is why I like to ask determinists: Where is inflation in the laws and principles of physics, biology, or neuroscience? It’s not, because inflation is an emergent property arising from millions of individuals in economic exchange, a subject properly described by economists, not physicists, biologists, or neuroscientists.

I found that confusing because I saw no freedom in simply saying that humans are part of the “causal net of a determined universe.” And I was confused by the claim that “while the world is determined, we are active agents in determining our decisions going forward in a self-determined way, in the context of what already happened and what might happen.” I didn’t understand that, and it seemed to smuggle some magic into the definition. And, as I’ll show below by quoting Sam Harris, I think that compatibilism misses the key feature of most people’s view of free will (yes, there are surveys): “We could have done other than what we did.”  If you say, “yes,” then you are a free willer, but have to specify what aspect of the universe enables us to have done otherwise. If you say, “No, never,” then you are either a determinist or a compatibilist. Determinism needs no further explication, but compatibilism demands that you confect a new definition of free will—one that insists that we have it despite physical determinism.

Now there are at least a half-dozen versions of compatibilism, each proposing a different definition of the “free will” we supposedly have, so compatibilists themeslves have incompatible views about free will! It’s my belief from reading Dennett and others that compatibilism is pursued by people who think that if we don’t think we have some sort of free will, society will fall apart. People will think that without free will, we lack moral responsibility, and apart from that, we’ll all become nihilists unwilling to even get out of bed. After all, what’s the point if everything’s determined?

I have answered both of these assertions before, saying that determinists like me are not nihilists, that society can function even realizing that determinism is true, because people still feel like they have free will, and that we can have “respnsibility” without needing to have “moral responsibility,” which assumes we could have behaved otherwise.

But I’ve written about all this before. Michael was kind enough to allow me to respond to his response in the pages of Skeptic, and you can read my 2000-word response by clicking the screenshot below, or reading the article archived here. (The title comes from an old novelty song, “Yes! We have no bananas,”)


I’ll give just a few quotes from my piece; it’s short enough that you can read it in a few minutes.

[Shermer’s] smuggled-in dualism becomes clear when Shermer claims that although the action of individual neurons may be determined, “billions of interacting neurons is exactly where self-determinism (or volition or free will) arises.” But how can one neuron be governed by the laws of physics but a group of interacting neurons not be governed by the laws of physics. If they are, then there is no freedom, no volition, no “willed” control of our behavior, and no ability to have done otherwise. Yet Shermer argues that when a group of neurons cooperates, some kind of “will” arises. This dilemma won’t be resolved until Shermer explains the relevant difference between the behavior of one neuron and of a group of neurons.

. . .As Shermer notes, 59 percent of surveyed philosophers are compatibilists while the rest are almost equally divided between libertarians, determinists, and those with no opinion. He deems philosophers the “most qualified people” to pronounce on the problem, but are philosophers more qualified than neuroscientists or physicists? As Sam Harris (a neuroscientist and a determinist) said:

[Compatibilism] ignores the very source of our belief in free will: the feeling of conscious agency. People feel that they are the authors of their thoughts and actions, and this is the only reason why there seems to be a problem of free will worth talking about.

. . . Compatibilism amounts to nothing more than an assertion of the following creed: A puppet is free as long as he loves his strings. [JAC: I love that line.]

Importantly, the “folk” conception of free will—the libertarian version—is what most people think they have. It is that version that permeates society, the legal system, and, of course, religion, and is therefore the most important version to discuss.

And my ending:

Finally, Shermer poses what he sees as an unassailable challenge to my determinism:

In fact, billions of interacting neurons is exactly where self-determinism (or volition or free will) arises. This is why I like to ask determinists: Where is inflation [of the monetary sort] in the laws and principles of physics, biology, or neuroscience? It’s not, because inflation is an emergent property arising from millions of individuals in economic exchange, a subject properly described by economists, not physicists, biologists, or neuroscientists.

That is a red herring. Like all phenomena in human society, you won’t find monetary inflation in the laws of physics. Nor will you find academics, music, sports, or any other human endeavor. The question is not whether these phenomena are in the laws of physics, but whether they result from the laws of physicsas emergent phenomena wholly compatible with underlying naturalism. And Shermer himself said yes, they do: “we live in a determined universe governed by laws of nature.”

The problem of free will is “insoluble” only insofar as Shermer, trying to retain an idea of self-control, and ignoring the massive body of data on affecting volition, has confected a new definition that simply redescribes human behavior. The important question is this: “Is there physical determinism of human behavior or not?” Both Shermer and I agree that there is. In the end, however, Shermer seems to argue that we have free will because we feel like it. One might as well say that there’s a God because we feel like there is one.

That’s it; you can read the argument and come to your own conclusions. For some reason I can’t stop arguing about free will. I guess my persistence is also determined. . .

Readers’ wildlife photos: a paucity

April 2, 2026 • 8:15 am

I have enough photos for about 1½ wildlife posts, the half-post being a collection of singletons.  I’m saving all these to fill in lacunae, but as you see there’s a need for more photos. There was a time when I didn’t have to beg for photos, but since people haven’t sent many in, yes, I’m on my knees. At any rate, if you have good photos, of the quality normally posted here, by all means send them in.

Thank you!

Thursday: Hili dialogue

April 2, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to Thursday, April 2, 2026, and National Ferret Day.   Here’s a video about ferrets, but I wouldn’t recommend you getting one as a pet: they’re cute but also stinky, and they bite.

It’s also Maundy Thursday (“maundy” refers to the Christian ceremony of washing people’s feet, as Jesus supposedly did on the day of the Last Supper. Some churches still ask people to wash each other’s feet), National Burrito Day, National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day, and the first full day of Passover, which began yesterday at sundown and will last until sundown on April 9.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the April 2 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Yesterday Artemis II around-the-Moon mission, which will last ten days, took off successfully (or “nominally”, as they say) and, save for a glitch in the crew toilet, which was fixed, all is well. Here’s ten-minute video of the liftoff if you missed it:

*Here’s a summary of the war news (and Middle East news) from the NYT morning newsletter (with links):

. . . and from It’s Noon in Israel:

 The global price of oil has reached $100, down four percent since yesterday. Here are the latest developments while you were asleep:

  • Ten people have been hospitalized following a missile impact in the city of Bnei Brak this morning. Two young children were badly injured—one critically, the other seriously. The mother of one and the father of the other are both being treated in moderate condition. Six additional children are undergoing medical evaluation.
  • The United States has reportedly attacked the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran, which had become a gathering point for Revolutionary Guards and Basij fighters. This is the same building in which 52 Americans were held by the regime for 444 days during the 1979 hostage crisis.
  • Yesterday, Pakistan and China jointly published a five-point initiative to end the conflict in Iran, calling for an immediate ceasefire, the start of negotiations, a halt to attacks on civilian targets, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and a final peace agreement grounded in the UN Charter.

Let’s look at just the first one:

President Trump declared on Tuesday that he had already achieved one of the primary objectives of his attack on Iran, the elimination of its ability to build a nuclear weapon. But there is no evidence that the United States or Israel has removed or destroyed the country’s stockpile of near-bomb-grade fuel.

“I had one goal,” Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office late in the afternoon. “They will have no nuclear weapon, and that goal has been attained.”

Several of Mr. Trump’s top aides, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, have joined him in narrowing the war objectives in recent days, presumably to give the president space to declare victory and pull back from the conflict. When Mr. Rubio this week sketched out four major objectives — telling an interviewer to “write them down” — he made no mention at all of halting Iran’s nuclear program. (The State Department on Tuesday issued a video in which Mr. Rubio celebrated the smashing of the “shield” of missiles and drones that had protected the country’s nuclear infrastructure.)

But the country’s nuclear ambitions were the central argument for going to war when Mr. Trump announced the commencement of the military operation on Feb 28. In a speech to the nation that morning, Mr. Trump said he initiated “major combat operations” in part because Iran had “attempted to rebuild their nuclear program and to continue developing long-range missiles that can now threaten our very good friends and allies in Europe, our troops stationed overseas, and could soon reach the American homeland.”

Dropping the elimination of the nuclear program from the administration’s list of strategic goals, or declaring the problem solved when Iran retains control over its nuclear fuel, now poses a factual, political and rhetorical challenge.

Finally, in a speech to the American public yesterday, Trump estimated that the war would last about three weeks longer.

Indeed it does, as that was the main objective that Trump described when he announced the attack on Iran. If he’s going to just declare victory and get the hell out, then everything will go back to where it did before, and Iran will eventually have nukes. That is not what the sensible (i.e., non-terrorist) countries in the Middle East want.

*According to the WSJ, the United Arab Emirates, eager to open the Strait of Hormuz, has agreed to become a combatant in the war against Iran.

The United Arab Emirates is preparing to help the U.S. and other allies open the Strait of Hormuz by force, Arab officials said, a move that would make it the first Persian Gulf country to become a combatant, after being hit by Iranian attacks.

The U.A.E. is lobbying for a United Nations Security Council resolution that would authorize such action, the officials said. Emirati diplomats have urged the U.S. and military powers in Europe and Asia to form a coalition to open the strait by force, the officials said. A U.A.E. official said the Iranian regime thinks it is fighting for its existence and is willing to bring the global economy down with it in a chokehold on the strait.

The U.A.E. official said the country had reviewed its capabilities to assist in securing the strait, including efforts to help clear it of mines and other support services.

The Gulf state has also said the U.S. should occupy islands in the strategic waterway including Abu Musa, which has been held by Iran for a half-century and is claimed by the U.A.E., other Arab officials said.Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states are now turning against Iran’s regime and want the war to continue until it is disabled or toppled, Arab officials said, though they have stopped short of committing their military. Bahrain, a close U.S. ally that hosts the Navy’s Fifth Fleet, is sponsoring the U.N. resolution, with a vote expected Thursday.

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states are now turning against Iran’s regime and want the war to continue until it is disabled or toppled, Arab officials said, though they have stopped short of committing their military. Bahrain, a close U.S. ally that hosts the Navy’s Fifth Fleet, is sponsoring the U.N. resolution, with a vote expected Thursday.

I didn’t think the UAE had much of a military, but it turns out it does, and even has mandatory conscription. The military has 65,000 people on active duty, and there are 130,000 reservists, along with 139 fighter planes and a small navy with two minesweepers. It also has a decent air defense system.  It’s not comparable to what Israel or the U.S. has brought to bear, but it’s heartening that other Middle Eastern countries are willing to help open the Strait, especially in view of Iran being willing to take on anybody who takes on this task.

*In their questioning about “birthright citizenship” today, “key justices” of the Supreme Court appeared skeptical of Trump’s arguments that you are not always entitled to American citizenship if you were born here. Further, in an American first, Trump showed up at the oral arguments, no doubt trying to intimidate the Justices in a case he’ll almost surely lose.

A majority of the Supreme Court appeared skeptical of President Trump’s efforts to limit birthright citizenship during arguments on Wednesday.

Key conservative justices raised doubts about the constitutionality of the president’s executive order that would end automatic citizenship for children born on U.S. soil to undocumented immigrants and some temporary foreign visitors.

But in an argument that lasted more than two hours, several of the court’s conservative justices also asked tough questions of a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the legal challenge, making the outcome of the legally complicated and hugely consequential case not fully clear.

In an unprecedented move and a signal of the stakes of the landmark case, President Trump attended the first part of the argument, watching from a public gallery as his solicitor general defended the policy. Mr. Trump had been railing against the court on social media in the days leading up to the argument.

The case focuses on the constitutionality of an executive order signed by Mr. Trump last year that would end citizenship for babies born on U.S. soil to undocumented immigrants and temporary foreign visitors.

A ruling in favor of the Trump administration could redefine what it means to be an American. It could also have sweeping practical consequences, stripping citizenship from more than an estimated 200,000 babies born in the United States each year to undocumented immigrants.

The executive order, which was blocked by lower courts and has never gone into effect, would affect only babies born in the future. Opponents say a decision to uphold it would create chaos and uncertainty for newborns and their parents, and cast doubt over the status of millions of people who have already benefited from birthright citizenship.

I think Trump’s birthright ban was clearly unconstitutional, a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.  Given that provision, he’s bucking the law.  I was surprised to learn that birthright citizenship is far from universal. Here’s a map that Luana sent me of how countries relate birthplace to citizienship. She thought that Australia’s and the UK’s policy of requiring the parents being legal residents was more sensible than “automatic” citizenship.  I was surprised that no European country adheres to the U.S. policy, and, indeed, the “parents must be legal residents” policy has things to say for it.

*For despairing folk of the Jewish persuasion, you might be heartened by Eli Lakes’s article in The Free Press: “Israel is unpopular. And it’s never had more friends.”

Israel’s public image is in the toilet. On the socialist left, the Jewish state is portrayed as a genocidal colony. On the populist right, Israel and its supporters in America are conniving courtiers who bullied President Donald Trump to launch a war against Iran on its behalf. The numbers back it up too. A Gallup poll released late last month found that more Americans sympathize with the Palestinians than the Israelis for the first time in the quarter century that Gallup has been asking the question.

All of this might lead Zionists to despair for Israel’s future. In terms of soft power, Jerusalem is being pummeled by podcasts, protests, and social media. But that is only part of the picture. When it comes to hard power, the stuff of arms sales, diplomacy, and air space, Israel is on a generational run.

. . .In the recent past, American presidents have asked Israel to hold fire, fearing its participation in the previous Gulf wars against Iraq would poison cooperation with Arab allies. Under the old rules, Israel was the underdog, surrounded by enemies, protected and subsidized by America. Now Israel’s air force is helping shoot down Iranian missiles aimed at the Gulf States that once refused even to recognize its existence.

Nothing succeeds like success. Since the fall of 2024, Israel has demonstrated the ability to decapitate the leadership of its enemies from the air. The intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance technology that made these air strikes possible is now the envy of its neighbors. The dreams of pro-Palestinian activists to persuade the world to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel look quaint when nearly every military would love to learn how Israel is able to assassinate terrorist leaders without committing ground forces.

Pollack said that Gulf Arab monarchies “are not going to tank their partnership because of what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians. They need them for all these other reasons. It’s the ultimate triumph of Israel’s economic and military power.”

Beyond Israel’s military advances, the Jewish state has also been accumulating allies. Take Israel’s recent pact with Somaliland in January. Shoshana Bryen, senior director of the Jewish Policy Center, contrasted the Somaliland agreement with past Israeli development projects in Africa. “This is not just a new water project,” she said. “This is a strategic asset on the Red Sea.” Israel may soon be able to project naval power in one of the most important waterways in the world.

Bryen said, “There is a tectonic shift going on generally. Countries are moving to align with what they consider to be a strategic power, Israel, in the Middle East, in Africa, and Europe.”

. . . Israel still has a steep hill to climb when it comes to its public image in America and Europe. But very few people have noticed that as Israel has lost the public relations war in the West, it has been winning a real war in the Middle East. And the countries that used to yell loudest about Israel’s perfidy are quietly cheering on its air force as it helps to dominate the skies and pulverize the regime in Iran.

One can hope.  But that steep hill is still there, and my personal impression is that antisemitism is growing, at least in the West. A new Middle East is shaking out, and I hope I’m alive to see what happens in the next ten or fifteen years.

*When I visited Iceland for most of a week last August, I found it expensive, as does everyone else. Most stuff is imported, raising prices, and now they’re even higher because of the rising price of oil. Even the famous Icelandic hot dog, of which I had several, has shot up in price. You probably didn’t know that hot dogs are almost Iceland’s national dish, though they haven’t quite learned the right way to serve them yet.

Iceland is an expensive place to eat. This country in the North Atlantic depends on imported food, and inflation has been raging for years despite the government’s efforts to tame it.

But even though food prices are high, most Icelanders can still afford a hot dog.

“Everyone eats it, rich or poor,” said Gabriel Máni De Sousa, 16, fixing his hairnet behind the counter of Pylsubarinn, a decades-old hot-dog stand south of Reykjavik, where he works weekends.

Then he started making “one with everything,” the local way — with both raw and fried onions between the meat and the bun, and a healthy squirt of ketchup, sweet brown mustard and a rémoulade on top. Usually made with a blend of three meats — Icelandic lamb and beef as well as some imported pork — the dogs have a real snap, followed by a burst of juice that could shame their American peers.

If Iceland had a national dish, it would be the hot dog. It’s akin to the dollar slice, that emblem of affordable New York City eating: hot, reliable and better than it needs to be.

The dollar slice in NYC has gone the way of the Edsel, I’m afraid; a slice is three or four bucks now. Note that Icelanders PUT KETCHUP on the dog along with mustard, something that’s a capital offense in Chicago. A bit more:

But even Iceland’s hot dogs are not immune to inflation.

Prices vary depending on the stand and the toppings. But for the most part, a standard dog costs about 750 Icelandic krona, around $6. That is low for the Reykjavik area, where a kebab can cost $17 and dinner-plate-sized pizza can be $20. Consumer prices were 5.2 percent higher last month than in February 2025 — that’s more than twice that of the European Union. Hot dog prices have followed, steadily increasing at stands across the country.

Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur — the most famous hot dog shop in Iceland, whose name translates to “The Town’s Best Hot Dogs” — has been selling in downtown Reykjavik since at least the 1930s, and expanded rapidly in recent years from four to 14 locations.

Baldur Ingi Halldorsson, the chief executive, said he has raised prices more in the past few years than in the previous 20. In 2022, the price was 600 krona (about $4.80); now, it’s 880 krona, or just over $7. Inflation has increased ingredient costs and wages have gone up, so the cost of running a business is higher.

I actually got a dog and a Coke at the very location pictured in the NYT article, but really, you need at least two dogs to make a meal, and that’s getting up there in price.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili becomes a self-help cat:

Hili: Put your worries off until tomorrow.
Andrzej: They might grow old.
Hili: That’s the point.

In Polish:

Hili: Odłóż zmartwienia na jutro.
Ja: Mogą się zestarzeć.
Hili: I o to chodzi.

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

From Jesus of the Day, a big LOL:

From Give me a Sign:

From Luana:

*Masih has slowed down tweeting as she’s in Germany, but still asks us to remember those protestors who have been or will be executed:

From Bryan; Steve Stewart-Williams has done the hard work of untangling what people mean when they make probabilitistic statements:

From Luana. This is distressing, but you remember Iryna Zarutska, the 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee who was murdered on a train in North Carolina. A mural of her has been defaces in some places and, in Providence, Rhode Island, has been removed. You can read the story here.  It’s complicated by the fact that some rumors say the murals were funded by Elon Musk. To me, they’re justified as a remembrance of a woman who fled to America to find safety, but instead was murdered. The “division” appears to be about race, as the killer was black (and also mentally ill).

Three from my feed. This famous dog rescue is now memorialized with a statue on the site:

Did this cat try to steal fruit?

These sentences sound like a cat doing the “ek ek ek ek” sound. Watch until the end:

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

One from Dr. Cobb, on hols till tomorrow. This book might be worth looking into: it’s got 4.8 stars on Amazon out of 627 reviews.

I am excited that I have a new edition and new publisher for my book KAIBYO: THE SUPERNATURAL CATS OF JAPAN. I increased the text, added some new images, and basically fixed all the stuff that has been bugging me since it's first release 8 years ago.It's a banger.www.amazon.com/Kaibyo-Super…

— Zack Davisson (@zackdavisson.com) 2026-03-24T16:15:50.565Z

 

Rick Beato: Taylor Swift vs. The Beatles

April 1, 2026 • 11:45 am

You can call me a curmudgeon for saying that rock and pop music today are dreadful compared to that of their years of apogee (yes, my teenage years!), but you’d have to call Rick Beato a curmudgeon as well. And he knows a ton about music, being a musician himself, a producer, a music analyst, and a teacher. So he surely has more musical cred than I. Nevertheless, we generally share opinions about music, in particular the view modern rock and pop is tedious, repetitive, and boring. And I’ll argue strenuously that it’s not just because I like the music of my youth, and other generations like the music of their youth. Nope, metrics like musical complexity, the frequency of autotuning, and so on support the decline of rock and pop.

In the ten-minute video below, Beato compares the Beatles with Taylor Swift, and you can guess who comes off worse. (The “kids” may disagree, but they also are largely ignorant of the Beatles.) I have to say that I’ve listened to a fair amount of Taylor Swift, trying arduously to find out what it is about her music that’s made her the world’s biggest pop sensation. It can’t be her tunes, which are unmemorable, so perhaps it’s her lyrics about the bad guys she’s been involved with—something that surely resonates with her (mostly) female fans.

In this video Beato reacts to a 2024 NYT article (archived here) that discussed whether Taylor Swift is bigger now than the Beatles were in the past. That article concludes that both were huge and, if you use the right metrics, Swift can be seen as even bigger than the Beatles:

The length of Swift’s career has allowed her into the Beatles’ vaunted ballpark by giving her the chance to evolve her sound, grow her loyal audience and take full advantage of technological advances.

Yet as wild as it is for the Beatles to have accomplished so much in so little time, Swift’s longevity might be considered equally impressive in pop music, which often overvalues the new and — especially among female artists — the young.

Swift is of course still active, so we can’t measure something that I consider important: will their music be listened to twenty years hence? And how will it be regarded several decades after Swift or the Beatles stopped making music? We’ll have to wait, of course, for the answers to those questions, and I’ll be underground.

However, in this video, Beato details his experiences with Swift, having attended a number of her concerts and having a deep acquaintance with her music, as he has with the Beatles. But Beato is concentrating on quality, not sales or chart position.  He notes that many of Taylor Swift’s melodies were written by a large number of people who change over time, compared to only three for the Beatles (Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison). And it shows in the lame melodies (Beato likes Swift’s lyrics better than “her” tunes.) Further, Swift’s instrumentation itself was largely produced and performed \ by people other than Swift—something that, says Beato, is simply “how pop music is made” these days.

Although one would think that the Beatles don’t need to be extolled by Beato, since he’s done it so many times before, but he does mention great melodies of Beatles songs like “Lady Madonna,” or “I am the Walrus.”  (I could mention a gazillion more.) In contrast to Swift, he argues, the Beatles did not repeat ideas, and “they came up with all those ideas themselves.” He winds up calling Swift a “content creator”, who picks the brains of other people when she wants to change her music.

Beato asks for comments on his opinion, and I welcome yours below. But I doubt I’ll change my opinion that rock and pop music peaked several decades ago, and has gone downhill ever since. Swift’s immense popularity only proves that.

I have never heard a Taylor Swift song that comes close to the quality of this Beatles classic, and it isn’t all that complex compared to their later work. George Martin’s interpolation at 1:42, however, is a piece of genius:

The song was recorded on 18 October 1965, and it was complete except for the instrumental bridge. At that time, Lennon had not decided what instrument to use, but he subsequently asked George Martin to play a piano solo, suggesting “something Baroque-sounding”. Martin wrote a Bach-influenced piece that he found he could not play at the song’s tempo. On 22 October, the solo was recorded with the tape running at half speed, so when played back at normal pace the piano was twice as fast and an octave higher, solving the performance challenge and also giving the solo a unique timbre, reminiscent of a harpsichord.