Meet Jeffrey Epstein.

wild find, how the media first introduced Jeffrey Epstein 25 years ago https://t.co/RZLXdHQvKr

— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) February 10, 2026

AND: As long as I'm embedding things from Mike Benz this morning:

"Who wants to sit squeezed up to a big group of hairy men on a bachelor party?"

Said Jerelyn Taubert, 66, who moved to Budapest 20 years ago, when she would arrive at the beautiful historic bath house "at eight in the morning and there would be three people in the pool.... There were a lot of older Hungarian ladies and it felt private, in the women’s section."

She's quoted in "Tensions boil over as tourists swamp Budapest’s historic bath houses/Bathing culture is at the heart of the city but its popularity with foreigners is pricing out locals, and political rows are delaying desperately needed renovations" (London Times).

Maybe the older Hungarian ladies don't like squeezing up with a woman who only moved to town 20 years ago. I think it is important, when you are disgusted by some people, to remember that there are other people to whom you are disgusting.

AND: Speaking of pools and variable disgust, look at this question some guy sent in to the NYT "Ethicist": "I presume that most people pee in swimming pools and that everyone pees in the ocean. But suppose I’m at the beach. I need to defecate. It’s a 15 minute walk to the bathroom. It’s a Tuesday, and the beach is deserted. Is it OK to go in the ocean? I say yes! My wife disagrees." Just to ask is already to be too disgusting. Just the first sentence — the foundation for the question — is already too disgusting. 

I read that yesterday and didn't blog it, but I'm blogging it now because it lodged in my head. I know because it oozed up as I read about that Budapest bath house. I'm blogging it now to free myself of thinking about it again, because I won't blog it twice. 

"[Hungary] now spends 5 percent of its gross domestic product on family policies, a greater percentage than what the United States devotes to defense."

"It offers grandparental leave. It furnishes reduced mortgage rates to married couples planning families. It provides parents $30,000 loans — which don’t need to be repaid if they have three or more children. On Oct. 1, all women with three children gained lifetime personal income tax exemptions. Next year, mothers under 40 with two kids will become exempt as well. 'For the long-term survival of a nation, it is worthwhile,' said Hungary’s culture minister, Balazs Hanko...."

From "Can governments actually spark a baby boom? These countries are trying. Governments are testing whether a mix of perks, incentives and ideology might reverse shrinking population trends. Here’s what they’ve learned" (WaPo).

"László Krasznahorkai has won the Nobel prize in literature."

The Guardian reports.

Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai has been chosen as the winner “for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.”

"How Rod Dreher's Blog Got a Little 'Too Weird' for The American Conservative."

I'm reading this Vanity Fair article by Caleb Ecarma. Subtitle: "The right-wing commentator’s columns, which were unedited and bankrolled by a single donor, will be shuttered Friday after a 12-year run. Sources say it was ultimately a diatribe on circumcision that was a bridge too far."

Over the last 12 years, Dreher... has built a cult following with some of the most bizarre diatribes in opinion journalism. He has warned that so-called sissy hypnosis porn is “profoundly evil;” detailed the “formal” Catholic exorcism of a friend’s suicidal wife; and recalled—in unsettling detail—the time he witnessed a Black classmate's uncircumcised penis....

"We won a victory so big that you can see it from the moon, and you can certainly see it from Brussels."

"The whole world has seen tonight in Budapest that Christian democratic politics, conservative civic politics and patriotic politics have won. We are telling Europe that this is not the past, this is the future." 

Said Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, quoted in "Hungary’s pro-Putin PM Orban claims victory in national vote" (AP).

Also: "In a surprise performance, radical right-wing party Our Homeland Movement appeared to have garnered more than 6% of the vote, exceeding the 5% threshold needed to gain seats in parliament." (Yes, I know, that word, but it's too awful for such trivial notations.)

"Hungary’s government wants to dethrone English as the most common foreign language taught in Hungarian schools."

"The reason: It’s just too easy to learn."

“It is fortunate if the first foreign language learned is not English. The initial, very quick and spectacular successes of English learning may evoke the false image in students that learning any foreign language is that simple”...

Instead, the ministry department in charge of education would prefer if students “chose languages with a fixed, structured grammatical system, the learning of which presents a balanced workload, such as neo-Latin languages.”

Why is a language with a "fixed, structured grammatical system" easier to learn? And what's with Hungary's hostility to students feeling good about their capacity to learn a foreign language? I just don't believe this. I suspect that they don't want people learning English first, because it's so thoroughly empowering to know English that learning it drastically undercuts the incentive to learn any other language.