Friday: Hili dialogue

53 thoughts on “Friday: Hili dialogue”

1. I miss proofreaders since my retirement over a dozen years ago. Autocorrect seems more of a hindrance than a help. Years ago I enlisted our eight-year old daughter to read aloud through my Journal of Aircraft galley proofs at the table after dinner. When I read them, I would just see what I wanted to see, but she was just reading words and said whatever was on the page. It was very effective.

   1. Autocorrect is sometimes aggravating, but it’s also often hilarious. A couple of weeks ago I texted my wife to let her know that I had ordered the “contacts” (as in contact lenses), but due to autocorrect and me not paying attention it was changed to “condoms.”

      1. Sometimes autocorrect is where the rubber meets the road, I guess.

         1. Ha! Good one.

         2. Nice!

      2. On my phone, the (German) autocorrect can be counted upon to veer towards lewd corrections late in the evening, when, for example, an innocent Uschi (short for Ursula) becomes Muschi (pussy). Never happens at noon on a workday.

2. On this day:
   1775 – An anonymous writer, thought by some to be Thomas Paine, publishes “African Slavery in America”, the first article in the American colonies calling for the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery.

   1782 – Gnadenhutten massacre: Ninety-six Native Americans in Gnadenhutten, Ohio, who had converted to Christianity, are killed by Pennsylvania militiamen in retaliation for raids carried out by other Indian tribes.

   1910 – French aviator Raymonde de Laroche becomes the first woman to receive a pilot’s licence.

   1917 – International Women’s Day protests in Petrograd mark the beginning of the February Revolution (February 23 in the Julian calendar).

   1917 – The United States Senate votes to limit filibusters by adopting the cloture rule.

   1921 – Spanish Prime Minister Eduardo Dato Iradier is assassinated while on his way home from the parliament building in Madrid.

   1966 – Nelson’s Pillar in Dublin, Ireland, is destroyed by a bomb.

   1979 – Philips demonstrates the compact disc publicly for the first time.

   1979 – Images taken by Voyager I proved the existence of volcanoes on Io, a moon of Jupiter.

   1983 – Cold War: While addressing a convention of Evangelicals, U.S. President Ronald Reagan labels the Soviet Union an “evil empire”.

   2014 – In one of aviation’s greatest mysteries, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, carrying a total of 239 people, disappears en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The fate of the flight remains unknown. [Ten years ago already!]

   2017 – The Azure Window, a natural arch on the Maltese island of Gozo, collapses in stormy weather.

   2018 – The first Aurat March (social/political demonstration) was held being International Women’s Day in Karachi, Pakistan, since then annually held across Pakistan and feminist slogan Mera Jism Meri Marzi (My body, my choice), in demand for women’s right to bodily autonomy and against gender-based violence came into vogue in Pakistan.

   2021 – International Women’s Day marches in Mexico become violent with 62 police officers and 19 civilians injured in Mexico City alone.

   Births:
   1822 – Ignacy Łukasiewicz, Polish inventor and businessman, invented the Kerosene lamp (d. 1882).

   1836 – Harriet Samuel, English businesswoman and founder the jewellery retailer H. Samuel (d. 1908).

   1839 – Josephine Cochran, American inventor (d. 1913). [Today’s Woman of the Day, see next post below.]

   1841 – Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., American lawyer and jurist (d. 1935). [The anniversary of his death was listed here on Wednesday.]

   1859 – Kenneth Grahame, British author (d. 1932). [Wrote The Wind in the Willows.]

   1879 – Otto Hahn, German chemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1968).

   1892 – Juana de Ibarbourou, Uruguayan poet and author (d. 1979). [She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times.]

   1896 – Charlotte Whitton, Canadian journalist and politician, 46th Mayor of Ottawa (d. 1975).

   1909 – Beatrice Shilling, English motorcycle racer and engineer (d. 1990). [During the Second World War Shilling designed the RAE Restrictor (which became known as Miss Shilling’s orifice), a simple device that overcame the problem of the Rolls-Royce Merlin aeroplane engines losing power during negative-g manoeuvres. After the war, Shilling also worked on the Blue Streak missile, researched the effect of a wet runway upon braking, and helped design and build a bobsled for the Royal Air Force’s Olympic team.]

   1922 – Ralph H. Baer, German-American video game designer, created the Magnavox Odyssey (d. 2014).

   1922 – Cyd Charisse, American actress and dancer (d. 2008). [In the words of Fred Astaire, “That Cyd! When you’ve danced with her you stay danced with.”]

   1924 – Addie L. Wyatt, American civil rights activist and labor leader (d. 2012). [The first African-American woman elected international vice president of a major labour union. In 1975, with the politician Barbara Jordan, she was the first African-American woman named by Time magazine as Person of the Year.]

   1935 – George Coleman, American saxophonist, composer, and bandleader.

   1942 – Ann Packer, English sprinter, hurdler, and long jumper.

   1943 – Lynn Redgrave, English-American actress and singer (d. 2010).

   1945 – Micky Dolenz, American singer-songwriter and actor.

   1946 – Randy Meisner, American singer-songwriter and bass player (d. 2023). [A founding member of the Eagles, he co-wrote and provided lead vocals on the band’s hit song “Take It to the Limit”.]

   1947 – Michael S. Hart, American author, founded Project Gutenberg (d. 2011).

   1957 – Billy Childs, American pianist and composer.

   1958 – Gary Numan, English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer.

   Agitate! Agitate! Ought to be the motto of every reformer. Agitation is the opposite of stagnation – the one is life, the other death. (Ernestine Rose):
   1723 – Christopher Wren, English architect, designed St. Paul’s Cathedral (b. 1632).

   1869 – Hector Berlioz, French composer, conductor, and critic (b. 1803).

   1872 – Priscilla Susan Bury, British botanist (b. 1799).

   1917 – Ferdinand von Zeppelin, German general and businessman (b. 1838). [Inventor of the Zeppelin rigid airships, his name became synonymous with airships and dominated long-distance flight until the 1930s. He founded the company Luftschiffbau Zeppelin.]

   1932 – Minna Craucher, Finnish socialite and spy (b. 1891). [Her real name was Maria Vilhelmiina Lindell. A spy, originally for the Cheka, the Soviet secret police, she was arrested three times for fraud. She also had connections to the right-wing Lapua Movement and became the subject of several books and stories. She was murdered on this day in 1932 with a shot to the head.]

   1944 – Fredy Hirsch, German Jewish athlete who helped thousands of Jewish children in the Holocaust (b. 1916).

   1961 – Thomas Beecham, English conductor and composer (b. 1879).

   1971 – Harold Lloyd, American actor, director, and producer (b. 1893).

   1973 – Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, American keyboard player and songwriter (b. 1945).

   1983 – William Walton, English composer (b. 1902).

   1999 – Peggy Cass, American actress and comedian (b. 1924).

   1999 – Joe DiMaggio, American baseball player and coach (b. 1914).

   2003 – Adam Faith, English singer (b. 1940).

   2003 – Karen Morley, American actress (b. 1909). [Her career came to an end in 1947 (November 1952) when she testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee and refused to answer questions about her alleged American Communist Party membership. She maintained her political activism for the rest of her life. In 1954, she ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor of New York on the American Labor Party ticket.]

   2007 – John Inman, English actor (b. 1935). [“I’m free!”]

   2014 – Leo Bretholz, Austrian-American Holocaust survivor and author (b. 1921).

   2016 – George Martin, English composer, conductor, and producer (b. 1926). [And “Fifth Beatle”, of course…]

   2020 – Max von Sydow, Swedish actor (b. 1929).

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

      Woman of the Day inventor Josephine Cochran was born OTD in 1839 in Ohio but moved to Chicago after she married.

      When her family moved up in the world and joined Chicago society, Josephine soon got fed up of washing dishes after hosting dinner parties. In fact, she hated it. After one particular party, some heirloom dishes were chipped in the process. Exasperated, she announced, “If nobody else is going to invent a dish washing machine, I’ll do it myself.”

      As good as her word, Josephine designed what was to become the first commercially successful automatic dishwasher in the shed at the back of her home. She engaged mechanic George Butters as her first employee to construct it to her design – it used water pressure rather than scrubbers to remove debris. Once the patent issued on 28 December 1886, Josephine founded the Garis-Cochrane Manufacturing Company to manufacture her machines.

      “The hardest part of getting into business” said Josephine, was not designing or constructing the dishwasher itself but “crossing the great [hotel] lobby alone without husband or father—the lobby seemed a mile wide”. At that time, she was nearly 50 and it was considered scandalous for a woman to walk into a restaurant or hotel on her own. Even so, she pitched her invention and received $800 worth of orders (£82,125 in today’s money).

      Housewives were uninterested. Most homes then did not have boilers big enough to provide sufficient hot water and in any case, the first dishwashers were too expensive for an average household, costing between $75 and $100 (equivalent to £10,000 in sterling today).

      Josephine exhibited them instead at an exposition in Chicago in 1893 where she won the highest prize for “best mechanical construction, durability and adaptation to its line of work”. They were perfect for restaurants and hotels and so that was where she concentrated her initial efforts but the market changed over time when domestic boilers became more easily available. Josephine’s real goal was always the domestic market.

      She died in 1913 at the age of 74 but the company she founded was sold to KitchenAid which was later acquired by Whirlpool. Josephine’s design lives on.

      https://twitter.com/TheAttagirls/status/1766002978354307504

   2. 1979 Images taken by Voyager 1…. There is a nice summary from the really bright and innovative scientists and engineers at the Jet Propulsion Lab who birthed the Voyagers 1 & 2, explaining the original two-planet (5-year design) mission and how the mission developed in real-time to a now 37-year mission covering all four giant outer planets and beyond into interstellar space. Url is
      https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/science/planetary-voyage/

      1. Possibly the most successful endeavor in the history of endeavors.

         1. Of course I think that I recall a Congressional hearing many years ago in which a NASA project lead was criticized for gold-plating the budget for a project by over-designing when it took data for twice its design period. Apparently the Congressman felt that it was better for a one-year project to die at the end of 12 months than continue on to provide bonus data (let alone understand contingency overdesigns)

   3. Time again for a Beecham Bonbon:
      A soprano in Massenet’s Don Quixote complained that she had missed her entry in the aria, “because Mr. Challiapin always dies too soon.” “Madam, you must be profoundly in error,” said Sir Thomas, “No operatic star has yet died half soon enough for me.”

      1. Sir Thomas was a great empresario as well, promoting especially the
         wonderful works of Frederick Delius (an unrepentant atheist btw).
         He took considerable flak from some musicologists for his romantic
         augmentation of the orchestra in the works of Handel.

         1. +1

         2. I’m reminded of Dawkins, commenting on his critics’ books, quoting I forget whom: “Every dog has its fleas.” So, I gather it is with every composer’s/conductor’s musicologist critics.

      2. Don’t get me started!

         Beecham, to a lady cellist: “Madam, you have between your legs one of the most sensitive instruments known to humanity, and all you can do is sit there and scratch it”.

         Beecham, to the choir in Handel’s ‘Messiah’: “Gentlemen of the chorus, when we come to the passage ‘All we like sheep have gone astray’, could we please have a little more remorse and a little less satisfaction?”

         I could go on…

         1. +1

3. From the UK Spectator.
   I watched it and the Spectator article seems fair.
   https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/bidens-angry-state-of-the-union-address/

   1. That article was hilarious.

4. Biden’s State of the Union address and the GOP response were polar opposites. I kept expecting the lady senator to start showing videos of abused dogs and cats while making a heartfelt plea for donations. I think Speaker Mike Johnson made a strategic error trying to “own” Biden by having the SOU this late in the year.

   1. Moscow Mike knows not what he is doing. Though it was probably Trump that told him to choose a later date- after Super Tuesday, perhaps? Moscow Mike does nothing unless it is approved by his Deranged Master.

      1. I wonder how Anti-Moscow Mitt values an Ukrainian life as compared to an American life.

5. “I can go back into my office and pick up the telephone and in 25 minutes 70 million people will be dead.”

   –Richard Nixon, 1974

   https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/24/scientists-seek-to-limit-trumps-power-in-ordering-a-nuclear-strike.html

   1. One of the informal checks on the power of any President to launch a nuclear war for any reason could be that not every individual who is duty-bound to respond to them is going to be a flunky. If one possibility is assisting in the obviously unnecessary deaths of 70 million people at the hands of a temperamental, untrustworthy adult child and the other possibility is “being court-martialed,” there could be a slip twixt the cup and the lip.

      1. A commander must never issue an order that he can’t be certain will be obeyed. Fortunately the enemy can’t know for certain which of his opponent’s orders will not be obeyed. That is really what nuclear deterrence is based on: mutually asymmetric uncertainty.

         It would be not straightforward for the very highest commanders, the ones the President actually talks to, to refuse a nuclear order (or any order) from an unhinged Commander-in-Chief. Refusal of a direct order in wartime in the face of the enemy can be punished summarily with death. The legality of the order would be hashed out later…if there is a later. Theoretically, the President could draw his own sidearm and shoot the disloyal officer himself. Court-martial would be the least of his worries. If the other generals and admirals around the table intervened they would be carrying out a military coup d’état and would have to fight off the Secret Service. If the military officers incapacitated the President, or if the Cabinet could be assembled to exercise the 25th Amendment, the Vice-President would take over and the Joint Chiefs would look to her for orders. (I personally think this is what would happen.)

         Absent a coup or the 25th, if the Chief of Naval Operations and the Chief of the Air Force refused to send the orders down to their nuclear-capable services, the President would relieve them of command (or shoot them) and appoint others, going down the chains of command until he found loyal officers who would transmit his orders to the ICBM silos and the fleet at sea. Presumably not all the silo officers and submarine captains cut off from the outside world would comply. No one can know how many would. They have no way to evaluate the order other than verifying that it came from the President. The redundancy of the strategic nuclear forces likely takes both battle losses and disciplinary failure into account. The point is, once the order is transmitted out of the President’s circle of command, no recipient with his hand on a trigger is able to independently determine if the order is lawful or not, only that it came from the President.

         I doubt that a Presidential order to start a nuclear war would be able to be refused by the military. Ironically, that would cede supreme control of the armed forces to the military! The civilian leadership would have to grow a pair and step in.

         1. First, the pedantic point. There is no “button,” but the figurative term is fine. On the ICBM side, the crewmembers turn keys to actuate a launch. Setting that aside, some of this piece is comical.

            “Anyone in uniform who ignores a direct presidential order can be subject to court-martial for insubordination.” Yes, that is what would have been foremost on my mind when either minutes from a nuclear Armageddon or being asked to kill millions of people in a first strike.

            “There is no requirement to consult Congress . . .” Can he even hear himself? When was the last time that Congress agreed to declare war? And consensus? Again, really? We have a political system in which people can’t agree on the color of the sky.

            Sastra: It’s flunkies all the way up and down the chain of command. Haven’t several Hollywood movies told us so? The suggestion in the article that none of the senior civilian and military defense leadership will help guide a president through such a decision is laughable. One might even call that “consultation.” It is part of the process. That said, the President can override his advisors.

            Leslie: A quibble. Operational command and control runs from the President to the combatant commanders, which would be US Strategic Command for strategic nuclear weapons. The chiefs of the military services no longer exercise operational command of military forces; they “organize, train, and equip.”

            Overall: Volumes of ink were spilled on this and related topics during the Cold War. I am not belittling the journalist’s concerns, particularly when it comes to first-use authorization. Nevertheless, trying to prevent a foolhardy use of nuclear weapons by a US president is only part of the equation. Any changes made to either our command-and-control system or our force structure—whether it encumbers or speeds decision making—has the potential to alter an adversary’s deterrence calculus, for good or for ill. Rather than tossing out more “fear Trump” or “old Biden” porn, I would be far more concerned about a single-point-of-failure with Vladmir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, or a future fundamentalist leader of Iran or Pakistan. Especially if I were Netanyahu—who would thank God to be given a 15-minute warning.

            Of course, the far more worrisome threat is the one over which we have little to no control.

            1. I thank you for the correction, Doug. I gather the head of Strategic Command would still be high enough up to be in the room to receive the face-to-face oral order from the President, though, right? (Like the head of the old SAC always was in the Cold War movies.)

               The destabilization of the enemy’s assessment of your likely responses in a crisis is a point I was thinking about re publicly abandoning a “launch on warning” posture. If you waited for detonations on American soil, those first detonations would likely be at the land-based ICBMs, potentially (though probably not) getting all 1000(?) of them. There is no reason to believe an adversary like Russia who has lots of missiles would make things easier for you by attacking with only a few, which today you might even shoot down, if his goal was to eliminate your ability to attack his own ICBMs. Whereas if he believed you really would launch on warning, he would have to assume that a massive attack on your ICBMs would find the silos empty, their having been launched against his remaining strategic missile sites. (I’m concentrating on the land-based ICBMs on the assumption, perhaps no longer true, that the Tridents in the submarines are invulnerable to attack but not quite as accurate because always on the move.)

               I see this as an application of game theory, which is how we laypeople have thought about nuclear deterrence since childhood. If you were going to abandon a “launch on warning” posture on safety grounds, the last thing you would want to do is tell anyone about it. (This is the reverse of Dr. Strangelove’s admonishing the Soviet ambassador for inventing the Doomsday Machine but keeping it a secret.)

               Like you, I am much more worried about rogue nations with death cults than I am about enfeebled Presidents.

            2. Re: ” . . . I would be far more concerned about a single-point-of-failure with Vladmir Putin . . ..”

               Re: Vasily Arkhipov, who during the Cuban Missile Crisis ‘ . . . refused to authorize the captain and the political officer to use nuclear torpedoes against the United States Navy, a decision that required the agreement of all three officers. In 2002, Thomas S. Blanton, then director of the U.S. National Security Archive, credited Arkhipov as “the man who saved the world”.’
               The sub’s commander was under pressure because the U.S. Navy was launching depth charges.

               I trust that there will be a future U.S. Navy officer similarly predisposed, whether in the South China Sea or the Straits of Taiwan.

               https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov#:~:text=Vasily%20Aleksandrovich%20Arkhipov%20%28Russian%3A%20%D0%92%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%B9%20%D0%90%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B4%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87%20%D0%90%D1%80%D1%85%D0%B8%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%B2%2C%20IPA%3A,nuclear%20torpedo%20launch%20during%20the%20Cuban%20Missile%20Crisis.

         2. To Filippo,
            No tactical nuclear weapons on any US Navy (or NATO nuclear ally) ship since the end of the Cold War. ICBMs in the subs is all. No temptation for a commander frightened of being sunk to nuke his way out of a jam.

            The Russians, on the other hand, are still messing around with nuclear torpedoes. This one, if it exists, is more of a strategic underwater nuclear drone, not an anti-shipping weapon like the one they almost used in 1962.
            https://thebulletin.org/2023/06/one-nuclear-armed-poseidon-torpedo-could-decimate-a-coastal-city-russia-wants-30-of-them/

            Edit: And the 1962 story isn’t quite right. The US Navy was dropping small hand grenades on the sub’s position to encourage it to surface and identify itself (which it eventually did), not depth charges with intent to sink it. The sub’s officers had been under water so long their air was starting to give out and they had convinced themselves that war had already broken out between the USSR and the US.

6. This is an excerpt from “The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump,” by William Perry and Tom Collina, 2020–a truly excellent, eye-opening book. They have 10 concrete recommendations. They’re all things that are quite readily achievable by the U.S. unilaterally. I.e., they’re not starry-eyed, unrealistic things like “dismantle all the world’s nuclear weapons.” This is #1 on their list:

   1. End presidential sole nuclear authority. Retire the “football.”

   The US Constitution gives Congress the sole authority to declare war. Certainly, using nuclear weapons to attack another country would be the ultimate expression of waging war, so that authority lies with Congress. During the Cold War, policies evolved that effectively set aside the Constitution by giving to the president the sole authority to launch nuclear weapons. We no longer live in a world—if we ever did—where one person should have the absolute power to end life on earth.

   Presidential sole authority was first adopted to place the decision to use the bomb firmly in the hands of civilians, which we fully support. But there is no need to limit this authority to just one civilian. In the case of first use, we support current legislation to require a declaration of war by Congress that specifically authorizes a nuclear attack before the president can use nuclear weapons. First use should require the shared authority of the legislative and executive branches.

   In the case of retaliation to a nuclear attack, sole authority may be justified, but only after such an attack has been confirmed by actual detonations (in other words, launch on warning would be prohibited; see below). At this point, the nation would be in a state of war, and the president would have the authority to launch nuclear weapons without seeking the approval of Congress. Even in that case, we believe that the president should try to consult with senior advisors before launching a nuclear retaliation.

   Thus, sole presidential authority should be allowed only in retaliation to a confirmed nuclear attack on the United States (or an ally covered by our extended deterrent). As such, there would be no need for the president to launch nuclear weapons quickly, within minutes. There would be time for a measured response. If a nuclear attack appears to be underway against the United States, the president, rather than worrying about launch options, should use these precious minutes to get to a secure location to establish communications with civilian and military advisors. There would no longer be a need for a military aide to follow the president, 24-7, with the emergency satchel. It is time to retire the football.

   Perry, William J.; Collina, Tom Z.. The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump (pp. 208-209). BenBella Books. Kindle Edition.

   1. William Perry was a voice of reason in the Clinton years. Today, he would be called a “Putin apologist” for advising prudence in NATO expansion and suggesting that the US was largely at fault for unnecessarily antagonizing Russia in those early post-Cold War years.

7. On the UN’s *rapporteur* for Palestine, from Norman Goda, an expert on the international laws regarding genocide and war crimes:

   ***
   Look, the UN has something like 45 special rapporteurs. And what a special rapporteur is supposed to be is an expert on a particular problem. And that special rapporteur is to examine that problem and then report back to the UN. So there was a special rapporteur, for example, for Myanmar. And there are special rapporteurs for other humanitarian problems around the world.

   The special rapporteur for Israel, I would argue, is really special. The office was created in 1993 by a UN resolution which said that the rapporteur’s job was, and I quote, “to investigate Israel’s violations of the principles and bases of international law.” You know, the assumption here… This was after the launching of the first Intifada in the West Bank, was that Israel was sort of automatically guilty and that all one really had to do was sort of investigate. There was no pretence of impartiality.

   If you read the resolution from 1993, the reporter’s job is, quote, “to investigate Israel’s violation of the principles and bases of international law.” It’s not to investigate whether Israel committed violations of the principles and bases of international law, but rather, quote, “to investigate Israel’s violations.” And so the assumption is that the violations have already taken place and that all the rapporteur has to do is sort of list them in a report and submit them. And this is typically what they’ve done.

   And the current rapporteur is a woman named Francesca Albanese, who is extremely biased in all of her reporting and can’t seem to stay off of her Twitter feed and this sort of thing, and has essentially called for the eradication of Israel as such. And yet her reports are one of the other things that are repeatedly cited by the South Africans.
   ***
   Source: https://quillette.com/2024/02/21/podcast-232/?fbclid=IwAR3ilJY9MjWg0N3MXosn4K3W84TFKzxk6pE5ZQvz7AoqKl3D-4V_zGIRsDw

8. AP article :
   “[…] internationally set threshold for long-term warming.”

   What is the internationally set threshold for long-term warming?

9. A beloved children’s book I just learned was under pressure to be banned is Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig published in 1969. Steig’s characters are all animals. NY Times Feb 20 1971 reported on the International Conference of Police Association advising the book to be removed from schools and libraries because it depicts 2 policemen as pigs. But these policemen are sympathetic characters in the story, as Sylvester’s parents (donkeys) are trying to find their lost child. A few other friendly characters are also pigs. I recommend the book. It is really lovely.

   1. I’m a librarian, and I’d recommend any and all of Steig’s books. “Pete’s a Pizza” was a particular favorite of my children.
      The controversies surrounding Steig’s books took place years ago and have disappeared to my knowledge. I just did a quick search of a union catalog in my area of northeastern Illinois, and I discovered 29 copies of “Sylvester…” distributed among ~25 public libraries. Do you know of a place where this controversy has flared up again?

      1. No. I had never heard about it, but a retired librarian friend of mine recalled this and found the NYT article. Another favorite Steig book for me is The Amazing Bone, in which the main character is a sweet little girl named Pearl, who is a pig.

      2. +1

         Steig remains well-deserved standard-classics – for good reason!

         “Thank goodness”, as Dan Dennett recommends to do.

10. “Record-setting temperatures” are newspaper-ese to make things seem newsworthy. In a warming world, which I think we all agree we are in, almost every temperature measurement is going to be warmer than the one before, even if by a few hundreds of a degree, subject only to random fluctuations. What is important is the magnitude of the temperature, the rate of rise, and the expected consequences of this rate of rise, none of which is captured in the observation that a new record has been set. Everything that grows and doesn’t shrink breaks a record every time I measure it.

    1. Yes, Leslie. I was an options/stock trader years ago, in the WTC actually! In that career lasting a little less than a decade I got a good understanding of random variability, ruin risk, and other math patterns and models. A working understanding, mind you, not an academic one.

       I *was* an environmentalist but their distain for math, opposition to nuclear power and gas, and even GMOs soured me on them.

       Environmental apocalypticism is a modern curse. Thanks Greta! (hahah I wrote about this years ago, variously republished https://democracychronicles.org/children-wont-save-our-planet/)

       D.A.
       NYC

       1. So you can’t be an environmentalist while being pro-nuclear power, gas, math or GMOs? Why would someone else’s version of environmentalist that you consider to be wrong, make you not an environmentalist? Sounds like a “cut off your nose to spite your face” attitude.

          1. Agreed Mark R. I terminated my membership of Greenpeace many years ago over these type of issues. But I can, and do, still remain concerned about the environment.

          2. I suspect the “was” relates less to ongoing concern with the environment, and more to dissatisfaction with with today’s environmentalist groups.

             I share the sentiment. They seem to each have a rigidly enforced dogma, often about things that do not really relate to protecting the environment.
             “It will only be possible to enact sound environmental policies once full socialism is achieved” is an example of such thought, as is any environmental group with an anti-zionist position.

             And sure, there are a lot of unrealistic or counterproductive policies being espoused by many of the groups. Some of it does seem to be related to unwillingness to do math, and many of their key demands reveal a poor knowledge of how things are made. Or just a basic inability to predict the consequences of their actions.

             Sometimes it is necessary to disassociate with a group or movement, when their values shift, or when you realize they had sinister agendas all along.

    2. I note, as sort of scratch notes I am taking lately:

       The Earth is going through an interglacial period. It will be interesting for WEIT readers one way this is determined – 18-O in CaCO3 sediment from marine organisms. Perhaps there are other ways.

       “Interglacial” period is also important to define : for instance :

       Reviews of Geophysics
       v. 54, Issue 1 p.162-219
       Interglacials of the last 800,000 years
       Past Interglacials Working Group of PAGES
       First published: 20 November 2015
       https://doi.org/10.1002/2015RG000482

       … so while I’m trying to leave conclusions out of this comment, and only note these things seem important and interesting to know about and follow up on for this topic. Which, as we know, is subject to – as I tend to go on about – eliciting dialectical political warfare:

11. I enjoyed the panda video. It cheers me to think that somewhere in the world someone comes home at the end of the day and sighs “ah, work today was brutal — those baby pandas just wouldn’t stop hugging me and I couldn’t get a thing done!”

    1. +1

12. I held my breath when President Biden started speaking, as I didn’t know what to expect. He did a great job (IMHO). He was vigorous and feisty, and he interacted in real time with the heckling audience, which meant to me that he can respond spontaneously. He did so with verve. The gloves were off. This was a campaign speech.

    Yes. The talks broke down, predictably. Hamas wants to induce fighting during the holy month of Ramadan so that it can generate more international outrage against Israel. Hamas’s most effective weapon in the public opinion war is dead Gazans, and Ramadan offers an opportunity that a cease-fire would preclude.

    Why is the U.S. building a pier to aid Gaza but not providing aid to others? I think there are several reasons. The first is that all of the focus in the U.S. is on Gaza. The administration answers to the loudest voices—Democrats in Congress. (Also, the aid might actually help, and might take some of the burden off Israel.) A second is to keep pressure on Israel to do more. If the U.S. can get aid in, why can’t Israel, the argument goes. A third is that there’s no PR benefit to helping other peoples in the region. Israel/Gaza is the only game in town.

    Nuclear weapons pointed at major population areas. What could possibly go wrong?

    1. +1
       I’m with Kennedy here:
       https://dankennedy.net/?p=48088

       1. I contemplate how far back Dan Kennedy remembers. Perhaps he has watched video of another Kennedy’s SOTU addresses, prior to the Dog and Pony Shows Ronald Reagan started.

13. I don’t like dentists either! 😖

14. Regarding the gentleman inserting himself into a potential cat fight: perhaps he should have looked the other way and walked away. After all, that the cats should fight would appear to be Nature’s way.

15. “Could someone explain this difference to me? Does this have anything to the upcoming Presidential election?”

    The proposed idea is expensive, inefficient, and dangerous to the people we send to do it. As I mentioned in the other post, this is one thing that I have decades of real-world experience in.

    In real terms, we are talking about building a USMC facility in Gaza, and defending it for the duration of the operation.

    I can say with some authority that it is not being proposed because it is a good idea. So logically, it is being proposed for other reasons. The only thing that makes sense to me is that it might appeal to antisemitic voter groups.

    1. Would American casualties inflicted by Hamas, or by innocent Gazans intent on looting the port, be blamed on Israel — “See what you made us do?” — and thus an excuse to force Israel to lose?

16. I for one welcome our new fire-breathing feline overlords.

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