In Dobrzyn, Hili is at a loose end:
Hili: I’m sitting and thinking.
A: Productively?
Hili: No, but I have nothing else to do.
Hili: Siedzę i myślę.
Ja: Produktywnie?
Hili: Nie, nie mam nic innego do roboty.
On Gibraltar, PCC(E) has made the acquaintance of a pregnant macaque (aka a ‘Barbary ape’):
In Cambridge, England, 10 years ago, a duck:
3rd May 2012 #incambridge pic.twitter.com/tmN8aDDqk5
— A Cambridge Diary (@acambridgediary) May 3, 2022
And, as ever, Auschwitz Memorial reminds us:
3 May 1922 | A Pole, Tadeusz Szwed, was born in Krakow.
He was deported to #Auschwitz on 14 June 1940 in the first transport of Poles.
No. 37
In 1944 he was transferred to KL Neuengamme and then to KL Buchenwald.
Fate unknown. pic.twitter.com/TiB1WL5g4Y— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) May 3, 2022
On this day:
1715 – A total solar eclipse is visible across northern Europe and northern Asia, as predicted by Edmond Halley to within four minutes accuracy.
1802 – Washington, D.C. is incorporated as a city after Congress abolishes the Board of Commissioners, the District’s founding government. The “City of Washington” is given a mayor-council form of government.
1830 – The Canterbury and Whitstable Railway is opened; it is the first steam-hauled passenger railway to issue season tickets and include a tunnel.
1913 – Raja Harishchandra, the first full-length Indian feature film, is released, marking the beginning of the Indian film industry.
1921 – Ireland is partitioned under British law by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, creating Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland.
1948 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Shelley v. Kraemer that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to blacks and other minorities are legally unenforceable.
1952 – Lieutenant Colonels Joseph O. Fletcher and William P. Benedict of the United States land a plane at the North Pole.
1957 – Walter O’Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, agrees to move the team from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.
1963 – The police force in Birmingham, Alabama switches tactics and responds with violent force to stop the “Birmingham campaign” protesters. Images of the violent suppression are transmitted worldwide, bringing new-found attention to the civil rights movement.
1978 – The first unsolicited bulk commercial email (which would later become known as “spam”) is sent by a Digital Equipment Corporation marketing representative to every ARPANET address on the west coast of the United States.
1979 – Margaret Thatcher wins the United Kingdom general election. The following day, she becomes the first female British Prime Minister.
2007 – Three-year-old British girl Madeleine McCann disappears in Praia da Luz, Portugal, starting “the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history”. – Just last month, a German man in jail for other unrelated offences was named as a suspect.
Births:
1844 – Richard D’Oyly Carte, English talent agent and composer (d. 1901)
1896 – Dodie Smith, English author and playwright (d. 1990) – Author of The Hundred and One Dalmatians and I Capture the Castle.
1898 – Golda Meir, Ukrainian-Israeli educator and politician, 4th Prime Minister of Israel (d. 1978) – Born in Kyiv in Ukraine, she immigrated to Wisconsin as a child with her family in 1906. After becoming a teacher and getting married, she and her husband emigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1921, settling on a kibbutz.
1903 – Bing Crosby, American singer and actor (d. 1977)
1919 – Pete Seeger, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and activist (d. 2014)
1950 – Mary Hopkin, Welsh singer-songwriter
1958 – Sandi Toksvig, Danish-English comedian, writer, and broadcaster
1959 – Ben Elton, English actor, director, and screenwriter – Famous for his contempt for Margaret Thatcher, it turns out that she first became prime minister on his birthday.
Those who started pining for the fjords almost as much as Slartibartfast:
1779 – John Winthrop, American mathematician, physicist, and astronomer (b. 1714)
2002 – Barbara Castle, Baroness Castle of Blackburn, English politician, First Secretary of State (b. 1910) – Oversaw the introduction of permanent speed limits for the first time on British roads, legislated for breathalyser tests and compulsory seat belts, and put through the Equal Pay Act.
2014 – Gary Becker, American economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1930) – Introduced the economic concept of human capital.
“Come with me, Dent Arthur Dent, or you will be late.”
I’m assuming the topic of conversation between the macaque and Jerry was how she was going to write one of the greatest works known to man on a typewriter.
Don’t be silly. Macaques no longer use typewriters in the computer age.
She and her innumerable friends
In other news, Politico have published a leaked draft from the Supreme Court indicating that Justices Alito (the author of the draft), Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett are in favour of striking out Roe v Wade ( it is not clear how Chief Justice Roberts will vote).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-61302740
It is not at all surprising that the Court will overturn Roe. This has been obvious for months, and undoubtedly pro-abortion supporters have been preparing it. What is shocking that a draft of the opinion has been leaked. This is apparently unprecedented.
If McConnell hadn’t blocked Merrick Garland’s nomination, and Justice Ginsburg had retired when she should have, when Obama was president, the course of U.S. history would have been very different. Now, we can expect more turmoil in an already fractured nation.
It is so frustrating to think about, isn’t it? It makes me furious.
Even before the draft opinion from Alito overruling Roe and Casey was leaked yesterday, WaPo ran an article regarding Republican plans to enact a nationwide abortion ban if they obtain control of the two political branches of the federal government.
That big black cloud lingering on the horizon is an encroaching new Dark Ages.
Perhaps this will motivate Democrats to actually show up for a mid-term election for a change. Even as I typed that, I didn’t believe it.
As an addendum to the news that the leaking is unprecedented, it should be noted that according to a biographer of James Buchanan, he knew the Dred Scott ruling before it was issued and actively tried to influence it.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/president-james-buchanan-directly-influenced-outcome-dred-scott-decision-180962329/
I didn’t think Buchanan’s reputation could sink any lower until I read that.
I guess he and Trump will spend eternity in hell wrangling over who was the worst President of them all.
Assuming the reporting from Politico is accurate — which it appears to be (as well as completely unprecedented, in that SCOTUS has never before had a leak like this) — I’ve got to assume that Roberts won’t be joining in the majority opinion.
At the conference following oral argument (which is considered the sanctum sanctorum of SCOTUS deliberations, with only the nine justices themselves in attendance, no staff), the justices take a preliminary vote on the outcome. and the writing of the majority opinion is assigned. Where the chief justice is in the majority, the Chief assigns the opinion writing.
If Roberts were in the majority, I think he would have kept the opinion for himself, so that he could write as temperate an opinion as possible under the circumstances. Where the chief justice is not in the majority, the opinion-assigning duties fall to the most senior justice in the majority — in this instance, Clarence Thomas. I would have thought Thomas might keep the opinion for himself, but I’m not surprised that he would assign it to Alito, who’s as anti-abortion as Thomas is, especially since Thomas may feel he’s already courting enough controversy himself.
If the reporting holds up, I expect that Roberts will write a separate opinion for himself alone, probably concurring in part and dissenting in part. The three liberals on the Court — Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan — will, of course, write one or more opinions vehemently dissenting from the outcome.
The casual and companionable way the macaque is sitting is adorable. Her coat is gorgeous. What a beauty!
Yes, and the duck too.
I’m not sure how rare this is, but it’s very beautiful: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-61273431
Good to see a picture of Jerry on the rock, still wearing glasses too, which the apes will steal and only return for food.
Yes, they get pretty aggressive as I recall. I have a video of us driving down the hill with an ape on the windshield and another on the side mirror.
Does anyone here have any idea what has happened to Honey, our duck?
She came to the pond early in the season, stayed a while, and then left. She may have been chased away by a particularly obstreperous drake, formerly named Putin (now Pushkin) who happens to be paired up with Dorothy. And Dorothy is nesting on the windowsill right beneath the air conditioner in my office window. I hope Honey will return at least for a visit some time this season. Next year we will not have ducks as they’re going to drain and refurbish the entire pond 🙁
I give up! which one is you?!
😉
ah -love you really!
Draining the pond – eek! – I suppose they will re-locate any wildlife that cannot fly?
That’s what they assure us (turtles and fish), but I will believe it when I see it.
Thanks. It’s just not the same without her, but I hope she’s thriving wherever she is.
Naughty Pushkin! (Privately, I had been calling him Poutine till he was renamed. 🙂 )