"A possible referendum in Oregon on animal rights would end fishing, hunting, even pest control, just when Democrats are trying really hard not to be seen as 'weirdos again.'"

I'm reading "Protect Every Animal From Cruelty? Not in 2026, Oregon Democrats Say" (NYT).

The measure, known for now as Initiative Petition 28... would give all animals the same protections from cruelty that Oregon grants dogs and cats.... Hunting, trapping and fishing would be outlawed, along with scientific research on animals, lethal pest control and conventional livestock production.... 

The fight is in some ways very Oregon, long a proving ground for ideas that initially seemed politically impossible only to enter the mainstream, such as medical aid in dying, universal vote-by-mail and legalizing the hallucinogenic compound in magic mushrooms for therapy.

When people think of "animals" — as in "I love animals!" — they're not thinking about cockroaches and mosquitoes.

ADDED: According to Ballotopedia, the initiative "Applies to mammals (including vermin), birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish." So I think "lethal pest control" is meant to call to mind mice and rats, not the various troublesome insects. The NYT article says "all animals" and also, more than once, says "pest control." 

In the comments here, Tom T. said, "Then would come the court decisions defining pet ownership as cruelty and outlawing it." That got me looking into the argument that pet-keeping is a form of cruelty to animals. Here's an interesting Vox article from 3 years ago: "The case against pet ownership/Why we should aim for a world with fewer but happier pets." Excerpt: 

"Hey everyone, it’s Amy. Um, I wanted to make a statement today and—oh, sorry, I’m getting eaten by bugs."

"Um, I wanted to make a statement today in response to a couple of news articles that are out there about my marriage to Graham."

A message from my wife Amy: pic.twitter.com/dbDqjssevp

— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) May 30, 2026

"Um, if anybody knows me and Graham personally, you know that we got married in 2023. Um, we live in Sullivan. We’ve got two dogs and we love each other deeply. So it makes me really angry, um, disappointed, and I find it really shameful that there’s a group of media outlets and people who are willing to spread gossip instead of talking about real issues that Graham is running on—like healthcare and education and childcare. Um, I’m walking up and down my road right now and this is like my 20th take. This is very hard to do, but um, I just really wanted to make sure that everyone knows that Graham and I have a great marriage. Um, being married is hard.  Being newly married is hard. Being newly married and going through infertility is hard. Being newly married, going through infertility, and a Senate campaign is hard. Um, I don’t even know if I have the right words to describe what we’ve been going through, but um, our marriage counselor helps. Uh, my personal counselor helps. Graham’s personal counselor helps. Um, and we work on our mental health every day. Um, no marriage is perfect and I—I don’t want a perfect marriage. I want my marriage and I want to be married to Graham. Sorry, blackflies. Um, I knew the man that I married is wonderful and dynamic and probably a genius. Um, I knew the man that I married had been through an immense amount of violent active combat and um, he’s been in therapy for years. I just—I admire the fuck out of him.Um, so when there are news articles about our marriage, it’s just extra shitty. Can I say that online? I hope I can. Um, it’s extra shitty because people in Maine want affordable gas. They want to be able to see their doctor when they’re sick. Um, they want to be able to send like their kids to a nice school, uh, a nice daycare facility, um, and raise families the way that they want to. So I think I’m feeling angry today. Um, and I don’t normally make public statements, but it’s really important for me to tell all of you out there—especially people who are voting in Maine—that I think it’s shameful behavior to spend time and energy and resources on negative ads and negative stories on Graham when all he’s trying to do is improve the lives of people who work for a living. Um, and that’s it. He doesn’t have any other agenda, which is what I think people are trying to dig up. Um, and this is a long video, so uh, I hope my editing team isn’t too frustrated with me. Um, I hope that everyone’s having a good Saturday. Graham and I really care about the state of Maine. We really love it. We were born and raised here and I think we deserve better. I think Mainers deserve better. And I don’t know what else to say. So if you’re editing this video, I’m really sorry. Thanks for watching."

Check the box that's closest to your reaction.

That felt raw and honest and kind of beautiful.

It was evil to force her out there like that, stammering through repeated takes, pestered by insects, subordinated to her man, who... what kind of man is he who won't stand up for himself but sends out his wife, a wife who's obviously fragile and in need of a warm embrace and masculine protection?

 

pollcode.com free polls

"Why are millions of young Indians suddenly calling themselves cockroaches?"

"The chief justice of the Supreme Court of India probably did not anticipate that an off-the-cuff courtroom remark would trigger one of the most popular political satire movements his country has seen. At a May 15 hearing on judicial appointments, Justice Surya Kant made a comment about youngsters 'like cockroaches,' who, unable to find employment or establish themselves professionally, drift into media, social media and political activism.... Many viewed the remark as dehumanizing. Lawyers debated proper judicial conduct while young Indians flooded social media with angry responses and memes. Then a 30-year-old Boston University graduate named Abhijeet Dipke launched a satirical Instagram page called the 'Cockroach Janta Party' — a play on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party...."

From "This Indian youth party started as satire. Then it got serious. The movement's growth reflects the depth of frustration of a generation that feels unseen and unheard" (WaPo)(gift link).

This gets the old "insect politics" tag.

I love the serendipity of one more chance to use my "insect politics" tag.

This just crawled onto the front page of the NYT:

We're told: "The ant world is filled with Machiavellian dramas.... Now experts have identified a kind of regicide that has never been documented before.... 'It’s like a story out of "Game of Thrones,"' said Daniel Kronauer, an evolutionary biologist.... The discovery was made by an ant enthusiast... not a scientist...."

"There’s just mutual headshaking. It’s like you lock eyes and you shake heads and you move on"/"It’s a sense of betrayal, like, who are you? Were you always like this? I don’t know you anymore!"

Said unnamed acquaintances of Cheryl Hines, quoted in "Cheryl Hines’s MAGA Makeover Has Her Hollywood Colleagues Scratching Their Heads: 'I Don’t Know You Anymore!'/'It’s a sense of betrayal, like, who are you?' says one industry insider, of the Curb Your Enthusiasm star and wife of RFK" (Vanity Fair).

“Whatever her reasons for staying with that weird, imbecilic husband and whether or not she subscribes to his inane positions is of no real consequence,” [an unnamed "Hollywood heavyweight"] says disdainfully. "It isn’t as though we’re talking about Zendaya, whom one would desperately want to get into their movie.'...

One of the few close pals to publicly speak up about Hines in the Trump 2.0 era is Tig Notaro, who once cohosted a podcast with Hines called Tig and Cheryl: True Story.... “My friendship with Cheryl predated her marriage to Bobby.... And then he endorsed Trump, and then it just got hard.... It’s really sad, because Cheryl did bring me so much joy.”.. 

Sometimes it seems like Hines is living out some dementedly cringed-out Curb episode, where ordinary events spiral out of control. As Notaro pointed out, it was one thing when RFK Jr. was a free-floating conspiracy theorist (“a gnat on the arm,” as she put it); it’s quite another now that he wields so much power over the health of the American populace.

Remember how sometimes the rule is you never — ever — liken a person to an insect? That rule comes and goes, but I will deal with my dismay by savoring the small pleasure of using the "insect politics" tag one more time.

Try this AI prompt (I did): Tell me about the idea that it is very wrong to compare a human being to an insect, that once you start saying people are gnats or flies or something in need of swatting, you're going down a slippery slope to Auschwitz... or something like that.

"A lecture from Pamela Anderson... about fascism and fireflies, that boomed around the uncompromisingly ugly black box..."

"... of a show venue, didn't add to the joy of the occasion. Nor did a finale that looked like a scene from Day of the Living Dead, with sad models drifting around the bleakly-lit space."

I'm perusing "Paris Fashion Week: Pamela Anderson sits front row at joyless Valentino show" (The Telegraph).

This model best exemplifies the mood. Look what fascism is doing to people!

Bones and silk, for that awkwardly bumpy look. 

Anyway, was the venue at the Valentino show "uncompromisingly ugly"? That's a judgment call. I really want to know the facts about what Pam said about "fascism and fireflies." I like alliteration. I envision an alphabet book — illustrated by A.I. — that has "fascism and fireflies" for F.

What can we do for the other letters? A is for anarchy and angel food cake....

But I end up using A.I. to figure out what Pam actually said, and — I'll cut the snark — it was quite eloquent.

"The fact of the matter is, if the entire community hadn’t stood up and taken action..."

"... there is a real good chance that we would just all be living with the northern giant hornet, even for years to come. It is a very difficult task to eradicate an insect once it has become well-established.”

Said Sven Spichiger, the pest program manager at the Washington State Department of Agriculture, quoted in "'Murder Hornet' Has Been Eradicated From the U.S., Officials Say The hornet was discovered in a corner of Washington State. Five years later, a massive mobilization has eliminated the invasive species, at least for now" (NYT).

Murder hornets were a public obsession in the year 2020 — the year of the covid pandemic and a hotly contended presidential election. I was skeptical, blogging, on May 3rd:

People are desperate to concern themselves with something other than coronavirus and Joe Biden's sexuality.

I think that's why this story has legs — disgusting spindly legs — "‘Murder Hornets’ in the U.S.: The Rush to Stop the Asian Giant Hornet/Sightings of the Asian giant hornet have prompted fears that the vicious insect could establish itself in the United States and devastate bee populations."

That's in the New York Times, where I would expect a little more care not to randomly give off whiffs of xenophobia. Why are they insisting on calling it the "Asian giant hornet"? They already had "murder hornet" and "giant hornet." Why go big with "Asian"? 

Dr. Looney said it was immediately clear that the state faced a serious problem, but with only two insects in hand and winter coming on, it was nearly impossible to determine how much the hornet had already made itself at home.

Must I worry about 2 insects simply because Dr. Looney — if that really is his name — finds the seriousness "immediately clear"?

That said, I am looking for more exciting articles that are not coronavirus or sex and Joe Biden.

What was the sex and Joe Biden topic? Had you remembered the murder hornets? Yesterday's ephemera. You remember covid, of course, but it's wearing thin. They're cuing up the next scary insect + disease. I see Gavin Newsom has declared an emergency — in California — over "bird flu." Which sounds like "bird flew." I guess that's why they usually say "avian flu." While you wait for whatever insects they've got cued up, you can watch the wonderful old movie "Killer Bees":

But seriously, congratulations to all the good people who swarmed together to conquer the murder hornets.

"Listen, I didn't like the way they did it. I'm gonna just say it out loud, because nobody says it out loud. I didn't like the way it was done publicly."

"I thought they could have done this in a different way because we didn't need to hear all the inner fight. I didn't like it. I'm saying it to you. You were my ride or die. I was going wherever you go and that's what I would do, so I just wanted to say that because I always felt you were going to probably do four years and then try to figure out where to go with Kamala. Then he just wouldn't go. He was like a a a bug. He just kept being there. He was like a like a bug right there, so you felt that's what was needed, and you did...."

Said Whoopi Goldberg to Joe Biden, on "The View" today.

 

I always like to get a chance to use the old "insect politics" tag, but Whoopi likened Joe to a bug. She said it twice. [ADDED: On rewatch, I can see that Whoopi was characterizing Trump as the bug. Biden slaps the table, smashing the insect. I thought we weren't supposed to speak of human beings as vermin, but that's a rule that becomes conveniently invisible.]

I listened to all of what Joe Biden said — in response to the various super-soft questions — and I extracted 3 highlights:

• On why he didn't follow through on the understanding that he'd be a 1-term President: "When I ran for the first... for my first this last term, I said that I was, I thought, saw myself, as a transition president, yeah, transitioning to a new generation of leadership... but what happened was... I found myself having used more time than I would have ordinarily to you know pass that torch."

• Indicating that those who pushed him to give up the nomination were not so much worried that he couldn't handle it but motivated by the desire of "some folks" to get their hands on the power: "I never fully believed the assertions that somehow there was this overwhelming reluctance [about] my running again. I didn't sense that... but uh what I did was I think there were... some folks who would like to see me step aside so they have a chance to to move on. I get that. That just human nature. But that wasn't the reason that I stepped down. I stepped down because started thinking about it...." ("It," I gather from the extended babbling that followed, was his advanced age.)

• Praising Kamala Harris but also saddling her with the burden of what has gone on in his administration: "She is bright, she is tough, she's honorable... Look, she is smart as hell, number one, yeah, she's tough. She was a first-rate prosecutor. She is a United States Senator of significant consequence, and as Vice President, there wasn't a single thing that I did that she couldn't do, and so I was able to delegate her  responsibility on everything from foreign policy to domestic policy."

"RFK Jr. is radical left. He reminds me of this fly that's driving me crazy up here. This fly is brutal. I don't like flies!"

"But RFK Jr. calls you a terrorist group. You know he calls you a terrorist group."

Said Trump at the NRA convention — video.

Brutal????!!!!

Now I know that Trump knows the "insect politics" speech from "The Fly":

"Have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have I. Insects... don't have politics. They're very... brutal. No compassion, no compromise. We can't trust the insect. I'd like to become the first... insect politician. You see, I'd like to, but... I'm afraid, uh... I'm saying... I'm saying I - I'm an insect who dreamed he was a man and loved it. But now the dream is over... and the insect is awake... I'm saying... I'll hurt you if you stay."

Have you ever heard of insect politics? Trump has! 

How to touch a woman.

"Are you prepared to declare a national emergency with respect to climate change?"

BIDEN: "We've already done that"

"So you've already declared that national emergency?

BIDEN: "In a practical— you have a bug on you" pic.twitter.com/XZ7sNKHCEM

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 9, 2023

This gets one of my favorite tags, "insect politics," and it also gets the tag "global warming," which could be construed in this case as a double entendre.

The lanternfly and the unborn baby.

Meade texts me the link to this NYT article: "In the Lanternfly War, Some Take the Bug’s Side/Even as the invasive pest spreads across 11 states and threatens agriculture, lanternflies are winning sympathizers who resist kill-on-sight orders." 

He pulls this quote...

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals offered a less than full-throated defense of the lanternfly. The advocacy group did advise people, however, to carefully consider their actions if it involves “killing any living being, no matter how small or unfamiliar,” said Catie Cryar, a PETA spokeswoman.

... and says:

"Killing any living being, no matter how small or unfamiliar"

Like an unborn living human being? 

He quotes...

The bugs “didn’t ask to be invasive, they are just living their own life,” [said Catherine Bonner, 22, a Temple University student in Philadelphia]. “I would be bummed if I suddenly started existing somewhere I wasn’t supposed to exist and everyone started killing me for it.”

... and says: 

Like suddenly existing somewhere like your mother’s body?

"I tried to convince people to slow down — slow down AI — to regulate AI. This was futile. I tried for years. Nobody listened. No one..."

"Normally the way that regulations work is very slow — very slow indeed. So usually, there'll  be something — some new technology — that will cause damage or death. There will be an outcry. There will be an investigation. Years will pass. There will be some sort of insight committee. There will be rulemaking. Then there will be oversight — eventually regulations. This all take many years.... If you look at, say, automotive regulations: How long did it take for seatbelts... to be required?... This timeframe is not relevant to AI. You can't take 10 years from the point at which it is dangerous. It's too late...."

Said Elon Musk, talking to Joe Rogan, in September 2018 (Episode #1169, embedded below). 

That part came right after a discussion of the way Google, Instagram, and Twitter have us "plugged in like the nodes on the network, like leaves on a big tree." Using these services, he said, we become "one giant cybernetic collective." We're "fueling this thing that's constantly around us all the time and it doesn't seem possible that people are going to pump the brakes."

He said we seem to be following "an instinct," as if we're "the ants that build the anthill." "It feels like we are the biological bootloader for AI." Because we're acting on instinct, the resulting AI is "our id writ large." It is a "projection of our limbic system" — all the "things that we like and hate and fear." This "combination of electronics and biology" is "a cyborg," "a sort of an organism."

At this point, he brings up that Instagram — with more images and video and consequently more engagement — has more "limbic resonance" than Twitter.

I listened to all of that to extrapolate what Musk intends to do with Twitter. We keep talking about how he wants to rid it of censorship and bias and institute freedom of speech. But that would be "our id writ large." And, at least back then, he sounded as though he was deeply worried about what we were creating and doing to ourselves and how terribly hard it is to regulate. The people who work at Twitter now are furiously regulating, but it's not the right kind of regulation. They're just more ants, projecting their limbic system. They don't see the larger phenomenon, as Musk does. 

Maybe Musk just wants to be the consciousness of this "cyborg" while the rest of us are blithely behaving like instinct-driven ants. Maybe he's a benefactor who genuinely wants to figure out how to make AI develop in a way that is good for humanity and not dangerous.

Finally! The steaming pile of insect politics I've been waiting for!

I saw that the NY Post hated it — "'SNL’ somehow screwed up the VP debate fly" — but I — an intense fan of the Jeff Goldblum version of "The Fly" — think it's truly great:

 

That guy in the Post objected to the use of Jim Carrey as Joe Biden combined with Jeff Goldblum — characterized it as "this strange, aspiring 1980s East Village performance art piece." I'll just guess he doesn't know the movie "The Fly." How can you have missed "The Fly"? And I mean the Jeff Goldblum "Fly." Nothing against the Vincent Price "Fly." That's also great. But come on, if you're going to review American satire, there's a certain baseline of experience you need to have in your brain. 

Kudos to "SNL"! Every one of the actors did a fine job and the material was even politically balanced. The only thing I'd change is the color of Kate MacKinnon's lipstick. She played the moderator Susan Page in pretty bright red lipstick, but Susan Page had on a color that made me laugh:

Just a little missed opportunity. They perked Susan Page up a bit. And Kate MacKinnon is already way perked up compared to the hilariously dull Susan Page. Anyway... other than that — excellent. Thanks, "SNL"! 

ADDED: Here's the very best thing in "The Fly" — the part about "insect politics" (and by they way, Kate MacKinnon would make a great Geena Davis, if the Geena Davis part had found its way into the sketch):

 

"Have you ever heard of insect politics? Neither have I. Insects... don't have politics. They're very... brutal. No compassion, no compromise. We can't trust the insect. I'd like to become the first... insect politician. You see, I'd like to, but... I'm afraid, uh... I'm saying... I'm saying I - I'm an insect who dreamed he was a man and loved it. But now the dream is over... and the insect is awake... I'm saying... I'll hurt you if you stay."

("SNL" did not use the "insect politics" material.)

Was the fly on Mike Pence's hair divine intervention?

This is a question that occurred to me as I was recording my reading of the previous post — "Was there any discussion of 'systemic racism' during the debate?," — which has a bit to say about the fly that landed and lingered on Mike Pence's hair during the debate. It made it hard to listen to what Pence was saying, which I see, reading the transcript, was trenchant and substantive. Was the fly a meaningless, random occurrence or could it have been divine intervention? 

Surely, an omnipotent deity, if He cared about the outcome of American elections, could simply cause the person he wanted to win. Why would he merely put a thumb on the scales as We the People weigh the choices? And such a tiny thumb, a little fly, so lightweight that it made no impression on the mind of Pence as it stood staunchly on the man's silvery coif! He had no idea of that thing as he burbled about respect for our earthly justice system. Yet perhaps it tipped the election. Who can know?!

But I had divine intervention on my mind after what Trump said yesterday (transcript):

Hi, perhaps you recognize me? It’s your favorite president. And I’m standing in front of the Oval Office at the White House... A short 24 hours [after receiving the drug Regeneron], I was feeling great, I wanted to get out of the hospital and that’s what I want for everybody. I want everybody to be given the same treatment as your president because I feel great. I feel like perfect. So I think this was a blessing from God that I caught it. This was a blessing in disguise. I caught it. I heard about this drug. I said, “Let me take it.” It was my suggestion. I said, “Let me take it,” and it was incredible the way it worked.... You’re going to get better. You’re going to get better fast, just like I did. So again, a blessing in disguise....

I blogged that video yesterday, here, and then — because it was thematically relevant — I added video of the aged actress Jane Fonda saying "I just think COVID is God’s gift to the Left." So, people are talking about divine intervention. It's an idea that landed on my head and has been lingering — depositing eggs of ideas, one might say, to extend the metaphor. 

By the way, look what The New Yorker put in its crossword on Monday:

23 Down: "________ Jane, celebrity epithet of 1972." So many possible clues for "Hanoi." They had to want to go there. Is it, for them, just a funny old nugget of pop culture? 

Anyway, back to the question whether divine intervention could come in the form of a fly? I think of the play "The Flies" ("Les Mouches") by Jean-Paul Sartre. This is something that occurred to me as I was reading the previous post out loud, but I couldn't talk about the play off the top of my head — my almost certainly flyless head. I hadn't read it in 50 years. I had to end the recording and find some sort of recap. I'll use this, randomly:

Was there any discussion of "systemic racism" during the debate?

I need to read the transcript, in part because I want to do a word search, but in part because I, like so many of you, became distracted when a fly landed on Mike Pence's hair and stayed there for quite a long while. I thought it would never leave. Pence has helmet hair, so zero chance of feeling the weight or movement of the fly, and the fly barely moved. We talked about whether the fly was stuck or dead and whether it symbolized racism, being a discordant black dot on highly structured white hair. 

Here's the transcript. I see, searching it, that Kamala Harris never said "racist" or "racism," let alone "systemic" or "systemically." But Mike Pence said "systemically racist," and it is in this portion of the debate, where I was distracted by the fly in Mike Pence's hair. Let's work through this carefully, beginning with the question framed by the moderator, Susan Page. I've made some corrections to the transcript, which I'll note with boldface.

In March, Breonna Taylor, a 26 year old emergency room technician in Louisville was shot and killed after police officers executing a search warrant in a narcotics investigation, broke into her apartment. The police said they identified themselves. Taylor’s boyfriend said he didn’t hear them do that. He used a gun registered to him to fire a shot, which wounded an officer. The officers then fired more than 20 rounds into the apartment. They say they were acting in self-defense. None of them have been indicted in connection with her death. Senator Harris, in the case of Breonna Taylor was justice done?...

Notice that Page did not mention race at all. Taylor was identified by her age, her occupation, and her city. The question relating to indictment should be right in the zone where former prosecutor Kamala Harris can display the most expertise. Will she show respect for the process? Will she accuse the grand jury of racism and perhaps explain that white people carry racism into their decision-making whether they realize it or not? That is, will she demonstrate a belief in systemic racism or "implicit bias" and invite us to understand and share the belief in an enlightened new way (which is, I think, what the Black Lives Matter movement would like us to do)?

Harris answers:

Let's talk about the VP debate.

1. I don't know if I'll say anything tonight, but here's a place for you to talk. I'll be moderating comments through quickly, at least unless I fall asleep. 

 2. I wish Harris were not wearing false eyelashes. It's causing her to blink a lot, which isn't good for making a connection with the viewer. 

 3. Neither candidate is answering the question asked. Now, Pence is going overtime to get to a question. 

 4. Harris is going big and emotional. 

 5. My son John is live-blogging, here.

6. Harris is more fun to watch than Pence. He’s so earnest and sincere, so steadfast. She’s smirking and reacting, looking surprised, jerking about, seeming pleased to have something to jot down. I wonder if he has a plan to irritate her or if he’s just being his usual, unchanging self. 

7. The fly of racism landed in Pence’s hair. No one is listening. All are staring at the fly, which seems to have become stuck in the silver fibers. Ah! Finally, it flits off. We’re released to return to the substance. 

At the Creature-of-the-Day Café...

... you can look through any window.

I checked the photographs of all 870 insects of Wisconsin, then double-checked a separate page of dragonflies of Wisconsin and wasps of Wisconsin, and I found nothing with wings like that and a red spot on its thorax/abdomen, so I cannot tell you what it is. I know when I saw it, I jumped up, grabbed my camera, and yelled, "It's the murder hornet," and for that, I will encourage you to use the Althouse Portal to Amazon.

Do you remember the New Year's Tick?

It was December 31, 2008, when I wrote, "I'm quite serious about replacing the depressing Father Time/Baby New Year with the New Year's Tick." I was inspired by a BBC headline, "New Year to arrive a tick later" (about a "leap second" that had to be added to the atomic clock). I said:

I think I'll try to draw a picture of the New Year's Tick. Or see if I can get people to send pictures of the New Year's Tick. And I'm going to push for the adoption of the New Year's Tick as the new New Year's mascot, replacing that stupid — and frankly depressing — Old Man and Baby mascot. Or the Ball. What the hell kind of symbol is a Ball?

It's just by chance that I got reminded of the New Year's Tick on the day of New Year's Eve. I was reading a Jennifer Rubin column in The Washington Post, "Resolutions for the media and politicians." One of her resolutions is:

Presidential candidates should promise to cut out their rhetorical ticks. Former vice president Joe Biden needs to stop saying “I’m serious” and “No joke.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) must not start sentences with “So … ” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) cannot say “billionaires” more than 10 times in a debate or speech.

Rhetorical ticks! I love the idea of ticks giving speeches! I'm tantalized by the prospect of using my favorite tag "insect politics" once again, but I've been down that road before across that grassy meadow before. A tick is not an insect!

The spelling should be "tic," but I'm thinking there's something perhaps a little politically incorrect about the figurative use of a word that denotes "severe facial neuralgia with twitching of the facial muscles" (OED).  I like this example in the OED:

1960 20th Cent. Apr. 361 This is an irritating tic of the British Left, this substitution of moral gestures for practical policies.

"Tic" is spelled like that because the medical condition is "tic douloureux" — French for "painful twitching." There is also a condition in horses, "The vice or morbid habit in horses called crib-biting or cribbing," and that has been spelled "tick" since the 18th century. Etymologically, it too comes from the French "tic," so it's easy to argue that "promise to cut out their rhetorical ticks" is just fine and nicely in English and un-French. The horse's crib-biting also has been used figuratively, and the meaning is the same as the figurative "tic": It means "whim."

I'm going to say that Rubin's "tick" is le mot juste if what you're picturing when you picture Elizabeth Warren saying "so" and Bernie Sanders saying "billionaire" looks something like this:

"New York Times columnist accused of eugenics over piece on Jewish intelligence/Bret Stephens faces backlash after suggesting that Ashkenazi Jews are smarter than other people."

Yikes, the heat on Bret Stephens has zoomed up since I blogged about his genius-of-Jews column at 5 a.m. yesterday morning.

The Guardian says:

The rightwing New York Times columnist Bret Stephens...

Eh. I don't think the right wing deserves responsibility for whatever it is Bret Stephens is.

... has sparked furious controversy online for a column praising Ashkenazi Jews for their scientific accomplishments, which critics say amounts to embracing eugenics.

In a column titled The Secrets of Jewish Genius and using a picture of Albert Einstein, Stephens stepped in the eugenics minefield by claiming that Ashkenazi Jews are more intelligent than other people and think differently.... [There were] furious accusations that Stephens was using the same genetics arguments that informed Nazism and white supremacist thinking.

The Guardian is simply collecting tweets. An editorial director at Vice says, "It’s hard to read this column as expressing anything other than a belief in the genetic and cultural inferiority of non-Ashkenazi Jews"; a NYT contributor says, "I don’t think eugenicists should be op-ed columnists"; a "journalist" says, "A Jew endorsing the idea that certain races are inherently superior to other, lesser races, what could possibly go wrong?"; a writer called it "eugenics propaganda" and urged subscribers to cancel.

This is what you get on Twitter: hot takes. There, Stephens is a eugenicist. I do see this mild-mannered correction:

Did Trump just call Bret Stephens a bedbug? No, you could "bring in" the infestation without being one of the bugs.

“The infestation of bedbugs at The New York Times office” @OANN was perhaps brought in by lightweight journalist Bret Stephens, a Conservative who does anything that his bosses at the paper tell him to do! He is now quitting Twitter after being called a “bedbug.” Tough guy!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 28, 2019

To quote the old Rolling Stones song:

To live in this town you must be tough, tough, tough, tough, tough!
You got rats on the west side
Bedbugs uptown
What a mess this town's in tatters I've been shattered
My brain's been battered, splattered all over Manhattan...