Welcome to Friday, December 15, 2023, and National Lemon Cupcake Day. I doubt any readers will indulge in one (below), though they look okay. We’re coming up on both Christmas and Coynezaa, both of which begin in ten days (Coynezaa continues until Dec. 30).
Posting may be light today as I have a doctor’s appointment this morning.
It’s also Bill of Rights Day (ratified by Virginia on this day in 1791), National Gingerbread Latte Day (ugh), International Tea Day, Zamenhof Day (celebrated by the waning international Esperanto community), and, best of all, Cat Herders’ Day! Which allows me to show the greatest television commercial ever made:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this by consulting the December 15 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Israel’s defense minister pronounced not only that the war in Gaza may last for “months,” but also that Israel wouldn’t be swayed by world opinion.
Israel’s defense minister said on Thursday that the war against Hamas “will last more than several months,” signaling determination to carry on with the bombardment of Gaza even as the White House national security adviser arrived in Tel Aviv to discuss a transition to a more targeted phase of the campaign.
Before the meeting, the defense minister, Yoav Gallant, repeated Israel’s arguments that destroying Hamas, the armed group that carried out the devastating Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, was essential to Israel’s security and was difficult because Hamas has built an extensive underground infrastructure in Gaza.
“It will require a long period of time — it will last more than several months, but we will win and we will destroy them,” Mr. Gallant said in brief remarks before the meeting.
In Israel, the U.S. national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, met with senior Israeli leaders on Thursday, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Mr. Sullivan had said before his visit that one of the topics of discussion with Israeli officials would be “how they are seeing the timetable of this war.”
Mr. Sullivan did not specify a timetable during his meetings, but four American officials said President Biden wants Israel to switch to more precise tactics in around three weeks, or soon thereafter. The officials asked for anonymity to discuss the president’s thinking.
How does Biden know how precise the IDF’s tactics are? And, frankly, I’m tired of him telling the IDF how to do their business. Does he tell Bashar al-Assad to lay off killing his own people? Of course not; it’s the Jews he wants to control. I’m glad that Biden is financially and logistically supporting the war, but I don’t see him telling President Zelensky how to fight in Ukraine, which we support financially as well. Does the U.S. regard Israel as a “client state,” giving us the right to tell it what to do?
BUT, then we have this, which I wrote earlier:
*I was disturbed on Tuesday when Biden accused the IDF of “indiscriminate bombing”, as, so far as I knew, Israel did its best not to bomb indiscriminately. If the IDF suddenly changed its tactics and started bombing civilians willy-nilly, I couldn’t get behind that. But now we hear from Biden’s own national security spokesperson that Biden apparently misspoke.
With his praise, John Kirby seemingly walked back President Biden’s Tuesday comment that the IDF is “indiscriminately bombing” the Gaza Strip.
U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby praised Israel’s military Wednesday for protecting Gazan civilians more than almost any other army would, including America itself.
Referring to a grid of the Gaza Strip that the IDF issued two weeks ago that divided the enclave into hundreds of mini-combat zones so that it could warn those who live in specific areas to flee before its forces enter to clear them of Hamas terrorists, Kirby told journalists, “They have published online maps of places where people can go or not go. That’s basically telegraphing your punches!”
“There are very few modern militaries in the world that would do that. I don’t know that we would do that.”
Kirby also told the press briefing that, following American advice, Israel has worked to reduce civilian casualties by carrying out fewer airstrikes in the southern part of the Strip now than it had directed at the northern section at the beginning of the war. Even in the north, he noted, the IDF “mov[ed] in on the ground in a smaller way than they had previously planned to do.”
Many of the questions revolved around the civilian casualty count in Gaza, with journalists referring to a comment President Joe Biden had made the previous day at a campaign fundraiser that the Jewish state was “starting to lose support by the indiscriminate bombing that takes place.”
. . . Kirby evaded the question of whether Biden’s words were a formal assessment of Israel’s military conduct. He said that Biden’s remark “reflected the reality of global opinion, which also matters,” and that the White House was not considering reducing its aid to the Jewish state.
So which is it? Is Biden talking out of both sides of his mouth? Is he confused? Or are white house factotums putting their own spin on his words. I’m not yet worried, though, that Biden will pull his support from Israel. I note that today’s NYT reports that Sullivan appears to walk back his remarks a bit:
Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser, sought on Friday to play down differences between the United States and Israel over the war against Hamas in Gaza, emphasizing that both allies expected the pace of the fighting to ultimately slow down.
Israel “was clear from the beginning that this war would proceed in phases,” Mr. Sulivan told reporters in Tel Aviv, describing the current fighting as high intensity. “But there will be a transition to another phase of this war: one that is focused on targeting the leadership, on intelligence operations,” he said.
*The inevitable charade has occurred: in a split vote favoring Republicans, the House approved an impeachment inquiry for President Biden. Although we now know that his son Hunter is guilty of tax evasion, there is no evidence that Biden knew of or profited from Hunter’s dealings. And I hope to God he didn’t. But why start an inquiry if there’s no evidence? It’s because they’re Republicans, Jake.
The House voted on Wednesday to formally open an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, pushing forward with a yearlong G.O.P. investigation that has failed to produce evidence of anything approaching high crimes or misdemeanors.
Republicans said the vote was needed to give them full authority to continue carrying out their investigation amid anticipated legal challenges from the White House. Democrats have denounced the inquiry as a fishing expedition and a political stunt.
G.O.P. leaders refrained for months from calling a vote to open an impeachment inquiry, given the reservations of mainstream Republicans, many of them from politically competitive districts, about moving forward without proof that Mr. Biden had done anything wrong. Instead, Kevin McCarthy, the speaker at the time, unilaterally announced one in September as he was facing pressure from the far right to deliver on its priorities, including impeaching the president.
But Wednesday’s vote underscored how the political ground has shifted, with Republicans unanimously willing to endorse an inquiry even as some emphasized that they were not yet ready to charge the president. The vote of 221 to 212 was along party lines, with all Republicans voting to approve the inquiry and all Democrats opposed.
This is the first vote I’ve seen—and I may have missed some—in which all Democrats voted one way and all Republicans the other. But the Democrats are unanimously right this time. This is simply a revenge operation by Republicans.
*From Tom Gross’s latest newsletter:
In recent days, Israel has recovered the bodies of three more hostages in Gaza, all murdered by Hamas at some point after October 7.
Among them is Eden Zacharia, 27, pictured above, who was kidnapped by Hamas from the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, horrifically abused and then killed by Hamas in Gaza.
Her battered body was recovered by IDF forces in Gaza on Tuesday. Her boyfriend Ofek was murdered by Hamas in front of her on Oct. 7 before she was kidnapped.
HAMAS: ANTISEMITIC, ANTI-WOMEN, HOMOPHOBIC, RACIST
Another murdered hostage was a young Tanzanian, Joshua Mollel, who had been studying agriculture in Israel. His body was recovered by the IDF yesterday.
(In addition to their extreme prejudice against Jews and gays, Hamas are also prejudiced against black Africans, which is perhaps a factor in why they killed both the Tanzanians they kidnapped.)
Another Tanzanian agricultural student, Clemence Felix Mtenga, 22, (below) was kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7 and murdered by the Palestinian terror group shortly thereafter.
NAAMA LEVY IS ALIVE
Based on interviews with released Israeli hostages and with Hamas members who have surrendered in recent days, Israel is gathering intelligence about the fate of the hostages.
It is believe that as many as 20 of the 138 remaining hostages may have been killed by Hamas in captivity.
However, Naama Levy, the young peace activist, was still alive two weeks ago, according to one of the released Israeli hostages who saw her:
Naama Levy, 19, young peace activist, first to filmed bloodied by Hamas, now two months in captivity
*Don’t ever say that everything Republicans do is wrong. According to Inside Higher Ed, they just won a prolonged tussle with the University of Wisconsin over DEI funding.
The Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents voted 11 to 6 Wednesday night to approve a deal to cut spending on diversity, equity and inclusion in exchange for $800 million in funds held hostage by state Republicans, reversing a first vote held last Saturday that rejected the deal 9 to 8.
The green-lighted proposal will cap all DEI staff hires for three years, restructure and redefine the roles of one-third of the system’s current DEI staff, and freeze all administrative hires across the system, among other concessions. In exchange the UW system will receive $800 million in state funding, including long-frozen pay increases for employees and money for a new engineering building at UW Madison, that was voted down last month.
The about-face marks the latest twist in a saga that stretches back to June, when Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, a Republican, used a procedural loophole to hold back $32 million in preapproved pay raises for UW employees after Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, vetoed a bill that would have cut the system’s DEI spending. A narrow majority voted to reject the deal just days ago.
Three regents, Amy Bogost, Karen Walsh and Jennifer Staton, changed their votes from no to yes; they cited pleas from system leaders who said the universities desperately needed the withheld funding.
“We have heard from all the chancellors and they have asked for our help,” Staton said at the meeting, according to local reports. “Right now I will place their needs above my own. They are the leaders of their campuses, and we have entrusted them with this leadership.”
The vote is a victory for Vos and his fellow Wisconsin Republicans, whose six-month standoff over DEI has finally produced results. It also represents a victory for UW president Jay Rothman and UW Madison chancellor Jennifer Mnookin, who had arranged and backed the deal and who faced blowback from all sides after the first vote failed.
But DEI is like a flatworm: you can cut it in half and it will regenerate. This is but a temporary setback. Still, the university folded.
*How can you pass up this headline, sent by reader Malcolm? (Click to read from Freethink):
cientists have observed an extremely rare particle physics event using a detector that’s hunting for dark matter, the mysterious material that physicists have yet to observe.
In a paper published in the journal Nature, researchers with the XENON Collaboration said they’d observed the radioactive decay of a substance called xenon-124, an isotope of the element xenon — a colorless and odorless noble gas found in tiny amounts in the atmosphere. The event — a “two-neutrino double electron capture” — has eluded scientists for decades.
It happens when “two protons in a nucleus are simultaneously converted into neutrons by the absorption of two electrons from one of the atomic shells and the emission of two electron neutrinos.” After this occurs, the event shoots out a predictable cascade of X-rays and Auger electrons that scientists look for using an ultra-sensitive detector, buried about 5,000 feet beneath Italy’s Gran Sasso mountain where it’s shielded from cosmic rays.
“We have shown that we can observe the rarest events ever recorded,” Ethan Brown, a professor of physics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and co-author of the study, told Newsweek. “The key finding is that an isotope formerly thought to be completely stable has now been shown to decay on an unimaginably long timescale.”
How long is that timescale? The team estimated that xenon-124’s half-life is about 18 sextillion years — or 18,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years — which is than one trillion times the age of our universe, according to the team. It’s the slowest process ever measured directly, the team wrote in a statement.
“It’s an amazing to have witnessed this process, and it says that our detector can measure the rarest thing ever recorded,” Brown told The Independent.
Our ability to detect something this rare, and with high assurance (see below) is stunning, and helps restore my constantly-eroding faith in human nature. Here’s a bit from the paper’s abstract:
The significance of the signal is 4.4 standard deviations and the corresponding half-life of 1.8 × 1022 years (statistical uncertainty, 0.5 × 1022 years; systematic uncertainty, 0.1 × 1022 years) is the longest measured directly so far. This study demonstrates that the low background and large target mass of xenon-based dark-matter detectors make them well suited for measuring rare processes and highlights the broad physics reach of larger next-generation experiments.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili’s got a good excuse to get cream:
Hili: Give me some cream at once.A: What happened?Hili: I ate a bitter mouse.
Hili: Daj mi natychmiast śmietanki.Ja: Co się stało?Hili: Zjadłam jakąś zgorzkniałą mysz.
***************
Here’s the Israeli equivalent of Saturday Night Live: Eretz Nehederet. In this sketch, a faux Netanyahu tries to evade any responsibility for the October 7 Hamas attack:
From Patricia, the best way to celebrate Hanukkah: a pink flamingo menorah!
From Divy, a bad kitty who won’t get coal for Christmas but will get cookies!
Sappho, one of the three cats staffed by reader Cate:
From Masih. The translation of her text is this:
The hijab officer tells the brave woman who is filming their harassment and harassment: “Send for Masih Alinjad, he couldn’t do anything wrong.” The fact that an informed woman stands bravely in front of a herd of veiled government hijabs and shames you shows that you can do no wrong. With so many cameras, arrests, arrests, and killings, you could not compete with the brave women of Iran who stand in your face and say “no” to Islamic slavery. You have the right to be angry with us. Because we have become the throat bone of the government and we will not let the good water go down the throat of your holy system. Because Khamenei ordered you to stand in front of the destruction of the Berlin Wall of the Islamic Republic, but you are not even against the teenagers, who are openly slandering you until the day they gather your table forever.
The Iranian morality police freak me out in their dark uniforms!
مامور حجاب به زن شجاعی که از آزارگری و مزاحمتشان فیلم میگیرد میگوید: «بفرست برای مسیح علینژاد، هیچ غلطی نتونست بکنه»
همین که یک زن آگاه در مقابل گلهای از محجبههای حکومتی شجاعانه میایستد و شرمسارتان میکند نشان میدهد که شما غلطی نمیتوانید بکنید.
با این همه دوربین وبگیر… https://t.co/k4nYgz79L9
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) December 14, 2023
From Riley Gaines, a defender of women’s sports for women:
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) December 13, 2023
From Luana: a takedown on the “naked Gaza prisoner” scandal (and other stuff):
The IDF bringing the smackdown on TikTok as well pic.twitter.com/EM79A979P5
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) December 13, 2023
From Barry, who says, “No it’s not.” It took me a second to see that this is just a class logo, not a nude:
Say it’s just not me pic.twitter.com/AFKWtl358r
— CHAEYOUNG Park 🐻🇰🇷🐻🏳️🌈 (@Susan16Park) December 13, 2023
Here’s Stephen Knight, the Godless Spellchecker, defending Fiona Knight’s singing of an antisemitic song (it was taken down but you can hear it here). It’s a long but good defense of free speech, which is increasingly endangered in the UK:
I've just seen that this person (Fiona Ryan) has been arrested and charged for posting this song online (below).
Some quick thoughts that may lose a few people along the way…
First, the obvious one. The song absolutely is antisemitic. There is no doubt about that. She's an…
— Stephen Knight 🎙️ (@GSpellchecker) December 12, 2023
In case you didn’t know “repo” is a “repossession”: a car that wasn’t paid off and was reclaimed by the seller.
Man performs flawless car repo in under 60 seconds pic.twitter.com/4G59csUtdA
— Crime Net (@TRIGGERHAPPYV1) December 13, 2023
From the Auschwitz Memorial: A Czech Jewish woman who died in the camp, age 37
15 December 1914 | Czech Jewish woman Gizela Rutarová was born in Prague.
She was deported to #Auschwitz from #Theresienstadt ghetto on 26 October 1942. She did not survive. pic.twitter.com/MD9N8D2NtI
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) December 15, 2023
Tweets from Dr. Cobb. This one he calls “kot”:
It’s mine.. 😂 pic.twitter.com/JpzAl073jK
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) December 13, 2023
An 18 sextillion year half-life? Sounds stable to me…in the real world. Consider a spherical elephant.
+1
“an isotope formerly thought to be completely stable has now been shown to decay”
Half-life : 1.8 X 10^22 years
Age of universe : 26.7 X 10^9
… I have to review, but I think decay is statistical such that not all nuclei will decay at the same time. So… I still am puzzled by this … but that is indeed a good thing as PCC(E) notes!
I thought the age of the Universe was only 13 billion years.
Thanks for this – there’s a research article Google pushed which claimed 26.7 X 10^9 because of “tired photons”.
NASA says 13.7 X 10^9 (+/- 0.2 X 10^9), so I’m going with that.
I’ll leave the reading to those interested – links make a bit of mess.
Maybe it’s a midnight dorm room or pub conversation. Maybe for theoretical physics it is unstable, but for engineering I would consider it stable. Maybe this is an example of a difference between theoretical physics and engineering. Or again…consider a spherical elephant.
Well no. It’s the difference between observing no decay events and observing some decay events.
If you had a mole of Xenon to start with, (6×10^23 atoms), over 1.8×10^22 years, you would expect 3×10^23 decay events which means that, on average, there would be around 15 decay events per year and because the decay curve is exponential, there would be many more decay events than that in the first year.
Sorry, this is supposed to be a reply to Jim.
Thanks jerrmyp. I grow old i grow old and do not think well anymore I’m afraid.
“… there would be many more decay events than that in the first year.”
“because the decay curve is exponential.”
YES.
Yes, it is a big difference. I’m reminded of the question of proton decay. They’ve pushed back the shortest estimate for the half-life of the proton to 10^32 years, because, despite there being oodles of protons being watched for decay events, not one has been detected yet.
Yes, the decay rate declines exponentially (because over time there are fewer undecayed atoms left).
No, there will not be “many more” decays in the first year of 1.8×10^22 years; any excess will be imperceptible — it’s rather like homeopathy 🙂.
Agree … but we would need over 1000 moles of xenon as the abundance of Xe(124) is about 0.1%
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That’s a good description of Bayesian statistics. I wonder how a result with a mere 4-sigma confidence level can prove the observation of an event that is so astronomically improbable. I haven’t read the paper so maybe there is a way, but almost any other counter-explanation (even crazy ones) would be more likely than the explanation actually chosen.
I suppose if one felt charitable to Biden, one might say no one cares if the Ukranians kill Russians, and his tenderness towards the people of Gaza is not so much anti-Jewish, but more pro-Arab. This is easily explained by the average mindset of his base, who are certainly more pro-Arab than pro-Israeli.
I would rather he exhibited some backbone, even if an osteoporotic and kyphotic one, and backed Israel to the hilt, but since when did politicians think about more than re-election? To me, the world will be a far more dangerous place if America does not stand up for the Ukranians and the Israelis: this is not the time for a new age of isolationism.
The Russia – Ukraine war is taking place, with very minor exceptions, in Ukraine. Ukrainians killing Russian civilians isn’t really a problem because 99% of the fighting is in Ukraine.
I think Putin’s war against Ukraine is more important than the chronic conflict in the Middle East. But I may be prejudiced, since my father was Ukrainian. (However, I’m NOT saying that the Middle East conflict is unimportant.)
Last night my wife and I finally saw the documentary “20 Days in Mariupol” (with our PBS Passport subscription). No other documentary I’ve seen shows so clearly the horror and dread of a civilian population being encircled and attacked by a relentless and murderous military.
I agree that our hate speech laws are egregious. Also egregious are some of the replies which claim it’s all OK because Ms Knight was also charged with drugs offences. This has no relevance to Mr Knight’s point but people seemed to be saying it invalidates it.
I don’t know if social media makes people more stupid or just brings our attention to the stupid people.
The ad hominem fallacy in its purest form.
Thanks Ken. In his and Rikki Schlott’s new book, Greg Lukianoff points out the move to “ad hominem” argument as a key component of cancel culture.
Males colonizing female spaces:
Notice how the article about the guy’s “gender” never mentions which are the relevant Planes of Correspondence, Principles of Vibration, or Principle of Polarity when the Gender (or Mental Gender) was observed.
Because the point is Hermetic alchemy – via social construction – by using the word “gender” in the article, which reifies the gnostic insight – the self-knowledge. There is – by definition – no observation.
Read all about “Gender” and “Mental Gender” in the literally occult book The Kybalion (1908). I urge everyone to read this book, it is bonkers.
In the real world, the males colonizing female spaces (even award podiums) is a mid-level provocation used to advance the Revolution by the Friend/Enemy distinction (which Mao Zedong made use of). The wizards force a choice of the Right Side of History or Enemy to make further advances – when the material world doesn’t work like that.
The House Oversight Committee says it does have evidence of Joe Biden’s involvement in his son’s business in the form of emails and checks. Here’s Jonathan Turley in the NY Post on the subject. Frankly, I think he should be impeached on his Administration’s actions on illegal immigration.
If the HOC had any substantial evidence of “high crimes and misdemeanors” after their multiple-year investigation, it would have made headlines by now. The fact that only propaganda outlets like Fox and Newsmax keep running with this should be all the proof you need that there is nothing there. I’m glad Hunter finally spoke out this week; he did a good job explaining what is actually going on. This is just a political-slander stunt like the GOP did with Hilary’s emails and Benghazi. It’s absurdly transparent.
And it looks like you need some facts re. the border (as most conservatives/ Fox viewers do).
This appeared in The Hill last February.
Myth vs. Truth: Dissecting the Republican narrative about the border
By Rep. Gerry Connolly
Republicans are clamoring over themselves to blame President Joe Biden for any and every challenge facing America. Nowhere is that more apparent than on the issue of immigration and border security.
If you listen to my Republican colleagues, you’d believe Joe Biden single-handedly broke our immigration system and refuses to fix it. They keep this lie alive by perpetuating a series of myths about Democrats and the border.
It’s time to correct the record.
MYTH: The Biden administration has implemented an “open border” policy that has created chaos at our border with Mexico.
TRUTH: President Biden inherited an immigration system in tatters. The Trump administration cut off legal pathways to citizenship, leaving would-be migrants with fewer lawful methods of entering the country. They cut funding to Central American countries in 2019 as they splurged on an ineffective, costly wall.
It was the Trump administration that tightened sanctions on Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, exacerbating the macroeconomic crises that have led hundreds of thousands to flee and arrive at the southern border. When they pulled the rug out from various, essential assistance programs, they made the problem worse.
But our immigration system has been broken for many decades — long before Joe Biden or Donald Trump took the oath of office. Time and again, Democrats have proposed solutions to fix the immigration system in a reasonable, humane way. And time and again, Republicans have opposed these efforts at every turn.
One might recall that in 2013, House Republicans thwarted comprehensive immigration reform after an agreement was reached in the Senate. Many of those same House Republicans who prevented that legislation from passing are now intent on blaming irregular migration, an issue our country has dealt with for over a century, solely on the Biden administration.
There’s only one problem with their affinity for blaming Democrats — it doesn’t hold up to basic scrutiny. In fact, between December 2022 and January 2023, the Biden-Harris administration halved the number of encounters at the border and reduced the number of Cuban, Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, and Haitian migrants by 97 percent.
MYTH: The Biden administration has ignored the border and is refusing to commit proper resources to it.
TRUTH: The idea that Democrats have ignored the situation at the border and refused to commit resources to solving it is another outright lie. In reality, the Biden-Harris administration and congressional Democrats have surged record levels of funding to the border.
The FY23 government funding package that President Biden signed into law provided Border Patrol with $7.153 billion — a 17 percent increase from the year before. Additionally, the funding package provided $65 million for 300 new Border Patrol agents, $60 million for 125 new personnel at points of entry; and $230 million for technology like autonomous surveillance towers.
House Republicans voted against this historic funding.
MYTH: Biden’s “open border” policies allow undocumented immigrants to flood the country with deadly fentanyl.
TRUTH: Republicans continue to blame vulnerable migrants fleeing violence, hunger, and natural disasters for illicit drug smuggling, but facts are stubborn things. Over 90 percent of fentanyl, and over 80 percent of total illegal narcotics, arrive at legal points of entry—not between them—and are smuggled largely by Americans—not undocumented migrants. In fact, migrants accounted for less than 9 percent of fentanyl trafficking convictions in FY 21, compared to more than 86 percent for American citizens.
In December 2022, CBP seized 4,500 pounds of fentanyl, the largest amount ever recorded. Incredibly, just five of those 4,500 pounds were seized at the border by U.S. Border Patrol. Republicans are focused on 1 percent of the problem, 100 percent of the time.
MYTH: Biden’s “open border” policies have allowed criminals and terrorists to pour over the southern border unchecked, contributing to a spike in crime in America.
TRUTH: Study after study has shown that undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S. citizens. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Alternatives to Detention Program provides a strong example: The latest data from ICE released on Feb. 3, 2023, demonstrated 99.4 percent of immigrants monitored on ICE’s Alternatives to Detention Program attended their court hearings compared to the .6 percent which failed to attend their hearing.
Not all undocumented immigrants are tracked through this program, but immigrants, when paroled into the United States, overwhelmingly are lawful individuals that attend their court hearings. An American Immigration Council report found that over the past 11 years, an overwhelming 83 percent of immigrants attended their immigration court hearings, and those who failed to appear in court often did not receive notice or faced hardship in getting to court.
Republicans who assert the Biden administration is releasing countless dangerous migrants into the country are not only trafficking in xenophobic, anti-immigrant sentiment, but they are also peddling lies that are categorically false.
The situation at the border demands serious policy solutions that provide a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients; address the root causes of migration like repression, political instability, violence, hunger, and lack of economic opportunity; and fix our own broken immigration system.
I don’t think this is a fair argument. We supply Israel with much of their armament which gives us some ability to “tell” an ally how we think they should be used. Assad is about as far from an ally as you can get and we don’t give him arms.
Regarding Ukraine, there’s also a significant difference in that there are a lot fewer civilians being killed by Ukrainian forces.
(I generally agree with your position, however, that Hamas is responsible, mostly, for the “collateral damage” in Gaza.)
The US (and other Western allies) is telling the Ukraine all the time how to conduct its war, and rightly so. Sometimes the Ukraine takes the advice, and sometimes it doesn’t. This is not at all a secret.
GCM
I don’t know exactly why, but I used to think people who would simply say “Ukraine” were incorrect. (I had usually said “the Ukraine.”)
Now I correct people (usually in my mind) who say “the Ukraine.”
I’ve been convinced by arguments that placing “the” in front of the name makes Ukraine a generic territory rather than a real country, which supports Putin’s statements that Ukraine is just a part of his empire.
Off with the “the”!
It’s because the word “Ukraine” means “Borderlands”. The construction is the same as for “the Netherlands”. If “the” goes away, the country needs an entirely new name.
Almost everyone now calls the country “Ukraine” — without the “the.” Which is fine by me.
Also, during the time when the Syrian civil war was the main world news, the US and allies accused Assad of war crimes/”atrocities” precisely because he bombed densely populated areas where he hit a lot of civilians, and the US came short of intervening in that conflict ostensibly because of the humanitarian danger to civilians (“responsibility to protect”). Assad, like Israel, faced an enemy that hid in civilian infrastructure (housing, schools, hospitals), and the militias he was fighting were largely Islamist fanatics who were no better custodians of human rights than Assad himself (or Hamas).
For credibility’s sake alone, Biden has to be seen to chastise Israel for the large toll of civilian victims, even though the US did worse in Vietnam, which much less of an excuse, and possibly also in Yemen recently.
As in the 1984 Harry Dean Stanton/Emilio Estevez cult classic Repo Man (q.v.).
“The more you drive, the less intelligent you are.”
The movie has so many great lines.
Thanks for the trailer, I’ve seen the movie probably a dozen times, but I’ve never seen the trailer!
On this day:
1791 – The United States Bill of Rights becomes law when ratified by the Virginia General Assembly.
1836 – The U.S. Patent Office building in Washington, D.C., nearly burns to the ground, destroying all 9,957 patents issued by the federal government to that date, as well as 7,000 related patent models.
1869 – The short-lived Republic of Ezo is proclaimed in the Ezo area of Japan.[9] It is the first attempt to establish a democracy in Japan.
1871 – Sixteen-year-old telegraphist Ella Stewart keys and sends the first telegraphed message from Arizona Territory at the Deseret Telegraph Company office in Pipe Spring.
1890 – Hunkpapa Lakota leader Sitting Bull is killed on Standing Rock Indian Reservation, leading to the Wounded Knee Massacre.
1893 – Symphony No. 9 (“From the New World” a.k.a. the “New World Symphony”) by Antonín Dvořák premieres in a public afternoon rehearsal at Carnegie Hall in New York City, followed by a concert premiere on the evening of December 16.
1903 – Italian American food cart vendor Italo Marchiony receives a U.S. patent for inventing a machine that makes ice cream cones.
1906 – The London Underground’s Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway opens.
1939 – Gone with the Wind (highest inflation-adjusted grossing film) receives its premiere at Loew’s Grand Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, United States.
1941 – The Holocaust in Ukraine: German troops murder over 15,000 Jews at Drobytsky Yar, a ravine southeast of the city of Kharkiv.
1944 – World War II: a single-engine UC-64A Norseman aeroplane carrying United States Army Air Forces Major Glenn Miller is lost in a flight over the English Channel.
1961 – Adolf Eichmann is sentenced to death after being found guilty by an Israeli court of 15 criminal charges, including charges of crimes against humanity, crimes against the Jewish people, and membership of an outlawed organization.
1965 – Project Gemini: Gemini 6A, crewed by Wally Schirra and Thomas Stafford, is launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida. Four orbits later, it achieves the first space rendezvous, with Gemini 7.
1970 – Soviet spacecraft Venera 7 successfully lands on Venus. It is the first successful soft landing on another planet.
1973 – John Paul Getty III, grandson of American billionaire J. Paul Getty, is found alive near Naples, Italy, after being kidnapped by an Italian gang on July 10. [Coincidentally, it was his grandfather’s birthday.]
1973 – The American Psychiatric Association votes 13–0 to remove homosexuality from its official list of psychiatric disorders, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
1978 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter announces that the United States will recognize the People’s Republic of China and sever diplomatic relations with the Republic of China (Taiwan).
1981 – A suicide car bombing targeting the Iraqi embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, levels the embassy and kills 61 people, including Iraq’s ambassador to Lebanon. The attack is considered the first modern suicide bombing.
2001 – The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopens after 11 years and $27,000,000 spent to stabilize it, without fixing its famous lean.
2014 – Gunman Man Haron Monis takes 18 hostages inside a café in Martin Place for 16 hours in Sydney. Monis and two hostages are killed when police raid the café the following morning.
Births:
AD 37 – Nero, Roman emperor (d. 68).
1832 – Gustave Eiffel, French architect and engineer, co-designed the Eiffel Tower (d. 1923).
1852 – Henri Becquerel, French physicist and chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1908).
1859 – L. L. Zamenhof, Polish linguist and ophthalmologist, created Esperanto (d. 1917).
1886 – Wanda Krahelska-Filipowicz, Polish politician and resistance fighter (d. 1968). [As the well-connected wife of a former ambassador to Washington, she used her contacts with both the military and political leadership of the Polish Underground to materially influence the underground’s policy of aiding Poland’s Jewish population during WWII.]
1892 – J. Paul Getty, American-English businessman and art collector, founded Getty Oil (d. 1976).
1896 – Betty Smith, American author and playwright (d. 1972).
1899 – Harold Abrahams, English sprinter, lawyer, and journalist (d. 1978).
1907 – Oscar Niemeyer, Brazilian architect, designed the United Nations Headquarters and the Cathedral of Brasília (d. 2012).
1909 – Eliza Atkins Gleason, American librarian (d. 2009). [She also died on this day.]
1916 – Maurice Wilkins, New Zealand-English physicist and biologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2004).
1919 – Max Yasgur, American dairy farmer and host of the Woodstock Music & Art Fair (d. 1973).
1921 – Alan Freed, American radio host (d. 1965). [Helped to spread the importance of rock and roll music throughout North America.]
1923 – Freeman Dyson, English-American physicist and mathematician (d. 2020).
1923 – Uziel Gal, German-Israeli engineer, designed the Uzi gun (d. 2002).
1930 – Edna O’Brien, Irish novelist, playwright, poet and short story writer.
1933 – Donald Woods, South African journalist and activist (d. 2001). [Editor of the Daily Dispatch, he was known for befriending fellow activist Steve Biko, who was killed by police after being detained by the South African government. Woods continued his campaign against apartheid in London, and in 1978 became the first private citizen to address the United Nations Security Council. The film Cry Freedom was based on his books.]
1938 – Michael Bogdanov, Welsh director and screenwriter (d. 2017).
1939 – Dave Clark, English musician and songwriter.
1944 – Chico Mendes, Brazilian trade union leader and activist (d. 1988).
1945 – Heather Booth, American civil rights activist, feminist, and political strategist.
1955 – Paul Simonon, English singer-songwriter and bass player.
1961 – Yours truly.
1970 – Frankie Dettori, Italian jockey. [He recently retired. Remarkably, in September 1996 he rode all seven winners on British Festival of Racing Day at Ascot Racecourse.]I
I sympathize afresh with the mighty Voltaire who, when badgered on his deathbed and urged to renounce the devil, murmured that this was no time to be making enemies:
1675 – Johannes Vermeer, Dutch painter and educator (b. 1632).
1683 – Izaak Walton, English author (b. 1593).
1753 – Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington, English architect and politician, designed Chiswick House (b. 1694).
1878 – Alfred Bird, English chemist and businessman, invented baking powder (b. 1811).
1943 – Fats Waller, American singer-songwriter and pianist (b. 1904).
1958 – Wolfgang Pauli, Austrian-Swiss physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1900).
1962 – Charles Laughton, English-American actor, director, and producer (b. 1899).
1966 – Walt Disney, American animator, director, producer, and screenwriter, co-founded The Walt Disney Company (b. 1901).
2010 – Blake Edwards, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1922).
2011 – Christopher Hitchens, English-American essayist, literary critic, and journalist (b. 1949).
2013 – Joan Fontaine, British-American actress (b. 1917).
2017 – Heinz Wolff, scientist and TV presenter (b. 1928).
The Gemini 6A story is an interesting one and told in a Wikipedia article. In summary, original Gemini 6 mission was to rendezvous AND dock with an unmanned (now called uncrewed) Agena spacecraft already in orbit. But the Agena launch failed so a new mission, Gemini 6A, was created for two months later to rendezvous (but not dock) with the long mission and manned Gemini 7 which would be in orbit. The story of the Gemini 6/6A launch and mission, including huge drama with the 6A launch itself, is an exciting one, showing the incredibly high stakes and complexity of mid-60’s spaceflight in a race to the moon. Wikipedia article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_6A
Happy birthday Jez! And wish you many more.
+1
Thanks!
How do you drill 5,000 ft into a mountain? Or is this a horizontal tunnel into a mountain at an elevation 5,000 ft from its summit?
“Indiscriminate.” Joe Biden is doing a good job, but he has always been a gaffe machine. He tends to shoot from the hip at times. Was this a gaffe? Hard to say. But I’m glad that the administration is walking it back.
The “three weeks” comment is interesting. Where did that come from? I wonder if it came out of conversations between Israeli and U.S. officials and if Israel itself told the U.S. that it anticipates ratcheting to a new phase. “Three weeks” is very specific—too specific to have been just a throwaway quip.
Agree entirely about that commercial. It’s excellence is not just the tour-de-force of what has to be CGI, but the details: the lint roller, the sneeze, etc.