A blog about societal, cultural, and civilizational collapse, and how to stave it off or survive it. Named after the legendary character "Crazy Eddie" in Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's "The Mote in God's Eye." Expect news and views about culture, politics, economics, technology, and science fiction.
The U.S. is closely monitoring a potential case of pneumonic plague in Russia after a laboratory worker who studied the disease fell ill and died. Russian authorities insist there is no cause for alarm, but officials have imposed quarantines and other measures at several medical facilities in Siberia. Geoff Bennett discussed more with Annie Jacobsen, author of "Biological War: A Scenario."
A 28-year-old lab researcher at a Russian institute dedicated to studying plague and dangerous pathogens died of pneumonia of an “unknown” origin. The Irkutsk Research Anti-Plague Institute operates in Siberia, where several other people are quarantined. Rospotrebnadzor, the Russian agency that oversees infectious disease, has downplayed the link between the researcher’s death and her work, but the case has prompted questions about the type of plague that causes pneumonia.
Pneumonic plague is a rare, deadly lung infection caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Scientists consider pneumonic plague the most dangerous form of the infection. CNN speaks to medical experts on the researchers death and if there should be greater concern.
While the connection between the victim and her workplace is suggestive, this may not be plague at all and that a worker at a plague lab fell ill and died may be coincidence. Just the same, the FSB doesn't appear to be taking any chances, putting 200 people in quarantine. Here's to this not being the opening scene in The Stand. One pandemic was enough.
This week the average price of diesel in UK petrol stations rose above £2.00 a litre for the first time, just one of many consequences of the surge in worldwide prices caused by the Iran war. Donald Trump and his policies are also hammering his own electorate in the inflated costs at the pump and in the grocery store. So we figured we'd put a parody together to reflect on this, and to give us the chance to sing an all-time classic Dolly Parton number. She was lost to the world a few weeks ago, leaving the planet much diminished in sparkle and heart, but still able to celebrate her incredible legacy of musical belters and of philanthropy, warmth, and support (especially for education and charities). "Jolene" was recorded in Nashville, Tennessee in 1973, its desperate lyrics apparently based on a true story, and also written by Parton within a day or so of another of the most expressive tracks in the country genre, "I Will Always Love You"! Alfie's back at uni now, but found a moment to post-record the bass to give it some umph!
As for Republicans opposing the war and distancing themselves from Pervert Hoover, I think that's as much because of the war's effect on fuel prices as anything else. I lived through the stagflation of the 1970s and today looks a lot like 50 years ago. It reminds me that people get more upset about inflation than unemployment. That's one of the reasons I used to be all over gas prices; they affect people's mood and political choices, as the GOP is figuring out and Pervert Hoover is ignoring. I think he's too focused on the third thing he cares about after self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment, revenge. He can't get over how Iran has frustrated him.
The official music video for The Marsh Family - FINGERTIPS.
We are releasing it on World Suicide Prevention Day (10th September), and wish to point viewers to the vital work of The Samaritans (here in the UK and Ireland). We're supporting their vision and their vital efforts to provide a 24/7 listening service - so that whatever challenges someone might be facing, they can find a moment of genuine human connection, and a safe, judgement free, confidential space to be heard.
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The song is from our debut album "Hollow Chapters" which came out in March 2026 and has been in the UK Folk Album Charts for six months. Thanks to everyone who supported the project on Kickstarter and Patreon.
This was also a fundraiser for Suicide Prevention Month. The link to it is at the video itself on YouTube.
That's a wrap for today. Stay tuned for another brief entry tomorrow.
Stephen Colbert talks about The Late Show winning seven Emmys, what he’s doing with his suits from the show, Jimmy spilling wine on him at a wedding, wearing a tan suit to an event for President Obama, writing a new Lord of The Rings movie with his son, his son John calls to re-enact him getting pulled over in New Zealand, Stephen shaves off his beard, and Stephen has a very special gift for Jimmy.
I'm glad Stephen is enjoying his forced retirement, including writing a new Lord of the Rings movie.* The rest of us miss him.
Love on the Spectrum leads with five nominations, followed by Welcome to Wrexham with four, America's Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders and RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked tied at two, and Summer House with just this one. That's close to how the Gold Derby odds rank their chances. Every expert, 83.3% of editors, and 87.6% of users picked Love on the Spectrum to repeat. The editors and users split on which shows could upset the leader. America's Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders is the choice of the remaining 16.7% of editors but no users, while 7.5% regard RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked as the runner-up with Welcome to Wrexham at 4.3% and new nominee Summer House as the selection of the final 0.5%.
One month later, Gold Derby's prognosticators consolidated around Love on the Spectrum with every editor, 94.1% of experts, and 92.4% of users predicting it would win, while the remaining 5.9% of experts joined 6.0% of users to rally around RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked. Watch Love on the Spectrum win Unstructured Reality Program: 78th Emmy Awards.
Cian O’Clery, Karina Holden and Kelly Martin accepts the Emmy for Unstructured Reality Program at the 78th Emmy Awards.
I applaud the goals of the producers for the program. Congratulations!
Love on the Spectrum is the defending winner, so it's the nominal favorite. That written, it's facing stiff competition from, no joke intended, the competition programs. In fact, that's a pattern this season, as the structured reality program nominees have only one nomination each.
Marcus Kjellberg, Leanne Cole, Kim Lloyd and John Rosser accepts the Emmy for Picture Editing for an Unstructured Reality Program at the 78th Emmy Awards.
Looks like this was a pleasant surprise for them as well as me. Congratuations!
Follow over the jump for a description of National Boyfriend Day.
Seth takes a closer look at Donald Trump facing backlash from his own party for using taxpayer dollars to air campaign ads and his handpicked candidate for Senate in Texas bashing him.
As for Republicans opposing the war and distancing themselves from Pervert Hoover, I think that's as much because of the war's effect on fuel prices as anything else. I lived through the stagflation of the 1970s and today looks a lot like 50 years ago. It reminds me that people get more upset about inflation than unemployment. That's one of the reasons I used to be all over gas prices; they affect people's mood and political choices, as the GOP is figuring out and Pervert Hoover is ignoring. I think he's too focused on the third thing he cares about after self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment, revenge. He can't get over how Iran has frustrated him.
Donald "Pervert Hoover" Trump's solution won't work. First, as Seth pointed out, it will take too long. Second, natural gas has nothing to do with gasoline. Maybe Pervert Hoover thinks people are as confused about natural gas and gasoline as he is. Sigh. That's a small part of why Ken Paxton is upset with Pervert Hoover, who insulted Paxton, then ran a convention in Paxton's home turf that tied Paxton to Pervert Hoover, when (not my) President has record unpopularity. Jailbirds of a feather may flock together, but they might not like the results.
Pervert Hoover calling the taxpayer-funded campaign ads "public service announcements" (PSAs) once again demonstrates that he has the worst case of L'Etat, c'est moi I have ever seen. As far as he's concerned, he is the country, so what's good for him is good for the country. I doubt he realizes that the reverse might not be true.
Seth found plenty to laugh at in the taxpayer-funded campaign ads, but they deserve a serious examination from Leeja Miller, an actual attorney, who stated Your Tax Dollars Just Paid For Trump's Propaganda.
Trump has spent the last week disseminating propaganda paid for by the US Government and claiming they're all "public service announcements." Is the public service in the room with us? How does this compare to past presidential PSAs and propaganda used by authoritarian governments around the world?
Leeja is right; these are bad PSAs and look more like propaganda by authoritarian regimes. Speaking of which, Leeja "reminds me that I never wrote anything for Outstanding Commercial or the winners of Outstanding Promotional Announcement at the News & Doc Emmy Awards. It's on my to-do list." Stay tuned.
Jordan Klepper breaks down the headlines, including an AI summit in Washington that left us with exactly the same amount of federal AI regulation (read: none). Plus, former Trump prosecutor Jack Smith appears before the Senate to answer questions about his “misconduct,” and Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt falls on his proverbial ass on live TV when his ambush of Smith backfires spectacularly. By the way, did anyone see that Atlanta Hawks game? Neither did Jack Smith.
As I wrote in the last closer look, Donald "Pervert Hoover" Trump is interested in three things, self-aggrandisement, self-enrichment, and revenge. Rebranding and empowering A.I. (no, it's not super intelligence; even the best computers have just enough capacity to rival a fly's brain) qualifies as the first two, while going after Jack Smith qualifies as the third. The former will likely succeed. The last failed spectacularly, at least on Tuesday, as Seth Meyers also documented in Sen. Eric Schmitt & GOP Humiliate Themselves at Train Wreck Jack Smith Hearing: A Closer Look.
Seth takes a closer look at Senate Republicans humiliating themselves in a train wreck hearing where they tried and failed to catch former special prosecutor Jack Smith in a gotcha moment.
Trying to make the wheels of (in)justice grind Jack Smith failed, at least this time. Schmitt and the other Senate Republicans were too invested in their narrative to realize that the facts didn't support it. Also, Schmitt only talking about NBA and Men's NCAA games showed that they didn't even consider Women's NCAA. That makes them look sexist as well as stupid. Kudos to Senator and likely future Governor Amy Klobuchar for correcting the record.
Aunt Chippy joins us in Brooklyn, the Yankees hosted the Red Sox for Game 1 of the American League Wild Card Series, Trump told the truth today for the first time ever, had lunch with Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and other A.I. leaders, Trump is still trying to blame everything on Joe Biden and can’t stop falling asleep, Republicans are investigating Jack Smith’s investigation, and we talk to Guillermo & his partner Witney on the set of Dancing with the Stars.
Pervert Hoover falling asleep after calling Joe Biden "Sleepy" is not my first choice for "every accusation is a confession," but it sure works. And, yes, Senator Schmitt is a Schmitthead.
I could go on about MAHA, but it's time to wrap up. Stay tuned for a longer post tomorrow.
In this episode of Retail Archaeology we take a look at Kohl's.
Erik also posted an AI summary.
Retail Archaeology explores the current state of Kohl's by examining inventory management, store presentation, and recent corporate changes. The walkthrough highlights the retailer's expansion of toy selections and partnerships, while documenting the ambiance of empty retail spaces as the store prepares for upcoming holiday seasons.
Based on the video, inventory management and external factors are still issues for Kohl's. At least the company got $150 million back from tariff refunds, $100 million of which it used to buy back stocks. That made the shareholders happy, but customers not so much. As Erik showed, they could have used some of that money for new displays. Priorities. Is it a sign of poor leadership? We'll see.
The chain is also shrinking, as evidenced by my wife going to the closest store and finding that it has closed, apparently one of 27 stores that closed last year. Kohl's also has no plans to expand.
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We probably won't be Kohl's shoppers in the future, as the nearest store is now nearly seven miles away instead of two. We'll go that far for Costco, but not for a department store. If so, there are better stores that distance, like a Macy's, and a Target closer.
That's a wrap for September's blogging. Stay tuned for the first post of October. Spooky season!
Jon Stewart examines the limits of Republican allegiance to Trump after his weekend of wooing President Xi with granite, helipads, and an exclusive tour of the White House ballroom. Will MAGA loyalists denounce Trump's offer to sell weapons to China, America's supposed enemy, or is their frustration with the president a Susan Collins-style display of feigned outrage?
When I called for continuing cooperation between the U.S. and China in U.S.-China EcoPartnerships: The CoDominion plans for sustainability 15 years ago, the U.S. selling arms to China was not what I had in mind! Not only does Donald "Pervert Hoover" Trump have the worst case of L'Etat, c'est moi I have ever seen, he sees everything that isn't a way to aggrandize himself as a commercial opportunity that could enrich himself. I'm reminded of the quote attributed to Lenin, "The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." Pervert Hoover is certainly living down to that sentence.
Seth takes a closer look at Donald Trump saying he rejected an Iranian proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as Republicans openly broke with him and called for an end to the war.
Pervert Hoover was being too accomodating to Xi about the ballroom, that is, if it's really about national security and not just his edifice complex. Also, I'm a geologist and I'm not as into granite as Pervert Hoover thinks he and Xi are.
As for Republicans opposing the war and distancing themselves from Pervert Hoover, I think that's as much because of the war's effect on fuel prices as anything else. I lived through the stagflation of the 1970s and today looks a lot like 50 years ago. It reminds me that people get more upset about inflation than unemployment. That's one of the reasons I used to be all over gas prices; they affect people's mood and political choices, as the GOP is figuring out and Pervert Hoover is ignoring. I think he's too focused on the third thing he cares about after self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment, revenge. He can't get over how Iran has frustrated him.
We are back in Brooklyn for a week of shows, Guillermo won’t be with us until Wednesday because he is busy Dancing with the Stars, no quarterback has been sharper after the game than Giants QB Jameis Winston, Jimmy kicks an annoying Red Sox fan (Matt Damon) out of the audience, Trump hosted President Xi of China for a state dinner, and the monologue gets interrupted by a pothole crew and their angry supervisor (Jon Hamm).
Before I go onto to something serious, that's the best "your momma" bit I've ever seen on TV! As for Pervert Hoover being a hypocrite about state dinners, file that under "there is always a tweet" (or clip, in this case).
Enough of last night's monologues. Follow over the jump for the Emmy Awards won by The Daily Show writers and Jimmy Kimmel.
On the 1st of September, Drexel University made the announcement that they plan to permanently close the Academy of Natural Sciences; the oldest natural history museum in all of the Americas. The news came as a shock to everyone from locals to the the staff of the museum themselves who learned about closure on the same day as everyone else. Now the fate of this historic institution and the millions of rare and valuable artifacts within it hang in the balance. Join me as we fight back against this attack on science and help save the Academy.
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HOW TO SAVE THE ACADEMY:
Step 1: Go to this link https://save-the-academy.org/...
The page at the link urges people to complete five actions, the first of which is sign a petition.
I've signed and so have 108,090 others. The last on the list is "share your story." That's what this blog is about. I'm recycling part of a comment I left on George Morgan Davis (1938 – 2024): The Director’s Cut to kick off my personal story.
On the one hand, may George Davis rest in peace. I have at least one story about the Council of Systematic Malacologists, where I first met George, and the San Diego Natural History Museum that I did not want to commit to paper or pixels while he was alive. On the other, the same instincts that guided George in that tale would be useful. Have you heard that Drexel University, which took over the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and turned it into the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, has decided to shut it down by the end of the month? If George were still with us, he'd be fighting that decision. I located your blog and the PDF you linked to while searching to see if George was still around. He's not, but I'm glad I found your blog.
When I wrote "Sometimes, people with less than pure motives get results, a topic on my to-do list," in 'Mr. Scorsese' and 'The Librarians' both Emmy winners, George Davis, who was curator of malacology at the Academy of Natural Sciences when I knew him in the late 1980s and early 1990s, was one of the people I was thinking about. Now's not the time to tell that story.*
Instead, I'm telling another story, that of Joseph Leidy, who "named the holotype specimen of Hadrosaurus foulkii, which was recovered from the marl pits of Haddonfield, New Jersey" and "also described the holotype specimens of Arctodus (A. pristinus), the dire wolf (Aenocyon dirus), and the American lion (Panthera atrox), among many others." I have connections to all these extinct animals, which Leidy described at the Academy of Natural Sciences.
One of the fiberglass dinosaurs at Pre-Historic Forest, where I worked as a tour guide and consultant, was Hadrosaurus foulkii. It was the high point, literally, as its statue stood at the top of the trail, of the walking tour. I could have used more information about the creature as the first dinosaur described from the United States. It would have been been more informative than making a bad joke about New Jersey (If it were described today, it might have been called Sopranosaurus, to which a heckler once responded "What about Hoffasaurus?" My retort was "You know where you can find Jimmy Hoffa? In the Yellow Pages under concrete." That joke has extra resonance now that I live three miles from where he disappeared.)
I've mentioned several times that I did my M.S. research at Rancho La Brea, where Arctodus in the form of A. simus), the dire wolf (Aenocyon dirus), and the American lion (Panthera atrox all occur. I haven't mentioned Actodus, known as the giant short-faced bear, on this blog before, but I have written about direwolves and American lions, so both are still relevant to me 40 years later. It would be a huge loss to science that I would feel personally if anything happened to the holotypes of these organisms, especially if it were because the museum closed and the specimens were lost.
I could go on with the stories of Edward Drinker Cope, Thomas Say, and Henry Augustus Pilsbry, all of whom were important scientists who worked in my areas of expertise and all of whom did their research at the Academy of Natural Sciences, but it's time to wrap up this post. Maybe later.
The Academy of Natural Sciences has an offer from the William Penn Foundation to keep its doors open for at least one year, but Drexel University, who owns the museum, said it is still deciding what the historic museum’s future will be, NBC10’s Andrew Rowan has the story.
When I signed the petition, I added the comment that Drexel should accept the William Penn Foundation's offer. I'll tell the university president and head of the board of directors the same thing. I hope my readers do, too.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (Ramy Youssef) gets a visit from President Trump (James Austin Johnson) and Natalie Harp (Ashley Padilla) during a nor’easter.
Ashley Padilla as Ashley Harp stole the scene. Two horror movie references, Weapons and Obsession? Perfect. She made a bigger impression than James Austin Johnson's Trump crushing on Ramy Youssef's Mamdani. Donald "Pervert Hoover" Trump loves winners and Mamdani certainly is one of those.
China taking its pandas back messed with a lot of Americans' entertainment and they want new pandas. The media are happy to cater to this desire, which draws clicks and views. Should the Chinese lend pandas back to U.S. zoos, it will make both China, if not Xi, and Biden more popular in the U.S. That's a win-win. Now to see if it actually happens.
It's too late to help Biden, but not too late to help China and Xi. I don't know if it will help Pervert Hoover. His approval ratings are at record lows.
Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che tackle the week's biggest news, like critics calling out Hanukkah Barbie appearing to have a larger nose.
I'm not surprised 20% of Gen Z hasn't had sex. Even by Wikipedia's definition, Gen Z's last birth year was 2012 (I'd place it later), so they're 14. Age of consent in the U.S. ranges from 16 to 18. That's probably 20% right there.
Follow over the jump for Weekend Update's interviews and more.
