Sunday: Hili dialogue

November 26, 2023 • 6:45 am

Welcome to Sunday, November 26, 2023, shabbos for goyische cats and National Cake Day. Here’s a cake shaped like a rubber duck, apparently with a ruffled potat0-chip bill:

It’s also The Day of the Covenant in the  Baháʼí faith, Good Grief Day, celebrating the birth of Peanuts creator Charles Schulz on this day in 1922, and Constitution Day in India, celebrating the adoption of the Constitution on November 26, 1949.  Here’s the preamble of India’s constitution. It’s the world’s largest democracy:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this by consulting the November 26 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*After a glitch in which Hamas apparently reneged on the release of the second batch of hostages that it kidnapped, the exchange now occurred:

Hamas released a second group of Israeli and foreign hostages on Saturday night in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners, the Israeli authorities said Sunday morning, after an hourslong delay raised fears that a fragile truce in Gaza could collapse altogether.

Qatar, which helped broker the deal alongside Egypt, said that two mediators had managed to overcome an impasse between Israel and Hamas.

In the end, Israel confirmed that Hamas had handed 13 Israelis — eight children and five women — to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza. They were taken in a convoy across the Rafah crossing to Egypt, then transported to Israel, where they were delivered to hospitals, the Israeli authorities said. Four Thai nationals were also released.

Within hours, 39 Palestinian prisoners were released by Israel, Israel’s prison service said early on Sunday. There was a similar swap on Friday.

The prisoners affairs commission of the Palestinian Authority confirmed that Red Cross buses with detainees had left Ofer prison, outside the West Bank city of Ramallah, to take them to Al-Bireh Municipality.

The resumption of the deal late Saturday came after a tense day in which it appeared the fragile temporary cease-fire agreement might crumble.

Hamas had threatened to postpone the second hostages-for-prisoners trade, claiming Israel had reneged on parts of the agreement. The armed group, which controls Gaza, said Israel had not allowed enough aid to reach northern Gaza and had not released Palestinian prisoners according to agreed-upon terms.

No Americans are slated to be released in the next round of this unequal exchange. I wonder how the pro-Hamas activists can justify this 3:1 ratio. At any rate, my view is that both Biden and Netanyahu are being played, successfully, by Hamas, which is trying to turn these “pauses” into permanent cease-fires.  If that happens, Israel will not only have lost credibility, but the war itself, and have emboldened other forces, like Iran or Hezbollah (much less a revitalized Hamas) to start terrorizing them.  Biden is folding under pressure from both the American public and the extreme left wing of the Democratic Party, which hates Israel. In truth, Hamas is playing both Netanyahu and Biden, and both of them are biting.

*The NYT has weighed in, in an editorial-board op-ed, for an end to the Israel/Hamas war. So, if there is no more fighting, what does the sweating Gray Lady say should be done? A two-state solution, of course, but the paper blames Israel as much as Palestine that there isn’t one. That’s a gross historical inaccuracy:

In fact, what peace might look like is not a mystery: The shape of a Palestinian state has been explored in minute detail by successive peace conferences, meetings, negotiations and private initiatives, collectively known — or derided, in their apparent futility — as the peace process. The Oslo Accords of the 1990s were a major breakthrough in bringing hardened Palestinian and Israeli commanders to the table and establishing basic principles of coexistence. In 2000, Ehud Barak, Israel’s prime minister at the time, put a significant offer on the table to the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat for a two-state solution, which he rejected as insufficient and failed to meet with any serious counteroffer. Several years later, Mr. Barak’s successor Ehud Olmert and the Palestinian Authority leader, Mahmoud Abbas, met 36 times over nearly two years to hammer out a detailed plan that involved swapping some land, sharing Jerusalem, creating a free passage between the West Bank and Gaza and cooperating on business and resources.

That initiative foundered, as they all did, through violence, politics and circumstance: the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, a clash with Hamas in Gaza, Mr. Olmert’s resignation and Benjamin Netanyahu’s victory, the ouster of the Palestinian Authority from Gaza. Extremists — be it Palestinian Islamists determined to destroy the Jewish state or Israeli settlers determined to push Palestinians out of the West Bank — knew they could undermine any effort toward peace through provocation or terrorism.

No mention that Israel offered the Palestinians this solution five times, and five times it was rejected—by the Palestinians. They do not WANT a two-state solution; they want the extirpation of Israel. The mention of Netanyahu and “settlers” is a red herring.

So who will govern the new Palestinian state? Well, it can’t be Hamas, but the NYT thinks Hamas will somehow give up its power, and—get this—the corrupt Palestinian Authority (PA), now lead by President for Life Mahmoud Abbass, will fix things! The aged Abbas will go eventually (biology will assure that), but who will take his place?  How will the corruption of the PA be rooted out?

If one outcome of this war is a still moderate Palestinian Authority with better leadership, the natural partnership between it and the Arab states can be renewed. This could, in turn, revive a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians, as well as widening normalization between Israel and Arab or Muslim states such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Indonesia.

Earth to the NYT: the Palestinian Authority is NOT moderate! Of course Netanyahu must step down (I agree), but how on earth will Hamas give up its power, which even the NYT says is necessary for a two-state solution?

But we have no illusions: Through its use of terrorism, Hamas has destroyed whatever legitimacy it had as a governing force. For these negotiations to be meaningful, the Palestinian Authority has to be overhauled. It needs new leadership and institutional reform. To generate and maintain any stable peace with Israel, the authority needs to be able to demonstrate that, in comparison with Hamas, it is more capable of governing Gaza and the West Bank effectively. In its present condition, it cannot.

And how is that supposed to happen? PLEASE tell us, O New York Times!

At the same time, Israel and its supporters must accept that this is not an equal contest. Israel is the dominant power here, and in the current conflict, Israel will once again need to be first to move toward the establishment of a Palestinian state. For many Israelis, their primary concern is finding security, or bitachon, a Hebrew word that also encompasses trust and faith, and it requires a leap of both to believe that this will come from an independent Palestinian state. But the alternatives — continuing the occupation and incorporating occupied territories into Israel — are demonstrably worse.

So the Palestinian Authority, whose rule Gaza (and Hamas) rejected and surely still does, must somehow be deposed, get new and conciliatory leadership,  and the PA must take over Gaza and get rid of Hamas. (The NYT , of course, doesn’t tell us how we’re supposed to get rid of Hamas, or make them lay out their arms). Then the “moderate” PA can broker peace with a Netanyahu-free Israel. Taking the situation as it is and how it has been, this sounds good in principle but is utterly stupid and unworkable. Of course I have no better solution, but what the NYT suggests is simply a recipe for the continuing erosion of Israel. They don’t even say whether they want Israel to fulfill its aims of eliminating Hamas, but it’s clear that they think the price for that will be too high. In the end, they simply offer us a huge slice of Pie in the Sky:

The critical qualification is for each side to understand the yearnings and fears of the other and to accept that the other has a right to live in peace.

How that can work is clear. The urgent challenge, as soon as the guns fall silent, is for Israel, the Palestinians, the Arab states, the United States and all other parties with an interest in a settlement to get to work.

I always wanted a two-state solution, but it’s become clear that while Netanyahu doesn’t want it, he can be replaced by an honest Israeli broker of peace. But there is absolutely no sign that Palestine has any interest in a Palestinian state that doesn’t aim at destroying Israel. They don’t want a two-state solution: they want a single state from the river to the sea. The New York Times sees fit to lecture two states on how to end the war, and proffers a solution that is impossible. Why don’t they tackle North and South Korea next, or Ukraine and Russia? The editors know SO much about how to broker peace.  What a pompous and risible editorial we have here!

*The announcement below is amazing—if true. I can find no verification of this on the Internet, and maybe readers can lend a hand. Perhaps this is “fake news.”  The only evidence I find is one article in the Times of Israel that says this:

The hospitals have arranged for female doctors, nurses and other medical staff to treat the hostages to be released in this first deal. Doctors will sensitively do full physical exams of the women and children and order any necessary blood or imaging tests.

But all of the hostages were women and children, so this only makes sense.  As for flying planes and such, I saw one woman driving hostages out, but that’s all. Will this hold when male hostages are released? And was it even true?

*Derek Chauvin, a cop convicted in the murder of George Floyd, was stabbed in prison, something that I expected would happen. (If anybody has a target on their backs when entering prison, it’s pedophiles or ex-cops.)

Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who was convicted of murdering George Floyd during a 2020 arrest that set off a wave of protests, was stabbed at a federal prison in Tucson, Ariz., on Friday, according to two people with knowledge of the situation.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed that an inmate at the Tucson prison was stabbed at 12:30 p.m., though the agency’s statement did not identify Mr. Chauvin, 47, by name. No other inmates or prison staff were injured, and the situation was quickly contained, according to the people familiar with the situation.

Emergency medical technicians “initiated lifesaving measures” before transporting the inmate to a local hospital “for further treatment and evaluation,” bureau officials wrote. No details were immediately available on his condition, but one of the people with knowledge of the incident said that Mr. Chauvin survived the attack.

Mr. Chauvin was serving a sentence of just over two decades in federal prison after he was convicted of state murder charges and a federal charge of violating the constitutional rights of Mr. Floyd. Mr. Chauvin’s lawyers did not respond to requests for comment.

. . .Part of Mr. Chauvin’s plea deal with prosecutors in his federal case was that he would be allowed to serve his sentence in a federal prison, which is generally considered safer than a state prison. Before that, Mr. Chauvin had been serving his state sentence in solitary confinement for 23 hours each day in Minnesota. A spokeswoman for the state prison system said at the time that Mr. Chauvin had been isolated because of concerns for his safety.

If I were him and wanted to live, I’d do my time in solitary, but that’s extra hard time.

*Here’s an article whose content could just be one word: “nothing”. The piece in the Washington Post is called “What we actually know about aliens, according to science.” SCIENCE!

Aliens are having a moment. Fascination with the concept of extraterrestrial visitors isn’t new, but it has enjoyed a 21st-century efflorescence. Military pilots have seen things that look otherworldly. The Pentagon has established an office to look into the sightings. Congress has held hearings. Even NASA got into the game, training the cool logic of science onto a scorching-hot cultural topic.

. . .For SETI researchers, the hypothetical existence of aliens is foundational. Nestled in the remote mountain town of Green Bank, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory has a role in one of the most ambitious SETI projects, called Breakthrough Listen. The project buys time on the towering Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope, which has a steerable dish 300 feet in diameter. If there are aliens transmitting radio signals anywhere near us in the galaxy, that big dish is all ear.

Confirming an alien radio signal would be possibly the most consequential and disruptive scientific discovery of all time. SETI scientists have no doubt that the search is worth the effort.

. . .That’s why the Breakthrough Listen team pointed the big telescope at the mystery object ‘Oumuamua, listening for signs of intelligent life.

“It was absolutely silent,” reports Matt Lebofsky, lead engineer on the project.

Silence: That is all astronomers have heard since the first SETI search was conducted at Green Bank in 1960.

Only a small fraction of our galaxy has been studied. Absence of evidence, as everyone knows, is not evidence of absence. Aliens may not consider radio waves to be a useful or dignified way to communicate. They could be pathologically shy. Or, at least with the kind of technology we have today, they could be just a little bit out of range.

For whatever reason, SETI has not found anyone out there, and at some point the silence could get deafening.

And there’s the answer to the headline question: BUPKES!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili mocks American identitarianism:

Hili: I belong to the privileged cats.
A: But you are only partly white.
Hili: Yes, it’s easier to accept.
In Polish:
Hili: Należę do kotów uprzywilejowanych.
Ja: Ale tylko częściowo białych.
Hili: Tak, to trochę ratuje sytuację.

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

From Richard, and absolutely true:

From the Not Another Science Cat Page on FB:

From BuzzFeed:

From Masih, another courageous young Iranian protestor who lost an eye. Look at his response!

From Israeli actress/activist Noa Tishby. I can’t believe this is true, but there’s some evidence that it is. Noa is right: there should be no vote, for crying out loud!

Tishby is right about BDS, though, which began and is still permeated by antisemitism.

A push-it kitten toy (from my “home” feed):

From the President of the Ontario Association of Radiologists: a recipe for more sickness and death.

From Barry, the cats are officially our masters, making us play:

. . . and from Jez:

From the Auschwitz Memorial: a woman sent to the camp at 20, and didn’t survive:

From Dr. Cobb, only one tweet today—a quiz. In a quick scan, I found nine.

20 thoughts on “Sunday: Hili dialogue”

  1. On this day (Part 1):
    1476 – Vlad the Impaler defeats Basarab Laiota with the help of Stephen the Great and Stephen V Báthory and becomes the ruler of Wallachia for the third time.

    1778 – In the Hawaiian Islands, Captain James Cook becomes the first European to visit Maui.

    1789 – A national Thanksgiving Day is observed in the United States as proclaimed by President George Washington at the request of Congress.

    1812 – The Battle of Berezina begins during Napoleon’s retreat from Russia.

    1863 – United States President Abraham Lincoln proclaims November 26 as a national Thanksgiving Day, to be celebrated annually on the final Thursday of November. Following the Franksgiving controversy from 1939 to 1941, it has been observed on the fourth Thursday in 1942 and subsequent years.

    1917 – The Manchester Guardian [now The Guardian] publishes the 1916 secret Sykes-Picot Agreement between the United Kingdom and France. [The agreement carved up the Middle East following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after WWI, hence the region’s nice straight lines.]

    1920 – Ukrainian War of Independence: The Red Army launches a surprise attack against the Makhnovshchina. [A century later and they’re fighting another one.]

    1922 – Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon become the first people to enter the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun in over 3,000 years.

    1922 – The Toll of the Sea debuts as the first general release film to use two-tone Technicolor. (The Gulf Between was the first film to do so, but it was not widely distributed.)

    1939 – Shelling of Mainila: The Soviet Army orchestrates an incident which is used to justify the start of the Winter War with Finland four days later.

    1942 – Casablanca, the movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, premieres in New York City.

    1944 – World War II: A German V-2 rocket hits a Woolworth’s shop in New Cross, London, killing 168 people.

    1965 – France launches Astérix, becoming the third nation to put an object in orbit using its own booster.

    1968 – Vietnam War: United States Air Force helicopter pilot James P. Fleming rescues an Army Special Forces unit pinned down by Viet Cong fire. He is later awarded the Medal of Honor.

    1970 – In Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe, 38 millimetres (1.5 in) of rain fall in a minute, the heaviest rainfall ever recorded.

    1977 – An unidentified hijacker named Vrillon, claiming to be the representative of the “Ashtar Galactic Command”, takes over Britain’s Southern Television for six minutes, starting at 5:12 pm.

    1983 – Brink’s-Mat robbery: In London, 6,800 gold bars worth nearly £26 million are stolen from the Brink’s-Mat vault at Heathrow Airport.

    1986 – Iran–Contra affair: U.S. President Ronald Reagan announces the members of what will become known as the Tower Commission.

    1986 – The trial of John Demjanjuk, accused of committing war crimes as a guard at the Nazi Treblinka extermination camp, starts in Jerusalem.

    1998 – Tony Blair becomes the first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to address the Oireachtas, the parliament of the Republic of Ireland.

    2000 – George W. Bush is certified the winner of Florida’s electoral votes by Katherine Harris, going on to win the United States presidential election, despite losing in the national popular vote.

    2003 – The Concorde makes its final flight, over Bristol, England.

    2004 – The last Poʻouli (Black-faced honeycreeper) dies of avian malaria in the Maui Bird Conservation Center in Olinda, Hawaii, before it could breed, making the species in all probability extinct.

    2008 – Mumbai attacks, a series of terrorist attacks killing approximately 175 citizens by 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan based extremist Islamist terrorist organisation.

    2011 – The Mars Science Laboratory launches to Mars with the Curiosity Rover.

    2018 – The robotic probe Insight lands on Elysium Planitia, Mars.

    2021 – COVID-19 pandemic: The World Health Organization identifies the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant.

    1. On this day (Part 2)

      Births:
      1604 – Johannes Bach, German organist and composer (d. 1673).

      1731 – William Cowper, English poet and hymnwriter (d. 1800).

      1792 – Sarah Moore Grimké, American author and activist (d. 1873).

      1827 – Ellen G. White, American religious leader and author, co-founded the Seventh-day Adventist Church (d. 1915).

      1832 – Mary Edwards Walker, American surgeon and activist, Medal of Honor recipient (d. 1919).

      1876 – Willis Carrier, American engineer, invented air conditioning (d. 1950).

      1895 – Bill W., American activist, co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous (d. 1971).

      1900 – Anna Maurizio, Swiss biologist, known for her study of bees (d. 1993).

      1902 – Maurice McDonald, American businessman, co-founded McDonald’s (d. 1971).

      1903 – Alice Herz-Sommer, Czech-English pianist and educator (d. 2014).

      1907 – Ruth Patrick, American botanist (d. 2013).

      1909 – Eugène Ionesco, Romanian-French playwright and critic (d. 1994).

      1915 – Earl Wild, American pianist and composer (d. 2010).

      1922 – Charles M. Schulz, American cartoonist, created Peanuts (d. 2000).

      1924 – George Segal, American painter and sculptor (d. 2000).

      1933 – Tony Verna, American director and producer, invented instant replay (d. 2015).

      1939 – Tina Turner, American-Swiss singer-songwriter, dancer, and actress (d. 2023).

      1940 – Davey Graham, English guitarist and songwriter (d. 2008).

      1945 – John McVie, English-American bass player.

      1945 – Jim Mullen, Scottish guitarist.

      1948 – Elizabeth Blackburn, Australian-American biologist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate.

      1953 – Hilary Benn, English politician, Secretary of State for International Development. [An ex-girlfriend used to live next door to him and babysit his kids. We often saw his father, Tony, playing football with the children in the back garden.]

      1953 – Julien Temple, English director, producer, and screenwriter.

      1956 – Keith Vaz, Indian-English lawyer and politician, Minister of State for Europe.[And fantasy “industrial washing machine salesman”. ;o) ]

      1990 – Rita Ora, Kosovan-English singer-songwriter and actress.

      Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising:
      1504 – Isabella I, queen of Castile and León (b. 1451). [She and her husband, Ferdinand II of Aragon, are known for being the first monarchs to be referred to as the “Queen of Spain” and “King of Spain” respectively. Their actions included completion of the Reconquista, the Alhambra Decree which ordered the mass expulsion of Jews from Spain, initiating the Spanish Inquisition, financing Christopher Columbus’s 1492 voyage to the New World and establishing the Spanish empire, making Spain a major power in Europe and the world and ultimately ushering in the Spanish Golden Age.]

      1717 – Daniel Purcell, English organist and composer (b. 1664).

      1836 – John Loudon McAdam, Scottish engineer (b. 1756). [Tarmac is named after him.]

      1860 – Benjamin Greene, English brewer, founded Greene King (b. 1780).

      1883 – Sojourner Truth, American activist (b. 1797).

      1885 – Thomas Andrews, Irish chemist and physicist (b. 1813). [Did important work on phase transitions between gases and liquids.]

      1917 – Elsie Inglis, Scottish surgeon and suffragette (b. 1864).

      1926 – Ernest Belfort Bax, English barrister, journalist, philosopher, men’s rights advocate, socialist and historian (b. 1854).

      1926 – John Browning, American weapons designer, founded the Browning Arms Company (b. 1855).

      1956 – Tommy Dorsey, American trombonist, trumpet player, and composer (b. 1905).

      1974 – Cyril Connolly, English author and critic (b. 1903). [The critic and publisher Everard Spruce in Evelyn Waugh’s Sword of Honour trilogy is a satire of Connolly.]

      1985 – Vivien Thomas, American surgeon and academic (b. 1910. [Developed a procedure used to treat blue baby syndrome (now known as cyanotic heart disease) in the 1940s. He was the assistant to surgeon Alfred Blalock in Blalock’s experimental animal laboratory at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and later at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Thomas was unique in that he did not have any professional education or experience in a research laboratory; however, he served as supervisor of the surgical laboratories at Johns Hopkins for 35 years.]

      1996 – Michael Bentine, English actor and screenwriter (b. 1922).

      2005 – Stan Berenstain, American author and illustrator, co-created the Berenstain Bears (b. 1923).

      2021 – Stephen Sondheim, American composer and lyricist (b. 1930).

  2. The wine bottle is still full

    People clearly are not separating out their recycling

    There are two zeros missing from the house price

    Nobody wears flat caps anymore

    Two of the three bin men didn’t realise it was black tie

    The levitating girl has bought two vanilla ice creams. Her brother wanted chocolate

    The other girl has her garrottes out in the open and is thus inviting arrest

    The artist has drawn Timmy Mallett as a d*g.

    3. Haha!

      MAD Magazine once did one of these “What’s Wrong?” problems, showing a picture of a Norman Rockwell setting. The beatnik answer was, “Man, EVERYTHING is wrong with this picture!”

  3. I think there are two possibilities on why UMich is holding this plebiscite. First, they think that the vote will pro-BDS. I have no doubt that they would never do such a thing if they thought it would be voted down. They know that the proponents of BDS would riot and vandalize the campus if they lost, whereas the opponents would behave properly. Second, they want to avoid responsibility for a ‘no’ vote. I doubt this will help them. At the same time, though, I wonder whether UMich has ever submitted a matter of University governance to a vote of the students? And are they now prepared to do so for all measures? Likely not.

    With regard to the meme of the returned hostages vs. the Palestinian prisoner, my only objection is that it should show several prisoners being released for each hostage. We can be sure Israel proposed a 1:1 swap, and Hamas rejected that.

  4. Speaking of rubber ducks, I’d recommend a book I quite enjoyed a while back:

    Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea & of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists & Fools Including the Author Who Went in Search of Them.

    I found it both amusing and informative, touching on many topics, including global commerce, oceanography, the Arctic, etc.

  5. The footage released by the military of UFOs (or “unidentified anomalous phenomena”) are no better than the tossed pie plates, lenticular clouds, and light fixture reflections on glass from long ago. Seriously, their supposed experts cannot identify a “glory” silhouette of a plane shadow on clouds, or bokeh effects through their infra-red cameras.

    1. Years ago, I read a story about a scientist who was asked by a newspaper to write 500 words on the topic “Is there life on other planets?”

      He responded by writing “Nobody knows” 250 times.

  6. I remember those powers-of-observation tests! Today, kids would say the “mistakes” are:
    1) no safety vests/overalls on the garbage men
    2) none of the children is fat
    3) all the people are white and no one has a cell phone.
    4) the house price is a deal way too good to be true.

  7. Hello Professor Coyne
    It’s interesting that you follow Masih’s tweets, it’s very interesting. I saw that you posted her bitter tweet about Zaniar on your site, I am like Zaniar, an 18-year-old young man from Iran, my life, Zaniar’s life and the lives of millions of young Iranians, have been affected by the religious tyranny of the Ayatollahs. But we, as the new generation of young Iranians, have understood the destructive nature of religious prejudices and are steadfastly fighting against religious dogma. I aspire to be a great evolutionary biologist like you one day, I hope you will see my message and respond to it, your response can be a strong motivation for me to continue on my way. I will definitely write to you again.
    Cordially yours
    Ilya from Tehran

    1. Dear Ilya,

      Thanks very much for your comment. As you probably know, I am a great fan of the protestors and revolutionaries in Iran, and hope that some day you and your young colleagues can overthrow the government and turn Iran into a democracy. It is indeed a tyranny and is now involved in supporting Hamas. I wish you the best of luck not only in your political efforts to create a democracy, but in your studies of evolutionary biology. Best wishes, Jerry Coyne

      1. Dear professor, I was very happy with your answer, maybe you also had heroes among the scientists and biologists who worked before you. Now people like you and Richard Dawkins are the champions of the next generation of young biologists. I also tried to write a message to Richard Dawkins, I haven’t been able to contact him yet, it’s a pity he doesn’t have a good website like yours, the Ayatollahs present a false philosophy for natural phenomena and promote superstitions. It is clear that they are the great enemy of Darwin’s theory, I have read interesting things about their follies in Persian language sources that are not found in English language sources, and some of them may be interesting to you. Now that I have managed to communicate with you, I sometimes write them to you, now I will mention some examples of anti-scientific and anti-rational views that are written in their holy books. You probably haven’t heard them, it is clear that someone who believes in these things is never going to accept evolution and Iran cannot progress with such rotten thoughts. They claim that these animals that I am writing about were actually human beings who were transfigured because of their sins. Elephant was a homosexual king and committed adultery! Wolf was a desert Arab whose wife committed adultery! Spider was a woman who betrayed her husband! Rabbit was a woman who did not take a bath after her period!!! Moth was a date thief!!! Bee was a butcher who sold expensively! Scorpion was a man whose words hurt people. Rhinoceros was a man with whom people had anal sex! Monkey was a person from the Bani Israel tribe who hunted fish on Saturdays! Lizard was a bandit who stole the property of Muslims when going to Hajj! Pigs were Christians to whom God sent food from heaven, but they did not believe! Sorry if my message is a little long. Also, forgive me if I have any spelling mistakes.
        Your forever lover
        Ilya

        1. Thanks for your comment. I never knew Islam used reincarnation similar to the Hindus. And very negative projections put upon the innocent animals (which, by the way, can’t “sin”)…not that I believe in sin. Like Jerry, I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors, struggling against authoritarianism and superstition. You are an inspiration.

          1. Thank you dear Mark
            These things that I have mentioned are written in the books of prominent Shia clerics from the words of Shia imams who are descendants of the Prophet of Islam. According to the Shiites, they are the successors of Muhammad and are assigned by God himself, God has taught them all the sciences and secrets of the world. Iran is the only Muslim country where almost all of its Muslim population are Shiites. Shiites have some superstitions and beliefs that are strange and even contradictory to the Qur’an, which causes them to be called infidels even by the rest of the Muslims.

          2. Based on the imams’ “knowledge,” it seems like God doesn’t know much, ay? You would think the creator of the universe and everything in it would be a bit smarter, but that’s just me. 🙂

  8. Aliens in the wardrobe, Aliens in the head, certainly they exist in our heads but with new ways of finding potential life planets coming online at spasmodic intervals… tomorrow may be the day we get the call from out there.
    But we have closer candidates that could have life in some form to keep us amused in the meantime, like the icy moon Ganymede (Jupiter) a good potential target for life, it has a magnetic field for protection from solar winds, intergalactic particles. Mars of course may have subterranean life or evidence of now long extinct life.
    But aliens? human generated radio waves have only been existence for 100yrs, a split second in the scheme of things against billions of light years of distance let alone separating these signals from noise… so No aliens so far, only in our heads. They could be nasty but we have humans that fill that roll for now, aliens are lucky we aren’t THEIR aliens that they have made contact with.

  9. Re: the WaPo article on aliens:

    “What we actually know . . . .”

    What is the crucial difference between “know” and “actually know”? (Re: the locution, “I was ‘actually’ there.”)

    “Aliens are having a moment.”

    I suppose that they are also “a thing.”

    “Even NASA got into the game, training the cool logic of science onto a scorching-hot cultural topic.”

    As opposed to, I suppose, training the cool logic of science on the bi-modal reality of human sexuality.

    ” . . . that big dish is all ear.”

    As opposed to this reportorial bloviation being all mouth.

    “Aliens may not consider radio waves to be a useful or dignified way to communicate. They could be pathologically shy.”

    Is this reporting or an opinion piece? What can’t one say when employing “may” and “could”? The WaPo, the ultimate arbiter of what constitutes “dignified” communication and pathological behavior (for aliens). Who wouldn’t want to interact with human primates?

    “For whatever reason, SETI has not found anyone out there, and at some point the silence could get deafening.”

    “Yea, water quencheth fire, but the [deafening media] wind, only God can abate that.”

    (I read this quote years ago by I forget whom. Google can’t seem to find it.)

    (Get off my lawn.)

Comments are closed.