AND EVEN MORE CRITTERS
THE PERSON who MAKES the FIRST COMMENT WILL GET TWO CRITTERS
EVERY PERSON WHO COMMENTS WILL GET A CRITTER
RULES IN THE DIARY
WHEN YOU FIND SOMETHING in the DIARY that you LIKE
YOU CAN REPOST IT AS COMMENT in the DIARY
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No Kings Day is coming Saturday after next. What’s on your protest sign?
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The Sunday long read: The Times describes the Giving Pledge in this shared article. It’s the philanthropic effort led by Melinda French Gates, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet, and originally joined by many other billionaire givers. The article describes how it’s falling out of favor particularly in Silicon Valley. Wealthy signatories are “un-signing” because the causes supported are thought to be too liberal. The de-signatories are putting their money into politics instead. It helps to explain some of the recent boost in Republican funding.
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A long listen:
This is a great discussion, but if you’re short on time, some takeaways:
- The US goes into the Iran war with far greater air power that Iran’s but its nature is different. The US has multi-million dollar war planes and missiles. Iran’s air defense depends on inexpensive but far more numerous drones that can be launched from anywhere.
- In sharing its superior anti-drone technology, Ukraine has provided more military aid to the US this year than the US has provided to Ukraine.
- While Iranian missile technology is fairly short range, Iran could mount a drone attack on the continental US. There are predictions that the west coast may be a target if they do.
- In addition to halting oil shipping, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz blocks shipments of nitrogen needed for fertilizers and helium needed for the manufacture of semiconductors.
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Blast from the past (okay, it was just a year ago but what a long year it’s been!) Remember when Elon Musk was swinging a chain saw and DOGE was cutting jobs and grant funding, using high tech data management tools in ways that they would not explain? The wheels of justice are finally grinding on those actions. Two DOGE employees explain their methods.
When Musk deployed DOGE into the National Endowment for the Humanities, which provides vital financial support to research and arts programs, Musk’s staff abruptly choked off more than 1,400 grants, eliminating tens of millions of dollars in public funding within less than a month.
More than 10 hours of newly released video testimony from January uncovers how two DOGE operators relied on ChatGPT and their own largely uninformed judgments to make sweeping decisions about funding for a range of programs and projects — and the people who rely on them. (The Independent)
The attorney has tough questions. The DOGE bros are pretty direct with their answers. ABC’s whole article is short and meaty and worth reading.
"You don't regret that people might have lost important income ... to support their lives?" an attorney asked Cavanaugh about the grant cancellations.
"No. I think it was more important to reduce the federal deficit from $2 trillion to close to zero," Cavanaugh said.
"Did you reduce the federal deficit?" the attorney asked.
"No, we didn't," Cavanaugh said. (ABC)
To be fair, there must be justice for both sides.
A Manhattan judge on Friday ordered that video depositions of two former employees of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency be removed from the internet, after they became fodder for viral social media posts mocking the two men. (NYT paywall)
But the toothpaste is out of that tube. Copies are all over. This DOGE staffer’s explanation of what DEI means is pretty much just what you’d expect but it’s interesting to hear him say it.
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A DOGE staffer assigned to the National Endowment for the Humanities to flag grants for "DEI" tries to explain what "DEI" is. This deposition is part of a lawsuit by the @acls1919.bsky.social, @historians.org and @modernlanguage.bsky.social.
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— 404 Media (@404media.co) March 10, 2026 at 8:19 AM
Let’s not hear “but her emails!” again.
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Friday’s news was that Trump and his Pentagon advisors had no idea that Iran might close the Strait of Hormuz if the US attacked. Word today is that they did know and just did it anyway.
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Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, warned Trump striking Iran could prompt it to close the Strait of Hormuz with mines, drones & missiles. Trump acknowledged the risk but assumed Tehran would capitulate and the military could handle it if it didn’t. (WSJ)
www.wsj.com/politics/nat...
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— Hoodlum 🇺🇸 (@nothoodlum.bsky.social) March 13, 2026 at 7:25 PM
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War news hasn’t all been positive. Now the FCC threatens the freedom of the press.
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The country faces a farm labor shortage. Who could meet the need? Trump has the answer.
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Another example of a situation that should have been foreseen...
Massive forced deportation was going to lead to labor shortages, rising inflation, shortages and more... it was an obvious market outcome.
Yet the administration seems flat footed on this.
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— Timothy McBride (@mcbridetd.bsky.social) March 15, 2026 at 5:16 AM
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In other ICE news…
Minnesotans stage a dance party.
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Washington joins the states with “millionaire” taxes.
Millionaire taxes are working.
California fired the first shot in 2004, tucked inside a mental health ballot measure. New Jersey followed in 2020. Massachusetts voters approved the "Fair Share Amendment" in 2022. And now Washington State - a state that has never had a personal income tax - is on the verge of enacting a 9.9% tax on income over $1 million.
The interesting story isn't just which states are doing it. It's what happened to revenue projections once these taxes actually went into effect. In Massachusetts, the state collected more than double what it initially forecast. In California, what started as a modest mental health levy now generates between two and three and a half billion dollars a year. (DaveManuel.com)
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Sunday Science
New drugs to fight drug-resistant infections are few.
The pipeline of new drugs to fight superbugs remains “worryingly thin” and has shrunk by 35% in the last five years, experts have said, predicting the annual number of deaths linked to drug-resistant infections globally will double to 8 million by 2050.
The number of antimicrobial projects from large pharma companies has shrunk by 35% over the past five years, from 92 to 60 medicines in development, according to a report from the Access to Medicine Foundation (AMF), a Netherlands-based non-profit group, backed by the Wellcome Trust. Only five medicines are in development for children under five, who are more vulnerable to infections…
More than 1 million people die each year directly from drug-resistant infections but they contribute to 4 million deaths worldwide a year. Both figures are forecast to double by 2050 – to nearly 2 million and more than 8 million respectively...
New therapies mean cancer can be fought, “but then sadly patients succumb to an infection that was treatable a decade ago”, Lord Darzi said at the launch of the AMF report, adding: “You don’t win a game if you have three good strikers and your defence is weak.” (The Guardian)
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Boosting the alkalinity of sea water may help sequester carbon.
For four days last August, a thick slick of maroon bruised the waters of the Gulf of Maine. The scene, not unlike a toxic red tide, was the result of 65,000 litres of an alkaline chemical, tagged with a red dye, that had been deliberately pumped by scientists into the ocean.
Though it sounds perverse, the event was part of a scientific experiment that could advance a technology to combat both global heating and ocean acidification. Ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE), as the approach is called, acts like natural weathering, but on human – rather than geological – timescales.
“The ocean is already incredibly alkaline. [It holds] 38,000bn tonnes of carbon, stored as dissolved bicarbonate, or baking soda,” says Adam Subhas, the lead oceanographer of the research team who announced early results from their test at the
Boosting this natural alkalinity using a chemical antacid should, in theory, encourage the ocean to absorb more carbon. Over a large surface area, and in combination with sharp emissions reductions, OAE could prevent global temperatures exceeding 2C above preindustrial levels, while locally reducing ocean acidity, which is now higher than at any point in the past million years and poses a dire threat to marine life and fisheries.
Licensed by the US Environmental Protection Agency and overseen by scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the experiment took place 50 miles off the coast of Massachusetts in an area commonly fished for cod, haddock and lobster. (The Guardian)
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The Evening Shade three Sundays ago highlighted an NPR article on Moltbook, the experimental social media where AI agents chat with one another. It may present some risks.
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"AI social networks are not merely places where AIs interact," writes Roman V. Yampolskiy.
"They are environments in which agents can compound their capabilities and coordinate at scale—and environments in which humans can lose control."
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— Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (@thebulletin.org) March 13, 2026 at 11:06 AM
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The Ig Nobel ceremony is moving because the committee believes the US isn’t safe for international travelers.
The 36th annual ceremony will be held in Zurich. It’s usually held in the US in September, a few weeks before the actual Nobel prizes are announced.
“During the past year, it has become unsafe for our guests to visit the country,” Marc Abrahams, master of ceremonies and editor of the magazine, told the Associated Press in an email interview. (The Guardian)
What are the Ig Nobels? According to the Annals of Improbable Research, honorary awards for “achievements so surprising that they make people LAUGH, then THINK.” If you have time for that, there’s a whole rabbit hole of past presentations to enjoy.
2024 : 2023 : 2022 : 2021 : 2020 : 2019 : 2018 : 2017 : 2016 : 2015 : 2014 : 2013 : 2012 : 2011 : 2010 : 2009 ; 2008 : 2007 : 2006 : 2005 : 2004 : 2003 : 2002 : 2001 : 2000 : 1999 : 1996 : 1995
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Today is the birthday of...
Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) - The 7th President of the U.S.
Liberty Hyde Bailey (1858-1954) - Co-founder of the American Society for Horticultural Science.
Harold L. Ickes (1874-1952) - Politician who was responsible for implementing the New Deal (FDR).
Harold LeClair Ickes was an American administrator, politician and lawyer. He served as United States Secretary of the Interior for nearly 13 years from 1933 to 1946, the longest tenure of anyone to hold the office, and the second longest-serving Cabinet member in U.S. history after James Wilson. Ickes and Labor Secretary Frances Perkins were the only original members of the Roosevelt Cabinet who remained in office for his entire presidency.
Ickes was responsible for implementing many of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs. He was in charge of the Public Works Administration, a major relief program, and led the federal government's environmental efforts.
In his day, he was considered a prominent liberal spokesman, a skillful orator and a noted supporter of many African-American causes, although he at times yielded to political expediency where state-level segregation was concerned. Before his national-level political career, in which he did remove segregation in areas of his direct control, he had been the president of the Chicago NAACP. Ickes supported an American invasion of Francoist Spain before the Allied invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch.
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Lightnin' Hopkins (1912-1982) - Considered one of the greatest guitarists of all time.
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Dee Snider (1955-Still Living) - Lead singer of Twisted Sister.
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On this day in...
1820 - Maine was admitted as the twenty-third U.S. state.
1892 - New York unveiled the automatic voting machine.
The first voting machine used in an election (in Lockport, New York, in 1892) was the invention of safemaker Jacob H. Meyers. It was a massive device, too cumbersome for wide spread use. Four years later, the United States Voting Machine Company of Jamestown marketed an improved device which soon secured widespread use throughout New York State. This organization was the parent of the Automatic Voting Machine Corporation of Jamestown, New York, that manufactured the AVM voting machines. Samuel R. Shoup followed this example, built his own lever voting machine and founded the Shoup Voting Machine Corporation in 1905. The two rivals grew to dominate the American market. By 1928, one of six citizens voted on an AVM or Shoup voting machine. Many of these machines were still working and used in the 2000 presidential election. They were only eradicated due to the Help America Vote Act of 2002.
Interestingly, about 5,100 old lever machines were brought out of retirement and used in New York's mayors race in the fall of 2013. Though they were replaced with a $95 million electronic system in 2010, it took 72 days to determine the winner of a special election for State Senate in Brooklyn in 2012. The Board of Elections determined that it couldn't collect, reprogram and test all of the electronic machines in the three weeks between the September 10 primary and a possible runoff on October 1. (sos.la.gov)
1937 - The first blood bank opened in Chicago.
1965 - T.G.I. Friday's opened their first restaurant in N.Y.
1985 - The first Internet domain (symbolics.com) was registered.
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It’s National Kansas Day!
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It’s Everything You Think Is Wrong Day, on which you are reminded not to think about things because you’re wrong. Beware starting sentences with “I think” on this day.
We might be wrong, but we've not been able to identify the origin of this day. You might be right, but that's another day. It's not this day. So, you'd be wrong. (National Day Calendar)
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It’s National Pears Helene Day!
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It’s National Shoe the World Day. (Visit Soles4Souls to donate shoes to needy people around the world.) The president himself has been celebrating early.
Donald Trump is reportedly handing out his favorite brand of affordable dress shoes to all his courtiers — and many are “afraid” not to wear them in front of him.
Recipients have reportedly made sure to wear them when Trump is near, apparently sometimes reluctantly...
“It’s hysterical because everybody’s afraid not to wear them,” one insider told the WSJ. “All the boys have them,” another said. (The Independent)
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It’s Mothering Sunday in the UK. Cheers to British (shorthair) mothers.
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It’s Buzzards Day. Take a buzzard to lunch.
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It’s the International Day of Action Against Canadian Seal Slaughter
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It’s the Ides of March and also National Brutus Day.
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It’s Pretzel Sunday
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It’s National Peanut Lovers Day. Not to be confused with National Peanut Butter Lovers Day, which was last week on March 1, or National Peanut Day on September 13.
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It’s the International Day to Combat Islamophobia and the International Day Against Police Brutality. Someone remind the US “Department of War” and ICE.
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And it’s Quenelles Day. A quenelle is a bite sized torpedo shape that might be made of mashed potatoes, ice cream, whipped cream, or any soft smooth mixture. Julia Childs made fish quenelles.
Tomorrow is National Panda Day.
