Thursday: Hili dialogue

February 5, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to Thursday, February 5, 2026, and National Optimist Day.  This is NOT my day! Here’s a Jewish joke about the stereotypical mindset:

What’s the difference between a Jewish pessimist and a Jewish optimist?
The Jewish pessimist says, “Things can’t possibly get any worse.”
The Jewish optimist says, “Sure they can!”

It’s also Disaster Day (!), National Chocolate Fondue Day, National Fart Day, National Sweater Day (in Canada), and World Nutella Day.  Here’s a photo of Jango, the ticked tabby cat whose staff is reader Divy.  He got under the covers by himself and then took a nap, crossing his paws:

I first tasted Nutella last year. It was okay but a bit too sweet when spread on toast (I’ve had variants from other countries that are better). But I’m aware of its immense popularity; Here’s how it’s made commercially (note that it contains palm oil, which is not only bad for you, but whose production contributes to deforestation).

And there’s a new Google Doodle honoring the Olympic games: click to see where it goes.  Curling!

Posting may be light until next Tuesday as I have paperwork to do and talks and debates to hear.  Some retirement!

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the February 5 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Sadly, I hoped this wouldn’t happen, but massive layoffs at the Washington Post suggests that the renowned paper is now circling the drain (h/t Thomas).

The Washington Post told employees on Wednesday that it was beginning a widespread round of layoffs that are expected to decimate the organization’s sports, local news and international coverage.

The company is laying off about 30 percent of all its employees, according to two people with knowledge of the decision. That includes people on the business side and more than 300 of the roughly 800 journalists in the newsroom, the people said.

The cuts are a sign that Jeff Bezos, who became one of the world’s richest people by selling things on the internet, has not yet figured out how to build and maintain a profitable publication on the internet. The paper expanded during the first several years of his ownership, but the company has sputtered more recently.

Matt Murray, The Post’s executive editor, said on a call Wednesday morning with newsroom employees that the company had lost too much money for too long and had not been meeting readers’ needs. He said that all sections would be affected in some way, and that the result would be a publication focused even more on national news and politics, as well as business and health, and far less on other areas.

“If anything, today is about positioning ourselves to become more essential to people’s lives in what is becoming more crowded, competitive and complicated media landscape,” Mr. Murray said. “And after some years when, candidly, The Post has had struggles.”

Mr. Murray further explained the rationale in an email, saying The Post was “too rooted in a different era, when we were a dominant, local print product” and that online search traffic, partly because of the rise of generative A.I., had fallen by nearly half in the last three years. He added that The Post’s “daily story output has substantially fallen in the last five years.”

“Even as we produce much excellent work, we too often write from one perspective, for one slice of the audience,” he said.

The Post’s sports section will close, though some of its reporters will stay on and move to the features department to cover the culture of sports. The Post’s metro section will shrink, and the books section will close, as will the “Post Reports” daily news podcast.

Mr. Murray told the staff that while The Post’s international coverage also would be reduced, reporters would remain in nearly a dozen locations. Reporters and editors in the Middle East were laid off, as well as in India and Australia.

This is ineffably sad; For man years the Post was almost co-equal to the New York Times as the Paper of Record. It was the Post that tracked down the Watergate scandal thanks to Woodward and Bernstein’s reporting, and also played a key role in publishing and publicizing the Pentagon Papers leaked by Daniel Ellsberg. Those papers helped bring an end to the useless Vietnam War. Now the Post is a shadow of its former self, and I wonder if it will survive. Blame Jeff Bezos, if you wish. I myself don’t really understand why great papers fall apart like this.

Matthew sent several tweets about PostGate. The first one live-tweets the downfall of the Post, section by section, including sports and books:

Speaking to WaPo employees, editor Matt Murray says cuts are about “positioning ourselves to become more essential to people's lives, and what is becoming a more crowded, competitive and complicated media landscape, and after some years when, candidly, the Post has had struggles to do that."

— max tani (@maxtani.bsky.social) 2026-02-04T14:18:42.795Z

In addition to sports, the Washington Post is killing its book section, suspending its Post Reports podcast, restructuring its metro section, and shrinking its international footprint.

— max tani (@maxtani.bsky.social) 2026-02-04T14:18:42.797Z

Matt Murray's full email to staff about today's cuts at the Washington Post

— max tani (@maxtani.bsky.social) 2026-02-04T15:06:43.934Z

THE BOOK SECTION IS GONE!

Unbelievable

— 🧅🥯 (@nationalsliker.bsky.social) 2026-02-04T16:36:02.533Z

*Bret Stephens, who is rapidly becoming my favorite NYT columnist, has an op-ed giving Democrats further warning about nominating California’s governor as a Presidential candidate: “Will Newsom be the Democrats’ next mistake?” Another op-ed I highlighted a day or two ago another op-ed criticizing Newsom for his waffling, while Stephens points out that his record as governor won’t impress many centrist Americans.

Gavin Newsom has a memoir coming out this month, “Young Man in a Hurry” — another heavy hint that he intends to run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination. To judge by some of the more fawning media profiles (Vogue describes him as “lithe, ardent, energetic, a glimmer of optimism in his eye; Kennedy-esque”), he’s practically already won.

Democrats should be careful whom they crush on. Newsom’s record as governor of California is a Republican strategist’s perfect foil. Among the more salient points:

Some of the points (there are others):

Affordability. That’s supposed to be the Democrats’ magic word against Republicans amid persistently high prices, especially for first-time home buyers. Yet U.S. News & World Report ranked California dead last in 2025 in its affordability rankings. The California Legislature’s own Analyst’s Office noted that “Prices for mid-tier homes are about $755,000 — more than twice as expensive as the typical mid-tier U.S. home.” And in 16 California counties, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and Alameda, a six-figure salary can still be deemed “low-income” for a family of three, according to the state’s housing department.

Poverty and income inequality.The U.S. Census Bureau reported last year that California is tied with Louisiana for the country’s highest “supplemental” poverty rate, which takes account of cost-of-living calculations over a three-year period, with roughly one in six Californians living in poverty. In Pennsylvania, by contrast, the number is about one in 10. California also has one of the country’s highest rates of income inequality: In 2022, the average income of the top 5 percent was nearly $600,000 higher than the average income of the bottom 20 percent.

Education.To its credit, the University of California system remains one of the jewels of American higher education. K-12? Not so much. U.S. News ranks California 38th in the country, behind Mississippi and Louisiana. Cal Matters found that while the state had increased “per pupil spending by 102 percent since 2013, reading comprehension has remained flat while math skills have dropped.”

. . .Wokeness.Newsom understands that Democrats’ obsession with progressive social justice causes, and the censorious spirit that goes with it, hurt the party in 2024, which is why he has gone out of his way to engage with right-wing influencers on his podcast, “This Is Gavin Newsom.” Last year, he made waves when he seemed to break with progressives on the question of trans athletes, calling the participation of biological males in women’s and girls’ sports “deeply unfair.”

Then again, Newsom signed SB132, the law that allowed a biological male, Tremaine Carroll, serving 25 years to life for violent offenses, to transfer to a women’s prison, in which Carroll is alleged to have raped two female inmates. Newsom signed another bill that forbids educators from being required to tell parents that their children have changed their names and pronouns. That won’t be easy to defend in a general election where the race will hang on tens of thousands of votes in states like Georgia, Michigan and North Carolina.

As the early swooning over Newsom suggests, some voters’ hearts are fluttering over the prospect of his candidacy. Democrats who take the 2028 stakes seriously should stick to just using their brains.

The other issues not mentioned here include a high rate of people moving out of the state (the fastest rate in the nation), people fleeing high taxes and unaffordable housing. .

Well, these would be negatives so long as voters in the rest of the country know about them. But Republicans are savvy enough to glom onto them in campaign ads, and Newsom will have to defend them in any debate. He’s too slick for me, and his latter-day pretense that he’s really a centrist is unconvincing. I still see no viable Democratic candidate on the horizon.

*This is a first, and hopefully a bellwether: The American Society of Plastic Surgeons has recommended that gender-related practices by its members be delayed until the patient is 19.

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons recommended on Tuesday that its members refrain from performing gender transition procedures on young patients until they reach age 19, a shift that comes at a time of mounting opposition to such care at the state and federal levels.

The group’s new position stands in contrast to those taken by most major medical associations in the United States, which endorse a range of treatments for adolescents and teenagers struggling with gender dysphoria. The treatments include puberty-blocking drugs, hormone therapies and, in rarer cases, surgeries.

In its statement, the society said the new recommendations were prompted by what it described as a lack of quality research on the long-term outcomes for young people who had undergone surgical interventions like mastectomies and cited “emerging evidence of treatment complications and potential harms.”

The announcement drew praise from the Trump administration, which issued a statement commending the group for “disavowing pediatric sex-rejecting procedures.” In the statement, Jim O’Neill, the deputy health secretary, said, “Today marks another victory for biological truth in the Trump administration.”

Kinnon Ross MacKinnon, a social scientist who studies transgender medicine at York University in Toronto, said the medical group’s new position reflected the growing political backlash over gender-affirming care as well as liability concerns for practitioners in the field.

Last week, a jury in New York State ruled in favor of a woman who claimed a mastectomy she received as a teenager had left her disfigured, making it the first malpractice verdict against providers of gender transition care by a patient who later came to regret the decision.

The ASPS is not a tiny organization: it represents 11,000 American and Canadian physicians. Wikipedia has just added this to its entry: “In February 2026, the ASPS became the first major medical association in the U.S. to change its guidance on gender transition surgery for minors, recommending to its members that chest, genital, and facial surgeries not be performed until age 19.”

I agree with this decision: 19, which is between the two ages I suggested (19 and 21) is about the right age to allow people to make their own decisions about surgery, which have been rushed by rah-rah parents, friends, and doctors for too long.  You can read their new 9-page position statement here.

*Mayor Mamdani is deep-sixing programs for gifted and talented students in NYC kindergartens. He’s also facing blame for that, as well as for the deaths of 16 homeless people who froze to death in recent weeks (Hizzoner decided not to force people into warming centers; see Luana’s tweet below). From the Free Press article by Maud Maron:

New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani is facing criticism for his plans to phase out the public school system’s gifted and talented (G&T) program for kindergarten, starting next year. This feels like Groundhog Day for public school parents like me who fought former mayor Bill de Blasio’s efforts to end G&T, abolish entrance exams for the city’s prestigious specialized high schools, and root out, in the name of “anti-racism,” any honors program that smacked of academic excellence.

The same tired arguments about the racism of meritocracy are still unconvincing and are still unsupported by data or evidence, yet tenaciously hang on like land acknowledgments, “hands up, don’t shoot” chants, and the idea that socialism will actually work this time.

No matter what happens to the New York City school system, which had 906,248 students during the 2024–25 school year and is the largest in the United States, Mamdani’s first month as mayor will be forever marred by the deaths of 16 people who “passed away outside during this brutal stretch of cold,” as he put it on Monday. The new mayor reversed a policy by predecessor Eric Adams that would have allowed the police to get the homeless inside. Mamdani’s brand of progressivism essentially handcuffed the police in order to “protect” the homeless from the very people who might have saved their lives.

About 18,000 elementary school students in the city are enrolled in G&T, with about 2,500 admitted for kindergarten each fall.

Abolishing the program shares with anti-policing policies the cruel consequence of managing to do the most harm to those who are cited most often as deserving of help. In a study of student data from 2010 to 2019, black and Hispanic students in G&T programs showed the largest increases in academic proficiency scores. About 90 percent of the city’s 148,000 charter school students are from black and Hispanic families who have chosen to leave the one-size-fits-all equity education offered by the “abolish G&T” crowd to whom Mamdani panders. (That number does not include the roughly 50,000 children who are on waiting lists.)

When Mamdani was running for the New York State Assembly in 2020, he told the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club: “New York State continues to uphold policies that perpetuate educational and residential segregation, mass incarceration, and economic disenfranchisement. As a graduate of Bronx Science, I have personally witnessed just how segregated New York City public schools are, especially our specialized high schools. I support measures to integrate our public schools and fully fund our education system, including the abolition of the SHSAT.”

Under Mamdani’s brand of communism democratic socialism, all shall get the same education, even if children as a group are better off with “segregation”, as Hizzoner calls it.  It’s clear that I’m no fan of the Mayor, who I see as an antisemit who makes promises he can’t keep.  Well, all politicans do that, but his promises are what got him elected: free daycare, free public transportation, city grocery stores, and the like. I’d eat my hat if he manages to keep them, though I don’t have a hat and have nothing to lose. He’s slick and said to be charming, but he’s not good for NYC or its Jews. Fortunately, he can’t do much damage to the rest of the country, and Ceiling Cat help us if he runs for another office (like a Representative) after his term as mayor.

*Sick of war, many Ukrainians are increasingly favoring giving up land to Russia in exchange for peace and also security guarantees.

Ms. [Khrystyna] Yurchenko is among a growing number of Ukrainians who say they would hand over the part of the Donbas still controlled by Ukraine to Russia if that would end the war.

This represents a notable shift for a war-weary Ukrainian population. Giving up territory that Russia has been unable to capture has long been considered a red line. But what once seemed impossible now appears less so, as the Kremlin insists that U.S.-backed peace negotiations will advance only if Ukraine agrees to walk away from the Donbas.

“For me, peace is the priority, and if there would definitely be no war after we give away the Donbas, I would be ready to leave,” she said. She would support surrendering the territory, she said, only if Ukraine’s allies offered strong guarantees for the country’s postwar security.

The future of the Donbas is among the thorniest issues as Ukraine, Russia and the United States continue talks in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, on Wednesday.

Ukraine has spent years fortifying cities in the Donbas, and has lost a huge number of soldiers defending the industrial region. The territory covers parts of several regions, including Donetsk and Luhansk. Ukraine still holds about 20 percent of Donetsk but has lost all of Luhansk.

. . . In public statements, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Ukraine remains opposed to a unilateral withdrawal from the Donbas. But he has also occasionally hinted at flexibility, saying that both Russia and Ukraine must be prepared to compromise as Ukraine comes under pressure on the battlefield and at the negotiating table.

Polling reflects a growing openness to territorial concessions.

. . . Still, a majority of Ukrainians remain opposed. Many say they are prepared to continue enduring hardships, including Russia’s campaign to knock out the country’s energy infrastructure during a bitterly cold winter.

This is as sadder than the downfall of the Post. Although many Americans seem unconcerned with the war between Russia and Ukraine, it is a just and moral war for Ukraine. The bloody Russians just invaded and took whatever land they wanted in a latter-day Anschluß.  It’s not right, but there’s nothing anybody can do about it. Will Russia do this with other countries? Who knows?

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is pondering the past.

Hili: What did garden look like like ten thousand years ago?
Andrzej: It had a thicker layer of ice.

In Polish:

Hili: Jak nasz ogród wyglądał dziesięć tysięcy lat temu.
Ja: Miał grubszą warstwę lodu.

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

From My Orange Cat is a Little Shit (and the cat likes the water shaken, not stirred):

 

From Meow Incorporated:

From Strange, Stupid, or Silly Signs:

From Masih. Yep, Mamdani’s office issues a “Hijab Day” celebration announcement. Masih doesn’t like it:

I guess it’s “diss Mamdani Day,” as I got this from Luana

From Malcolm, a scaredy-cat (“can’t touch this”):

This was tweeted by Titania, but of course Alana Akbar is an online fiction, not a real person

But we have the fictional person for real here, though only in the U.S. Alana wouldn’t last two minutes in Palestine. Chickens for KFC!

One I retweeted from the Auschwitz Memorial:

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. First, a fish wearing a jellyfish coat. But what is this “partly” immune to its sting stuff?

Imagine wearing a #jellyfish as a helmet!?!Well, that’s exactly what this juvenile jack is doing! Mostly immune to its sting, the jack has taken the jellyfish prisoner. Shot using #scuba, out over the deep abyss, drifting at night. #blackwater #blackwaterdiving #scubadiving #gug

— Chris Gug (@gugunderwater.bsky.social) 2026-02-04T11:54:01.639Z

TRUE FACTS about kittens:

After a month of careful study, I have been able to identify the key times when kittens go nuts:- Just after food- When hungry- Just after a poo- When needing a poo- Night time- Day time- Misc

— David KC (@davidmuttering.bsky.social) 2026-02-04T10:01:57.170Z

Another “New Rule” clip from bill Maher

February 4, 2026 • 9:45 am

If anybody is still accusing Bill Maher of being pro-Trump, have a gander at this nine-minute clip from “Real Time” two weeks ago (I missed this one).  It’s a scathing indictment of people who criticize Democrats but neglect the news showing that MAGA and Trump are far more odious. (He begins by calling out ICE for what happened to Renée Good.)   The money quote: “Trump isn’t draining the swamp—he’s bottling it.”

At 5:30, however, he can’t resist giving a lick to Democrats for ignoring the rants Cea Weaver, Zohran Mamdani’s apointee to protect tenants, has emitted on social media. They include “If you don’t believe in the government’s sacred right to seize private property, it’s over,” “Private property, especially home ownership, is a weapon of white supremacy,” “Impoverish the white middle class,” and “Elect more communists.”  Maher then reads between the lines and calls Mamdani a “straight-up communist.” That may be hyperbolic, but I think he’s more extreme than most voters realized, and I’m amazed at the degree of enthusiasm for him.

Maher’s point is that people need to absorb the news that’s inimical to their own ideology, painful though that may be. It’s not the best of his bits, but it’s okay.

Weaver’s alleged statements aren’t made up.  The NY Post quoted some of them, and then, in its latest report on her, adds this:

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s newly instated radical-left tenant advocate, Cea Weaver, broke down Wednesday as she dodged questions from reporters about her gentrification hypocrisy.

The 37-year-old, who has faced backlash for blasting homeownership as a “weapon of white supremacy” in the past, teared up when she emerged briefly from her apartment building in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, at about 9 a.m.

Weaver, who was tapped by Mamdani to be his new director of the city Office to Protect Tenants, quickly ran back inside after she was asked about the $1.6 million home her mother owns in Nashville, Tennessee.

Mamdani has a bright future in the Democratic Party so long as it leans wokeish.

Jesus ‘n’ Mo ‘n’ obedience

February 4, 2026 • 8:45 am

The latest Jesus and Mo strip, called “discipline,” came with a note and a link:

It’s that Green Lane Mosque in Birmingham again.

An excerpt from the National Secular Society‘s report:

An Islamic charity issued regulatory “advice and guidance” after it promoted misogyny has since streamed a sermon saying men can ‘physically discipline’ wives who are ‘rebellious’.

Last month, Birmingham mosque Green Lane Masjid and Community Centre (GLMCC) live streamed a sermon in which Aqeel Mahmood [see video below[ said “discipline in the case of rebellion” is one of the “rights of the husband over the wife”.

He said: “The husband is a leader. He has his responsibilities. Physical discipline is a last resort on the condition that it doesn’t cause pain, injury, fear or humiliation”.

. . . Mahmood also said a husband has a “right” to “intimacy” with his wife and a wife must not leave the house without her husband’s permission. Mahmood is understood to be an imam at the centre.

Yes, a “last resort” to be used on “rebellious” women. Some “faith of peace”!

Here’s a short clip showing Mahmood’s interpretation of Islamic law:

No readers’ wildlife today

February 4, 2026 • 8:15 am

Yes, the much-feared situation has occurred: I have run out of reader’ wildlife photos. Perhaps readers have lost interest in either sending them in or seeing them, but it’s a sad day when there are no animals and plants to look at and learn about. If you have photos (and good ones), please send them along.

In the meantime, I’ll shortly post a new Jesus and Mo, which will have to do you for today.

I guess I’ll take a short nap.

Wednesday: Hili dialogue

February 4, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to a Hump Day (“Il giorno della gobba” in Italian): Wednesday, February 4, 2026, and National Homemade Soup Day. Remember this place?

It’s also Liberace Day (he died on this day in 1987), National Girls and Women in Sports Day, National Hemp Day, National Stuffed Mushroom Day, and Rosa Parks Day (she was born on Feb. 4, 1913).

Here is Parks is being fingerprinted on February 22, 1956 for being one of the leaders of the Montgomery bus boycott. Her famous refusal to sit in the back of the bus occurred on December 1, 1955, and could be seen as the start of the Civil Rights movement of the late Fifties and Sixties:

Gene Herrick for the Associated Press; restored by Adam Cuerden

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

Da Nooz:

*Iranian and U.S. diplomats are meeting in Istanbul, with Iran hoping to stave off what looks to be an impeding attack on their country.

Senior U.S. and Iranian officials are expected to meet in Istanbul on Friday for talks aimed at de-escalating the crisis between their countries, according to three current regional officials and a former one who were familiar with the planning.

The talks, they said, aim to bring together Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s Middle East envoy; Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law; and Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, the officials said. Also expected to attend are senior officials from Turkey, Qatar and Egypt.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists. They included an Arab official, a regional official, a senior Iranian official and a former Iranian diplomat.

White House officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The plans for the negotiations could change.

If the talks happen, they will mark a rare face-to-face encounter between U.S. and Iranian officials at a time when military threats by Mr. Trump, and the refusal of Iran’s leaders to accept his demands, have brought the two countries to the precipice of war, spreading fear across the region.

In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has threatened to bomb Iran if its embattled leaders, who last month crushed mass protests with lethal force, did not yield to his demands. Those include Iran’s ending its nuclear program, accepting limits on its ballistic missiles and halting its support for proxy militias around the Arab world.

So far, Iran’s leaders have said that they would not negotiate while under threat, while vowing a harsh response to any American attack.

:The Times of Israel reports this:

Iran and the United States will resume nuclear talks on Friday in Turkey, Iranian and US officials told Reuters on Monday, and US President Donald Trump warned that with US warships heading to Iran, “bad things” would probably happen if a deal could not be reached.

And this, which is an aggressive act on Iran’s part:

The US military shoots down an Iranian drone that approached the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea, a US official tells Reuters on Tuesday.

The Iranian Shahed-139 drone was flying toward the carrier and was shot down by a F-35 US fighter jet.

Will the U.S. (presumably along with Israel, which Iran has also threatened if there’s an attack) attack Iran? I still think so, though talks raise the probability that there will be a diplomatic outcome. However, the only bargaining chip Iran seems willing to offer is “we will stop making nukes,” and they’ve lied about that for decades—with every U.S. President buying that nonsense. I don’t think Trump will, so I still think we’ll mount an attack. (Remember, Trump still wants that Nobel Peace Prize, and how better to get it than to bring down the Iranian regime.)

*Still stinging from his loss in the 2020 election, Trump has issued a call for the government to “nationalize voting,” a clearly unconstitutional grab at power.

President Donald Trump said Monday that Republican lawmakers should nationalize voting — claiming a power explicitly granted to states in the U.S. Constitution.

Speaking to right-wing podcaster Dan Bongino, who recently stepped down from his role as the FBI’s deputy director, Trump again falsely alleged that the 2020 election was stolen from him, and he urged Republicans to “take over” elections and nationalize the process.

“We should take over the voting, the voting, in at least 15 places,” Trump told Bongino. “The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

Under the Constitution, the “Times, Places and Manner” of holding elections are determined by each state, not the federal government. Congress has the power to set election rules, but the Constitution does not give the president any role on that subject. Republicans in recent decades have often argued in favor of states’ rights and against a powerful federal government.

Trump’s demand comes less than a week after the FBI executed a search warrant at a warehouse in Fulton County, Georgia, which is at the heart of right-wing conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. The unusual warrant authorized agents to seize all physical ballots from the 2020 election, voting machine tabulator tapes, images produced during the ballot count and voter rolls from that year. Days before the search, Trump claimed in a speech at the Davos World Economic Forum that the 2020 election was rigged.

UPDATE: Today’s NYT says that the White House walked this stupid idea back:

But Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on Tuesday that Mr. Trump had actually been referring to legislation that would require people to prove that they are U.S. citizens when they register to vote.

“What the president was referring to is the SAVE Act, which is a huge, common-sense piece of legislation that Republicans have supported, that President Trump is committed to signing into law during his term,” Ms. Leavitt said.

“I don’t think any rational person who is being honest with themselves would disagree with the idea of requiring citizens of this country to present an ID before casting a ballot in a federal election, or, frankly, in any election, and that’s something the president wants to see happen.”

Like birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S., the rights of states to control their elections is specified in the Constitution, so the feds trying to control voting will not stand up in court. It’s just another bluff by Trump, but it’s not beyond him to start the process by filing a lawsuit, or issuing some bogus executive order.

*As always, I’m a sucker for prognostications about the Democratic party. Here’s one from Ruy Teixeira at the Free Press, “If Newsom is the front-runner, Democrats may be doomed.”  Here is some shoot-me-now data:

After all, [Newsome has] had quite a year. While other Democratic politicians have struggled to adapt to the chaos of the second Trump term, Newsom has responded with a blitz of activity that has dramatically raised his profile. At this time last year, he was polling in the single digits for the 2028 primary, stuck in a scrum with other possible candidates and trailing Kamala Harris by a wide margin. Today Newsom tops all three major poll averages—enough to make him the undeniable front-runner.

Newsom’s strength is also showing in the betting markets. On PredictIt, he is far and away the betting favorite for the Democratic nomination, way ahead of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Harris, the second and third most popular choices. He trails only J.D. Vance in the betting for the 2028 general election.

AOC? Harris? Please, shoot me now. But of course I don’t want Vance as President, since he has apparently learned his behaviors from Trump.  More:

What accounts for this remarkable surge? How did a liberal California Democrat win so much support a year after Democrats got walloped when their candidate was . . . another liberal California Democrat?

The answer lies in Newsom’s ability to be everything to—well, not quite everybody, but every Democrat. Think of him not as an ordinary politician but as a message delivery system, and a very effective one. All politicians fit that description to some degree, but Newsom lets absolutely nothing stand in the way—not principles, not beliefs, not prior positions. He reliably presents whatever message he deems most politically effective at any given time to any given audience. That has enabled him to appeal to nearly every Democratic faction.

. . . In essence, Newsom appointed himself chairman of the anti-Trump resistance and then backed up the move with words and actions. The Democratic base is loving it, just as he intends.

But many other Democrats worry that in order to win, the party will need to moderate some of its more unpopular positions, rather than simply criticize Trump. Naturally, Newsom has something for that crowd too.

He started a podcast, This Is Gavin Newsom, where his guests have included the late Charlie Kirk, Steve Bannon, Ben Shapiro, and other conservative luminaries. This has given him an opportunity to flash a few cautious signals that he is more moderate than the average Democrat. In his episode with Kirk, he agreed that letting trans-identifying biological males play in girls’ and women’s sports seemed “deeply unfair” to him. And in his recent episode with Shapiro, he agreed that calling ICE activities “state-sponsored terrorism” was not justified, and that it was probably not a good idea to abolish ICE.

So why isn’t that good?  Because he has no firm positions, and apparently no guiding principles:

On the other hand, he has not been shy about reassuring progressives and “woke” Democrats that he is still one of them. For example, after his podcast statement on trans-identifying boys in girls’ sports, he almost immediately denied any implication that he would support a policy to change that situation in California or any other place. In his interview with Klein, he was quick to defend the provision of subsidized healthcare for undocumented immigrants as part of his overall commitment to universal healthcare.

On the other hand, he has not been shy about reassuring progressives and “woke” Democrats that he is still one of them. For example, after his podcast statement on trans-identifying boys in girls’ sports, he almost immediately denied any implication that he would support a policy to change that situation in California or any other place. In his interview with Klein, he was quick to defend the provision of subsidized healthcare for undocumented immigrants as part of his overall commitment to universal healthcare.

Newsom also refused to support Proposition 36, a ballot measure backed by many prosecutors to classify more crimes as felonies and increase penalties. (It passed overwhelmingly anyway).

. . . Gavin Newsom: friend of the resistance, friend of moderates, friend of progressives, friend of populists, friend of labor, friend of abundance-istas, special chum of Big Tech, and hard man for the Democratic Party. He’s got it all, twinned with a preternatural ability to deliver a perfectly calibrated message to each of these audiences when called upon to do so.

Newsom’s gift (if you can call it that) of appealing to all the factions within his own base works well for individual candidates in blue states but terribly for the party as a whole and its presidential candidates. It encourages candidates to think their basic positions don’t have to change much and that their progressive record, commitments, and statements over the years won’t turn off voters.

This is egregiously wrong, as the Deciding to Win report shows definitively, and as common sense would suggest. Candidates’ records and past positions matter a lot once they have to speak to a general electorate that doesn’t share the basic assumptions of partisan Democrats. Just ask Kamala Harris.

Could the Democrats make the same mistake with Gavin Newsom? Absolutely, because he knows just how to talk to them. That’s too bad because what they really need is a Bill Clinton and, well, Gavin Newsom is no Bill Clinton.

As I said, I’d vote for him over any Republican, but I wouldn’t be happy about it as I wouldn’t know whom I’m voting for. In the end, I think Newsom’s wokeness would dominate. And if he waffles that much, it’s good fodder for Republicans, whether in ads or in a debate.

*When Trump was blackmailing Harvard earlier over its antisemitism, he demanded that the University pay the government $200 million. He’s now dropped that demand. Instead, the Prez wants Harvard to cough up a billion dollars. 

President Trump said he is seeking $1 billion in damages from Harvard University, the latest escalation in his administration’s fight with the institution over alleged antisemitism.

Trump posted on social media after the New York Times reported that his administration had dropped its demand for a $200 million payment to the government to settle the dispute.

“Strongly Antisemitic Harvard University has been feeding a lot of ‘nonsense’ to The Failing New York Times,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform overnight. “This case will continue until justice is served,” he added. “We are now seeking One Billion Dollars in damages, and want nothing further to do, into the future, with Harvard University.”

Trump didn’t specify how or when he might seek the $1 billion. Harvard didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Ivy League school has been locked in a battle with the Trump administration for months over allegations of antisemitism and concerns about diversity practices. Last year, the government pulled billions of dollars in federal research funds, threatened the school’s tax-exempt status and attacked its ability to enroll international students.

The Times reported Monday that Harvard had rejected the idea of the $200 million payment because it was wary of backlash from liberal students and faculty. Hours later, Trump criticized the newspaper and Harvard in two Truth Social posts.

Before the president’s latest remarks, the administration had been in discussions with Harvard to settle their dispute.

*From the UPI’s Odd News, we have a video of the latest weird stuff that happened, including a Chinese toy horse that turned sad when its muzzle was sewn on upside down (it became a popular hit), and kangaroo of unknown origin was loose in Texas.   The ‘roo has been captured, but nobody knows who should get it back.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is sick to death of winter, as she always is during the season:

Hili: Weeks go by, and these frosts just will not end.
Andrzej: Do not complain, you have it warm at home.

In Polish:

Hili: Mijają tygodnie, a te mrozy nie chcą się skończyć.
Andrzej: Nie narzekaj, masz ciepło w domu.

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

From Meow Incorporated:

From CinEmma:

From The Language Nerds:

From Masih, Iranian students protesting at their university. And yes, it’s true that the regime is arresting doctors and nurses who treat wounded protestors.

From Malcolm.  Who says cats don’t experience love?

From Luana; a tweet by Colin Wright arguing that there should be no topic that’s off limits in research, a question I ponder constantly.

Retweeted by J. K. Rowling. The Taliban previously banned girls from secondary education, but the Guardian article says that they’re now banned from University education, too. Even the UN is objecting to this one. Half the population can’t get an education! The Taliban had promised earlier that there would be no ban on school for females.

One from my feed. I love donkeys but am told that they can be mean, biting and kicking:

 

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial: a survivor whose birthday is today (she’s 101):

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. First, the Sun’s large-scale granularity:

The seething visible surface of the Sun.Each of these cell-like structures is about the size of Texas. They’re granules where hot plasma rises and cooler material sinks back down. Details as small as 30km are visible.Credit: NSO/NSF/AURA#astronomy

— Colin Stuart 🔭 (@colinstuartspace.bsky.social) 2026-02-03T14:21:07.139Z

This is, of course, all over social media. And Matthew told me, “We both know how it got there.”

“Hospital evacuated as man found to have WW1 artillery shell in rectum”A difficult day for le squad de bombe…

— Bryan (@elwick70.bsky.social) 2026-02-02T17:38:23.710Z

God: celestial dictator or kindly father?

February 3, 2026 • 10:00 am

The only television show I watch regularly is the NBC Evening News: I watch the whole thing from 5:30-6, completely ignoring phone calls and other disturbances. Last night the lead story was about the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Savannah Guthrie, a well-liked NBC news journalist and co-anchor of the network’s Today show.  Mother and daughter were close, with Nancy often appearing on Savannah’s show.

Nancy Guthrie was 84, and simply disappeared from her home in Tucson, Arizona on Sunday.  She has limited mobility, and when she didn’t show up for church a friend called the police, who discovered her disappearance.  Nancy Guthrie relies on medication that she must take every 24 hours or she might die.  An interview with the local sheriff revealed that there were signs of violence, and that Nancy was probably abducted.  It’s now Tuesday, so she might already be dead.

The NBC news, both national and local, gave the disappearance not only the lead story, but also lots of air time because Savannah’s a member of the network family. The first paragraph of the NBC national news story is this:

“TODAY” co-anchor Savannah Guthrie is asking for prayers for her mother’s safe return as Arizona authorities continue to investigate her possible abduction.

Savannah also related, on the evening news, that the greatest gift she got from her mother was a deep belief in God, as you see in the plea for prayers above.  On the local NBC news, anchor Alison Rosati ended her report on the disappearance by saying that she and other NBCers were also praying for Nancy Guthrie.

This is a tragedy for the Guthrie family, especially because Savannah and her mom were so close, and I won’t be dismissive of the call for prayers by nearly all the reporters. It did, however, get me thinking about people’s views about what prayers are supposed to accomplish, how they’re received by the God people imagine, and how educated people (Savannah has a J.D. from Georgetown Law) come to think that prayers are useful.

It’s clear that all the calls for prayer by newspeople reflect the still-pervasive religiosity of America, though I’m not sure whether, for some, the call for prayer is just a pro forma expression of sympathy. But surely for many prayers are supposed to work: God is supposed to hear them and do something—in this case intercede to help bring Nancy Guthrie back alive. And that got me thinking about how people connect prayer with the listener: God. Religious Jews are, by the way, among the most fervent pray-ers, with prayer serving as a constant connection with God.  And, like prayers in other religions. Jews sometimes use prayer to ask for personal benefits or simply to propitiate God.

The train of thought continued. What kind of God is more likely to effect changes requested in prayer? If God is omniscient, omnipotent, and good, wouldn’t He know that people want things, like Nancy Guthrie’s return, and not need their prayers to find out? (He presumably can read people’s minds.) A god who requires prayers to effect change would be dictatorial and mean-spirited, demanding that obsequious people supplicate and propitiate him. But surely that’s not the kind of God most Christians imagine. (My feeling is that Jews envision a somewhat angrier God—the one in the Old Testament.)

Nevertheless, despite quasi-scientific studies showing that intercessory prayers don’t work, people ignore that data, as of course they would; it’s tantamount to admitting that there’s no personal God who has a relationship with you.  Sam Harris has suggested that these studies are weak, and Wikipedia quotes him this way:

Harris also criticized existing empirical studies for limiting themselves to prayers for relatively unmiraculous events, such as recovery from heart surgery. He suggested a simple experiment to settle the issue:[32]

Get a billion Christians to pray for a single amputee. Get them to pray that God regrow that missing limb. This happens to salamanders every day, presumably without prayer; this is within the capacity of God. I find it interesting that people of faith only tend to pray for conditions that are self-limiting.

He has a point of course, and that experiment would never work.  But it’s intercessory prayer. Perhaps God answers only prayers coming from the afflicted themselves. But that implies that the “thoughts and prayers” of other people, as in the Guthrie case, are useless. In the end, the very idea of petitionary and intercessory prayer being effective implies that God is, as Christopher Hitchens said, like a Celestial Dictator presiding over a divine North Korea, requiring constant propitiation by obsequious believers. How could it be otherwise?

One response by liberal religionists is that one prays not for help, but simply as a form of meditation or rumination.  In other words, perhaps putting things into words—even words that nobody is hearing—helps you as a form of therapy, or in sorting out your thoughts and problems. That’s fine, though it’s unclear why rumination alone wouldn’t suffice.

I won’t deny anybody their belief in God, but I don’t want people forcing their beliefs on me, which is what occurs when newspeople ask for my prayers. I have none to give, though I wish people in trouble well, and hope that Nancy Guthrie returns.

These thoughts may sound cold-hearted, but they’re similar to what Dan Dennett wrote in his wonderful essay, “Thank Goodness“, describing who should really have been thanked for saving his life after a near-fatal aortic dissection:

What, though, do I say to those of my religious friends (and yes, I have quite a few religious friends) who have had the courage and honesty to tell me that they have been praying for me? I have gladly forgiven them, for there are few circumstances more frustrating than not being able to help a loved one in any  more direct way. I confess to regretting that I could not pray (sincerely) for my friends and family in time of need, so I appreciate the urge, however clearly I recognize its futility. I translate my religious friends’ remarks readily enough into one version or another of what my fellow brights have been telling me: “I’ve been thinking about you, and wishing with all my heart [another ineffective but irresistible self-indulgence] that you come through this OK.” The fact that these dear friends have been thinking of me in this way, and have taken an effort to let me know, is in itself, without any need for a supernatural supplement, a wonderful tonic. These messages from my family and from friends around the world have been literally heart-warming in my case, and I am grateful for the boost in morale (to truly manic heights, I fear!) that it has produced in me. But I am not joking when I say that I have had to forgive my friends who said that they were praying for me. I have resisted the temptation to respond “Thanks, I appreciate it, but did you also sacrifice a goat?” I feel about this the same way I would feel if one of them said “I just paid a voodoo doctor to cast a spell for your health.” What a gullible waste of money that could have been spent on more important projects! Don’t expect me to be grateful, or even indifferent. I do appreciate the affection and generosity of spirit that motivated you, but wish you had found a more reasonable way of expressing it.

In other words, “thoughts” are fine; “prayers,” not so much.

I’m writing this simply to work out my own thoughts about prayer and its ubiquity, but I would appreciate hearing from readers about this issue.  What do you think when you hear others asking for prayers.  Is prayer a good thing, and what does it presume about God?  Any thoughts (but no prayers) are welcome, and put them below.

Readers’ wildlife photos

February 3, 2026 • 8:15 am

This is my last batch of photos, so please help us (i.e., me) out and send your good wildlife photos.

Today’s photos of sunflowers come from Pratyaydipta Rudra, a statistics professor at Oklahoma State University. Pratyay’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. Pratyay and his wife Sreemala have a big bird-and-butterfly website called Wingmates.

I have shared some stories about our Maximilian Sunflowers before. This batch is a set of images of the sunflowers in bloom from the fall. They bloom for a relatively shorter time (a couple of weeks), but it creates a wonderful sunny vibe at that time and the pollinators, especially the migrating ones, definitely appreciate the buffet. Here are some insect photos on or near the sunflowers.

The Maximilian Sunflower (Helianthus maximiliani) plants bordering our property. They are not just low maintenance (no water required even during hot Oklahoma summers), but also kind of hard to kill if one wants that! We had them accidentally mowed down to the ground by a neighbor during the first year, and they grew back up just fine:

A leafcutter bee (Megachile, not sure about the exact species) flying over:

Painted lady (Vanessa cardui) butterfly taking off:

The bloom coincides with Monarch (Danaus plexippus) migration as we see plenty of Monarchs stopping by:

I called this image “The flame and the bee”. It’s the same leafcutter bee from the other image:

A close view of the bee nectaring on the sunflower:

A Spotted Cucumber Beetle (Diabrotica undecimpunctata). These are considered pests, but we see a good number of them every fall and they had never caused any trouble in our vegetable garden:

I think these are Goldenrod Soldier Beetles (Chauliognathus pensylvanicus), or something closely related to them:

Some kind of Meadow Katydid (Orchelimum). I love these with long antennae. They keep us entertained all fall and the garden suddenly sounds so quiet after the frost sets in:

Another Painted Lady. Note how it does not have the typical white spot of the American Ladies (Vanessa virginiensis) on the orange patch. The smaller one is likely a Fiery Skipper (Hylephila phyleus):

The skippers are often overlooked but they have a lot of character! I can spend hours watching them interact with each other. I find them quite hard to properly identify sometimes even with a field guide. This one is probably a Sachem (Atalopedes campestris):

The skippers are fast, but they can still fall prey to these efficient hunters: Goldenrod Crab Spider (Misumena vatia). These spiders can change their color (during molts) to match their surroundings. It’s not a surprise that this one was yellow, efficiently camouflaged among the sunflowers:

I like playing with the backlight through the leaves of these plants. I was happy to capture this little Eastern Amberwing (Perithemis tenera) dragonfly coming back to its favorite perch:

Another backlit image of a sunflower plant with some nice bokeh of out-of-focus mosquitoes/gnats: