Saturday: Hili dialogue

January 6, 2024 • 6:45 am

Welcome to SaturCaturday January 6, 2024; it’s Sabbath for Jewish cats and National King Cake Day. The King Cake, What’s that? Wikipedia helps:

A king cake, also known as a three kings cake, is a cake associated in many countries with Epiphany.  Its form and ingredients are variable, but in most cases a fève (lit. ’fava bean‘) such as a figurine, often said to represent the Christ Child, is hidden inside.  After the cake is cut, whoever gets the fève wins a prize.

In the US, the Baby Jesus is usually a plastic figure like the one below, and if you find it in your slice, you win (the “prize” is often having to buy next year’s King Cake!).  I always wonder if anybody chokes or breaks their teeth by biting Baby Jesus. Here’s a King Cake with the prize:

(from Wikipedia) English: Two slices of a Manny Randazzo King Cake, with a plastic infant “King” on top, from Metairie, Louisiana, United States

It’s also Apple Tree Day, National Bean Day, Cuddle Up Day (especially to kitties), National Shortbread Day, and National Smith Day, celebrating all people named “Smith”.  It’s also christmas in the Eastern Orthodox Church, including: Christmas (Armenian Apostolic Church), Christmas Eve (Russia), Christmas Eve (Ukraine) Christmas Eve (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and Christmas Eve (North Macedonia). Finally, it’s  Epiphany or Three Kings’ Day (in Western Christianity) or Theophany (in Eastern Christianity), and its related observances: Befana Day (Italy), Little Christmas (Ireland), and Þrettándinn in Iceland. A big day all around!

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this by consulting the January 6 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*First, the Supreme Court is going to take up the case of Trump’s being banned from the Colorado GOP primary ballot because he fomented an insurrection. And they’re doing it soon, because whether or not he can run is something that will be decided for all states at once—and primary season is on us:

The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide whether former President Donald J. Trump is eligible for Colorado’s Republican primary ballot, thrusting the justices into a pivotal role that could alter the course of this year’s presidential election.

The sweep of the court’s ruling is likely to be broad. It will probably resolve not only whether Mr. Trump may appear on the Colorado primary ballot after the state’s top court declared that he had engaged in insurrection in his efforts to subvert the 2020 election, but it will most likely also determine his eligibility to run in the general election and to hold office at all.

Not since Bush v. Gore, the 2000 decision that handed the presidency to George W. Bush, has the Supreme Court taken such a central role in an election for the nation’s highest office.

The case will be argued on Feb. 8, and the court will probably decide it quickly. The Colorado Republican Party had urged the justices to rule by March 5, when many states, including Colorado, hold primaries.

I predict the court will rule that Trump can indeed be on all primary ballots, probably because he hasn’t yet been convicted of any insurrection-related crimes yet.

*This is something we didn’t anticipate. According to the Washington Post, the dispute between Republicans and the Biden Administration could actually lead to a partial shutdown of the national government.

Far-right Republicans in the House are threatening to force a partial government shutdown unless Congress enacts strict new changes to immigration law, imperiling crucial government services — and U.S. aid to Ukraine — over a long-fraught issue that could be critical in this year’s elections.

Dozens of GOP lawmakers toured a portion of the U.S.-Mexico border at Eagle Pass, Tex., on Wednesday to push House-passed legislation that would significantly limit migrants’ ability to claim asylum, restart construction of a border wall and cut into President Biden’s power to grant humanitarian parole to migrants. Members of the Republican conference’s most conservative flank demanded that legislation become law in exchange for their votes to approve federal spending for the rest of the 2024 fiscal year, though the GOP-led House already rejected such a trade in September.

“H. R. 2 needs to be the unflinching House policy because all of it’s important to securing the border,” Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), chair of the archconservative House Freedom Caucus, told The Washington Post. “The president and Senate majority leader have no interest in securing the border, and so therefore, we as a House majority should say, ‘We’re not going to fund a government that is going to continue to facilitate this border invasion.’”

Federal agents recorded nearly 250,000 illegal crossings along the southern border in December, the highest total ever in one month, according to preliminary Customs and Border Protection data obtained by The Post.

That crisis is complicating efforts in Washington to head off a partial shutdown. Funding for roughly 20 percent of the federal government — including for essential programs such as some veterans assistance and food and drug safety services — expires on Jan. 19, and money for the rest of the government runs out shortly after that, on Feb. 2. But lawmakers have not yet agreed on how to pass full-year spending bills or more temporary funding. Without action by the first deadline, a partial government shutdown would begin. Congress returns next week with little time to work out the details.

The White House’s top budget official told reporters Friday that the GOP tactic significantly increased the risk of a shutdown.

Now I have to say that I’m largely with the Republicans on this one, for if the Democrats don’t get off their kiesters and enact some sensible immigration legislation, the Republicans will have to force the issue. It’s not just a principle, for everyone admits that there’s a serious crisis at the border, and we all know that many immigrants are getting in illegally because their reasons for coming are economic, not fear of persecution.  And potential immigrants all know they can get in if they just cross the border.  I would much prefer that the Biden administration and Congressional Democrats enact some bipartisan legislation, and for two reasons. One is this crisis; the other is that Americans want it solved and will blame Biden for it they go to the polls this fall. The only thing I’m not sure about is what “humanitarian parole” entails.

*The Hill has an article called “Nearly 17,000 people may have died from hydroxychloroquine: study.” Remember, that’s the antimalaria drug that quacks recommended be used to prevent and treat covid:

Nearly 17,000 people across six countries may have died because they took hydroxychloroquine (HQC) during the first wave of COVID-19 in 2020, according to a new analysis published by French researchers.

Hydroxychloroquine is an anti-malaria drug that was prescribed off-label to treat COVID-19 in the early stage of the pandemic, as researchers and physicians scrambled to find a way to combat the disease. It was also proposed as a preventative measure.

In February and March 2020, the use of this treatment was widely promoted based on preliminary reports suggesting a potential efficacy against COVID-19. However, subsequent studies showed that not only did the drug have no benefit, it also resulted in a significant increase in risk of death.

According to the researchers from Lyon, France, and Quebec, Canada, providers still prescribed hydroxychloroquine to some patients hospitalized with COVID-19 “despite the absence of evidence documenting its clinical benefits.”

The analysis found an estimated 16,990 excess deaths across six countries — Turkey, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy and the U.S. — were likely attributed to hydroxychloroquine use.

The researchers analyzed other studies that tracked hospitalizations, exposure to hydroxychloroquine and the relative risk of death from the drug.

The toxicity of hydroxychloroquine in patients with COVID-19 was partially due to cardiac side effects, such as abnormal heart rhythms.

Quackery kills! The article notes that the number is likely an undercount, but there are reasons it could also be an overcount.

Reader Jimbo, who sent the link, has this to say, quoted with permission:

Yes, this is the problem with just taking approved drugs with ‘almost no side effects’ for indications they are not approved for and “off-label” whether prescribed by a physician (and hopefully monitored) or not.  No side effect in which patients again?  Worse, the best clinical research on HCQ showed it was NOT efficacious against COVID, so worthless at best.  And isn’t the Hippocratic Oath “to do no harm”?  Well, causing death in normal people who took HCQ prophylactically (or even COVID-infected people to prevent a mortality rate of ~0.1%) would be harm!

*Once again I’m stealing three items from Nellie Bowles’s weekly news summary at the Free Press, called this week “TGIF: Where’s the Veritas?” It’s a good one, this week and there’s simply too much for me to even choose the best nuggets, so you really should subscribe to the FP.

First, GayGate:

→ What sinister force could be behind this? Could it be a sinister, secret plot?Times columnist Charles Blow described the force that ousted Gay as a bloodthirsty demon: “And unfortunately, Gay’s resignation will be like blood that further chums the water. As [Kimberlé] Crenshaw put it, this thing will not be satisfied.” So, a shark? A Jewish shark? Just say it! At least Cornel West will: “The same figures and forces enabling the ethnic cleansing and genocidal attacks on Palestinians in Gaza—Ackman, Blum, Summers and others—push out the first Black woman president of Harvard!”

But as it were, the water-churning force here is not Jewish at all. Because the man behind much of this is one Christopher Rufo, probably the most effective conservative activist working today. A polite man from Washington State who once made nice documentaries for PBS, he now wields a Twitter account like the sword of Damocles over institutional leaders.

→ Trans boxers allowed to compete against women: The governing board that runs competitive boxing policy has announced that biological males, who fit certain hormonal and surgical criteria, will be able to box against biological females. So a person who went through male puberty, whose bones and muscles grew to the size of an adult male, need simply take estrogen for a few months and then all those advantages apparently wash away. And what a fair fight it will be! Sure, the average male punch is 162 percent stronger than the average female punch, but that’s not the point. Anyway, it’s just boxing. What could go wrong? I will only add that I spent half an hour trying to open a jar last week and started crying.

I’m sure Science-Based Medicine will approve of this’ It’s exactly what they’re advocating: women getting beat up and knocked out by men.

→ Masks off this week: [about antisemitism; I’ve omitted the first item in the interest of space]

. . . . Also going strong this week is famed Silicon Valley investor Paul Graham, who is coming to us with this one about “America’s most powerful lobby.” Here’s the whole take: “This UN vote shows how completely isolated we are from world opinion. Is it because only America is smart enough to understand the Israeli point of view? Or because America’s most powerful lobby has dragged us onto the wrong side of history? The answer to that is obvious.” Paul’s British, and I am but a simple American. But still, I know that if you find yourself positively citing the United Nations, you done got lost, Paul.

In other news, a professor of medicine at University of California, San Francisco, said this week that Zionist doctors need to be rooted out and fired. Dr. Rupa Marya wrote: “The presence of Zionism in US medicine should be examined as a structural impediment to health equity. Zionism is a supremacist, racist ideology and we see Zionist doctors justifying the genocide of Palestinians. How does their outlook/position impact priorities in US medicine?” Doctors plot much? Really dark situation.

*Andrew Sullivan’s Weekly Dish has an 88-minute podcast with one of my friends: “Carole Hooven on Harvard’s Existential Crisis“, as well as a sub-article inspired by that discussion, “The woke panic over Gay’s resignation“.  I’ll quote from the latter since it’s written.

The most salutary aspect of this whole affair is that it has really helped expose the core disagreement in our current culture war. One side believes, as I do, that individual merit exists, and should be the core criterion for admission to a great university, regardless of an individual’s racial or sexual identity, and so on. The other side believes that merit doesn’t exist at all outside the oppressive paradigm of racial and sexual identity, and that membership in a designated “marginalized” group should therefore be the core criterion for advancement in academia.

For a very long time, many people have assumed you could keep these two ideas on campus at the same time, and somehow muddle through. But you cannot. When push comes to shove, when there is a finite number of places available, you’re in a zero-sum predicament. You have to pick between a smarter student of the wrong race and a weaker student of the right race. In the end at Harvard, being in the right race — not merit — determines your chances.

For example: If you are black and in the fourth lowest decile of SATs and GPAs among Harvard applicants, you have a higher chance of getting into Harvard (12.8 percent admitted) than an Asian-American in the very top decile (12.7 admitted). It’s rigged, which is why it was shut down by SCOTUS. When you look at these cold, hard stats — which Harvard, of course, did all it could to conceal — there is no debate. There’s a trade-off. But once you make identity a core qualification, you’re opening up a whole world of racist anti-racism.

This is the nub of it. Most Americans believe in individual merit, and advancement regardless of identity. Harvard and our new elite believe that our society is so structured as an enduring “white supremacy” that merit can only be considered after you have accounted for the effects of “intersectional oppression.” And so they discriminate against individuals on the grounds of their race before they consider merit.

We know this. Everyone in the university knows it. It was proven in the discovery documents in the SCOTUS case that exposed the systemic anti-Asian bias in Harvard admissions. And the only way to cover it all up, of course, is to abolish testing students entirely (which is what so many elite colleges and universities are now doing) or to give all students an A or an A-, making any distinctions of excellence irrelevant. That’s how you can claim, as Gay does, that “diversity” and “excellence” go hand in hand, when obviously, at some point they can and do conflict.

And let’s be honest: we can all see with our own eyes that subordinating merit to race and sex is how Gay got her position. Her work, beyond the sloppy dime-store plagiarism, would be underwhelming for an average member of any faculty in the country. But for a Harvard president, it’s astonishingly mid. When you look instead at what she has done as an administrator, which is where she has been focused more recently, you see it has almost all been about hiring on the basis of sex and race, persecuting heretical members of racial minorities, and removing paintings of dead white dudes. She is, at least, consistent.

*The New York Times asked two of its movie critics, Manohla Dargis and Alissa Wilkinson, to give their top nominations for the eight “big” categories, and then noted which nominees the two critics agreed on. And here are the agreed-on “bests” in the top categories:

Best picture:  Three agreements: “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “May December”, and “Oppenheimer.” I’ve seen “Oppenheimer”, and thought it was a very good but not great movie. Since I had already read the bio on which it was based, I found the film too forced to conform to the book, but showed too little of what shaped Oppenheimer’s personality. Still, I find it worthy of a nomination.

Best director: They agree on one nominee: Christopher Nolen for “Oppenheimer”

Best actor: One nominee agreed on, Coleman Domingo for “Rustin”

Best actress: Two agreements, Lily Gladstone for “Killers of the Flower Moon” and Sandru Hüller for “Anatomy of a Fall”

Best supporting actor: One agreement: Charles Melton in “May December”

Best supporting actress: Two agreements: Daneille Brooks in “The Color Purple” and Devine Joy Randolph in “The Holdovers”

Best original screenplay: Three agreements: “Anatomy of a Fall,” “Asteroid City,” and “May December”.

Best adapted screenplay: Two agreements: “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Oppenheimer”.

My first job now is to see “Killers of the Flower Moon” and then “May December”.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili doesn’t like the snow

A: Are you not going any further?
Hili: Somehow the snow is not enticing.
In Polish:
Ja: Nie idziesz dalej?
Hili: Coś ten śnieg mnie nie zachęca.

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

From America’s Cultural Decline into Idiocy. Yes, we’re pretty much alone on this 1/6/2024.  But it’s how we write out the date!

From Merilee: note the bunny’s passport specs, which match its description:

From Thomas. a Dave Coverly “Speedbump” cartoon (I’m not sure about the scientific accuracy):

From Masih. Read the whole tweet about the woman’s own account of being lashed. This is no small punishment, for it hurts a lot. And for showing her hair!  Only religion could lead to something like that. . .

Oh dear, it appears that “Science”-Based Medicine is unhappy with my critique of their unhinged article about, well, it seems to be about Helen Joyce’s 2023 book being shortlisted for the Maddox award. (It did not win.)  Whatever will they do? I suggested on Twitter that they publish pieces that are evenhanded rather than an unhinged and erroneous rant?  LOL! Show me that third gamete!

From Luana, with one guy playing both parts:

From Malcolm, an exceedingly flexible cat:

From Dom, the famous “Ames Window” illusion. Watch the whole thing:

From David. I think these are the rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza on New Year’s Eve. People keep forgetting that launching rockets deliberately at civilians is a war crime, and Gaza does this every day. A substantial proportion of the rockets—at least 20% of those launched— fall on Gaza, killing or injuring civilians:

From the Auschwitz Memorial: four women hanged for helping in a prisoner revolt (which failed, of course)

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. The first he calls a “key question”. (Answer: It’s an enzyme in gut microbes called bilirubin reductase.)

Matthew says this is “crazy”, and it is. It exemplifies the dictum: “Evolution is cleverer than you are.” See the quote below:

Here’s a quote from the paper:

Here we show, using a combination of electron microscopy, tomography, isolated-organelle genomics, and single-cell genomics, that ocelloids are built from pre-existing organelles, including a cornea-like layer made of mitochondria and a retinal body made of anastomosing plastids. We find that the retinal body forms the central core of a network of peridinin-type plastids, which in dinoflagellates and their relatives originated through an ancient endosymbiosis with a red alga. As such, the ocelloid is a chimaeric structure, incorporating organelles with different endosymbiotic histories.

20 thoughts on “Saturday: Hili dialogue”

  1. On this day:
    1066 – Following the death of Edward the Confessor on the previous day, the Witan meets to confirm Harold Godwinson as the new King of England; Harold is crowned the same day, sparking a succession crisis that will eventually lead to the Norman conquest of England.

    1536 – The first European school of higher learning in the Americas, Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco, is founded by Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza and Bishop Juan de Zumárraga in Mexico City.

    1540 – King Henry VIII of England marries Anne of Cleves. [He had only seen a flattering oil painting of her before the marriage and wasn’t impressed when he saw her in real life, describing her as the “mare of Flanders”. He divorced her, so at least she kept her head.]

    1721 – The Committee of Inquiry on the South Sea Bubble publishes its findings, revealing details of fraud among company directors and corrupt politicians.

    1724 – Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen, BWV 65, a Bach cantata, for Epiphany, is performed the first time.

    1838 – Alfred Vail and colleagues demonstrate a telegraph system using dots and dashes (this is the forerunner of Morse code).

    1839 – The Night of the Big Wind, the most damaging storm in 300 years, sweeps across Ireland, damaging or destroying more than 20% of the houses in Dublin.

    1847 – Samuel Colt obtains his first contract for the sale of revolver pistols to the United States government.

    1907 – Maria Montessori opens her first school and daycare center for working class children in Rome, Italy.

    1912 – German geophysicist Alfred Wegener first presents his theory of continental drift.

    1941 – United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers his Four Freedoms speech in the State of the Union address.

    1950 – The United Kingdom recognizes the People’s Republic of China. The Republic of China severs diplomatic relations with the UK in response.

    1951 – Korean War: Beginning of the Ganghwa massacre, in the course of which an estimated 200–1,300 South Korean communist sympathizers are slaughtered.

    1974 – In response to the 1973 oil crisis, daylight saving time commences nearly four months early in the United States.

    1994 – U.S. figure skater Nancy Kerrigan is attacked and injured by an assailant hired by her rival Tonya Harding’s ex-husband during the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

    2000 – The last natural Pyrenean ibex, Celia, is killed by a falling tree, thus making the species extinct.

    2005 – Edgar Ray Killen is indicted for the 1964 murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner during the American Civil Rights Movement.

    2021 – Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump attack the United States Capitol to disrupt certification of the 2020 presidential election, resulting in five deaths and evacuation of the U.S. Congress.

    Births:
    1412 – Joan of Arc, French martyr and saint (d. 1431).

    1745 – Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier, French co-inventor of the hot air balloon (d. 1799).

    1822 – Heinrich Schliemann, German archaeologist and businessman (d. 1890). [Discovered ancient Troy, but then kept on digging through the ruins…]

    1832 – Gustave Doré, French painter and sculptor (d. 1883).

    1872 – Alexander Scriabin, Russian pianist and composer (d. 1915).

    1913 – Loretta Young, American actress (d. 2000).

    1920 – John Maynard Smith, English biologist and geneticist (d. 2004).

    1920 – Sun Myung Moon, Korean religious leader; founder of the Unification Church (d. 2012).

    1921 – Marianne Grunberg-Manago, Russian-French biochemist and academic (d. 2013).

    1924 – Earl Scruggs, American banjo player (d. 2012).

    1925 – John DeLorean, American engineer and businessman, founded the DeLorean Motor Company (d. 2005).

    1931 – E. L. Doctorow, American novelist, playwright, and short story writer (d. 2015).

    1934 – Sylvia Syms, English actress (d. 2023).

    1946 – Syd Barrett, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2006). [RIP, Syd – shine on you crazy diamond.]

    1947 – Sandy Denny, English folk-rock singer-songwriter (d 1978).

    1953 – Malcolm Young, Scottish-Australian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (d. 2017).

    1954 – Anthony Minghella, English director and screenwriter (d. 2008).

    1955 – Rowan Atkinson, English actor, producer, and screenwriter.

    1957 – Michael Foale, British-American astrophysicist and astronaut.

    1960 – Nigella Lawson, English chef and author.

    1982 – Eddie Redmayne, English actor and model.

    1986 – Alex Turner, English singer, songwriter, and musician.

    A real hangover is nothing to try out family remedies on. The only cure for a real hangover is death. (Robert Benchley):
    1537 – Baldassare Peruzzi, Italian architect and painter, designed the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne (b. 1481).

    1852 – Louis Braille, French educator, invented Braille (b. 1809).

    1884 – Gregor Mendel, Czech geneticist and botanist (b. 1822).

    1919 – Theodore Roosevelt, American colonel and politician, 26th President of the United States (b. 1858).

    1944 – Ida Tarbell, American journalist, reformer, and educator (b. 1857).

    1949 – Victor Fleming, American director, producer, and cinematographer (b. 1883).

    1981 – A. J. Cronin, Scottish physician and author (b. 1896).

    1984 – Ernest Laszlo, Hungarian-American cinematographer (b. 1898).

    1990 – Pavel Cherenkov, Russian physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1904).

    1993 – Dizzy Gillespie, American singer-songwriter and trumpet player (b. 1917).

    1993 – Rudolf Nureyev, Russian-French dancer and choreographer (b. 1938).

    1995 – Joe Slovo, Lithuanian-South African lawyer and politician (b. 1926).

    2007 – Roberta Wohlstetter, American political scientist, historian, and academic (b. 1912).

    2009 – Ron Asheton, American guitarist, songwriter, and actor (probable; b. 1948).

    2012 – Bob Holness, South African-English radio and television host (b. 1928).

    2017 – Om Puri, Indian actor (b. 1950).

    2022 – Peter Bogdanovich, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1939).

    2022 – Sidney Poitier, Bahamian-American actor, director, and diplomat (b. 1927).

    1. Woman of the day:
      Teacher and suffragette Minnie Glassman Lansbury born on this day in 1889 in Stepney, defender of the impoverished and one of the rebel Aldermen of Poplar who went to prison for their principles in 1921.

      She died aged just 32 from pneumonia that she had contracted in HMP Holloway. Two years later, her widower, Edgar, married Moyna Macgill. Their daughter was Angela Lansbury, the actress.

      https://twitter.com/TheAttagirls/status/1743535275404407090

  2. Back when I was on Twitter (before Musk bought it) I decided at some point to unfollow Gorski. For me, his skepticism bled over into righteousness. It put me off.

  3. Regarding trans females (men) in women’s boxing, yes, obviously that shouldn’t be a thing. At the same time, though, should boxing be a thing? As my father used to say, “Any sport where the object is to inflict brain damage on your opponent is no sport.” It’s hardly better if a woman is knocked out by a woman.

  4. “if the Democrats don’t get off their kiesters and enact some sensible immigration legislation, the Republicans will have to force the issue”

    This is an impossible ask. Republicans are already saying that they will not support any immigration legislation regardless of what it consists of. Not giving Biden a “win” is more important to them than addressing the problem.

    1. Another side of that which bugs the hell out of me is that Biden is not sufficiently messaging to the American public that that is the case. He is just too damn quiet and dignified. Most people on the left and right don’t know that Republicans are preventing bipartisan resolution of the matter.

    2. Yep. From day 1 Biden has proposed comprehensive immigration reform, but Republicans blocked it. The GOP also proposed a budget that would eliminate funding for 2,000 Customs and Border Protection agents, which shows they really aren’t serious about immigration reform. The GOP is much more interested in demonizing immigrants and blaming Biden (as if this is solely the job of a POTUS) than actually working towards a solution. There is no end to the GOP’s cynicism and it’s no wonder they are led by the most corrupt politician in American history. Did you see the million$ Trump got from China and Saudi Arabia while President? Practically every GOP grievance is gross projection. I enjoyed Biden’s speech yesterday.

    3. But, couldn’t Biden take some executive steps to improve his image on the issue? And, at least if he made a big deal of proposing legislation that was reasonable, wouldn’t the public get the idea it was the Republicans who were standing in the way of action?

  6. Regarding Nelli Bowles struggling for half an hour to open a jar:
    She needs Jar Glove (SNL Commercial Parody, 2 mins):

    1. I tap around the rim to loosen, and if that doesn’t work I invert the lid in warm water. I am yet to be defeated.

  7. King Cake CORRECTION: The “prize” is typically supplying King cake for next week (not year) from Jan 6 to Mardi Gras. Wikpedia’s source contradicts the Wikipedia statement
    Wiki: That person is also responsible for purchasing next year’s cake[33] or hosting the next Mardi Gras party.[30][34]

    [33] https://www.neworleansshowcase.com/hisofkincak.html#.U2gO915bTwJ

    In New Orleans, King Cake parties are held throughout the Mardi Gras season. …While custom holds that the person who “finds” the baby will be rewarded with “good luck”, that person is also traditionally responsible for bringing the King Cake to the next party or gathering.

  8. So much to discuss, but I’ll keep it short.

    Biden needs to do something at the border, since Kamala Harris has failed. If he doesn’t, he’s leaving a massive mess on the table on which the Republicans will feast. The border is obviously a potent weapon in favor of Trump winning in 2024.

    And…. . Of course the Jews are being blamed for the debacle at Harvard. It’s always the Jews. What else is new?

    Finally, I was afraid that the cat would get stuck in the fishbowl. That was quite the act of contortionism! (Although I didn’t actually see it escape.)

    1. “The border is obviously a potent weapon in favor of Trump winning in 2024.”

      Exactly, and that’s why the GOP has no intention of enacting any serious solutions. Trump needs all the border chaos he can get, and he does not want the GOP to get in the way of that.

  9. On one of my visits to the USA I had to complete two forms on entry. The immigration form required the date in the usual USA format, but the customs form wanted it the proper way.

  11. Gorski’s response is to snarkily refer to “pseudoscience and conspiracy theories”? Well, that’s a favorite tactic of the intellectually dishonest: avoid substance, just accuse your opponent of doing the precise thing you are doing.

    Since FFRF’s gender activism was mentioned in the original post, I’ll note that this week FFRF published another article on trans rights. This article, with poorly concealed bad temper, admonished everyone not to focus on the trans aspect but rather on the church-state threat.

    When I responded that this was fine so long as an actual church-state issue was directly asserted, and that otherwise FFRF should stay on the sidelines and not get involved in gender activism, I was informed in an insultingly pedantic manner that ALL trans rights issues are church-state issues, period. My failure to acknowledge this was compared to German citizens looking the other way while the Nazis took over. Wow.

    I should say that I’m not sure whether the respondent was speaking on behalf of FFRF. I sincerely hope not.

    Anyone who cares to see this can go here: https://freethoughtnow.org/its-still-not-actually-about-trans-people
    Note: my reply to this response to my post was erroneously posted at the top of the comments, so anyone reading this should skip the first one and come back to it at the end.

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