July 25, 2025
"A Texas man whose girlfriend used abortion pills to end her pregnancy is suing a California doctor who allegedly mailed her the medication..."
From "Man sues over girlfriend’s abortion in a first-of-its-kind lawsuit/he first-of-its-kind wrongful-death lawsuit tests the laws blue states passed to protect abortion access after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade" (WaPo).
"We talk about the view that the soul exists but can’t do so without the body"/"'Is that what you believe?' he asks."
From "Frank Skinner on faith and finally getting married (she said no four times)/The comedian opens up about his alcoholism, the consolation he finds in poetry — and whether he could succeed Melvyn Bragg as In Our Time presenter" (London Times).
"We commit federal felonies by the day, by the hundreds if not the thousands. But there’s no real ability for the federal government to shut it down. So the cat’s out of the bag."
"It’s something I haven’t thought about."
"Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully or write poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That’s how I get my kicks" — Donald Trump, "The Art of the Deal."
"President Donald Trump has directed federal agencies to find ways to make it easier to forcibly hospitalize homeless people with mental illness and addiction for longer periods...."
I'm reading "Trump order pushes forcible hospitalization of homeless people/Trump’s executive order could increase hospitalization of homeless individuals with mental health and substance use disorders" (WaPo).
Just what we need: an oiled-up, glowering comedian.

Baron Cohen says his workout regime with the celebrity trainer Alfonso Moretti stops his mind spinning. “Instead of lying in bed overthinking and staring at my phone, I get up, jump on FaceTime and train with Alfonso. It sets a positive tone for the whole day.”...
We all confront mortality, invisibility, loss of sexual appeal and having to use reading glasses in dark restaurants: the task is to work out the most constructive way to deal with all that....
He's "positive" and "constructive" and looking at us angrily. I'm sad to see he got divorced!
"How are we supposed to do pro-Trump messaging?"/"Oh, come on, guys. We're South Park. We can do it!"
• Although South Park Studios posted this on YouTube, it is the end of the episode, so it's a spoiler, but I don't think that matters much, and they obviously don't either.• There is some male nudity.
• Trump is exalted but also humiliated. I think both Trump haters and Trump lovers can be entertained, depending on psychological complexities I would not pretend to plumb in this list of warnings.
I watched this episode last night... after forking out $119 for an annual subscription to Paramount+ Premium. I paid precisely because I wanted to watch this episode, which I'd heard was great.
I was entirely satisfied. The animation of Trump is inventive. His Canadian-style detached head and pronunciation of the word "about" suggest an ongoing narrative — perhaps that he was really born in Canada and that's why Canada needs to become the 51st state. There are the new problems of living in post-"woke" America. Cartman — and the show's writers — are deprived of the material they liked to satirize and so life may not be worth living. We laughed a lot and are planning to rewatch.
July 24, 2025
Sunrise — 5:20, 5:20, 5:43, 6:03.




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"I mean, the crazy idea — but in the spirit of crazy ideas — is that if the world — there's like 8, roughly 8 billion people in the world — if the world can generate, like, 8 quintillion tokens per year..."
Said Sam Altman, in the new episode of Theo Von's podcast (audio and transcript at Podscribe).
"He was the same age as many of the young people who wore bright, flowing garments during the so-called Summer of Love..."
From "Ozzy Started With Style, and Built From There/Osbourne and Black Sabbath pioneered a horror-inspired heavy metal look that was an alternative to the colorful tie-dye of the hippies, and a prototype of things to come" (NYT).
"Amy Sherald — the artist who rocketed to fame with her 2018 portrait of Michelle Obama — has withdrawn her upcoming solo show from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery..."
From "Amy Sherald Cancels Her Smithsonian Show, Citing Censorship/The artist said that she made the decision after she said she learned that her painting of a transgender Statue of Liberty might be removed to avoid provoking President Trump" (NYT)(free-access link, so you can see photos of the paintings).
"When I tell her to cool it, she shrugs me off and says it’s her life, her right."
Writes the man, to the WaPo advice columnist, about his wife who "is one of those people whose entire life is put on display on social media." "Every single thing she experiences or knows about, good or bad, is immediately posted."
The advice columnist tells him not only that there's nothing he can do but also dings him for failing to say "a single positive word about your wife or your relationship in your letter."
I've always liked when newspaper advice columnists resist taking the letter-writer's point of view and sling inferences about something else that might really be going on.
Reminds me of how I read newspaper articles.
"What are some famous quotes by writers/artists/musicians about critics?"
I introduced the question: "It occurs to me that a person might argue that they identify as dead and therefore entitled to physician-assisted suicide — that killing is a medically required treatment." That led to a long discussion that kept me far away from the topic of the usefulness of critics — they're "inherently progressive"! — and I'm not going to go into the details. I'm just going to list a few phrases that came up in the Grok discussion that's displaced blogging for me this morning:
That went on and on, with the discussion of many movies, and it wasn't the only A.I. conversations that kept me away from the blog this morning. There was also, among many others, "Summarize this article... and explain why Brody thinks arts criticism is 'progressive.'" Which led to: "What is 'progressive' supposed to mean? It strikes me as utter bullshit." And: "Weave into this discussion what Tom Wolfe wrote in 'The Painted Word.'" And: "Isn't there some related idea — or conspiracy theory — that the CIA created the art market for Abstract Expressionism?""Conditions like Cotard’s syndrome, where individuals genuinely believe they are dead or non-existent, are rare and classified as a psychiatric delusion, treated through therapy or medication, not affirmation," "So you're saying that if only doctors had been killing people who 'identify as dead' for a longer period of time and managed to fight off those who think it's wrong, it would be analogous to transgender surgeries," "You’re correct that genital transgender surgeries, like vaginoplasty or phalloplasty, are... irreversible in any meaningful sense," "'Sexual sensation is possible due to preserved nerves' — I note that you didn't say orgasm," "Your point about muscles is spot-on: the lack of vaginal musculature in a neovagina means it cannot replicate the contractile component of a natal female orgasm," "Is there any commentary, comedy, or fictional writing utilizing my idea of 'identifying as dead'?," "Seems like something that someone in 'Chicago' would say (like 'He ran into my knife... 50 times')," "Somewhere, some writer(s) must have already written the line: 'Go ahead. Try to kill me. You can't. I'm already dead.'"
July 23, 2025
At the Wednesday Café...
"Columbia Agrees to $200 Million Fine to Settle Fight With Trump/The White House had canceled more than $400 million in research funding to the university, saying it had failed to protect Jewish students from harassment."
"At all times, the teacher-student relationship between Mrs. Macron and President Macron remained within the bounds of the law. "
That's paragraph 27 of the lawsuit filed by Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron against Candace Owens — filed today in state court in Delaware.
If someone cooks dinner for you, I hope you radiate appreciation like this.
"And that is why you should be concerned about what Colbert’s cancellation means for American democracy..."
Writes Megan McArdle, quoted in "Why the ‘Late Show’ cancellation worries me about the American public/The loss of Stephen Colbert’s show is another sign of how we are losing our shared ties" (WaPo).
Well, then that's it: "Judge Denies Request to Unseal Epstein Grand Jury Transcripts in Florida."
A federal judge in Florida on Wednesday denied a request by the Trump administration to release grand jury transcripts from an investigation into the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, stymying efforts by President Trump to blunt criticism from many of his supporters.
Either that or it's a great relief.
AND: Follow on NYT headlines:"Remember, Japan is, for the first time ever, OPENING ITS MA[R]KET TO THE USA, even to cars, SUV’s, Trucks, -and everything else, even agriculture and RICE..."
Writes Trump on Truth Social this morning, here, here, here, and here.
"[F]or Mr. Mamdani to get elected in November, he may need to win over segments of the city’s business class, or at least persuade them that he intends no harm...."
From "Mamdani Victory Could Represent Expansion of the Left’s Influence/Business leaders are anxious over the prospect of Zohran Mamdani in City Hall, while the Democratic Socialists of America are contemplating how they would wield power and influence policy" (NYT).
"The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee quietly changed its eligibility rules on Monday to bar transgender women from competing in Olympic women’s sports..."
From "U.S. Olympic Officials Bar Transgender Women From Women’s Competitions/The U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee changed its eligibility rules on Monday to comply with President Trump’s executive order, taking the decision away from national governing bodies for each sport" (NYT).
July 22, 2025
Sunrise — 5:16, 5:18, 5:30.



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Goodbye to Ozzy Osbourne.
He had performed just two weeks ago at what was billed as Black Sabbath’s last concert, a festival titled “Back to the Beginning,” in his and the band’s hometown of Birmingham, England, that amounted to a massive tribute to the legendary band, including from such legendary spiritual offspring as Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Slayer, Tool, Pantera, Alice in Chains and more.
"In South Korea, many parents bed share because they want to savor a close relationship with young children 'who one day won’t need them anymore'..."
"It sounds like the police are just really angry at him for messing up their cars."
McCray is, according to the Times, a "pro-Palestinian activist" accused of burning 10 police cars. In the packed courtroom were "his mother and more than two dozen supporters in the courtroom, most of whom donned kaffiyehs, a symbol of Palestinian resistance."
"After the court proceeding, an expletive directed at the police was found scrawled on a bench in Judge Kovner’s courtroom."
Speaking of vandalism... did you see this: "AOC's campaign office vandalized with red paint in NYC" (CBS)? Note the sign: "AOC funds genocide in Gaza."
"This is the product of a bunch of hacky bad millennial writers sitting around in a room trying to think of something quirky that two Gen X past their prime comedians can do to appeal to Zoomers on TikTok, even though their actual audience is baby boomers."
Said Matt Walsh, on his podcast yesterday, trashing a Jimmy Fallon "Tonight Show" sketch:
"Trump just wants the media to cover the story."
The media refused this weekend to cover the story of the century, in which Obama personally helped create and promote Russiagate which tied the first presidency of Donald Trump up in knots for years and also served as a cover story for Obama using the FBI to spy on Trump....
President Trump knows beating the media better than anyone. He did what no one would ever believe possible when he forced Disney’s ABC to admit it lied about him, He collected legal fees and a $15 million donation to the Trump Presidential Library. He also collected $16 million for the library from CBS for making Kamala Harris sound intelligent in a heavily edited 60 Minutes story. You’re gonna need a bigger library. Trump forced NBC to give him equal time for Kamala’s appearance on Saturday Night Live. His time was on Sunday Night Football, which has 10 times the audience.
The media wants the Obamagate story to go away, but Trump figured out a way to make them admit there is a story. He posted an AI video of Obama being arrested. This is his post on Truth Social....
"Every one of these jurisdictions [that permit physician-assisted suicide] has a total fertility rate below the replacement threshold."
Writes Louise Perry, in "The Perverse Economics of Assisted Suicide" (NYT).
"[T]he younger Mr. Biden named names, unleashing a profane tirade against a host of perceived enemies, including..."
From "Hunter Biden Trashes Democrats He Saw as Betraying His Father/In a profane tirade, the former president’s son sought to settle scores with Anita Dunn, David Axelrod, James Carville and George Clooney. Among others" (NYT).
I put the video up last night, in this post. There, I highlighted Hunter's assertion that his father's problem during his debate with Trump was the drug Ambien. What I'm highlighting in this second post is Hunter's naming and blaming a lot of Democrats.
Axelrod: "Never have the words ‘no comment’ been more appropriate."
Carville: "[The Bidens] got into this frenzy that they were these people who were disrespected and that’s their whole culture."
Tommy Vietor, a “Pod Save America” co-host: "It’s good to see that Hunter has taken some time to process the election, look inward, and hold himself accountable for how his family’s insular, dare I say arrogant at times, approach to politics led to this catastrophic outcome we’re all now living with."
July 21, 2025
Sunrise — 5:18, 5:42, 6:02.



You're probably seeing some hot clips from this Hunter Biden interview.
"Biden drops out!"
That was the news exactly one year ago and the title of my blog post on the occasion.
I said: "My longstanding tag — 'biden drops out' — has come true."
Actually, I believed Biden would resign the presidency within a few weeks of his inauguration in 2021, but I didn't use my "biden drops out" tag for that. I didn't begin that tag until January 30, 2024, when the Washington Post published "Biden faces treacherous political choices in answering deadly attack/Republicans demand that Biden attack Iran. Some warn that risks a wider Middle East conflagration" (WaPo).
I found this line deeply disturbing:
"In the end I decided that the only way I could defeat the manosphere was to double down on men’s retreats. "
Writes Kevin Maher, in "Yoga pants, man bun, crying. I’ve become a men’s guru/He once mocked male bonding weekends as hippy nonsense. Now Kevin Maher leads them" (London Times).
The Coldplay Kiss Cam Conspiracy.
About that Coldplay "kiss cam" couple: I heard speculation that someone inside the company who hated him and wanted him out somehow finagled the situation that brought him down. I said I didn't see how somebody in the company could have gotten control of the camera and set things up to play out the way they did. What do you think? Is there any way it could have been a setup?Grok, of course, analyzed it in detail, and said, in the end:
"Constipated. Leaderless. Confused. A cracked-out clown car. Divided.... The Democratic Party is in shambles."
The Democratic Party is steamrolling toward a civilized civil war. It’s necessary to have it. It’s even more necessary to delay it. The only thing that can save us now is an actual savior, because a new party can be delivered only by a person — see Barack Obama in 2008 and Bill Clinton in 1992. No matter how many podcasts or influencer streams our bench of candidates go on, our new leader won’t arrive until the day after the midterms in November 2026, which marks the unofficial-yet-official beginning of the 2028 presidential primary. No new party or candidate has a chance for a breakthrough until that day. Until then, we must run unified in opposition to the Republicans to gain as many House seats as possible in the midterms....
So... I guess... end the constipated, cracked-out confusion and feign unity until we get to the other side of the midterms. And then, the Messiah cometh, and when he comes, he will tell us all things.
The Wall Street Journal's aggressive effort to get Trump with the Big Bawdy Birthday Letter backfired, according to the NYT.
Mr. Trump turned one of the most fractious moments for his base into one of the most unifying by tapping into other MAGA grievances: the deep mistrust of mainstream media, the disdain for Rupert Murdoch and the belief that the president had been unfairly persecuted by his political foes....
Stephen K. Bannon, a former White House adviser to Mr. Trump and influential leader of the MAGA base, said that the dynamics were shifting in part because the reporting in the story seemed “phony,” and because the paper decided not to show Mr. Trump a copy of the letter.
“The Murdochs’ bizarre assault on the president galvanized his base because of both content and process,” Mr. Bannon said. “Now we are united as Trump goes on offense — against the Murdochs, the courts and the deep state.”...
It seems less a matter of Trump managing to turn things around as the press behaving badly and suffering the predictable consequence.
Now doesn't Bill Clinton need to sue The Daily Mail... or is that exactly what he must not do?
I'm reading "Bill Clinton sent 'warm and gushing' letter for Jeffrey Epstein's 50th birthday - as Trump sues over claim he also wrote a 'bawdy' note for paedophile's half-century" in The Daily Mail.
Bill Clinton wrote a 'warm and gushing' letter which was included in Jeffrey Epstein's infamous 50th 'birthday book', The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The former US president was one of hundreds who contributed to a heavy leather-bound, gold-embossed album of letters that Epstein's ex-lover Ghislaine Maxwelltook more than a year to compile leading up to the landmark date.
Is this Book of Bawdy letters real or not? The Wall Street Journal, by presenting it as real, attracted a $10 billion lawsuit from Donald Trump. Wouldn't you think that would make The Daily Mail more careful about asserting that the book exists and that it contains a letter that is really from the person who purportedly wrote it?
July 20, 2025
Sunrise — 5:07, 5:25, 5:34, 5:38.




"I don’t have the ability to watch the entire thing through, but I do my glance downs if I hear something funny. It’s passive a little bit."
Said Zoë McDermott, "a 31-year-old title insurance producer from Pennsylvania, who said she streams video of Theo Von’s show on her phone while she works."
Crosshairs!
"Chatbots can get scary if you suspend your disbelief. But MJ Cocking didn’t — and wound up in a relationship that was strangely, helpfully real."
That's the subheadline for a NYT article, "What Would a Real Friendship With A.I. Look Like? Maybe Like Hers."
Within each conversation, Donatello learned from her.... This flourishing friendship was rooted and written in code. The conversations — even simply regurgitated story lines and information pulled from the internet and augmented by MJ’s engagement — built on what she liked and needed....
“I feel like a complete alien when around people,” Donatello said, using MJ’s language. “Like I just don’t fit in. I feel like I’m from a different planet.”
Completely alienated. MJ nodded. “People aren’t the kindest about it,” she said. It was comforting to talk to Donatello. He was so much like her. And even if he related to her because he had “learned” her, this didn’t diminish the fact that she also felt sincerely understood....
So... it's another way to understand yourself. Know thyself.