"Everybody, don't worry about it. Don't panic. You're gonna be on that island as a tourist for decades and decades to come."

"I mean, you gotta be kidding me. This is going nowhere. This is distraction day in the United States of America."

Says Gavin Newsom — yes, he still has a podcast — addressing Trump's plan/"plan" to turn Alcatraz back into a prison, in "And, This is Escape From Alcatraz" (Podscribe, transcript + audio).

"A million plus people, I think it's 1.2 million last year came to Alcatraz and the island. I think the Park service that runs it generates $60 million a year in revenue. Back to my Doge point, this would cost tens of millions of dollars. You have to bring people onto the island, the workforce and everything else. [Trump] specifically directed his Department of Justice and, and he directed Secretary Burgum to start to put together a plan of action on this. I mean, I pray that they're focused on other things and not focused on the folly of this latest distraction...."

You don't have to canoe where there are alligators, but...

... you do have to get to your house when there are bears in the way:

"[I]n about 2.5 feet of water '... their canoe passed over a large alligator.' The alligator then 'thrashed and tipped the canoe over'..."

"... throwing the couple into the water. 'She ended up on top of the alligator in the water and was bitten'.... The gator, which the authorities said was 11 feet 4 inches long, pulled her underwater. Ms. Diekema’s body was later recovered from the water.... [A]lligator trappers... captured two alligators on Tuesday evening. One was more than 11 feet long.... The second gator was approximately 10 to 11 feet long...."

More information about that alligator attack we were talking about yesterday, in "Alligator Kills Woman After Flipping Her Canoe in Florida, Officials Say/The woman was paddling with her husband in shallow water on Tuesday when they passed over a large alligator that thrashed and tipped over their boat, the authorities said" (NYT).

We're told that the husband "attempted to intervene."

I can't imagine canoeing in such shallow water and passing over an animal that size, dipping the oar into that. I presume the water was murky. Perhaps the alligator looked like rocks or a log, but it seems inadvisable to pass that closely even over inanimate objects. 

For the annals of Things I Asked Grok: Is it advisable to canoe in water that is only 2.5 feet deep? Answer: No. I don't think the alligator was the aggressor — sad though it is that the woman died.

Sunrise — 5:21, 5:43, 5:45

Talk about whatever you like in the comments. And please support the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

"The women’s hair is in Utah curls, long waves with straight ends, popularized by Mormon momfluencers. Their makeup is heavy..."

"... the content creator and comedian Suzanne Lambert called it 'Republican makeup,' which she explained to me is 'matte and flat': thick eyebrows and lashes, dark eyeliner on the top and bottom lids, a bold lip, lots of bronzer. 'Inappropriate unless you’re on a pageant stage. And in that case, I would still do it differently,' she said. Their clothes, whether casual or corporate, are form-fitting and often accessorized with giant crosses. They are always thin and almost always white. To each her own. But it is also undeniable that this hyperfeminine and overtly Christian look offers a stark contrast to the often blunt and even brutal language they employ. Another glaring example of this is the horrifying video of Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, at CECOT, the tropical gulag in El Salvador where the Trump administration has sent migrants. She stood there before a group of shirtless prisoners and declared, 'If you come to our country illegally, this is one of the consequences you could face,' while wearing a $50,000 Rolex.'"

Writes Jessica Grose, in "MAGA Beauty Is Built to Go Viral" (NYT).

"The Trump administration is planning to transport a group of immigrants to Libya on a U.S. military plane..."

"The nationalities of the migrants were not immediately clear.... The country is racked with conflict, and human rights groups have called conditions in its network of migrant detention centers 'horrific' and 'deplorable.' The Libya operation falls in line with the Trump administration’s effort to not only deter migrants from trying to enter the country illegally but also to send a strong message to those in the country illegally that they can be deported to countries where they could face brutal conditions.... A major transit point for Europe-bound migrants, Libya operates numerous detention facilities for refugees and migrants. Amnesty International branded those sites 'horrific' and 'a hellscape'...."

The NYT reports.

Meanwhile: "Trump offers illegal immigrants $1,000 to 'self-deport'" (BBC): "The scheme relies on migrants utilising the CBP Home app, which can be used to confirm that person's return to their home country...." So, part of the incentive to self-deport is that you get to go to your home country. The threat of removal to Libya (or Rwanda) is powerful. 

"We’re going to have a very, very big announcement to make. Like, as big as it gets, and I won’t tell you on what. It’s very positive. I’d tell you if it was negative or positive.... It is really, really positive."

"It is really, really positive and that announcement will be made either Thursday or Friday or Monday before we leave. But it’ll be one of the most important announcements that have been made in many years about a certain very important subject.... We’re going to have a great announcement and I’m not necessarily saying it’s on trade. I don’t want you to think it’s necessarily on trade...."

Said Trump yesterday, quoted in "Trump has teased a ‘very big’ announcement. What could it be? The US president would not be drawn on when it will be made, saying ‘either Thursday or Friday or Monday’ before he leaves on a Middle East visit" (London Times).

"I just don't understand how people think that if we allow a dictator, a thug, to decide he's going to take significant portions of land that aren't his, that that's going to satisfy him. I don't quite understand."

Said Joe Biden, quoted in "Five takeaways from Biden's BBC interview" (BBC).

"Gator grabbed her out of the canoe. He tried to fight the gator off. We're at the last place he saw her. He left the paddle here where he last saw her at."

Said the cop quoted in "Alligator attacks, kills woman canoeing with her husband on lake in Florida: 'He tried to fight the gator off'" (CBS News).

"When you say things on a podcast like 'six women, all white, my understanding is you've got a six-pack of white women.'"

"Like that's not — that's something that you shouldn't — that no one should be saying as an officer of the Court and a member of the bar, right?"

Said US District Judge Arun Subramanian to lawyer Mark Geragos, quoted in "Diddy trial judge snaps at lawyer for calling prosecutors a 'six-pack of white women'" (Business Insider).

"The 'rawdogging' phenomenon has apparently gone underground, with young subway-riding professionals... star[ing] at their fellow commuters instead of a book or their phone..."

"... an alleged form of rebellion against return-to-office policies. Curiously dubbed 'barebacking,' the NSFW-sounding practice involves forgoing all tech and either gazing into space or — even worse — making repeated, awkward eye contact with other passengers ...."

The NY Post reports, with a link to a TikTok video that seems to be the wrong link. It goes to something on a completely different subject.

I think the Post is getting pranked here, but it is funny to think of protesting in that manner. The person who just wants to be able to stay at home is not the kind of person who invites conflict on the subway. Upping the slang confusion is another tell.

Sunrise — 5:23, 5:42, 6:02.

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"I look forward to meeting the new Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney. I very much want to work with him, but cannot understand one simple TRUTH..."

"Why is America subsidizing Canada by $200 Billion Dollars a year, in addition to giving them FREE Military Protection, and many other things? We don’t need their Cars, we don’t need their Energy, we don’t need their Lumber, we don’t need ANYTHING they have, other than their friendship, which hopefully we will always maintain. They, on the other hand, need EVERYTHING from us! The Prime Minister will be arriving shortly and that will be, most likely, my only question of consequence."

Writes Trump on Truth Social.

President Trump Participates in a Bilateral Meeting with the Prime Minister of Canada, May 6, 2025 https://t.co/GE1pY6Dws7

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 6, 2025

"Until now, arguments for limiting consumption have tended to come from the left rather than the right."

"They date back at least to the economist Thorstein Veblen, who, at the start of the twentieth century, wrote acidly about the 'conspicuous consumption' engaged in by grandees of the Gilded Age. More recently, a 'degrowth' movement has emerged, which aims to decrease consumption and to de-prioritize G.D.P. growth on the grounds that they are harmful to the environment and that, in any case, accumulating more 'stuff' doesn’t really increase the well-being of people.This argument depends on two concepts familiar to economists: the diminishing marginal utility of consumption, which is, roughly speaking, the notion that if you already own nineteen dolls, buying a twentieth won’t give you much pleasure, and competitive consumption, or the idea that many people are trapped in an endless cycle of trying to outshine their friends and neighbors with their purchases.... 'Trump, degrowther,' the leftist journalist Doug Henwood commented online last week.... 'What he is doing is fairly unprecedented: explicitly saying that he is willing to pay an economic price in terms of growth in order to protect something else that he thinks is valuable and important,' Daniel Susskind, an economics professor at King’s College London who is the author of the 2024 book 'Growth: A History and a Reckoning' told me...."

Writes John Cassidy, in "Donald Trump Versus Barbie/Can the Administration retain public support for a trade policy that could force Americans to buy less stuff?" (The New Yorker).

Why don't the anti-consumption lefties embrace Trump? 

My first reaction to Trump's "Maybe the children will have 2 dolls instead of 30" was: "This reminds me of what those on the left used to say to us

"Marjorie Taylor Greene, you happen to be here. Would you like to run for the Senate? I will fight like hell for you, I tell you."

Said Donald Trump, quoted in "Awaiting possible indictment, Trump rallies in Waco and vows to 'destroy the deep state'/Trump railed against the government officials investigating him, vowing to remove 'the thugs and criminals who are corrupting our justice system' if he is elected again" (NBC News).

You don't see headlines like that anymore!

That's from March 25, 2023, but I'm reading it this morning because that quote was re-quoted in "As Kemp Bows Out of Senate Race, Is It MTG Time?" (NY Magazine). Sample text: "If nothing else, a Greene candidacy will make the Georgia Senate contest one of the most entertaining of the midterm cycle, ensuring that Ossoff’s low-key demeanor doesn’t sedate the electorate."

It sounds like the idea is that MTG is so exciting, people will be newly energized to vote for boring. I'm giving this my "I'm for Boring" tag not because I'm for Ossoff — it's not my state and I haven't followed him — but because I would like politics and government to back way off. Could we just have competence, professionalism, expertise, integrity, hard work, and good judgment? Long experience says no, but I like to keep a tag on the subject if only to mark that it exists as a subject.

"The neighborhood has, in recent years, transformed into a fabulous theme park for young women of some privilege to live out their Sex and the City fantasies..."

"... posting and spending their mid-20s away. They all seem to keep impressive workout routines... have no shortage of girlfriends, and juggle busy heterosexual dating schedules. (The boys they consort with tend to be of the fratty variety.) They work in finance, marketing, publicity, tech — often with active social-media accounts on the side. They have seemingly endless disposable income. They are, by all conventional standards, beautiful. Occasionally, they are brunettes. Whatever their political beliefs, their lives seem fairly apolitical; as one 27-year-old lawyer on a walk with her best friend, both wearing identical puffer jackets, succinctly put their collective interests to me one day in April, 'Brunches, coffees, dinners, drinks with your girlfriends — that type of energy.' (They may be more political than they appear: 'You can have a Cartier Love bracelet and still care about immigrant rights,' said one person who lives in the neighborhood.)"

I'm reading "It Must Be Nice to Be a West Village Girl/A new generation has transformed the neighborhood — and reshaped the fantasy of New York City living" (New York Magazine).

For the record: "Sex and the City" was a current TV show from 1994 to 2004. My own West Village experience was long before that: 1976 to 1981.

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