Welcome to Wednesday, October 7, 2026 a Hump Day (“Dita e mesit të javës” in Albanian), as well as Random Acts of Poetry Day. Here’s my appropriation of a real poet; do you know who it is? It is a fragment of a longer poem, but this fragment is about the writer’s cat. It’s long, so skip it if you’re ailurophobic.  Answer at the bottom of the post.

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.

For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.

For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.

For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.

For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.

For he rolls upon prank to work it in.

For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.

For this he performs in ten degrees.

For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.

For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.

For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.

For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.

For fifthly he washes himself.

For sixthly he rolls upon wash.

For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.

For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.

For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.

For tenthly he goes in quest of food.

For having consider’d God and himself he will consider his neighbour.

For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.

For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.

For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.

For when his day’s work is done his business more properly begins.

For he keeps the Lord’s watch in the night against the adversary.

For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.

For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.

For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.

For he is of the tribe of Tiger.

For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.

For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.

For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.

For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he’s a good Cat.

For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.

For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.

For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.

For every family had one cat at least in the bag.

For the English Cats are the best in Europe.

For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.

For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.

For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.

For he is tenacious of his point.

For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.

For he knows that God is his Saviour.

For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.

For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.

For he is of the Lord’s poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually—Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.

For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.

For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat.

For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music.

For he is docile and can learn certain things.

For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.

For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.

For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.

For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.

For he can jump from an eminence into his master’s bosom.

For he can catch the cork and toss it again.

For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.

For the former is afraid of detection.

For the latter refuses the charge.

For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.

For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.

For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.

For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.

For his ears are so acute that they sting again.

For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.

For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.

For I perceived God’s light about him both wax and fire.

For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.

For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.

For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.

For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped.

For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.

For he can swim for life.

For he can creep.

It’s also National Chocolate Covered Pretzel Day, National Flower Day, National Frappé Day, National Kale Day (yech!) and National Pumpkin Seed Day.

It’s a special science week; click the Google Doodle to see where it goes:

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

Da Nooz:

*Eva Marie Saint died at a ripe old age:

Eva Marie Saint, who starred in Elia Kazan’s 1954 On the Waterfront and Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 North by Northwest, died Tuesday at 102 years old.

Saint grew up in Albany and Delmar, New York. She was a delicate, porcelain beauty. She attended the Actors Studio in New York, performed on Broadway and did live television in the late 1940s. But Saint didn’t do a film until she was almost 30, after director Elia Kazan suggested she screen test with a guy named Marlon Brando. They did a scene from On the Waterfront in which Saint is supposed to keep Brando out of her house.

In 2000, Saint told WHYY’s Fresh Air, “I don’t know what happened, but … [Brando] came in the living room. We were dancing, we were laughing, I was crying. He was taking my skirt and … whipping it around, and the sparks flew. And Kazan saw that. And suddenly I was in On the Waterfront.”

In that film, Saint plays Edie, a Catholic schoolgirl who finds herself in the middle of union corruption in Hoboken, N.J. When her longshoreman brother is murdered, Edie wants justice. Saint won an Oscar for performance.

Below is one of the very famous scenes from that movie, one in which Brando and Saint have their first date. Brando, playing failed boxer Terry Molloy, was partly responsible for the death of Joey, the sister of Edie Doyle, played by Saint, but she doesn’t know it.  The acting in this scene is unparalleled. Watch Brando look around, play the tough guy, and then melt when Saint puts her hands on his face. The whole movie comprises such acting (including the “I could have been a contender” scene), and, according to Wikipedia,

On the Waterfront was a critical and commercial success and is considered one of the greatest films ever made and is said to revolve around the subject matter of alienation at the lowest social level.  It received twelve Academy Award nominations and won eight, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Brando, Best Supporting Actress for Saint, and Best Director for Kazan. In 1998, it was ranked by the American Film Institute as the eighth-greatest American movie of all time; in AFI’s 2007 list, it was ranked 19th. It is Bernstein’s only original film score not adapted from a stage production with songs.

*France is in a huge crisis as the unions have joined the students in protesting the economic and political conditions in the country.

Demonstrations swept across France on Tuesday as labor unions rallied in solidarity with high school students who have spent two weeks blockading schools to protest understaffing, overcrowded classrooms and dilapidated buildings.

Marches were held in more than 40 cities, from Caen in the north to Marseille in the south, as activists, teachers, parents and university students joining swelling protests that have spread to hundreds of schools across the country. Tuesday’s marches drew roughly 256,000 people, according to the Interior Ministry; a major union said the figure was more than twice that many.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu signaled that the government had heard the protesters’ demands and was taking them seriously. He also said regular classes would be “completely suspended” on Thursday and Friday so that principals could host sessions with students.

The protests on Tuesday were mostly peaceful, but a fire was started in Lyon and police officers unleashed tear gas in Nantes. The biggest march was in Paris, where the Interior Ministry said there were 56,000 demonstrators.

The demonstrations are a litmus test of the longevity of a protest movement that began late last month in the suburbs of Paris and quickly spread to hundreds of schools across France.

A different NYT article says this:

*The Free Press describes the unrest at Cornell University—unrest based on the alleged case of gang rape on campus—in a piece called “The rage at Cornell: ‘Rapists still walk among us’.”

On Monday afternoon, Taylor was one of about a dozen speakers at a “Justice for Survivors” protest blasting Cornell for perpetuating a culture that allows rape to go unpunished.

Their fury was on behalf of Jane Doe, the anonymous student who filed a September 14 lawsuit alleging that seven male students gang-raped her at a fraternity house in 2024. The student, then 20 years old, initially described the evening—including her drinking and use of a dissociative drug called ketamine—as voluntary and consensual. Then, more than two weeks after the alleged incident, with rumors about her in full swirl on campus, Jane Doe requested a rape kit at a local emergency room. At the time, the Tompkins County district attorney declined to bring charges in relation to the case based on a statement Jane Doe had given to university police, finding the description of her participation to be “voluntary, conscious, and consensual.”

The case has since exploded far beyond Ithaca, dividing the country as it wrestles with some of the thorniest questions that remain nearly a decade after #MeToo: What happens when a woman comes to understand a sexual encounter as rape in retrospect? How relevant should a woman’s alcohol and drug consumption be in determining consent? And should the names of the accused men be public given they have not been charged with a crime?

That nuance was hard to come by from the speakers at the rally, which at times felt like a mash-up of the left-wing causes of the last decade—from Black Lives Matter to the anti-Israel movement that roiled college campuses during the spring of 2024. One Cornell attendee banged on a drum while wearing a ski mask and hoodie reading “Viva Palestina Libre.” Protesters chanted “no justice, no peace.”

Athena Holloway, a senior majoring in public policy, took the stage to detail the ways that Cornell had not only failed her, but humanity. When she first came to the university, she was excited, she said.

“I believed I had found a place where every person could belong, where any person could be protected,” she bellowed, as protesters raised signs with messages like “I DON’T WANT TO GO TO SCHOOL WITH RAPISTS.” “So imagine the disappointment of discovering what can happen when that any person needs help,” Holloway continued.

She then harked back to moments in the school’s past where she believed the institution had stood on the wrong side of history, including in 1969, when black students wielding guns took over a campus building to demand a stronger black studies program. Holloway, who described herself as a “low-income, first-generation” student, encouraged students to think of their struggles as connected.

“Race matters!” she blared. “Gender matters! Sexuality matters! Class matters! Disability matters, immigration status matters! Power matters!”

This was not a crowd that used the terms accused or alleged. To almost all attendees, the seven men named in the lawsuit—and not yet tried in a court of law—were guilty.

The last part is what bothered me—the rush to judgment, declaring all seven accused men of being guilty.  It’s clear that the University didn’t perform due diligence on the accusations, but what exactly went awry in the reporting process is not clear to me.  It’s a sign of the times that for many an accusation equals guilt equals conviction, but as far as I know, no matter what people think, guilt must still be established by the justice system, and withstand reasonable doubt.

*The WSJ reports on how the President of Cornell University might lost his job after that growing campus protests. (The Washington Post has a timeline of the case, archived here.)

Before ascending the ranks of academia, Cornell University President Michael Kotlikoff demonstrated against the Vietnam War and earned a literature degree at the University of Pennsylvania. Weeks before he graduated in 1973, women occupied the school’s College Hall to protest leaders’ response to a series of reported rapes.

Now at another Ivy League university, Kotlikoff finds himself in the midst of rising uproar over campus sexual-assault allegations—and this time, he is the leader in the hot seat.

Kotlikoff, who at 75 is the oldest president to lead Cornell, has spent most of his two-year tenure battling crises. His predecessor stepped down in 2024 amid controversy over elite schools’ handling of pro-Palestinian protests. Then came the Trump administration’s accusations of antisemitism and liberal excess, and the disruption of federal funding.

Now, a lawsuit alleging an undergraduate was gang raped and drugged at a Cornell fraternity house in 2024—and that the school didn’t do enough to protect her—has ignited a new crisis on campus.

Monday afternoon, hundreds of Cornell students gathered near the school’s famous clock tower and marched through campus in protest. On Tuesday, the gender and sexuality studies program is sponsoring a town hall. Wednesday, Cornell’s chapter of the NAACP is asking students to boycott classes and join a seven-hour sit-in, the duration of time for which Jane Doe says she was sexually assaulted.

Members of the Faculty Senate are preparing a vote of no confidence in the ability of central administration “to effectively address the ongoing crisis of sexual assault,” according to a draft resolution.

Kotlikoff addressed the Cornell community in an eight-minute video over the weekend. “I want to acknowledge something that can be difficult for an institution to say,” he said. “We don’t have all the answers.”

He called this time a “defining moment in Cornell’s history” and pledged to be more transparent about the investigation. He promised a serious look at campus Greek life: “We owe it to Jane Doe.”

With a vote of no confidence passing, Kotlikoff is toast, regardless of what happens to the accused rapists. Of course if he played any role in keeping the case away from the local authorities, then things would be much clearer. One thing is sure: we can’t let student unrest adjudicate this case.

*As you know, Britain’s Green Party voted a big anti-Israel motion, deeming Zionism “racism,” accusing Israel of genocide, and, worse, calling for a “one state solution” to the Israel/Palestine problem, which would lead to a huge genocide—by Hamas. The Guardian reports that this had led to ostracism of the English and Welsh Greens from the European Greens. (Four of the five British MP’s in the Greens opposed the hateful policy.)

The English and Welsh Greens are facing international ostracism after adopting a policy declaring Zionism as a form of racism, which has drawn dismay from the group representing European Greens.

The co-leader of the German Greens separately said the policy was “intolerable and unacceptable”, running contrary to its belief in the right of Israel to exist.

The binding policy motion passed in a vote at the Greens’ conference in Brighton on Sunday. Four of the party’s five MPs opposed it.

The policy says Zionism, the movement for a Jewish state, should be “treated as any other form of racism”, and backs a single democratic Palestinian state across historic Palestine “with equal rights for all”.

The European Green party, which represents 47 parties, including the Green party of England and Wales (GPEW), said it supported a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, and the new motion went against this.

The alliance “will immediately demand clarity from the leadership and parliamentary group of GPEW, to understand the official party policy of GPEW, how they position themselves towards the self-determination of Israelis and Jews as well as the protection of Jewish people and members in the party”, it said in a statement.

Felix Banaszak, the leader of the German Greens, known formally as Alliance 90/the Greens, told a press conference the motion was “intolerable and unacceptable”.

“It runs counter to everything that Alliance 90/the Greens stands for in Germany, and it also runs counter to what the European Green party stands for,” he added.

Banaszak said: “There is a widely held view within the European Green party that Israel has a right to exist and that this right must not be undermined.” His party would “approach our partner parties in Europe to clarify how to deal with this”.

Sandy Ruthven, the chair of Amnesty International UK’s charitable trust and a longstanding Green member, resigned over the motion and accused the party of failing to confront antisemitism.

Frankly, I’m very surprised at this given the growing antisemitism in Europe.  But it’s not clear if the European Greens object only to the “one-state” policy (yes, in the British Greens a members’ vote is policy), or also to the Zionism = racism and the Israeili “genocide” lie.

*The National Bureau of Economic Research has sponsored a three-authored survey of the use of AI in STEM fields. The results are depressing. First, the authors’ summary:

Large language models are diffusing rapidly into science, raising concerns that delegating research writing to AI may undermine the development of expertise that scientific training is supposed to build. We measure AI-generated writing in the dissertations of a near-census of US STEM PhD graduates from 2019 to 2026 and link graduates to their subsequent employment. AI writing is absent before 2023, present in 29% of dissertations filed in 2026, and rapidly growing. Use is more common among students from non-English-speaking countries and at lower-ranked programs. Among graduates in the same program and cohort, those whose dissertations contain AI writing are less likely to enter academic research careers and more likely to enter non-tenure-track roles or industry, with this pattern strongest among US-origin students. At the same time as AI may increase research productivity, it thus appears to also be displacing a potentially important portion of the work through which scientific expertise is developed.

Here are some tweets showing, first, the growing number of STEM dissertations that have AI writing. Remember that the importance of a Ph.D. in STEM is research results and not writing, but it’s still unethical to have AI write part of your dissertation:

My findings have replicated!

A new paper found basically the same result I did: somewhere between 1-in-4 and 1-in-3 dissertations are now written with AI! https://t.co/h8kuznE0kF

— Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) October 5, 2026

And the graph showing, for both foreign (red) and American (green) Ph.D. graduates, the higher probability of going into industry than academia if you have a dissertation containing AI writing. (There is less of a disparity for foreign students.) It’s substantial, and I have a couple of theories for it, but you can think of your own:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the editor and Andrzej are messing around:

Hili: You look very tired.
Andrzej: You’re right. I think I need to stop pretending I’m working.

In Polish:

Hili: Wyglądasz jakbyś był bardzo zmęczony.
Ja: Masz rację, chyba muszę przestać udawać, że pracuję.

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

From Stacy:

From Cats That Have Had Enough of Your Shit:

From The English Language Police:

From Masih. This brave Iranian woman risks her own freedom by relating what she sees:

A woman who runs a small shop near an Iranian prison sees two worlds unfold at its gates every day.

She sees families embracing loved ones who have finally been released, smiling through tears of joy. And she sees families summoned for one final visit with someone sentenced to death, holding back tears as they face an unbearable goodbye.

Behind those prison walls, people lose months and years of their lives in a system where fair trials, independent lawyers and even the most basic rights of defendants are routinely denied. Forced confessions, torture and closed-door trials have been documented time and again.

The people of Iran are being held hostage by this brutal and terrorist regime. They need the world to stand with them.

#Iran

— Masih Alinejad (@AlinejadMasih) October 6, 2026

From Luana.  This is most likely a reference to child marriage among some Muslims, but it’s also free speech and undeserving of punishment.

🚨BREAKING: A retired British police officer has been convicted and fined for sharing a meme.
The post said:

“Fun facts about bacon! People who eat bacon have a lower chance of marrying a 9-year-old!”

Stephen Gray, 65, spent 30 years as a police officer. He said the meme was satirical and meant to spark debate about child marriage.

A judge ruled it “grossly offensive.”
He now has a criminal record.

— David J Harris Jr (@DavidJHarrisJr) October 5, 2026

From Malcolm. Rats driving cars!

A Canadian man who had two rats as pets learned that letting them drive a miniature car reduced their levels of stress, so he gave them an electric miniature car and taught them to drive.

[📹 emperorsofmischief] https://t.co/N9rSBpMKbq

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) September 29, 2026

This really is complete bollocks!

How I have not missed hearing Trump spout uninformed bollocks about deadly diseases

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) October 5, 2026

One from my feed: our beloved DSA:

Every once in a while I like to reread this statement by the DSA and specifically one Zohran Mamdani, on October 7, 2023. Never forget. https://t.co/rfVv6CZ84C

— Yael Bar tur (@yaelbt) October 6, 2026

One I reposted form The Auschwitz Memorial:

This Dutch Jewish girl was gassed as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz. 93 years after she was born, the hatred swelled again.

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) October 7, 2026

And two from Doctor Cobb. First, a baby bobcat rescues itself. You can see some video here.

Not your typical 'cat stuck in a tree' call. A baby bobcat got stuck on the top of a power pole in Kelowna. He waited until the rescue man reached him in the lift and said, "No thanks, I got it," and shimmied down himself. 😂🤣www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/ar…

— Bon Hanson (@bonhanson.bsky.social) 2026-10-03T22:10:33.290Z

And a crappy pigeon nest:

No lies detected (tho also magnetoreception)

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-10-06T16:50:32.468Z

The poem at the top is a fragment from Jubilate Agno, by Christopher Smart (1722-1771). Smart wrote this while confined in a mental asylum, but it’s none the worse for that. It is in fact, one of the two best poems ever written about a cat.

Welcome to The Cruelest Day, Tuesday, October 6, 2026, and National Noodle Day. Here’s a bowl of hearty beef noodle soup that I had in Hong Kong ten years ago. It’s a famous dish there, and I went to a place that specialized in it:

It’s also Garlic Lovers Day, National Badger Day, and National Orange Wine Day,

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the October 6 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The Supreme Court’s new term began yesterday, and it’s expected to adjudicate about 60 cases in this session. The NYT morning newsletter describes three important ones:

My colleagues Ann E. Marimow and Abbie VanSickle have a useful preview of the cases the justices will hear — and what’s at stake in them. Here are three:

Suncor v. Boulder

First up, with arguments today, is a major environmental case about whether state law can be used to hold companies liable for the costs of climate change. It pits the city and county of Boulder, Colo., against Suncor Energy and Exxon Mobil, companies those government entities say concealed the risks of climate change.

If the justices agree, the companies would have to reimburse Boulder for damages from wildfires, floods and other extreme weather. If they don’t, the ruling would have wide impact — dozens of other cities, counties, states and tribal governments around the country have filed similar suits seeking billions of dollars from energy companies.

St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy

In November, the court will hear a case brought by the Archdiocese of Denver that challenges Colorado rules requiring preschools that receive public funding to accept the children of gay and transgender parents.

The archdiocese and two Catholic schools argue that doing so would be at odds with church teachings — but that excluding its schools from public funding would violate the First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.

Lower courts have upheld the Colorado law on the grounds that the state could require participating schools to abide by its anti-discrimination rules, so long as the requirements are applied to all schools and without regard to religion. And so here we are.

Viramontes v. Cook County

This one’s a blockbuster dealing with the question of whether state and local laws banning semiautomatic rifles violate the Constitution, a subject that the court has avoided for years.

The case, slated for oral argument on Dec. 2, concerns Illinois and Connecticut, but the decision could seal the fate of similar laws around the country aimed at restricting the ownership of military-style rifles, such as the AR-15.

It’s a deeply polarizing subject. AR-15-style rifles are among the most popular long guns in the United States. People hunt with them, shoot them for sport, derive comfort from having one in the name of personal safety. They’ve also been used in mass shootings, including in both the Sandy Hook and Uvalde elementary school massacres.

Those who support the bans point to those catastrophes, and characterize the rifles as unusually dangerous. They argue that their restriction is an important use of governmental power to ensure the safety of the public.

Opponents say such bans violate citizens’ right to bear arms. They cite a judicial precedent of “common use” to argue that a gun that tens of millions of Americans use lawfully cannot be banned anyway.

Read more about the Supreme Court’s new term here.

My quick take on these three cases in order: 1. seems unworkable, 2. schools getting publis funding should accept those children, and 3. military-style rifles should be restricted. If not, how can they restrict automatic weapons, grenade launchers, or tanks? You could argue that all of those are permissible under the Second Amendment since they might be useful in a “well regulated militia”.

*The U.S. has removed all B-1 bombers from a UK RAF base in light of a suspect terrorist plot involving the planes. (The B-1 is a long-distance, high-speed bomber, and was used in U.S. attacks on Iran.

The U.S. removed all its B-1 bombers from the U.K.’s RAF Fairford air base, a decision made because of security concerns over suspected plots to attack the facility, American officials said Sunday.

The decision represents a shift for the U.S., which has used the military base northwest of London as a hub for launching bomber strikes in Iran. Until their recent departure, a dozen B-1s had been stationed at the base.

“While operational security precluded us from confirming the movement of our assets and forces in real-time, we can acknowledge now that all U.S. bombers that were deployed to RAF Fairford have redeployed to their home stations in the United States,” the Pentagon said in a statement, adding that the U.S. bombers remain ready to carry out attacks from the U.S. The U.K. Ministry of Defense declined to comment.

The decision follows the arrest of six suspects in connection with a suspected attack on the base that U.S. and British officials said was foiled last Sunday. U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said there were “strong indications” that Iran played a role in the incident, which was shrouded in mystery after the U.K. released the suspects on bail but continued to investigate the situation.

U.S. officials were aware of an Iran-linked plot to attack the bomber aircraft and kill personnel at the base, The Wall Street Journal has reported. A branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had recruited U.K. nationals to carry out the plot, which involved multiple steps including a diversion in the neighborhood nearby, according to a senior U.S. official.

In the U.K., authorities are still trying to piece together what happened, and some U.K. officials question the level of sophistication of the planned attack.

And here’s what the WSJ says in the link above about the plan, which in fact does seem to have involved attacks on the bombers:

U.S. officials were aware of an Iran-linked plot to attack the bomber aircraft and kill personnel at the base, according to an official familiar with the intelligence. A branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had recruited U.K. nationals to carry out the plot, which involved multiple steps including a diversion in the neighborhood nearby, an official said.

I’m glad the plot was foiled, though information has been notably slow in coming. Why were the suspects released if they were planning acts of terrorism?

*To its shame, the Green Party of the UK has adopted a motion that Zionism is racism, that Israel is committing genocide, and, worst of all, there should be a “one-state” solution, which of course means the elimination of Israel. By Party protocol, these now become official positions of the Green Party. (Bolding is mine):

Britain’s Green Party voted on Sunday to class Zionism as a form of racism, drawing criticism from British Jews and from the Israeli government which said it now viewed the party as “a body that gives legitimacy to terrorism.”

The party – which received 6% of the vote in national elections in 2024 – said it regarded Zionism as “an ethnonationalist political project” and repeated its call for Britain’s Labour government to end all arms trade with Israel.

“The motion also restates the Green Party’s backing for the right to self-determination and calls for the establishment of a single democratic state throughout historic Palestine,” the party said in a statement.

The definition of Zionism – which inspired the foundation of the modern state of Israel in the 20th century – and what it implies for the rights of non-Jews in Israel and neighbouring territory, is contentious. Jewish groups sometimes define it as a right to Jewish self-determination.

The Green Party motion passed by a majority of 1,022 to 813 despite opposition from many senior figures. Party leader Zack Polanski, who is seeking election to Parliament on Thursday in former Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s now-vacant London constituency, did not vote.

The result was condemned by British Jewish groups.

“The Green Party has made antisemitism party policy and become a racist party,” the Movement for Progressive Judaism said, adding that the support of some Jews for the motion did not mean it would not be used to discriminate against others.

. . .Mothin Ali, deputy leader of the Green Party and a supporter of the motion, told Sky News on Saturday that the heavy Palestinian death toll in Israel’s conflict with Hamas – which followed the Palestinian militant group’s deadly 2023 attack on an Israeli music festival – was the key context for the vote.

“The motion defines Zionism quite clearly. It defines it as an ethnonationalist movement. It defines it as ethnic cleansing. It defines it as genocide,” Ali said.

This is all complete lunacy, especially calling for the effective elimination of Israel via a one-state solution. We’ll see how many UK politicians or public figures will condemn this vote. According to the Guardian, four of the five Green Party members of Parliament oppose this policy. If you’re a Green, defend the policy, and its implicit call for the elimination of Israel, in the comments. If you can’t, you shouldn’t be a Green.

*Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal reveals that the target of the FlyDubai hijacker was not just the passengers on the plane, but the Tel Aviv airport.

It’s Monday, October 5, and a few days ago, we believed that without the heroism of the passengers on Flight 1073, the almost 180 people aboard, 27 of them children, would have been killed. Now we know that without the bravery of Capt. Smit Machchhar, Yaniv Hayun, Tzvika Mans and Assaf Rajuan, we would be facing a catastrophe likely worse than October 7.

Under interrogation, Hamam al-Hammami, the Omani co-pilot, confessed that after killing the pilot his plan was to fly a normal landing approach and, in the final seconds, when interception was no longer possible, crash the plane into Ben Gurion Airport. That is why, rather than striking at the outset, he attacked the captain only once the plane was over Jordan.

The flight was due to land around 9:30 a.m., at the height of Sukkot, when traffic through the airport peaks. Tens of thousands of travelers would likely have been in the terminal when it arrived, and the death toll could easily have run into the thousands. Under interrogation, al-Hammami admitted that on previous trips to Israel he had “gathered information,” perhaps on where a crash would claim the most lives.

Had he managed to crash the plane into the Saudi desert, as we originally believed was his intention, the aftermath would have been catastrophic. The day would have gone down as the second-deadliest terror attack in Israel’s history, with nearly five times the death toll of the third. The central artery of the Abraham Accords, the 30-flight-a-day corridor, would have been severed, and the steadily warming relations between the Emirates and Israel would have frozen.

Had his original plan succeeded, it would have been, by a wide margin, the worst attack in Israel’s history, and it would have closed far more than one flight corridor. Even if the physical damage at Ben Gurion could be quickly repaired, no airline would risk flying to Israel. The country would face an aviation isolation worse than anything it experienced even at the peak after October 7.

. . . The most obvious and striking parallel is that Israel almost had its own 9/11, nearly exactly 25 years after the first. Not in the loose, figurative sense in which the phrase is so often used, but literally: a plane turned into a weapon, with a death toll that may have been comparable to that disaster, and far greater relative to Israel’s population. And the effect would have been even more disastrous. The World Trade Center was a symbolic target, while Ben Gurion is the heart of Israel’s connection to the outside world. It would have done more to isolate Israel from the world than any single Hamas attack.

I guess al-Hammami will be tried in the UAE and I hope he gets a stiff sentence. Israel has requested extradition because of the destination, but the UAE refused to send the suspect to Israel. The UAE does have strict laws against terrorism, though, and given that he’s likely to be convicted, his sentence wouldn’t be light.

*Convicted murderer Christa Pike remains comatose and on a ventilator after two botched attempts to execute her by lethal injection of pentobarbital.

Christa Pike has remained unconscious and on a ventilator at a hospital in the four days since her failed execution in Tennessee, and her prognosis might not be known for days more, one of her lawyers said Sunday.

Little has been released about Pike’s condition since Wednesday night’s execution attempt. She has since remained hospitalized under guard as doctors try to get the massive dose of the barbiturate pentobarbital out of her system.

When asked whether she ever regained consciousness after the execution attempt, Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell, Pike’s lawyer, said on CNN’s “State of the Union”: “Not that I am aware of.”

Pike, now 50, was 18 when she and her boyfriend tortured and killed a classmate, Colleen Slemmer, in a jealous rage in 1995. She became one of the youngest women to be sent to death row.

Tennessee prison officials gave Pike two doses of the lethal injection drug on Wednesday night. The pentobarbital didn’t kill her, but her lawyers said her arms were burned and blistered from the caustic drugs.

Pike gave someone her medical power of attorney and that person is protecting her privacy, Ferrell said.

This was the second time this year Tennessee has not been able to execute a prisoner who was seemingly moments away from death. In May, Tennessee stopped the execution of Tony Carruthers after staff placed an IV into his right arm but couldn’t get a secondary IV line.

. . .It is unclear what will happen in her death penalty case. Pike’s lawyers have asked the governor to commute her punishment to a life sentence.

“If she recovers, she may not fully recover. And there may be issues about her competence,” Ferrell said.

The governor has suspended all executions, but only for the rest of the year.  And if Pike remains comatose, the execution would turn out to be a life sentence under intubation, unless her medical guardian decides to pull the tube. The sick part of all this is that if she manages to revive, the state may well decide to kill her anyway. That is in fact what happened in the case of Robert Breechen in Oklahoma in 1995. Breechen tried to kill himself with an overdose of sedatives shortly before his scheduled execution.  They rushed him to the hospital, revived him, and then executed him, only two hours behind schedule.  I vehemently oppose state-sanctioned executions on several grounds, but if they are going to kill somebody, they should use a tried and true method, like the firing squad or guillotine. But that’s too gory for the government!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn,

Hili: Don’t make me laugh now.
Andrzej: Why?
Hili: Because I’m trying to look really serious.

In Polish:

Hili: Nie rozśmieszaj mnie teraz.
Ja: Dlaczego?
Hili: Bo próbuję wyglądać bardzo poważnie.

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

From Now That’s Wild:

From CinEmma:

From Bad Spelling or Grammar on Signs and Notices:

From Masih; a heartbreaking execution of an Iranian protestor. Just before he was to be hanged, he had a heart attack.  They put him back in a cell, and then he got married over the phone.  They then hanged him the day after his wedding:

They married by phone from separate prison cells. They executed a groom the morning after his wedding.

Alireza Sepahi and Mahshad Kashani were engaged before they were arrested during Iran’s January uprising. Mahshad, just 22, was sentenced to five years in prison. Alireza was sentenced to death.

The day before his execution, they were married over the phone. Their fathers listened as the vows were read.

No embrace.
No kiss.
No holding hands.

Just two voices saying “I do” through a prison telephone, while the Islamic Republic was preparing the gallows.

This was not the first time they tried to kill him. In July, Alireza was taken to be publicly hanged. Minutes before reaching the gallows, under enormous psychological pressure, he suffered a heart attack. They rushed him to hospital.

Then they sent him back to prison.

Today, they came back for him.

This morning, the Islamic Republic hanged Alireza Sepahi.

He was 25 years old.

For one day, he had a wife.
He never got to hold her as his wife. He never got to kiss her goodbye.

Think about the cruelty of a regime that is so terrified of young people that it cannot even tolerate their love.
💔

— Masih Alinejad (@AlinejadMasih) October 5, 2026

From Jeff Maurer; another person went to Heaven and came back, assuring us that Jesus was a man and about 6 feet tall:

Fox interviews a guy who claims he went to heaven for 18 days.

He can report that Jesus is not only male but about 5’11 or 6 feet tall and really masculine. “Talk about testosterone. Like a mustang.”

It’s over for the Talarico campaign. https://t.co/V9fROxm0pi

— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) October 4, 2026

From Malcolm. Dogs like bread?

Every morning, this puppy waits for the bakery van and his special treat.

[📹 d1mon_baton] https://t.co/1rX11ezmyp

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) September 29, 2026

Two from my feed. First, a rejection from Nature of work that later won the Nobel Prize (read about it here):

In 1992 Peter Ratcliffe received this rejection from Nature.

Almost 30 years later he won the Nobel Prize for the same discovery.

Don’t lose faith in the things you believe in. https://t.co/DNYR0sZtRK

— Nicholas Fabiano, MD (@NTFabiano) October 5, 2026

Drama kitteh:

So dramatic😲 https://t.co/gO7lerk5vr

— The pets only 🐾 (@Thepetsonly) October 4, 2026

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This four-year-old Dutch Jewish girl, along with her mother and little brother, were gassed to death as soon as they arrived in Auschwitz. Klara would be 87 today had she lived.

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) October 6, 2026

And the last from Dr. Cobb: an amphipod parasite that represents a new branch of animals.

We have a new branch in the family tree of animals: Atreyea- a previously unrecognized lineage among the closest unicell relatives of animals.Led by @konsmitsi.bsky.social & @freejakoba.bsky.social together with a fantastic team of collaborators.🔗 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers….#protistsOnSky

— Iñaki Ruiz-Trillo (@multicellgenome.bsky.social) 2026-09-28T11:41:15.759Z

Today’s song was chosen by my friend Tim, who knows his soul songs.  This Motown number, “Since I Lost My Baby,” is performed by the Temptations but was written by Smokey Robinson and Peter Moore. Tim likes it because, he says, it shows what life is like: what a spurned lover would really feel—even though the bosses are paying. It came out in 1965, and here’s a bit from Wikipedia:

Longing and melancholy, “Since I Lost My Baby” tells a story about the pain of losing a lover. Temptations lead singer David Ruffin, portrays the song’s narrator, bass singer Melvin Franklin is also heard out front after each of Ruffin’s first two lines on the first verse. It was Ruffin’s third straight lead on a Temptations single.

Cash Box described it as a “tender, slow-shufflin’ pop-r&b tearjerker about a lad who has been singing the blues since his romance went kaput.”

Welcome to another work week, with classes in full swing at the University of Chicago: it’s Monday, October 5, 2026, and Global James Bond Day, celebrating the “Bond franchise and is held on the anniversary of the date on which the first Bond film, Dr. No, premiered in London in 1962.” Ursula Andress was the love interest, and here’s a trailer (Ursula shows up at 2:01). I still think Sean Connery was the best Bond ever.

It’s also Do Something Nice Day, National Apple Betty Day, Rocky Mountain Oyster Day (yes, testicles), World Teachers’ Day, and World Architecture Day. Here’s a lovely work of architecture, The Big Duck on Long Island. I’ve been inside! It used to sell ducks and duck eggs, but now it sells souveniers:

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

Da Nooz:

*This has got to be illegal: Trump has used taxpayer money (mine!) to make ads touting his own Prsidency. (the NYT article is based on 12 anonymous sources within the administration):

President Trump personally instructed his budget director to use taxpayer money for TV ads praising him and his presidency, setting in motion a $20 million contract that used funds from the Department of Homeland Security, according to people familiar with the matter.

The ads have run across cable and network television — on Fox News, CNN and MS Now, with football games on Fox and with national newscasts on CBS, ABC and NBC, including “Meet the Press,” which Mr. Trump is known to watch.

Mr. Trump was eager to see the laudatory ads on the air and told Russell T. Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, to come up with the money from within the government, the people said. Mark Paoletta, the budget office’s counsel, and Will Scharf, the White House counsel, both said it would be legal to use D.H.S. funds. The president and Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, both spoke with Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary, about the ads.

The taxpayer-funded ads have been criticized by Democrats and even some Republicans as a possible violation of federal laws against using taxpayer dollars for “publicity or propaganda purposes.” And they come as the president is also directing spending from his super PAC — MAGA Inc., which entered the fall with $400 million — for which he has been raising money since he won re-election in 2024.

It was not clear why taxpayer funds, and not money from the super PAC, were used for the spots.

The White House has called the ads public service announcements and said they are appropriate because there is no “call to action” to vote for any candidate. Some of his aides also noted that Mr. Trump is not running for office now, in an attempt to blunt criticism of the ads as violating federal laws about the use of public money.

When pressed by a reporter on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said: “If somebody said that that’s wrong, I’ll gladly pay the money.”

“But these are ads for the country,” he added. “You have to understand. I’m not promoting a candidate. I’m not promoting myself because I’m not running for office. I’m promoting the country.”

I saw the second one the other day and about fell off my seat when I read “Paid for by the U.S. Government” at the end. These are the first two released:

Somebody should sue; these are clearly campaign-related ads and therefore a violation of the law. I won’t have my dosh supporting Trump’s narcissism.

*Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal calls the upcoming week “The most dangerous week of 2026. ” What he means is that Iran has to figure out what to do, if anything, between the Israeli elections on October 27 and the U.S. midterms on November 3. Either action or inaction on Iran’s part will, says Segal, have big consequences.

It’s Sunday, October 4, and if the Islamic Republic could vote, whom would it choose: Benjamin Netanyahu or Donald Trump? It sounds like an abstract problem, but the choice facing Tehran is the same one Citizen Change posed to American voters in 2004: “Vote or Die.”

With the U.S. blockade plunging Iran into an ever-deepening economic crisis, Tehran must break the status quo. The question is when. Escalating before the Israeli election and the midterms would send the markets into an inconvenient panic and Israeli jets to Tehran. Any conversation outside of security would be quickly stifled, burying some of Netanyahu’s other indiscretions while bringing gas prices and Trump’s failures to the front of American voters’ minds on November 3. A war before October 27 is a vote for Bibi and against Trump.

Tehran, reluctant to boost Netanyahu’s security credentials, could wait until both elections are over, but that is casting a vote for Trump.

The conduct of the war in the near term won’t depend on what happens during the midterms, even if Democrats win both houses of Congress, for Trump, as Commander-in-Chief, still gets to dictate the conduct of the war. And if by “escalation” Segal means “military escalation,” Iran doesn’t stand a chance.

. . . Observant readers will notice that there is a gap between the two trips to the ballot box. Tehran has a single week, between October 27 and November 3, in which it can launch a war without helping either candidate.

There is also the risk that, unlike winter, election season makes war more likely. Trump is currently holding back to give Republicans a chance of holding the Senate, telling reporters the war will be brought to a conclusion “right after the midterms.” While I struggle to imagine a fate worse than the hell on earth Trump has already threatened to unleash multiple times, if Iran extinguishes whatever electoral hopes are constraining the president, the response is unlikely to be the controlled escalation Tehran may be hoping for.

Despite declaring at the United Nations that “the resistance of the Iranian people will only increase in the face of sanctions,” President Masoud Pezeshkian reportedly approached Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, with an Iranian compromise the same day. Like an Iranian moderate, an Iranian compromise exists mainly by comparison.

That compromise didn’t fly, and I still don’t think there will be one unless Iran meets, at least on paper, Trump’s demand that it cease production that could lead to nuclear weapons.  The ending:

The truth is Iran has a larger problem than timing: its vote doesn’t matter. Trump still has months before a Democratic-controlled Congress could begin impeachment proceedings, and even while trapped in endless inquiries, he still holds the power over the military and foreign policy. Meanwhile, whoever becomes the next Israeli prime minister, in the increasingly unlikely event the election produces a definitive outcome at all, Jerusalem is not going to turn pro-Tehran. No matter who they vote for, nothing will change in time for Iran to survive.

I’ve stopped trying to predict what’s going to happen in the Middle East. The Israeli elections are uncertain and Trump is unpredictable. But I think it would be disastrous to simply pull our troops out and declare victory. Disastrous for us and disastrous for the good people of Iran.

*It’s pretty clear now that the Omani co-pilot who tried to hijack the FlyDubai flight to Israel was committing an act of terrorism, and didn’t care if he died in the act.

Hamam al-Hammami, identified by people familiar with the matter as the co-pilot on FlyDubai Flight 1073, posted a paean to flying in a now-deleted social-media post from June 2022 written in Arabic.

“What makes aviation and flight training so beautiful is that it’s anything but routine,” the post said. “There are moments you never forget—like your very first solo flight, or your first time landing an aircraft with passengers on board.”

*The Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle is treading perilous ground in her new piece, “Cornell raises an uncomfortable question about consent” (article archived here). We all know about the alleged Cornell gang rape, and the legal machinations around it have been convoluted, with New York governor Kathy Hochul replacing the local D.A., whom Hochul doesn’t trust, with state attorney general Letitia James. And yet many people, despite the “presumed innocent” stipulation of justice, have already convicted the perps in their minds. McArdle doesn’t think the case is so cut and dried.

There is no question that something terrible happened at a Cornell University fraternity in 2024. The question is what. Was it a brutal gang rape? Or was it something messier and more complicated, a sexual encounter that was unwise but nonetheless consensual?

What facts we have are not enough to distinguish between the two possibilities.

. . .What we cannot ascertain — and may never be able to — is whether she was too intoxicated to be able to consent. So we are now fighting over this as we have fought over so many accusations over the last few decades — the Duke University rape hoax, the allegations that Christine Blasey Ford made against Brett M. Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings, and the endless horrors unearthed by #MeToo. But why? Why is it so hard to agree on something that seems, to both sides, as though it ought to be obvious?

One answer is that sex between people who know each other is hard to adjudicate from outside, especially when one or both parties have been drinking or using drugs, thereby lowering their inhibitions, impairing their judgment and blurring their memories. Another is that different people can genuinely view an encounter differently, especially in hindsight, after regret has set in.

But I’d argue the reason these fights are so fraught is mostly that we are trying to believe too many contradictory things.

We want sex to be simple and sexual assault to be simply unthinkable. We want there to be bright lines that obviously shouldn’t be crossed so we can shout “J’accuse” at anyone who does.

But we want to proclaim that men and women are fundamentally the same, aside from socialization. We want to declare that anything goes, as long as both parties have consented. And then we want to set 18-year-olds free to live out this liberation theology.

The result is predictably disastrous. We demand that young people with poor judgment respect boundaries, and then we refuse to establish any.

I know the retort that will spring to many readers’ minds: Consent is a clear boundary. It is certainly a boundary, and sometimes it is clear. If you force yourself on someone who is screaming and pushing you away or who is trembling on the edge of unconsciousness, that person must be left alone. If you do not, we can and should put you in jail.

. . . When two people who are both extremely drunk have sex — as I believe may sometimes happen — did they rape each other? Or was the woman obviously the victim?

The author will get demonized simply by asking these questions, as guilt is often judged these days by ideology rather than by facts that dispel any “reasonable doubt”.  Since most rape accusations are accurate, that puts the weight on “guilty,” but there are seven men involved, and their stories conflict.  The last question is a good one for those who say there are no differences between men and women, when clearly men are stronger. Once again, as in the Lindsay Clancy case, I’m glad I’m not on the jury (there certainly will be one).

*The NYT identifies the two loudest bird species on the planet, saying in the subtitle, “A new study has identified two species of Brazilian birds, the bare-throated bellbird and the red-legged seriema, as the loudest in nature.” I say, “BUSHWAH!”

If you look at the paper in Evolution, they measured the amplitude of song in only 123 bird species from two places:

We made recordings between December 2018 and January 2025 in the United States (Commonwealth of Massachusetts) and Brazil (states of São Paulo, Mato Grosso do Sul, Rio de Janeiro, Roraima, and Amazonas).

Now the paper itself doesn’t say that the birds are the world’s loudest; it’s the NYT author Taylor Mitchell Brown who says that.  And since they haven’t measured the other 11,000 species of birds, the claim has no weight. Sure, we know lots of birds that are quieter, but the proclamation will not stand until the world is scoured for louder birds.

An excerpt from the article:

Deep in the Serra do Mar mountains of Brazil, a curious call echoes from high in the jungle canopy. The sound is practically deafening, a loud metallic pang that cuts through the forest’s thick foliage.

The bare-throated bellbird, which produces such calls to attract female mates, is no larger than a dove. And yet his song is louder than a jackhammer or a chain saw. It’s louder than an elephant’s trumpet.

It is, according a new scientific study, one of the loudest birdsongs ever recorded.

“They can even exceed elephants and lions and wolves and bison,” said João Menezes, an evolutionary biologist and lead author of the study, recently published in the journal Evolution.

Joining the bellbird at the top of the volume charts, the researchers found, is another Brazilian species: the red-legged seriema.

The two birds now join a previously identified bellbird species as the loudest avians known to science.

The study also uncovered a few of the anatomical traits that allow these birds to belt such powerful songs, answering many of the questions underlying the mysteries of birdsong.

. . .Bellbirds have a distinct metallic chirp, while seriemas sing elaborate, melancholic songs that have been the subject of poetry. Both birds produced tunes that registered between 121 and 122 decibels

“The bellbirds are really super interesting,” Dr. Podos said, “because not only are they that loud, but they make those loud sounds with that small body size.”

Birds are capable of singing with such volume in part because they have a uniquely evolved organ called a syrinx, which takes air from the lungs and projects it through the long tube of the trachea.

Yes, “loudest known to science” may be accurate because science hasn’t measured the call volume of more than 1% of all birds.  It sounds as if they are looking for adaptive explanations, and there may well be some. But it’s early days, and I’m betting there are louder birds to be found.  In the meantimes, here are two videos showing the calling species:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, neither Andrzej nor Hili can turn off their minds:

Hili: Sometimes I just can’t stop thinking.
Andrzej: I have a feeling I know what you mean.

In Polish:

Hili: Czasami nie mogę przestać myśleć.
Ja: Mam wrażenie, że wiem, co chcesz powiedzieć.

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

From Kitty Litterposting:

From Stephen:

From Stacy:

From Masih: an Iranian protestor whose “heart gave out at the gallows” was. revived and now is due for execution again:

🚨 STOP THE EXECUTION OF ALIREZA SEPAHI

Do you remember, a 25, protester who was taken to be hanged in public alongside his own cousin and his heart gave out at the gallows?

The regime in Iran took him out of hospital, patched him up, and sent him back to death row.

He was shot with pellets during arrest, tortured for 26 days, and now sits in a security wing of Dastgerd prison, waiting to die. His mother is in prison too.

Every hour counts. Raise your voice before they hang an innocent young man.

#StopExecutionsInIran

— Masih Alinejad (@AlinejadMasih) October 4, 2026

From Maarten Boudry via Luana; why Europe needs a First Amendment:

• A French writer (@doramoutot) was criminally convicted—and faces possible prison time—for saying that a trans woman is “a man, a transfeminine man.”

• An American academic living in Belgium (@nathancofnas) is being taken to court by Belgium’s official equality agency for claiming that there are racial differences in IQ.

• A German woman was jailed for a weekend for calling a man who raped a 15-year-old girl a “disgraceful rapist pig”—a harsher sentence than the rapist received.

• A British assault victim was convicted of a hate crime for calling her attacker a “faggot” in text messages.

But please, tell me again that Europe doesn’t have a free-speech problem. That there’s nothing to worry about. That it’s all a right-wing invention—as claimed by @lemondefr and many other newspapers.

For heaven’s sake, can someone give us a First Amendment already?

— Maarten Boudry (@mboudry) October 4, 2026

From Malcolm. I’m very glad this cat survived, with only a few bristles erected. Amazing!

https://t.co/4DLzyan8BE

— Crazy CCTV Moments ☠️ (@Suddencaptured) September 21, 2026

The Number Ten Cat is clearly a fan of Labour:

It must be so frustrating to be a Conservative politician and to have all these ideas for how to make the country better so soon after having 14 years in power when all they did was make the country worse.

— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) October 3, 2026

Two from my feed:

https://t.co/Cu7aUq7CYH

— JDS (@_MARGARITAVILL_) October 3, 2026

What a great idea! And Mama Owl was elated (sound up):

While the infertile tawny owl was away from her nest, caretakers swapped her unviable eggs for orphaned chicks https://t.co/kwSghJ56lr

— Nature Unedited (@NatureUnedited) October 4, 2026

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

This Dutch Jewish boy was gassed to death as soon as he arrived in Auschwitz. He was four years old, and would be 86 today had he lived.

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) October 5, 2026

And one from Dr. Cobb. What say you?

GOAT OR BIRD????

— Faine Greenwood (@faineg.com) 2026-09-30T00:56:19.722Z

Today’s music: “What Does it Take (To Win Your Love)“, a great soul song by Jr. Walker and the All Stars that hit #1 on the R&B charts (#4 on Billboard). Recorded in 1969 and released by Motown, the son is notable for  its saxophone solos by Walker (real name: Autry DeWalt Mixon Jr.). This is a “live” video but the music you hear is recorded, so there’s lip-synching.