Pook-Emu Bee: Links For 10-11-26

After a nine-day work/NLJ/newsletter-induced lull in the Pook-Emu Bee, I return with my sometimes-regularly-scheduled daily links.

Speech

1 | Foul Call: New York Times Calls for Canceling Sophie Cunningham in The Athletic (Jonathan Turley. Oct. 11, 2026.)
I largely agree with Mr. Turley. But more material to Ms. Cunningham’s immediate future career prospects, I suspect the WNBA largely agrees with The Athletic.

2 | Reform supporter arrested after comparing Tory councillor to ‘rent boy’ (Robert Mendick for The Telegraph. Oct. 5, 2026.)
This reminds me that I need to prepare for some America at 250 Evacuation Day celebrations next month.

Find Me This Level of Self-Regard

3 | Sen. John Kennedy: I’m Thinking About Running for President (Pam Key for Breitbart. Oct. 4, 2026.)
There’s an obvious “breaking news from 1959” joke here. But my first thought was a less obvious joke. I never thought I’d be able to say that I have something very much in common with the good Senator from Louisiana, but after reading this story I can say with some confidence that he and I have the exact same odds of being the Republican nominee for president in 2028.

4 | Former CNN host Don Lemon considering presidential bid: ‘If the people want me, I’ll do it’ (Misty Siveri for Just the News. Oct. 7, 2026.)
I certainly never thought I’d be able to say I have something in common with Don Lemon, but I can say with some confidence that Mr. Lemon and I have the same number of people clamoring for us to run for President of the United States in 2028.

AI News

5 | Mistral unveils Mistral Large 4 “Le Chonk”, a new frontier in open-weight AI models (Paul for AlternativeTo. Oct. 7, 2026.)
Here in America we have Anthropic pretentiously naming its models “sonnet,” “opus,” or “death manifesto” on us. In France they drop a “le chonk” announcement on everyone. Respect.

6 | Arizona appeals court tosses Gabriel Horcasitas’ road rage sentence over AI-generated victim impact video of Christopher Pelkey (Richard Pollina for the New York Post. Oct. 2, 2026.)
I’m troubled that a public prosecutor thought this was a good idea. Correct result.

Science

7 | Gastrolith shape as an indicator of digestive function and its implications for dinosaurian digestive strategies (Ryuji Takasaki, Yoshitsugu Kobayashi, Anthony R. Fiorillo, Tsogtbaatar Chinzorig, and Gregory F. Funston for Paleobiology. July 20, 2026.)
Eating rocks is kind of metal?

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