Sunrise.

Do you see the goose couple showing off their babies?

Half an hour later:

The clouds shaped up into what reminded me of something by Thomas Hart Benton:

"[T]he dominant mode in Democratic politics right now. It’s not the rebellion or radicalism manifest in, say..."

"Hasan Piker’s Twitch-streamer Marxism or Zohran Mamdani’s telegenic democratic socialism. Notable as those tendencies may be, the Democrats’ fundamental condition is a late-Trumpian stasis — in which the president’s stark unpopularity encourages his opponents to imagine that they can keep everything basically as it was in the Biden era, with the same broad priorities and deference to activists and interest groups, and float back to power automatically. The continuing appeal of Harris is a useful indicator of this stasis. Yes, she is unlikely to be the 2028 nominee, and part of her support is name recognition...."

Writes Ross Douthat, in "Slouching Toward Kamala Harris" (NYT).

Harris is ahead in the polls for the Democratic nomination in 2028. The Real Clear Politics average has her up by 9.3 percentage points. The most recent poll, from Harvard-Harris — has her up by 28 percentage points. Here's her closest competition:

This is about as bad as I’ve seen him. pic.twitter.com/xksNZfG0BE

— Kira (@Kiradavis) May 3, 2026

3 things Meade did.

1. He used Grok's "imagine" to make it look as though he were flying a drone toward the sunrise:

Generated with @grok imagine pic.twitter.com/1SgsOtklwi

— Laurence Meade (@laurmeade) May 3, 2026

2. He made me feel like a monument:

3. As part of his new activity of picking up litter around town, he's photographing distinctive litter. Today's winner:

I'm glad I have a tag "litter." I discussed it in some detail here. You may remember "hipster litter" ("It's a trend, I'm telling you. See it. Record it. Know it").

"Porcupines used to be confined to the forests but with deforestation, they’ve moved out into saffron farms looking for food."

"Saffron corms are highly nutritious and porcupines love them. Since they destroy the crop at night, farmers can’t do a thing."

Said Mir Hasan Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, quoted in "How porcupine ‘terror’ is devastating Kashmir’s saffron harvest/Authorities have set up a ‘situation room’ in the quest to stop the rodents raiding crops of ‘red gold’ , devastating farmers’ livelihoods" (London Times).

"The Iranians are clearly stronger than expected and the Americans clearly have no truly convincing strategy."

"The Iranians are clearly negotiating skilfully or very skilfully not negotiating... a whole nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership."

Said Chancellor Friedrich Merz, quoted in "Is German troop withdrawal start of US uncoupling from Europe? After President Trump took offence at Friedrich Merz’s Iran war comments, Donald Tusk warned that infighting was a bigger threat to Nato than its external enemies" (London Times).

Not a typo for "Donald Trump." There really is a Donald Tusk in this story. He's the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk. His mild-mannered contribution to the debate is: "The greatest threat to the transatlantic community is not its external enemies, but the ongoing disintegration of our alliance."

Last paragraph of the article:

"The City Council in The Hague, the seat of the national government, passed the first law banning fossil fuel ads in 2024."

"The following year, a Dutch travel trade association and several travel agencies sued, arguing that the ban was an overreach that violated freedom of expression rules and European Union consumer law. But the judge sided with the city, ruling that the health of its citizens and the climate was more important than commercial interests. 'It is not up to the municipality to refrain from taking measures to promote the health of its residents in order to strengthen the future position of travel providers,' the judge wrote, according to Euronews.... Among the recent promotions that are no longer allowed in Amsterdam: Ads for Range Rovers. Marketing for flights to Zanzibar, Mauritius and Dubai, and getaways to Thailand, and even, gasp, New York City."

From "In Permissive Amsterdam, Ads for Fossil Fuels or Meat Are Now Verboden/The Dutch city has outlawed advertising that promotes lifestyles linked to high carbon emissions, which is a driver of climate change. It’s a first for a world capital" (NYT).

I blogged it 13 years ago: "If you really care about global warming, stop all unnecessary travel."

And, from 16 years ago: "If you really believed in global warming, you would turn off your air conditioning" — which had 6 more things you ought to do to avoid shame and hypocrisy (if you really believe). I ask you to review the list now and reflect upon how well you have done:

"Those words never left my lips."

NYT: “You’ve been talking on your show about whether Trump is the Antichrist”

Tucker Carlson: “I have not said that”

NYT: *plays clip of him saying that* pic.twitter.com/L0sUQnfhpb

— Marco Foster (@MarcoFoster_) May 2, 2026

"Other incidents in the book are merely surreal: the appearance of Bob Dylan in a blue mohair suit..."

"... at [Brian] Jones’s hotel door in the middle of a Northeast blackout in 1965, bearing guitars and 'excellent weed'; a passing mention of future Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as one of the drug buddies who 'revived Keith’s appetite for coke and heroin' in the late 1970s; a young Harvey Weinstein, then a regional concert promoter, passing out Afro wigs to the band and crew during a raucous tour closer in Buffalo."

From "You Can’t Always Get What You Want, Unless It’s a New Rolling Stones Biography/The music journalist Bob Spitz, a keeper of numerous rock ’n’ roll flames, has turned out a colorful and authoritative new take on a much-documented band" (NYT).

Here's the book: "THE ROLLING STONES: The Biography," by Bob Spitz (commission earned). I might buy it. It wouldn't be the first book about The Rolling Stones for me. I read Keith Richards' autobiography. Somehow all I remember is him as a little kid keeping a mouse in his pocket. Blogged here.

But anyway, downloading the Kindle of the Spitz book just so I can do a word search on "mohair" is exactly the kind of thing I would do.

"Look, I'm 30 years old. Not one of my friends has children. Zero. No one. No one's having kids."

"Do you know how hard you need to abuse a mammal to make them not have children? Like, for real? Let's step back a moment, right?... Look, GDP goes up. People have enough food and whatever. No one's having kids. And this is across the world. This is across both the West, the East, everywhere it's happening. So why do I not have kids?... Do you know what dating app algorithms do?... They don't optimize for you to meet the love of your life. They optimize for you to keep coming back to the app.... We have treated technology as a wild west. Absolutely. Just everyone can do whatever they want. Oh, just sell all of our younger generations' dating lives to corporations for profit. And who pays the cost for this? Who has liability for every person who doesn't find the love of their life because the whole dating market is fucked up? Who pays for this? No one. There is no responsibility. It's completely worthless. And these dating companies, they're not even profitable...."

That's Connor Leahy, and I've got a problem with his abuse-a-mammal theory. Of course, he meant to say "Do you know how hard you need to abuse a non-human mammal to make them not have children?" But non-human mammals don't have access to birth control (and abortion).

Is the Biden administration responsible for the loss of Spirit?

Here’s Mayor Pete announcing the Biden administration’s decision to fight the Jet Blue and Spirit merger so they could protect consumers and ensure low fares. Now the airline doesn’t exist and passengers are stranded across the country. pic.twitter.com/u7TXdwG9vj

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) May 2, 2026

When late-night comedians found censorship deeply seductive.

The Late Night show hosts were so giddy and celebratory after Trump was banned from social media.

They absolutely LOVE censorship until someone accusing one of them of crossing the line. Then they become supporters of free speech.pic.twitter.com/7igDcNzvXn

— MAZE (@mazemoore) May 2, 2026

Moonset/sunrise.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"A 'rich face' is stretched taut, often incapable of varied expressions and plumped with filler or implants or a person’s own grafted fat."

Writes Amy Odell, in "Rich People Didn’t Look Like This Before" (NYT).

"Once, this face belonged to a villainous class of elites in sci-fi depictions of a dystopian future. In 'The Hunger Games,' residents of the capital city who revel in luxury and excess at the expense of other impoverished districts often wear sculpted, altered faces. In 'Doctor Who,' a wealthy socialite from the distant future has gone through so many face-lifts that she becomes little more than a stretched face on a thin sheet of skin mounted on a frame, maintained with constant moisturizer."

But is it Trump's fault?

"So when in middle school other kids began to tease and bully Evan, saying that his channel was 'cringe' and that he was too old to be playing with toys, Evan was taken aback...."

"He recalled that in middle school, haters in the comments called him 'spoiled,' and people told him things he had never considered before. His parents were 'taking advantage' of him, they said, or 'using you for money,' Evan told me. 'That definitely made me feel sad. Like, sad-angry.' He started telling his parents he didn’t want to review toys anymore and withdrew to his room....  'I had to really make a case to my parents,' he told me. 'It took them time to understand that I was growing up.'...  In middle school, when Evan had the impulse to post on Twitter that he was 'really sad,' his parents discouraged him. 'You don’t need to let the internet know all of your emotions,' he remembered them saying.... "

From "When a Child’s Life Becomes the Family Business/Evan Lee, better known as EvanTube, still had his baby teeth when he became an influencer. Now he’s ready to reflect on what that kind of exposure meant" (NYT).

"Pitched as an 'ethical' attraction focused on education and conservation, Sloth World was heralded as an opportunity for visitors to dial down the tempo in America’s theme park capital...."

"The planned destination in Orlando, Florida, would have given more than 40 sloths an indoor rainforest habitat in which to take life 'at their own slow and steady pace,' supported by 'science-informed care,' its owners promised.... It boasted that the furry residents 'come from a variety of situations across South America and beyond' and could live to be 55 years old there, compared with the average eight to twelve years in the wild.... But sloths are highly complex animals. Wrenched from their natural habitat, they rarely thrive in captivity; their chilled appearance and lack of a 'fight or flight' mechanism belies internalised stress."

I'm reading "The collapse of ‘Sloth World’: 32 dead and a criminal investigation/The exotic animal importers behind an ‘ethical’ day out in Orlando, Florida, are accused of failing to keep their star attractions alive" (London Times).

"The British wife of a death row prisoner screamed 'I love you' as her husband was executed in Texas last night...."

"James Broadnax, 37, protested his innocence in his dying moments, saying 'Texas got it wrong,' as his wife, Tiana, spread her arms against the execution chamber window and had to be helped out of the room. 'My husband suffered so bad from the lethal injection that he had a nose bleed and bruising on his neck,' said Tiana, 31, on TikTok. 'I’m going to expose everyone. The fight didn’t end here, it got worse. You killed Mr Broadnax, but you ain’t killed MRS BROADNAX.'"

From "James Broadnax’s British wife shouts ‘I love you’ as he is executed/Death row inmate who had been convicted of double murder died by lethal injection in Texas even after his cousin had confessed to being the killer" (London Times).

Tiana met Broadnax after finding his story on the website writeaprisoner.com and writing to him. She married him 2 weeks before his scheduled execution and never touched him. She did use an old T-shirt of his to experience his smell.