Welcome to the end of the “work” week: Friday, March 22, 2024, with Cat Shabbos begining at sundown. It’s also World Water Day. If you see this sign, don’t drink it. I believe the latest advice on drinking is not to suck on water bottles all day long, but drink only when you’re thirsty. But remember, I’m not a medical doctor, just a real doctor.
It’s also the dreaded National Broccoli Day (the second worst vegetable after Brussels sprouts), National Goof-off Day, International Day of the Seal, and National Bavarian Crêpes Day.
Here’s a sea lion I photographed in 2022 in Antarctica; I believe it’s an Antarctic fur seal (Arctocephalus gazella) but will be glad to be corrected.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the March 22 Wikipedia page.
Wine of the Day: This fancy 2016 Valpolicella was a gift from a very kind reader (picture below) and you can look up the price and specs. the wine is a blend of Corvina, Rondinella and Cabernet. Kermit Lynch notes this via Tom Wolf: “Of the Corvina, Corvinone, and Rondinella grapes, 50% are pressed directly after harvest, and 50% are left out to air-dry for two months. The combined juice then ages for seven years—much longer than average—in large Slavonian oak barrels, resulting in a complex, graceful Valpolicella.”
I had it with pasta with marinara sauce, and it was superb, with notes of mint and eucalyptus (probably from the Cabernet), as well as blackberries and, of all things, soil. It improved with an hour’s airing, and probably could get even better with 5 years more, though it’s already spent seven years in the barrel. Here’s some notes from Wine Solutions and Vinous, far more sophisticated than I can produce:
Spicy, with hints of black cherry and goudron. Intense, flawless, elegant tannins. A bottle of Quintarelli never disappoints! [The Vinous notes appear to be from the 2013 vintage.]
“Masses of red and blue florals mix with hints of mint and wild berries to create a lifted and inviting bouquet on the 2013 Valpolicella Classico Superiore. It’s soft in feel and more savory than sweet, with a pure display of tart cherries and spices coasting across a core of salty acids and minerals. The 2013 has energy to burn, remaining juicy and spry, while tapering off to wild herbal notes and sour red fruits. While I don’t see this vintage as one to forget in the cellar, there’s certainly a lot of pleasure to be found here over the short term. The Quintarelli Valpolicella is produced from half fresh-harvested and half air-dried fruit that is matured for six years in cask prior to release.” –Vinous
Da Nooz:
*OMG, the U.S. is suing Apple, accusing it of having a monopoly on iPhones (i.e., using unfair practices to keep customers from switching phones). What would Steve Jobs do?
The U.S. accused Apple of monopolizing the smartphone market in a landmark antitrust lawsuit that threatens to disrupt the tech giant’s business model and how millions of consumers use their iPhones.
The Justice Department, 15 states and the District of Columbia sued Apple on Thursday, alleging the tech giant makes it difficult for competitors to integrate with the iPhone, ultimately raising prices for consumers. The antitrust suit, filed in a federal court in New Jersey, says that Apple tries to keep users from switching to devices on outside operating systems, such as Android smartphones.
Apple “has maintained its power, not because of its superiority, but because of its unlawful exclusionary behavior,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a press event.
The tech company controls over 65% of the U.S. smartphone market, Garland said.
Apple said it plans to vigorously defend against the lawsuit.
So what is that “exclusionary behavior”? Here’s from a WSJ piece last June:
The Justice Department’s investigation deals in part with Apple’s policies governing mobile third-party software on its devices, which has been the focus of much of the criticism targeting Apple’s competitive practices. The department is also looking at whether Apple’s mobile operating system, iOS, operates in an anticompetitive way by favoring its own products over those of outside developers, the people said.
Well, that helps me a little, but not a lot. What, exactly, is Apple doing about third-party software? Peter Coy at the NYT analyzes why this is a really big deal:
The Justice Department’s attack is broad and touches on practices ranging from how Apple Wallet works to Alphabet’s payments to Apple for making Google its default search engine to the way texts from Android phones appear as green rather than blue bubbles in Apple Messages.
Apple could have responded to competitive threats by lowering its prices, the government lawsuit says, but instead it imposed “shape-shifting rules and restrictions” that require higher fees, thwart innovation and degrade the user experience.
The lawsuit, joined by 15 states and the District of Columbia, asked a Federal District Court to prevent Apple from doing three things:
Using its control of app distribution to undermine technologies that work across types of phones, such as super apps, which provide several functions in a single app.
Using its proprietary software interfaces to undermine technologies that work across types of phones, such as messaging, smartwatches and digital wallets.
Using the terms and conditions of its contracts to obtain or entrench a monopoly.
Okay, I understand it a bit more, but I do like my iPhone and, as a technology numbskull, it’s user-friendly, the way Jobs wanted all his products. This suit is above my pay grade.
*This is truly a medical marvel: a man who couldn’t get a human kidney got one from a pig that had been genetically edited using CRISPR technology, making it compatible with a human immune system:
The advance, which builds on decades of work, gives hope to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who depend on dialysis machines to do the work of their failing kidneys. Each day, 17 Americans die awaiting a kidney transplant, a problem further complicated by unequal access given to Black and other patients. Doctors expressed hope that using pigs to vastly increase the supply of kidneys might correct the inequity.
The pig kidney was specially engineered by researchers at the Cambridge, Mass., biotechnology company eGenesis, who say it has the potential to propel medicine into a new era in which the limited supply of human kidneys is no longer a barrier to transplantation, and “no patient dies waiting for an organ,” said Mike Curtis, CEO of eGenesis.
One doctor at Massachusetts General called the effort to develop the genetically modified organ “a mini-Manhattan project.”
Although human and pig kidneys are similar in size, researchers had to make 69 different edits to the pig’s genetic code, removing some genes and inserting others, to reduce the risk that the patient’s immune system would attack the transplanted organ.
Matthew says the gene editing has been going on for some years, taking place at the fertilized embryo stage. Here’s his explanation:
Yes this is a strain of pig they have been developing for about 7 years. It has has all its nasty retroviral transposons removed and some nice human immune genes added to reduce the chance of rejection. So there are loads of these pigs and if they are safe and if people will accept them they are going to make a fortune.
George Church was involved in this, and the first effort made the cover of Science, which Matthew sent a photo of:
Question: Can an Orthodox Jew accept a pig kidney since it isn’t kosher? Discuss.
*Blinken is busy kneecapping Israel by floating a cease-fire proposal that is not going to help end the war. (h/t Norm)
The United States has submitted a draft resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.
Speaking in an interview with Saudi news channel Al Hadath Wednesday, Blinken said the call for a pause in fighting is tied to the release of hostages held by Hamas.
“We actually have a resolution that we put forward right now that’s before the United Nations Security Council that does call for an immediate cease-fire tied to the release of hostages, and we hope very much that countries will support that,” he said. “I think that would send a strong message, a strong signal.”
Blinken said the United States is working closely with Qatar and Egypt to mediate a cease-fire agreement in a reversal from past U.S. stances on the matter.
Blinken said Wednesday that he thinks, however, that the “gaps are narrowing” between the two sides.
“I think an agreement is very much possible,” Blinken said. “We worked very hard with Qatar, with Egypt, and with Israel to put a strong proposal on the table. We did that; Hamas wouldn’t accept it. They came back with other requests, other demands. The negotiators are working on that right now. But I believe it’s very much doable, and it’s very much necessary.”
Blinken is either a moron or more concerned with helping Biden gain favor with American voters than to helping our ally Israel. And the former is a form of pandering that I consider unethical. Israel does not want a cease-fire and there is no way that Hamas will let all the hostages go at once (surely many are dead), nor without a huge release of Palestinian terrorists from Israeli jails, which Israel won’t want. If Blinken forces a bum deal on Israel through the Security Council, I think it’s likely that Israel would ignore such a resolution, just as Hezbollah has ignored Security Council Resolution 1701 forcing the terrorist organiation to cease hostilities, pull back from the border, and allow themselves to be controlled by UN troops. Security Council Resolutions, even binding ones, can and have been ignored, but I doubt that the world would let Israel ignore one. Blinken, please shut your gob!
From a discussion on the State Dept. website that’s also a press release:
QUESTION: This is your sixth tour in the region since the war started in October. Are you carrying any more initiatives to end the bloodshed in Gaza?
SECRETARY BLINKEN: We are. We’re pressing for an immediate ceasefire tied to the release of hostages. That would bring immediate relief to so many people who are suffering in Gaza – the children, the women, the men. It would allow a much greater expansion of humanitarian assistance getting to them, and it could create the conditions to have a lasting, enduring ceasefire, which is also what we want to see. So that’s the urgency in this moment. That’s what we’re pressing, with Qatar and Egypt working closely with us to try to get an agreement.
QUESTION: Some may wonder how are you pressuring Israel to do so while you are still continuing supporting them financially and militarily, and even in the United Nations by vetoing any resolution that commits for an immediate ceasefire.
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, in fact, we actually have a resolution that we put forward right now that’s before the United Nations Security Council that does call for an immediate ceasefire tied to the release of hostages, and we hope very much that countries will support that. I think that would send a strong message, a strong signal. But, of course, we stand with Israel and its right to defend itself, to make sure that October 7th never happens again, but at the same time, it’s imperative that the civilians who are in harm’s way and who are suffering so terribly – that we focus on them, that we make them a priority, protecting the civilians, getting them humanitarian assistance. And we’ve been leading the effort to do that, to get more in, to get more to the people who need it. We are pressing on that as hard as we can.
As I said, he’s either a moron or someone who wants Biden to win at Israel’s expense.
Here’s a letter I sent to Biden, with versions to my two (Democratic) Senators:
Dear President Biden,
As a Democratic voter who has always supported you and voted for you, I have to register extreme displeasure about your and Blinken’s conduct of the war between Israel and Hamas. The U.S. is apparently telling Israel how to fight the war, and handicapping it by doing so. The latest outrage is Blinken’s UN proposal for a cease-fire, which Israel does not want. It will only hearten and strengthen Hamas, and Biden’s dictum to Netanyahu that Rafah must not be invaded is, frankly, insane. If Hamas is to be destroyed, then the U.S. should be facilitating that. Israel is already providing safe spaces for Gazan civilians, and it’s unconscionable for our country to be treating our best ally in the Middle East this way.
Sincerely,
Jerry Coyne
Proof (not that Biden gives a tinker’s dam about my feelings):
For another person equally ticked off at Biden, read Seth Mandel’s article in Commentary, “Biden offers Israel a ‘deal’ that sounds like a threat.” It’s snarky, too, e.g.:
“Washington envisions Israel focusing instead on preventing the smuggling of weapons from Egypt into Gaza through the Philadelphi Corridor.” [JAC: This is so the U.S. gets Israel to avoid a ground invasion of Rafah.]
Instead? Why not “also”? Why should Israel have to choose? The report continues: “The official avoided blaming the Egyptian government for the smuggling that was partially responsible for Hamas’s re-armament amid successive rounds of conflict with Israel over the past 15 years.” Well that’s good—we wouldn’t want a country other than Israel to bear all the blame for the war inflicted upon it by its neighbors.
. . .We will stop Egypt from flooding Gaza with arms and ammunition if you promise to go easy on Hamas is the kind of thing a mafia goon would say if you put him in the foreign service. What the Under Secretary of State for Gabagool is saying here is that if Israel helps the president calm the muppet babies in his party by summer, the Israelis get to choose the cause of the next war: Do they want it to be because Western leaders saved Hamas from oblivion, or would they rather the next war come because Egypt kept up its supply of cannonballs to the Jolly Roger?
Here’s what an Israeli counteroffer might look like: The IDF goes into Rafah, roots out Hamas, and seals the smuggling tunnels. Western governments’ role in this is limited to saying “thank you.”
*Netanyahu now claims that it will take time for ground operations to begin in Rafah. Earlier he had set a deadline for March 15th as the ground invasion date, but that’s obviously off.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday he would “soon approve plans to evacuate the civilian population” from Rafah ahead of an expected major operation in the southern Gaza city.
At the same time, he acknowledged that preparations for the operation “will take some time,” as Jerusalem continues its dialogue with Washington, amid intense American concerns over the potential civilian cost in the city that is both Hamas’s last major stronghold in the Strip and the last refuge of over a million refugees from other parts of the enclave amid the war.
“While we are preparing to enter Rafah, which will take some time, we continue to operate with all our might,” said Netanyahu. “We continue to operate in Khan Younis, in the central [Gaza] camps, for the elimination and capture of senior Hamas officials, as we just did in Shifa Hospital, while eliminating hundreds of terrorists.”
Netanyahu made the statement two days after a phone call with US President Joe Biden on the state of the war and plans for Rafah. During that call, Biden effectively ruled out support for a major ground offensive in Rafah, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said.
Netanyahu expressed appreciation for Biden’s support for Israel, adding that the president had asked to present US proposals to Jerusalem on humanitarian assistance and other aspects of the war.
I want to hear how the U.S. proposes to destroy Hamas in Rafah without a “major ground war”, which is what Blinken will propose. Evacuate the civilian population (which Hamas won’t allow) and then bomb the bejeezus out of Rafah? That won’t work because of the tunnels, nor will the world like the look of it. No, the U.S. has only stupid proposals, like preventing the entry of arms from Egypt into the hands of Hamas.
*The BBC reports on a newly-discovered caterpillar that had been mistaken for bird poop (h/t Athayde)
What’s red, black, and hairy all over? A new species of bug discovered in Australia, dubbed by some as a “punk beetle” for its shaggy white locks.
First, note that THIS IS NOT A BUG. Bugs are members of the order Hemiptera, but this is a beetle, in the order Coleoptera. On to the rest:
A Queensland researcher spotted the fluffy specimen by chance while camping and initially mistook it for bird poo.
“It’s very unique. There are not many insects out there that have that trait,” James Tweed told the BBC.
The national science agency CSIRO has since confirmed it’s an entirely new family of longhorn beetle.
When Mr Tweed first spotted a tiny white object on a leaf in the Gold Coast hinterland in December 2021, he didn’t think much of it.
But after the entomologist did a double take, he realised it was in fact an insect unlike any he’d seen before.
“It’s about one centimetre long… and covered in long, fluffy white hairs,” he said.
“A lot of the hairs stand basically straight upright, and so it gives it a bit of a mohawk type look.”
Excited, he photographed and collected the beetle to be studied.
In fact, it’s so unlike any other species that it was declared an entirely new genus or family group of longhorn beetles by the ANIC, officially called Excastra albopilosa – Excastra meaning “from the camp” in Latin and albopilosa “white and hairy”.
When I saw this, before I read the article, I thought, “That’s either not a bird poop mimic or an insect mimicking a dead insect covered with fungus. Then I read it and found this:
The scientists aren’t sure exactly why the bug is furry, but they think it has evolved to mimic an insect that’s been killed by a fungus, as a way of deterring predators.
A photo by James Tweed, the discoverer:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Editor Hili’s auditing the finances of Listy:
Małgorzata: Hili, what are you doing?Hili: I’m checking the bookkeeping.
Małgorzata: Hili, co ty robisz?Hili: Sprawdzam księgowość.
*******************
From Barry:
Also from Barry:
From Strange, Stupid, or Silly Signs (can you smoke silently?):
Today, in a long tweet, Masih is celebrating Nowruz, the Iranian New Year. She even sings and has let her hair grow wild (no hijab could ever cover that!):
Happy New Year filled with prosperity to all who celebrate Nowruz.
Today we Iranians are celebrating our rich tradition of #Nowruz
New Year celebrations always supposed to be full of kisses, hugs, love that you receive from your family.
But many of us, Iranians have been… pic.twitter.com/VtyUCgUmzm— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) March 20, 2024
The Palestinians still love them some Hamas (see the link):
Forced to the "brink of starvation" in a bombed-out hellscape, what do Gazans think of Hamas now?
New poll:
71% of Palestinians approve of the 10/7 Hamas attacks
91% say Hamas committed no war crimes
59% want Hamas to rule Gaza after the warhttps://t.co/GmkDrwDsaT
— i/o (@eyeslasho) March 21, 2024
Poor scared and indecisive little penguin!:
The way penguin looks back, unsure whether to stay or go..🥺 pic.twitter.com/3mibE8dPlG
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) March 20, 2024
Politicizing at the American Chemical Society. Some scientists, even when giving research presentations, can’t keep their big yaps shut. But this one is particularly blinkered.
Science has become increasingly politicized. Anna Krylov is right once again.
Missing at #ACSSpring2024 is the fact that Hamas sexually assaulted women, murdered kids and committed door-to-door executions against Jews. These heinous acts is why Israel is responding with force. https://t.co/H8VZdQKAPZ— Jesse J. Sabatini (@JJSabatini) March 20, 2024
From Malcolm: a pensive kitten:
analyzing pic.twitter.com/H34fqsRg6Y
— smol silly cat (@Catsillyness) March 11, 2024
And two kittens for Friday:
Cat introduces her kitten to a little girl..🐈🐾👧🥰pic.twitter.com/H5jJyHpiv9
— Mirthful Moments (@moment_mirthful) March 21, 2024
From the Auschwitz Memorial, a 14-year-old girl gassed on arrival at the camp:
22 March 1930 | A Czech Jewish girl, Eva Freundová, was born in Pardubice.
She was deported to #Auschwitz from the #Theresienstadt ghetto on 19 October 1944. She was murdered in a gas chamber. pic.twitter.com/ZgRCxsBLpm
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) March 22, 2024
Two tweets from Matthew. First, a cat during the French Revolution:
Chat, le grand illusionniste. pic.twitter.com/61h5QLXmDL
— Paul Bronks (@SlenderSherbet) March 21, 2024
Artificial intelligence screws up again (sound up):
I was making a grilled cheese so I turned on text to speech to read this article. Please listen to this part https://t.co/eeUDMts9Dn pic.twitter.com/37HcKCfJHT
— greeny (@dvdfu) March 20, 2024
I presume that everyone has been watching the Douglas Murray interview? (Well worth it.)
No. Had not seen it. Thanks for the link!
+1
Yes. Thank you for that, Coel. Take that, pretty interviewer! I’ve wanted to read some of his (Douglas Murray’s) articles and went to his website. I didn’t find anything that isn’t published behind a paywall. That guy is something!
Thank you. We should know the name if the “journalist” from, I gather, Eye Witness News (I cannot find the name). My dialectic-O-meter picks up a reading:
The journalist (see? Need a name.) has the thrust of dialectic driving her thought – that is, a gnosis of how History unfolded, is unfolding, and – therefore is expected to unfold until the End of History. Namely, dialectically. That is how she can try to mystify Murray’s quite Hitchensian sparring and have it come across as if the listener or Murray is an ignorant troglodyte. It’s called mystification.
Also : Marxists always lie.
I’ll copy this on the other thread.
Jane Dutton.
Thanks to WEIT reader Peter.
I was lucky enough to see Douglas Murray live (Perth) this week, interviewed by the excellent Josh Szeps (recently been on Sam Harris). He mentioned this interview and I was keen to find it. Thanks!
That’s exactly how I would have read that number
It’s the first number discovered by AI.
That pig kidney advancement is awesome!
So great – thanks Prof. Cobb for just telling us in “plain English” concisely what is the deal.
Wow…. and… was a Kosher gene inserted?
You have to add the Kosher – Kosher is an addition process, right? You don’t remove to make Kosher…?
One supposes the pigs do not get a say in any of this?? What price Homo sapiens survival?
One wonders what Peter Singer thinks about this – I mean this seriously.
But at the same time, one can imagine a Muppet Show number based on this idea … Pigs In Space comes to mind…
100 million pigs for bacon, ribs, tenderloins, and chops. A few hundred pigs for end-stage kidney disease. I don’t think God will mind.
I mind, but then I do not eat domestic or wild animals or fish and try to avoid using the byproducts of slaughter wherever possible. That is my choice, domestic and wild animals, fish do not get a choice never mind “god”
You should have read the comments at NYT’s coverage: half of them said it was unacceptable to use a pig kidney if it led to the death of the pig. I assume they were all vegetarians?
Possibly, or they may just have the same philosophy to PETA “Animals are not ours to experiment on, eat, wear, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way.”
I agree.
It was once said that if this planet is invaded by extraterrestrial aliens, the best humanity could hope to be treated would be the same way we treat our planetary flora and fauna. Let us hope we never have to put it to the test?
All of these calls for cease-fire from Israel’s supposed friends are absurd in that they act as if Israel were the only one who has to agree. We’ve seen over and over again since October 7 what the price of hostage releases are for Hamas.
I found a copy of “Faith vs Fact” and enjoying the read – eschewing confirmation bias I get more education reading those I disagree with. It occurs to me that proselytizing for the atheist religion (defined as “a logically consistent system of belief based on self evident premises accepted as true”) for the supposed purpose of preventing war and conflict, actually CREATES and spreads more bad feelings, conflict, etc. Tolerance is the key, with attacks targeted specifically at attempted intrusions into the specific realm of science, like trying to slip ID or wuooy ways of knowing into what is strictly a science curriculum (which SHOULD include “comparative religion” IMHO, i.e. you can study and learn about Islam etc without actually getting on the prayer mat facing mecca, etc).
Seems bizarre to me that a biologist cannot realize wars and conflicts arise from population pressures on environmental resources, but whatever – why you have to wade into that particular ‘forever war’ is beyond me as far as the study of biology is concerned, unless it’s just retaliation for getting so heavily attacked.
My response to the untargeted general attack today, my response is we see “wise” people making fools of themselves all the time in the news, media and daily life, and also happens to be in some ancient sacred texts, “Professing themselves wise, they become fools”.
Oh, on purely imaginary things – I think it helpful as an engineer with a lot of math training how easily we adopt things like “infinity” and “imaginary numbers”. Just think, a mathematician was working on a solution to cubic equations when this “square root of negative one” pops up – which surely does not exist. But wait, if we just go with it, call it ‘i’ for imaginary (we use ‘j’ in EE since ‘i’ was already used for current) it works! Cubic equations solved, using this strange object. It has gained widespread use by say the people designing your power grid.
Sorry, but the definition of atheism that you use is not a functioning definition at all. Atheism is a lack of belief in the supernatural-that’s it. You can’t word-salad the definition by using the word “belief” of “self evident.” Many people become atheists because they realize Evolution Is True. Evolution is anything but “self evident.” Self evidence is in the realm of religion and faith…a simplistic and child-like view of creation and the universe. There’s more to rebut in your comment, but I’m tired of arguing your tiresome tropes.
March 22 was a busy day in the colonies…
On this day:
1312 – Vox in excelso: Pope Clement V dissolves the Order of the Knights Templar.
1621 – The Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony sign a peace treaty with Massasoit of the Wampanoags.
1622 – Jamestown massacre: Algonquians kill 347 English settlers around Jamestown, Virginia, a third of the colony’s population, during the Second Anglo-Powhatan War.
1631 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony outlaws the possession of cards, dice, and gaming tables.
1638 – Anne Hutchinson is expelled from Massachusetts Bay Colony for religious dissent.
1765 – The British Parliament passes the Stamp Act that introduces a tax to be levied directly on its American colonies.
1794 – The Slave Trade Act of 1794 bans the export of slaves from the United States, and prohibits American citizens from outfitting a ship for the purpose of importing slaves.
1871 – In North Carolina, William Woods Holden becomes the first governor of a U.S. state to be removed from office by impeachment.
1895 – Before the Société pour L’Encouragement à l’Industrie, brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière demonstrate movie film technology publicly for the first time.
1896 – Charilaos Vasilakos wins the first modern Olympic marathon race with a time of three hours and 18 minutes.
1933 – Cullen–Harrison Act: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs an amendment to the Volstead Act, legalizing the manufacture and sale of “3.2 beer” (3.2% alcohol by weight, approximately 4% alcohol by volume) and light wines.
1933 – Nazi Germany opens its first concentration camp, Dachau.
1945 – The Arab League is founded when a charter is adopted in Cairo, Egypt.
1963 – The Beatles release their debut album Please Please Me.
1972 – The United States Congress sends the Equal Rights Amendment to the states for ratification.
1972 – In Eisenstadt v. Baird, the United States Supreme Court decides that unmarried persons have the right to possess contraceptives.
1993 – The Intel Corporation ships the first Pentium chips (80586), featuring a 60 MHz clock speed, 100+ MIPS, and a 64 bit data path.
1995 – Cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov returns to earth after setting a record of 438 days in space.
1997 – Comet Hale–Bopp reaches its closest approach to Earth at 1.315 AU.
2004 – Ahmed Yassin, co-founder and leader of the Palestinian Sunni Islamist group Hamas, two bodyguards, and nine civilian bystanders are killed in the Gaza Strip when hit by Israeli Air Force Hellfire missiles.
2016 – Three suicide bombers kill 32 people and injure 316 in the 2016 Brussels bombings at the airport and at the Maelbeek/Maalbeek metro station.
2017 – A terrorist attack in London near the Houses of Parliament leaves four people dead and at least 20 injured.
Births:
1599 – Anthony van Dyck, Flemish-English painter and etcher (d. 1641).
1615 – Katherine Jones, Viscountess Ranelagh, British scientist (d. 1691).
1785 – Adam Sedgwick, English scientist (d. 1873).
1808 – Caroline Norton, English feminist, social reformer, and author (d. 1877). [Today’s Woman of the Day, see next post below.]
1855 – Dorothy Tennant, British painter (d. 1926).
1868 – Robert Andrews Millikan, American colonel and physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1953).
1887 – Chico Marx, American actor (d. 1961).
1912 – Wilfrid Brambell, Irish actor and performer (d. 1985).
1917 – Irving Kaplansky, Canadian-American mathematician and academic (d. 2006).
1920 – Fanny Waterman, English pianist and educator, founded the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition (d. 2020).
1923 – Marcel Marceau, French mime and actor (d. 2007).
1924 – Al Neuharth, American journalist and author, founded USA Today (d. 2013).
1924 – Yevgeny Ostashev, Russian test pilot, participant in the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite (d. 1960).
1930 – Stephen Sondheim, American composer and songwriter (d. 2021).
1931 – William Shatner, Canadian actor.
1935 – Galina Gavrilovna Korchuganova, Russian-born Soviet test pilot and aerobatics champion (d. 2004).
1935 – M. Emmet Walsh, American actor (d. 2024).
1936 – Roger Whittaker, Kenyan-English singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2023).
1941 – Bruno Ganz, Swiss actor (d. 2019).
1948 – Andrew Lloyd Webber, English composer and director.
1963 – Deborah Bull, English ballerina.
1976 – Reese Witherspoon, American actress and producer.
Sleep, those little slices of death — how I loathe them. (Edgar Allan Poe):
1832 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German novelist, poet, playwright, and diplomat (b. 1749).
1958 – Mike Todd, American film producer (b. 1909). [Celebrated for his 1956 Around the World in 80 Days, which won an Academy Award for Best Picture. Actress Elizabeth Taylor was his third wife. Todd was the third of Taylor’s seven husbands, and the only one whom Taylor did not divorce. Todd died in a private plane accident a year after their marriage.]
1978 – Karl Wallenda, German-American acrobat and tightrope walker, founded The Flying Wallendas (b. 1905).
2001 – William Hanna, American animator, director, producer, and voice actor, co-founded Hanna-Barbera (b. 1910).
2005 – Rod Price, English guitarist and songwriter (b. 1947).
2010 – James Black, Scottish biologist and pharmacologist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1924). [Together with Gertrude B. Elion and George H. Hitchings, he shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1988 for pioneering strategies for rational drug-design, which, in his case, lead to the development of propranolol and cimetidine.]
2018 – Johan van Hulst, Dutch politician, academic and author, Yad Vashem recipient (b. 1911). [In 1943, with the help of the Dutch resistance and students of the nearby University of Amsterdam, he was instrumental in saving over 600 Jewish children from the nursery of the Hollandsche Schouwburg who were destined for deportation to Nazi concentration camps. For his humanitarian actions he received the Yad Vashem distinction Righteous Among the Nations from the State of Israel in 1973.]
2019 – Scott Walker, British-American singer-songwriter (b. 1943).
Woman of the Day
[Text from The Attagirls X/Twitter account]
Woman of the Day feminist and author Caroline Norton born OTD 1808 in London whose intense lobbying of Parliament and Queen Victoria was instrumental in the passing of three Acts of Parliament giving married women long overdue legal rights for the first time. They spelled the end of coverture, the common law principle that a married woman was no more than a chattel – the property – of her husband.
Caroline married at 19. Her family, though well-connected, was penniless. It was a mistake. George Norton was happy to use his wife’s social connections to gain advancement but failed to earn money as a barrister. Hardly surprising. He was a nightmare: jealous, possessive, violent, abusive and a drunk. She left him when she was 28 and managed to support herself and her children for a while by writing books and poems.
In those days, a woman’s earnings belonged to her husband. She was a mere chattel, remember. He confiscated her income, leaving her penniless once more. Caroline fought back. She ran up bills in his name and when creditors came to collect, she told them to pursue him. He retaliated by kidnapping their sons, hiding them with relatives in Scotland and later Yorkshire, refusing to tell Caroline where they were. Under English law then, children were the legal property of their father and there was little she could do to regain custody.
Norton then accused her of an affair with the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, and demanded £10,000 from Melbourne (£1.2 million in today’s money) not to cause a scandal. The PM refused to pay and Norton took him to court. At the end of a nine-day trial, the jury threw out Norton’s claim, siding with Melbourne, but the publicity almost brought down the government. The scandal eventually died but not before ruining Caroline’s reputation.
Norton continued to stop her from seeing her three sons and blocked her from receiving a divorce. One of the sons died as a result of an avoidable accident and he relented enough to let Caroline see her children but refused to give her custody. She had no recourse. She was his possession in law and so were her children.
When Parliament debated divorce reform in 1855, Caroline submitted a detailed account of her own marriage to MPs and described the difficulties faced by women as the result of existing laws.
“An English wife may not leave her husband’s house. Not only can he sue her for restitution of “conjugal rights,” but he has a right to enter the house of any friend or relation with whom she may take refuge…and carry her away by force…
“If her husband take proceedings for a divorce, she is not, in the first instance, allowed to defend herself…She is not represented by attorney, nor permitted to be considered a party to the suit between him and her supposed lover, for “damages.”
If an English wife be guilty of infidelity, her husband can divorce her so as to marry again; but she cannot divorce the husband, a vinculo, however profligate he may be…Those dear children, the loss of whose pattering steps and sweet occasional voices made the silence of [my] new home intolerable as the anguish of death…what I suffered respecting those children, God knows … under the evil law which suffered any man, for vengeance or for interest, to take baby children from the mother.”
Largely through Caroline’s intense campaigning, which included writing to Queen Victoria, Parliament passed the Custody of Infants Act 1839, the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, and the Married Women’s Property Act 1870.
Although Caroline herself did not benefit, the Acts gave married women for the first time ever a right to their children, a law allowing divorce, and by virtue of the Married Women’s Property Act 1870, the right of married women to inherit property and take court action on their own behalf. The Act also granted married women in the UK for the first time a separate legal identity from their husbands.
Caroline was finally free of Norton when he died in 1875. She remarried in 1877 but died just three months later at the age of 69. I hope she found some peace and contentment in those too brief few months.
https://twitter.com/TheAttagirls/status/1771078061837914528
I know from nothing regarding legal or even philosophical issues of patents, licensing, competition, and disruptive innovation, but do want to be a character reference for Apple products. I started out learning to program (that’s coding to you kids) computers in 1966 and over the years worked in around two dozen programming languages including assembler and machine code up to highest level software such as Mathematica and various control software packages. Buying my first Mac in the mid-80’s, I have continued to use Macs throughout my NASA career through retirement in 2009 and still do at home today. I am convinced that its easy computer/human interface allowed for my 8th grade daughter to access the machine while I was at work and teach herself how to make use of it and my wife, a nurse, to overcome the fear of computers (what if I break it? No dear, its a Mac and human-proof by design) so that when her health care system employer went to pc’s and e-medical records in the 90’s, it was just a small step to move to the more complicated pc system already being facile with the Mac computer. Many nurses quit rather than take a leap from nothing to learning pc. We speak iphone, ipad, applewatch, and macbook pro in this house..it has my hectsher..but our next two generations of progeny seem to use whatever brand or system they want or can find. So it goes.
+ 1
If you’re interested in some possible rational for the Apple anti-trust suit, Matt Stoller has a blog that covers monopolies and anti-trust action. Today he covered the Apple situation.
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/why-the-apple-antitrust-suit-matters?isFreemail=true&post_id=142826537&publication_id=11524&r=hca6&triedRedirect=true
And just one short excerpt to give you an idea of what the case is about:
” . . . in China there are what’s called ‘super apps’ like WeChat or Alipay. As Ben Thompson noted, WeChat has a lot of different functions, such as “communicating, reading news, hailing taxis, paying for lunch, accessing government resources, for business,” and so forth. If you switch from Apple to a different phone, you can just download your super apps, and voila, you’ve switched. Thus the underlying hardware is commodified; competition on smartphones happens via price and features, and it’s aggressive.
In the United States and the rest of the world, there are no super apps. Why? Because Apple, through its control of app stores, has banned them. It doesn’t allow rival app stores, and it doesn’t allow super apps to be sold through its own app store.”
Thanks for the article. I plan on reading it tomorrow. But what about Google Play? (The android equivalent of Apple’s app store.) My quick question via a Google search offered this short answer:
“Since Google Play is available for a broader range of products it generates more downloads than the Apple App Store, which is only for Apple devices. The biggest advantage of the Apple App Store for users is that it offers high-quality, safer, less-buggy apps.”
https://www.bigabid.com/apple-app-store-vs-google-play-store-differences/
Which are several reasons I like the ecosystem of Apple and have enjoyed it since the middle 1990s. Even Adam & Eve liked The Apple (as it was known back in the day). I also like the build quality of Apple computers.
But I’ll check out the article to see what the fuss is about.
a pig kidney doesn´t have to be kosher unless you want to eat it.
there is no problem with implantation.
(jews are not allowed to breed non kosher animals)
Apropos the pig kidney transplant … a deaf man was the recipient of the world’s first pig’s ear transplant. When the doctor asked him how it was working, he said “Well, there’s a bit of crackling.”
I’m here all week, folks. Try the veal.
Ha!
The only words of wisdom I have for Biden, and especially Blinken, regarding their latest genius moves against Israel are: WTF!
Israel needs to eliminate the four remaining Hamas brigades in Rafah, ending Hamas’s stronghold there and ending (at least for some time) its capacity to wage war against Israel. Eliminating Hamas would also serve a critical humanitarian goal: liberating the Palestinian people from their current role as human munitions. (Hamas’s most potent weapon is dead Gazan civilians.) Eliminating Hamas from Rafah will also enable humanitarian aid to flow into the region. (Hamas is currently actively preventing aid from reaching its intended recipients.)
Again, what are Biden and Blinken thinking?! Destroying Hamas will do far more to improve humanitarian conditions than any future effort to prevent armaments coming in from Egypt. (Of course, Israel and Egypt should collaborate on that initiative as well.)
Good letter to President Biden, Jerry. Concise and to the point. I’ve been writing letters to political leaders as well, sometimes receiving responses, sometimes not. Do they help? Well, a bot probably scans them and classifies them as either “a potential donor” or “will never be a donor.” Even so, I think it’s good to be on the record with a position.
I think this was alluded to on Sam Harris’ podcast, but I’m not sure: how much do Gazans actually know about Oct 7th and Hamas’ true role in it?
We know Hamas tell the biggest whoppers and useful idiots in the west, who have no excuse to be so thick, swallow them hook, line, and sinker. Are ordinary Gazans just totally unaware of what Hamas did? And what they have done these last two decades? Or at least to some degree.
What do people think? These numbers otherwise just defy belief. The Gazan’s suffering is entirely due to their “elected” leaders.
(I’m not saying this is the case, and people can usually make an effort to better educate themselves, but I imagine there’s not a lot of options in Gaza for surfing the web and what not.)
Ah, Quintarelli, the magician of the Veneto. I discovered the Quintarelli wines (starting with the Valpolicella) many years ago, at a time when Valpolicella was often thought of as just a cheap mass marketed Italian wine (remember Bolla?). Quintarelli demonstrated what was possible from this region, and the wines can be truly remarkable. There are many other good wines from the region now, but Quintarelli remains the standard bearers, with hats off as well to Dal Forno Romano, who was inspired by Quintarelli.
Sadly, the prices have gone way up over the years and the wines are no longer readily affordable (the Amarone is positively stratospheric) unless you have a big wine budget. That was truly a lovely gift!
Well, well, China and Russia have vetoed the US security resolution for a ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza.
Blinken bewildered.
Gunmen on the loose on the outskirts of Moscow, music and bullets a very sad combination.
“Love is the drug and we need to score”
Roxy Music
Jez’s woman of the day was a fighter. The husband was a real c….. I really want to… oh fuck it, cunt.
+1!
I’m so sorry to share, Jerry, that Kate Middleton has just revealed that she has cancer. How awful for her and her family.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AmNE4Dp-9k
She’s only 42 years old. Dreadful news.
Please, she has not been Kate Middleton for 13 years! Do her the curtesy of using her title. Princess Catherine will do.