This is post 29,998!

Welcome to the Sabbath for goyische cats: it’s Sunday, February 9, 2025, and National Pizza Day.  Chicago the Mecca of American Pizzas, and the only pizza I deliberately seek out is the famous stuffed pizza, which cannot be duplicated in other cities—though they try. Here’s a video of one from Chicago, which still to me seems a bit understuffed:

It’s also Chocolate Day and National Toothache Day (does anybody get them any more?)

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the February 9 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*From the NYT’s editorial-board op ed, “Now is not the time to tune out” (archived here)

Don’t get distracted. Don’t get overwhelmed. Don’t get paralyzed and pulled into the chaos that President Trump and his allies are purposely creating with the volume and speed of executive orders; the effort to dismantle the federal government; the performative attacks on immigrants, transgender people and the very concept of diversity itself; the demands that other countries accept Americans as their new overlords; and the dizzying sense that the White House could do or say anything at any moment. All of this is intended to keep the country on its back heel so President Trump can blaze ahead in his drive for maximum executive power, so no one can stop the audacious, ill-conceived and frequently illegal agenda being advanced by his administration. For goodness sake, don’t tune out.

The actions of this presidency need to be tracked, and when they cross moral or legal lines, they need to be challenged, boldly and thoughtfully, with the confidence that the nation’s system of checks and balances will prove up to the task. There are reasons for concern on that front, of course. The Republican-led Congress has so far abdicated its role as a coequal branch of government, from allowing its laws and spending directives to be systematically cast aside to fearfully assenting to the president stocking his cabinet with erratic, unqualified loyalists. Much of civil society — from the business community, to higher education, to parts of the corporate media — has been disturbingly quiet, even acquiescent.

But there are encouraging signs as well. The courts, the most important check on a president who aims to expand his legally authorized powers and remove any guardrails, so far have held, blocking a number of Mr. Trump’s initiatives. States have also taken action, with several Democratic attorneys general suing over Mr. Trump’s attempts to freeze federal grant funding and end birthright citizenship and vowing to fight Elon Musk’s team’s access to federal payment systems containing personal information. State or local officials are also defending their laws in the face of federal immigration raids and fighting Mr. Trump’s executive order barring gender-affirming medical care for transgender children. And independent-minded journalism organizations have continued excellent reporting on the fire hose of excesses of these early days, bringing essential information to the public.

None of this is to say that Mr. Trump shouldn’t have the opportunity to govern. Seventy-seven million Americans cast ballots to put Mr. Trump back in the White House, and the Republican Party, now fully remade in service of the MAGA movement, holds majorities in both houses of Congress. Elections, it is often noted, have consequences. But is this unconstitutional overhaul of the American government — far more sweeping, haphazard and cruel than anything he campaigned on — really what those voters signed up for? To put America’s system of checks and balances, its alliances and its national security at risk? Because, beyond the bluster, that is what Mr. Trump, Mr. Musk and their supporters are doing.

They then mention areas to watch (see also the Sullivan excerpt below), including Musk’s takeover of the government, Trump’s bloviating about Greenland, Canada, and other allies, and the endangering of public health via staff reducation and bad appointments like RFK Jr. As I’ve always said, if you want to change things, there is always the ballot box, but not for two years. Right now there’s the legal system, and it’s operating as it should.

*One of the bad moves that Trump made (and yes, there were some good ones) is his apparent desire to dismantle U.S.A.I.D. (called “AID”) nearly completely.  Some people think that’s good, cherry-picking cases of misuse of foreign aid to justifying deep-sicing the whole agancy. But, unlike UNRWA, AID does a lot of good stuff, and dismantling it, unlike dismantling UNRWA, will endanger lives.  From the NYT:

For decades, sub-Saharan Africa was a singular focus of American foreign aid. The continent received over $8 billion a year, money that was used to feed starving children, supply lifesaving drugs and provide wartime humanitarian assistance.

In a few short weeks, President Trump and the South African-born billionaire Elon Musk have burned much of that work to the ground, vowing to completely gut the U.S. Agency for International Development.

“CLOSE IT DOWN!” Mr. Trump wrote on social media on Friday, accusing the agency of unspecified corruption and fraud.

A federal judge on Friday halted, for now, some elements of Mr. Trump’s attempt to shutter the agency. But the speed and shock of the administration’s actions have already led to confusion, fear and even paranoia at U.S.A.I.D. offices across Africa, a top recipient of agency funding. Workers were being fired or furloughed en masse.

As the true scale of the fallout comes into view, African governments are wondering how to fill gaping holes left in vital services, like health care and education, that until recent weeks were funded by the United States. Aid groups and United Nations bodies that feed the starving or house refugees have seen their budgets slashed in half, or worse.

By far the greatest price is being paid by ordinary Africans, millions of whom rely on American aid for their survival. But the consequences are also reverberating across an aid sector that, for better or worse, has been a pillar of Western engagement with Africa for over six decades. With the collapse of U.S.A.I.D., that entire model is badly shaken.

*The Times of Israel reports that three male hostages were released, but were not in good condition. One or two of them, however, did not know that members of their family had been killed. Moreover, Hamas once again stages a big show of the release, forcing each hostage to make a speech.

Three hostages abducted during the October 7, 2023, attack were released by Hamas on Saturday, with the men looking gaunt and unsteady on their feet as they were released by the terror group, 16 months after they were kidnapped from Kibbutz Be’eri and the Nova music festival.

Eli Sharabi, 52, Or Levy, 34, and Ohad Ben Ami, 56, all appeared extremely thin and frail, and while they were able to walk, seemed to be unsteady on their feet.

Sharabi and Levy were coming home to a tragic new reality — Sharabi’s wife and two teenage daughters were murdered on October 7, and Levy’s wife was also killed that day.

According to reports, Sharabi did not know that his wife and daughters had been killed. His mother and sister, who reunited with him on his arrival back in Israel, told him the terrible news, having prepared ahead of time for how to break it to him, the report says.

It was unclear if Levy had known about his wife.

Michal Cohen, the mother of Ben Ami, said she was devastated to see her son look so thin and unwell.

“He looks terrible. He is 57, but he looks ten years older. It is so sad for me to see him like this,” she said. “He looked like a skeleton.”

The three men were made to speak while on stage, carrying the now ubiquitous certificates of their release before they were handed over to the Red Cross. None of the hostages has been visited by the humanitarian organization while held captive.

Considered to be propaganda by the Hamas terror group, Israeli outlets have not reported what the men were made to say.

The Red Cross transported the freed hostages to IDF and Shin Bet forces inside Gaza, after which they were escorted out of the Strip to a military facility near the border to reunite with family members and undergo initial assessments by doctors and mental health officers.

In return for these three ill-treated hostages, Israel released a bunch of terrorists, some of them murderers:

Israel on Saturday freed 183 Palestinian prisoners, including some serving life sentences for terrorism, following the release of three hostages from Hamas captivity as part of the ongoing Gaza ceasefire deal.

Of the prisoners released, 18 were serving life sentences for deadly attacks on Israelis.

Those released included 111 Palestinians captured by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip throughout the war, while the remaining 72 prisoners were arrested before the Hamas invasion and slaughter in Israel on October 7, 2023.

70% of Israelis want to proceed with these exchanges, but I suspect that most of the remaining hostages are dead. I won’t second-guess the Israelis, but it does bother me that many of these released Palestinians will try to kill again, like Yahya Sinwar, a prisoner released years ago in a swap of a thousand Palestinians for a single Israeli soldier. Sinwary, serving a life sentence for murder, was released, went back to Gaza, and later engineered the October 7 massacre. And it’s now clear that the Israeli woman Shiri Bibas and her two small children, kidnapped along with the father Yarden, are dead. Yarden has since been released, but Hamas will not reveal the status of the remaining hostages. Since women and children were supposed to be released first, it looks as if Shiri, Yariel, and Kfir are no more. I don’t know why Israel could not force Hamas, as part of the deal, to release the status of all the hostages. But Israel probably asked, Hamas surely would refuse, and that’s that.

*Over at The Weekly Dish, Andrew Sullivan’s column is in two parts, called “Dick Cheney’s wet dream”, and “The Trans Lash and Backlash”. I’ll give a few paragraphs from each section. In the first, he denigrates Trump and Musk for preempting Congressional powers:

Unlike Bill Kristol, and like George Will, I have long held, in fact, that Article 1 is first for a reason. The branch of government with the most democratic legitimacy is the Congress, representing all of us, in our varied, complicated ways. The role of the president is merely to enforce the laws made by Congress in institutions created and funded by the legislature. If Congress has funded a government agency for certain reasons, for example, only the Congress can defund it. So a huge amount of Elon Musk’s manic destruction of the administrative state is thereby illegal on its face. Which means it almost certainly cannot last.

This is not to say that Musk hasn’t exposed predictable waste. Why are we surprised that our enlightened elites would use USAID for their pet ideological projects: $3.9 million to promote critical gender and queer theory in — checks notes — the western Balkans; $2.1 million to help the BBC “value the diversity of Libyan society” (is the British government funding insufficient?); $8.3 million for “USAID Education: Equity and Inclusion,” and $7.9 million to teach Sri Lankan journalists how to avoid “binary-gendered language.” Exposing this is fantastic — and could lead to real reform; but instantly shutting down whole agencies, freezing funding for others, laying off thousands and thousands, without any congressional approval, is the path to nowhere.

Part of me attributes this to the usual Trump shit-show. But part is also quite obviously an attempt to get these issues before the courts. The goal is to dramatically enhance even further the executive branch’s power, and to cede to it effective control of the federal purse. This would fundamentally alter the shape of American governance — and turn us into a fully illiberal democracy. Richard Hanania suggests an interesting analogy between what conservatives are currently trying to do with the executive branch and what liberals, beginning with the Warren court, tried to do with the judiciary: take one branch of government to overrule the rest on key policy matters, like abortion.

Donald Trump has always viewed his office as an elected monarch, and he has a mass movement that has explicitly declared and supported him as such. Musk sees himself as the monarch’s aide, and has no understanding of the Constitution at all, as far as I can tell. The role of the legislature, in this worldview, is to do whatever the president wants; and the role of the Court is to buttress presidential power. This has, alas, been the trend now for decades, with Democratic and Republican presidents, facilitated by the Congress’s sad abdication of so many of its inherent powers. But Trump and his Claremonsters want to take this to a whole new level of an elected dictatorship. There is nothing that would make Trump and Vance happier.

Until, of course, a Democrat is elected president.

And when things go politically bad, as they so often do these days, remember that in four years there will be a new President. We can only hope that it’s a smart Democrat, someone like Mayor Pete.

As for trans issues, Sullivan applauds some of them, like the sports issues, but says that the language is crude and some of it bespeaks a simply dislike of gender-nonconforming people:

Much worse is how the commander-in-chief described some trans people who have served their country with distinction. He says their gender identity

conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life. A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.

What an ugly, deplorable, and untrue thing to say. People who have come to terms with their gender identity — and I don’t mean the gender woo-woo babies and po-mo nutters who have done so much to muddy the waters, but actual grownup trans men and women — are telling the truth of their lives. How dare anyone — let alone a president — call that selfish or dishonorable?

This needless sneer is a reminder, if we needed one, that there has never been anyone as depraved or dishonorable as Donald Trump in the White House. I may agree with him on a few issues, and I’m not afraid to say so. That doesn’t mean he isn’t still every bit the monster he always has been.

Agreed!  Them’s strong words from a conservative, but Sullivan’s right. The words in Trump’s order are cruel and untrue.

*The National Review has an article with a title that many of us have thought about: “DEI in higher ed hasn’t been defeated. It’s just going underground” (article archived here). Although you’d think that Trump had largely killed DEI in higher education, it’s bouncing back like those inflatable rubber clowns I hit when I was a child. A lot of the evasion of DEI-elimination comes through simply changing names. North Carolina State University can stand for just about every major university these days:

With President Trump’s executive order banning diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the federal government, coupled with laws passed by several state legislatures targeting DEI in higher education, conservatives are celebrating significant victories. We appear to be at a turning point in the fight against DEI. However, as examples from my university illustrate, DEI has not been defeated — it has merely shifted tactics. Supporters of DEI have adapted to these new restrictions, ensuring that the influence of DEI is as pervasive as ever.

. . . . North Carolina State University [state elimination of DEI as a compelled-speech entity] responded to these policies by making surface-level changes designed to appear compliant while retaining its DEI infrastructure. Rather than abolishing the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity, the university renamed it the “Office of Institutional Equity and Equal Opportunity.” When it became clear that the term “equity” remained problematic, the office was renamed yet again, just two weeks later, to the “Office of Equal Opportunity.” Despite these changes, not a single staff position was eliminated, and the staff pages showing two different teams focusing on inclusion and equity just had the team titles removed. This pattern extended throughout the university. For instance, the main DEI employee in the College of Sciences, the “assistant dean for inclusive excellence,” simply had her title changed to “associate dean for college success and well-being.”

All of these staff members were originally hired to promote DEI, and their professional backgrounds are focused on DEI. It is highly unlikely that these individuals will now shift their focus to champion equal opportunity, given their previous commitment to promoting the opposite of equal opportunity — equity, or equality of outcomes, a central tenet of DEI ideology. This minimal restructuring is intentional: The chancellor, a vocal advocate for DEI, has ensured that all DEI personnel at the university remain in place. By simply renaming positions and offices rather than eliminating them, the university has enabled these staff to continue advancing DEI initiatives discreetly, despite the new board policy.

The College of Sciences Strategic Plan outlines four priorities for faculty and staff, with “Advance Equity” prominently listed as the third priority. Similarly, the Culture Charter explicitly calls on faculty and staff to demonstrate fealty to DEI, including:

• “Invest in and demonstrate your own awareness of systemic inequalities.”
• “Demonstrate leadership on justice, equity, diversity and inclusion.”
• “Demonstrate your commitment to justice, equity, diversity and inclusion.”

Faculty job candidates are highly perceptive; they understand the implications of being directed to review a strategic plan. They recognize that this request signals an expectation to be familiar with the content and prepared to discuss how they can contribute to the plan. By referencing these documents in job postings, faculty and administrators create opportunities to ask candidates indirect questions, such as “How will you contribute to Goal 4 of the University’s Strategic Plan?” or “What positive action will you take to support the Culture Charter?” These questions avoid directly asking, “Do you support diversity, equity, and inclusion?” But they still serve to assess a candidate’s alignment with DEI ideology. Their goal is to circumvent North Carolina’s law prohibiting compelled speech.

This is happening everywhere, though in different ways, and I hear about it from my colleagues all over America. Nearly all of these colleagues are opposed to DEI (my academic friends are of course not a random sample), but seriously, schools have to obey the law and I don’t like them being sneaky. Remember, if you love DEI, it will be back with the next Democratic President and Congress.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn,

Hili: You’ve decided something again.

A; Yes, but this time…

Hili: Yes, yes, I know.

Hili: Znowu coś postanowiłeś.

Ja: Tak, ale tym razem…

Hili: Tak, tak, wiem.

And in cold Berlin, Stupsi, spent the morning outside. “Stupsi sagt: „Die Sonne scheint, aber die Welt ist kalt. Lass mich zu Dir hineinkommen.“  (“Stupsi says, ‘The sun shines but the world is cold. Please let me come in to you’.”):

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From reader Pliny the in Between’s site Far Corner Cafe. Probably only biologists will get this right off the bat, but you can look up the terms:

From Cat Memes:

From Annie on FB. Is this real?

And from Stephen on FB:

Masih impugns the “hospitality” of Hamas towards the hostages (see above):

In Iran, state media praise Hamas for ‘taking good care’ of hostages. Terrorists sure have an interesting definition of ‘hospitality.’ This isn’t care. This is brutality.

Meanwhile, Ahmad Reza Jalali, an Iranian-Swedish hostage, is being ‘taken care of’ so well in Iran that he’s… pic.twitter.com/MxiD53AWHg

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) February 8, 2025

It might be worth having a look at this book:

This is a very good book and I swear I’m not just saying that because I’m quoted in it. https://t.co/AcVYsEWx1x

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

Two from Simon. First, our governor, J. B. Pritzker, shows a sense of humor as he mocks Trump:

🚨 BREAKING: Illinois Governor JB Pritzker says he’s going to rename Lake Michigan to “Lake Illinois.”EPIC TRUMP TROLL!!! 🤣

— CALL TO ACTIVISM (@calltoactivism.bsky.social) 2025-02-07T20:02:38.336Z

And the new cover of Time: Musk sitting at the President’s desk in the Oval Office. Trump, I hear, isn’t pleased with this cover; is a parting of ways in the offing? As for the ketchup, Simon says, “Trump is known for throwing ketchup bottles when annoyed.”

From CNN:

Trump was asked about the cover at the White House on Friday.

“Is Time magazine still in business?” Trump jokingly asked. “I didn’t even know that.”

Ketchup On Walls Alert: HIGH

— Mark Hamill (@markhamillofficial.bsky.social) 2025-02-07T19:50:56.088Z

A skillful cat rescue sent by Malcolm:

A different rescue of a cat 🐈#TiredEarth #CatsOfTwitter pic.twitter.com/KmAbapvzll

— Rebecca Herbert (@RebeccaH2030) January 19, 2025

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:

A 52-year-old German woman and her sister were gassed upon arrival at Auschwitz.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-02-09T11:28:07.588Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. I commented on his first selection:

Much as I love flies, I think the spider is cuter. The fly is a chonk.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-02-08T17:22:01.525Z

Matthew dug up this unpublished graph by Crick showing that A/T and G/C ratios were close to 1 in DNA, giving strong evidence that A pairs with T and G pairs with C:

One of my favourite pieces of trivia found while writing CRICK is this unpublished graph Crick drew in May 1953 for a talk in Edinburgh. He and Watson calculated all the A:T and G:C ratios in the literature then did the same for A:G. Convincing evidence that the ratios really were 1:1.

— (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2025-02-06T18:04:55.479Z

Welcome to the Sabbath for moggies; it’s Saturday, February 8, 2025 and National Potato Lover’s Day, apparently honoring only a single person who loves potatoes. Who is that person? (This is a lesson in apostrophe use.) At any rate, here is where one can supposedly get the best French fries (aka Liberty Fries) in Chicago. I have never been here, but must go now. Give me the Buried Alive Fries!

It’s also Boy Scouts Day (it was founded on this day in 1909), National Molasses Bar Day, Propose Day (mainly in India), and Opera Day.

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

Da Nooz:

*Trump’s latest stunt is to call for (he hasn’t yet done it) the closure of the Agency for International Development, the source of half of all U.S. foreign aid, and with a $50 billion annual budget (a judge has temporarily halted part of the closure):

President Trump on Friday directly called for the closure of the U.S. Agency for International Development just hours before most of its staff were expected to be suspended with pay or laid off, the latest sign that his administration will dissolve the government’s main provider of global humanitarian and development aid.

“CLOSE IT DOWN!” Mr. Trump wrote of U.S.A.I.D. on Truth Social, accusing the agency of unspecified rampant corruption and fraud. He had previously asserted that the agency was “run by radical lunatics.”

The obvious question is this: what happens to all those people who really needed foreign aid from the U.S.? Stuff like food, medical care, and so on.  Nobody is going to step in and replace that $50 billion, which is the largest amount of foreign aid given by any country in the world,

*The WSJ reports that the mood of the American consumer is going downhill. That, of course, is expected when the news is telling them that they’ll likely pay more for stuff and that the price of eggs will keep rising (even if it is due to bird flu).

The Trump bump in consumer confidence is already over.

Tariff threats, stock market swings and rapidly reversing executive orders are causing Americans across the political spectrum to feel considerably more pessimistic about the economy than they did before President Trump took office.

Consumer sentiment fell about 5% in the University of Michigan’s preliminary February survey of consumers to its lowest reading since July 2024. Expectations of inflation in the year ahead jumped from 3.3% in January to 4.3%, the second month in a row of large increases and highest reading since November 2023.

“It’s very rare to see a full percentage point jump in inflation expectations,” said Joanne Hsu, who oversees the survey. Republicans have come off a postelection surge in confidence, she said, and Democrats and Independents also seem to believe that economic conditions have deteriorated since last month.

Morning Consult’s recent index of consumer confidence, too, fell between Jan. 25 and Feb. 3, driven primarily by concern over the country’s economic future.

“I don’t like the turbulence. I don’t like the chaos in the market,” said Paul Bisson, a 58-year-old, who writes proposals for a flight safety company and co-owns a dog daycare in San Antonio. Bisson voted for Trump, but feels “his policies have led to that chaos.”

Bisson is hoping to retire in the not-too-distant future, and is worried that won’t be possible if Trump follows through with his tariff threats rather than just using them as a negotiating tactic.

“That will make the economy worse, and that’s not what we signed up for,” Bisson said. “We’ve already cut back. There’s no more cutting back to do.”

I learned at my economist father’s knee that tariffs are never a good thing, and I’m hoping Trump doesn’t follow through with his bluster about China, Canada, and Mexico (he’s already delayed tariffs with the latter two countries). But if the economy doesn’t pick up, and it doesn’t look like it will, the Republicans will lose big time in the midterm elections. They could even lose both houses of Congress.

*The U.K. is acting badly again, demanding that it be able to access ANY content that any Apple user has uploaded to the Cloud, even encrypted content!  It’s one giant Pecksniffian demand!

Security officials in the United Kingdom have demanded that Apple create a back door allowing them to retrieve all the content any Apple user worldwide has uploaded to the cloud, people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post.

The British government’s undisclosed order, issued last month, requires blanket capability to view fully encrypted material, not merely assistance in cracking a specific account, and has no known precedent in major democracies. Its application would mark a significant defeat for tech companies in their decades-long battle to avoid being wielded as government tools against their users, the people said, speaking under the condition of anonymity to discuss legally and politically sensitive issues.

Rather than break the security promises it made to its users everywhere, Apple is likely to stop offering encrypted storage in the U.K., the people said. Yet that concession would not fulfill the U.K. demand for backdoor access to the service in other countries, including the United States.

The office of the Home Secretary has served Apple with a document called a technical capability notice, ordering it to provide access under the sweeping U.K. Investigatory Powers Act of 2016, which authorizes law enforcement to compel assistance from companies when needed to collect evidence, the people said.

The law, known by critics as the Snoopers’ Charter, makes it a criminal offense to reveal that the government has even made such a demand. An Apple spokesman declined to comment.

Apple can appeal the U.K. capability notice to a secret technical panel, which would consider arguments about the expense of the requirement, and to a judge who would weigh whether the request was in proportion to the government’s needs. But the law does not permit Apple to delay complying during an appeal.

*As always, I’ll steal a few items from Nellie Bowles’s hilarious and snarky weekly news summary at The Free Press, called this week, “TGIF: Mar-a-Gaza“. A lot of the items are too long to post here, so subscribe!

→ The Jews should have hid in the attic, says Cooper Union: A lawsuit filed by a group of Jewish students against Cooper Union can continue, says a district court judge, which dismissed the college’s attempt at getting the suit thrown out. You may remember this, but: After October 7, a group of pro-Hamas protesters held one of their many days of solidarity with Hamas’s war effort. Pro-Israel counterprotesters came to do their counterprotest thing. Later, a handful of those Jewish, pro-Israel students were in the school library, and the protesters got wind of it. They got past security and began pounding and shaking the locked library door, screaming “Palestine will be free.” Cooper Union security suggested the Jewish kids hide in the attic, which Cooper Union put in their legal defense. Like, surely that makes us look good? Where else are you supposed to keep Jews? It would take too long to get them under the floorboards since we installed the wall to wall last year!

Here’s the judge: “The court is dismayed by Cooper Union’s suggestion that the Jewish students should have hidden upstairs or left the building, or that locking the library doors was enough to discharge its obligations under Title VI.”

Cooper Union, I’m as baffled as you are.

→ Pronouns are dropping everywhere, every day: London mayor Sadiq Khan. Pete, former transportation secretary and mayor. AOC. What do these people have in common? We have no idea what their pronouns are now. We have no idea how to address them. Because pronouns have been dropped from their bios. Quietly, one by one. Is it Mx. Buttigieg? Sir Sadiq? How will we ever guess?

→ Stop making such a big deal out of the hostage babies: Zeteo, the media start-up founded by Mehdi Hasan, published a piece last week titled:“Is Israel Weaponizing the Tragic Deaths of the Bibas Children?”

An excerpt: “Israel’s government has apparently known their tragic fate for 14 months but has chosen to deliberately pretend they were still alive to capitalize on the narrative of Palestinian ‘monsters’ holding a baby hostage.”

It’s besmirching the beautiful name of Hamas to suggest they would hold living babies hostages, per Zeteo. Because sweet, noble Hamas would only kidnap babies and then kill them by bringing them into a war zone and then hold their dead bodies for barter. Which is much better! They would not keep living babies hostage. You ghoul, how could you suggest that! Israel is “weaponizing” these children by talking about them so much when they’re totally dead, Zeteo writes. You gotta admire this: Hamas kidnapped two babies into Gaza and may now be holding their dead bodies, and still Israel is somehow the aggressor.

→ Thank god for James Carville: While the entire Dem establishment seems committed to losing at every opportunity they have, one James Carville is screaming into the void. “We ran a presidential election. If we were playing the Super Bowl, we started our seventh-string quarterback. . . . You can’t address a problem unless you’re honest about a problem.”

When the glowing orb of Carville pops up on the TV, you know you’re about to be yelled at. You know there’ll be spit on that table. Carville said people would be shocked to know that there are Dem candidates that “can actually complete a sentence, that actually know how to frame a message, that actually have a sense of accomplishment, of doing something.” Where are they hiding? Maybe in Governor Phil Murphy’s attic. Maybe somewhere in South Bend. But it’s time, guys: We need a complete-your-sentence–level politician, and we need one ba

I love Carville. When you look in the dictionary under “curmudgeon,” you’ll see his picture.

*Finally, from the reliable Associate Press’s “oddities” section, we learn something that was absolutely predictable: there was a huge egg heist. To be specific, around 100,000 eggs were stolen, and that’s a lot of omelets!

The heist of 100,000 eggs from the back of a trailer in Pennsylvania has become a whodunit that police have yet to crack.

Four days after the theft that law enforcement say could be tied to the sky-high cost of eggs, no leads have come in, Trooper First Class Megan Frazer, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania State Police, said Wednesday.

“We’re relying on leads from people from the community. So we’re hoping that somebody knows something, and they’ll call us and give us some tips,” she said.

Police are also following up with any possible witnesses and looking into surveillance footage that could help them identify the perpetrator as they race to solve the mystery.

“In my career, I’ve never heard of a hundred thousand eggs being stolen. This is definitely unique,” said Frazer, who has a dozen years on the job.

Bird flu is forcing farmers to slaughter millions of chickens a month, pushing U.S. egg prices to more than double their cost in the summer of 2023. And it appears there may be no relief in sight with Easter approaching.

The average price per dozen eggs nationwide hit $4.15 in December. That is not quite as high as the $4.82 record set two years ago, but the Agriculture Department predicts egg prices are going to soar another 20% this year.

The 100,000 eggs were snatched from the back of Pete & Gerry’s Organics’ distribution trailer on Saturday about 8:40 p.m. in Antrim Township, according to police.

Let’s see: if 12 eggs are 4.15, then $100,000 eggs represent a theft of $34,583.  And that is grand larceny. in every state in the Union.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn,  Hili, a centrist, despairs:

Hili: I’m losing hope.

A: For what?

Hili: for the victory of moderates.

Hili: Tracę nadzieję.

Ja: Na co?

Hili: Na zwycięstwo umiarkowanych.

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From Facebook:

From Things With Faces, a bunch of sad bananas:

From I Love Cats:

Masih on Pakhshan Azizi, a Kurdiah-Iranian activist sentenced to death for “armed rebellion against the state” (nobody believes that), and who has suffered physical and psychological torture already during a long stint in prison.

She could be executed at any moment, her last hope has been destroyed!

The court has rejected Pakhshan Azizi’s request for a retrial, despite clear evidence of her innocence. This was the final hope for her family, her friends, and all of us who fought for her freedom. Now, at… pic.twitter.com/FEI2I2fLgp

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) February 6, 2025

A long but very good tweet by Rowling:

This ‘why do you care about a tiny fraction of the population?’ line is, and always was, utterly ridiculous.

Gender ideology has undermined freedom of speech, scientific truth, gay rights, and women’s and girls’ safety, privacy and dignity. It’s also caused irreparable physical…

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

James Carville takes Kamala Harris to the woodshed by calling her a ‘7th string quarterback’ that couldn’t put together a sentence:
James Carville: “We ran a presidential election, if we were playing a superbowl, we started our 7th string quarterback. You can’t address a problem… pic.twitter.com/RBUXKNJSMa

— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) February 1, 2025

From Simon, who says, “It’s a good question, though.”

This poor man. No one deserves that.

— George Conway (@gtconway.bsky.social) 2025-02-07T03:06:05.540Z

From Malcolm; spot the cat!

#BlackCatAppreciationDay

The problem with having a black cat is they sometimes go missing and 90% of the time they’re sitting in front of the TV screen pic.twitter.com/6VeqqZf2iB

— Robin Hood 🏹 (@goodrobinhood) August 17, 2024

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:

An 11-year-old Dutch boy who either died in transit or was gassed on arrival at Auschwitz.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-02-08T10:57:56.289Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. The first he labels “a good man”, Read the Forbes article here.  An excerpt:

But Feeney has come in from the cold. The man who amassed a fortune selling luxury goods to tourists, and later launched private equity powerhouse General Atlantic, lives in an apartment in San Francisco that has the austerity of a freshman dorm room. When I visited a few years ago, inkjet-printed photos of friends and family hung from the walls over a plain, wooden table. On the table sat a small Lucite plaque that read: “Congratulations to Chuck Feeney for $8 billion of philanthropic giving.”

Chuck Feeney here who died in 2023.A man who made an estimated €8 billion out of Duty Free and then gave it all away to make the world a better place.A modest man too. Which is why you may never have heard of him.www.forbes.com/sites/steven…

— Otto English (@ottoenglish.bsky.social) 2025-02-07T07:49:10.925Z

Look at this gorgeous butterfly!

Hamadryas have a mix of grays, blacks & hints of blue & white. Hamadryas are particularly attracted to tree sap.They use their proboscis to sip the liquid from wounds/damaged areas on trees. The sap provides the sodium needed for their diet. #butterfly #biology #nature #photo #insects #wildlife

— D. C. Fitzgerald (@dcfitzgerald.bsky.social) 2025-02-07T08:10:07.785Z

Can the week be over already? Indeed it is, at least what they call the “work week”, for it’s Friday, February 7, 2025, and it’s National Fettuccine Alfredo Day, one of my favorite pastas, though I make it with hollow bucatini noodles instead of fettuccine.  I add peas to mine to pump up the vegetable content. It’s good!

It’s also “e” Day, since the first two digits of that nunber are 2 and 7, Ballet Day, Rose Day, National Patty Melt Day (it’s just a cheeseburger on rye), and Bubble Gum Day.

Reader Rick submitted a quote of the day:

“I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this.” -Emo Phillips, comedian, actor (b. 7 Feb 1956)

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

Da Nooz:

*Trump’s EOs, as predicted, are getting stalled right and left by lawsuits, which is the proper way to oppose them. The latest one is his plan, implemented via Musk, to get rid of federal workers:

A federal judge in Massachusetts barred the government on Thursday from imposing a midnight deadline on federal workers who were offered a deferred resignation plan, freezing the government from implementing the deadline until a hearing on Monday afternoon.

The offer, which had been set to expire at 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, is part of President Trump’s campaign to drastically cut the size of the federal government.

*The WaPo lists all the Oscar nominations, and I’ll just give them for the top eight categories (one includes a cat movie!) Sadly, I’ve seen only one of the ten “Best Film” pictures.

The only movie I’ve seen of these was “Anora,” which was very good but not a classic, or even great:

Emilia Pérez gets a 73% critics’ rating and a dismal 17% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I don’t think I’ll see it. . .

I want to see the Dylan movie but–I kid you not–what puts me off is that the star is named Timothée (pronounced “Timothy”), apparently his French birth name since he’s French-American.. UPDATE: I watched half of “A complete unknown yesterday, just to check, and though the plot is good, I simply could not suspend my disbelief that Timothée was Dylan and Monica Barbaro was Joan Baez. Rarely have I had this problem, but I suppose the figures and behaviors of Dylan and Baez are embedded so deeply in my being that nobody could convincingly play them in a movie.  I have to hand it to Chalamet, though: who spent years learning to play guitar and sing like Dylan, starting from nothing.  Here’s an interview of Timothée on the Late Show:

And I’ve put a box around the animated feature I want to win, which I WILL see!

If you want to tout or criticize any of these movies or nominees, or let us know which ones you’ve seen and recommend, please do so in the comments.

*The best actress nominee, the trans-identified man Karla Sofia Gascón, suddenly turned from a heroine to. . . well, not a villain, but almost an apostate, when they uncovered some of his/her tweets, which once again puts progressives in a battle among themselves.

. . . . until last Thursday this year’s front-runner for the awards was “Emilia Pérez,” the operatic tale of a Mexican drug lord who becomes a better person by undergoing “transition” surgery. The Spanish transgender actor Karla Sofía Gascón (born Juan Carlos Gascón), who plays the title role, was nominated for best actress, and the French-made film led all others with 13 nominations. The opportunity to celebrate transgenderism at this cultural moment, with the winners invited to say or imply “Take that, Donald Trump!” from the stage, appeared to be too tempting to pass up.

Gascón says that no withdrawal is in the offing, which is okay because it’s free speech, which shouldn’t affect an acting job (though the acting category is debatable).

*Here’s a 12½-minute clip from the Glenn Show in which Loury and McWhorter discuss Ibram Kendi’s move from Boston University (BU) to Howard University. (The discussion starts at 26 seconds in.)  McWhorter wonders, as I do, why Howard hired Kendi to do the same managerial job he did at BU. He guesses that “Howard is trying to assemble a lineup of superstars” (they also have Ta-Nehisi Coates and Nikole Hannah-Jones), though none of these people are academics; though why a university wants non-academic superstars baffles him.

Loury guesses that black academic superstars wouldn’t go to Howard, having outside options like Harvard or Princeton. McWhorter takes issue with Kendi’s (and perhaps Howard’s) obsession with racism as opposed to all the other problems that plague this world.  Loury does have some praise for Coates and Hannah-Jones, but not so much for Kendi, but insists that any “center” like Kendi must engage with the rest of a university, “integrated into the larger intellectual life of the institution”. That wasn’t the case for Kendi’s center at BU.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej is engaged in an Internet squabble:

Hili: You’ve answered somebody again.

Andrzej: And again I don’t know whether I did the right thing.

Hili: Znowu komuś odpowiedziałeś.

Ja: Znowu nie wiem, czy zrobiłem słusznie.

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

From the 2025 Darwin Awards!!!/Epic Fails!!:

From Cat’s Diary:

From America’s Cultural Decline into Idiocy:

Masih calls for action against iran:

“For my part, I’d say that whenever I get the opportunity, I will not hesitate for a moment to kill you, Donald Trump!”

Yesterday, President #Trump said he’s open to negotiate with the Islamic Republic president, and today Mojtaba Zarei a member of the Iranian Parliament’s… pic.twitter.com/aRwDZ13lQd

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) February 5, 2025

From Luana; Trump gets a victory that really belongs to Democrats:

How could the Left – my side, the clever side, the critical side, the informed side, the anti-sexist side – be so deeply, obstinately, stupid as to hand this victory to someone who is none of these things? https://t.co/O2CphL789c

— Jon Pike (@runthinkwrite) February 5, 2025

From Jez, a rescue story involving both horrible perps and wonderful humans:

“So I’m driving down the road this morning and the cars in front of me are driving over a black thing in the road. It’s going between their tires so I’m guessing it’s a box. It’s a kitten just sitting upright shaking like a leaf. And some asshole had spread glue on its paws and… pic.twitter.com/b4bJXkHSbY

— 𝕏 Dogs (@_XDogs) January 14, 2025

From Malcolm: a cat who sounds like a d*g (sound up)

Woof woof! pic.twitter.com/MAU3KrS5a0

— No Context Cats (@nocontextscats) January 10, 2025

Baby goats are the best!

Baby Goats Jumping On Sleeping Great Pyrenees pic.twitter.com/ZEARgxnw5O

— B&S (@_B___S) February 6, 2025

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I posted:

Gassed upon arrival at Auschwitz, this French Jewish girl was four years old.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-02-07T11:11:43.552Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. First, lovely and very old sculpture:

Around 4,300 years ago, an Egyptian artisan carved a little frog, a grasshopper, and a dragonfly.Lovely details from nature depicted on a wall relief in the Tomb of Kagemni at Saqqara, Egypt. Old Kingdom, Dynasty 6, c. 2345-2323 BC. Photo by me#ReliefWednesday#Archaeology

— Alison Fisk (@alisonfisk.bsky.social) 2025-02-05T11:24:36.025Z

And a glum-looking bee:

Plus the upper part of the labrum makes it look glum. Mind you, it probably is if it’s been paying any attention.

— (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2025-02-05T21:23:13.150Z

Oy! It rained last night and then froze to the point that the streets and sidewalks in Hyde Park became like an ice rink.  It’s was nearly impossible to walk on the sidewalks without falling, and I fell four times on the first four blocks’ walk to work.  I thought I wouldn’t make it! I was trapped!  Fortunately, 57th Street was relatively free from slippery ice, so I go to that street made it here. (I have cleats, but didn’t know how slippery it was until I got on the streets.) The point is that I need sympathy, as my shoulders and both hands (which I used to break my falls) are aching.  Oy, give me Tylenol! Oh, and don’t tell me I was stupid–I already know that. Poor Professor Ceiling Cat (Emeritus)!

The first week in February is rushing to its end: today is Thursday February 6, 2025, and National Frozen Yogurt Day. The stuff is okay if you can’t get ice cream, and of course people eat it because it’s healthier.  Eat Well Guru says your mileage may vary (yogurt has less fat but more sugar and more calories:

Frozen yogurt and ice cream are both dairy products. Frozen yogurt is introduced as an alternative to ice cream. Whether it is a healthier option is the question I get from some of my clients. When you compare the food labels, it is obvious that ice cream has more fat content but less sugar and frozen yogurt has less fat content but more sugar. Average all brand of a cup of frozen yogurt contains 10% fat, 37.3 g of sugar, and 221 calories whereas average all brand of a cup of vanilla ice-cream contains 22% fat, 28 g of sugar, and 273 calories. Toppings or the type of ice cream or frozen yogurt may actually determine the healthier choice. Be cautious though! Sometimes low-fat and low-sugar options may add more calories in. For example, a cup of low-fat frozen yogurt may contain up to 42 g sugar and 340 calories.

It’s also International Day to Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation, National Sweater Day (in Canada), Lame Duck Day, and National Chopsticks Day.

There’s also a Google Doodle today; click on the screenshot below to see what it’s celebrating:

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

Da Nooz:

*When a friend told me that Trump said he wants the U.S. to take over Gaza, I responded that this couldn’t possibly be true. Do we really want to get the U.S. involved in this war beyond helping Israel with weapons or intelligence? I don’t think so, not if it involves U.S. boots in the ground in that sliver of land. But yes, my friend’s report was true.

Trump generated global shock waves Tuesday when he said the U.S. should take long-term control of Gaza, suggesting that Palestinians should be relocated while the enclave is rebuilt into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on social media that Trump would “Make Gaza Beautiful Again.”

Taking control of the hotly contested territory would put the U.S. at the center of the world’s most complicated diplomatic and national-security conflicts, raising the prospect that Trump is signing the country up for exactly the kind of foreign entanglement he told voters he would avoid. Trump didn’t rule out sending American troops to Gaza to accomplish his goals.

Tuesday’s announcement marked a striking shift for Trump, who described the Middle East as “blood and sand” in his first term, according to a longtime adviser. Trump is now proposing to rebuild Gaza, which his own aides say could take 10 to 15 years.

Trump’s proposal stunned even some of his most ardent and influential supporters in the Jewish community. A longtime pro-Israel Trump fundraiser who has raised money for the president for years called the idea “insane” and questioned how it could be executed, noting this type of policy would likely take well over a year to complete with too many unknown variables for it to be done smoothly.

Netanyahu said during the press conference that one of his key goals was to ensure Gaza wouldn’t host terrorists again. Trump, he continued, took that concept “to a much higher level.”

“It is something that could change history, and it is worthwhile really pursuing this avenue.”

Trump also floated the idea that other countries, notably Egypt and Jordan, could take the Palestinians. That won’t work as no country in the Middle East wants them: they are trouble on stilts,  And imagine the world’s reaction if the U.S. somehow cleared out Gaza to take it over, even to rebuild it.  On the other hand, and I’m not defending the proposal, the Gaza situation seems intractable. Hamas leadership of that country poses an existential threat to Israel, and Israel recognizes that they can’t continue to rule Gaza. Blinken used to suggest that the Palestinian authority take it over, but Gazans would never stand for that, as it would start a bloodbath. Do I have a solution? Nope, except that Israel should eliminate Hamas. That, of course, would mean doing so after the ceasefire expires, or in response to Hamas breaking the ceasefire.  But my only consolation about Trump’s blustering here is that, as in other cases, it may just be bluster. (Remember that he said he’d end the Ukraine/Russia war on Day 1 of his administration?)

*Trump is also coming down hard on Iran. First he signed an executive order (we all know what “EO” means now) putting pressure on Iran, though the details are not clear (it presumably involves the futile attempt to prevent Iran from getting nukes). Then he promised to obliterate Iran if they somehow killed him. Postmortem revenge! (It’s illegal, by the way.):

The issue came up as Mr. Trump, who has said he is willing to revive negotiations with Iran, signed an executive order whose details were not immediately released by the White House. As a result, it is not clear what form the pressure campaign might take. But Mr. Trump professed to be hesitant to sign it.

“So this is one I’m torn about,” he told reporters. “Everyone wants me to sign it. I’ll do that.” But he said he was “unhappy to do it.”

Then the threat to obliterate Iran:

President Trump said on Tuesday that he had “left instructions” for Iran to be “obliterated” if its assassins killed him, on the day that he signed an executive order restoring his “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran.

Mr. Trump’s comments came in response to a reporter’s question, but the issue was more than hypothetical: Just after Mr. Trump was elected, the Justice Department indicted several men who it said had been heard plotting to kill Mr. Trump in September. One of the plotters said that he was assigned in September to carry out the plan by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Iran’s elite military unit, prosecutors said in court papers.

“If they did that, they would be obliterated,’’ Mr. Trump said on Tuesday. “That would be the end. I’ve left instructions. If they do it, they get obliterated. There won’t be anything left.”

He added, “Biden should have said that, but he never did.”

In fact, experts say, a president cannot leave instructions for military action after his death. That decision would have to be made by his successor, who would then be commander in chief.

It has become too late to prevent Iran from getting the bomb: they are too far along and have too much invested, both in terms of money and psychology, to stop their journey to nukes.  I’m glad Trump realizes the danger Iran poses to the entire Middle East, but it’ll take a statesman who is not demented to stop them–if they can be stopped in their drive to use proxies to eliminated their enemies, including Hamas and Hezbollah.

I am not concentrating on Trump just because some misguided readers (who really belong at Phryngl) think I need to spend all my time telling people what a maniac he is. It’s just that there’s a lot going on that he started. When he tried via an EO to end birthright citizenship, I thought immediately that this would be overturned by the courts, as it’s a blatant violation of the Constitution. And, sure enough, a federal judge issued a non-time-limited injunction of that order.

A federal judge Tuesday indefinitely blocked President Donald Trump’s effort to curb birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrantsand foreigners with temporary visas, a decision that is likely to mean the executive order will not take effect as planned later this month.\

U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman issued a preliminary injunction after a court hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland, in a lawsuit brought by civil rights groups aiming at stopping Trump’s order on the grounds that it violates the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment.

The injunction applies nationally and will remain in place as the case is adjudicated. The Maryland lawsuit is one of at least six federal cases brought against Trump’s order by a total of 22 Democratic-led states and more than a half-dozen civil rights groups. A federal judge in Seattle previously issued a 14-day restraining order.

In issuing the injunction, Boardman said the plaintiffs would “very likely” succeed on the merits in their case against Trump’s order, which she said “conflicts with the plain language of the 14th Amendment.”

Boardman said Supreme Court precedent protects birthright citizenship.

“No court in the country has ever endorsed the president’s interpretation,” she said. “This court will not be the first.”

The Trump administration is expected to appeal Broadman’s injunction, according to legal experts.

The Trump administration will not succeed. Even if this one makes wends its way up to the Supreme Court, the justices will overrule Trump. Even that pack of conservatives cannot cancel what is set out so clearly in the Constitution. This is what Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment says:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

*Reader Jez sent me an archived link to this NYT article called “‘We have no coherent message.’ Democrats struggle to oppose Trump.” (archived here)

*According to Nature, the CDC has proposed to regulate the language in papers produced by its researchers.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has mandated that all scientific manuscripts produced by its researchers that are under review at a journal be withdrawn so that certain language relating to gender can be stripped from them.

What Trump’s flurry of executive orders means for science

The directive, sent by the agency’s chief science officer to some staff members on 31 January, is meant to bring the CDC into compliance with an executive order issued that month by US President Donald Trump seeking to restore “biological truth” to the federal government by recognizing only two sexes: male and female. Executive orders can direct agencies inside the federal government but cannot change existing laws.

According to a copy of the e-mail, shared in the newsletter Inside Medicine, manuscripts must not include any mention of terms including ‘gender’, ‘transgender’, ‘pregnant person’, ‘transsexual’ or ‘non-binary’. CDC scientists who co-author papers originating from outside the agency that include these terms are also expected to rescind their authorship.

It’s unclear how many scientific reports will be affected by the mandate, which applies to all manuscripts written or co-authored by CDC researchers and includes papers that are being prepared for submission, in revisions with journal editors or have been accepted for publication but not yet posted online. It is also uncertain whether journals, which have their own rules for discussing gender and sex, will comply with the directive. Fields such as public health, which have embraced gender identity as an aspect of research in topics including health disparities, are likely to be affected the most by the rules.

. . . . The CDC mandate, however, will erase mention of queer, intersex and transgender individuals from future literature and seems to legitimize “scientific sexism”, says James Mungin, a biomedical scientist at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, who identifies as transgender. Under the new rules, CDC researchers would be unable to share basic demographic data, such as gender identity or sexual orientation, about study participants — omissions that could lead to inaccuracies or ethical breaches if scientists are barred from disclosing why certain participants were removed from a study, Mungin says. Furthermore, gender identity and sexual orientation are nearly impossible to exclude when it comes to the study and treatment of conditions such as HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases.

I don’t think this is a good idea, as it amounts to censorship of language or even research. I don’t like “pregnant people” better than anyone else, but people do have notions of a more spectrum-ish “gender” that could itself be the subject of research, and research on transgender people, whether it be psychological or medical, could also be useful.  Now if language is being used to buttress and ideology and is not germane to the research itself, the editors can propose changes, but a blanket ban doesn’t appeal to me.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej is trying to fix the world:

Hili: What are you doing?
A: I’m putting together a broken reality.

In Polish:

Hili: Co ty robisz?
A: Sklejam połamaną rzeczywistość.

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

From Meow:

From Things With Faces:

From The Dodo Pet:

From Masih; another Iranian woman taking a chance:

To @AOC , @IlhanMN, and other feminist politicians in the U.S.—imagine if Israel had jailed this woman for singing, showing her hair and dancing. You would launch global campaigns to condemn it. But here’s the bad news for you: this isn’t Israel. This is the Islamic Republic of… pic.twitter.com/KKZ2iA1Xk6

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) February 4, 2025

From Bryan:

(Via Nancy Tang.) pic.twitter.com/T7J2vBMgI7

— Stephen R. C. Hicks (@SRCHicks) February 5, 2025

Two cat tweets from Malcolm:

Cats can be real problem makers around PCs and TVs … pic.twitter.com/DA5M8Tgz20

— Helotian (@darter666) January 9, 2025

From Luana; a bad decision:

A judge has blocked Trump’s Executive Order about getting men out of women’s prisons, because he says it would likely be “cruel and unusual punishment” to put these men in men’s prisons.

The ACLU made this same 8th Amendment argument of “cruel and unusual punishment” for why… https://t.co/SXQQIR4S6Y

— Billboard Chris 🇨🇦🇺🇸 (@BillboardChris) February 5, 2025

From my feed. Well, he sort of nailed it:

Nailed it.. 😅 pic.twitter.com/geifE6BuES

— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) February 4, 2025

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted. It shows the structure built in front of the “Death Gate”—where trains brought people to Auschwitz, most of them killed within hours—with survivors gathering to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the camp.  There’s a video of the construction and of the survivors below the post:

On January 27, 2025, 56 Auschwitz Survivors gathered in front of the Gate of Death at the former Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp.

— Auschwitz Memorial (@auschwitzmemorial.bsky.social) 2025-02-06T08:00:02.060Z

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. He said this first one would cheer me up and make me “feel good about humanity. . . and birds.”

The YouTube video adds this:

The Northern Royal Albatross chick has been returned to the Signal Station Trig nest site on January 30 after successfully hatching in the incubator. This keeps the chick safe from being infested with fly larvae during the long hatching process. Watch rangers from the New Zealand Department of Conservation arrive with the hatchling. They spray some bird-safe repellent in the nest to help reduce fly activity, and gently place the chick under the male, RLK, for the first time. Now begins a 7.5-month nestling period in new Zealand with RLK, GLG, and their fluffy chick.

ALBATROSS CHICK FLOOFY GOODNESS KLAXON youtu.be/0uZs1z5msug?…

— Lev Parikian (@levparikian.bsky.social) 2025-02-05T16:10:50.976Z

This cannot be possible! If he suceeded, he wouldn’t be here to go back in time!

It was fine while we stayed in the water.

— (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2025-02-05T12:55:54.046Z

Welcome to a hump day (“ཧམ་པ་ཉིན་མོ། ” in Tibetan): Wednesday, February 5, 2025, and National Girls and Women in Sports Day (we are referring to biological females here).

It’s also National Fart Day, National Chocolate Fondue Day, and, Disaster Day, World Nutella Day, and National Girls and Women in Sports Day.

There will be no readers’ wildlife today, and posting will be light, for a black canid has come to visit.

Here’s some useful information from the website above, which implies that you should never try to light a fart (read the link),

The methane and hydrogen in farts also make them flammable. This may not sound like that big of a deal, but there are examples of cows farting themselves into flames. That’s right, animals fart too. And the belief that women fart less than men? It just isn’t true. Fart sounds vary and depend on how much gas is released, the force at which it comes out, and the tightness of one’s sphincter muscles. People who have tight anuses have louder farts.

A video of a man using flatulence to light a candle (I saw the cat only later):

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

Da Nooz:

*Breaking Nooz: Determined to offend the whole world, Trump, after meeting with Netanyahu, proposed that the U.S. take over Gaza and the Gazans be transferred to other countries like Egypt or Jordan.  That is going to go over like a lead balloon.

President Trump declared on Tuesday that the United States should seize control of Gaza and permanently displace the entire Palestinian population of the devastated seaside enclave, one of the most brazen ideas that any American leader has advanced in years.

Hosting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at the White House, Mr. Trump said that all two million Palestinians from Gaza should be moved to countries like Egypt and Jordan because of the devastation wrought by Israel’s campaign against Hamas after the terrorist attack of Oct. 7, 2023.

“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” Mr. Trump said at a news conference Tuesday evening. “We’ll own it and be responsible” for disposing of unexploded munitions and rebuilding Gaza into a mecca for jobs and tourism. Sounding like the real estate developer he once was, Mr. Trump vowed to turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”

While the president framed the matter as a humanitarian imperative and an economic development opportunity, he effectively reopened a geopolitical Pandora’s box with far-reaching implications for the Middle East. Control over Gaza has been one of the major flash points of the Arab-Israeli conflict for decades, and the idea of relocating its Palestinian residents recalls an era when great Western powers redrew the maps of the region and moved around populations without regard to local autonomy.

On the other hand, there has to be some solution whereby Hamas doesn’t rule that area. I heard as well that the U.S. proposed that the Palestinian Authority take over Gaza.  But that won’t work because Hamas hates the PA (they clashed years ago) plus Gazans want to be ruled by Hamas instead of the PA. This is an almost intractable problem.

More encampments on the way!

Help me Ceiling Cat! The Trump appointee who has frightened me the most, RFK Jr., chosen by Trmp to be the Health and Human Services Secretary, has passed a key Senate committee vote and, given the composition of the current Senate, is likely to be confirmed:

The nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Health and Human Services Department advanced Tuesday after a key swing Republican voted for the nominee in the Senate Finance Committee, likely clearing his path to confirmation.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R., La.), a medical doctor, voted with all of the committee’s Republicans to support Kennedy’s confirmation.

“With the serious commitments I’ve received from the administration and the opportunity to make progress on the issues we agree on like healthy foods and a pro-American agenda, I will vote yes,” Cassidy said on social-media site X shortly before the vote.

Cassidy had been seen as a pivotal vote for Kennedy’s confirmation after he expressed deep concerns last week during the nominee’s hearings. He arrived late to the committee vote on Tuesday, walking into the room with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.)

Cassidy had said last week that he had been “struggling” over Kennedy’s past comments about vaccines and the role they have played in making some parents hesitant to vaccinate their children.

The Louisiana Republican had urged Kennedy to make clear that he didn’t believe vaccines caused autism, but Kennedy had sidestepped such an endorsement, saying he would review the data.

. . . .The committee vote signaled that Kennedy’s path to becoming the nation’s top health official was becoming smoother. The final tally was 14 to 13.

In the full Senate vote, Kennedy can afford to lose as many as three Republican votes if all Democrats oppose him. In the event of a tie, Vice President JD Vance can cast the deciding vote.

See? All the data show that vaccines don’t cause autism, but RFK Jr. won’t give his opinion.  The full Senate vote hasn’t yet been scheduled, but it looks as if this loose cannon will be confirmed.  As Country Joe and the Fish sang, “Whoopee! we’re all gonna die!“

*The UN has apparently fired its special advisor on the prevention of genocide simply because she refused to say that there was a genocide going on in Gaza. Now the advisor speaks out in the Free Press:

Last November, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres declined to renew the contract of UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Alice Wairimu Nderitu, who did not label Israel’s war against Hamas a genocide, even while other UN officials have either done so or released reports which make this claim.

On November 26, an editorial in The Wall Street Journal cast Nderitu’s ousting as part of an unofficial UN campaign against the Jewish state and called her “refusal to endorse a lie in service of a political agenda” a “profile in courage.”

But it wasn’t until last week, after attending Monday’s 80th commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz in Poland, on the site where more than 1.1 million people, the vast majority of them Jews, were murdered in the Holocaust, that Nderitu decided to tell the story of her contentious UN tenure.

“This push that I should say that there’s a genocide going on in Gaza? They knew that I’m not a court of law, and it’s only a court of law that can determine whether a genocide has happened,” Nderitu said in an exclusive interview with Air Mail. “But I was hounded, day in, day out. Bullied, hounded, with protection from nobody.”

“It’s instructive that this never happened for any other war. Not for Ukraine, not for Sudan, not for DRC [Democratic Republic of the Congo], not for Myanmar,” she said. “The focus was always Israel.”

“This was a war,” she said. “Palestinians were killing Israelis, Israelis were killing Palestinians. It needs to be treated like other wars. In other wars, we don’t run and take one side and then keep going on and on about that one side. . . . By taking one side, condemning it every day, you completely lose the essence of what the UN was created for.”

She was hounded by social media, hounded by the UN, and eventually left:

The UN civil servant described Nderitu’s statement as “one-sided,” suggesting that it “might cause reputational risk on the image of the United Nations as an independent neutral impartial body.” For an institution as hierarchical as the UN, this kind of direct written critique of an undersecretary-general by a junior staffer was highly unusual, as was his request that Nderitu review her “statement with the aim to ensure greater balance and harmonize it with similar UN leaders’ statements.”

Little more than a week later, Nderitu received a two-page letter signed by an unnamed group of “concerned UN staff including Palestinians.” While they joined her “in condemning the intentional attacks and abduction of Israeli civilians by Hamas,” they wrote, “we expected that your statement regarding Israel’s attacks on and collective punishment of Palestinian civilians would have been equally clear and unequivocal.”

And the UN has the temerity to say that it’s an “independent neutral impartial body!”  And remember that the UN-run International Court of Justice is adjudicating a charge of genocide against Israel.  Again, I think the UN has served its purpose, and now it should go away. It is not neutral, and in fact is harmful

*In an important case involving free speech and academic freedom, Jonathan Turley reports that a court has ruled against Ohio State in its disciplining of a professor who used the n-word in class in a didactic way. The Professor, Mark Sullivan, was punished by not having his contract renewed. He sued and won; the case ruling is here. From Turley:

We have previously discussed cases (here, here, here, here, and here) of professors being fired or suspended for using offensive terms such as the n-word in discussions or tests. I have generally argued that such usage is protected on free speech and academic freedom grounds. Now, a federal judge has ruled against Ohio State University (OSU) in an important case involving former OSU Professor Mark Sullivan, who used the n-word in a class on dealing with offensive terms. Ironically, the class was called “Crucial Conversations,” but OSU was not particularly interested in what Professor Sullivan had to say.

Sullivan taught the “Crucial Conversations” course to help train students how to communicate productively about difficult topics. Here is how the court described the background facts:

“Crucial Conversations” used a practical, action-based pedagogy. Students begin by critiquing video vignettes of bullying and eventually escalate to simulating difficult conversations themselves in one-on-one and group exercises. Some of these simulations involved mock conflict—complete with intentionally triggering, provocative, disrespectful, or shocking language. Sullivan warned his students in advance that the exercises would involve such language. The theory behind this pedagogy is that a classroom role play provides a low-stakes environment ideal for honing conversational skills.

One role play scenario cast Sullivan as Whitey Bulger (the late Boston­ based organized crime boss) and a student as a law enforcement officer trying to obtain Bulger’s cooperation. The purpose of this simulation was to teach students how to engage with offensive language (Bulger’s words as recited by Sullivan) while keeping the conversation on track to productive purposes (obtaining Bulger’s cooperation). During the actual simulation, quoting a real statement Bulger made to law enforcement, Sullivan said,

I don’t want to be placed in a prison cell with a bunch of [n-word]s. You make sure I’m in a place with my kind and I’ll talk about who was behind that job of killing [X].

Sullivan hoped for a student response such as,

“I understand you have strong feelings about the kind of cell mates you will be assigned to live with. We will want to listen more carefully to what matters to you as we also work with what is acceptable under prison rules and regulations.”

Sullivan performed this simulation all 49 times he taught the course, without incident for the first 48.

Then he lost his contract after a complaint. The word was used pedagogically, not pejoratively, and according to previous court rulings thus constitutes the proper use of both academic freedom and free speech. Turley comments on the decision:

The court noted that Sullivan was “taking a side” in the long-standing debate over the use of such language and “his whole ‘Crucial Conversations’ course was allegedly a monument to the view that hearing charged language in a classroom is pedagogically worth it.”

Judge Watson found that the balancing test of Pickering “favors Sullivan” and that his language falls squarely in “the robust tradition of academic freedom in our nation’s post-secondary schools.”

It is a very strong opinion supporting both free speech and academic freedom. It is also a compelling reason why Ohio State University needs to have its own “Crucial Conversation” on how it treats free speech.

*The Times of London reports that a French gynecologist was suspended temporarily for refusing to treat a trans-identified man (h/t: Ginger K.). He says that he wasn’t qualified to treat a biological male.

A French gynaecologist has been barred from practising for a month because he refused to examine a transgender patient on the grounds that he was only qualified to treat “real women”.

Dr Victor Acharian was accused of transphobia after he turned the patient away in August 2023, and LGBT groups lodged complaints.

In December he appeared before a disciplinary board of the French Medical Council and he has now been suspended for a month from March 1, with an additional five months’ probation.

. . . The row has drawn national media coverage and polarised public opinion, with some gynaecologists taking Acharian’s side and arguing that treating transgender patients required special training. Feminists also backed him, pointing out that the patient had not had gender reassignment surgery and gynaecological care was not appropriate.

LGBT groups, however, said that transgender patients often faced discrimination or difficulties in gaining access to healthcare.

. . . . Weeks after the incident, Acharian apologised for any offence caused and said he had offered to refer the trans patient to a specialist who could provide appropriate medical care.

The patient, however, described his refusal as “hyper-violent”.

“I was in shock,” the patient said. “It was the first time I had suffered this sort of transphobia.”

Acharian said the patient shouted, “you’re transphobic”, and insulted his secretary before leaving the clinic.

“I was only trying to be honest when I said it wasn’t my specialty and I wasn’t competent. I offered to refer her to services that could take better care of her,” he said.

“I have no skills to take care of men, even if they have shaved their beards and they come and tell my secretary that they have become women. My gynaecological examination table is not suitable for examining men,” Acharian wrote.

. . . Marguerite Stern, a prominent women’s rights activist who has repeatedly clashed with transgender groups over the definition of a woman, said Acharian’s suspension was unjustified.

“Gynaecologists are only qualified to treat women … We are living in a world of lunatics,” she said.

*ArsTechnica summarizes a new PNAS article suggesting that bonobos have a theory of mind, and can   (h/t Barry) From ArsTechnica:

A lot of human society requires what’s called a “theory of mind”—the ability to infer the mental state of another person and adjust our actions based on what we expect they know and are thinking. We don’t always get this right—it’s easy to get confused about what someone else might be thinking—but we still rely on it for everything from navigating complicated social situations to avoiding bumping into people on the street.

There’s some mixed evidence that other animals have a limited theory of mind, but there are alternate interpretations for most of it. So two researchers at Johns Hopkins, Luke Townrow and Christopher Krupenye, came up with a way of testing whether some of our closest living relatives, the bonobos, could infer the state of mind of a human they were cooperating with. The work clearly showed that the bonobos could tell when their human partner was ignorant.

The experimental approach is quite simple and involves a setup familiar to street hustlers: a set of three cups, with a treat placed under one of them. Except in this case, there’s no sleight-of-hand in that the chimp can watch as one experimenter places the treat under a cup, and all of the cups remain stationary throughout the experiment.

To get the treat, however, requires the cooperation of a second human experimenter. That person has to identify the right cup, then give the treat under it to the bonobo. In some experiments, this human can watch the treat being hidden through a transparent partition, and so knows exactly where it is. In others, however, the partition is solid, leaving the human with no idea which cup might be hiding the food.

This setup means that the bonobo will always know where the food is and will also know whether the human could potentially have the same knowledge.

The key question, then, was whether the bonobos acted any differently when the experiment was set up behind the solid partition compared to when their human partner could see where the food was hidden.

The answer was yes. When the partition was solid, bonobos were quicker to start pointing to where the food was hidden, and they pointed more often during the 10 seconds between when the partition was removed and the researcher checked the cups for the food. One of the three bonobos tested was impatient and pointed a lot regardless of whether their partner knew which cup held the food, but even then pointed a bit more often when the solid partition was used.

Only three bonobos were tested, but the overall results are significant. I’m not surprised that our closest living relatives can have a theory of mind, for we’ve seen suggestions of it in other animals as well, as in Scrub Jays.  It would of course be a tremendous selective advantage to put yourself in another animal’s brain.

*From Colin Wright in the Wall Street Journal, “Trump can ban transgender birth certificates.” (Subtitle: “Most states allow natives to alter their recorded sex, an affront against science and a danger to women.” (Article archived here.)

The unstoppable force of left-wing science denial has collided with an immovable object: Donald Trump. On his first day in office, Mr. Trump signed an executive order titled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” The order affirms that a person’s sex is immutable and intrinsically tied to the type of “reproductive cell”—sperm or egg—he or she can or would produce. It also rejects the unscientific notion that subjective “gender identity” can replace biological sex.

We welcome this return to science-based definitions of male and female. It’s essential, however, to highlight some pitfalls to avoid and draw attention to an area where further executive action is needed to protect women’s rights.

. . .Activists will claim that simple definitions of male and female rooted in biology are incomplete. They will argue that definitions must include sex-related traits such as chromosomal makeup, hormonal profiles and intersex conditions. They hope to complicate the matter so much that any attempt at sex classification will seem inherently flawed, convincing people that it should be abandoned entirely. This is the trap we must avoid by refusing to “expand” on the order’s definitions.

Consider so-called intersex conditions. True intersex conditions, which result in genitalia that appear ambiguous or mixed, affect less than 0.02% of the population. But activists deploy a rhetorical sleight of hand, referencing these developmental conditions to make them seem far more common than they are. Although there are prominent instances of male athletes with such conditions unfairly competing in women’s sports, they are extremely rare and not the most pressing issue. While policies must reasonably address edge cases, we must not treat them as the norm.

More important, the intersex tactic distracts from the central issue: The purpose of Mr. Trump’s order isn’t to protect women’s sports, prisons, rape shelters and bathrooms from people with a rare condition resulting in ambiguous genitalia. Its purpose is to keep men who merely “identify” as female out of women’s spaces. This is what the public demands answers on, and it’s what the order provides.

Crafting policy to this effect is easy: Any rule designed to protect women’s spaces from men should rely on the sex recorded on a person’s birth certificate. No further expansion of the terms included in Mr. Trump’s order is needed for this. “Trans women” are unambiguously male as a matter of biology, and therefore the likelihood that a doctor records their sex incorrectly at birth is effectively zero.

That sounds good to me.  But it leaves open the question of what intersex people, rare though they may be, should have on their birth certificates, driver’s licenses, and so on. My own solution is to give them a choice of using “M,” “F,” or “I” for intersex. I suspect most will use either male or female if they think “I” is stigmatizing.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is being bossy:

Hili: Open the door, please.

Andrzej: Wait a moment, I have to take off my jacket.

Hili: You do not have to.

Hili: Proszę otworzyć drzwi!
A: Poczekaj muszę zdjąć kurtkę.
Hili: Nie musisz.

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

From Meanwhile in Canada:

From We Love Animals:

From Now That’s Wild:

Masih is quiet these days. Here’s another person demonized by many (but not me): JKR. But I wonder what her husband’s tee shirts have to do with this issue (watch the commercial embedded in it):

My husband Neil (marathon and endurance runner) just told me he’s bought four T shirts. In years to come, a great question to ask self-proclaimed liberal men will be, ‘which side were you on – women’s rights, or men’s demands?’ https://t.co/bZ8aB8sxwM

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) February 4, 2025

Ricky Gervais posts about his beloved cat Pickle:

Hope you’re having a great day doing things you love, like scraping your teeth on brand new chairs & other fun stuff. pic.twitter.com/9c5XYmKtIl

— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) February 4, 2025

From Malcolm, a cat makes its own bed:

He makes his own bed 🐾✨ pic.twitter.com/n6LqC4Cwc3

— Why you should have a cat (@ShouldHaveCat) January 7, 2025

From my feed:

Three humpback whales jumped off the water off Cape Cod at the same time pic.twitter.com/d5UkuHpjlG

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) February 3, 2025

I had a sad week last week (nothing dire or cat-related, just stupid bs that wears you down), but then today my friend Adelle was casually like “oh, I have something for you” and pulls out AN ENVELOPE OF VINTAGE CAT PHOTOS. It was the right thing at the right time to make everything better. 💕

— Cats of Yore (@catsofyore.bsky.social) 2025-02-03T23:41:20.346Z

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted

A seven-year-old Dutch girl and her younger sister were killed with cyanide gas upon arriving at Auschwitz.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-02-05T11:09:16.109Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. First, a smart cat:

Chicken has learned how to open/shut her food box, now promptly protects it from alpaca

— Nature's masterpiece 🍀 (@nature-view.bsky.social) 2025-02-04T07:12:32.216Z

These insects are about 100 million years old:

Strepsiptera in Burmese amber.#Fossil #Macro #Amber#Burmese #Burmite#Cretaceous#Paleoentomology#Invertebrate

— Oiotoshi Mike (@oiomik.bsky.social) 2025-02-03T20:26:17.070Z

Welcome to The Cruelest Day: Tuesday, February 4, 2025, and National Homemade Soup Day. It is not much of a food day, and I don’t know if any readers will make soup. If you do, weigh in below.

It’s also National Stuffed Mushroom Day, National Hemp Day, World Cancer Day, International Eggplant Day, Liberace Day (he died of AIDS-related pneumonia on this day in 1987), Rosa Parks Day (she was born on this day in 1913) and National Quacker Day. Though the latter celebrates a woman’s clothing line, I prefer to think of it as celebrating ducks. Below you can see my beloved Honey with her brood of 17 in the year that she ducknapped the brood of another hen in Botany Pond. And she brought them all up to fledging. Given the state of the pond this year, I don’t think we’ll have any ducks, and it breaks my heart.

My beloved hen and her purloined brood (well, half were her own ducklings):

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

Da Nooz:

*BREAKING NOOZ:  The U.S. tariff with China went into effect, and China retaliated.

China struck back against U.S. tariffs with levies on certain American goods, an antitrust probe into Google and restrictions on Chinese exports of key minerals. The moves escalated a new trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

Just after American tariffs of 10% on China went into effect early Tuesday morning, Beijing said it would retaliate. Its measures will go into effect on Feb. 10. The Trump administration struck deals Monday to delay imposing new tariffs on Mexico and Canada.

President Trump said the tariffs on China were just “an opening salvo.” He added: “If we can’t make a deal with China, then the tariffs would be very, very substantial.”

*I thought for sure that a multi-country trade war was already happening, but now Trump’s threats may have not only stopped the war, but led to improved cooperation on some issues.  The WSJ reports:

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and U.S. President Trump said that they have agreed to put U.S. tariffs on Mexico on hold for a month after a telephone conversation in which both leaders agreed to take joint measures to fight fentanyl trafficking across the U.S. border.

“They are pausing tariffs for one month from now,” Sheinbaum wrote on X on Monday.

President Trump said on his Truth Social platform that his conversation with the Mexican president was a “very friendly conversation wherein she agreed to immediately supply 10,000 Mexican Soldiers on the Border separating Mexico and the United States.”

Trump added that his 25% tariffs on Mexico would be paused for a month, “during which we will have negotiations headed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent, and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and high-level Representatives of Mexico. I look forward to participating in those negotiations, with President Sheinbaum, as we attempt to achieve a ‘deal’ between our two Countries.”

Sheinbaum said that Mexico agreed to immediately reinforce the U.S.-Mexico border with 10,000 members of the National Guard “to prevent drug trafficking from Mexico to the U.S., particularly fentanyl.”

The U.S. agreed to work to prevent the trafficking of high-caliber weapons to Mexico, she said.

The WaPo reports something that Sheinbaum agreed to:

President Claudia Sheinbaum said on X that in a “good conversation” with President Donald Trump, Mexico committed to rushing 10,000 national guard troops to its border to try to block the flow of drugs into the United States — especially fentanyl.

I’m hoping that the tariffs with China and Canada will also be suspended. The WSJ also notes that Trump is going to speak with PM Justin Trudeau:

Trade wars are not good for anybody, much less for the American consumer, who would become more anti-Trump if faced with higher gas and food prices. I don’t know if Trump planned this as a mere threat, but fingers crossed that there are no tariffs and more positive cooperation between the U.S. on one hand and Mexico and China on the other (I think we already have a pretty good relationship with Canada, and I don’t want that spoiled).

Here’s Sheinbaum—who is Jewish, by the way, and America has had neither a woman nor a Jewish leader, much less both—announcing the pause and taking questions from reporters.

*A Palestinian terrorist who killed 16 is living freely in Jordan as a citizen. However, Jordan just informed Hamas that it will give that group one day to find a new home for this terrorist (a woman) or they’ll extradite her to America.

Jordan has reportedly informed the Hamas terror group that it plans to deport a woman convicted of planning a 2001 suicide bombing that killed 16 people at a Jerusalem pizza parlor, in a move that could bring a long-delayed measure of justice to families of victims.

Ahlam Tamimi was convicted in an Israeli court of orchestrating the grisly August 9, 2001, attack that killed 16 people in a crowded Sbarro’s eatery in central Jerusalem, but was released in the 2011 deal for kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit and quickly found safe harbor in Jordan.

In 2017, the US Justice Department announced it was seeking her extradition, a step that had been urged by the family of Israeli-American victim Malki Roth but which was rebuffed by Amman.

This is what happens when there’s a prisoner exchange. Murderers like Tamimi go scot-free, enabling them, if they wish, to continue more terrorism. I dougt that Tamimi has done any, but there’s a fundamental injustice in a murderer running around free after only 6 years in prison.

According to Qatari news outlet Al-Araby al-Jadeed, Jordanian intelligence authorities informed Hamas on Sunday that Tamimi would be extradited to the United States unless a third country willing to take her in could be found.

There was no confirmation of the report from any official source.

The report emerged just as the White House announced it would host Jordan’s King Abdullah II for talks with US President Donald Trump on February 11. Amman is thought to be seeking ways to remain in good standing with Trump despite, like Egypt, declining to fall in with his proposal to relocate Gazans there.

Tamimi, a Hamas activist who chose the target for the bombing and guided the bomber there, was sentenced in Israel in 2003 to 16 life sentences for the attack, which also injured 130 people.

Among the dead were Roth, an Australia-born 15-year-old who also held US citizenship, and Shoshana Yehudit Greenbaum, an American tourist who was expecting her first child.

Tamimi has lived freely in Jordan, where she holds citizenship, since leaving prison in 2011, hosting a TV program, giving lectures and making numerous public appearances extolling the bombing.

In a 2017 interview with The Associated Press, she said the Palestinians have a right to resist Israel by any means, including deadly attacks.

Roth’s parents Frimet and Arnold have waged a years-long campaign calling on US authorities to press Jordan, which has received billions of dollars in American assistance, to turn over Tamimi for trial.

The United States charged Tamimi in 2013 with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against American nationals, though the indictment remained under seal until 2017.

I hope that she’ll be extradited, though I also think it likely that Hamas will find a place for her outside of Jordan or Palestine. I also think that the upcoming meeting with Trump, who would probably demand extradition on pain of punishment, might have spurred Jordan to take this move.  Now remember that she was one of 1,027 Hamas and Palestinian prisoners released by Israel in return for a single Israeli soldier, and you’ll get an idea of the lengths to which Israel will go to get back a hostage.

*The NYT reports on a paper in Current Biology (pdf here) suggesting that members of Australopithecus afarensis, of which “Lucy” was a specimen, could not only walk erect, but run, though not very fast:

More than three million years after her death, the early human ancestor known as Lucy is still divulging her secrets.

In 2016, an autopsy indicated that the female Australopithecus afarensis, whose partial remains were found in Ethiopia in 1974 and is considered the most complete hominin fossil found to date, died from a fall out of a tree. Seven years later, a virtual reconstruction of her leg and pelvic muscles — which are not preserved in fossils — revealed that she stood about three and a half feet tall, weighed between 29 and 93 pounds, and was capable of standing and walking upright, similar to modern humans.

A new study published in the journal Current Biology proposes that Lucy was capable of running, too. But she would not have been much of a marathoner and might have struggled to keep up with a contemporary couch potato in a 100-yard dash. “She was not a natural runner,” said Karl Bates, an evolutionary biomechanics researcher at the University of Liverpool and lead author of the paper. “In all probability, she could run only through short bursts of energy rather than long-distance chases.”

The fossil, which dates to 3.2 million years ago and represents 40 percent of Lucy’s skeleton, is often described as having a mix of human and ape features. “Her overall body size was much smaller than ours and her upper body larger, with longer arms and shorter legs,” Dr. Bates said. “Even after correction for differences in body size, she would have been much slower than people.” His team’s conclusions bolster the hypothesis that the ability of humans to run long distances is an adaptation that gave them an advantage in acquiring prey.

. . . The estimate for Lucy’s top running speed — with humanlike muscle configurations — was a relatively modest 11 m.p.h. That is roughly what a domestic pig could achieve over a quarter-mile, but far slower than modern humans, whose sprinting speeds often exceed 18 m.p.h. and peak at more than 27 m.p.h. in elite athletes. Dr. Bates speculated that in a 100-meter race, Usain Bolt, the world-record holder at that distance, would have beaten Lucy by somewhere between 50 and 80 meters.

Well, Lucy was just a tad erect from being a knuckle-walker, and knuckle-walkers don’t run very fast. The musculature and body conformation producing greater running speed would require the evolution of a posture more erect than Lucy had:

Here’s a video from Tik Tok:

@newscientist

How fast could this ancient human ancestor run? 🦴🏃🏾‍♂️ Karl Bates at the University of Liverpool in the UK and his colleagues have, for the first time, attempted to determine how fast Lucy’s species, Australopithecus afarensis, could run by creating a 3D digital robot of the ancient hominin. It turns out she would have been no match for modern humans in a running race… Tap the link in bio to learn more #humanevolution #ancienthumans #hominin #lucyhominin #ancienthumansrunning #3drobot

♬ original sound – New Scientist

*I went through the Panama Canal on a cruise ship a while back (actually, we just cruised to the lake and back out, but I was delighted to do that as I always wanted to see how it worked. Our ship barely made the width, but of course there are now two canals. At any rate, I remember the captain telling us it cost a lot of money to go through the 50-mile journal. Now a NYT piece dealing with Trump’s unhinged efforts to take back the canal, tells us how much it costs, and also some political stuff.

The cost of using the Panama Canal has risen in recent years — excessively so, President Trump has asserted. The canal operator says droughts, investments in upgrades and sheer demand are among the reasons.

But if Mr. Trump wrests lower canal fees out of Panama, American consumers may not feel much difference, because canal costs make up only a small part of the retail cost of most goods. One analysis concludes that going through the canal adds 10 cents to the cost of a coffee maker.

Panama Canal shipping fees were not a big issue until Mr. Trump raised the matter last year.

As well as highlighting the costs of using the canal, American politicians have security concerns. They point out that China has made big investments in Panama’s infrastructure and that a Hong Kong company operates ports at both the Atlantic and Pacific ends of the canal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a visit to Panama on Sunday, appeared to escalate those security concerns with Panama’s leader.

Two things here. First, other countries operate ports as well. As far as I know, China is completely incapable of impeding shipping through the canal. Second, the reason ships use the canal is to save time and money from having to go around Cape Horn. Second, if going through the Canal saves money, how can it add ten cents to the cost of a coffee maker? Compared to what: going around South America. This is bad reporting.   But onto the cost:

The canal authority did not respond to requests for a list of historical tolls and fees or other comment. But it annually discloses how much it collects from ships using the canal. That has surged in recent years by far more than the number of journeys through the waterway.

In the 12 months through September 2023, the latest figures available, tolls and service fees totaled $4.8 billion, 62 percent higher than five years earlier. Over that period, passages through the canal rose only 2 percent, to 14,080 from 13,795 in 2018.

As a result, in 2023, the canal on average collected $341,000 a vessel, compared with $215,000 in 2018 — a 59 percent jump.

$341,000 is a lot of dough. If a cruise ship has 241 passengers on it, each of them is costing the ship $1000 to go through (I was lecturing and didn’t pay for the trip.) But it must cost even more to go around Cape Horn. Or, if it doesn’t, there is the huge expenditure of time doing the South American route, and, for a ship, time is money.

*Finally, I’d love to write for the AP “Oddities” section, as there are plenty of oddities in this world but not that much turnover in the section. The latest is a deer-calling contest that takes place annually in Dortmund, Germany. Contestants have to do three different kinds of calls (see the bit I’ve bolded below):

 German hunters tried to convince the jury at a national stag calling championship that they can imitate a bellowing red deer most realistically.

The unique tradition goes back hundreds of years and was initially aimed at feigning a stag’s rival during the rutting season so the deer comes out. The trick gave hunters a chance to better assess the stag before deciding whether to shoot it.

The competition took place Friday at the Jagd & Hund, or hunting and dog, trade fair in the western city of Dortmund. There were no animals, only bellowing men wearing traditional hunters’ garb including green hats with a tuft of chamois hair.

The hunters used specially made ox horns, triton snail shells, glass cylinders, the hollow stems of the giant hogweed, and a number of artificially produced instruments to amplify the sound and resonance.

A stag’s vocalizations are not only very diverse, but also vary according to age, state of mind and duration of the rut, during which they become increasingly hoarse, as well as the mood of the herd, according to the organizers.

In Dortmund, the hunters were asked to compete in three disciplines: the call of the old, searching stag, the call of the dominant male in a pack of does, and the calling duel between two equally strong stags at the height of the rut. The members of the jury listened with closed eyes to make sure nothing would distract them from the sound.

“The stag calling for me, it’s the fascinating thing to play with the stags,” said Fabian Wenzel, who won the championship. “And maybe shoot an old stag after calling him — that’s the biggest thing for every hunter.”

Wenzel, a hunter from the small village of Nüdlingen in Bavaria, won the title for the fifth time in a row and will participate in the European Stag Calling Championships, which will take place in Lithuania in October.

Here’s a Tik Tok video:

@metrouk

Welcome to the ‘Stag Calling’ Championships… Where German hunters compete against each other to see, you guessed it, who can make the best ‘stag call’. #news #stagcall #deer #fyp #metro #metrouk

♬ original sound – Metro – Metro

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is paranoid!

Hili: It’s not time to get out of the wardrobe.

Andrzej: Why?

Hili: There are plenty of enemies everywhere.

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

From Things With Faces, a scary door:

From Jesus of the Day:

From Cat Memes:

From Luana; the Brits are quashing free speech again:

🚨 A man has been arrested in Manchester after a video appeared to show him burning pages of the Quran. He remains in custody, reportedly on suspicion of a “racially aggravated public order offence”.

England abolished its blasphemy laws in 2008 — yet this arrest raises serious… pic.twitter.com/wvHTdWRBAC

— The Free Speech Union (@SpeechUnion) February 3, 2025

From cesar: Democrats taking equity to its absurd limit:

I can’t believe what I just listened to. The DNC Leader interrupted the party election to tell members that not enough non-binary candidates have been elected, so they MUST now vote for one.

“With the results of the previous four elections, our elected officers are currently two… pic.twitter.com/8CelMVzyE6

— George (@BehizyTweets) February 1, 2025

From Simon, an accurate portrayal of tariffs:

Oh Canada!Cartoon by Bruce MacKinnon

— Larry the Cat (@number10cat.bsky.social) 2025-02-03T16:40:53.122Z

From Malcolm. Is this cat sulking or was it given a time out?

who hurt him?!?! pic.twitter.com/2bIEDunwKa

— Punch Cat (@PunchingCat) December 23, 2024

From my feed; a good-tempered kitty on a plane. I’d also pay more to set next to it!

I would pay more to sit beside this cat pic.twitter.com/w5apz7PTtd

— Posts Of Cats (@PostsOfCats) February 2, 2025

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I posted. Look up Mann on Wikipedia.

This story is most likely true, though there are some questions about it and Mann. Look her up on Wikipedia. At any rate, the Germans killed her.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-02-04T11:17:55.022Z

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. First, nice insect photos (check the link):

Taking a break from doomscrolling by looking at these beautiful photos http://www.royensoc.co.uk/photography-…

— Gwen Pearson (@bug-gwen.bsky.social) 2025-02-01T21:36:46.427Z

Did you know that some corals can walk?

It’s not just sponges that move!

— (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2025-02-01T15:09:50.175Z