Thursday: Hili dialogue

February 29, 2024 • 6:45 am

Welcome to Thursday, February 29, 2024, and it’s a leap year day! There’s a Google Doodle for Leap Day (click on image).

It’s also National Frog Legs Day, too (because they leap?), but I don’t eat them (I’ve tried them, but they taste like fishy chicken..)

“Frogs’ legs… for real!” by tawalker is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

 

It’s also Leap Day, Bachelor’s Day, National Surf and Turf Day (steak and lobster), Rare Disease Day (in leap years; celebrated in common years on February 28), and Bachelor’s Day in Ireland and theUnited Kingdom. 

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this by consulting the February 29 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The Tines if Israel has a good discussion of the state of negotiations in the Hamas Gaza war.  (h/t Norm)

The emir of Qatar spoke of “a race against time” to secure the release of Israeli hostages held by terror groups in the Gaza Strip, as Israel’s Army Radio reported that Hamas representatives, in an unofficial response, had angrily rebuffed a proposed outline for a deal.

Several Hebrew media reports late Tuesday and Wednesday said Qatari mediators had conveyed a Hamas response to the outline, which had been drawn up by the US and agreed on by Israel, Egypt and Qatar last Friday in Paris, though no formal Hamas response had been presented. While a report by the Kan public broadcaster on Tuesday evening quoted an Israeli official expressing “very cautious optimism” about the prospects for progress, an Army Radio report on Wednesday morning described a largely negative Hamas response.

The unsourced Army Radio report said Hamas representatives had termed the proposed outline “a Zionist document,” and objected to the fact that it did not relate to Hamas’s demand for an end to the war, did not include Israeli agreement to the full return to northern Gaza of internally displaced residents, and envisaged too few Palestinian security prisoners being freed in return for Israeli hostages.

The US-drafted proposal reportedly provides for a six-week pause in fighting during which some 40 hostages would be freed in exchange for some 400 Palestinian security prisoners.

The Kan report said that Qatari officials updated their Israeli counterparts Tuesday on Hamas’s response to some aspects of topics discussed at the talks Qatar has been holding with Hamas representatives. An unnamed Israeli official was quoted by the broadcaster saying that “there is very cautious optimism, but progress is slow and the gaps are large.”

I find it amusing that a proposal to which the U.S. agreed is called a “Zionist document” by Hamas, but what’s truly ridiculous is Hamas clearly wants more than 400 terrorists released in return for 40 Israeli hostages. But’s what’s even more distressing is that Israel would potentially agree to release that many terrorists to get back 40 hostages. Yes, they released over 1,000 jailed prisoners to get back one kidnapped Israeli soldier, but this is a different situation. When you’re trying to destroy Hamas, you don’t let a bunch of terrorists free to return to Gaza (Hamas reportedly wanted 9,000!).  This is a deal that is not going to fly any time soon.

*Once again the mushbrained Tom Friedman shows his complete ignorance of the real Middle East situation in his latest op-ed, “Israel is losing its greatest asset: acceptance.” His miraculous solution to the problem: end the war with a ceasefire and implement the “two-state” plan.  Friedman wants Israel to give up because the world doesn’t like what it’s doing, failing to realize that no matter how Israel tried to defend itself after the October 7 attack, the world would still hate it. After all, it’s full of Jews! Friedbrainman:

I don’t think Israelis or the Biden administration fully appreciate the rage that is bubbling up around the world, fueled by social media and TV footage, over the deaths of so many thousands of Palestinian civilians, particularly children, with U.S.-supplied weapons in Israel’s war in Gaza. Hamas has much to answer for in triggering this human tragedy, but Israel and the U.S. are seen as driving events now and getting most of the blame.

Umm. . . . yes they do. Israel is used to it, while Biden is trying to walk back his statements to distance himself from Israel so he can get the Muslim vote.

More from the neuronally deprived Friedman:

That such anger is boiling over in the Arab world is obvious, but I heard it over and over again in conversations in India during the past week — from friends, business leaders, an official and journalists both young and old. That is even more telling because the Hindu-dominated government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is the only major power in the global south that has supported Israel and consistently blamed Hamas for inviting the massive Israeli retaliation and the deaths of an estimated 30,000 people, according to Gazan health officials, the majority of them civilians.

“Gazan health officials,” Friedman neglects to add, are Hamas. And the IDF estimates 13,000 dead terrorists, nearly twice of that probably-inflated Hamas estimate. The ratio of 1 dead civilian to 1 dead terrorist is much, much lower than has been achieved in modern warfare, not to mention warfare involving human shields. (Even accepting the Hamas estimate of 6000 dead terrorists the ratio is still low). The IDF is, by nearly everyone’s agreemen, trying mightily to avoid civilian casualties, for they only lose by that. Still, only Israel is criticized for having a ratio of about 1:1. Of course every dead civilian is a cause for regret and mourning, but the argument is that there are too many of them being killed. Blame Hamas.

More from Friedman.

That many civilian deaths in a relatively short war would be problematic in any context. But when so many civilians die in a retaliatory invasion that was launched by an Israeli government without any political horizon for the morning after — and then, when the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, finally offers a morning-after plan that essentially says to the world that Israel now intends to occupy both the West Bank and Gaza indefinitely —it is no surprise that Israel’s friends will edge away and the Biden team will start to look hapless.

The rest of the world’s plan, and Friedman’s, is even more likely to cause trouble. It is to have two states with the Palestinian Authority in control. That’s like having the henhouse run by the fox.

Or, as Netanyahu put it in the morning-after plan he issued last Friday: Israel will keep security control over Gaza, the territory will be demilitarized, the strip’s southern border with Egypt will be sealed much more tightly in coordination with Cairo, the United Nations agency that provides primary health and education services for Palestinian refugees will be disbanded and education and administration will be completely overhauled. Civil administration and day-to-day policing will be based on “local elements with administrative and management experience.” Who will pay for all of this and how local Palestinians will be enlisted to perpetuate Israel’s control is not explained.

Nor does Friedman explain how the PA is supposed to run Gaza, which hates it, and how terrorism will be prevented if Palestinians continue to live next to Israel, rewarded for their butchery by getting their own state? But what really bugs Friedman is the lack of a firmly-delineated “after the war” plan. Still, we didn’t have one of those in WWII, either. First you win the war (while covertly thinking of various postwar solutions) and only THEN do you adumbrate in a settlement what will happen next.  Friedman is good at beefing, but there’s no sizzle on his steak.

Malgorzata was even more incensed than I was as this dumb column, and said this about Friedman (quoted with permission):

This man, like so many of his predecessors, is a mortal danger to Jews.  Have you ever heard about a book (only 156 pages) by Edward Alexander, “Jews Against Themselves”? It’s from 2015 and is about abhorrent people like Friedman. For 2000 years there were always Jews who were the worst enemies of Jews. The additional problem with Friedman is that he pretends to be a friend of Jews. Those horrible creatures from the time of Spanish Inquisition were at least honest and said openly that Jews should be annihilated.

*At last: somebody who’s too old and feeble to function in government is retiring.  And, better yet, it’s Republican Mitch MccConnell, the Senate minority leader who was a malefactor when he was majority leader and Republican whip.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the longest-serving Senate party leader in history, said he would step down from his leadership role in November after almost two decades atop the Republican caucus.

“One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter,” he said Wednesday on the Senate floor. “So I stand before you today…to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.”

The 82-year-old Kentucky senator said he wasn’t “going anywhere anytime soon,” but acknowledged, “The end of my contributions are closer than I’d prefer.”

Not closer than most of us would prefer! But I wouldn’t wish poor health on anyone; I’m just not mourning his departure. And yes, he’s in poor health:

In recent years, McConnell has faced a series of health setbacks, watched as many close allies have retired and seen his grip loosen on the party’s direction. He also has remained critical of former President Donald Trump—the most popular figure in the GOP and presumed 2024 presidential nominee—and so far has declined to endorse him. Trump has said he wanted McConnell out as leader.

The top Senate Republican since 2007, McConnell made his mark by using brass-knuckled tactics to install conservatives on the Supreme Court and see through passage of major tax cuts in 2017. But as the Republican party changed, reflecting a more populist strain, McConnell fell out of step with major parts of his conference.

. . . Health issues have emerged for McConnell. In particular, a fall last year followed by incidents in which McConnell appeared to freeze during public appearances raised questions about his future as leader.

McConnell will, however, continue serving in the Senate until his term is up in 2027.

*The Supreme Court is handling a gun-rights case, and in this case the outcome doesn’t seem determined (even though it is). It’s about bump stocks, a device that allows semiautomatic weapons to fire as if they were fully automatic: you keep the trigger depressed, and the recoil energy in the added stock readies the next round for firing. A rifle fitted with one of these bump stocks, which were made illegal during the Trump administration (!) can as if it were a machine gun. Such fully automatic rifles are illegal in the U.S., but this is a way to get its equivalent. Now there’s a challenge to the ban, enacted to help prevent mass shootings.

A divided Supreme Court seemed to be struggling Wednesday with the legality of a federal ban on bump stock devices, which allow semiautomatic rifles to fire hundreds of bullets per minute.

Liberal justices suggested the devices — which have been used in major mass killings in recent years — were exactly what Congress had in mind when it long ago imposed restrictions on machine guns. Some conservative justices, however, said the language in the federal statute at issue was not so clear.

The Trump administration moved to ban bump stocks in 2017, after they were used by a gunman to fire on the crowd at an outdoor music festival in Las Vegas, killing dozens and injuring hundreds more in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. The effort was reignited in early 2018 after the mass killing at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

. . . . Throughout oral argument on Wednesday, several justices expressed concern about dangerous weapons and the “torrent of bullets” the devices can fire when bump stocks are used. But it was not certain based on their questions whether the court, with its 6-3 conservative supermajority, would uphold the ban.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative, told the lawyer for the Biden administration that while she is “entirely sympathetic” to the government’s argument, she has concerns that Congress had not clearly covered the devices in the statute restricting access to machine guns. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, also a conservative, said he too could understand “why these items should be made illegal,” but suggested doing so explicitly was Congress’s responsibility.

Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in contrast, said bump stocks are just “the kinds of weapons Congress was intending to bar because of the damage they do.”

I still predict it will pass. After all, didn’t the Founders foresee that bump stocks were essential arming a “well regulated Militia”?  How can you fight off the government without automatic weapons?

*This is yet another reason to halt executions, for what was supposedly the most human method—lethal injection—often doesn’t work. Plus the drugs used have to be obtained on the gray market since no reputable pharmaceutical company will supply them. Here’s a guy who survived one attempt to kill him.

Idaho on Wednesday delayed the execution of serial killer Thomas Eugene Creech, one of the longest-serving death row inmates in the U.S., after a failed attempt at lethal injection.

Creech, 73, was imprisoned in 1974 and has been convicted of five murders in three states and suspected of several more. He was already serving life in prison when he beat a fellow inmate, 22-year-old David Dale Jensen, to death in 1981 — the crime for which Creech was to be executed more than four decades later.

Creech was wheeled into the room at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution on a gurney at 10 a.m. The warden announced he was halting the execution at 10:58 a.m.

Six Idaho officials, including Attorney General Raul Labrador, and four news media representatives, including an Associated Press reporter, were on hand to witness the attempt.

Idaho’s prison director said the medical team could not establish an IV line to administer the fatal drug. A team of three medical team members tried repeatedly to establish an IV, attempting sites in both of Creech’s arms and legs.

The IV sites appeared to be in the crook of his arms, his hands, near his ankles and in his feet. At one point, the medical cart holding supplies was moved in front of the media witness viewing window, partially obscuring the view of the medical team’s efforts. A team member also had to leave the execution chamber to gather more supplies.

With each of the attempts to insert an IV, the medical team would clean the skin with alcohol, inject a numbing solution, clean the skin again and then attempt to successfully place the IV catheter in a vein. Each attempt took several minutes, with medical team members palpating the skin around the IV site and looking closely while trying to position the needles.

Throughout the process, Creech frequently looked at his family members and representatives, who were sitting in a separate witness room. His arms were strapped to the table, but he frequently extended his fingers toward them, sometimes in a half-wave, sometimes just reaching.

He appeared to mouth “I love you” to someone in the room on occasion.

After the execution was halted, the warden approached Creech and whispered to him for several minutes, giving his arm a squeeze.

There is, I think, no good reason to kill someone versus giving them the alternative of life without parole. Execution isn’t a deterrent, life without parole can keep a bad guy off the streets and, given the present legal system, it’s more costly an onerous to execute someone than give him life without parole. (But of course to me the most important reason is that the government shouldn’t be in the business of killing its own citizens.)  I’ve always thought that if they can’t abolish the death penalty, a firing squad would be a better alternative than lethal injection.  Death is nearly instantaneous, and it always works.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is contemplating the past:

Hili: Did dinosaurs walk here in the past?
A: Probably yes, many millions of years ago.
Hili: How the time flies.
In Polish:
Hili: Czy tu kiedyś chodziły dinozaury?
Ja: Wiele milionów lat temu pewnie tak.
Hili: Jak ten czas leci.

. . . and a picture of Baby Kulka:

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

From Strange, Stupid, or Silly Signs:

 

From Unique Birds and Animals:

From Linkiest:

From Masih: a group of parents whose children were killed by Iran for protesting.

Google translate:

Do you remember these petitioning families represented the big *vote_by_vote # campaign by sending videos for 4 decades? Now the number of these grieving families has increased and Iran is saying no to the Islamic Republic, and some people even consider it ridiculous to talk about the elections and to warm up this show.

A lovely display of swimming talent from Israel’s artistic swimming team:

A new and woke definition of racism. This is required viewing for Davidson College athletes. Davidson College should clean up its act.

This is adorable:

Abigail Shrier has a new book, and you can get it on Amazon here.

From the Auschwitz Memorial, a woman who survived two camps. My retweet:

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. First, a rock map which I’ve helped go viral:

And a lovely murmuration. Matthew and I can’t get enough of these:

42 thoughts on “Thursday: Hili dialogue”

  1. This relates to “Why kids are not growing up” –

    Finally got around to reading Coddling of the American Mind (free on archive.org – you don’t even have to check it out) – and was struck by this quote, metaquote actually from another book by Eric Hoffer, The True Believer : “Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.”

    I propose that secularization while well intentioned has had the effect of eliminating God and love, but leaving the devil and rising hatred. I call this mismanagement of national youth, ignorance of “the existential mystery of self identity” – maybe that’s why identity politics are so hot on campus. I asked the new French AI Mistral about it and got:

    does human development go thru period of exploring the existential mystery of self identity ?

    Mistral (warning – AI generated content, and it kind of misconstrued my question): “Yes, human development often includes a period of exploring existential questions and self-identity. This is typically seen during adolescence and early adulthood, but it can occur at any stage of life. This period is characterized by introspection and self-discovery, as individuals try to understand who they are, their purpose in life, and their place in the world. It’s a time when people may question their beliefs, values, and goals, and explore different identities and roles. This process can lead to personal growth and a stronger sense of self. However, it can also be a time of confusion and uncertainty. It’s important to note that this process can vary greatly from person to person, depending on various factors such as culture, upbringing, personality, and life experiences.”

    Something missing in the scientific socialist curriculum, a void to be filled if you will.

    1. I’m a sucker for Chuck’s atheist bait.

      I became a secular atheist *because* I hated going to church and hearing about the devil and miracles and eternal life (but only if I would believe).

      The devil in Hoffer and “Coddling” is a metaphor for a collective opponent who embodies everything that the cult or mass movement stands for. Not, like, horns and a pitchfork.

    2. On the Coddling: I read it, too, and got the impression that society has raised an entire generation of young people who are mentally ill.

      1. Norman, agreed that’s the message but Chuck has mistaken the mechanism. Haidt & Lukianoff are not suggesting we need Jesus to fix this. We need better parenting and less social media consumption. All of this [sorry edited for a less sweary noun] is temporally, mechanistically, and ~obviously associated with the iPhone.

    3. Chuck you wrote: “I propose that secularization while well intentioned has had the effect of eliminating God and love.”
      Could you explain why secularization has eliminated love? (No, it hasn’t – and I live in North America, too.) And who cares about what AI says? AI can’t think. It regurgitates stuff it found online and it has been trained on. According to AI, approximately, the first five US presidents were all members of ethnic minorities.
      Anyway, your quoted hypothesis sounds like a deepity to me.
      Also, secularization was not “well-intentioned.” It is a process that happened without being intentioned or guided by anyone. Are you really Tom Friedman (behind your screen name)?

    4. The concept of God doesn’t simply involve love; it also involves condemnation. So it’s not a given that a self-identity which contains religious elements will lead to the sort of personal growth you’re talking about.

      I’m currently reading Bad Therapy so will quickly mention that one of the problems Shrier brings up is that an over-emphasis on “introspection and self-discovery” ironically appears to lead to young adults who are less mature and well-grounded.

  2. On this day:
    1504 – Christopher Columbus uses his knowledge of a lunar eclipse that night to convince Jamaican natives to provide him with supplies.

    1644 – Abel Tasman’s second Pacific voyage begins as he leaves Batavia in command of three ships.

    1704 – In Queen Anne’s War, French forces and Native Americans stage a raid on Deerfield, Massachusetts Bay Colony, killing 56 villagers and taking more than 100 captive.

    1712 – February 29 is followed by February 30 in Sweden, in a move to abolish the Swedish calendar for a return to the Julian calendar.

    1908 – James Madison University is founded at Harrisonburg, Virginia in the United States as The State Normal and Industrial School for Women by the Virginia General Assembly.

    1912 – The Piedra Movediza (Moving Stone) of Tandil falls and breaks.

    1916 – In South Carolina, the minimum working age for factory, mill and mine workers is raised from 12 to 14 years old.

    1940 – For her performance as Mammy in Gone with the Wind, Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African American to win an Academy Award.

    1940 – In a ceremony held in Berkeley, California, physicist Ernest Lawrence receives the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics from Sweden’s consul general in San Francisco.

    1984 – Pierre Trudeau announces his retirement as Liberal Party leader and Prime Minister of Canada.

    1988 – South African archbishop Desmond Tutu is arrested along with 100 other clergymen during a five-day anti-apartheid demonstration in Cape Town.

    1988 – Svend Robinson becomes the first member of the House of Commons of Canada to come out as gay.

    1996 – The Siege of Sarajevo officially ends.

    2008 – The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence withdraws Prince Harry from a tour of Afghanistan after news of his deployment is leaked to foreign media.

    2008 – Misha Defonseca admits to fabricating her memoir, Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years, in which she claims to have lived with a pack of wolves in the woods during the Holocaust.

    2012 – North Korea agrees to suspend uranium enrichment and nuclear and long-range missile tests in return for US food aid.

    2016 – At least 40 people are killed and 58 others wounded following a suicide bombing by ISIL at a Shi’ite funeral in the city of Miqdadiyah, Diyala. [Doubtless there were protests on campuses and in cities worldwide in protest?]

    2020 – The United States and the Taliban sign the Doha Agreement for bringing peace to Afghanistan.

    Births:
    1736 – Ann Lee, English-American religious leader, founder of the Shakers (d. 1784).

    1792 – Gioachino Rossini, Italian composer (d. 1868).

    1828 – Emmeline B. Wells, American journalist, poet and activist (d. 1921).

    1860 – Herman Hollerith, American statistician and businessman, co-founder of the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (d. 1929).

    1892 – Augusta Savage, American sculptor (d. 1962).

    1904 – Jimmy Dorsey, American saxophonist, composer and bandleader (d. 1957).

    1916 – Leonard Shoen, founder of U-Haul Corp. (d. 1999).

    1928 – Joss Ackland, English actor (d. 2023).

    1928 – Jean Adamson, British writer and illustrator (Topsy and Tim).

    1928 – Tempest Storm, born Annie Banks, “The Queen Of Exotic Dancers”, American burlesque performer and actress (d. 2021).

    1948 – Hermione Lee, English author, critic and academic.

    1976 – Ja Rule, American rapper and actor.

    1992 – Jessica Long, American paralympic swimmer.

    Biography lends to death a new terror. (Oscar Wilde):
    468 – Pope Hilarius. (Great name!)

    1792 – Johann Andreas Stein, German piano builder (b. 1728).

    1908 – Pat Garrett, American sheriff (b. 1850).

    1932 – Giuseppe Vitali, Italian mathematician (b. 1875).

    1952 – Sarah Ann Jenyns, Australian entrepreneur (b. 1865).

    1960 – Melvin Purvis, American police officer and FBI agent (b. 1903). [Instrumental in capturing bank robbers John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd in 1934. All this overshadowed his later military career which saw him directly involved with General George Patton, Hermann Göring, and the Nuremberg Trials.]

    1980 – Yigal Allon, Israeli general and politician, Prime Minister of Israel (b. 1918). [Served briefly as acting Prime Minister of Israel between the death of Levi Eshkol and the appointment of Golda Meir in 1969, the first native-born Israeli to serve in the position.]

    2012 – Davy Jones, English singer, guitarist and actor (b. 1945).

    2016 – Mumtaz Qadri, Pakistani assassin, executed (b. 1985). [Murdered Salmaan Taseer, Governor of Punjab. Qadri was a commando of the Elite Police and, at the time of the assassination, a member of the squad of personal bodyguards assigned to protect Taseer. A follower of the Barelvi version of Sunni Islam, he assassinated Taseer on 4 January 2011. He claimed to have killed the Governor because Taseer spoke in defense of Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman convicted of blasphemy and sentenced to death. Bibi was later acquitted and lives in Canada.]

    1. Woman of the Day:
      [Text from the excellent The Attagirls X/Twitter account]

      Woman of the Day is Dorothy the welder. I can’t tell you her full name, where or when she was born or indeed anything else about her but she and her sister co-workers were vital to Britain’s war effort during WW2.

      It all started because I wanted to know the name of the first RAC patrolwoman. She was Edith Hayley of Bradford in the 1960s but other than the fact that her job brought her into contact with “lots of angry men”, I couldn’t find out any more about her.

      I tried the Automobile Association but as recently as 2017, it only had four patrolwomen so from there, I went looking for the first woman to qualify as a mechanic in the UK. Whoever she was, she remains invisible but the search led me to the Women’s Engineering Society website and that sent me down another journey of discovery that had nothing to do with cars and everything to do with Waterloo Bridge.

      That’s right. Waterloo Bridge. Did you know that it was built mainly by women?

      Although the contribution of women to the war effort in WW2 is documented, very little is known about their outstanding contribution to construction. In 1944, 25,000 women were working in the construction industry filling in labour gaps left by British men being sent to war. They were paid far less money than their male counterparts for doing the same work, of course.

      Waterloo Bridge was considered of vital importance to the British Army’s transport of men and materials but in 1939, it was judged to be dilapidated and unsafe. The architect Giles Gilbert Scott (Liverpool Cathedral, Battersea Power Station, the iconic red telephone box) designed a new bridge but the old one had to be dismantled and the new design built in record time. Few men were available for this important work and so the construction company Peter Lind & Co. compromised by asking for ‘green labour’ – those new to the industry. What it meant was women. It just couldn’t bring itself to say the word ‘women’.

      It is thought that 65% of the construction workers responsible for building Waterloo Bridge were women. Even today, some Thames riverboat pilots call it ‘the Ladies’ Bridge’ but for years, it was dismissed as an urban myth because no documentary or photographic evidence could be found. Peter Lind & Co. went out of business in the 1980s and most of its records were lost.

      However, historian Professor Christine Wall found photographic evidence in the archives of The National Science and Media Museum of women demolition workers taking the old bridge down and women welders working on the new construction. A man whose father worked on the bridge came forward to say that there were ‘two grades of ladies’. Most of the women wore dungarees while those in more senior roles, responsible for operating vehicles, wore all-in-one overalls similar to the ones worn by the men.

      At the official opening in December 1945, Deputy Prime Minister Herbert Morrison proclaimed: “The men who built Waterloo Bridge are fortunate men. They know that although their names may be forgotten, their work will be a pride and use to London for many generations to come.”

      He must have forgotten his specs. What he clearly meant to say was: “The women and men who built Waterloo Bridge are fortunate. They know that although the men’s names may be forgotten and the women’s will never be known, their work will be a pride and use to London for many generations to come.”

      I’m happy to set the record straight.

      https://twitter.com/TheAttagirls/status/1763104715846365555

      1. Very interesting story on Waterloo Bridge. It is amazing to me that, apparently, there is so little documentation on such an obvious and important structure right in the middle of downtown (or as you guys say, city center) London. We see thousand year histories of some events but virtually nothing on this less than 100-year old one? Weird.

      3. Love Miss Te Kanawa’s side-eye at 0:33.
        Top comment:
        “When you’re happy you enjoy the music.
        When you’re sad you understand the lyrics.”

  3. I wish the discussion at Davidson had continued to the questions of how does bigotry differ from racism and how are the effects of one different than the other. If an Asian is not admitted to a college because of bigotry, how is that different than if a black person isn’t admitted because of racism? According to leftists, racism means prejudice plus power, a formulation that assumes that power only exists for the dominant racial group. (In Western, Bourgeois Capitalist society that would be whites. This also means that, regardless of how the racial situation may improve, regardless of the level of “inclusion” or “diversity”, society is always racist, until the revolution). But power is contextual. Regardless of a person’s race, if a person has a gun out, he has power over someone who doesn’t. Likewise, an Asian student is powerless against an institution that doesn’t want him because he’s Asian (unless he enlists the power of the courts).

    1. Well DrB, I am afraid that a rational (enlightenment-inspired) argument against these Kendiesqe assertions is like throwing darts at mashed potatoes. I find it insulting that students at a liberal arts college of high reputation be made to sit through such crap – unless it is just an example of post-modern clap trap taught just so students can have knowledge of its existence.

      1. I agree, Jim. The arguments of the woke are mostly based on what is deemed politically useful, not on whether they are sound.
        Also, Dr Bryden, you wrote:
        “I wish the discussion at Davidson had continued to the questions of”
        My own guess is that this was not meant to be a “discussion”. Any pushback about what the DEI official told its audience would probably have been met with something along the line “you are in denial of your own racism.”

        1. True. Those were a couple of teachers who were never taught that you can learn from your students. No thinking allowed in that room. Doctrinaire all the way!

    2. It takes considerable disregard of the evidence to think that in the US there has never been a situation where non-whites were in a position of power over whites; and if the explanation for “…it’s only white people that could be racist, that are racist” is that racism is a property of numbers and the general system rather than individuals, then it’s difficult to accuse individuals of racism and understand the moral force of the accusation.

      Of course, leaving Afghanistan in 1842, Dr Brydon would have been well aware of who had and didn’t have power.

  4. I agree with your comments on Friedman’s column. But you cannot say we did not plan for the end of WW2 till after the war. The Atlantic Charter discussed the postwar world in 1941. The Yalta conference in 1944 made serious postwar plans, including the formation of the UN and plenty else (one can question the wisdom of the conference, but not that it took place), and in 1944 the Bretton Woods conference decided the whole postwar monetary system. All before the war ended.

  5. Friedman is not helping, but he does seem to like to hear himself talk (or read himself write*).

    *”read himself write” would seem to be analogous “to hear himself talk.”

    1. It also helps Friedman that he writes what many people want to hear: A two-state situation is viable; the opposition of the politically most powerful section of Palestinian society against Israel is not driven by anti-semitism, etc.

  6. It’s hard to overstate how much is glossed over by Friedman’s phrase, “Hamas has much to answer for in triggering this human tragedy.” The rapes, the indignities to human bodies, to say nothing of the scale of the killing and its indiscriminate inclusion of old people, kids, women, peaceniks. All that rolled together into one innocuous “trigger”. “Triggering” also lets Hamas off the hook for their ongoing (not just initial or triggering) abuse of hundreds of hostages. Friedman also lets off Hamas from true responsibility: “triggering” implies that Hamas could have had no idea that Israelis would react as they have. As if Hamas are a bunch of hapless skiers who merely went a little off-trail, and caused this avalanche nobody could ever have foreseen.

    1. I’m also “triggered” by Friedman referring to Israel’s response as a “retaliation,” the implication being that it’s all about punishment and getting even so enough is enough.

      No, Israel is dealing with an enemy who will persist in attacking until disarmed and disbanded. This isn’t a schoolyard brawl where the adults can step in and cool the parties down. “I don’t care WHO started it, it’s ending right NOW!” It will NOT.

  7. “When an Asian girl pipes up and asks if racism could happen the other way, the moderator says “no… that’s bigotry, not racism.”

    Nonsense and doublespeak from the college.

    The follow up would look like this:

    “So, that would be “bigotry”, with regard to what aspect of a person?”

    “Their race of course.”

    “So you are saying that bigotry with regard to race is not racism?!”

    Mushheads and morons.

    1. Jeff Vader, You have a great Socratic dialogue in the making here! But clearly there’s no interest in dialogue in the Davidson video.

  8. Herman Hollerith was the inventor of the punch card, widely used by computers in the 1950s and 1960s. His company, the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, after several mergers became IBM (International Business Machines Corp.)

    I just want to point out that automatic firearms are not necessarily illegal in the United States. Federal law requires that the owners be registered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. A potential buyer must submit fingerprints and photographs for an FBI background check and pay a transfer tax of $200. Since 1986, no new automatic firearms may be sold to civilians, so there is a limited pool of legal automatics which can be legally transferred. This has raised the price for such firearms to $3000 or more.

    Note that a few states have their own laws prohibiting them or have their own registration systems.

  9. It is ridiculous they couldn’t get an IV in this Idaho death-row inmate. Can you imagine being in the hospital, and everyone throws up their hands and says “Well, I guess we can’t help you, because we can’t start an IV?” So maddening–the femoral vein, the external jugular veins are next when you can’t find a peripheral vein. If this is all too much, then PCC(E)’s suggestion of moving back to the firing squad is acceptable.

    1. It is likely that the technicians who start i.v.’s for executions are not trained to access other than peripheral subcutaneous veins. (Whom would they practice on?). If drug abuse has ruined them all, or if from fright and vasoconstriction the peripheral veins have all collapsed, there may really be nothing further these techs are able to do. Skilled nurses who start i.v.’s all day (and night) long learn all kinds of tricks to resuscitate a tiny little vein from the depths of rolls of adipose tissue. And of course a doctor can breeze in and place a central line, although obesity can make that a challenge, too

      Lethal injection sounds good to people whose only experience is putting down their sick dog.

      I have to say that applying local anesthetic to the skin before the poke is a humane touch. That should be noted.

      1. Even skilled nurses have problems with my veins. I used to donate blood until the Red Cross asked me to consider donating my time instead of my blood. After a recent hip replacement, not only did the IV start leaking down my arm, only the head phlebotomist could get blood from my veins. And wow, did I have bruises to show for the many failed attempts.

  10. I disagree with calling Tom Friedman “abhorrent” and a “horrible creature,” as Malgorzata does. At worst, I would call him naive. His motivations are understandable, because he wants what pretty much any Western liberal would want: peaceful coexistence.

    Well-meaning Western people simply hate seeing innocent people, like Gazan children, killed. I certainly hate seeing it. I can’t imagine the grief I would feel if my son were killed, and my heart breaks for the Gazan mothers and fathers sobbing over the bodies of their children.

    It’s only natural that Westerners want an end to the war!

    Tragically, terribly, as PCCE has pointed out, Hamas is a death cult that doesn’t care about Gazan civilians’ lives, leaving Israel with no good options. Obligatory Golda Meir quote: “We will have peace when the Arabs learn to love their children more than they hate us.”

    1. I would agree with you if Freedman was 18 or even 25 years old without any knowledge about Hamas and Israel. But he isn’t. He knows exactly what Hamas is. He just seems to accept Jewish dead children but can’t accept Palestinian dead children. The only answer I can see to the question of why some American Jews prefer dead Israelis over dead Palestinians is that the picture of dead Palestinians incites people to blame American Jews. And they do not want to be blamed. My heart breaks as well at the pictures of the horrible misery of people in Gaza. But I know (which Friedman should know better than I do) that getting rid of Hamas would make not only Israelis but also Palestinians’ lives incomparably better.

    2. I agree with Malgorzata. One can’t get from October 7th to peaceful coexistence except via the release of all the hostages and the surrender or destruction of Hamas. And sorry for overcommenting today.

  11. McConnell will, however, continue serving in the Senate until his term is up in 2027.

    Correction: He’s not finishing out his term, he’s leaving this November, 2024.

    I read a biting quote from Elie Mystal this morning: “Mitch McConnell has been the most successful Confederate since John C. Calhoun. Congratulations to him and his people in their service of evil.” And here’s an XTwit from Rep. Adam Schiff: “Mitch McConnell stacked the Court, undermined our democracy, and enabled Donald Trump. And yet – in his absence – [the Senate GOP] will invariably select someone more extreme.” Can’t argue with that assessment.

    I enjoyed the long German word and the quip about “Why they don’t have Scrabble in Germany.” But they do have Scrabble. While taking German in Middle and High School, we would play it a few times a year. It was a nice break from regular class. Iirc Q and Y are the two 10 point tiles…Z is 3 points, it being a popular letter auf Deutsch. The umlaut tiles were also worth a lot of points.

    Loved that geologically accurate Scottish rock map! Clever and cool.

    1. I did hear this morning that McConnell was only stepping down from his Senate Leadership role in November but WAS planning on serving out his term as Senator. As of 9pm MST the internet still reporting that (and we know the internet never makes mistakes, right? Haha)

  12. The Davidson College “anti-racism” video* was as horrible as I expected, finger hovering over play as I thought: Why do I watch this kind of trash?”

    Kenny Wu is excellent. I think he wrote for the Manhattan Institute doing a deep dive into the large financial incentives behind activists pushing the “Anti-Asian Crime Wave” narrative, a statistical hoax. His article was after I’d written
    https://democracychronicles.org/on-the-anti-asian-hate-crime-wave/
    about that very topic.

    It is the huge financing these witch finders/activists get which has empowered the entire rotten DEI/woke industrial complex, much more than any organic change in attitudes. When you pay witchfinders they WILL find witches/racists.
    I’m amazed at how many (fellow) leftists haven’t noticed the ground under their feet shifting over the past decade. Conservatives DID notice when their party went bonkers with MAGA.

    D.A.
    NYC
    *Is it a new idea that having actual friends in a racial group isn’t a defense against racism? I mean … if I don’t like a group why would I have friends from it?

    1. David,

      Unrelated to your comment but since you’ve studied Arab/Israeli in such depth, but in case you get notifications of repllies:

      It’s hard to find answers to this, but going back to 1948, and the charge I saw recently that those who left Israel were banking on the Arabs being victorious, so they could then come back and have it all – is it true that most of them didn’t actually own their land at that time? What was the nature of land ownership under the British Mandate? Or the Ottoman Empire before that?

      I’ve also seen statements that most of present-day Israel was public land before it became Israel. I think the number given was 80%. Is that basically correct?

  13. Google translates that German sign
    — FUSSBODENSCHLEIFMASCHINENVERLEIH —
    as “FLOORING SANDING MACHINE RENTAL.”

    I just had to know.

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