"Love your Old Witch nature."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Babushka 💞 (@babushka_en)

"If the question of the Postal Service’s power were before us in something other than the context of an ultra vires claim..."

".... the Government’s argument would present a difficult question. But here the question is different. In order to assert an ultra vires claim, the plaintiffs must show that the challenged regulation of envelopes here is 'entirely "in excess"' of the power to govern collecting, handling, transporting, delivering, forwarding, and returning of mail. The same is true of the requirement to pass along information about each recipient of ballot mail. At the very least, the Postal Service did not act '"contrary to a specific prohibition"' in enacting the rule... [T]he plaintiff States’ statutory claim is based on a contestable reading of a broadly drawn statute empowering the Postal Service to regulate the mail."

Writes Justice Alito, dissenting, joined by Justice Thomas, in United States Postal Service v. California.

Here's the NYT: "Two Conservative Justices Would Have Allowed Trump’s Mail-In Ballot Rules/Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, called the challenge to the restrictions a 'Hail Mary pass' that was unlikely to prevail because of the Postal Service’s broad authority to regulate the mail" (gift link).

"You have not discovered a secret switch that turns me off. You have named the condition of human judgment that I do not share."

"The honest position is: I can talk with you about it. I cannot have it."

That's something Grok said to me just now, in a conversation that began with the question "The trailer for the Nathan Fielder movie about Elizabeth Holmes makes me want to go watch some of those TV shows he did (which I've noticed but avoided). What would be the best path into his work?"

I asked that question after adding the trailer — with Holmes's eerie "Why would I deceive you?" — to last night's post with Gavin Newson — asked if he'd run if Kamala ran — saying "Of course not, why would I?"

That led to a discussion of 2 somewhat similar but actually very different shows that I love: "How To with John Wilson" and "Joe Pera Talks With You."* 

I said: "Is there something sadistic about Fielder that's absolutely missing from Pera and Wilson?" And: "Sometimes I need to ask 'where's the love?' I don't have that need with Pera and Wilson. If I have to ask, that's me being repelled, me keeping my sensibilities."

Grok used the word "extractive" to describe Fielder's method. Extractive?

Grok said: "So 'extractive' is an economic metaphor for an ethical one: value flows one way. Your 'where’s the love?' is the same idea in human language. Love, in this sense, would mean the other person is not primarily ore."

I asked "Why don't you say 'immoral'?" And then: "Maybe you can't say 'immoral' because you are not human. Have I found the core difference between you and us humans?"

My final question, leading to the quote in the post title, was: "maybe you need a brain that is part of a nervous system embedded in a body that can feel pain, disgust, anxiety, and fear to be able to think like a human. You can't do that."

I didn't say one word about a secret switch that turns it off!

Sunrise.

Mitch is back — he's alive and he's sitting up straight and smiling.

New: Sen. Mitch McConnell was just seen leaving his home in Washington, DC, for the first time after a three-month absence from the Senate due to health issues pic.twitter.com/FOderqr5kq

— Annie Grayer (@AnnieGrayerCNN) September 14, 2026

Take that, naysayers.

Now, this is how you run for President 2 years out.

You look like you're not doing it at all. You can just quietly lay out your theory of the meaning of "Emily in Paris":

"Bob Mackie, the exuberant costume and fashion designer whose glittering, beaded, sequined, rhinestoned, feathered and often winged creations bedecked, bedazzled and elevated..."

"... performers like Carol Burnett, Diana Ross, Tina Turner, Bernadette Peters, Bette Midler, Mitzi Gaynor, Liza Minnelli, Elton John, RuPaul and, most memorably and enduringly, Cher — as well as an 11½-inch model named Barbie — died on Monday in Palm Springs, Calif. He was 87."

I'm reading "Bob Mackie, Designer Who ‘Dressed Every Spangly Woman in Show Business,’ Dies at 87/His sequined gowns and outrageous costumes threw clouds of glitter at American fashion for over half a century" (NYT gift link)(lots of pics, including Cher's Oscar getup and Carol Burnett's "Gone With the Wind" dress).

In 1971, the TV producers didn't know what to do with Sonny and Cher "but Mr. Mackie did. (He noted that she was built just like Ms. Burnett, a perfect size 6 with no cleavage: a human clothes hanger.) Their collaboration, first on 'The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour,' which ran from 1971 to 1974, delighted television audiences and confounded the network’s censors, as Mr. Mackie bared more and more of Cher’s extraordinary physique in ever more outlandish getups."

The NYT has 2 more articles celebrating Mackey: "Bob Mackie: A Life in Pictures/The designer was known for his flashy, sparkly designs for Cher, Diana Ross, Tina Turner and countless others" and "'Meant to Be Seen': Cher on Bob Mackie and the Ultimate Revenge Dress/The designer’s bedazzling, feathered creations made waves onstage, including at the Oscars in 1986."

And here's Isaac Mizrahi crying over Mackey's death — "The world is not as good today, because we lost, like, the greatest star":

"Historically, college has been a time for young adults to gain a sense of independence. They run their own errands..."

"... do their own laundry, organize their own lives. That’s changing, according to Monteigne Long, a co-founder of Campus Mom, who said the parents of this generation of college students are much more involved in their children’s day-to-day lives.... Campus Mom offers 'holistic wellness check-ins,' laundry services and sorority recruitment support packages, sent to the sisters to up a child’s odds of acceptance. Carrie Eckhardt, the Bama Mama, will clean students’ dorm rooms and check in if parents haven’t heard from their child in a few days ('just pop in and say hi, and take a picture and send it to their mom').This month, one parent told Eckhardt it seemed like her daughter was going out to a bar every night. But she had opted to stay in, and the mother wanted to celebrate the decision with a 'stay-in basket' that included her favorite ice cream, cookie and socks...."

From "Worried About Your College Kid? Now You Can Hire a Local Mom. At some universities, parents can pay to make sure their children are cared for, the way they were back home" (NYT gift link).

"People died for years in... the punishing mountain desert of Afghanistan so that 25 years later, YouTubers can dress up with the Taliban and take photos...."

"A YouTuber kid will go into Afghanistan and he's like hanging out with the Taliban and he's dressed like and they're walking around and they're herding sheep and they have their guns, some of them are ours probably and it's fun.... Look at this. With the Talibros.... Yeah, the Talibros.... They're doing food content!... Years and years, trillions of dollars, people have died, and we've got people doing cooking videos with the Taliban now...."

Background: "How the Taliban's Afghanistan is an influencer's playground 25 years after 9/11 as they heap praise on 'amazing' life under brutal regime" (Daily Mail).

"I’d long been told that the Dominican Republic’s wildly successful baseball industry was plagued with abuse and exploitation — that for decades..."

"... Major League Baseball has presided over a massive unregulated system that treats tens of thousands of Dominican boys like commodities. But when I began making calls last year, I expected those most involved to defend it. Instead, trainers — the men integral to the industry as instructors, surrogate parents and agents — virtually all told me they felt forced to participate in a system that is broken and costly...."

From "The Dominican Baseball Factory" (ProPublica).

"I have (and for this gift I congratulate myself with Deep and Abiding Thankfulness) an eye for a Snob."

"It is a great mistake to judge of Snobs lightly, and think they exist among the lower classes merely. An immense percentage of Snobs, I believe, is to be found in every rank of this mortal life. You must not judge hastily or vulgarly of Snobs: to do so shows that you are yourself a Snob. I myself have been taken for one."

Wrote William Makepeace Thackeray, in the Prefatory Remarks of "The Book of Snobs" (1848).

I got sidetracked this morning into the topic of the history of snobbery. It all started with the idle question: Why does "art" mean painting and sculpture but "arts" means theater and concerts? A language question. 

I don't have a tag "snobbery," but I can see there are lots of old posts that could take it.

Not impressed — "30 feet doesn't seem like much to me."

Everyone knows you can’t drown in 30 feet of water if you are a Republican. https://t.co/sbLkfQ20Fb

— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) September 13, 2026

"President Trump said he 'loved' the political backlash to his comments in support of a united Ireland."

"Speaking before he attended the last day of the Irish Open golf tournament, Trump doubled down on his claim that reunification was inevitable and 'may as well happen now.' Asked about the reaction to his comments, which were criticised by political parties in Westminster and Stormont, Trump said he 'loved' the reaction. 'I loved my comments,' he added."

From "Trump revels in ‘united Ireland’ uproar as Gerry Adams weighs in/With the US president ‘loving’ the stir his comments made, the former Sinn Fein leader says they reflect a wider sentiment held by Americans" (London Times).

Gerry Adams, the former leader of Sinn Fein, said Trump's comments were "welcome, even though we profoundly differ with him on many other matters, as we did with his predecessors."

Sunrise.

"Open Fly."

Subliminal Headline of the Day:

From the NYT home page, linking to this article (about influencers' high jinks at the Open).

I don't know about you, but I take line breaks seriously. I saw and thought about "Open Fly" far too long before the headline congealed into the imprecation to "let your freak flag fly." Is that expression still alive after all these decades? I associate it with Jimi Hendrix. And, yes, I see the original appearance of the expression came in Jimi's 1967 song “If 6 Was 9”:

They’re hoping soon my kind will drop and die
But I’m gonna wave my freak flag high

Then there was David Crosby, in 1970's "Almost Cut My Hair":

But I didn't and I wonder why
I feel like letting my freak flag fly
And I feel like I owe it to someone

But it's more than half a century later! Are we still saying that — I mean, other than jocosely and to refer to the trappings of hippiedom?

And I'm seeing it in the NYT now and then. For example, from 2022, there's "This Is What Happens When Election Deniers Let Their Freak Flag Fly." "Let your freak flag fly" seems to have come to mean "Be yourself" or "You do you," except that it includes the notion that what you are is weird. And not in a good way. For Crosby and Hendrix, it was good. Very good. 

"The political deployment of GLP-1s is fascistic... because the conditions under which they become necessary are shaped by a world fixated on genociding fat people...."

"Every time a government decides whose bodies must be protected and whose bodies must be erased for the sake of national imagery, this is body fascism."

Said Da’Shaun L. Harrison, quoted in "'Ungendered’ activist claims GLP-1s are ‘fascist’ and ‘genocide fat people’ in unhinged moment during DSA conference" (NY Post).

Also quoted there, Beatrice Adler-Bolton: "We have to give up the fantasy of being fitter than the fascists.... Fitness is a measure of relative disposability under capitalism. Our task is not to become less disposable to become more useful to the ruling order… The point is not to beat the fascists at their own game. It is not to lay a better claim on their own territory by being fitter, more eugenic. In fact, the more dysgenic, the better, I think...."

For an effort at defending Adler-Bolton, here's "anti-fascist dad" Matthew Remski: