Welcome to Thursday, February 8, 2024, and it’s National Potato Lover’s Day. Please note again that this implies that only one person who loves potatoes is being honored. I will say it’s me! Or is it this person?:
It’s also National Kite Flying Day, Propose Day, (also in India), Fat Thursday, National Molasses Bar Day, and Opera Day.
I’m not a huge opera fan, but there are some arias I like. Here’s one of them: Puccini’s “Vissi d’arte” from Tosca, a wonderful version by La Callas. The high note that starts the ending curls the soles of my shoes.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this by consulting the February 8 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
BREAKING: The Supreme Court will hear the Colorado Supreme Court ruline today, appealed by Trump, barring him to appear on the state GOP ballot for fomenting insurrection. The court may even rule on whether he is eligible to appear on any ballot, or even to hold office. A ruling is expected by June.
*Hamas continues to angle for a cease-fire in the war, and the West, Egypt, and Qatar are enthusiastic, but I’m not. I see no signs of an impending peace deal, much less a long cease-fire, and this WSJ article supports that view.
Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas remain far apart in agreeing to a U.S.-backed cease-fire proposal to stop the war in Gaza, despite a diplomatic push by the U.S. and a fifth visit to the region by Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Hamas unveiled a detailed counterproposal to a broad outline for a cease-fire that had been negotiated by the U.S., Qatar, Israel and Egypt and which calls for a phased release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and a cease-fire.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broadly rejected Hamas’s demands. “Giving in to Hamas’s bizarre demands, that we heard right now, not only won’t bring the release of hostages. It will just invite another massacre,” Netanyahu said in a news conference on Wednesday evening.
Netanyahu also said that Israel thinks it can achieve its goal of toppling Hamas and ending security threats from Gaza within months and that “continuing military pressure is a necessary condition for freeing our hostages.”
The militant group’s counterproposal, conveyed in a long letter, includes some demands Israel could accede to but some it will likely reject, such as the mass release of Palestinian prisoners, including some accused of violent attacks, as part of a final phase of the deal, according to analysts and officials familiar with the talks.
. . .For a first stage lasting 45 days, Hamas is calling for the release of all Palestinian women and children under the age of 19 held in Israeli jails, along with all prisoners 50 and older, in return for a first group of civilian Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. During this stage, Israeli forces would redeploy outside Gaza’s populated areas, according to the Hamas proposal. Hamas wants some reconstruction to begin the first phase, according to the document.
For the second 45-day stage, Hamas is demanding the release of 1,500 prisoners, including 500 serving long-term sentences, in exchange for Israeli soldiers held in Gaza. Hamas is demanding the launch of a comprehensive reconstruction in Gaza during this stage.
For the third 45-day stage, Hamas is proposing that both sides exchange the bodies of the dead.
“This actually has some room to maneuver in, although it will be very difficult,” said Gershon Baskin, an Israeli hostage negotiator who brokered a previous prisoner exchange with Hamas in 2011.
I don’t think there’s much, if any, room to maneuver; see below. The release of 1500 Palestinian terrorists, a third of them killers with long sentences, is insupportable, and that’s in return for just a handful of IDF soldiers retrurned. Under this deal, Hamas would stay in power, and that’s also insupportable. Do some people actually think that lsrael’s eaving Gaza and putting it back under the leadership of Hamas is a good solution? For if there’s a ceasefire, nothing in the world would make Gazans accept the Palestinian Authority (also a terrorist-supporting and corrupt group) instead of the even worse governance of Hamas.
*I agree what the Elder of Ziyon says about this, “Hamas’ hostage proposal is a demand for full victory.”
News media, quoting Qatari officials, characterized Hamas’ counteroffer to the hostage deal proposed by Israel as “positive.”
However, details published in Arabic show that Hamas’ demands go way beyond a swap of hostages for terrorists. It is a demand for full, public victory of Hamas in the war.
Once you get past the detailed plans of a three stage release of hostages and their bodies in exchange for thousands of terrorists, Hamas adds more general demands that would signal not only to the Arab world but to the world at large that Hamas unequivocally won the war.
One demand is to stop all Jews (they call them “settlers”) from visiting their holiest site on the Temple Mount. It is an inherently antisemitic demand.
Another is “Ensuring the opening of all crossings with the Gaza Strip, the return of trade, and allowing the free movement of people and goods without obstacles. ” This means no inspections on goods entering Gaza. Weapons can be freely imported without restriction.
It also means that terrorists could enter Israel from Gaza “without obstacles” to blow up schools and cafes.
And because the world has been brainwashed, these demands aren’t even mentioned in most news articles about the negotiations. They are treated as if they are a footnote to the hostage negotiations. They aren’t: they have been the real goal of Hamas’ murder and kidnapping spree to begin with.
This is similar to how the media treats the Palestinian Authority’s consistent demands for “right of return” to destroy Israel – they downplay it as if it isn’t serious, when in Arabic it is always presented as the most important issue.
Everyone knows that one must read the fine print in any agreement. But the world wants Israel to ignore the fine print here – and surrender.
*And. . . it clearly won’t fly from the AP (on Wed afternoon):
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday rejected Hamas’ terms for a cease-fire and hostage-release agreement, calling them “delusional” and leveling harsh criticism of any arrangement that leaves the militant group in full or partial control of Gaza after the war.
He vowed to press ahead with Israel’s war against Hamas, now in its fifth month, until achieving “absolute victory.”
Netanyahu made the comments shortly after meeting the visiting U.S. secretary of state, Antony Blinken, who has been traveling the region in hopes of securing a cease-fire agreement.
“Surrendering to Hamas’ delusional demands that we heard now not only won’t lead to freeing the captives, it will just invite another massacre,” Netanyahu said in a nationally televised evening news conference.
I predicted this, but of course if you’re not delusional like Thomas Friedman, you know that such deals are off the table. It’s not rocket science.
*Three studies on the anti-abortion drug mifepristone—the locus of an effort to ban the drug and hence chemically-based abortions—have now been retracted (h/t Reese) This is good news for pro-choice folks:
Scientific journal publisher Sage has retracted key abortion studies cited by anti-abortion groups in a legal case aiming to revoke regulatory approval of the abortion and miscarriage medication, mifepristone—a case that has reached the US Supreme Court, with a hearing scheduled for March 26.
On Monday, Sage announced the retraction of three studies, all published in the journal Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology. All three were led by James Studnicki, who works for The Charlotte Lozier Institute, a research arm of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. The publisher said the retractions were based on various problems related to the studies’ methods, analyses, and presentation, as well as undisclosed conflicts of interest.
Two of the studies were cited by anti-abortion groups in their lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration (Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA), which claimed the regulator’s approval and regulation of mifepristone was unlawful. The two studies were also cited by District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Texas, who issued a preliminary injunction last April to revoke the FDA’s 2000 approval of mifepristone. A conservative panel of judges for the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans partially reversed that ruling months later, but the Supreme Court froze the lower court’s order until the appeals process had concluded.Mifepristone, considered safe and effective by the FDA and medical experts, is used in over half of abortions in the US.
It turns out that the most influential study that got the antiabortion people acting to ban the drug was that of Studnicki et al. (2021), which critics found deeply flawed (it purported to show that “up to 35 percent of women on Medicaid who had a medication abortion between 2001 and 2015 visited an emergency department within 30 days afterward. Its main claim was that medication abortions led to a higher rate of emergency department visits than surgical abortions.” In reality, the ER visits were not even close to that, and the study (as well as another one) had methodological problems plus conflicts of interest by the authors. The article notes this:
In contrast to Studnicki’s study, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists notes that studies looking at tens of thousands of medication abortions have concluded that “serious side effects occur in less than 1 percent of patients, and major adverse events—significant infection, blood loss, or hospitalization—occur in less than 0.3 percent of patients. The risk of death is almost non-existent.”
These studies, all with Studnicki as first author, were cited by the Texas judge who ruled the drug dangerous, and that ruling threatened to endanger chemical abortion throughout America. Now, with the studies retracted and the finding that in 5.6 million uses “the FDA has recorded 28 deaths but has stated that the drug cannot be identified as the cause of those deaths,” I feel much relieved.
*What’s up with Trump’s appeal to the Supreme court about a Colorado Supreme Court decision that Trump couldn’t be on the ballot because he fomented insurrection. The AP tells you “what you need to know”. (Remember, this is a state case, not the federal case, also being appealed by Trump to the Supremes, that he was immune from prosecution because he was President.) Here’s the skinny on the first case:
On Thursday, the justices will hear arguments in Trump’s appeal of a Colorado Supreme Court ruling that he is not eligible to run again for president because he violated a provision in the 14th Amendment preventing those who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office.
Many legal observers expect the nation’s highest court will reverse the Colorado ruling rather than remove the leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination from the ballot. But it’s always tricky to try to predict a Supreme Court ruling, and the case against Trump has already broken new legal ground.
This is the part of the 14th Amendment that supposedly bars Trump:
It’s called Section 3 and it’s pretty brief. It reads:
“No Person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
. . .Trump’s lawyers say this part of the Constitution wasn’t meant to apply to the president. Notice how it specifically mentions electors, senators and representatives, but not the presidency.
It also says those who take an oath to “support” the United States, but the presidential oath doesn’t use that word. Instead, the Constitution requires presidents to say they will “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution. And finally, Section 3 talks about any other “officer” of the United States, but Trump’s lawyers argue that language is meant to apply to presidential appointees, not the president.
A lower court judge exculpated Trump on these grounds, even though she found Trump had indeed engaged in insurrection. On the other hand, he wasn’t on trial for that. It will be interesting to see what happens in a federal trial for insurrection, given that the Supremes, in the other case, decide that Trump has to stand trial like everyone else. It seems to me that to bar someone from being on the ballot for insurrection actually requires that the candidate be found guilty of insurrection, and Trump hasn’t—yet. And I don’t think the Supremes would have the stomach to uphold the Colorado decision, so I predict a near-unanimous vote to keep him on the ballot.
*The other day I discussed a big pro-Palestinian rally in Dearborn, Michigan, that seemed not only focused on dismantling America, but explicitly Islamist. I wasn’t aware that before the rally there was a WSJ op-ed about Dearborn, now the most popular op-ed on the site. It’s by Steven Stalinsky, the executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), and called “Welcome to Dearborn, America’s jihad capital” (good clickbait title!), and it has nearly 3600 comments! It’s archived here, and here’s an excerpt:
Support for terrorism in southern Michigan has long been a concern for U.S. counterterrorism officials. A 2001 Michigan State Police assessment submitted to the Justice Department after 9/11 called Dearborn “a major financial support center” and a “recruiting area and potential support base” for international terror groups, including possible sleeper cells. The assessment noted that most of the 28 State Department-identified terror groups were represented in Michigan. Many current or onetime Dearborn residents have been convicted of terror-related crimes in recent years.
Ahmad Musa Jibril is perhaps the most influential English-speaking jihadi sheikh. From his home in Dearborn he promotes holy war to his tens of thousands of followers on Twitter and Telegram. On Oct. 7, the day Hamas slaughtered 1,200 Israelis and took almost 200 hostage, a Twitter account bearing his name retweeted a post that said, “The hearts haven’t been overjoyed like this in so long.” This account also posted a tweet imploring Allah to “purify the land from the aggression of the apes, swines, and hypocrites.” He later recorded a video calling on Muslims in the West to start normalizing the term “jihad” by using it frequently “on your social media, and in the mosques.” He has called President Biden a “senile pharaoh.”
Dearborn’s radical politics are complicating Mr. Biden’s path to re-election. Michigan is a must-win state for Democrats, and the president’s campaign strategists are clearly worried that virulent anti-Israel and anti-American sentiment could hurt him in November. The AP reported Jan. 26 that local leaders gave Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez the cold shoulder during a recent visit to the Detroit area. “Little bit of advice—if you’re planning on sending campaign officials to convince the Arab-American community on why they should vote for your candidate, don’t do it on the same day you announce selling fighter jets to the tyrants murdering our family members,” tweeted Abdullah H. Hammoud, Dearborn’s Democratic mayor.
Open support for Hamas is spreading. Since Oct. 7, similar protests have occurred in major American cities featuring pro-jihadist imagery, chants and slogans. Rallies are now also expressing support for the Iran-backed Houthis, who are lobbing missiles at Israel and trying to sink commercial vessels in the Red Sea.
What’s happening in Dearborn isn’t simply a political problem for Democrats. It’s potentially a national-security issue affecting all Americans. Counterterrorism agencies at all levels should pay close attention.
I know that politicians have to play to the local crowd, but if Biden ratchets his support for Israel way back in Michigan, I’d find that craven. But what are you going to do if you’re a Democrat and there’s a pocket of terrorist-loving citizens in Michigan? (See the videos at MEMRI.)
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili’s having a nice rest:
A: What are you doing?Hili: I’m reminiscing about good times.
A: Co robisz?Hili: Wspominam dobre czasy.
*******************
From somewhere on Facebook:
From Jenny:
From Science Humor:
From Masih, who’s convinced that a pornstar visited Iran at the behest of the government. Earlier Masih posted this:
American porn star Whitney Wright is in Iran, my birth country, where women are killed for simply showing their hair and being true to themselves. Whitney has published several photos on herself completely covered up on Instagram. On her post she called me a warmonger and tells women: “If you respect the law, you will be safe in Iran.” Iranian women don’t want to obey a discriminatory law. Rosa Parks stood up against racist laws in America and became a symbol of resistance. We the women of Iran want be like Rosa Parks and not Whitney Wright. And by the way, the true warmongers are the agents of the Islamic Republic who will execute you if you be true to yourself.
I don’t see those Instagram posts, so they must have been removed. The only one I see is below Masih’s tweet, decked out in a way that would surely get Ms. Wright arrested by the Morality Police. Anyway, I’m not sure why Iran would want a pornstart to come to Iran anyway, but here’s Masih’s new tweet:
Iranian authorities have denied being behind the visit by an American porn star, Whitney Wright, saying she was issued a visa like any other foreign citizen and they had not been aware of her “obscene” profession.
This is a big lie from the regime after receiving many backlash… https://t.co/JdoQzpiqil pic.twitter.com/R49ckDbYEl— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) February 6, 2024
Here’s the only Instagram post I could find of Wright in Iran. Hair barely covered, and way too alluring for the Morality Police!
From Roz. Look at those gorgeous cats! And those gorgeous mountains!
A snow leopard family in Nepal
📹Tashirghalephotographypic.twitter.com/i9TGNnAmkw
— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) January 9, 2024
From Jay, who simply says, “Burn!”
— Rothmus 🏴 (@Rothmus) February 6, 2024
I don’t know if these phones really are only for display, but it’s still theft. Nobody stops shoplifters any more! (If the video is slow to start, go here.)
Equity in action. Does he know that the phones are only for display and don’t actually work? pic.twitter.com/8rPx0G4IcI
— Catch Up (@CatchUpFeed) February 7, 2024
Motorcycle moggy!
His little jacket at the end 😭 pic.twitter.com/b0pZLOqHi8
— Why you should have a cat (@ShouldHaveCat) February 7, 2024
From the Auschwitz Memorial, a fifteen year old girl who died in the camp:
8 February 1928 | A Dutch Jewish girl, Henriëtte Akker, was born in Aalten.
In February 1943 she was deported to #Auschwitz. She did not survive. pic.twitter.com/oyAIFOLDFn
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) February 8, 2024
Tweets from Matthew: Spot the pipefish! Enlarging it makes it easy.
A ghost pipefish. When something so beautiful tries so hard not to be seen pic.twitter.com/t9iJoiSkK7
— Keishu Asada (@CephWarden) February 6, 2024
Cat! Enlarge the picture and look at the last line:
Because it brings me joy, another pet in the 1911 census 📜
🐈 Tomcat Tobit Crackitt of Birkenhead, who didn’t let the infirmity of being 'speechless' hold him back. Married with 16 children, he forged a career as a mousecatcher & thief
Bonus humans: two young suffragettes! 💗 pic.twitter.com/J3RplfomsT
— Emily Brand (@EJBrand) January 3, 2024
This post is an example of one I read da nooz attentively — thoughtfully — but reserve comment.
Usually I wouldn’t comment.
In other words:
da nooz — good.
(Not sure if that’s Frankenstein’s Monster voice or E. T….)
Not really a Callas fan, I find her vibrato distracting. I prefer Joan Sutherland’s version. I’m no opera buff, I’m of the “I know what I like” school. Opera snobs think Puccini is for amateurs, but I love Turandot, Madam Butterfly and La Boheme. All accessible with terrific music.
I get that same chill with Jussi Björling’s voice. His duet with Robert Merrill on The Pearlfishers is amazing. When their voices rise together at around 1m 42s I still get tingles. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5PYt2HlBuyI&pp=ygUXYmpvZXJsaW5nIE1lcnJpbGwgcGVhcmw%3D
His Vesti la Giubba pulls your heartstrings (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ql74JrC2VA4&pp=ygUZYmpvcmxpbmcgdmVzdGkgbGEgZ2l1YmJhIA%3D%3D) and his Nessun Dorma is the best I’ve ever heard. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bUbA5y1hnFg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2MwnHpLV48
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p2MwnHpLV48
Even better Pearl Fishers duet: Dmitri and Jonas😻😻
Agree with you on Callas. Prefer Sutherland, Price, Fleming, many others.
Huge opera fan here. Am going to see 2 live operas this weekend: Don Giovanni at Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, and Tosca in Mississauga. The COC is most def world-class. Hoping for something decent in Miss. Also saw a new opera from the Met at the movies last week: Florencia en el Amazonas, based on Garcia Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera. It was gorgeous, and had Julie-Taymor-like puppets (including pirañas🤓).
I’ll check the links when I get home and can listen properly, thanks.
My opera highlights are seeing Prince Igor at Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, and Turandot and Aida at the Arena di Verona. I’m not an Aida fan, but seeing it in the open air arena with a huge cast was spectacular, despite the stone seats. For Turandot I got the best seats.
My lowlight was Turandot in Berlin 2019. I absolutely hated it. I don’t mind modern productions, but the final scene spoiled it completely. They had Calaf killing Timur and Turandot killing Emperor Altoum. No reason. No explanation. Thankfully my main reason for being in Berlin was to see Phillipe Jaroussky, and he didn’t disappoint.
I’ve seen Aida in Verona, too!! It’s quite the experience. People drinking wine and eating salami. All kinds of animals on stage. Some crazy friends of mine were seated near the stage and were threatening to join the procession onstage. My backside was younger back then, so the stone didn’t bother me that much.
Superb Pearlfishers. Thank you for the share. It got better and better as it went on, the last section was incredible. I still think Bjoerling and Merrill still have the edge, but seeing Hvorostovsky & Kaufmann sing was great.
I can imagine your friends’ urge to join in as I was in the 3rd row for Turandot and felt very involved. It started to drizzle in the intermission, and I was worried it would be abandoned. The lead tenor didn’t come back, so we got Calaf’s understudy. I was concerned, imagine coming on and your first aria is Nessun Dorma! But he was wonderful. He got such a long standing ovation for it and burst into tears, bless him.
Agree with you on Björling. Also Marcelo Alvarez.
Merilee, I’m on board with you and joolz. I was transported the first time I heard Bjõrling and Merrill sing the Pearl Fishers duet. I do agree that Kaufmann and Hvorostovsky have more heft in their singing. Enjoy your upcoming operas! BTW, I’ve sung in the chorus for a run of Don Giovanni in Chicago (not Lyric, a smaller company), an unforgetable experience.
Also, see my comment below.
Wow, lucky you that you can sing! I’ve got a good ear, but a terrible voice, but it doesn’t stop me from caterwauling along to my favorite arias🤓Anna Russell is a hoot!
I keep telling my family I’m ready for The Voice.
The kids say nothing and avoid eye contact while my wife simply says, “No.”
Gigli was my dad’s favourite and I thought he was great until a friend introduced me to Bjoerling. Dad also liked Boris Christoff and he used to entertain us with his version of Christoff doing The Song of The Flea, complete with wriggling and squirming. We loved it. A great way to introduce kids to opera.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hel2jmAAahs
👍
On this day:
1587 – Mary, Queen of Scots, is executed on suspicion of having been involved in the Babington Plot to murder her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I.
1590 – Luis de Carvajal y de la Cueva is tortured by the Inquisition in Mexico, charged with concealing the practice of Judaism of his sister and her children.
1693 – The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, America, is granted a charter by King William III and Queen Mary II.
1837 – Richard Johnson becomes the first and only Vice President of the United States chosen by the Senate.
1865 – Delaware refuses to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Slavery was outlawed in the United States, including Delaware, when the Amendment was ratified by the requisite number of states on December 6, 1865. Delaware ratified the Thirteenth Amendment on February 12, 1901, which was the ninety-second anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.
1879 – Sandford Fleming first proposes the adoption of Universal Standard Time at a meeting of the Royal Canadian Institute.
1887 – The Dawes Act authorizes the President of the United States to survey Native American tribal land and divide it into individual allotments.
1904 – Battle of Port Arthur: A surprise torpedo attack by the Japanese at Port Arthur, Japan starts the Russo-Japanese War.
1915 – D. W. Griffith’s controversial film The Birth of a Nation premieres in Los Angeles.
1924 – Capital punishment: The first state execution in the United States by gas chamber takes place in Nevada.
1945 – World War II: Mikhail Devyataev escapes with nine other Soviet inmates from a Nazi concentration camp in Peenemünde on the island of Usedom by hijacking the camp commandant’s Heinkel He 111.
1946 – The People’s Republic of Korea is dissolved in the North and replaced by the communist-controlled Provisional People’s Committee of North Korea.
1950 – The Stasi, the secret police of East Germany, is established.
1960 – The Hollywood Walk of Fame is established.
1962 – Nine protestors are killed at Charonne station, Paris, by French police under the command of ex-Vichy official and Parisian Prefect of Police Maurice Papon.
1968 – American civil rights movement: An attack on Black students from South Carolina State University who are protesting racial segregation leaves three dead and 28 injured in Orangeburg, South Carolina.
1974 – The crew of Skylab 4, the last mission to visit the American space station Skylab, returns to Earth after 84 days in space.
1978 – Proceedings of the United States Senate are broadcast on radio for the first time. [On this day 1922, United States President Warren G. Harding introduced the first radio set in the White House.]
1983 – A dust storm hits Melbourne, resulting in the worst drought on record and severe weather conditions in the city.
1983 – Irish race horse Shergar is stolen by gunmen.
2010 – Over 2 miles (3.2 km) of road are buried after a storm in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan triggers a series of avalanches, killing at least 172 people and trapping over 2,000 others.
2013 – A blizzard kills at least 18 and leaves hundreds of thousands of people without electricity in the northeastern United States and parts of Canada.
Births:
120 – Vettius Valens, Greek astronomer, mathematician, and astrologer (d. ~175). [A somewhat younger contemporary of Claudius Ptolemy, Valens’ major work is the Anthology (Latin: Anthologia), ten volumes in Greek written roughly within the period 150 to 175. The Anthology is the longest and most detailed treatise on astrology which has survived from that period. A working professional astrologer, Valens includes over a hundred sample charts from his case files in the Anthology.]
1700 – Daniel Bernoulli, Dutch-Swiss mathematician and physicist (d. 1782).
1819 – John Ruskin, English author, critic, and academic (d. 1900).
1828 – Jules Verne, French author, poet, and playwright (d. 1905).
1834 – Dmitri Mendeleev, Russian chemist and academic (d. 1907).
1850 – Kate Chopin, American author (d. 1904).
1860 – Adella Brown Bailey, American politician and suffragist (d. 1937).
1876 – Paula Modersohn-Becker, German painter (d. 1907).
1888 – Edith Evans, English actress (d. 1976).
1894 – King Vidor, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1982).
1899 – Lonnie Johnson, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1970).
1906 – Chester Carlson, American physicist and lawyer, invented Xerography (d. 1968).
1921 – Lana Turner, American actress (d. 1995).
1922 – Audrey Meadows, American actress and banker (d. 1996).
1925 – Jack Lemmon, American actor (d. 2001).
1926 – Neal Cassady, American author and poet (d. 1968).
1931 – James Dean, American actor (d. 1955).
1932 – John Williams, American pianist, composer, and conductor.
1941 – Nick Nolte, American actor and producer.
1941 – Tom Rush, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer.
1943 – Valerie Thomas, American scientist and inventor.
1944 – Roger Lloyd-Pack, English actor (d. 2014).
1944 – Sebastião Salgado, Brazilian photographer and journalist.
1949 – Brooke Adams, American actress, producer, and screenwriter.
1955 – John Grisham, American lawyer and author.
1957 – Karine Chemla, French historian of mathematics and sinologist.
1958 – Marina Silva, Brazilian environmentalist and politician.
1961 – Vince Neil, American singer-songwriter and actor.
1990 – Bethany Hamilton, American surfer. [Today’s Woman of the Day, see next post below.]
I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion. (Shakespeare):
1725 – Peter the Great, Russian emperor (b. 1672).
1856 – Agostino Bassi, Italian entomologist and academic (b. 1773).
1921 – Peter Kropotkin, Russian zoologist, geographer, and philologist (b. 1842). [Proponent of the theory of mutual aid.]
1938 – Olga Taratuta, Ukrainian Jewish anarchist (b. 1876).
1957 – John von Neumann, Hungarian-American mathematician and physicist (b. 1903).
1960 – Giles Gilbert Scott, English architect and engineer, designed the Red telephone box and Liverpool Cathedral (b. 1880).
1975 – Robert Robinson, English chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b.1886).
1990 – Del Shannon, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1934).
1998 – Enoch Powell, English soldier and politician, Secretary of State for Health (b. 1912). [Notorious for his “Rivers of blood speech, which Eric Clapton apparently endorsed with his “Enoch was right” rant thereby inspiring the Rock against Racism campaign.]
1999 – Iris Murdoch, Irish-born British novelist and philosopher (b. 1919).
2007 – Anna Nicole Smith, American model and actress (b. 1967). [In 1994, her highly publicized second marriage to 89-year-old billionaire J. Howard Marshall resulted in speculation that she married him for his money, which she denied. Following Marshall’s death in 1995, Smith began a lengthy legal battle over a share of his estate. Her cases reached the Supreme Court of the United States: Marshall v. Marshall on a question of federal jurisdiction and Stern v. Marshall on a question of bankruptcy court authority. Smith died in February 2007 in Hollywood, Florida, of a combined drug intoxication. She is the subject of the opera Anna Nicole, which premiered at the Royal Opera House in 2011 to mixed reviews.]
2017 – Alan Simpson, English scriptwriter (b. 1929).
2021 – Mary Wilson, American singer (b. 1944). [Founding member of The Supremes, the most successful Motown act of the 1960s and the best-charting female group in U.S. chart history, as well as one of the best-selling girl groups of all-time. The trio reached number one on Billboard’s Hot 100 with 12 of their singles.]
Woman of the Day:
[Text edited from Wikipedia, plus my own update on recent events]
Bethany Meilani Hamilton (born on this day in 1990) is an American professional surfer and writer who survived a 2003 shark attack in which her left arm was bitten off [at the shoulder] and who ultimately returned to professional surfing. She wrote about her experience in the 2004 autobiography, Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family, and Fighting to Get Back on the Board, which was adapted into the 2011 feature film, Soul Surfer, in which she attributes her strength to her Christian faith. Hamilton was also the subject of a 2018 documentary, Bethany Hamilton: Unstoppable, which discusses her marriage to Adam Dirks and how marriage and motherhood have affected her professional surfing career.
Born in Lihue, Hawaii, after learning how to surf at the age of three, Hamilton began surfing competitively at the age of eight and gained her first sponsorship by age ten. She was home-schooled from sixth grade through high school by her mother, a housewife, while her father was a waiter at a town café.
On October 31, 2003, 13-year-old Hamilton went for a morning surf along Tunnels Beach, Kauai, with her best friend, Alana Blanchard, as well as Alana’s father and brother. While Hamilton was lying on her surfboard stomach-down and talking with Alana, a 14-foot-long (4.3 m) tiger shark attacked her. It swiftly bit off her left arm, which she was dangling in the water, just below the shoulder. The Blanchards helped paddle Hamilton back to shore, then Alana’s father fashioned a tourniquet out of a rash guard and wrapped it around the stump of her arm. Hamilton was rushed to Wilcox Memorial Hospital. By the time she arrived there, she had lost over 60% of her blood and was in hypovolemic shock. Hamilton’s father, who was scheduled to have knee surgery that same morning, was already there, but she took his place in the operating room with the same doctor.
Despite the trauma of the incident, Hamilton was determined to return to surfing. Using a custom-made board that was longer and slightly thicker than standard and had a handle for her right arm, making it easier to paddle, she learned to kick more to make up for the loss of her left arm. After Hamilton taught herself to surf with one arm, she returned to surfing on November 26, 2003, just 26 days after the attack, and entered her first major competition on January 10, 2004. She now uses standard competitive performance short-boards. The shark-bitten surfboard that she was riding during the attack, as well as the swimsuit she was wearing, orginally a gift from ocean photographer Aaron Chang, are on display at the California Surf Museum in Oceanside, California.
Since the attack, Hamilton has appeared as a guest on numerous television shows, including Good Morning America, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and The Ellen DeGeneres Show, as well as in the magazines People and Time.
In 2004, Hamilton won the ESPY Award for Best Comeback Athlete and also received the Courage Teen Choice Award.
Hamilton met youth minister Adam Dirks through mutual friends in 2012. They married the following year at an estate on Kauai’s north shore, near where Hamilton grew up. They have three sons and one daughter. Their marriage is featured throughout her documentary, Bethany Hamilton: Unstoppable. Along with being a professional surfer, she now offers mentorship classes on faith, healing, personal health, and relationships.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethany_Hamilton
Recent events:
When World Surf League (WSL) decide to allow transgender women to compete in the female category, Hamilton announced that she would be boycotting future competitions arguing that “Male-bodied athletes should not be competing in female sports. Period”. Subsequently, Hamilton was dropped by surfing brand Rip Curl, which instead featured Sasha Lowerson, a transwoman surfer, on its Rip Curl Women Instagram page as part of the company’s “Meet The Local Heroes of Western Australia” campaign. Following on online backlash and calls for the company to be boycotted, Rip Curl has attempted to delete all traces of the promotion from its account.
This week, Hamilton appeared with former swimmer and women’s rights in sports campaigner Riley Gaines at an event in Springfield Missouri, hosted by BRAVE Books, to celebrate women in sport. Trans rights activists heckled her, with at least one carrying a plush shark to mock her.
BRAVE Books CEO Trent Talbot told the Washington Examiner, “We’ve seen activists at almost every one of our story hours. Sometimes they’re noisy, sometimes they’re dressed in drag, but these were downright nasty. The activist who showed up dressed as a shark to target Bethany Hamilton is a terrible person. Once again, those who claim they are most tolerant turn out to be the most callous”.
“Stop! In the Name of Love” is my earworm today.🎶🙂
For the last three days, I have had “Pure Imagination” going through my head nonstop.
I have decided that the only cure is to learn to play it on the banjo. The whole thing seems sort of weird to me, but whatever.
Go for it, Max, and have fun!
Rowling’s comment about royalty checks brings to mind Liberace’s comment about how he responded to a negative review: “Thank you for your very amusing review. After reading it, in fact, my brother George and I cried all the way to the bank.”
Sadly Andrew Doyle aka Tatiana McGrath a very calm polite man has left or at least will be limiting his interactions on Twitter for the current dog piling against him for I am sure doing absolutely nothing wrong.
The madness of crowds on the internet is something humanity should be quite worried about.
Agree. This madness is why I am not on social media, haven’t been for almost a decade.
“It seems to me that to bar someone from being on the ballot for insurrection actually requires that the candidate be found guilty of insurrection, and Trump hasn’t—yet.”
Respectfully, this is quite clearly wrong, in my view. The text of the provision says nothing about being convicted; it disqualifies oath-breakers who “engaged” in insurrection. Historically, enforcement of the provision has never required criminal conviction. When the amendment was ratified, scads of former confederates immediately applied to Congress for amnesty, even though they had not been convicted, because they knew that they were automatically disqualified from office without amnesty. Many state and federal office-holders were disqualified with no criminal conviction. Indeed, requiring conviction before disqualification would have functionally nullified the intended effect, by slowing down the process too much; it was ratified in July 1868, and needed to take effect immediately to prevent unrepentant confederates from regaining power in Congress in the November elections that same year. Here are two recent blog posts from law professors that explain it all: https://reason.com/volokh/2024/02/05/the-objection-but-he-hasnt-been-convicted-of-anything/ and https://reason.com/volokh/2023/12/26/why-section-3-disqualifications-doesnt-require-a-prior-conviction-on-criminal-charges-of-insurrection/
Thank you for this.
A significant majority of the many legal experts that have been interviewed about this subject, or written articles about it, agree with that. It seems quite clear to me that a conviction is not required and was never intended to be required.
My opinion is that Trump does qualify for being barred from the ballot per the 14th section 3 and I think he deserves to be. But my preferred outcome is that Trump is not barred from any ballots, wins the RP nomination and then is soundly beaten at the ballot box. And at this point I think he would be soundly beaten, though there is plenty of time for the zeitgeist to be changed.
What I like least about this ballot issue is having this particular SC making a ruling on the case and risking that they will again ignore well established precedent, and again usurp more authority to the SJ or the executive.
It might also be worth noting that the 14th Amendment, section 3, renders ineligible those who have provided “aid and comfort” to the enemies of the Constitution. Trump has promised to pardon everyone convicted of crimes associated with their participation in the January 6 event, and if that is not an example of providing “aid and comfort” I don’t know what would be. And providing “comfort” would not be a criminal offense in this case, and so would not require any conviction for….what?
Excellent point, IMO.
The people protesting – violently or otherwise – at the Capitol on 6th January 2021 were demanding validation that the election was free and fair, and seeking Pence to exercise what they believed was a constitutional obligation.
I don’t feel that qualifies them as enemies of the constitution.
Compare and contrast to the many politicians providing verbal, financial and legal support to the extremely violent rioters of 2020, many of whom were making demands that the constitution be ignored, removed or replaced.
Allowing the Colorado claim against Trump would immediately set in motion cases to put half of Congress out of office!
Thanks for the comment and replies…all good information in one thread.
I’m with Darrell in that I think it best if Trump is beaten at the ballot. Of course, he’ll just start Big Lie.2, but that goes without saying. And I would also want to see a conviction in at least one of the 92 indictments against him. That would seal the deal (meaning he’d lose the election for sure). I don’t understand why the courts don’t hurry up with his numerous trials. It’s ridiculous to not know “who you’re voting for,” and just keep these indictments on the books without any action all the way to November. It’s blatantly irresponsible. Obviously, there are many Americans who are still too thick to understand the tyranny inherent in Trump and MAGA. There is a high percentage of Republicans and esp. Independents who will not vote for a convicted Trump. Let’s hop to it people!
In celebration of Opera Day, on the lighter side: Anna Russell
https://youtu.be/CM33rgC2Fek?si=J1Ibx4mE4MPOfWaO
Excellent! Thanks, Stephen!
The police car out the front was definitely for display only.
Jerry, you write “anti-abortion drug mifepristone”, but surely that should be “abortion drug mifepristone”?
A politically orientated chemical 🙂
The only reason to negotiate with Hamas is for the release of the hostages, and Hamas will try to extract as many concessions as it can from Israel and from the west. Once the hostages are released, Hamas will have no more leverage. This underscores my fear that the hostages may remain in captivity for some time. Israel needs to keep going with its campaign, even as it negotiates for the hostages. It cannot let up and allow Hamas to rearm.
You can listen to SCOTUS live at the link below.
‘Supreme Court hears oral arguments in Trump ballot access case’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULjkYY9xTMg
My niece worked retail when she was in college. It was partly corporate policy (they didn’t want their employees to become victims of violence if the shoplifters reacted aggressively). It was also partly the employees not caring all that much, given the way that the company treated them (low wages, minimal benefits, employment at will, etc.). Why stick your neck out for a company that doesn’t give two sh*ts about you.
Although, there was a bit of personal motivation among some employees just because the criminals were so brazen about it. While they wouldn’t confront the thieves personally, they would call the cops, and actually did catch several shoplifters that way. But like I said, it was less out of loyalty to the company, and more out of personal animosity towards the shop lifters.
I was in a Chicago Walgreens when a man made off with a bottle of alcohol. It was late at night and the staff member who witnessed it shrugged.
From Da Nooz :- Deerborn Michigan
“This account also posted a tweet imploring Allah to “purify the land from the aggression of the apes, swines, and hypocrites.”
This must also apply to Hamas and all Palestinians unless they are unique in not sharing the same common ancestor as all Homo Sapiens? Or is he claiming that the Jews really are a special “ chosen “ species? The man is a certifiable moron and really should not be in any position of authority or influence in the USA or any other democratic society. Part of the Islam “fifth column “
Great news on the retraction of the pro-life studies re: the pills. Pro-lifers stop at nothing to force women to have as many babies as they don’t want. (sigh).
Related: I’ve noticed in the last, say, 3 years a growing disenchantment?/disrespect? directed against the usual estrogen/progesterone contraceptive pill by ill-informed young women and hard right men. “Hormonal contraceptives ..eww… ick”, is their line of reasoning, similar to anti-GMO dumbassery.
It looks a lot like anti-vax stupidity to me. I think it is a very misguided trend that is gathering some steam.
D.A.
NYC
It might be misguided but still rational. Why put hormones into your body every day for several years when you can take your chances with condoms (which there is now a stronger incentive to use than in The Old Days) and then rescue any rare mishaps with a couple of pills and a day or two of cramps? Men, too, are more incented to use them now because they can’t just walk away from a pregnancy resulting from the woman “forgetting” to take her Pill this cycle. If she doesn’t want to keep it, fine, but if she does….Hoo boy!
Way back when, the barrier to inventing “the male Pill” was the question, “Would you trust your horny boyfriend when he says, ‘Sure I took my Pill today! C’mon, let’s get it on.’ ” Now the man has to ask, “Can I trust this scheming woman whom I just met on tindr that she’s even on the Pill? Condoms for me.” Besides, the non-use of a condom is often an issue in rape prosecutions where it is alleged that not all the elements of consent for all components of the encounter were explicitly, sequentially, and affirmatively met.
I don’t think dating is much fun anymore.
Isn’t science wonderful?
“Chemobiosis reveals tardigrade tun formation is dependent on reversible cysteine oxidation
Abstract: Tardigrades, commonly known as ‘waterbears’, are eight-legged microscopic invertebrates renowned for their ability to withstand extreme stressors, including high osmotic pressure, freezing temperatures, and complete desiccation. Limb retraction and substantial decreases to their internal water stores results in the tun state, greatly increasing their ability to survive. Emergence from the tun state and/or activity regain follows stress removal, where resumption of life cycle occurs as if stasis never occurred. However, the mechanism(s) through which tardigrades initiate tun formation is yet to be uncovered. Herein, we use chemobiosis to demonstrate that tardigrade tun formation is mediated by reactive oxygen species (ROS). We further reveal that tuns are dependent on reversible cysteine oxidation, and that this reversible cysteine oxidation is facilitated by the release of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS). We provide the first empirical evidence of chemobiosis and map the initiation and survival of tardigrades via osmobiosis, chemobiosis, and cryobiosis. In vivo electron paramagnetic spectrometry suggests an intracellular release of reactive oxygen species following stress induction; when this release is quenched through the application of exogenous antioxidants, the tardigrades can no longer survive osmotic stress. Together, this work suggests a conserved dependence of reversible cysteine oxidation across distinct tardigrade cryptobioses.”
Source: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0295062