Thank you as always for reading The Newsletter Leaf Journal. If you enjoy this issue and have not done so already, you can follow this newsletter by signing up for our weekly email, adding our RSS feed to your favorite feed reader, or checking in on our archive page.

We have a packed newsletter with new articles, a new around the web link-sharing format, our most-visited article ranking, and some Memorial Day links.

Leaves from the week that was

In celebration of our site’s birthday on April 27, 2026, I laid out a schedule wherein, beginning May 2 and culminating May 27, I would publish one article every five days featuring my blogging "wisdom." Pursuant to that schedule, I published my fourth and fifth blogging wisdom project articles between the mailing of Newsletter 280 and the instant newsletter. On the 17th, I mailed The Emu Café and Blog Hospitality, in which I offered my thoughts in essay-form on how the internet writer or "true blogger" should think about his or her visitors, using my own 2020 article Welcome to The Emu Café as the initial prompt. On the 22nd, I published Choosing How to Build and Host a Blog, presenting my thoughts on things to consider when deciding how to build and host a blog or writing website.

Readers can look forward to the final part of my six-part blogging wisdom series on May 27 (or on The New Leaf Journal if you happen to be reading this newsletter after May 27.)

In between the two blogging wisdom entries, I published ActivityPub for WordPress and fediverse:creator, wherein I explained how I used my author profile on The Emu Café Social as the fediverse:creator tag for my New Leaf Journal articles. In short, if one of my New Leaf Journal articles is shared on Mastodon or another "Fediverse" social server that supports fediverse:creator tags, you will see a small tag with a link to my Emu Café Social profile. This is an admittedly niche article, but it should be of interest to ActivityPub fans and WordPress admins.

Finally, I counterintuitively conclude our weekly NLJ recap with my first article of the week: April 2026 at The New Leaf Journal. Even if you are up to date with everything I published in April, you can enjoy a my hitherto unpublished spring inflatable decoration photograph and the official list of our 24 most-visited articles last month.

Over on The Emu Café Social, I published four daily-links posts Pook-Emu Bee links for 05-18, 05-19, 05-20, and 05-22. The week featured one new "thing I learned" post on the Italy-Azerbaijan Trade Partnership.

The final ECS post I will cover doubles as news. In Emu Café Social and ATmosphere, I discussed installing and configuring a new WordPress plugin on ECS called ATmosphere. With that, social.emucafe.org is now an account on Bluesky and all of my new posts will automagically appear on there.

Leaves from around the web

I decided to change the formatting for my links from around the web section. I had previously used markdown quotation blocks for my link comments. Starting with this newsletter, I will use quotation blocks for actual quotes from the articles and include at least one quote from each article. After (or before) the quote, I will add my patented link commentary, which I trust both you and the broader internet have come to love.

Remembering a great driver

[1.] Farewell, Rowdy (Neil Paine. May 22, 2026.)

Kyle Busch spent his entire life racing as if every lap was an argument he intended to win. And just a week ago, he was still making those arguments — and still winning them. At Dover last Friday, he added yet another Truck Series victory, No. 69, to his all-time series record. But six days later, and three days before he was scheduled to climb back into a Cup car for the Coca-Cola 600, Busch was suddenly gone.

Kyle Busch, who entered the scene shortly after his older brother Kurt won the 2004 top-series championship, had a great career (and almost certainly had some more wins left in him) before his tragic and untimely death.

Since the modern era began in 1972, only two other drivers, Jeff Gordon (11) and Dale Earnhardt Sr. (10), had more — and they might be the two greatest drivers in series history.

[2.] Kyle Busch's No.8 to Be Reserved Until His Son Enters NASCAR (Dylan Gwinn for Breitbart. May 22, 2026.)

Richard Childress Racing (RCR), the team that Busch drove for, announced on Friday that it would reserve the No. 8 for whenever the late superstar’s 11-year-old son, Brexton, is ready to get behind the wheel.

Lest anyone thinks that may be premature...

Brexton began racing at the age of 5 and has already won over 100 races...

I'm about to demonstrate why I'm an S-tier link commentator

[3.] Man in Japan calls in bomb threat because he doesn’t want to go to his own work farewell party (Casey Baseel for SoraNews24. May 22, 2026.)

The [police] officer, a man in his 20s attached to the central division of the Saga Prefectural Police, was supposed to be leaving the force at the end of March ... Apparently one more after-work night with his coworkers was one too many for his tastes, though.

There are good and bad ways to go about things even when your heart is in the right place. In most cases—this one included—calling in a bomb threat will land in the latter category.

[4.] Google is pitching an AI agent ecosystem to consumers who may not buy it (Sarah Perez for TechCrunch. May 21, 2026.) (HT Rodrigo Ghedin)

[Y]ou could use it to organize a neighborhood block party — as if that would require any management beyond a group chat or some emails.

It'd be cool if Google's AI agent could replace you at a party you don't want to attend.

Skunk stories

[5.] Colorado police rescue unlucky skunk stuck in a cup (Daniel Cody for the New York Post. May 9, 2026.)

The skunk, apparently grateful for the rescue, decided not to leave a the parting gift of near-permanent odor and “waddled off” into the night.

Why does Mr. Cody seem to think this is good or acceptable?

[6.] I Was Sprayed by a Skunk (South Plains Wildlife Rehab (via Owls in Towels). Originally published November 10, 2017.)

The Great-horned owl was sprayed by a skunk and had multiple baths.

Eureka! That is why you don't want a "parting gift" from a skunk.

No part of the courts is safe

[7.] "Instead, Claude Just Made Up More Stuff" (Eugene Volokh at The Volokh Conspiracy. May 19, 2026.)

Eugene Volokh quoting Judge Jerry Edwards Jr. (W.D. La.):

Mr. Wilkins[, one of plaintiff's lawyers,] took full responsibility. Wilkins explained that he utilized an artificial intelligence ("AI") platform, Claude, to generate the brief. As part of his process, Mr. Wilkins had Claude's draft reviewed by a human law clerk, who discovered that Claude had hallucinated quotations. Mr. Wilkins then confronted Claude with the identified errors and entrusted Claude to correct them. Instead, Claude just made up more stuff.

"Claude just made up more stuff" is a beautiful line.

[8.] Chief Judge Moore Commissions Bizarre AI Cartoon About The Federal Circuit Without Judge Newman (Josh Blackman at The Volokh Conspiracy. May 19, 2026.)

Given the standard applied to Judge Newman, this colossal error in judgment by Chief Judge Moore should warrant some sort of cognitive evaluation. How could she possibly think this was a good idea—so good to hire a PR firm to publicize it? Chief Justice Roberts, if you're reading, take away her cases, immediately. Hell, this video is so bad, Judge Moore may have failed to serve during "good behaviour."

I have been following the saga involving Judge Newman in the United States' only federal circuit court with its exclusively subject-matter (instead of geographic) jurisdiction, so one of my first thoughts when I saw a blog post about this video was "is Judge Newman in it?"

Speaking of the courts, the collision of your passion and your day job

[9.] Automating oral argument (Adam Unikowsky. July 7, 2025.)

Courts should permit robot lawyers at oral arguments and shouldn’t discourage this practice.

Interesting insight. I wonder what the judges think. I know! Let's consult see if the honorable Samuel Alito has any thoughts.

[10.] Justice Alito: "Just out of curiosity, do you think we should ask Claude to decide this case?" (Josh Blackman at The Volokh Conspiracy. April 1, 2026.)

Justice Alito:

Well, just out of curiosity, do you think we should ask Claude to decide this case?

Counsel Unikowsky:

No. I --I adhere to the wise judgment of --of this Court.

Recycling and reusing

[11.] Quantifying recarved Roman imperial portraits: from Augustus to Carinus (Francescoa Bologna and Raffella Bucolo for Journal of Roman Archaeology. April 13, 2026.) (HT Guillermo Cavajal at LBV for link & summary.)

This paper investigates the chronological and geographical evolution of the practice of recarving sculpture in the first three centuries CE...

They didn't manage to carve over all of the Nero sculptures, however. There's something to be said for overwhelming your posthumous enemies with volume.

[12.] New York City’s Composting Delusion (John Tierney for City Journal. April 15, 2025.)

After forcing New Yorkers to spend billions of dollars for the privilege of sorting their garbage into recycling bins, municipal officials have found an even costlier—and grubbier—way for residents to spend their time in the kitchen. They must now separate food waste into compost bins...

Say what one will but the mandatory composting bins are a boon for rats.

[13.] NYC turns compost, greasy pizza boxes into 'black gold' (Katherine Donlevy for the New York Post. June 13, 2025.)

I was excited to learn how New York City is turning pizza boxes into nice clean oil.

The arduous process sees the apple cores, spoiled spinach bunches and greasy boxes squeezed, cooked and pummeled for months ... until they are transformed into a fine, nutrient-rich dust that is returned to New Yorkers for their very own gardens.

I guess that's still cool although I would exercise caution before eating things grown in New York City gardens.

The dead web is teaming up with fads to make a comeback

[14.] Gone but Not Forgotten: Recovering the Dead Web (Sawood Alam for Internet Archive Blogs. April 23, 2026.)

In 2024, the Pew Research Center published a link-rot study, “When Online Content Disappears”. They stated, “38% of webpages that existed in 2013 are no longer accessible a decade later”.

I use the official Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer on both NLJ and ECS so let no one say that I'm not doing my part.

[15.] More than 340 local news outlets are limiting the Internet Archive’s access to their journalism (Andrew Deck and Hanaa' Tameez for Nieman Lab. May 20, 2026.)

Our new analysis shows that more than 340 local news sites across the United States are now limiting the Internet Archive’s ability to access and preserve their stories.

It would be good for the Internet Archive to successfully implement methods to block the AI scrapers. Unfortunately, its early efforts may be blocking Mullvad VPN customers (speaking from experience).

Let's check in on great innovations in education

[16.] New Bronx High School of Hip Hop will use music as ‘vehicle for learning’ for public school kids (Katherine Donlevy for the New York Post. May 13, 2026. )

“M-ing, DJing, Graffiti, Breaking, and Knowledge of Self — these connect directly to literacy, mathematics, science, technology, entrepreneurship, media and then cultural leadership. It’s not like we have these music electives. It’s more like hip hop is embedded through the academic program as a rigorous framework”...

Some day I'll figure out how New York City spends more money per student than any other city in the United States while achieving middling outcomes. I think I'm getting warmer but I'm not quite there yet.

[17.] Eighth-Graders Given Class Project to Design a Brothel (Oliver JJ Lane for Breitbart. May 23, 2026.)

Children in an eighth-grade class at a Catholic high school in Kevelaer, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, were assigned the classwork of designing an inclusive brothel, including floor plans.

I had my issues with my high high school but I suppose that I should be grateful we had a cathedral project instead of an "inclusive" brothel project.

Articles about clean New York City waterways

[18.] Meet TINA, a Tank Full of Mussels Helping to Clean Up Newtown Creek (Pamela Rafalow Grossman for Greenpointers. May 18, 2026.)

There’s a new “neighbor” in Greenpoint: TINA, an aquaculture tank, set up beside the Newtown Creek and right next to Kingsland Wildflowers (520 Kingsland Ave.). For six months, TINA will be helping to clean the creek’s water; and it’s worth a visit to see how this important work is getting done.

I haven't been to Newton Creek since 2024. Regarding that most recent trip, I wrote:

To be sure, I could smell why the work boats were needed.

Thus, I have two take-aways. First, they will need many mussels. Second, this reminds me of one of the many reasons I don't eat mussels.

[19.] NYC’s cleanest and filthiest Long Island Sound beaches revealed in report card (Katherine Donlevy for the New York Post. May 19, 2026.)

The annual report card rates how healthy the waters from the Hell’s Gate Bridge to Block Island are for human swimmers by randomly testing for bacteria and pathogens throughout the summer.

I have lived in New York City for my entire life (more than 30 years) and I could not have named any of these beaches. I have also never had E. coli poisoning. Coincidence?

Pulling some online commerce links out of the link closet

[20.] Etsy Accuses Game Boy Publisher Of Piracy For Selling Its Own Games (Jack Yarwood for Time Extension. November 12, 2024.)

According to the owner of FerranteCrafts, the e-commerce site is accusing the Game Boy publisher of piracy, despite the small manufacturer only selling products it has made itself.

One of the many wonders of dealing with platforms.

[21.] Major Japanese video platform reinstates Visa payment after deleting a lot of its adult content (Verity Townsend for Automation West. February 21, 2025.)

Over the past two years, several international credit card brands have suspended payments on Niconico ... The reason for these suspensions is believed to be due to the adult content that was previously hosted on Niconico.

I have no insight into the issue in the article, but I remember I watched an anime or something anime-adjacent that was officially available on Nico Nico about 14-16 years ago. I don't remember what it was. Hadn't thought of it since. It does have a cool logo.

Most-turned leaves of the newsletter week

I use a privacy-friendly and entirely local tool called Koko Analytics (see my 2025 article) to track page visits. In each issue of the newsletter, I list our five most-visited articles, according to Koko Analytics, for the one-week period beginning with Saturday and ending with Friday. Below, you will find our most-visited articles for the week of May 16-22 with notes on their cumulative ranking statistics going back to 2021.

1. Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search (NAF. April 17, 2025.)
   This Year: 21 appearances and 19 top placements.
   Cumulative: 48 appearances and 40 top placements.

2. Adding noai.duckduckgo.com as Custom Search Engine (NAF. January 20, 2026.)
   This Year: 17 appearances and 2 top placements.

3. Amazon “Cargo Bikes” in Brooklyn (NAF. April 9, 2025.)
   This Year: 12 appearances.
   Cumulative: 47 appearances and 8 top placements.

4. Bam Adebayo’s 83 and Scoring Averages in 60+ Point Game Seasons (NAF. April 15, 2026.)
   First appearance.

5. Finally Solving My HDMI ARC Problems (NAF. December 5, 2025.)
   This Year & Cumulative: 2 appearances.

Analysis

2026 Newsletter Week 2021 was the most dramatic newsletter week of the year, with the top two articles being separated by a single recorded page visit in my Koko Analytics stats while posting their best weeks of 2026. Catching 151 Pokémon in Google Search opened up a good lead early in the week, but Adding noai.duckduckgo.com as Custom Search Engine briefly pulled ahead with a huge day on Wednesday (possibly prompted by some Google AI search news). We had one new entry in Bam Adebayo’s 83 and Scoring Averages in 60+ Point Game Seasons, which made its debut thanks to a strong Wednesday and Thursday, likely also securing a position in our May top-24.

Beyond the race for the top spot, last week was arguably more notable for the articles that missed the top-five than the ones that made it. The last article out was Usagi Drop: A Complicated Anime Pick* (Jan. 12, 2021). It sits in 13th overall for 2026 as of the mailing date of this newsletter, so its performance this year suggests that it should crack a weekly ranking eventually. But it has not appeared in a weekly ranking since 2022. In 7th was Brooklyn Heights Halloween Scarecrow* (Nov. 8, 2023). That falls into the "I don't know" category. In 8th we had Bottom-tier Character Tomozaki – S2 Review* (April 5, 2024), an anime review which had previously not lived up to my expectations. After a few more usual suspects, we had Summer, Cicadas, and the Girl – VN Review* (June 19, 2022), which is one of my 29 full al|together visual novel reviews and had what I believe was the best-ever week for an al|together review in terms of visits. All four of these unusual suspects posted enough visits to have made a top-five in weaker weeks.

Memorial Day leaves

Memorial Day comes up on Monday. While one could be led to believe based on email and marketing promotions that Memorial Day is first and foremost about having a day off from work, holding a barbecue, or availing oneself to online sales, the true purpose of the holiday in the United States is remembering the American soldiers who died in service of their country. I have published several Memorial Day articles over the years which focus on Memorial Day, so I figured this newsletter is a good occasion to share them.

Back in 2020, I published Remembering Second Lieutenant Carleton Burr for Memorial Day. Lt. Burr served, and perished, in the first World War. I was inspired to share his story because I had read about him in a 2018 Associated Press article. While looking for more information, I came across a chapter about Lt. Burr in volume III of Memoirs of the Harvard Dead in the War Against Germany. Continuing with the World War I theme, back in 2023, I re-published a 1917 poem by Helen Leah Reed titled Flowers for Brave Soldiers. The full poem and a link to her 1917 poetry collection are included in the article. In May 2024, I published The McLaughlin Park World War I Memorial, which includes my photos of the Brooklyn memorial tablet and a list of the memorialized soldiers.

I re-published two older Memorial Day poems in the pages of NLJ. In 2022, we have Memorial Flowers – 1880 Memorial Day Poem, which features a poem by "M. M." which appeared in the May 25, 1880 issue of Harper's Young People (linked in the article). One year prior, I published An 1895 Poem on Memorial Day and Piece by Theodore Roosevelt. I led with an 1895 article by then-future President Theodore Roosevelt about Pickett's charge followed by a memorial day poem that appeared in the same issue of the magazine.

Taking leaf

Thank you as always for reading The Newsletter Leaf Journal. If you enjoyed this issue and have not done so already, you can follow this newsletter by signing up for our weekly email, adding our RSS feed to your favorite feed reader, or checking in on our archive page.

I hope everyone enjoyed my new around the web link format.

Until May 30,
Cura ut valeas – Nicholas A. Ferrell.