Sunday: Hili dialogue

October 8, 2023 • 6:45 am

Welcome to Sunday, October 8, 2023, and National Fluffernutter Day, celebrating a weird but not repugnant combination of peanut butter and marshmallow spread, used to make sandwiches. Would you eat this?

It’s also Alvin C. York Day, celebrating the day in 1918 that the WWI Medal of Honor winner who nearly singlehandedly captured 132 German prisoners and silenced a machine gun that was killing Americans. Here’s Sergeant York, the hero of the eponymous 1941 movie starring Gary Cooper. Further, it’s International Lesbian Day, National Hero Day, World Octopus Day and National Pierogi Day (cultural appropriation). Finally, there are two more days of World Space Week (October 4–10).

Here’s Alvin York:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this by consulting the October 8 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*More on the Israel/Palestine war from the NYT:

Fighting continued into the evening on Saturday in one of the broadest invasions of Israeli territory in 50 years, as Palestinian militants from Gaza fired another round of rockets at Israel’s central heartland, including Tel Aviv, and Israel retaliated with huge strikes on Gazan cities.

It followed an enormous and coordinated early-morning assault on southern Israel, as the militants infiltrated several Israeli towns and army bases, kidnapped Israeli civilians and soldiers, and fired thousands of rockets toward cities as far away as Jerusalem.

Panic and disbelief rippled throughout Israel, many people huddled inside their homes while hearing sirens, explosions and gunshots outside. Gruesome, graphic images flooded social media and spread throughout the world.

By early evening, the Israeli military said fighting continued in at least five places in southern Israel. At least 100 Israelis had been reported dead and more than 1,100 wounded, emergency medical groups said, while at least 198 Palestinians were killed and more than 1,600 wounded in either gun battles or airstrikes, the Gazan Health Ministry said.

In an assault without recent precedent in its complexity and scale, the militants crossed into Israel by land, sea and air, according to the Israeli military, leading to some of the first pitched battles between large groups of Israeli and Arab forces on Israeli soil in decades. As of early evening there were the two main battles taking place, near the towns of Ofakim and Beeri, Admiral Hagai said.

All told, the Israeli military said that the militants had entered at least 22 Israeli towns, abducting soldiers and civilians. Residents of Israeli border towns told broadcasters that gunmen were moving door to door, looking for civilians. Unverified footage appeared to show Palestinian fighters transporting captured Israeli civilians and bodies through the strip.

More from this morning:

By early evening, the Israeli military said fighting continued in at least five places in southern Israel; multiple Israelis had been abducted and taken to Gaza, including an elderly grandmother; and at least 250 Israelis had been reported dead by officials and more than 1,400 wounded. Israel retaliated with huge strikes on Gazan cities, and the Gaza Health Ministry said at least 234 Palestinians had been killed in either gun battles or airstrikes.

Israel battled on Saturday to repel one of the broadest invasions of its territory in 50 years after Palestinian militants from Gaza launched an early-morning assault on southern Israel, infiltrating 22 Israeli towns and army bases, kidnapping Israeli civilians and soldiers and firing thousands of rockets toward cities as far away as Jerusalem.

By early evening, the Israeli military said fighting continued in at least five places in southern Israel; multiple Israelis had been abducted and taken to Gaza, including an elderly grandmother; and at least 250 Israelis had been reported dead by officials and more than 1,400 wounded. Israel retaliated with huge strikes on Gazan cities, and the Gaza Health Ministry said at least 234 Palestinians had been killed in either gun battles or airstrikes.

. . . It’s morning in Israel and Gaza, nearly 24 hours after the first Hamas rocket attacks were fired. Sirens warning of possible attacks kept many Israelis up all night. And the Israeli Air Force struck targets across Gaza, according to the military. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said overnight that the first phase of the war was over and that an “offensive formation” would start.

And stalwart Israelis in other countries are returning home . . . to fight:

As Israelis living abroad woke up on Saturday morning to messages from their families and news alerts on their phones, some started booking flights back home.

Their country was under attack, they said. They needed to return. They needed to fight.

At least the U.S., and Biden, are expressing strong support for Israel and saying they’ll provide whatever help Israeli need to defend themselves. In this they join every other European country who’s spoken out, as well as the head of the E.U.  Of course on my Twitter feed I’m getting the “both sides are the same; both sides kill civilians” nonsense expressed by the former head of “Human Rights Watch” (he’s Jewish, too).  This is idiocy, and cannot be attributed to ignorance. Anti-Semitism is the only reason I can find for such mishigas, and Roth is known for that.  This, and a similar tweet, were retweeted by Ziya Tong, who should know better.

Here’s Biden’s short (three-minute_ statement made yesterday afternoon, unequivocally defending Israel and offering needed aid.

*Different stuff from the WaPo:

Netanyahu’s rhetoric [about “we’re at war”] does not represent a formal declaration of war, which must be approved by the Israeli cabinet. Such a declaration would authorize a far-reaching military response that could include a land invasion of Gaza and efforts to topple Hamas, according to Chuck Freilich, a former deputy national security adviser in Israel.

“The main effort is to eliminate all the terrorists on the security fence, all those who infiltrated Israel and are trying to return to the Gaza Strip,” Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, told reporters. “First of all, we will strike from the air, and then also with heavy ground means.”

At the White House, President Biden condemned the Hamas attack, noting the “appalling images” of Saturday’s violence, which he called “unconscionable.”

U.S. support for Israel is “rock solid and unwavering,” said the president, who warned other groups or nations in the region not to try to “exploit” the situation by widening the conflict.

. . .Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas’s political office, praised Gaza fighters’ efforts as “heroic” and “historic” in a statement. He said the attack was meant to avenge “criminal Zionist aggression” against al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

I believe the “criminal Zionist aggression” was that some Jews prayed on the Temple Mount, where the mosque is located. That’s not allowed, but it’s not a reason to butcher hundreds of people:

He called on Muslims and “all the free people of the world” to stand in “defense of al-Aqsa … to do whatever they can, for this is not the time to wait and watch.”

In a rare message, Mohammed Deif, head of Hamas’s military wing, proclaimed, “Today the people are regaining their revolution.”

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who leads the rival Palestinian governing body in the West Bank, said Saturday he chaired an “emergency leadership meeting” of security officials, adding that Palestinians have a right “to defend themselves against the terrorism of settlers and occupation forces.”

That—self defense—will be the mantra Western anti-Semites use to defend the Palestinian attack. The same excuse was used for the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939 and for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.  “We did it to defend our country.”

*From JihadWatch we have several tweets, all of which demonstrate that to equate Palestine’s terrorism and killing of civilians to Israel’s self defense, which also leads to the death of some civilians (which they avoid as scrupulously as possible) are the same.  As Steely Dan said, “Only a fool would say that.”

NOTE: Click on tweets or enter URL in browser if you can’t view them. For some reason the tweets have been made impossible to embed in other sites, but most are visible at the links. 

Celebrating the death of civilians:

Many of the tweets showing Palestinian behavior are disappearing; we’ll see how many remain tomorrow morning,  Try this one. 

This one seems to have disappeared but I can still see it here.

https://twitter.com/etoptimist/status/1710611102713925911

Israelis slaughtered in their cars (visible here)

https://twitter.com/etoptimist/status/1710625514195468739

This is even worse: cheering a truck full of dead Jewish bodies. If the link doesn’t work, try here.

Abduction of a woman and a man. (Here.)

https://twitter.com/etoptimist/status/1710610100224753700?s=42

Hamas giving thanks to Allah for the deaths in Israel:

Old people dead at a bus stop (a lot of these tweets have been removed because they show disturbing stuff, but they should just cover it, like this one):

. . . and more of the same:

*Continuing on, here are two videos from Tom Gross, a Middle East media analyst.

First, “Hamas kidnap and drag an Israeli woman by the hair into Gaza”:

and another: “A clear war crime by Hamas as it fires a rocket directly into an ambulance”:

*Once again I steal three items from Nellie Bowles’s weekly news summary at Free Press; this week’s is called “TGIF: Gaetz crasher.”

→ Were there not enough Californians? Gavin Newsom betrayed my true love this week by nominating someone who doesn’t even live here to be my senator, replacing Dianne Feinstein. Yes, from a state with 40 million residents, Newsom managed to pick a Maryland citizen, Laphonza Butler, a major Democratic bundler. What a thank-you note! He had previously said he would nominate a black woman only (which sounds vaguely illegal to promise), but the “Maryland resident” twist is a diversity surprise. Her nonprofit, Emily’s List, quickly removed the part of her bio that said she lives in Maryland, and she deleted Maryland from her Twitter bio. The folks who were upset about Dr. Oz’s residency are very quiet about Laphonza Butler’s.

Physical residency in Maryland and her inability to vote in the election for that Senate seat have nothing to do with what her mind knows she truly is: a California Girl.

I looked it up, and to be a Senator you must be a resident of the state you represent. And for California, residency requires a year of staying there. Doesn’t this mean that Butler isn’t qualified to replace Feinstein?

→ The border is secure: Squad member Ayanna Pressley went on Jake Tapper’s show to defend Biden’s handling of the border situation. “No doubt about it. Our border is secure,” the congresswoman said—over and over. Tapper looked befuddled and kept pressing her on it. “Yes, the border is secure,” she repeated.

Even though the border is super secure, Biden is going ahead and doing some work there out of an abundance of caution. And what is Biden doing? He’s going to build a large physical obstruction (CNN headline is literally: “Biden says that border walls don’t work as administration bypasses laws to build more barriers in South Texas”). Yes, he is waiving 26 laws that protect South Texas wildlife, various local communities, Native American burial grounds, and the like, so he can. . . put up. . . barriers. Not a wall, no, not like that. Just many, many bulwarks, ramparts if you will, in a line, real close together.

Reminder of Biden in 2020: “There will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration, number one.” And just a few months ago, the administration reportedly sold off $2 million worth of border wall parts for pennies on the dollar to prevent Republicans from trying to build a wall as the crisis worsened. Nearly $300 million worth of taxpayer-funded components meant to build the border wall have been left unused since Biden took office.

Here’s Pressley on Tapper’s show, lying her head off because it suits her ideology:

The NYT noted that Biden could have filed legal motions to avoid (or at least delay) building the wall, but for some reason he didn’t. . . . .

→ The fire alarm was confusing: Congressman Jamaal Bowman pulled a fire alarm in a congressional office building while Congress was in session. There’s video of him quite deliberately walking over and pulling the fire alarm, which is a pretty weird thing to do. Quickly, his team issued talking points to his supporters.

Per Bowman’s office, you might say to defend him: “Republicans need to instead focus their energy on the Nazi members of their party before anything else.”

Republicans thought he was trying to disrupt congressional proceedings, to protest, to hold a mini January 6 of his own. Me, I think we just vastly overestimate the intelligence of those in office. My bet is that he’s telling the truth: Congressman Bowman genuinely just saw a fire alarm, marked FIRE, and pulled it, thinking it could open a door. Or maybe it was that—like so many men before him—he just wanted to see what would happen.

Crikey, everybody is being mendacious these days.

*Finally, the NYT editorial board weighs in with a board-written op-ed, “The cost of inaction on immigration.” Two quotes:

While the Biden administration has mostly ended the policy of family separation, it has been slow in resettling refugees, has not pushed for raising quotas for most other forms of legal immigration and has offered no sustainable, long-term solution to the challenge of illegal immigration. Last year the administration ended the remain-in-Mexico policy and tried to make it easier for people to apply for asylum from their home countries. Nevertheless, the number of asylum seekers has continued to soar. The asylum program was never meant to be a vehicle for large-scale immigration and still needs an overhaul, as this board has argued.

The White House is limited in the actions it can take; Mr. Biden may have exhausted what he can do through his executive authority. Until Congress decides to take meaningful action, America will continue to pay a price.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is protecting the staff’s nuts:

Hili: Crows are stealing our nuts already.
A: There is enough for everybody.
Hili: But those are not their nuts.
In Polish:
Hili: Wrony już kradną orzechy.
Ja: Starczy dla wszystkich.
Hili: Ale to nie są ich orzechy.

*******************

Whole Foods appears to have turned the use of organic food into a religion. I got the sign below from my friend Jay with the note “The organic food religion.”

When I told him, “Maybe they’re just asking to separate produce because organic food is prices differently,” he answered, “No. They are literally saying not to let the conventional produce touch equipment that organic produce may come into contact with in order to “protect organic integrity.” This is a religious edict.”

He added “I’m tempted to go back and intentionally defile their scales and checkout register belts with conventional produce and document it with photos or videos. I wonder if I can get banned from Whole Foods.”

Well, the sign doesn’t say that there will be two sets of scales and conveyer belts, and that would be religious. Still, the bit about “organic integrity” is worrisome—as if a bag of organic apples touching a bag of non-organic avocados would defile the apples! Or perhaps the two kinds produce cannot both touch the belts or scales unless they’re bagged.

From Merilee, a cartoon by John Deering:

And another funny wedding announcement from BuzzFeed:

From Masih, who condemns Hamas’s attack on Israel and describes Iran’s role, perhaps exaggerating a bit:

From Malcolm, a cat successfully incubating chicken eggs. Nice background music by Izzie:

From gravelinspector: Ecuadorian graffiti gammar police!

From Larry the Cat via Simon, who says, “As it should be”:

From the Auschwitz Memorial, a boy gassed upon arrival, age five.

Tweets from Dr. Cobb. First, woman with whales—a magical moment:

Live and learn: here’s a platypus walking on its fists:

They could have stolen MY data!

50 thoughts on “Sunday: Hili dialogue”

  1. Whole Foods : Totally religious.

    Maybe more accurately, cult – a syncretic idea, obviously drawn from Jewish tradition with pans, utensils, etc. – sounds similar but I’m not sure of the details.

    Plus, drawing from allergen guidelines for peanuts, shellfish.

    1. That sign is a marvel, so much fun. Check out the mysticism :

      “Help us ensure the organic integrity of our products for you and for others.”

      “for you and for others” – your action change and affect “others”…

      “our products”? I thought the shoppers buy the products and then own them?

      Whole Foods might put the Ourobos at the bottom to make the point:

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros

    2. Some of my crunchy granola friends have an almost superstitious fear of pesticides, believing they’re responsible for a lot of things I really don’t think they’re responsible for. They cite scientific sources rather than religion, but I’m not sure how credible these sources are, given they’re sitting on the shelf next to books on homeopathy and energy healing. It all seems part of an overly romanticized view of the past, when we lived in harmony with Nature.

      1. “… the past, when we lived in harmony with Nature.”

        Ah, yes – the Fall.

        From that age of “harmony” … now we have all these machines,… antibiotics,… Starbucks,… and yes, granola!

    1. Sorry, but jihad watch is not a conspiracy site, but a site devoted to exposing the perfidies of Islam. Malgorzata tells me that she’s read it for many years, and has found only a few pieces of incorrect information–information that was subsequently corrected by the site.

      Now many of the COMMENTS seem unbalanced, but you don’t judge a site by the comments (the site doesn’t moderate comments).

      But you do see, don’t you, that all that I’ve taken from there are tweets, tweets that appear elsewhere? If you think those tweets are made up, give me some data

      Yes, you come off as annoying, because you’re attacking the TWEETS, widely disseminated by others,because they come from a site that you attack on no good grounds. Is your motivation to mitigate what the terrorists did by arguing that the tweets may be bogus?

    2. Conspiracy : Why the Rational Believe the Irrational
      Michael Shermer
      Johns Hopkins University Press
      2022
      ISBN-10 ‎1421444453

  3. … maybe even dialectical synthesis… old tradition, new idea…. but no more old idea… not sure… maybe syncretism is dialectical.

    1. I think PCC(E) is just looking to see what the age range of readers is – with that said regarding fluffernutters, count me IN!

        1. Personally, I’m at liberty to a little hermetic alchemy – especially if a fluffernutter can make me young!

        2. No, fluffernutters are a baby boomer thing, which we ate for lunch after a hearty breakfast of Sugar Smacks.

  5. On this day:
    1645 – Jeanne Mance opens the first lay hospital of North America in Montreal.

    1829 – Stephenson’s Rocket wins the Rainhill Trials.

    1871 – Slash-and-burn land management, months of drought, and the passage of a strong cold front cause the Peshtigo Fire, the Great Chicago Fire and the Great Michigan Fires to break out.

    1918 – World War I: Corporal Alvin C. York kills 28 German soldiers and captures 132 for which he was awarded the Medal of Honor.

    1939 – World War II: Germany annexes western Poland.

    1943 – World War II: Around 30 civilians are executed by Friedrich Schubert’s paramilitary group in Kallikratis, Crete.

    1952 – The Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash kills 112 people.

    1967 – Guerrilla leader Che Guevara and his men are captured in Bolivia.

    1969 – The opening rally of the Days of Rage occurs, organized by the Weather Underground in Chicago.

    1970 – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wins the Nobel Prize in literature.

    1973 – Yom Kippur War: Israel loses more than 150 tanks in a failed attack on Egyptian-occupied positions.

    1974 – Franklin National Bank collapses due to fraud and mismanagement; at the time it is the largest bank failure in the history of the United States.

    1982 – Poland bans Solidarity and all other trade unions.

    2005 – The 7.6 Mw  Kashmir earthquake leaves 86,000–87,351 people dead, 69,000–75,266 injured, and 2.8 million homeless.

    2014 – Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person in the United States to be diagnosed with Ebola, dies.

    Births:
    1789 – William John Swainson, English-New Zealand ornithologist and entomologist (d. 1855).

    1807 – Harriet Taylor Mill, English philosopher and activist (d. 1858).

    1847 – Rose Scott, Australian activist (d. 1925).

    1872 – Mary Engle Pennington, American bacteriological chemist and refrigeration engineer (d. 1952).

    1883 – Dick Burnett, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1977).

    1883 – Otto Heinrich Warburg, German physiologist and physician, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1970).

    1920 – Frank Herbert, American journalist, photographer, and author (d. 1986).

    1928 – Bill Maynard, English actor (d. 2018).

    1929 – Betty Boothroyd, English academic and politician, British Speaker of the House of Commons (d. 2023).

    1941 – Jesse Jackson, American minister and activist.

    1943 – Chevy Chase, American comedian, actor, and screenwriter.

    1943 – R. L. Stine, American author, screenwriter, and producer.

    1948 – Johnny Ramone, American guitarist and songwriter (d. 2004).

    1949 – Sigourney Weaver, American actress and producer.

    1950 – Blake Morrison, English poet, author, and academic.

    1958 – Ursula von der Leyen, Belgian-German physician and politician, Defense Minister of Germany, President of the European Commission.

    1963 – Steve Perry, American singer-songwriter and guitarist.

    1964 – Ian Hart, English actor.

    1965 – Ardal O’Hanlon, Irish comedian, actor, and screenwriter.

    1970 – Matt Damon, American actor, producer, and screenwriter.

    1970 – Anne-Marie Duff, English actress.

    1970 – Sadiq Khan, English lawyer and politician, Minister of State for Transport, Mayor of London. [Thinks that saying “maaate” will stop violence against women and girls, though he would struggle to define them.]

    1985 – Bruno Mars, American singer-songwriter, producer, and actor.

    No one else can take risks for us, or face our losses on our behalf, or give us self-esteem. No one can spare us from life’s slings and arrows, and when death comes, we meet it alone:
    1652 – John Greaves, English mathematician and astronomer (b. 1602).

    1754 – Henry Fielding, English novelist and playwright (b. 1707).

    1953 – Nigel Bruce, British actor (b. 1895).

    1967 – Clement Attlee, English soldier, lawyer, and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1883). [The longest serving Labour leader and widely considered by historians and members of the public through various polls to be one of the greatest Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom. His government created the National Health Service (NHS).]

    1992 – Willy Brandt, German lawyer and politician, 4th Chancellor of Germany, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1913).

  6. Israel has now formally declared war. Just a guess but most likely Gaza will have to be eliminated or taken under control of Israel. The Terrorist organization Hamas will be hunted down and eliminated just as was done with others such as ISIS. There really is no other alternative.

    1. It seems to be an impossible situation. The Gaza Strip has a population of over 2 million and most of that population is systematically filled with hate and raised as fanatics since childhood. They cannot control that.

      From a military standpoint the best solution would be erase the entire thing from the surface of the Earth (gradually from the north, so most people could leave for Egypt), but Izrael would not survive the PR consequences, not to mention that it would destabilize Egypt.

    2. I don’t understand how the Hamas or PA leadership could ever think that this attack could ever succeed in any real sense. They are going to lose.

      1. The goal is not to best Izrael in battle, but to force them to attack Gaza, and then amass as many civilian casualty in front of cameras as possible. + simply causing terror.

    1. In the US “hardy-har-har” is a mocking laugh, generally in response to a joke that isn’t funny.

        1. Yes, a Simpsons favorite! Mr. S. Math’s explanation in the second video seems a bit labored– it could be done in about half the time taken. He’s not doing anything for the reputation of math teachers, even though he gets the joke!

          GCM

        2. H could be H for the Hamiltonian, a might be alpha, for a laugh, but this is just letter matching and loses the concise wit (as far as I can see).

  9. It’s my understanding that Laphonza Butler owns a home in California and is registered to vote there. She’s been in Maryland for the last two years because of a job. However, she can’t run for the office then the appointment expires because of the residency issue. It think it’s interesting that nobody seemed to have a problem with the fact the Josh Hawley lived in Virginia when he was elected to represent Missouri. He used his sister’s Missouri house as his voting address. And Dr. Oz ran for senator of PA when he actually lived in New Jersey.

    1. Alabama’s Tommy Tuberville — hands down, the dumbest man in the US senate — lives in the Florida panhandle.

      But then, Tuberville’s blackballing all top military promotions because he objects to women GIs posted to backwards states like Alabama being afforded the same access to abortion care as women GIs posted to less backwards states makes Tuberville a quintessential “Florida Man.”

  10. Hamas is mainly supported by Iran.

    Does anyone know why the Dems have been trying so hard to cozy up to Iran? Do they think Iran will stop supporting terrorism?

    1. The Democrats are under the crazed illusion that if we give money and goodies to Iran, they won’t build a bomb. This is one of the stupidest ideas pervasive in the Democratic Party, and bespeaks a complete ignorance of both Iran and politics.

  11. If any of you happen to see any of those repugnant Palestinian tweets, don’t bother saving the links. Instead take an immediate screenshot. Since they’re being taken down so quickly, that’s the only way that people will be able to see them

  12. I would advise to NOT listen to NPR news & commentary for a time. My throat is still sore after listening to a dingbat go on about Israel the other day.

  13. My brother once dated a vegetarian. It became serious and he moved in to her house. The first thing he learned: if he cooked meat, he couldn’t use her pans. Also, she knew when he cooked bacon and such, told him he couldn’t as it was permeating her home. She also said whenever he ate meat he became aggressive. The relationship didn’t last very long after they moved in together. That incident was over 25 years ago, and it was the first time I linked vegetarianism to religion. And if you think the vegetarian religion is bad, don’t get me started on the vegan religion. I had a friend who was one of those. Wouldn’t even eat honey, because somehow bee-vomit is somehow meat.

    1. Your brother’s experience provides a case study in the wisdom of premarital cohabitation.

      1. No doubt!

        And I wish there was an edit function as I somehow used the word somehow twice in one sentence. Oops! did it again. 🙂

    2. The adopted son of a friend of my parents suddenly went like that, right down to the segregated pans business. (Which, since his mother was still cooking for him and the family, was coming at it a little high.) My parents thought years later that the kid probably had an eating disorder. He was always “different”. He eventually dropped out of school to become a roadie for a folk-country act. Don’t know what ever happened to him. Good thing this was years before the trans fad or he’d have been on hormones for sure.

      Oh, it has elements of a religion all right.

      1. Wow, I haven’t heard of anyone else who knew of a segregated pans person (I had to steal your “segregated pans”- too funny). And to do it when you’re not even cooking for yourself? That takes some nerve.

        1. That guy who killed the four students in Moscow Idaho last year was a vegan. When they asked a relative about him, all she could say was he had visited once and insisted his food be cooked in separate pots and pans.

          1. Read it again and he wanted relative to buy new pots and pans to cook his meal. Jail said they would accommodate his request for vegan meals, usually rice and beans, but would not buy new pots and pans to cook them.

  14. Produce sign – I don’t know if I’m missing something here, but it seems to me that too much is being read into a fairly innocent sign about avoiding potential transfer of contaminants such as pesticide residues to organic produce. The burden is being placed on those who want to maintain the purity of their organic produce. They are being warned that if they want to make absolutely sure that their produce is not cross-contaminated, then they should bag it before placing it in contact with surfaces that are touched by many things and people and that the store cannot possibly ensure will remain clean of such contaminants throughout the day. It seems sensible to me for those who might have extreme chemical sensitivities and for the store which does not want to be sued if someone were to have a reaction to a trace amount of some chemical. I know I can get serious indigestion from something that is sometimes put on potatoes (I assume to maintain them in storage), so I need to be careful to always wash my potatoes thoroughly. I have no idea what the substance is, but I learned the hard way when I failed to wash potatoes that were clearly labeled as needing to be washed. My oversight. The protection ‘for others’ I suppose only occurs when the store needs to reshelve an item. I am not a vegetarian or an organic fanatic. I buy organic when the price differential is not too great, mostly because I think organic production is better for the planet (soils, fungi, insects, insectivores, etc.) I’m sure after 60+ years of eating an American diet, I’m already thoroughly contaminated.

    1.  

      it seems to me that too much is being read into a fairly innocent sign

      The rest of your post kind of suggests otherwise.

  15. Old people dead at a bus stop (a lot of these tweets have been removed
    because they show disturbing stuff, but they should just cover it, like this
    one):

    This looks like it may be at the city of Sderot, also called the bomb shelter capital of the world. The elderly people may have been trying to get to the nearby bomb shelter, most of the bus stops have them there.

    Looks like located to the left in this photo taken years before.

    https://www.upi.com/News_Photos/view/upi/d20b5300e213b48fd1c051048338a7b9/Israelis-Wait-For-A-Bus-By-A-Bomb-Shelter-In-Sderot/

  16. For USAnians who would like our DNA analyzed, we can join the All of Us research program for free https://allofus.nih.gov/ . Bound by medical ethics concerning human subjects, it cannot or will not sell any of your data. I learned quite a bit from my DNA results, including ancestry, susceptibility to some diseases, and even why I don’t like cilantro. LGBT USAnians can also join The Pride Study https://www.pridestudy.org/ .

  18. “Protect organic integrity.” — When cleaning out a cupboard a while ago I ran across a very old bottle of Karo high fructose light corn syrup. I was surprised to see on the label, “Produced with Genetic Engineering.” (I consider genetic engineering a useful technology, though I’m all too familiar with “non-GMO” notices.) But this syrup was made “With REAL Vanilla.” On the other hand, it also noted in caps, “GLUTEN FREE.” Such are the contradictions of food labelling.

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