Welcome to The Cruelest Day: March 18, 2025, and it’s National Sloppy Joe Day.  I love them, but the sandwich seems to have gone extinct. (It’s loose ground beef, onions, and ketchup on a bun, and my mom used to make them.) Here’s one:

It’s also World Social Work Day, National Lacy Oatmeal Cookie Day (?), and National Agriculture Day.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the March 18 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*David French has an intriguing (and probably accurate) op-ed in the NYT called, “Don’t fool yourself into thinking it will stop with Columbia” (archived here). Greg Mayer, who sent the link, says, “One part of his legal analysis seems to have a lacuna in it, but it’s quite good. A few excerpts:

Columbia University is now the epicenter of the American culture war. The Trump administration is targeting a former Columbia student — and the university itself — as a test case for its new authoritarian regime.

. . . .While that statement sounds damning, the reality is that [Mahmoud] Khalil was detained because of his protest activity and not because he’d provided illegal support for terrorists. As an administration official told The Free Press, “The allegation here is not that he was breaking the law.”

In an interview with NPR, Troy Edgar, the deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, made it clear that the administration was targeting Khalil’s expression. “We’ve invited and allowed the student to come into the country,” Edgar said, “and he’s put himself in the middle of the process of basically pro-Palestinian activity. And at this point, like I said, the secretary of state can review his visa process at any point and revoke it.”

But there is no visa to review. Khalil is a permanent resident now. Make no mistake, the arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil are a direct attack on free speech.

While I’m appalled by the administration’s actions, I’m not surprised that the case arose out of what someone was doing at Columbia. The university has been in various degrees of political turmoil for decades.

. . . .In other words, universities possess a double obligation — to protect students and faculty and staff members from discrimination and harassment, while also protecting free expression on campus. It’s not an easy task. It requires a combination of wisdom and courage.

But the Trump administration possesses neither wisdom nor courage, and it is now in the process of using claims of antisemitism on campus as a justification for grave violations of due process and free speech. The Red Scares of 20th-century anti-communism are being replaced by a new frenzy, whipped up against left-wing supporters of the Palestinian cause.

French also chastises Columbia for its antisemitic atomosphere, but his main point is that freedom of speech is going to be destroyed in all universities if Trump keeps up like this.

When I told Greg that I pretty much agreed with French, he told me about the lacuna in logic:

It’s not that his argument differs from yours (indeed, I think you two agree in all or most details), but that concurrence from an evangelical Christian lawyer in the NYT is notable.

The lacuna is here. French writes:

A different statute, 8 U.S.C. Section 1182, says that any alien who “endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity or support a terrorist organization” can be blocked from entering the country. Violation of that same statute can be grounds for deportation as well.

The cited USC means the First Amendment doesn’t fully apply to visa-seekers (because endorsing terrorist activity is protected for citizens). He also states that violation can be grounds for deportation of an alien (i.e. one who is already here), but doesn’t make clear if that includes green card holders or not

So when he then says that:

. . . even if Khalil did endorse terrorist attacks on Israel, that is still constitutionally protected speech. The First Amendment permits advocacy of violence, including illegal violence. The First Amendment permits advocacy of violence, including illegal violence . . .

it’s not clear if green card holders enjoy that constitutional protection.

His noting that there has been an absolute failure of due process, and that it is astounding that the “remedies” include taking over and reorganizing the academic structure of a private university, are noteworthy.

Finally, I found this thread about the piece on Twitter (click to go to site), noting a “remarkable admission” by the NYT, to wit:

Khalil is still being detained in Louisiana, with the Trump administration hoping that a conservative Southern judge will rule on his case. But it will go to the Supreme Court.

*And another NYT op-ed, showing why the Democrats were wrong to criticize Chuck Schumer when he pushed his fellow Senate Democrats to vote for a Republican bill against a government shutdown: “There’s a price for promising what isn’t possible in Congress” (archived here). It’s by Brendan Buck, a Republican, but I agree with him here:

Yep, shutting down the government would have been a win for the Republicans had the shutdown been effected by the Democrats. Nevertheless, the younger and “progressive” Democrats were all for it, calling Schumer an out-of-touch fogey.  But Schumer has been around long enough to know whose bread gets buttered, and he’s right. It’s not only bad for the government to shut it down now, but especially bad for Democrats, who don’t seem able to avoid doubling down on what made them lose.

*A headline at the Free Press caught my eye: “Things worth remembering: Death is a friend.” It’s by Sean Fischer, Bari Weiss’s editorial assistant at the site.” WHAT? And again we have the site osculating religion:

Earlier this year, I wrote about my mom’s devastating misdiagnosis. After battling mysterious symptoms for years, she was told by her doctors, at the age of 61, that she had early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. There was no hope of a cure, only a prolonged goodbye. I was 21 then. And though my mom made an unexpected, miraculous recovery, 18 months later, I will forever be grateful for my aunt’s gift, Anam Ċara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom, which I leaned on in those anxious days.

The author, John O’Donohue, was an Irish poet, philosopher, and former Catholic priest, who died in 2008 at the age of 52. This book, published in 1997, blends ancient Irish philosophy, Christian theology, and lyrical poetry—offering an immersive introduction to the spirituality of my ancestors, the Celts.

The root of this spirituality is friendship. Anam Ċara is Gaelic for “soul friend,” the Celtic term for a companion who acts as a guide and teacher through life. In such a friendship, O’Donohue explains, your spirits join. “You feel free to release yourself into the trust and shelter of the other person’s soul.”

But to the Celts, friendship doesn’t exist simply between humans. It is also a way of relating to God, to nature, and all its inhabitants. “To be holy,” O’Donohue writes, is “to be natural, to befriend the worlds that come to balance in you.” The Celts rejected divisions between heaven and earth, time and eternity. To me, in that time of uncertainty, this was profoundly comforting.

Though I grew as a deeply faithful Christian, when I was confronted with my mom’s mortality, I felt divided from the God I thought would protect her. The church’s teaching, that eternal peace waits for us in another life, didn’t lessen my family’s suffering. But here was O’Donohue, with a message for those who are left behind on Earth in the wake of death. “That which seems to pass away on the surface of time,” he writes, “is in fact transfigured and housed in the tabernacle of memory.”

In other words, the division between the living and the dead is false.

. . . .We are bound to the rhythms of the Earth, which include death.

So you have to befriend it.

No I don’t have to fricking befriend it. I don’t want to die! I may reach the point where I’m so feeble or in so much pain that I don’t mind dying, but I will never befriend it. Nor did Christopher Hitchens, even when he knew he was terminally ill.  As he said, dying is like being at a party, and Death taps you on the shoulder and says, “You have to leave now, but the party will go on.”  And I want to go on, too.

*Also from the FP we have an article on our “progressive” Democratic governor, J. B. Pritzker (I did vote for him and he’s pretty okay, but sometimes off the rails). He’s off the rails this time with hypocrisy: “Is JB Pritzker wants to lead the Trump resistance. But is he turning his back on DEI?”

Since the election of Donald Trump, Democratic Illinois governor JB Pritzker has emerged as a key figure in the Resistance 2.0. A longtime proponent of diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, Pritzker has described Trump’s attack on DEI as an attempt to “tear down” civil rights. He also called Trump “unfit to lead” after the president suggested DEI played a role in a tragic aircraft collision in January in Washington, D.C.

But, according to a Free Press review of internet archive records, Pritzker’s own family nonprofit appears to have scrubbed a slew of DEI language from its website on March 11. The Pritzker Family Foundation eliminated the phrase justice and equity from its mission statement and jettisoned the word inequities to describe its focus on social justice. The group also removed the word equitable from the statement that said the group had a “deep desire to create more just and equitable outcomes.”And the foundation removed an entire sentence from its website that read: “Learn more about our ongoing efforts to apply a lens of Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) to our grantmaking here,” which linked to a downloadable foundation document detailing its “ongoing journey” to embrace DEI. This document can no longer be found on the foundation’s site, but was located by The Free Press on the internet archive.

. . .The document, which according to its file name was created in 2021, said that “diversity and inclusion” are “central to the foundation’s work.” It described how the organization is analyzing “inequitable systems” that discriminate against minorities as it shapes its philanthropic giving.

Progressive activist Misty Gaither says the alterations cast doubt on whether the Pritzker Family Foundation was serious about promoting DEI in the first place. “If anyone can so quickly scrub their website, their efforts have been performative at best over the last several years,” Gaither, who advises companies on DEI and is the former vice president of DEI and Belonging at Indeed, told The Free Press.

The Pritzker Family Foundation did not respond to a request for comment on the changes to its website. A spokesperson for the governor’s office said Pritzker has “been clear” that he will not roll back government DEI programs in Illinois and is continuing to push back against the Trump administration.

Here’s the before and after when “equity” was scrubbed (click to enlarge).

In fact, I see that of the “DEI” acronym, it’s the “E”, for “equity” that is disappearing in various universities.  No surprise about that: who can object to “diversity” or “inclusion” in principle? But “equity” implies affirmative action of sorts, and not everybody is down with that.

*As the weather warms up, the pro-Palestinian crowd is becoming busy on campus again.  According to the Chicago Maroon, a legal memorial for Kir Bibas, the youngest of the three members of the Bibas family (mom and two young sons) who were kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, 2023, was vandalized. The two children were reportedly strangled to death with bare hands, and the Maroons for Israel, a pro-Israeli organization, put up a crib on campus to remind people of the savagery of Hamas. The University decried the vandalism.

The University released a statement denouncing the vandalism of a Maroons for Israel (MFI) installation on the quad as a violation of “the University’s longstanding commitment to free expression.”

A University Student Centers–approved MFI installation on the main quad outside Swift Hall was vandalized on March 7, per a MFI statement.

The installation consisted of a crib containing an Israeli flag and a poster with photos of Kfir Bibas, a nine-month-old Israeli taken hostage during the October 7, 2023 attacks and later killed. The poster was partially ripped and left on the ground.

In its statement, the University restated its position regarding damage to approved installations and noted that the University of Chicago Police Department (UCPD) is currently investigating the incident. The University also shared information about how students can receive support for freedom of expression–related concerns.

“Maintaining UChicago’s environment of free expression for a wide diversity of perspectives takes unremitting effort on everyone’s behalf,” the statement read.

In its March 7 statement posted on Instagram, MFI condemned the vandalism.

“Earlier today, our crib installation highlighting the barbaric murder of Kfir Bibas was vandalized on the University of Chicago quadrangles,” MFI wrote. “We are appalled at this inhumane behavior, which shows insensitivity at best, and support at worst, for the slaughter of an innocent nine month old infant whose only crime was being Jewish.”

“This act of hatred does not discourage us, but only motivates our advocacy on campus,” MFI continued. “We are committed to working with the administration and appropriate personnel to penalize the perpetrators of this heinous act. Jewish students can’t look away from antisemitism, and neither should you.”

Over the last year, MFI’s installations have been vandalized or stolen several times. During the pro-Palestine encampment last spring, Israeli flags and pro-Israel signs on the main quad were repeatedly stolen or removed from their approved locations by unknown individuals. At the time, an MFI representative told the Maroon the “desecration of a University-approved installment” was “despicable and shouldn’t be tolerated at the University of Chicago.”

Below is a tweet showing the desecration. This happened, as the article says, repeatedly in the last couple of years, as the pro-Pals continually ripped down expensive Israeli flags and pro-Israel and “bring them home” banners, an illegal act. As far as I know, not a single pro-Palestinian installation was vandalized. So it toes.

University of Chicago: The pro-Israel group “Maroon for Israel” installed a memorial for Kfir Bibas, only for it to be desecrated just hours later.

Kfir was only 9 months old when he was kidnapped and strangled to death for being Jewish.

This must be investigated, with… pic.twitter.com/dFbDVlz3fF

— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) March 14, 2025

But when I looked at the University’s statement condemning the vandalism, which was a good affirmation of free expression on campus, I was amused to see this (my bolding).

The ability of RSOs to display messages of their choice is an important form of free expression on our campus, and vandalizing such installations is never acceptable. The University also does not tolerate harassment directed at individuals or groups.

Maintaining UChicago’s environment of free expression for a wide diversity of perspectives takes unremitting effort on everyone’s behalf. Students in need of support can contact the Dean-on-Call.

The Deans-on-Call here are worse than useless, as they cannot do anything without the permission of the administration. Nothing! And at least some of them don’t even bother to hide their political sympathies towards Palestine. Here’s a photo that a Jewish student took of a Dean-on-Call during the encampment last year (I added the arrow). Look at her “watermelon” fingernails and Palestinian colors. There are pictures of other Deans-on-Call dressed in red, green, white and black during the protests. Seriously, the University shouldn’t allow Deans-on-Call to take sides in such a way.

*Although this BBC headline is ungrammatical, the content is good: “Vending machine for ducks to tackle bread feeding.” (h/t: Matthew)

A special vending machine for feeding ducks appropriate food has been installed in a park after complaints the birds are becoming ill due to people feeding them bread.

It follows a request from volunteers at Burrs Country Park in Bury, Greater Manchester, who have reminded people that bread is bad for ducks’ health and the quality of their water.

The new solar-powered machine, supplied by the Feed The Ducks Initiative, offers £1 portions of healthier alternatives such as barley, oats, peas and chopped lettuce.

Bury councillor Alan Quinn said the council was “delighted” to support the scheme, adding: “Don’t let it be said that we duck the big decisions.”

“Everyone likes to feed the ducks and this initiative will help ensure that the birds are getting a healthy diet,” he said.

The national Feed The Ducks Initiative has been working with local authorities across the country to install the vending machines in a push to reduce bread feeding.

It has pledged to maintain and replenish them with necessary foods.

Users can pay £1 to dispense a handful of duck food, with 90% of costs going towards the initiative’s running costs and the remainder going to the Friends of Burrs Country Park group to help fund events and park maintenance.

A sign on the machine states: “Bread makes ducks ill and does not contain the right nutrition or calories that they need to grow or keep warm.

“Rotting bread pollutes the water and cause nasty surface algae, which kills wildlife and gives ducks diseases.”

Believe me, I’ve had this idea for years. But why pay for a machine and restock it when they’ve got ME to give them a complete diet?

*An update from Jim Batterson on the return to Earth of the two “stranged” astronauts (he doesn’t like “stranded”)

Butch and Suni undocked and pushed away from the ISS just after 1:00 AM EDT this morning as Crew-9 ended its duty on the ISS, turning it over to the recently arrived Crew-10.  The pair left a few days earlier than planned because the weather forecast for the intended splashdown area is unsettled for the end of this week—or at least NASA says.  They have been flying out a protected ellipsoid around station and now, as I write this morning just after 7am EDT, they should be below station and beginning a series of approximately 90-minute orbits that will culminate with the firing of their main deorbit thrusters at 5:11 pm EDT this afternoon, splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico off Florida at 5:57 pm EDT.  Live coverage should start on Space.com and maybe even C-Span (as this very dangerous business has seemed to take on a political tone) at 4:45pm EDT.

There is a good full timeline summary of Butch and Suni’s excellent adventure on Space.com this morning here.

I conclude by saying that NASA, my home for 32 years and my father’s home for 31 years before me (1939-his death in 1970) is dead to me now.  I watched on C-Span last night as the NASA spokesman referred to Butch and Suni as “stranded” and returning to the “Gulf of America”.  This was the official NASA voice using Trump’s words!  So it is over for me, a second generation NASA engineer.  On TWiV, Vince Racaneilo and either Paul Offit or Dan Griffin have said, in talking about public health, that when you mix science and politics, you get politics.  Most recently, one of them observed that when you mix science and politics you get death.  They are very smart people.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is still studying entomology:

Hili: This insect is annoying.

A: Why does it bother you?

Hili: It’s running back and forth.

Hili: Ten owad jest natrętny.

Ja: Co ci przeszkadza?

Hili: Biega tam i z powrotem.

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

Two cat-related photos from reader.  First, one from Peter Hearty in the UK, who says:

Not sure if this counts as a wildlife photo or not, but did you know there’s a giant cat looking down on us from the surface of the moon? Taken in my back garden in Southend-on-Sea, England, 16 Mar 2025.

Here’s reader Simon with his two moggies, all watching the terrific animated movie “Flow”:

From Cat Memes:

From Masih, who apparently was blocked on social media for advocating for a Woman’s March against Muslim theocracies:

I am a woman from Iran. I asked my American sisters in congress to help me because the regime in my country Iran arrested women for the crime #WalkingUnveiled. I told them the regime in Iran raped women, they gassed, lashed and killed women for simply showing their hair. They… pic.twitter.com/KEQuQpnpVM

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) February 1, 2024

From Divy: cats and ducks being cozy:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by DucksTalesDaily (@duckstalesdaily)

From Malcolm; a clever way to feed homeless cats:

Feeding homeless cats using a RC tray

pic.twitter.com/ponpYi2Vo4

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) February 17, 2025

From my Twitter feed:

This generation is lost. pic.twitter.com/Wd1pK6HtNn

— MERICA MEMED (@Mericamemed) March 16, 2025

And from my BlueHair feed; Larry the Cat, whom I follow:

Wishing a very happy St Patrick’s Day to all of my friends celebrating in Ireland and around the world, especially O’Larry who’s the guard cat at Jameson:

— Larry the Cat (@number10cat.bsky.social) 2025-03-17T15:12:16.357Z

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one I reposted:

This Croatian Jewish girl didn't even survive the train journey to Auschwitz. She was 16. Her mother and brother were gassed upon arrival.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-03-18T10:31:47.750Z

Two posts from Matthew. Look at this unit! (There are more in the thread):

And another:

And a leucistic coot:

Well, I did not have "Leucistic American Coot" on my Bingo list today. Did anyone? Seen just a bit ago in #WoodlandCA #Birds

— Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics.bsky.social) 2025-03-17T00:01:14.437Z

Welcome to the Sabbath for goyische cats: Sunday, March 16, 2025, and National Panda Day.  Here are some your specimens on display: 25 young pandas making their first appearance this year at the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda (CCRCGP) and the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in southwest China’s Sichuan Province. I once visited the Chengdu Research Base and got to lightly pet a sleeping panda.  Is there any cuter animal?

It’s also National Corn Dog Day (didn’t we just have that?), Freedom of Information Day, Buzzard Day, Curlew Day, and National Artichoke Heart Day.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the March 16 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*A federal court has blocked Trump’s attempt to deport Venezuelans, with the deportees reported to be gang members.

A federal judge on Saturday ordered the Trump administration to cease use of an obscure wartime law to deport Venezuelans without a hearing, saying that any planes that had departed the United States with immigrants under the law needed to return.

As of early Sunday morning, it was unclear whether any such planes had departed or returned.

On Saturday, the administration published an executive order invoking the law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, to target Venezuelan gang members in the United States.

But shortly after the announcement, James E. Boasberg, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., said he would issue a temporary order blocking the government from deporting any immigrants under the law.

In a hastily scheduled hearing, he said he did not believe the law offered grounds for the president’s action, and he ordered any flights that had departed with Venezuelan immigrants under the executive order to return to the United States “however that’s accomplished — whether turning around the plane or not.”

This will surely wind up, along with all the other contested deportations, in the Supreme Court.

*Andrew Sullivan’s Weekly Dish column is called “The return of the McCarthyites“, with the subtitle, “Trump and Vance say they are for free speech. Yeah, right.” And he’s with me that Mahmoud Khalil’s speech doesn’t warrant deportation:

It’s important to note that this is not about protection from woke professors or ideologically captured deans. It’s protection from direct surveillance by the federal government. The Trump administration has launched a massive, all-of-government, AI-assisted program called “Catch and Revoke,” which will scan every social media comment and anything online they can use to flush out any noncitizen who might be seen as anti-Semitic or anti-Zionist or anti-Israel or indeed just getting on Marco Rubio’s wrong side.

Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder, has not been accused of a crime. And that is the point. A White House official explained: “The allegation here is not that [Khalil] was breaking the law.” A DHS spokesman elaborated to NPR:

“We’ve invited and allowed the student to come into the country, and he’s put himself in the middle of the process of basically pro-Palestinian activity. And at this point, like I said, the Secretary of State can review his visa process at any point and revoke it.”

“Pro-Palestinian activity” is the reason. The DHS document citing the law being used against Khalil — and thereby potentially every other noncitizen, including green card holders — has this legal formula:

[T]he Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe that your presence or activities in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.

Note the astonishing breadth of this legal formula. You could, for example, be a Ukrainian exile who furiously opposes the Trump administration’s new policy toward Russia. Under the Rubio standard, if you do not have citizenship, merely expressing your views in a way that jeopardizes US foreign policy interests is now a deportable offense. The Trump administration, unless a court stops them, has effectively removed the First Amendment from tens of millions of inhabitants of this country.

It’s actually worse: if you merely potentially could say such a thing, you can be deported for a pre-crime, or rather pre-noncrime. Every noncitizen in the US now has to watch what they say about foreign policy — or else. You may have just arrived from Putin’s Russia, and are now being told by Trump: don’t think you now have free speech just because you’re in America. The US government is monitoring your every word and can deport you if you say the wrong thing. You have to wait until you’re a citizen to be free.

. . . .The White House mocked him from their X account: “SHALOM, MAHMOUD.” Take a second to absorb that monstrosity: the glib and spiteful use of a Jewish term for goodbye to a Muslim. And not from some nasty X nutter. From the president who is supposed to represent all of us, but is, in fact, a deranged, bigoted troll.

I’m going to pause now for the unnecessary paragraph that is yet somehow necessary. I despise Hamas for its North Korean-level brainwashing of children, its Nazi-level anti-Semitism, and its barbaric use of women and children as human shields. I have absolutely no time for campus protests that go over the line into intimidation of other students. If crimes have been committed, I have no problem prosecuting. But offensive speech? It’s allowed in America. Handing out fliers? It’s how America began! A campus can (and should) discipline its students; but the federal government intervening to seize a legal resident and trying to deport him for speech — along with a dragnet for finding others to throw out — is an outrage in a free country.

Can the Trump administration win this fight? I suspect they can. Rubio says he intends to deport any noncitizen who merely “supports Hamas” — not materially supports, but just supports Hamas — and not just in the past, but in the future.

I’m going to pause now for the unnecessary paragraph that is yet somehow necessary. I despise Hamas for its North Korean-level brainwashing of children, its Nazi-level anti-Semitism, and its barbaric use of women and children as human shields. I have absolutely no time for campus protests that go over the line into intimidation of other students. If crimes have been committed, I have no problem prosecuting. But offensive speech? It’s allowed in America. Handing out fliers? It’s how America began! A campus can (and should) discipline its students; but the federal government intervening to seize a legal resident and trying to deport him for speech — along with a dragnet for finding others to throw out — is an outrage in a free country.

Can the Trump administration win this fight? I suspect they can. Rubio says he intends to deport any noncitizen who merely “supports Hamas” — not materially supports, but just supports Hamas — and not just in the past, but in the future.

Sullivan asserts that “the reason this is happening is because the government being assailed on American campuses and streets is not any government, and not even the American government, but the government of Israel. It’s part of a much broader campaign to chill criticism of the Jewish state.” Okay, I’ll grant that this is the motivation, but there are those of us who will defend any speech, like Khalil’s, so long as it is First-Amendment protected, no matter how much we dislike it. He adds, “As for all those brave center-right defenders of free speech on campus these last few years? Just see if they are condemning this. And if they aren’t, never take them seriously on this subject again.”  I am condemning it, though I deny being a “center-right defender of free speech.” Not all defenders of free speech, my dear Mr. Sullivan, are on the Right.

*I hadn’t realized that Daniel Kahneman had died, nor that he died by assisted suicide in Switzerland (probably at the Dignitas facility). The WSJ gives the details in a post called “The last decision by the world’s leading thinker on decisions.” An excerpt (article is archived here).

n mid-March 2024, Daniel Kahneman flew from New York to Paris with his partner, Barbara Tversky, to unite with his daughter and her family. They spent days walking around the city, going to museums and the ballet, and savoring soufflés and chocolate mousse. Around March 22, Kahneman, who had turned 90 that month, also started emailing a personal message to several dozen of the people he was closest to.

On March 26, Kahneman left his family and flew to Switzerland. His email explained why:

---

This is a goodbye letter I am sending friends to tell them that I am on my way to Switzerland, where my life will end on March 27. 

---

Kahneman was one of the world’s most influential thinkers—a psychologist at Princeton University, winner of the Nobel Prize in economics and author of the international blockbuster “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” first published in 2011. He had spent his long career studying the imperfections and inconsistencies of human decision-making. By most accounts—although not his own—Kahneman was still in reasonably good physical and mental health when he chose to die.

He doesn’t appear to have had a fatal illness, either, though he said his “kidneys were on their last legs.” And so he went to his death still fairly healthy:

I think Danny wanted, above all, to avoid a long decline, to go out on his terms, to own his own death. Maybe the principles of good decision-making that he had so long espoused—rely on data, don’t trust most intuitions, view the evidence in the broadest possible perspective—had little to do with his decision.

His friends and family say that Kahneman’s choice was purely personal; he didn’t endorse assisted suicide for anyone else and never wished to be viewed as advocating it for others.

Kahneman didn’t want that to happen to him. His final email went on to indicate that he felt that it soon would:

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I have believed since I was a teenager that the miseries and indignities of the last years of life are superfluous, and I am acting on that belief. 

He seems to have focused intently on another issue. As the next paragraph of Kahneman’s final email said:

---

Not surprisingly, some of those who love me would have preferred for me to wait until it is obvious that my life is not worth extending. But I made my decision precisely because I wanted to avoid that state, so it had to appear premature. I am grateful to the few with whom I shared early, who all reluctantly came round to support me.

---

I often think that this way of going is sensible: avoid the long, painful, and inevitable decline. And then I think that I really want to be around to see what happens next. I have not nearly reached the point when I think my desire to see what happens is outweighed by my decrepitude. Indeed, I wonder if that day will even come, and I’ll at least keep reading (so many books!), even as I fall apart in a hospital bed.

*Trump is considering restricting travel to America from 43 countries, and banning anybody coming from eleven of them:

The Trump administration is considering targeting the citizens of as many as 43 countries as part of a new ban on travel to the United States that would be broader than the restrictions imposed during President Trump’s first term, according to officials familiar with the matter.

A draft list of recommendations developed by diplomatic and security officials suggests a “red” list of 11 countries whose citizens would be flatly barred from entering the United States. They are Afghanistan, Bhutan, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen, the officials said.

. . .The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive internal deliberations, cautioned that the list had been developed by the State Department several weeks ago, and that changes were likely by the time it reached the White House.

Officials at embassies and in regional bureaus at the State Department, and security specialists at other departments and intelligence agencies, have been reviewing the draft. They are providing comment about whether descriptions of deficiencies in particular countries are accurate or whether there are policy reasons — like not risking disruption to cooperation on some other priority — to reconsider including some.

The draft proposal also included an “orange” list of 10 countries for which travel would be restricted but not cut off. In those cases, affluent business travelers might be allowed to enter, but not people traveling on immigrant or tourist visas.

Citizens on that list would also be subjected to mandatory in-person interviews in order to receive a visa. It included Belarus, Eritrea, Haiti, Laos, Myanmar, Pakistan, Russia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Turkmenistan.

Here’s the entire list:

Now I get North Korea, Iran, and Syria, but not every other country on the red list, as I can envision good reasons for visitors to come here, like a Cuban who wants to collaborate with an American biologists (we send plenty of our scientists over there).  And BHUTAN, for crying out loud? The happiest country in the world? What could be the reason for that?

*Trump is dismantling even more federal agencies, including two that are dear to my heart: the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe.

It also instructs the heads of agencies to “reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law,” and submit a report to the Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought confirming full compliance within seven days.

A second executive order revoked 19 executive actions signed by President Joe Biden that promoted clean energy and environmental goals. The order terminates proclamations of national monuments created by Biden and ends the use of the Defense Production Act to expand the U.S. manufacturing of clean energy technology (including mandates for electric heat pumps and solar panels), among other Biden-era policies.

In a White House statement, Trump claimed the rules stem from “radical ideology” and were wasteful. One of the regulations that Trump canceled mandated a $15-an-hour minimum wage for federal contractors.

. . . . The U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) — the parent of VOA, Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia — is a congressionally chartered and independent agency, and Congress passed a law in 2020 intended to limit the power of the agency’s presidentially appointed chief executive.

The order also targets other lesser-known but broadly impactful agencies such as the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a nonpartisan global policy think tank; the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which supports and funds libraries, archives and museums in every state; Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, which focuses on labor disputes; the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, which centers on economically distressed communities; and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness.

Well, I remember the VOA and RFE when they broadcast independent news (not propaganda) to behind the Iron Curtain, and many people risked imprisonment for listening to them. Perhaps their days are over now that Communist Europe is largely gone, but those other agencies–the ones that promote clean energy, libraries, and museums–are they superfluous?  Trump and Musk wield sharp knives, and they wield them widely.

*A guy just won $50 MILLION in a lawsuit against Starbucks when a cup of their hot tea spilled into his lap. Before you start saying that’s ridiculous, consider the circumstances:

 A delivery driver has won $50 million in a lawsuit after being seriously burned when a Starbucks drink spilled in his lap at a California drive-through, court records show.

A Los Angeles County jury found Friday for Michael Garcia, who underwent skin grafts and other procedures on his genitals after a venti-sized tea drink spilled instants after he collected it on Feb. 8, 2020. He has suffered permanent and life-changing disfigurement, according to his attorneys.

Garcia’s negligence lawsuit blamed his injuries on Starbucks, saying that an employee didn’t wedge the scalding-hot tea firmly enough into a takeout tray.

“This jury verdict is a critical step in holding Starbucks accountable for flagrant disregard for customer safety and failure to accept responsibility,” one of Garcia’s attorneys, Nick Rowley, said in a statement.

Starbucks said it sympathized with Garcia but planned to appeal.

“We disagree with the jury’s decision that we were at fault for this incident and believe the damages awarded to be excessive,” the Seattle-based coffee giant said in a statement to media outlets, adding that it was “committed to the highest safety standards” in handling hot drinks.

U.S. eateries have faced lawsuits before over customer burns.

In one famous 1990s case, a New Mexico jury awarded a woman nearly $3 million in damages for burns she suffered while trying to pry the lid off a cup of coffee at a McDonald’s drive-through. A judge later reduced the award, and the case ultimately was settled for an undisclosed sum under $600,000.

Yes, that’s a bad injury, but in the end Starbuck’s is being sued for serving tea so hot that it could burn someone’s genitalia.  I’m not so sure that warrants a penalty of $50 million. And aren’t you supposed to be careful with drinks in cars?

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili thinks the flower are better on the other side of the fence:

Hili: Are our crocuses in bloom?

Andrzej: Our neighbours’ have been in bloom for a week but here they are just starting.

Hili: Discrimination.

In Polish

Hili: Czy nasze krokusy już kwitną?

Ja: U sąsiadów kwitną od tygodnia, a nasze dopiero zaczynają.

Hili: Dyskryminacja.

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

From the Absurd Sign Project:

From Cat Memes. Would you eat this?

From The 2025 Darwin Awards!!!/EpicFails:

From Masih, yet another brave Iranian woman:

This is what sisterhood looks like. While I was filming my wife #WalkingUnveiled in a crowded street in Tehran, as part of her #WhiteWednesdays protest against #ForcedHijab another woman took her hijab off & joined her.
این حرکت زیبا باید تکثیر شود تا روزی که اتحاد شکل گیرد pic.twitter.com/MCqQVjUFVm

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) May 8, 2019

From Malgorzata: This is at the University of Chicago, and it’s not good at all. This was certainly an approved installation, a memorial for the youngest Bibas child, who was murdered by Hamas as a hostage.  What horrible people these Chicago vandals are!  They really need to put cameras on stuff like this, or have a 24-hour watch on it.

University of Chicago: The pro-Israel group “Maroon for Israel” installed a memorial for Kfir Bibas, only for it to be desecrated just hours later.

Kfir was only 9 months old when he was kidnapped and strangled to death for being Jewish.

This must be investigated, with… pic.twitter.com/dFbDVlz3fF

— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) March 14, 2025

Via Luana: The APA should be embarrassed. There are ONLY two sexes in all animals, for crying out loud:

Last week, the American Psychological Association released a statement about Trump’s EO on the biology of sex.

In a section titled “What the Science Says,” the APA makes several embarrassingly false statements due to their blind commitment to sex pseudoscience.

THREAD 🧵 pic.twitter.com/2jejUoz6lj

— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) March 15, 2025

From Reese: click to go to the totally adorable Substack video:

From my feed:

That smile. 🤗🤗

(ai) pic.twitter.com/2iVjXacqE0

— The Goddess (@TheGoddessF) March 15, 2025

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:

A French Jewish girl gassed to death upon arriving at Auschwitz. She was seven.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-03-16T10:13:57.416Z

Two posts from Professor Cobb. First, all kinds of animals on the farm:

Greetings and good morning it’s the Saturday farm rush hour with Mo & Emerald #rushhour

— Chris, Caroline, Kara (@caenhillcc.bsky.social) 2025-03-15T09:03:58.872Z

Kakapos are the world’s only flightless parrot, with nearly all of them isolated on a predator-free environment in New Zealand. This sad post links to an article suggesting that they once were very widespread but were devastated by introduced Pacific rats between the 13th and 19th centuries.

Once widespread, now critically endangered: New study shows kākāpō are the 4th most common bird in NZ's late-Quaternary deposits (>1351 individuals from 274 sites), and occupied all forests and adjacent habitats, on the NZ mainland prior to human settlement authors.elsevier.com/c/1klUo-4PSD…

— Jamie Wood (@larusnz.bsky.social) 2025-03-12T23:18:42.412Z

We’ve reached the end of the “work” week, though many who say they’re “working from home” are , of course,, raiding the fridge or chilling with their cat.  But I digress: it’s Friday, March 14, 2025, and National Potato Chip Day.  Here’s how Lays makes them (the ruffled kind, which stands up better to dips, is my perennial favorite):

And of course it’s National Pi Day, since the date written in English is 3/14. But 15:09, or 3:09 p.m., it will be 3/14 15:9. Pi!

It’s also Learn About Butterflies Day (an important fact: many species are declining), Moth-er Day (honoring moths), National Reuben Sandwich Day, Science Education Day, National Save a Spider Day, and Purim, the Jewish holiday celebrating the saving of the Jews from massacre by the Persians. It’s celebrated with the consumption of latkes and Hamentashen, triangular pastries filled with fruit jam (said to resemble the hat of the villain Haman, who persuaded the Persian king to kill the Jews. The Jews were saved by the intercession of Queen Esther, and so we have the usual description of a Jewish holiday:

They tried to kill us;
They failed;
Let’s eat!

Here are some Hamentashen with poppy seed, raspberry, and apricot, though the traditional filling, and my favorite, is prune (good for the kishkes, too!):

Every year at this time the University of Chicago hosts a famous Latke-Hamantash debate (read the Wikipedia page), which has been going since 1946.  Six Jewish scholars here defend either the latke or the hamentash, pointing out the advantages of one over the other (3 defenders each) and the problems with the other side’s food item. It is supposed to be funny and defended on the basis of the scholar’s own field, so I would have to give an evolutionary reason why, say, the hamentash is superior (I was invited once but was out of town). It is always a tie!  Other schools have now started aping us, as they do with our Chicago Principles of Free Speech.

To see the debate 7 years ago on YouTube, go here (the proper debate starts at 18:16, preceded by remarks from Rabbi Anna (it’s run by Hillel) as well as some music by an a cappella chorus.

After the debate, fresh latkes and Hamentash are served. What’s a debate without a little nosh?

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the March 21 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Although the U.S. has proposed a cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine. Russia isn’t having it.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia wouldn’t agree to an immediate end to the fighting in Ukraine, as Moscow’s army made rapid gains toward expelling Ukraine’s forces from its Kursk region.

Any pause in fighting at this point would be in Ukraine’s interests, he said, adding that Russia wanted a truce that led “to a lasting peace and the elimination of the root causes” of the war, which he described as a crisis.

Putin’s comments were the first official response from Moscow to a U.S.-backed proposal agreed by Ukraine this week to pause the war, now in its fourth year. They came as President Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, was headed to Moscow to discuss the cease-fire proposal, according to two U.S. officials.

“The idea itself is good, and we of course support it, but there are questions we have to discuss,” Putin said Thursday.

Putin said it wasn’t clear how such a cease-fire would be enforced and whether it would give Ukraine the chance to shore up its forces.

Russia in the past has repeatedly ruled out a temporary cease-fire and voiced skepticism about any peace talks, insisting that a lasting agreement would take time.

Many of the “root causes” cited by Putin were set out in a draft treaty drawn up by Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in April 2022, weeks after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.

Russia justified its invasion that year as a defense against NATO expansion, and that document envisions a postwar Ukraine that is a disarmed and permanently neutral state unaligned with any military blocs.

. . . . Moscow insists on keeping at a minimum the 18% of Ukrainian territory it already controls, an area equivalent to the state of Virginia in size.

In short, as the article notes, Russia has no incentive to stop the fighting. It will get 18% of Ukraine and a neutral state on its boundary. Given that nobody from the West wants to tangle with Putin, this will merely embolden other autocratic states to expand their areas.  Taiwan looks to be the next one to me. . . . And reader Merilee recommends this eloquent eight-minute video from the President of Finland, describing why people and countries should defend Ukraine.

*Trump’s Executive Orders to fire half the government is coming back to bite him, as a federal judge ordered the rehiring of many from several departments, saying that their firing had been a “sham”:

A federal judge on Thursday ordered six federal agencies to rehire thousands of workers with probationary status who had been fired as part of President Trump’s government-gutting initiative.

Ruling from the bench, Judge William J. Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California went further than he had previously, finding that the Trump administration’s firing of probationary workers had essentially been done unlawfully and by fiat through the Office of Personnel Management, the government’s human resources arm.

He directed the Treasury and the Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Defense, Energy and Interior Departments to comply with his order and offer to reinstate any employees who were improperly terminated. His order stemmed from a lawsuit brought by employee unions who challenged the legality of the mass firings.

Judge Alsup concluded that the government’s actions were a “gimmick” designed to expeditiously carry out mass firings.

He said it was clear that federal agencies had followed directives from the Office of Personnel Management to use a loophole allowing them to fire probationary workers en masse based on poor performance, regardless of their actual conduct on the job.

“It is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” he said.

“It was a sham in order to try to avoid statutory requirements,” he added.

Well, I don’t know the proper procedure for firing, but it looks as though Trump’s EOs are going to land him in numerous court battles in the next couple of years. And I’m beginning to hope that Vance won’t be a shoo-in in 2028; but the Democrats still have to confect a strategy.

*The Free Press has an article about Mahmoud Khalil, the ex-Columbia student detained for supposedly engaging with pro-terrorist organizations during protests at his school.  The Free Press introduces a piece about it by noting the debate between free-speechers those who say the law allows for the deportation of Khalil, and saying that  “Yale constitutional law professor Jed Rubenfeld says they’re both wrong. The law, he argues, isn’t obvious on either side. And anyone who says it is is not telling the truth.” The article is “Both Left and Right Are Wrong About Mahmoud Khalil.”

Political opinion, no matter how abhorrent, is protected speech in America. Expressing support for even the sickest terrorist butchers, like Hamas, is protected speech. In fact, even if Khalil had committed nonspeech, non-protected acts like blocking Jewish students from accessing parts of the Columbia campus, but the true reason for his arrest was because he’s pro-Hamas, he would still have a First Amendment retaliation claim—if he were a citizen.

But he’s not a citizen. His green card makes him a lawful permanent resident, but he’s still an alien. Thus the real question is whether, or when, or to what extent aliens have the same constitutional rights as citizens. Unfortunately for both left and right, the answer is complicated.

. . . . . And in many subsequent cases, the Court has not only endorsed Holmes’ great Abrams dissent, but expressly held, as in a 1945 case called Bridges v. Wixon, that “[f]reedom of speech and of the press is accorded aliens residing in this country.”

How can this make sense? How can Turner still be good law if aliens are protected by freedom of speech?

The answer is that Turner was not addressing lawfully admitted aliens. The case concerned aliens outside the United States and aliens who try to come here illegally. Foreigners outside America have never been held to enjoy constitutional rights, and as the Turner Court held, an alien “does not become one of the people to whom these [rights] are secured by our Constitution by an attempt to enter, forbidden by law.” By contrast, Abrams dealt with aliens who had entered the country lawfully and resided here for five to 10 years.

So do we have a clear answer now? Khalil appears to have entered the country legally, so that means he has full constitutional rights?

Not so fast. The Court has never held that an alien obtains the full panoply of constitutional rights the moment he is lawfully admitted here. Instead, the Court has created a kind of sliding scale in which legal aliens acquire constitutional rights as they “develop” more “substantial connections with this country.”

. . . .it’s pretty clear that Khalil has “substantial connections” to America.

So does that finally end the matter? Khalil enjoys constitutional rights as a lawful permanent resident, and the First Amendment does not allow people to be punished for expressing their political opinions, no matter how abhorrent. Case closed?

No, still not closed. Because Khalil’s case arises in a distinctive context: deportation.

If Khalil were being prosecuted in a criminal case, as Abrams was back in 1919—for example, under a statute prohibiting seditious dissent—his First Amendment rights would be violated and would protect him. But Khalil is not being prosecuted; he is in deportation proceedings. And those who support Khalil’s deportation will say this makes all the difference, because as the Supreme Court held in 1953, “Courts have long recognized the power to expel or exclude aliens as a fundamental sovereign attribute exercised by the Government’s political departments largely immune from judicial control.”

It goes back and forth until author Rubenfeld concludes:

Given these crosscutting precedents, it is sadly probable that judges’ reactions to cases like Khalil’s will tend to divide along partisan lines. A good bet is that the Southern District of New York judge currently hearing Khalil’s case will (if the case isn’t transferred to Louisiana) likely enjoin the administration from deporting him. Another fair bet is that the more conservative judges of the Fifth Circuit (if the case is transferred) will likely uphold the deportation.

But anyone who says the law is settled or obvious here is wrong, as is anyone who thinks they know how the Supreme Court will rule.

I don’t know! I don’t!  But I’m pretty sure this case, which looks to be repeated as Trump tries to deport people, will go to the Supreme Court. And, if the divide there is along partisan lines, Khalil will be out of here.

*The WaPo has a fascinating and long story (archived here) about the problem of curing rare diseases, disease for which companies have little financial incentives to develop useful drugs. The case discussed is that of Alaina Smith, a girl from Texarkana who came down at five with what seems to be about the most horrible disease you can have: free-living amoebas that can infect humans and eat their brains!

. . . . For the next week, Walter and Amanda [Smith] remained with Alaina in the hospital. No news was good news, and Alaina, by some miracle, seemed not only undamaged by brain surgery but nearly back to her old self. Then, as they packed up to return home for Christmas, several doctors appeared outside her door and beckoned the parents. “They just pointed at the word on their phone and said, ‘This is what she’s got,’” recalled Walter. “They couldn’t even pronounce it. They just said, ‘It’s not good. Don’t even google it.’”

Walter and Amanda took in the word: “Balamuthia.” They’d grown used to being treated, as Walter put it, “as just hicks from the country.” Amanda thought it was more the indifference of a system overwhelmed by demands. “We’re just ants on the anthill,” she said. For the most part they didn’t protest, or expect special treatment, or do anything but allow the doctors to think whatever they thought of them. Their first instinct was to respect their doctors, but they were coming to doubt their infallibility. They googled “Balamuthia” and learned that it was an amoeba that on very rare occasions entered the human brain and consumed it, possibly through the ingestion or inhalation of soil or compost. Walter immediately thought of the raised beds and the swirl of dust.

Even at that point there was still hope in the air — the possibility that the surgery might have completely removed the brain-eating amoebas. That sentiment was tested by yet another MRI, after which a nurse pulled Walter and Amanda into a room. Waiting for them were doctors in white coats. Six doctors sat on one side of the table. Walter and Amanda sat on the other. Someone had arranged for each parent to have a box of tissues — Walter instantly noticed this detail. The doctors showed them the second MRI. “It looked like a bomb had gone off in the back of her head,” said Walter. They listened to the doctors explain what they themselves obviously had only just learned about Balamuthia. How fewer than 200 cases had been reported worldwide and that it had killed 95 percent of the people it had infected. How there was still no known effective treatment for it, just a cocktail of drugs whose only certain effect was to sicken the patient. “They told us again not to look it up,” said Walter, “’cause they’d looked it up. And they’re like, ‘Holy shit, this kid is going to die.’”

Nothing worked until Mom did some Googling:

And there was zero chance that some pharmaceutical company was going to ride to the rescue with some new cure. “The only hope,” said DeRisi, “is drugs that have already been in people. And okay, if that’s true, let’s try every drug ever approved in Europe or by the FDA.” He set his graduate students loose on the problem. They grew Balamuthia in the lab and bombarded it with the 2,177 drugs approved in either the United States or Europe. All but one were ineffective. And the one, very oddly, stopped Balamuthia in its tracks. It was called nitroxoline. An antibiotic long used for urinary tract infections outside the United States, it was neither used nor approved for use in the United States. Its ability to kill Balamuthia inside a lab was no guarantee that it would do the same inside a human. But for the first time in the brief recorded history of this free-living amoeba, there was hope.

. . . . . Late one night that August, Amanda’s mother, Kathryn Keithley, just started googling “Balamuthia.” Amanda thought Walter had googled the story of each and every one of the small handful of Balamuthia survivors, but apparently not. For her mother now discovered the preprint of a new paper co-authored by, among other people, Joe DeRisi. It described a case study of the use of nitroxoline on a middle-aged white man who lived off the grid and had wandered into the University of California at San Francisco six months before Alaina had been diagnosed. The man had survived. Kathryn handed the paper to Amanda. Amanda read it and called their doctor at Children’s Medical Center Dallas, who said, “Where did you find this? Our people haven’t even found this.”

The upshot: the family got some leftover nitroxoline pills from a guy who had the amoeba and had been cured (it was too slow to get them right away from China, where they’re made), Alaina began taking them, and lo! she was cured. The lesson? Well, it’s hard to find cures for rare diseases, not only because companies lack the will and money to invest in those cures, but also because there are not enough cases to even do a controlled study of a drug. All you can do is test various drugs against the putative agent, and see if anything stops it, which is how it worked this time. As for the very many diseases that remain rare, there isn’t any good answer.

*The AP’s reliable “oddities” section describes the TSA catching a man at the airport smuggling a turtle (and not a small one) in his pants. And it was a red-eared slider, a common pet turtle and one of the denizens of Botany Pond.

A Pennsylvania man who was going through security at a New Jersey airport was found to have a live turtle concealed in his pants, according to the federal Transportation Security Administration.

The turtle was detected Friday after a body scanner alarm went off at Newark Liberty International Airport. A TSA officer then conducted a pat-down on the East Stroudsburg man and determined there was something concealed in the groin area of his pants.

When questioned further, the man reached into his pants and pulled out the turtle, which was about 5 inches (12 centimeters) long and wrapped in a small blue towel. He said it was a red-ear slider turtle, a species that is popular as a pet.

The man — whose name was not released — was escorted from the checkpoint area by Port Authority police and ended up missing his flight. The turtle was confiscated, and it’s not clear if the turtle was the man’s pet or why he had it in his pants.

“We have seen travelers try to conceal knives and other weapons on their person, in their shoes and in their luggage, however I believe this is the first time we have come across someone who was concealing a live animal down the front of his pants,” said Thomas Carter, TSA’s Federal Security Director for New Jersey. “As best as we could tell, the turtle was not harmed by the man’s actions.”

He said the incident remains under investigation, and it wasn’t clear if the man would face any charges or penalties.

We’ll take that turtle for Botany Pond, please. It will be happy here!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn,  Hili encounters baby Julia, offspring of the upstairs neighbors. As Malgorzata explains, “Andrzej wanted a picture of Hili with the baby but Hili didn’t want to come close. So he took some cat food and put it on the floor by the baby. Hili came to get the food and he could take the picture.”

Hili: Dry cat food on the floor by the baby must be a trick.

Andrzej: You guessed it.

Hili: Sucha karma na podłodze koło dziecka to jakiś podstęp.

Ja: Zgadłaś.

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

From Cats Without Gods:

From America’s Cultural Decline into Idiocy:

From Stacy via Colin, another one of those papers:

Masih has a thread on Twitter responding to Ilhan Omar, who dissed the brave Iranian. Here’s the first and last two tweets of ten. Omar never seems to sympathize with Masih’s campaign against Islamist misogyny, but apppears to side with Iran against Masih’s activism:

MPORTANT THREAD ⬇️⬇️⬇️

1-Earlier this week, Rep Ilhan Omar shared a defamatory article about me on social media by a Koch-Brothers funded “think tank” co-founded by a known sympathizer of the Iranian regime.

Here’s my response to @IlhanMN pic.twitter.com/t7iiEgJvAx

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) January 10, 2020

The last two tweets:

10-Yet, when I divulge the repression of the Islamic Republic, attacks against me proliferate by the regime & their supporters in the West. I’d have never imagined that one day a member of Congress, a fellow woman of colour, would join with my oppressors in trying to defame me

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) January 10, 2020

From Luana, a very funny tweet.

Dog moves camera so he can secretly eat food on the table..

Wait for the cat’s reaction.. 😂 pic.twitter.com/Cs65lIRa6P

— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) March 11, 2025

From Malgorzata. Am Yisrael chai!

Incredible: This 130-year-old violin survived the Holocaust.

Now, it is being played by freed hostage Agam Berger.

They will never break us.

Am Yisrael Chai 💙🇮🇱

pic.twitter.com/jQ0M16rb8M

— Israel ישראל (@Israel) March 9, 2025

From my feed, a great coincidence:

This only happens to you once.😃 pic.twitter.com/Mm2dSziCGn

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) March 12, 2025

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:

This Polish lawyer lived just eleven days after arriving in Auschwitz.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-03-14T10:06:44.371Z

And one post from Dr. Cobb. First, a phylogeography of knots, which date back at least ten thousand years:

Welcome to Thursday, March 13, 2025, and National Jewel Day.  Here’s my favorite gem (after the fire opal): the star sapphire. I was once offered a gorgeous star ruby in the back alleys of Jaipur, India, by a dubious man. He wanted $300. But I wasn’t dumb enough to buy it.

It’s also Donald Duck Day, National Chicken Noodle Soup Day, Popcorn Lovers Day, National Coconut Torte Day, and National Riesling Day (an undervalued wine, but one that’s rising in price).

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the March 13 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*SpaceX has delayed the flight that was to bring home two American astronauts,  Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. stuck at the ISS for nine months after what was supposed to be a ten-day mission.  The flight is scheduled to bring four fresj astronauts to the ISS and swap them for four used astronauts, including Wilmore and Williams. See Jim Batterson’s post about this yesterday.

A crew of international astronauts slated to launch to the International Space Station on a mission that will take the reins from NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, allowing them to return home after an unexpectedly extended and politically charged journey, will have to wait a bit longer.

“This is a ground issue. Everything was fine with the rocket and the spacecraft,” NASA spokesperson Darrol Nail said on the livestream.

SpaceX said earlier Wednesday that it could launch the Crew-10 mission again as soon as Thursday at 7:26 p.m. ET, though a decision to use that opportunity has not yet been made.

*On Tuesday the House narrowly passed (on party lines, of course) a bill that would keep the government open, for they were going to run out of money on Friday night.  But that bill still has to pass the Senate, and of course there’s a filibuster there that takes 60 votes. What Senate Dems will do is not certain!

President Donald Trump needs Senate Democrats’ votes to keep the government funded and open this week. But the group is still agonizing over whether to use this rare point of congressionalleverage to extract concessions from Republicans and risk taking blame for a government shutdown.

Some argue that voting for a bill to fund the government through September, which the House passed 217-213 on Tuesday, would empower Trump to dismantle more of the federal government. Others contend that a shutdown would hurt federal workers and the government even more.The group spent two hours on Tuesday debating the issue in a heated closed-door meeting without coming to a conclusion on a path forward.

“I think that we need further discussion,” Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with the Democrats, said as he exited the meeting. The group is meeting again Wednesday to hash out a plan.

Senate Democrats are under pressure from grassroots liberals to join House Democrats in withholding their votes. Activists want Democrats to negotiate language in funding bills that explicitly bar Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service from impounding any congressionally mandated funds, in a bid to slow the Trump administration’s unilateral layoffs and cuts.

“This is really the only significant point of leverage the congressional Democrats have this year,” said Ezra Levin, co-founder of the grassroots liberal group Indivisible. “It’s crazy to me that any Democrat would be like, ‘Yeah, let’s vote for it.’ Have some respect for yourself.”

But some Democrats think they must surrender that leverage to avoid what could be a chaotic and politically risky shutdown.

This puts the Democrats between a rock and a hard place. Do we want more government workers to be (temporarily) laid off? That would be blamed on the Democrats, but long-term economic damage could be pinned on Trump. Both parties stand to lose something if the government shuts down, but the Republicans would lose more if it shuts down for a long period. I have no predictions about this, but I expect we’ll know by the time I post this on Thursday

*A group of separatists in Pakistan hijacked a train and are holding hostages, Some of the attackers are wearing suicide vests. (Article archived here.)

Separatist militants hijacked a train carrying more than 400 people in an isolated mountainous area of southwestern Pakistan on Tuesday.

A militant group that claimed responsibility for the attack said it was holding scores of security personnel who had been on the train, and it threatened to kill them if the Pakistani government did not agree to a prisoner exchange.

The fate of the rest of the passengers was not immediately clear, though security officials said that at least 104 of them, mostly women and children, had been rescued, and that 17 injured passengers had been taken to the hospital for treatment.

The militants, Baloch ethnic fighters, forced the train to stop in the Bolan district of Balochistan Province after opening fire on it, according to railway and police officials.

The train was traveling from Quetta, the capital of Balochistan, to Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. It was scheduled to pass through several cities, including Lahore and Rawalpindi, near Islamabad. But it became stranded inside a tunnel about 100 miles from Quetta as it came under attack, and the driver was killed, according to the local authorities.

And according to The Jerusalem Post:

Attackers wearing suicide bombs were sitting next to passengers taken hostage after militants took over a train in southwest Pakistan, sources said on Wednesday, complicating rescue efforts a day after the country’s first such hijacking.

There are several secessionist groups in Pakistan, and Balochistan is one of them (it also includes parts of Iran and Afghanistan).  They won’t succeed here, but people are going to die and I can’t imagine what it would be like to sit next to a terrorist wearing a suicide vest.

UPDATE from the WSJ: It appears to be over, thank Ceiling Cat:

Insurgents who attacked a passenger train in Pakistan killed 21 hostages, the military said Wednesday, while security forces rescued over 300 others and killed all 50 of the assailants.

The military spokesman, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Sharif, told local media that three soldiers who had been guarding the track were also killed in the attack that began Tuesday in restive Balochistan province.

*Mahmoud Khalil, in custody in Lousiana, was the subject of a recent court ruling that said he couldn’t be deported. But yesterday a federal judge ruled that yes, he has to stay in Louisiana, and certainly in custody, even though no charges have been disclosed. Khalil is in a detention center, whatever that is.

A federal judge said that Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University student arrested after his participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, would remain in Louisiana for now.

U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman set a schedule Wednesday for the lawyers to present written arguments later this week. He said that his order to keep Khalil in an immigration detention facility in Louisiana was due not to the merits of any arguments, but to provide time to address the “important issues that this case raises.”

Among those is in what court Khalil’s case should be heard. Lawyers for the government argued that the case shouldn’t be decided by a judge in New York, but rather in New Jersey, where he was first booked and processed, or in Louisiana.

Separately, Furman directed that Khalil’s lawyers be allowed phone calls with their client on Wednesday and Thursday. “Our access to our client is severely limited by the fact that he is in Louisiana,” said Ramzi Kassem, a lawyer for Khalil.

Outside the Manhattan courthouse Wednesday, more than 100 demonstrators gathered across the street, flanked by police officers. Many held pro-Khalil signs. “Hands off our students,” said one.

. . . .Columbia’s interim president Katrina Armstrong said Wednesday that she stood by all of her students and supported their right to express their views.

When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were arresting Khalil, his lawyer said, she spoke over the phone to one of the agents on the scene who told her the State Department had revoked Khalil’s student visa. She told the agent that Khalil was a lawful permanent resident and he replied that the department also had revoked that and hung up, she said.

It sounds as if Armstrong supports Khalil’s staying in the U.S., as do I (as far as know the facts). It’s not clear if ICE can remove a green card, and I’m pretty sure that this is going to be ultimately settled by the Supreme Court. And about that I simply have no prediction.

*The more I read Bret Stephens in the NYT these days, the more I like him. He’s taking out after Trump again in a column called “Democracy dies in dumbness” (archived here).

I’m glad to see that he opposes the detention and threatened deportation of Khalil. Stephens is clearly the best conservative columnist at the NYT, and doesn’t waste his time defending (like Ross Douthat) a fiction like Christian doctrine.

*At the same time that Trump is rebuking and humiliating Zelensky, he’s resumed giving military aid to Ukraine—all while promoting peace talks. From the AP:

U.S. arms deliveries to Ukraine resumed Wednesday, officials said, a day after the Trump administration lifted its suspension of military aid for Kyiv in its fight against Russia’s invasion, and officials awaited the Kremlin’s response to a proposed 30-day ceasefire endorsed by Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said it’s important not to “get ahead” of the question of responding to the ceasefire, which was proposed by Washington. He told reporters that Moscow is awaiting “detailed information” from the U.S. and suggested that Russia must get that before it can take a position. The Kremlin has previously opposed anything short of a permanent end to the conflict and has not accepted any concessions.

U.S. President Donald Trump wants to end the three-year war and pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to enter talks. The suspension of U.S. assistance happened days after Zelenskyy and Trump argued about the conflict in a tense White House meeting. The administration’s decision to resume military aid after talks Tuesday with senior Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia marked a sharp shift in its stance.

I really detest Putin, and it drives me up the wall to see Trump kissing his tuchas. But surely Russia won’t accept an end to the ceasefire without getting part of the Ukraine that it’s taken over. I suggest that part of the deal involve North Korea becoming part of Russia (only kidding, but it would be good for North Korea!).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn,  Andrzej tells Hili, who’s becoming a little chonky, to get some exercise.

A: Hili, go and run a little.

Hili: There is no reason, one can exercise while lying down.

Ja: Hili, pobiegaj trochę.

Hili: Nie ma powodu, można się gimnastykować na leżąco.

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

From My Cat is an Asshole:

From The Language Nerds, a chemis-tree:

From Strange, Stupid, and Silly Signs:

Masih is testifying at the trial of her would-be assassins in New York, and of course she’s scared. But she’s also brave:

My heart is racing… My would-be assassin is testifying in a federal court in New York as I write this. I’m overwhelmed with mixed emotions. I love my life, and I don’t want to die — but I’m willing to sacrifice it for millions of women and men in Iran who long for the same… https://t.co/LtAZlLUf1r pic.twitter.com/s11OAmDg9R

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) March 11, 2025

From Luana: Emma Hilton responds to a post (below)

. . .  and the post:

This is just AMAZING! Secrets revealed! It’s a miracle! A MIRACLE, I tells ya!! Hallelujah! We are ALL SEAHORSES NOW!!

IN YOUR FACES, TERFS!!!

Fourth British man to give birth reveals how he did it https://t.co/gGsk0h5I0U

— James Dreyfus (@DreyfusJames) March 12, 2025

I thought this was a joke, but it isn’t (see here and here):

New Jersey’s First Islamic City…

Paterson Declared ‘CAPITAL OF PALESTINE’ by Elected Officials – the “Mecca’ of NJ 🚨

Muslim politicians and their left-wing enablers have seized control of Paterson, raised Palestinian flags on government buildings, and are openly boasting… pic.twitter.com/tlMBIz5dTU

— Amy Mek (@AmyMek) March 8, 2025

From my feed, a clumsy elephant:

Mother: This is the last time I show you how to go down..

Son: pic.twitter.com/ifOxnLOGYf

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) March 12, 2025

From the Auschwitz Memorial; one that I reposted:

Thirteen-year old Austrian Jewish girl, gassed to death upon arriving at Auschwitz.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-03-13T10:15:50.802Z

Two posts from Herr Doktor Professor Cobb. First, concurrent movies:

Movies that take place at roughly the same time

— Silent Movie GIFs (@silentmoviegifs.bsky.social) 2025-03-11T21:12:08.834Z

. . . and, as he says, “Be glad you’re not an octopus.” He means a female octopus:

"Male blue-lined octopuses inject females with venom during sex, paralysing their larger mates to avoid being eaten. Mating ended when the females regained control of their arms." #octopus #wildlife #nature 🧪

— Barbara J. King (@bjking.bsky.social) 2025-03-12T13:17:35.396Z

Welcome to a Hump Day (“Letšatši la Hump” in Sepedi): it’s Wednesday, March 12, 2025, and National Milky Way Day, one of my favorite American Candy Bars. Here’s how the miniature versions are made:

It’s also National Baked Scallops Day and World Day against Cyber Censorship.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the March 12 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Trump imposted a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum from everywhere (it was going to be 50% for Canada, but he had a brief moment of semi-sanity and brought it back down).  The EU has retaliated:

The European Union announced up to about $28 billion in planned retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports early Wednesday, shortly after President Trump’s worldwide tariffs on steel and aluminum took effect. It was the latest escalation in the global trade turmoil triggered by Mr. Trump’s campaign to use tariffs as an economic cudgel against friends and foes alike.

Mr. Trump has appeared undeterred by the uncertainty and fear his tariffs have injected into the global economy, and he has not ruled out the possibility that his policies could cause a recession in the United States.

The E.U., which is already struggling with a lackluster economy, said its retaliatory tariffs were proportionate to about $26 billion in tariffs applied by the United States. But European officials emphasized that they were ready to strike a deal with the Trump administration, with Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, saying: “Jobs are at stake, prices up, nobody needs that.”.

No other countries immediately announced further retaliation. China did not directly address the U.S. tariffs, although its Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said the government would take “firm measures” to safeguard its interests.

The 25 percent tariffs on the import of steel and aluminum have the support of U.S. domestic producers. But they could hit a range of industries, including car manufacturing, and potentially slow down the American economy.

Anybody who favors tariffs is making a mistake, and that includes domestic metal producers. It will hurt all Americans: we pay more for foreign goods and other countries are less willing to import American goods.  I see no good justification for this, and, in fact, it seems to be one more sign of an unstable President. What embarrasses me is that, as an American, I am held to blame by other countries, and I did not vote for this loon.  Why are we going after Canada, one of our closest allies? The fentanyl/immigrant scenario painted by Trump is ludicrous.  Okay, I’ll have my coffee now.

*The NYT reports that more and more American universities are choosing to stay institutionally neutral (we were the first!).  The article is archived here.

According to a new report released on Tuesday from the Heterodox Academy, a group that has been critical of progressive orthodoxy on college campuses, 148 colleges had adopted “institutional neutrality” policies by the end of 2024, a trend that underscores the scorching political scrutiny they are under. All but eight of those policies were adopted after the Hamas attack.

“We must open the way for our individual faculty’s expertise, intelligence, scholarship and wisdom to inform our state and society in their own voice, free from institutional interference,” said Mark Bernstein, a regent at Michigan, after adopting the policy in October.

He said the university had historically refrained from issuing statements on momentous events, like the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy or during the two world wars.

“So institutional statements are a modern phenomenon and a misguided venture that betrays our public mission,” he said.

The universities are adopting such policies at a time when the Trump administration has moved aggressively to punish them for not doing enough to crack down on antisemitism and for embracing diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

It’s a shame that it took the threats of Trump to make universities realize that they had better either apply speech policies uniformly (which Harvard wasn’t doing) or stop making ideological, political, or moral statements entirely (save for those statements bearing on matters vital to the operation of the university. We have always had institutional neutrality (using our Kalven report) as a way to butttess free speech, for nobody need fear bucking any “official views.”   Here’s the way it works with us, which I think is optimal:

Russian officials said Ukraine attacked Moscow before dawn on Tuesday with its largest long-range drone bombardment of the war, as both sides stepped up attacks ahead of talks intended to find a way to end three years of fighting.

The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed to have shot down at least 91 drones in the region around Moscow and more than 240 drones directed at other targets across the country.

The Ukrainian military said it had targeted Moscow’s oil refinery, which provides more than a third of the fuel consumed in the capital region, along with an oil production station in the Orel region. Neither claim could be independently verified.

Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, called the attack was the largest against the city since the start of the war. At least three people were killed and 18 others were injured in the broader Moscow region, the Russian authorities said, and four international airports temporarily suspended operations. Railway tracks near the Domodedovo airport south of Moscow were also damaged.

President Vladimir V. Putin was briefed on the attack, according to Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman. Mr. Peskov said Russian air defenses were doing “a great job” but told reporters that the authorities “must remain on guard” because attacks would likely continue.

The predawn strikes — just hours before high-level delegations from Kyiv and the United States were scheduled to meet in Saudi Arabia to discuss a possible path toward ending the war — appeared intended to serve as a reminder that despite suffering attacks and enduring huge losses, Ukraine can still hit back at Russia.

I don’t WANT a compromise peace; I want Russia to get  its tuchas out of Ukraine and give back the Crimea as well. There’s no chance of that happening, though, and even less now that the Great Orange Peacemaker thinks that he’s forging his legacy by cozying up to dictators.

*Now we have cutting of useful research: according to the WaPo, the NIH has canceled over 40 grants studying why people hesitate to get vaccinated and how to increase the vaccination rate. Is this a surprise? Now that RFK, Jr. is in charge of Health and Human Services?

The National Institutes of Health will cancel or cut back dozens of grants for research on why some people are reluctant to be vaccinated and how to increase acceptance of vaccines, according to an internal email obtained by The Washington Post on Monday.

The email, titled “required terminations — 3/10/25,” shows that on Monday morning, the agency “received a new list … of awards that need to be terminated, today. It has been determined they do not align with NIH funding priorities related to vaccine hesitancy and/or uptake.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new secretary of NIH’s parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, has disparaged vaccines for years. He gained national notoriety over the past two decades by promoting misinformation about vaccines and a conjectured link to autism, drawing widespread condemnation from the scientific community.

It is unclear if Kennedy had a role, directly or indirectly, in the move to cancel these grants. But his ascendancy to HHS leadership has caused a stir in the research community. Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, another part of HHS, was asked by the Trump administration to launch a study into a possible connection between vaccines and autism, despite repeated research that shows no link between the two.

Spokespeople at NIH and HHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Monday’s email was sent by Michelle Bulls, director of the Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration. It instructed NIH officials who dispense money to researchers around the country to send termination letters by the close of business Monday. It did not specify where the order originated.

Good time to do this, what with a measles epidemic afoot and more pandemics surely to come.  Yes, some scientific projects are less important than others, but I wouldn’t think that studying and dealing with vaccine hesitancy would be in the “unimportant” group.

*I haven’t been a fan of Prince Harry (is that still his monicker) and Meghan Markle since they came to the U.S. to have a peaceful life and then began on a life of endless self-promotion. Now Markle has a t.v. series (“With Love, Meghan”; and no, she doesn’t love us), and the indomitable Tina Brown gives it an ascerbic review at the Free Press, “Meghan Markle’s Buzzkill” (originally published on Brown’s substack, “Fresh Hell,” here).  It’s a hoot if you like sharp but funny criticism. A few examples:

With her unerring instinct for getting it wrong, Meghan has come out with a show about fake perfection just when the zeitgeist has turned raucously against it. Trump’s America is a foulmouthed and disheveled cultural place where podcasters in sweaty T-shirts, crotch-rot jeans, and headphones achieve world domination on YouTube. The real person of the moment is Pamela Anderson with her proudly wan, bare face. As early as 2015, the lifestyle OG Martha Stewart understood the tide was turning against overproduced flawlessness when, as she put it, she dug herself out of “a fucking hole” of Martha hate by trash-talking her own mistakes at a Comedy Central roast of Justin Bieber. Meghan, on the other hand, has never figured out a convincing persona. Masquerading as an influencer, she’s the ultimate follower, which inevitably means she is behind the curve.

. . . .The commercial blockbusters of the Harry & Meghan documentary and Harry’s explosive memoir, Spare, were Pyrrhic victories that alienated the House of Windsor for good and burned the Sussexes’ London Bridge to the ground.

What Harry and Meghan forgot was that the great thing about being royal is you can be as boring as fuck for as long as you live and still be treated as the most important person in the room. The only reason any of these deals were signed was for low-down dish on the royals, and Meghan, in another fit of vainglorious yearning—this time for a sit-down with TV’s ultimate deity—gave that away to Oprah for free, infuriating Netflix, whose multimillion-dollar deal got them sloppy seconds.

Four years later, the Sussexes’ life is now all about pretending: showing up at B-list charity galas that would have been tossed into a palace private secretary’s reject pile, making uninvited disaster tourism appearances, or going on mock royal tours that only serve to remind us they could have done the real ones with more sizzle than anyone else in the depleted House of Windsor.

It’s almost like H. L. Mencken is back again!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is interpreting Andrzej’s gesture as aggressive, for she’s a cat.

Hili: Such wielding of a hand with a pen is a provocation.

A: No, it’s just a gesticulation.

Hili: Takie machanie ręką z ołówkiem jest prowokacją.

Ja: Nie, to tylko gestykulacja.

And a picture of loving Szaron:

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

From Animals in Random Places, a cat with aspirations to be a ballerina:

From Richard on FB, original source unknown:

From My Cat is an Asshole (I can’t find the artist, but you can buy this as a card here):

Twitter still isn’t letting us embed posts, so I’m putting up screenshots. If a post has a video in it, click on the post to go to the video on twitter. (Wed a.m.; It appears to be fixed now, so I’ll embed tweets tomorrow.)

Masih finds out that some Iranians have been charged by the U.S. for attempting to assassinate her. Unfortunately, they’re in Iran and would be impossible to put on trial. Meanwhile, Masih is attending the trial of people  who tried to kill her in another assassination plot. Iran is after her big time!

From Bryan, an amazing invention: sign-language glvoes that translate American Sign Language into audible speech (video tweet; click on screenshot):

From Emma Hilton, who rebuts a parody account, though the parody espouses something many people believe. Seahorses and

From Malgorzata, who has watched this several times and thinks it might help young people appreciate classical music (it’s not all classical). She’s right.

From my feed, panda-monium (click on screenshot to see video):

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:

32-year old woman in Auschwitz who tried to provision a resistance of the Sonderkommando (inmates who disposed of bodies). She was hanged.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-03-12T09:59:17.475Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. First, the amazing platypus;

A multi-tasking #platypus: chewing & scratching at the same time.When #platypuses dive, they cram their cheek pouches full of food, to chew when they surface. Platypuses don't have teeth (they wear down too easily): they've replaced them with ever-growing horny ridges.#Tasmania #fieldwork #WildOz

— Jack Ashby (@jackdashby.bsky.social) 2025-03-11T09:01:22.130Z

Dead man’s fingers vs. live man’s fingers. That plant is a single multinucleated cell!

Dead man’s fingers & live man’s fingers. This seaweed is rad because it is “coenocytic;” the entire individual is one, single, multinucleate cell. #Codium #Seaweed #MarineLife 🦑🌊

— Matt Bracken (@brackenlab.bsky.social) 2025-03-11T04:57:11.569Z