Welcome to CaturSaturday, May 10, 2025, and shabbos for Jewish cats. It’s also National Lipid Day, so stock up on your fats, like this rib-eye cut of Angus beef.  I’d sear this sucker for 1.5 minutes on each side in a cast iron pan (after a day of marinating in olive oil and garlicf) and then, if it’s a thick as it looks put it in a 350° oven for about five minutes. (This is what the French call saignant, or “bloody”, the best way to eat a steak.)

French steak ordering (note that there’s nothing between à point and “bien cuit” (well cooked), but if you order the latter, be prepared for them to refuse or toss you out of the restaurant. NEVER order a well done steak in Paris if you want them to regard you as something more than an ignorant tourist.

It’s also American Indian Day (shouldn’t that be Native American?), International Migratory Bird Day, National Liver and Onions Day (my dad loved the stuff but oy! did it stink up the house), World Belly Dance Day, and National Shrimp Day. Here are the belly dancing duochampions of the International Dance Organization, Sabina Gadzhibabaeva and Primak Liliya, from the Russian Federation

I am saving the few readers’ wildlife contributions I have to space them out, but PLEASE send in your good wildlife photos. “Wildlife” is construed broadly (landscapes and tourism can qualify), but please be sure your pictures are good ones, comparable to what I’ve posted before. Many thanks!

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the May 10 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Obituaries first: Supreme Court Judge David Souter, who became more Leftish as he stayed on the court, died at 85.

David H. Souter, a New Hampshire Republican who was named to the Supreme Court by President George H.W. Bush and who over 19 years on that bench became a mainstay of the court’s shrinking liberal wing, died on Thursday at his home in New Hampshire. He was 85.

His death was announced on Friday morning by the Supreme Court, which did not cite a cause, saying only that he had died “peacefully.”

A shy man who never married and who much preferred an evening alone with a good book to a night in the company of Washington insiders, Justice Souter retired at the unusually young age of 69 to return to his beloved home state. His retirement at the end of the court’s 2008-09 term gave President Barack Obama a Supreme Court vacancy in the opening months of his presidency. The president named Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the seat.

By the end of his second year on the Supreme Court, Justice Souter had acquired the label that would stick for the remainder of his tenure. He was the justice who surprised the president who appointed him; who left conservative Republicans bitterly disappointed; whose migration on the bench from right to left led to the cry of “no more Souters” when another president named Bush, George W., had Supreme Court vacancies to fill.

Those who expressed such surprise, who either implicitly or directly accused Justice Souter of having portrayed himself one way and of turning out to be something else entirely, either failed to pay attention to his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing in September 1990, or chose not to believe what they heard.

Justice Souter portrayed himself as he was: a judge of basically conservative instincts who took as his role model Justice John Marshall Harlan II, a distinguished New York lawyer and an Eisenhower appointee who was often in dissent during the heyday of Supreme Court liberalism under Chief Justice Earl Warren.

Perhaps his most famous unexpected opinion:

*Pope Leo XIV started off his papacy by criticizing the spread of atheism. Oy!

Pope Leo XIV celebrated his first Mass as pontiff in the Sistine Chapel on Friday, stressing the importance of missionary work in a world where many live “in a state of de facto atheism.”

Leo, wearing head-to-toe white and golden vestments, returned to the chapel a day after cardinals elected him as pope on the second day of a secretive conclave. Standing before Michelangelo’s altar wall frescoes, the first American pope briefly spoke in English—calling his election a blessing as well as a cross he will carry—before switching to Italian, the Vatican’s dominant language.

. . . . In his sermon, the pontiff spoke of the challenges the Catholic Church faces in the modern era. “There are many settings in which the Christian faith is considered absurd, meant for the weak and unintelligent. Settings where other securities are preferred, like technology, money, success, power, or pleasure,” he said in the sermon. “They are the places where our missionary outreach is desperately needed.”

He lamented that “there are many settings in which Jesus, although appreciated as a man, is reduced to a kind of charismatic leader or superman.” The pope added, “this is the world that has been entrusted to us.”

. . . .the 69-year-old pontiff is seen as someone who can help heal the sharp division in the church between those who believe it should adapt to modernity and those who want it to preserve its traditional identity—a rift that deepened under Francis. He hasn’t taken a strong public position on some of the more divisive issues for the Catholic Church, such as same-sex blessings and the requirement of priestly celibacy.

Leo may be more accepting than his immediate predecessor of the rituals and trappings that come with the job. His choice of vestments on Thursday offered a clue: He appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica wearing a red-velvet cape and an ornate stole—traditional accouterments that Francis had chosen not to wear.

Let me at him!  Look, Your Holiness (or whatever they call you), atheists are probably just as moral as Catholics, or even more so. For one things, we don’t have the power or the enforced chastity to sexually assault children. We don’t need your rituals and incense, and, by the way, when are women going to be allowed to be priests—or even Popes?

*Get a load of this: Trump is accepting as refugees a bunch of white South Africans—Afrikaners. No black South Africans allowed! Bolding is mine.

Months after the Trump administration ground U.S. refugee admissions to a halt, the program meant for people fleeing war or political persecution has restarted — but only for one group: White South Africans.

Plans are underway to fly approximately 60 Afrikaners to Dulles International Airport on a State Department-chartered plane Monday, with federal and Virginia officials preparing to receive them in a ceremonial news conference, according to documents and emails obtained by The Washington Post, as well as three government officials familiar with the preparations.

The arriving families, who are part of a group that President Donald Trump has said face racial discrimination, will then be resettled outside Virginia in at least seven states, according to those familiar with the plans, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to share details of the preparations.

“The U.S. government is prioritizing the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees, and [the Office of Refugee Resettlement] is coordinating services to ensure they receive the support they need from the very initial days of their arrival,” Miro Marinovich, who oversees the Refugee Program Bureau at the Department of Health and Human Services, wrote in an email to other federal officials on Wednesday. “The first flight of Afrikaner refugees is set to arrive on Monday, May 12.”

. . . .Refugees are a distinct class of people who have been forced to flee their home country after they have been persecuted or fear persecution — usually death — due to their race, religion, nationality, politics or membership in a particular social group. Highly vetted, they are eligible for government services and a path to citizenship and must often wait up to several years to be screened and processed before coming to the United States.

Last year, no South Africans of any race, ethnicity or linguistic group were vetted by the United Nations as meeting its criteria to be resettled as refugees, according to the organization’s data.

State Department officials would not say why the 60 Afrikaners set to arrive Monday were granted refugee status.

The department’s statement said officials in general were “prioritizing consideration for U.S. refugee resettlement of Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination.” The Department of Health and Human Services and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.

Talk about bad “optics”! Afrikaners were, of course, the main force behind apartheid, and yes, some of them are persecuted now for being white landowners by the black government, and in the last 30 years 3,000 have been murdered. But jeez, if you’re looking to import those who are persecuted, how about the Uyghurs or Tibetans? Of course, they are not classified as “white.” No, not good optics at all.

*This is a surprise to me, but it’s in the right direction. U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff has implied to Iran that if they stop enriching uranium, the chances are higher that they can strike a deal with the U.S..

If the US gets Iran to voluntarily shift away from an enrichment program, that is the most permanent way to make sure that they never get a nuclear weapon, US envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff told Breitbart News Network on Friday.

“If we get them to voluntarily shift away from an enrichment program where they can enrich to not have centrifuges, to not have material that can be enriched to weapons-grade levels 90 percent, if we can get them to voluntarily do that that is the most permanent way to make sure that they never get a weapon,” Witkoff said.

Witkoff said that he believes in US President Donald Trump‘s policy of attempting to settle the Iranian conflict through dialogue.

“That’s a more permanent solution to that crisis than any other alternative. That would physically change exactly how Iran was approaching a nuclear program.”

, , , , Iran has agreed to hold a fourth round of indirect nuclear talks with the US on Sunday in Oman, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Friday, adding that the negotiations were advancing.

Trump, who withdrew the US from a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, has threatened to bomb Iran if no agreement is reached with his administration to resolve the long-standing dispute.

Western countries say Iran’s nuclear program is geared toward producing weapons, whereas Iran insists it is purely for civilian purposes.

. . . . The fourth round of indirect negotiations, initially scheduled for May 3 in Rome, was postponed, with mediator Oman citing “logistical reasons”.

Frankly, I’m surprised that Trump believes anything Iran says about its nukes, as I still think they are absolutely determined to get nuclear-tipped missiles, and with those they can obliterate Israel. Iran is lying when it says its nuclear program is for civilian purposes, and unless there is ironclad and spontaneous inspection, I still think Israel with or without the U.S. should take out Iran’s nuclear facilities.

*This is an AP “oddity,” but it’s also biology: a rare carnivorous snail has been filmed laying an egg from its neck:

The strange reproductive habits of a large, carnivorous New Zealand snail were once shrouded in mystery. Now footage of the snail laying an egg from its neck has been captured for the first time, the country’s conservation agency said Wednesday.

What looks like a tiny hen’s egg is seen emerging from an opening below the head of the Powelliphanta augusta snail, a threatened species endemic to New Zealand.

The video was taken at a facility on the South Island’s West Coast, where conservation rangers attempting to save the species from extinction have cared for a population of the snails in chilled containers for nearly two decades.

The conditions in the containers mimic the alpine weather in their only former habitat — a remote mountain they were named for, on the West Coast of the South Island, that has been engulfed by mining.

Lisa Flanagan from the Department of Conservation, who has worked with the creatures for 12 years, said the species still holds surprises.

“It’s remarkable that in all the time we’ve spent caring for the snails, this is the first time we’ve seen one lay an egg,” she said in a statement.

Like other snails, Powelliphanta augusta are hermaphrodites, which explains how the creatures can reproduce when encased in a hard shell. The invertebrate uses a genital pore on the right side of its body, just below the head, to simultaneously exchange sperm with another snail, which is stored until each creates an egg.

And of course you’ll want to see it! Here:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is weary with hunting and fain would lie down:

Hili: I went round everything, it’s time to rest.

A: And where have you been?

Hili: Here and there.

Hili: Obeszłam wszystko, pora odpocząć.

Ja: A gdzie byłaś?

Hili: Tu i tam.

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

From Jesus of the Day:

From the Elder of Ziyon via Malgorzata:

From Strange, Stupid, or Silly Signs:

Titania is tweeting again, and remember, it’s a spoof account:

Anti-gay hate crimes recorded by police in 2023:

Saudi Arabia: 0
Pakistan: 0
Yemen: 0
Brunei: 0
Somalia: 0
Afghanistan: 0
USA: 2402

And you’re telling me it’s the Islamic states that are homophobic? 🤦🏽‍♀️

— Titania McGrath (@TitaniaMcGrath) May 9, 2025

From JKR. I think she’s right, but do read the short linked article on “top surgery”:

“We will one day view “gender-affirming care” in minors with the same revulsion that we now view frontal lobotomies. Until then, many children will continue to suffer tragic—and irreversible—consequences.”https://t.co/qfWRZiqy7h

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 8, 2025

From Simon; Brent, a spoof character, expatiates on the new American-born pope:

American Pope🇺🇸

— Brent Terhune (@brentterhune.bsky.social) 2025-05-08T21:53:34.670Z

From Malcolm; never disturb a sleeping cat (see the story of Muhammad and Muezza):

This man saw a cat, stayed to play with it, & cat fell asleep. The man didn’t move for not disturbing the sleeping cat. There’s no small kindness, & the world goes round for the sake of many a kind man. pic.twitter.com/35NZomOpcy

— Hakan Kapucu (@1hakankapucu) May 2, 2025

From my feed: LOOK AT THIS D*G!

This is the Belgian Malinois, and it’s pretty easy to see why it’s the dog of choice for the IDF’s Oketz unit.

pic.twitter.com/lq4dZmId8y

— Cheryl E 🇮🇱🇮🇱🇮🇱🎗️ (@CherylWroteIt) May 9, 2025

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I posted:

A three-year old Dutch Jewish boy was gassed upon Arrival at Auschwitz along with his mother and 7-year-old sister.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-05-10T09:58:05.450Z

Two posts from the ailing Dr. Cobb. First, British rude words (I may have posted this before.).  Matthew says he’s never heard the third one, and neither have I.

Which swear words do Britons find the most offensive?C*nt: 82% say very or fairly offensiveMotherf*cker: 70%Fatherf*cker: 62%B*tch: 55%F*ck: 53%W*nker: 53%B*stard: 45%P*ssy: 44%Pr*ck: 42%Tw*t: 40%A*sehole: 39%D*ckhead: 39%Son of b*tch: 36%C*ck: 34%Full list in the chart 👇

— YouGov (@yougov.co.uk) 2025-04-25T08:55:29.161Z

A rare video of a Pallas’s cat:

It's #InternationalPallasCatDay! Finding wild Pallas's cat was one of the most amazing experiences of the last year. It was hunting voles on a Himalayan plain, wriggling its tail – the only part of its body that isn't camouflaged – presumably to distract the voles. #MammalWatching #WildIndia #Ladakh

— Jack Ashby (@jackdashby.bsky.social) 2025-04-23T18:18:15.508Z

Welcome to Thursday, May 8, 2025, and National Coconut Cream Pie Day. Is any reader going to eat one today? Here’s a “photo of a slice of coconut cream pie. Taken at the Golden Nugget Restaurant, Chicago, Ill.” I don’t even know where that is, but I’d totally nom it.

It’s also Free Trade Day, No Socks Day, Give Someone a Cupcake Day, National Have a Coke Day (honoring the introduction of the drink in an Atlanta Pharmacy on this day in 1896), and Victory in Europe Day. Wikipedia says this:

Victory in Europe Day is the day celebrating the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Germany’s unconditional surrender of its armed forces on Tuesday, 8 May 1945; it marked the official surrender of all German military operations.

Here is Winston Churchill helping the crowds celebrate VE Day in Whitehall in London. He of course has his iconic cigar.

It is also David Attenborough’s 99th birthday. He was born on May 8, 1926,

David Attenborough has got to have “one of the greatest legacies of any human being ever”, a BBC executive has said.

The naturalist, who has been on our TV screens for more than seven decades presenting programmes such as Planet Earth and Blue Planet, is celebrating his 99th birthday.

Mike Gunton, creative director at BBC Studios Natural History Unit, told the PA news agency: “Each generation has its own kind of personal legacy from him, and I think that’s remarkable.

“But also, there’s a broader, I suppose, global legacy, which I think is that he has shown us wonders, he’s helped us understand wonders, and he’s encouraged us to protect these wonders.

“If you could do that in a lifetime, and speak to hundreds upon hundreds of millions of people and inspire them to do all that, that’s got to be one of the greatest legacies of any human being ever.

Here are the top 5 moments sekected by BBC EarthL

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the May 8 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz is truncated today:

*The troubles continue at Columbia: anti Israel students have taken over the campus library. (h/t Bat).

Anti-Israel student activists at Columbia University occupy the university’s main library, escalating the campus conflict yet again amid heavy pressure on the university from the Trump administration.

The campus coalition of protest groups, Columbia University Apartheid Divest, sends out a video of the protest on Telegram. The clip shows masked protesters chanting “Free Palestine” to the beat of a drum, led by a demonstrator standing on a table.

In an emailed statement, the group says it has “flooded” the library.

“The flood shows that as long as Columbia funds and profits from imperialist violence, the people will continue to disrupt Columbia’s profits and legitimacy. Repression breeds resistance,” the statement says.

The group issues demands, including “full financial divestment from Zionist occupation, apartheid and genocide,” a boycott of “complicit institutions,” and amnesty for all students and staff “targeted” with disciplinary procedures.

The takeover occurs during days set aside for studying ahead of the university’s final exams next week.

The university commencement is scheduled for May 21. Last year’s commencement was canceled due to protests.

From the NYT:

Dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators were taken into police custody on Wednesday evening after occupying part of the main library on Columbia University’s campus in an attempt to rekindle the protest movement that swept the campus last spring.

The protesters, wearing masks and kaffiyehs, had burst through a security gate shortly after 3 p.m. and hung banners in the soaring main room of Butler Library’s second floor, renaming the space “the Basel Al-Araj Popular University,” according to the demonstrators and witnesses at the library.

Columbia security guards blocked them from leaving unless they showed their identification, causing an hourslong standoff. Outside the library, crowds gathered, leading to a chaotic scene. By about 7 p.m., Columbia administrators had called the New York City police back to campus for the first time since the occupation of Hamilton Hall, another campus building, in April 2024.

“Requesting the presence of the N.Y.P.D. is not the outcome we wanted, but it was absolutely necessary to secure the safety of our community,” Claire Shipman, the acting president of the university, wrote in a statement.

The disruption was limited to a single reading room, a university spokeswoman said. A statement from Columbia said that the protesters would face consequences.

“It is completely unacceptable that some individuals are choosing to disrupt academic activities as our students are studying and preparing for final exams,” the statement said.

Public security officers evacuated students not involved in the disruption from the library, which was filled with people studying. Hundreds of onlookers gathered outside the library.

Some tweets of the invasion:

Welcome to finals week at Columbia University. pic.twitter.com/rY6j9NWoRi

— Eden Yadegar (@edenyadegar) May 7, 2025

From one of the organizations of thugs and cowards who did this:

BREAKING: THE BASEL AL-ARAJ POPULAR UNIVERSITY HAS JUST LAUNCHED, RECLAIMING BUTLER LIBRARY FOR THE PEOPLE pic.twitter.com/FHKRvgJThG

— CU Apartheid Divest (CUAD) (@ColumbiaBDS) May 7, 2025

A student prevented from entering:

I tried entering the main Columbia library a day before finals only to be blocked by other students. One yells “don’t let this guy in, he’s a f**ing Zionist.” pic.twitter.com/QBs57iZef9

— David lederer (@Davidlederer6) May 7, 2025

An NBC News video showing the arrests. Note that every protestor has their face covered. They are cowards, and this is not civil disobedience but thuggery:

I am wondering how many of these people will really be punished. As far as I know, Columbia students who illegally occupied the library won’t face punishment if they showed their IDs. I’m not sure, but how many parents are going to send their kids to Columbia after all this.

*On his Substack site “Reality’s last stand,” Colin Wright revisits the infamous “feminist glaciology paper of 2016“. (I wrote about it at the time: here and here), which vies with the queer feminist brine shrimp paper for the title of Bonkers Paper of the Last Decade. Colin titles his piece, “The paper that made me realize academia had lost its mind.”  A few quotes:

The paper, titled “Glaciers, gender, and science: A feminist glaciology framework for global environmental change,” wasn’t satire—though it seemed indistinguishable from it. It was peer-reviewed, taxpayer-funded, and taken seriously within the academic community. When I first read it, I assumed it had to be some elaborate hoax. I wasn’t alone. Even Michael Shermer, founder of Skeptic magazine, said he was convinced it must be fake—until he found out it wasn’t. “Barking mad,” he called it, “but not fake.”

In fact, this very paper became the catalyst for one of the most infamous academic stings in recent memory: the Grievance Studies Affair. James Lindsay has said that it was this feminist glaciology paper that “legitimately changed the world” by radicalizing him. Peter Boghossian, one of Lindsay’s co-conspirators in the hoax project, later confirmed that the paper “broke” Lindsay and pushed him to realize that entire fields of academia had lost their tether to reality. A few years later, Lindsay, Boghossian, and Helen Pluckrose would go on to submit dozens of absurd, ideologically-driven fake papers to journals in fields like gender studies and critical race theory. Many were accepted. One, on “rape culture and queer performativity” in dog parks, even won an award. But the paper that lit the match was the one about glaciers.

Despite its viral reputation, the feminist glaciology paper has rarely been given the full scrutiny it deserves. Many people laughed at the title and moved on. But after revisiting the paper recently on my podcast, I decided it deserved a proper breakdown—because it doesn’t just represent one bizarre academic curiosity, but the start of a genre of academic absurdity that has continued to metastasize within academia and displace reason in entire fields of scholarship.

. . . . At first glance, the paper sounds like it might be a conventional environmental commentary. The abstract begins by stating that glaciers are “key icons of climate change and global environmental change,” which is perfectly reasonable. But things quickly spiral. The authors claim that the “relationships among gender, science, and glaciers—particularly related to epistemological questions about the production of glaciological knowledge—remain understudied.” This sort of rationale—arguing something should be researched simply because it hasn’t been—should be a red flag in academic writing. Just because a topic is unexplored doesn’t mean it’s worth exploring. Some gaps in the literature exist for good reason: they’re either uninteresting, irrelevant, or built on faulty premises. Good research identifies a meaningful problem or question and makes a positive case for why it matters—not simply that no one has looked at it yet.

This paper, however, leans heavily on the assumption that neglect alone justifies their inquiry. Instead of explaining why gender should be a relevant lens in glaciology, the authors proceed as if it’s self-evident—and that the only reason no one has studied it yet is due to systemic bias or oversight.

What follows from this flimsy justification is a nearly 15,000-word exercise in ideological projection. The authors introduce a “feminist glaciology framework” built on four central themes: who produces knowledge, the gendering of science, the power dynamics within scientific institutions, and “alternative representations” of glaciers. Their stated goal is to generate a “more just and equitable science and human-ice interactions.” Yes, apparently even glaciers demand social justice.

Colin goes on to dissect the paper, and it’s unintentionally hilarious because the paper is so absolutely bonkers. This is the state of social-justice academia these days.

From Jez:

*A group of five men (four of them Iranians, I don’t think the nationality of the other one was confirmed yet) were arrested in the UK a few days ago for involvement in a terrorist plot. It looks like their target was the Israeli embassy in London. Another separate group of three Iranians was arrested on the same day, but in relation to another terrorism plot entirely. (h/t Jez)

The Israeli embassy in London was the alleged target of five Iranian men arrested on suspicion of preparing an act of terrorism, the BBC understands.

Police have not yet confirmed that the embassy in Kensington was the suspected target, as first reported by the Times, citing operational reasons. But the BBC understands the report is accurate.

Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism command, said it was a “fast-moving” investigation and there were “significant operational reasons” why the force could not provide further details.

Iran “categorically rejects” any involvement, said the Iranian foreign minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, on the social media site X.

He added his country was ready to assist with the investigation.

The men – two aged 29, a 40-year-old, a 24-year-old and another aged 46 – were arrested on Saturday over an alleged plan to target “a specific premises”, the Met said.

. . . .Commissioner for countering extremism Robin Simcox said it was quite unusual for an embassy to be targeted in the UK.

“I think the scale of Iranian-backed activity in this country is probably underestimated,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“We are increasingly aware of the hard power side of things but Iran also looks to spread its influence in the UK via religious institutes it controls, television channels, charities, educational institutes, online disinformation campaigns – all organisations which share Tehran’s aims and objectives.

“It is not always very visible. Iranian actives I think are a bit more subversive and a bit subtler – they are probably a bit more strategic in their targeting.”

Speaking in the Commons on Tuesday, Home Office minister Dan Jarvis said hundreds of officers were carrying out forensic investigations at different sites across the country.

He said the arrests were “some of the largest counter-state threats and counter-terrorism actions that we have seen in recent times”.

Masih was right: there are plots atop plots, and assassins from Iran targeted her three times, fortunately without success.

*A column in the WaPo by George Will is worth reading, “The Trump GOP’s attacks on universities advance the left’s agenda.”  (archived here, h/t Callum).

Even academics are educable, so universities might emerge from their current travails improved — more willing to include intellectual diversity on campuses, or at least be more circumspect about impeding it. This is the good news.

The bad news: Republicans rejoicing about breaking academia to the saddle and bridle of federal government supervision demonstrate that we have two parties barely distinguishable in their shared enthusiasm for muscular statism. As “conservatives” mount sustained attacks on left-dominated educational institutions, they advance the left’s perennial agenda: the permeation of everything with politics.

Such statism will extinguish the core conservative aspiration: a civil society in constant creative ferment because intermediary institutions — schools, businesses, religious and civic organizations — are given breathing room, and are free to flourish or fail without supervision from above by a minatory central authority.

. . . .Government presumptuousness that struts on campuses will not strut only there: Secretaries of state wield a law that says an alien is deportable if the secretary has a “reasonable ground to believe” that the alien’s “presence or activities” would “potentially” have serious adverse “consequences” for U.S. foreign policy. This potentially life-shattering discretion presupposes judicious, temperate secretaries of state, forever.

Today, each party pretends to be dramatically different from the other regarding philosophical fundamentals. Actually, they offer no clear choice to voters who are wary of any American Gleichschaltung. Both parties seem equally oblivious to the deep disharmony that inevitably accompanies attempts to harmonize all important sectors of civil society by melding political and cultural power.

What could go wrong? Look around.

Will’s claim is that a Denocratic government will do what the Republican one does now, but pushing a different agenda. I don’t believe that, nor do I believe that the Democrats, for example, would do to universities and to science what the Republicans are doing now.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Andrzej discuss evolution and philosophy:

Hili: What did Homo sapiens gain by getting a bigger brain?

A: A demand for more calories and the knowledge about the vastness of that he doesn’t know.

Hili: You are exaggerating about the latter.

Hili: Co Homo sapiens zyskał na wzroście mózgu?

Ja: Zapotrzebowanie na więcej kalorii oraz świadomość ogromu tego, czego nie wie.

Hili: Z tym drugim to przesadziłeś.

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

From Strange, Stupid, or Silly Signs:

From Another Science Humor Group, a groaner:

From Jesus of the Day, a way to chill your butt:

From Jack Corbo. It’s hilarious!

The email by a University of Chicago professor cancelling class so his students could go to an anti-Trump protest:

NEW: A University of Chicago stats professor canceled a midterm Thursday and called on his students to join an anti-Trump protest instead, an email obtained by the@FreeBeacon shows 🧵 pic.twitter.com/JOHrt9cPDb

— Jessica Costescu (@JessicaCostescu) May 6, 2025

The professor is Yali Amit, and here’s his email:

A palpable violation of academic freedom: we are not allow to propagandize our students in the classroom.

From Simon; Pritzker was not at all happy with Noem’s visit:

“We would urge all pet owners in the region to make sure all of your beloved animals are under watchful protection while the secretary is in the region,” the @govpritzker.illinois.gov note said.

— Juan Escalante (@juansaaa.com) 2025-05-07T02:05:33.546Z

From Malcolm: Look at the tail on this moggy!

Cat has a majestic tail 💕 pic.twitter.com/biozhFMzQa

— Cats That Make You Go Awww (@CuteAdorableCat) May 3, 2025

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:

This German Jewish boy was gassed to death upon arriving at Auschwitz. He was ten.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-05-08T13:00:20.740Z

From my feed. Sound up!

EVERYONE LOOK AT THIS BABY COW😍 pic.twitter.com/q7jqeoX7wb

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) May 7, 2025

Welcome to a Hump Day (” Bergfest” in German), Wednesday, May 7, 2025, and it’s World Carnivorous Plant Day. Here’s ZeFrank on carnivorous plants:

It’s also National Cosmopolitan Day (the drink), National Roast Leg of Lamb Day, and National Tourism Day.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the May 7 Wikipedia page.

Posting may be light today as there are big duck issues. Bear with me; I do my best.

Da Nooz:

*Breaking: India has struck Pakistan with jets. (Article archived here.) Both countries have nukes, too!

*According to the Washington Free Beacon (right wing) a University of Chicago professor canceled midterms and urged his students to go to an anti-Trump rally during that time.

A University of Chicago professor canceled a midterm Thursday and called on his students to use the time to join an anti-Trump protest, an email obtained by the Washington Free Beacon shows.

Yali Amit, a statistics professor who has long opposed Israel, told his machine learning and large-scale data analysis class he was canceling the exam as “a small contribution” to the nationwide demonstrations being held that day to oppose President Donald Trump and Elon Musk. In an email to his students, Amit said he would post the exam as a homework assignment and included a link to a sign-up site for the Chicago-area protest, which called to “STOP THE BILLIONAIRE TAKEOVER .”

“The country is in an emergency. The Trump administration is kidnapping people off the street, deporting them to foreign prisons, jailing and threatening to deport students who demonstrated in support of Palestinians,” Amit wrote in his email. “So, today, thousands across the country are demonstrating in a national day of action. As a small contribution to this day of action I am cancelling the midterm and calling you, if you are able, to join the Chicago demonstration announced here” (emphasis in the original).

“Marching against this dangerous authoritarian administration is of utmost importance!” he added in the email.

The emails are enclosed in the article so you can see them.

A student in Amit’s class told the Free Beacon that the professor’s behavior was “inappropriate.”

“It is inappropriate for a professor to cancel an exam to encourage students to attend a political protest,” the student said. “Furthermore the message indicates that this professor, like many others in academia, assumes that all students share his left-wing political beliefs. The professor does not recognize that students might not only prefer to attend class than protest, but may oppose the left-wing views that he is protesting for.”

Amit, who did not return a request for comment, is also a longtime anti-Israel activist. He signed a letter last spring condemning the University of Chicago for calling in police to clear an anti-Israel encampment on campus.

The article details more of his anti-Israel activity, but the point is clear: this is a violation of academic freedom. Even in a private university, no professor has the right to indoctrinate his students, nor to impede their learning to favor a preferred political cause.  He should be disciplined.

*Trump is still holding the crazy idea that he can somehow take over Canada, even after meeting with the new Canadian PM.

If there’s any time Trump should shut up, it should have been in that last sentence.  It will rile Canadians up, make them dislike Americans even more than since Trump took office, and ruin our nation’s closest friendship in the world.

*After an advanced Houthi missile struck near the Tel Aviv airport, the Israelis retaliated yesterday by bombing a Yemeni port. The strike was apparently carried out in military collaboration with the United States, though it’s probably not true that U.S. planes were involved in yesterday’s bombing:

Israeli fighter jets bombed the main international airport in Yemen on Tuesday in retaliation for a missile attack by the Houthi militia that struck near Israel’s main airport last weekend.

Israeli airstrikes on the Yemeni capital, Sana, and other parts of the country killed at least three people and injured more than 30 others, health officials tied to the Houthi-led government said, adding that the toll was preliminary.

The Israeli strikes were the latest salvo in a battle with the Iran-backed Houthis, who rule much of northwestern Yemen, including Sana. They have fired dozens of rockets and drones at Israel, as well as at ships in the Red Sea, in what they call a solidarity campaign with Palestinians in Gaza.

The Houthis have also been the target of a stepped-up U.S. bombing campaign on Yemen since mid-March. President Trump sharply escalated attacks on the country in an attempt to degrade the militia’s capability to attack shipping — an effort that was started by the Biden administration — and Mr. Trump has vowed that the Houthis will be “completely annihilated.”

But on Tuesday, Mr. Trump said the United States would stop bombing the Houthis, claiming they “don’t want to fight anymore.” He declined to reveal how he knew the militia was backing down.

The Houthi-controlled government did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the president’s claim. But earlier on Tuesday, it released a defiant statement saying it was fighting a “holy war to aid the wronged Palestinian people in Gaza.” The Houthis are confronting “an enemy that is used to committing war crimes and genocide and targeting civilians,” it added, vowing to keep up attacks.

According to the Houthis both the U.S. and Israel bombed Yemen on Monday, acting together, but the U.S. now denies this is true. The Yemeni airport was used for terrorist activities including importation of missiles from Iran. Even so, Israel gave the civilians a warning before the bombing, so only three people will be killed.  The Houthis can now be considered an arm of Hamas, with the addition that Houthis attack other countries’ ships, including U.S. military vessels.

*I’m not surprised at this, though I don’t yet have an opinion about it, as I just don’t know enough. The Supreme Court let Trump’s order stand banning transgender people from participating in military service.

The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that the Trump administration may start enforcing a ban on transgender troops serving in the military that had been blocked by lower courts.

The ruling was brief, unsigned and gave no reasons, which is typical when the justices act on emergency applications. It will remain in place while challenges to the ban move forward.

The court’s three liberal members — Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — noted dissents but provided no reasoning.

The case concerns an executive order issued on the first day of President Trump’s second term. It revoked an order from President Joseph R. Biden Jr. that had let transgender service members serve openly.

A week later, Mr. Trump issued a second order saying that “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful and disciplined lifestyle.”

The Defense Department implemented Mr. Trump’s order in February, issuing a new policy requiring transgender troops to be forced out of the military.

Seven active service members, as well as a person who seeks to sign up and an advocacy group, sued to block the policy, saying, among other things, that it ran afoul of the Constitution’s equal protection clause.

This is not, I emphasize, a final decision, as it has to be reajdudiated. How I feel about it depends on whether there’s any advantage to having one-sex-only spaces in the military, which I doubt since men and women are serving together now. And I don’t know of any military jobs that are limited to one sex.  Right now, I don’t understand the reason for the ban.

*Utah has become the first state to ban fluoride in drinking water, and the AP tells us how dentists are dealing with it. Blame RFK Jr., of course:

With Utah’s first-in-the-nation ban on fluoride in public drinking water set to take effect Wednesday, dentists who treat children and low-income patients say they’re bracing for an increase in tooth decay among the state’s most vulnerable people.

Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed the law against the recommendation of many dentists and national health experts who warn removing fluoride will harm tooth development, especially in young patients without regular access to dental care.

The bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Stephanie Gricius, said she does not dispute that fluoride can have some benefits but thinks people should not be given it by the government without their informed consent.

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. applauded Utah for being the first state to enact a ban and said he plans to direct the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to stop recommending fluoridation nationwide.

Florida could soon become the second state to ban fluoride under a bill awaiting Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ signature. The Ohio and South Carolina legislatures are considering similar measures.

The fluoridation process involves supplementing the low levels of naturally occurring fluoride in most water to reach the 0.7 milligrams per liter recommended by the CDC for cavity prevention. Water treatment plants dump fluoride into the water in liquid or powder form and often use dosing pumps to adjust the levels.

Nearly two-thirds of the U.S. population receives fluoridated drinking water, according to health officials. It was long considered among the greatest public health achievements of the last century.

Fluoride fortifies teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the CDC. It’s especially important to children whose teeth are still developing. For some low-income families, public drinking water containing fluoride may be their only source of preventative dental care.

Some supporters of the Utah law pointed to studies linking high levels of fluoride exposure to illness and low IQ in kids. The National Institutes of Health says it’s “virtually impossible” to get a toxic dose from fluoride added to water or toothpaste at standard levels.

Given the science, a ban on fluoridated water seems bizarre. What’s next: are they going to eliminate chlorine too unless children give their consent?

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is trying to calm herself down:

Hili: Everything is OK.

A: I can hear a “but”.

Hili: Because it is disturbing.

In Polish:

Hili: Wszystko jest dobrze…

Ja: Słyszę jakieś ale.

Hili: Bo to też jest niepokojące.

And a photo of the loving Szaron:

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

From Duck Lovers. We’ll have these soon!

From Jesus of the Day:

From Strange, Silly, or Stupid Signs. This is real, and I suspect I’ll visit it when I go to Iceland in July.

Masih is still quiet, so we’ll have two people make fun of the BBC:

🧵🤣 https://t.co/nsTpcCPFTV

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 6, 2025

From Simon; this sounds fascinating but needs verification. A new branch on the tree of life?

This is like the computer on Apollo 11 having less than 40K of memory, except for an archaeal microbe.

— Sean Carroll (@seanmcarroll.bsky.social) 2025-05-06T16:03:14.877Z

From Malcolm, a pool-playing moggy:

Cat who likes billiards pic.twitter.com/nPvvI0Gchg

— Why you should have a cat (@ShouldHaveCat) May 3, 2025

Crikey, this is the apogee of bad behavior:

Pro-Hamas protesters decide to protest a Jewish school for children with developmental disabilities in Canada.

Because blaring loud noises and insults at children with severe autism will “Free Palestine.”

pic.twitter.com/MFcbm1TvzM

— The Persian Jewess (@persianjewess) May 3, 2025

From my feed; a happy cat adoption:

Pro-Hamas protesters decide to protest a Jewish school for children with developmental disabilities in Canada.

Because blaring loud noises and insults at children with severe autism will “Free Palestine.”

pic.twitter.com/MFcbm1TvzM

— The Persian Jewess (@persianjewess) May 3, 2025

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:

A Dutch Jewish girl was gassed to death upon arriving at Auschwitz. She was four years old.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-05-07T10:28:57.904Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. For the first one, use the Vimeo link at top:

Here is a great film "The Birdman of Skomer" about my friend Professor Tim Birkhead and his 50+ year study of guillemot's on the island of Skomer – please share! vimeo.com/1063680641/2…

— Allan Pacey (@allanpacey.bsky.social) 2025-04-06T11:12:11.091Z

Museums censor out penis bones (bacula)!:

When it comes to certain parts of anatomy, #museums have been deliberately teaching people the wrong thing.Most #mammals have a bone in their penis but natural history museums usually remove them from display, as I told @iflscience.com (& wrote in #NaturesMemory):www.iflscience.com/where-have-a…

— Jack Ashby (@jackdashby.bsky.social) 2025-05-05T13:21:57.506Z

Welcome to the Cruelest Day: May 6, 3035, and National Crėpe Suzette Day, a name (“Suzette”) whose origins are lost in mystery. But they’re good:

It’s also National Beverage Day, National Teacher Day, International No Diet Day, and National Nurses Day.

There’s also a Google Doodle for Teacher Appreciation Day. Click to see where it goes:

Yesterday the department had a celebration of my giving a graduate scholarship for research, the Jerry Coyne and Honey the Duck Graduate Research Fund.  We had delicious Mexican food for Cinco de Mayo, and then a fantastic custom-made cake, which I’ve just had for breakfast. Isn’t that swell? (I asked for a carrot cake with cream-cheese frosting). The picture on top is of Honey with her brood some years ago:

After the party, I got to take home the leftovers. Here’s the inside, with layers of cream-cheese frosting. Great with coffee!

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

Da Nooz:

*Here’s another crazy tariff levy contemplated by our “President”: this time it’s ONE HUNDRED PERCENT on films produced overseas! (Article is archived here.) And Hollywood is getting its knickers in a twist:

President Trump’s planned 100% tariff on films produced overseas weighed on entertainment company stocks early Monday, though details remain scant on how the administration intends to implement the policy.

Shares in Netflix, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount were down 2% or more in morning trading.

Trump said in a Truth Social post Sunday night that he had authorized the new tariff on films produced overseas. He called it a response to tax incentives that have lured a substantial number of Hollywood productions outside the U.S.

Films made by American studios are often shot in the United Kingdom and Canada, including this year’s highest-grossing film, “A Minecraft Movie.”

“​​The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” the president wrote. He called international filmmaking incentives “a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!”

International filmmaking is a national security threat? Gazillions of movies (and note, these aren’t just those made in China). They apparently encompass every film produced outside the U.S! Now I’m not sure what this will do to the cost of moviegoing, but it’s sure going to reduce the quality of movies.

*Some years ago I visited Alcatraz, which is now a very interesting tourist spot (nobody’s ever known to have escaped alive). It’s grim, and I even saw Al Capone’s cell. It should remain as a national historical site, but I’ll be hornswaggled if the President wants it refurbished and turned back into a prison.

President Donald Trump said Sunday that he has ordered several agencies to rebuild and reopen Alcatraz, an infamous federalpenitentiary that closed in the 1960s and has since become a popular tourist destination.

In a post on social media, Trump saidhe directedthe Federal Bureau of Prisons, the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and others to work together to open a “substantially enlarged and rebuilt” Alcatraz that would house the country’s “most ruthless and violent” offenders.

Note: these are American offenders; the foreign ones go to El Salvador.  But don’t we have prisons already? The maximum capacity of Alcatraz was 336 prisoners, and I cannot imagine what advantages are to be gained by refurbishing a hitorical monument to hold a few prisoners. If they are the ruthless and violent prisoners, well, we already have places for them: the Supermax prisons.

But this may just be an idepassing through the convoluted adyts of Trump’s brain:

Speaking to reporters Sunday, Trump called the potential reopening “just an idea I’ve had,” and he repeated his previous criticism of judges he said were seeking trials for “every single person that’s in our country illegally.”

Details on the administration’s potential plans for Alcatraz remain unclear. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California), the former House speaker, dismissed the proposal Sunday as “not a serious one.”

*Netanyahu is getting restive about the presence of hostages still in Gaza and, of course, Hamas’s unwillingness to surrender, even though Palestinians are protesting Hamas more vigorously than ever: a good sign. Now he is bruiting the possibility of even more intensive fighting (article archived here). I suspect this is the drive that will end Hamas in Gaza.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel declared on Monday that his country is “on the eve of a forceful entry to Gaza” after his security cabinet approved a new plan for tens of thousands of additional soldiers to seize and hold territory in the embattled enclave and relocate Palestinians to the south.

In video posted to social media as military reservists across Israel began receiving notices of their call-up, Mr. Netanyahu said that the country’s top military officials had recommended what he called an “intensive” escalation of the 18-month war.

“It’s time to launch the concluding moves,” Mr. Netanyahu said the military officials told him, adding that the new campaign would help bring home the hostages still being held in Gaza. The prime minister said he believes “we are not done. We are before the finish line.”

The escalation followed more than two months in which Israel continued to blockade and bombard the Gaza Strip as cease-fire talks to free the remaining hostages ground to a near standstill. Israel has barred any humanitarian aid to Gaza in an effort to press Hamas to surrender, leading aid groups to denounce mounting deprivation among Palestinians there.

Mr. Netanyahu’s opponents quickly criticized the expanded military campaign, saying it would endanger the remaining hostages’ lives and would not fundamentally change the dynamic that 18 months of war has wrought. The prime minister’s critics — both inside and outside the country — have urged him to bring to an end a conflict that began when Hamas killed about 1,200 people in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 and took some 250 hostage.

Israeli officials said the offensive would start slowly in anticipation of cease-fire negotiations that are ongoing ahead of President Trump’s trip next week to the region for meetings in several Arab capitals. But the officials said that if a deal is not reached soon, the expanded ground operation would commence in earnest.

I think no matter what happens, the hostages should be mentally written off for a variety of reasons, though of course I want them all home, and most of all I want Hamas to surrender unconditionally and release the ones that are still alive. (We don’t know how many are.) As for the food blockade, there is still plenty of food in Gaza but Hamas is taking nearly all of it, explaining some of the unrest. Since when is anyone supposed to supply food to its enemy. I don’t know what happens “the day after”, but it cannot be that Hamas continues to run Gaza. (If you want to read a short news piece on Alcatraz, go here.)

*The BBC reports that transgender women (I prefer to call them “trans-identified men”) have been banned from women’s football (aka “soccer”) in the UK. This is undoubtedly fallout from the UK’s Supreme Court decision defining “men” and women” (h/t Greg). Such banning is in the offing for other sports.

Transgender women will no longer be able to play in women’s football in England from 1 June, the Football Association has announced.

It amended its rules on 11 April, applying stricter eligibility criteria for transgender women to continue playing in women’s football at all levels.

However, following the UK Supreme Court’s ruling on 16 April that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex, the FA has scrapped that policy and says only those born biologically female will be permitted to play.

“This is a complex subject, and our position has always been that if there was a material change in law, science, or the operation of the policy in grassroots football then we would review it and change it if necessary,” the FA said.

The FA has offered those players banned from competing free therapy with Sporting Chance, external – a charity which provides sportspeople with mental health support.

“We understand that this will be difficult for people who simply want to play the game they love in the gender by which they identify, and we are contacting the registered transgender women currently playing to explain the changes and how they can continue to stay involved in the game.”

The FA said on Thursday that there were fewer than 30 transgender women registered among millions of amateur players.

There are no registered transgender women in the professional game across the Home Nations.

The Scottish FA on Thursday also announced it was banning transgender women, external from women’s football in Scotland.

Sources have told BBC Sport that the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is also expected to ban transgender women from the women’s game.

The ECB has been taking legal advice on its transgender policy following the Supreme Court ruling and is expected to sanction changes to its transgender policy at a board meeting on Friday.

On Thursday England Netball also changed its guidelines by banning transgender women from its female category.

This is all fair given the superior athletic ability of males over females in sport if the males have transitioned either before or after puberty (nearly all after). The paucity of transgender participants doeesn’t matter, as it’s a moral issue and even a single violation  is prima facie a slippery slope. However, we haven’t yet solved the problem of how we should let trans-identified males compete in sport if they want to, and surely we should not stifle their ambitions to play somehow. For now, let them compete against biological men, though that might be dangerous (not so much so, though, as the strength they lose is much smaller than the advantage they gain when competing against women.

*And, just in passing, I note that Trump is offering $1000 plus travel costs to any undocumented immigrant who leaves the country voluntarily.

The Trump administration says it is going to pay immigrants in the United States illegally $1,000 plus travel costs if they leave voluntarily as it accelerates its mass deportation agenda.

The Department of Homeland Security said Monday that people who use the CBP Home app to announce their “self-deportations” would get the money and be “deprioritized” for detention and removal.

I can imagine that there will not be many takers, except perhaps those who fear for good reason that they may be deported to El Salvador.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili shows her atheism:

Hili: There are plenty of leprechauns in heaven.

A: Do you mean angels?

Hili: No, angels are pure fantasy.

Hili: W niebie jest mnóstwo krasnoludków.

Ja: Masz na myśli anioły?

Hili: Nie, anioły to czysty wymysł.

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

From America’s cultural decline into Idiocy

From Meow:

From Things With Faces, a happy walnut.

Masih has pinned this three-year old video against Iran’s compulsory hijab law (the video is eight minutes long):

When I have been warning about the dangers of hijab police in European Parliament, you ignored us. You kept wearing hijab in your meeting with regime’s officials.

Now a 22 Yr old women #Mahsa_Amini got beaten & killed.
I call on you again: take action.
pic.twitter.com/yY5xZiZou5

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) September 20, 2022

Anna and Jay point out how steeply the AAUP has gone downhill in the last few years:

Anna Krylov and Jay Tanzman speak truth to morons.

AAUP’s Evolution from Champion of Academic Freedom to Apologist for DEI and Antisemitismhttps://t.co/3KE501tfKt pic.twitter.com/xkvbYVA3K7

— BabblingBeaver (@Babbling_Beaver) May 3, 2025

From Malcom; an asymptotic approach to π:

pic.twitter.com/YGZF0uIVcp

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973c) April 18, 2025

From Luana, who agrees with me that this cancellation is a bad move; it violates freedom of speech (to both speak and hear), and is hypocritical of those on the Left who want Israelis canceled.

Cornell has rescinded the invitation of the anti-Israel singer Kehlani. pic.twitter.com/3797RE496y

— Kassy Akiva (@KassyAkiva) April 23, 2025

One from my feed:

“That’s my side of the bed”

pic.twitter.com/js5MdvuX9X

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) May 5, 2025

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:

This Hungarian Jewish girl was gassed upon arrival at Auschwitz. She was ten.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-05-06T10:18:02.354Z

Two from Professor Cobb. First, an anecdotal thread showing the power of science:

On Friday, my son stayed home from school because he had a sore throat and wasn’t feeling well. He went with my husband to his office for the morning while I handled our daughter. When he came back at lunch, he was not interested in eating, saying his throat hurt too much. 1/n

— Stacey D. Smith (@iochromaland.bsky.social) 2025-05-05T07:11:37.567Z

Of this one Matthew says

Forget Roomba, I want this little dude to vacuum my living room! Gastropod veliger larva from January. #plankton 🦑

— Elizabeth Beston (@elizabethbeston.bsky.social) 2025-04-25T07:24:45.033Z

It’s another wretched week, and one week closer to the Big Nap; but it’s also the first Monday in May: May 5, 2025, and National Hoagie Day (that’s a large sandwich on a roll, sometimes called a “sub” or “submarine sandwich“). The origin of the name “hoagie” is unclear, but here’s a Philadelphia version, the Philly cheesesteak: Here’s the restaurant editor of Bon Appetit trying to find the best version in Philly, trying 19 cheesesteaks in 24 hours. The winner: Angelo’s.

It’s also Square Root Day: 5/5/25!  As well, it’s Cinco de Mayo, National Enchilada Day, Oyster Day, and Museum Lover’s Day (who is the one lover?).

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

Da Nooz:

*Well, I’ll be!  Just when you think that the Trump Administration has all but abandoned Ukraine, stealing its minerals and then schmoozing up to Putin, it turns around and disses Putin and helps Ukraine. Now we’re facilitating the delivery of a missile system from Israel to President Zelensky (article archived here).

Ukraine is getting more help in its war with Russia.

A Patriot air-defense system that was based in Israel will be sent to Ukraine after it is refurbished, four current and former U.S. officials said in recent days, and Western allies are discussing the logistics of Germany or Greece giving another one.

The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions, declined to describe President Trump’s view of the decision to transfer more Patriot systems to Ukraine.

The White House’s National Security Council does not provide details on the strength and placement of defense systems, said James Hewitt, a spokesman for the council. “President Trump has been clear: he wants the war in Ukraine to end and the killing to stop,” he said.

Here’s one explanation:

A former White House official said that the Biden administration had secured the agreement with Israel in September, before the election won by Mr. Trump. The Defense Department said in a statement that “it continues to provide equipment to Ukraine from previously authorized” packages, referring to weaponry pulled from existing inventories and new purchases.

And yay for Germany and Greece, but where are the UK and France?  I’m happy that Ukraine is getting more aid, for this is an unjust war and I want Russia to lose (though that won’t happen) and I also want Ukraine to get Crimea back, too.  Who knows what’s going on in Trump’s mind, but I imagine he envisions himself as a Great Peacemaker on the diplomatic front and a Great Warfighter on the tariff front.

*All I knew about Warren Buffet is that he was one of the world’s richest men, one to its savviest investors, and he didn’t care about the perks of being rich: I heard he still brought his lunch in a brown paper bag. Now, at 94 (!), he’s retiring, and the WSJ tells us why there will never be another of his kind:

There’s only one Warren Buffett, and there will never be another.

On May 3, Buffett announced that he will step down as chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway , the conglomerate he has built into one of the most successful investments in history. There are three reasons why he has no equal and never will: the person, the period and the package.

Let’s start with the person. Buffett is not only brilliant, but he has also spent nearly his entire long lifetime obsessed with the stock market. Especially in his early years as an investor, his unparalleled success depended on an unbearable sacrifice: forgoing a normal social and family life.

A later writer called the great 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza “the god-intoxicated man.” Buffett is the stock-intoxicated man.

Ever since 1942, when he bought his first stock at age 11, he has devoured information about companies, reading corporate reports the way most people listen to music. 

As a young investment manager, Buffett would wander through his house with his nose in a corporate annual report, practically bumping into the furniture, oblivious to the comings and goings of family and friends. While his kids played at an amusement park, he would sit on a bench and read financial statements. Buffett was there physically, but mentally and emotionally he was off in a world of his own, fixated on tax-loss carryforwards and amortization schedules.

Expertise is rooted in pattern recognition, and Buffett has seen every conceivable pattern. Given what I know about his work habits, I estimate—conservatively, I believe—that Buffett has read more than 100,000 financial statements in his more-than-seven-decade career.

And his memory is almost supernatural. Years ago, winding up a phone interview with Buffett, I mentioned a book I was reading. He exclaimed that he had also read it—more than a half-century earlier. As he began describing a passage, I grabbed the book, found the page and realized to my astonishment that Buffett recalled almost every sentence verbatim.

His unparalleled exposure to financial information, combined with his prodigious memory, made Buffett into a human form of artificial intelligence. He could answer almost any query out of his own internal database.

And Buffett didn’t merely succeed. He succeeded over one of the longest career spans any investor has ever had. He took over Berkshire, a tattered manufacturer of textiles, in 1965. By the end of last year, Buffett had racked up an annualized average return of 19.9%, compared with 10.4% for the S&P 500.

Almost anyone with a reasonable amount of luck can beat the market over a year. So far as I know, no one in history has beaten the market by so wide a margin over a period of six decades—because only Buffett has combined extraordinary investment skill with such extraordinary longevity.

There’s more, but it doesn’t say anything about him bringing his lunch to work in a brown paper bag.

*The ‘WaPo describes how the Trump Administration hustled to deport Venezuelan gang members to that horrible prison in El Salvador, even after Venezuela had decided to take them.

The message from Secretary of State Marco Rubio to El Salvador’s Foreign Ministry outlined an audacious plan: The United States would be sending as many as 500 Venezuelan gang members to the Central American nation, and it planned to do so within 24 hours.

The March 13 communication was part of secretive negotiations with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and served as Rubio’s formal notice that the Trump administration was sending the Venezuelans to be imprisoned there for a year “or until a determination concerning their long-term disposition is made,” documents show. Detainees at the megaprison have no access to lawyers or contact with their families.

A Washington Post investigation shows how officials raced to execute the plan, rounding up some of the men at their homes the same day Rubio’s message went out. And they pressed forward with the removals, even as Venezuela agreed to accept deportation flights, in a high-stakes bid to show power and deter migrants from attempting to cross the border illegally.

The Post examined immigration and court records, and conducted interviews with attorneys, friends and family members, to piece together information about more than 50 of the men believed to be imprisoned at the Terrorism Confinement Center, the megaprison often referred to by its Spanish acronym, CECOT. The review shows that despite the administration’s claims, many of the immigrants sent to El Salvador had entered the United States legally and were actively complying with U.S. immigration rules.

. . .In response to detailed questions from The Post, a senior State Department official acknowledged that the Venezuelan government had planned to accept deportation flights the same weekend as the flights to El Salvador, but dismissed those as “one-offs.”

“The Venezuelan regime began to accept regular repatriation flights of Venezuelan nationals only after the U.S. began the criminal alien deportation flights to El Salvador,” the official said.

We’ve all seen videos of that horrible prison in El Salvador–the place nobody leaves except in a box. And there’s still many of these people either mistakenly deported or who were legally entitled to stay in the U.S. because of pending immigration claims. But “NO HEARINGS” is the watchword of the administration, and it feels like Trump wants the deportees to be locked up for life, enlessly tortured by their surroundings. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador. I was going to say that Trump should spend a day there, but the chance that this would give him more empathy is zero.

*It’s struck me how many rap icons, despite their wealth, engaged in flagrantly illegal activity that could land them in prison for life.  R. Kelly is in for 29 more years, and not Sean “Diddy: Combs is about to go to trial for sexual predation and related issues, including “Freak Offs”:

Hip-hop impresario Sean “Diddy” Combs once presided like a prince over his White Parties in the Hamptons, attracting A-list celebrities, gossip columnists and photographers. But at a trial starting Monday, prosecutors will cast the entertainer as a criminal sexual deviant who exploited his fame to abuse women at gatherings held far out of public view.

For over two decades, prosecutors allege, the Bad Boy Records founder used the power and prestige he’d gained in building a hip-hop empire to destroy young lives.

He faces an indictment that includes descriptions of “Freak Offs,” drugged-up orgies in which women were forced to have sex with male sex workers while Combs filmed them.

Numerous witnesses have come forward to accuse Combs of terrorizing people into silence by choking, hitting, kicking and dragging them, often by the hair, prosecutors say. Once, the indictment alleges, he even dangled someone from a balcony.

f convicted on all charges, which include racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transporting people across state lines to engage in prostitution, Combs faces a possible sentence of decades in prison.

. . . Although dozens of men and women have alleged in lawsuits that Combs abused them, this trial will highlight the claims of four women.

Her lawsuit, which offered the first public account of the Freak Offs described in the indictment, was settled in a day. Four months later, though, federal investigators raided Combs homes in Los Angeles and Miami and confronted him at a private airport in Florida, seizing 96 electronic devices. They also found three AR-15-style rifles with defaced serial numbers.

The three-time Grammy winner was indicted last September. He has since been held in a federal jail in Brooklyn after judges ruled that he would be a threat to intimidate witnesses and victims if released.

The 17-page indictment against Combs accuses him of using employees of his business endeavors — including record labels, a recording studio, an apparel line, an alcoholic spirits company, a marketing agency, a television network and a media company — to facilitate his crimes through acts that included kidnapping, arson and bribery.

Let’s face it: these are big names, and they could have sex consensually with gazillions of people, but they chose to break the law in horrible ways. Did they think they could never get caught? Or is this what the “gangsta” lifestyle entails? Or were they simply psychopaths? I don’t know, but I think Combs is going to spend many years in prison if the allegations are correct. Unless he’s gay, he won’t find much sex there.

*And, to lighten the mood, how about a three-minute video of the magic of Eden Choi. I found this amazing and have no idea how the guy does it (his sleeves are rolled up.) Watch it on YouTube:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is still upset with the state of the world:

Hili: Absurdity after absurdity.

A: And what about it?

Hili: That’s the problem because nothing ever comes of it.

Hili: Absurd goni absurd.

Ja: I co?

Hili: I to jest problem, bo nic z tego nie wynika.

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

From Things with Faces, happy parking devices:

From America’s Cultural Decline into Idiocy: is this really a coyote?

From My Cat is an Asshole, a glamour puss:

Masih is still quiet, but here is a long and eloquent take of Rowling on not only the UK Supreme Court’s decision, but on the irrationality of pretending that a human can change their biological sex. She doesn’t pull punches, and it makes me ashamed that I haven’t called Agustín Fuentes “not sane”:

In light of recent open letters from academia and the arts criticising the UK’s Supreme Court ruling on sex-based rights, it’s possibly worth remembering that nobody sane believes, or has ever believed, that humans can change sex, or that binary sex isn’t a material fact. These…

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 3, 2025

And I thank Ceiling Cat that this woman is on our side. She is perhaps the smartest and most eloquent defender of Israel. Her Natasha goes up against the BBC:

BBC turns down the volume on the truth about the “starvation” canard and the ICC.
(February 2025) pic.twitter.com/kv89OTNct5

— Natasha Hausdorff (@HausdorffMedia) May 3, 2025

From Stephen, who says this is the best video he’s seen on “X” for a while:

Moose cooling down in someone’s garden
pic.twitter.com/o38OqV63Or

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) May 3, 2025

From Simon, who says, “This picture has done great service.”

🗣️ DO YOU WANT TO BE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR??!?

— The Lincoln Project (@lincolnproject.us) 2025-05-02T18:19:47.133Z

From Malcolm, some unexpected animations:

pic.twitter.com/VseAUt1D69

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973c) April 18, 2025

One from the Auschwitz Memorial that I reposted:

Gassed upon arrival at Auschwitz, this French boy was only six years old.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-05-05T11:16:22.261Z

Two posts from Professor Cobb. He said he thought the first one was a meringue:

— Bodega Cats (@bodegacats.bsky.social) 2025-05-03T20:20:30.689Z

About this one he says, “I’d make a pun but I can’t.” Still, live and learn.

The words 'fiction' and 'dough' derive from the same root.They both stem from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to knead; to shape".'Fiction' came to English through Latin and French. Its meaning denotes what's shaped by the mind.'Dough' was inherited from Germanic.Here are their journeys:

— Yoïn van Spijk (@yvanspijk.bsky.social) 2025-05-03T17:15:08.980Z