7 | State Department Says ‘Do Not Travel to Libya for Any Reason’ (John Hayward for Breitbart. Sep. 5, 2026.)
Well. Where do I go now? (Aside: Whoever sees which of the first six links inspired me to drop a Libya story at the end earns smug self-satisfaction.)
I have a rough three-day work-stretch ahead of me, but the weekday Pook-Emu Bee links streak must continue (I will however compromise on feature images today).
3. $3 Specialty Coffee Is Back In Brooklyn (Ainsley Martinez for Patch Carroll Gardens-Cobble Hill, NY. August 25, 2026.)
I seldom buy coffee when I’m out (firmly in the DIY coffee camp) but $3 for a cup of any size is cheap around these parts. Maybe I’ll find a reason when out with a friend to give it a try.
7. NYers say Citi Bike has gotten too expensive, can a new advocate-led campaign make it cheaper? (Ethan Stark-Miller for amNY. August 18, 2026.)
Hear me out. Instead of stealing my tax money to subsidize City Bike rides for my betters who will then violate traffic laws and threaten to run me over, what if we at least banned the electric City Bikes and made everything more expensive?
9. Taliban facing constant challenge to authority in provinces bordering Central Asian states (Eurasianet. August 25, 2026.)
Economic ties aside, I’ll note that Uzbek and Tajik police don’t take kindly to men having beards, so the Taliban would probably be well-advised (granting I don’t think they’re much into taking advice) to keep their various militants from causing cross-border problems.
Wendy’s has lost its place as America’s runner-up to McDonald's, ending a six-year run as the second-largest burger chain, being surpassed by a resurgent Burger King.
Fox Business reported on August 9, 2026, that Burger King surpassed Wendy’s as the (distant) second largest burger chain in the United States after McDonald’s. According to the report, Wendy’s had passed Burger King in 2020 and held the runner-up spot for six years, but their fortunes have reversed:
Burger King reclaimed the No. 2 position as its U.S. turnaround gains momentum, with domestic same-store sales jumping 8.5% in the second quarter. Wendy’s, meanwhile, reported a 7% decline in U.S. same-store sales, marking its sixth consecutive quarter of contraction.
I am not sure if I have had food from America’s big three burger chains this century, but I had some when I was a kid in the 90s. There are two long-standing McDonald’s and Burger King locations in Downtown Brooklyn, the former being situated on Court Street and the latter on Fulton. There used to be a Wendy’s on Fulton, but it died off some time ago. I do recall having had Wedny’s at the former Pier 17 at South Street Seaport, as in the charming Pier 17 before New York took advantage of Hurricaine Sandy to replace it with something less than charming. Combined with Mixue report from last year and my Taco Bell coverage a few weeks ago, I am working at becoming an authority on fast food that I never eat.
2 | Sixth Circuit Reverses Pretrial Release for Antifa Member Accused of ICE-Related Threats (Eugene Volokh at The Volokh Conspiracy. August 14, 2026.)
Excellent. Quoting the opinion of the Court: “The Bail Reform Act focuses on the danger the defendant poses to ‘any other person and the community.’ The district court’s views on the Executive Branch’s immigration policy have no bearing on that inquiry….”
3 | Tankhouse to Raze Historic Boerum Hill Church After $28.25 Million Purchase (Anna Bradley Smith for Brownstoner. August 13, 2026.)
Funny timing. I was just sitting there thinking to myself “what we need is more ugly tall buildings designed by architects who read too many Superman comic books.” The news has a way of delivering.
6 | I finally switched Linux desktops, and COSMIC is the one to blame (João Carrasqueira for XDA Developers. August 10, 2026.)
Cosmic looks interesting but I will stick with KDE for my daily driver needs for the foreseeable future (certainly at least until Cosmic is “stable”).
7 | Sweet Hamster Days Game Review (Bolts for Anime News Network. August 14, 2026.)
This is certainly a visual novel concept. A good concept? I didn’t say that. But it’s A concept.
The new Fire Emblem looks great. I would be excited but for the fact I’m not planning to get a Switch 2 ($450, going on $500, plus the price of the games makes me a bit squeemish). That curtails my excitement.
As I opined in Staying the Course in Writing in the LLM Moment, I doubt there is much one could do to satisfy baseless allegations of AI usage (not to say that there are not countless cases of bad actors using AI and lying about it). Thus, my approach is to just continue writing as a human being and not worry about the possibility that someone may care enough about what I write to make false allegations. With that being said, this “VellumProof” is an interesting idea that may be worth developing, especially in the context of looking for a publisher.
I agree that “using a feed reader aplication [does not] take away from the [reader’s] experience.” Moreover, I would add from a webmaster perspective that people who offer feeds (they should) and want people to visit their sites should make sure to make visiting worthwhile. There are some sites that I make a point of visiting directly instead of reading through my feed reader. For whatever it is worth, I will note that I don’t think either this site or NLJ suffer from being enjoyed in a stripped-down feed reader or read-it-later interface, but I encourage people to nevertheless stop by once in a while and appreciate my handiwork.
Mr. Bezos is not wrong. While he is on the subject of being right, can he right the wrong that is the Amazon chatbot on store pages? It evolved from Rufus to Alexa and I think it went from war crime to super war crime.
I have a Pocketbook Color and InkPad Color with Koreader. I have almost talked myself into buying an Era for the side buttons, but it would be a bit expensive in light of the fact that I already have two working Pocketbooks. But let it be said Pocketbook comes with my recommendation for anyone who does not “need” the Kindle or Kobo stores.
Not popular enough for me to have been using it (but do attend to the issue if you happen to be running Quick Page/Post Redirect on WordPress).
2. Waylay Callais! (Josh Blackman for The Volokh Conspiracy. April 30, 2026.)
After much anticipation, the Supreme Court finally decided Louisiana v. Callais. (The Chief Justice pronounced it as waylay.) I have some preliminary thoughts.
For the past few months, I’ve been working on a new pet project (excused the pun 😂), called RateMyPet. It’s a social site where users can share photos and stories about their pets, and rate each other’s pets. The idea is to create a fun and engaging community for pet lovers.
I am busy with work today. But today is a day ending in -day that is not Newsletter Satur-day, so I briefly set aside my business to deliver my not-yet-world-famous Pook-Emu Bee links.
The possible 1995 Scottie Pippen-Shawn Kemp trade is an interesting “what if,” but I think things ended up working out decently well for the Bulls in staying put (understatement of the issue).
I was inconsistent in publishing daily Pook-Emu Bee links last week. But I am on the ball this week. If you enjoy the (almost) daily links and commentary, you can also follow via feed.
This reminds me that I need to catch up on the better part of three anime seasons (although I will watch Angel Next Door as a simulcast given my extensive coverage of it).
I haven’t followed the NBA too closely in the last decade but it is nice to see that the Kobe people are still irrationally sensitive (note that Mr. Giddens’ article is fine, but it references a trend I read about in other posts on the matter). For whatever it is worth, Kobe’s 81 was not a “record” since the record is Wilt Chamberlain’s 100, and I don’t think anyone would seriously argue that Adebayo’s 83-point performance (or Chamberlain’s 100 for that matter) were more impressive than Bryant’s 81 in 2006 against the Raptors. Of course, if we are just looking at Bryant, his 81 against the Raptors was arguably less impressive than his 62 in three quarters against a much better Dallas Mavericks squad a few weeks prior.
I can’t draw leaves. I can barely draw stick figures. But maybe you can draw leaves? If you want to draw leaves, I shared an 1880 guide four years to the day.
Brooklyn Borough Hall in Downtown Brooklyn was originally Brooklyn City Hall. Construction began in 1834 and “Brooklyn’s new City Hall opened its doors in the spring of 1849, although the building really wasn’t completed until the end of the 1860s.” After Brooklyn was incorporated into New York City in 1898, City Hall became Borough Hall. According to a history article, there was a movement to demolish Borough Hall in the 1920s. The land for the former City Hall had been given to Brooklyn by Hezekiah Pierrepont (Brooklyn Heights still has a Pierrepont Street). Pierrepont added a provision to ensure that the land would be used for its intended purpose, I quote from Brownstoner:
The deeds and old records were dusted off, and it was revealed that Hezekiah Pierrepont was a crafty planner. The deed to the triangular property, which included both the building and the small park in front of it, had conditions attached to the gifted land. Pierrepont stipulated that no matter what the city wanted to do, no building other than a city hall could be erected on the site. If they violated that, the land could revert to the Pierrepont estate. Borough Hall was there to stay.
I tip my hat to Pierrepont for the good planning. While recent Borough Presidents have had an unfortunate tendency of making Borough Hall tacky with their de facto campaign banners, it is a nice building and monument to Brooklyn’s history. Now if only we could raise the Soviet-style Kings County Supreme Court building which casts a shadow over the whole plaza.
