Monday: Hili dialogue

April 1, 2024 • 6:45 am

It’s Monday, April 1, 2024and expect many April Fools’ Day jokes today. It’s both National Soylent Green Day and National Sourdough Bread Day, but since Soylent Green is people, I prefer the bread.

To celebrate the new month, here is the “April” page showing the Château de Dourdan in France. This comes from perhaps the West’s most famous illuminated manuscript, the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, created between 1412 and 1416.

Limbourg brothers, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

We also have these designations for the month and, as lagniappe, National Egg Salad Week!

National Florida Tomato Month
National BLT Sandwich Month
National Soft Pretzel Month
National Soyfoods Month
National Grilled Cheese Month
National Garlic Month
April 12-18: National Egg Salad Week

It’s also Sweet Potato Day, National Atheist’s Day (okay, another misplaces apostrophe: who is the one atheist who’s having their day?), National Egg Salad Sandwich Day, National Trombone Players Day, Edible Book Day (make food that looks like a book), and Fossil Fools Day.

In honor of Trombone players day, I give you one of the jazz trombone greats, Jack Teagarden:

 

Posting may be light today as I have a big post to prepare for tomorrow.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the April 1 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*In the NYT op-ed section, Christopher Costa and Colin Clarke tell us that “We still haven’t figured out how to beat ISIS.” Okay, I’ll bite; how do we? We have to cooperate with the Taliban!

They begin by recounting several recent attacks, including the one in the Russian concert hall:

. . . All of these events point to what we now know: Stripping the Islamic State of its self-proclaimed caliphate is not the same as beating it. At its peak, the caliphate was as large as the territory of Britain, stretching from the Levant to Southeast Asia, and boasted over 40,000 foreign fighters from more than 80 countries. Forced from this redoubt, ISIS has reconstituted itself in other countries, going underground in less detectable — but more dangerous — forms.

To stop that threat from reaching America and its allies, the United States must prevent two decades of counterterrorism expertise from atrophying. There are other serious threats that deserve Washington’s attention, including Chinese adventurism and the challenge of artificial intelligence. But to keep Americans safe, counterterrorism must remain a strategic priority — and that includes finding a way to keep eyes on the Islamic State in parts of the world where we no longer have a footprint.

. . . Put simply: The Taliban is unable to contain the ISIS-K threat alone. The time has probably passed for trying to unseat the Taliban by discreetly supporting Afghan opposition groups like the Panjshiris of the National Resistance Front, who oppose Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Now it’s time for diplomacy. Washington and its allies could engage the Qataris or the Saudis to provide incentives for the Taliban to ramp up their pressure on ISIS-K, share intelligence and, perhaps in time, walk away from their past pledge to unconditionally support Al Qaeda and provide the group with safe haven. Maybe the Taliban has learned from Mullah Omar’s fateful refusal to hand Osama bin Laden over to the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks. Maybe not.

Either way, it’s unrealistic to expect the Taliban to be a reliable counterterrorism partner in an international effort to defeat ISIS-K. But some level of cooperation, however unappealing, is necessary. The human intelligence so critical in counterterrorism can only be gathered on the ground. With no American footprint left in the country, our counterterrorism interests would be better served with intelligence derived from Taliban security and intelligence operations directed against ISIS-K — a mutual enemy. The cooperation should remain limited to information sharing and should not extend to training or the provision of equipment.

. . .Of course, coming to any kind of agreement with the Taliban is a deeply complicated and controversial endeavor. Even a highly restricted relationship with the Taliban would be distasteful and fraught with ethical dilemmas, given the regime’s human rights record.

But it’s been considered before. And the alternative is worse: a devastating attack directed at Americans overseas or at home.

*One of my predications before the last election that was wrong is that I didn’t think Biden would be very woke. But bless my soul, he’s right over there (or rather, “left over there”) cozying up to AOC and her fellow progressive. Now Biden, worried about re-election, has delayed the new Title IX regulations that were supposed to go into effect soon. One set of rules, which will change schools’ methods of prosecuting sexual harassment, will not be delayed, they are less fair to the accused, and in fact the rules put in place by Betsy DeVos were better.  The other set of rules, about who gets to participate in women’s sports, has gotten more negative press and is being put on hold, probably until after the election (assuming Biden wins):

The Biden administration is preparing to finalize sweeping rules in coming weeks governing how sex discrimination is addressed in schools, including new protections for transgender students. But officials plan to put off a companion regulation outlining the rights of trans athletes, according to people familiar with administration planning.

Athletics is among the thorniest issues confronting supporters of transgender rights, including those in the Biden administration. Polling shows that clear majorities of Americans, including a sizable slice of Democrats, oppose allowing transgender athletes to compete on girls’ and women’s teams. Twenty-five states have statewide bans on their participation, with proponents arguing that transwomen have a biological advantage over other participants.

The Biden administration’s proposed regulation, published in April 2023, took a nuanced approach. It would outlaw blanket state bans but gives schools a road map for how they can bar transgender girls from competing in certain circumstances, particularly in competitive sports.

Nonetheless, issuing such a rule risks injecting the issue into an election year in which President Biden faces a close contest with former president Donald Trump, who has promised to ban trans women from women’s sports if reelected.

“Folks close to Biden have made the political decision to not move on the athletics [regulation] pre-election,” said one person familiar with the administration’s thinking. “It seems to be too much of a hot topic.”

A second person reported having received the same message from the administration. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

This is the change that will create a spate of lawsuits:

That main Title IX regulation, proposed in June 2022, also says that the law’s prohibition on sex discrimination includes discrimination based on gender identity as well as sexual orientation. The administration has already said this is how it interprets Title IX, but this is the first time that would be codified into a regulation, which would give it additional force.

For a long time Biden has been changing the legal notion of “biological sex” to “gender identity”, and although the athletic-participation rules could have been worse, they also could have been better, too.

*The Elder of Ziyon calls out CNN for biased reporting in a piece called “CNN’s coverage of Shifa Hospital is abysmal. Every IDF claim is doubted, and none of the Palestinian claims – unless they support the IDF statements”

So far, Israel’s surprise raid at Shifa Hospital has been an amazing success. Hundreds of terrorists killed, hundreds more detained, few if any patients hurt by the IDF, incredible intelligence gathered, and caches of weapons found all that prove that Hamas and Islamic Jihad had turned the hospital into a command and control center again. Israel provided photos of the weapons, videos of the battles, even videos of terrorists admitting the hospital was used as their military hub.

CNN’s  Nadeen Ebrahim, Sana Noor Haq, Khader Al Za’anoun and Abeer Salman reported about Shifa last Thursday. The article does not even mention the IDF videos, the interrogations or other proofs for its statements, and it gives Palestinian denials of the undeniable equal weight to the IDF statements

They then quote the CNN report, which doubts everthing the IDF says: e.g.:

Around Al-Shifa, the IDF said in an update Wednesday, “approximately 200terrorists have been eliminated in the area of the hospital since the beginning of the activity.” The IDF also claimed that “terrorists fired at IDF troops from within and outside of the ER (emergency room) building at the Shifa Hospital.”

CNN is unable to verify these numbers.

Israel has for years claimed that Hamas fighters are sheltering in mosques, hospitals and other civilian places to avoid Israeli attacks. Hamas has repeatedly denied the claims.

. . . . Of course, since CNN’s tour, more evidence has been uncovered – US intelligence confirmed that the hospital was used by Hamas and the New York Times reported that the tunnels underneath were much more extensive than what CNN has reported in November.

The CNN article, by contrast, emphasizes the false ideas that Israel’s November raid was a failure, that it nearly destroyed the hospital’s infrastructure then, that no evidence was found in November that Shifa was an important terror hub. It ignores the videos of terrorists admitting that everything Israel says about Shifa is true.

CNN takes pains to cast doubt on literally everything the IDF says. Yet it expresses no such reservations on Hamas claims or any Palestinian claims of torture, patients dying, and other allegations of war crimes by the IDF:

Residents of the area around Al-Shifa told CNN there was heavy firing in the vicinity. One family said their home was shelled, and that children – some still alive – were buried under the rubble.

Unlike IDF statements, those claims are quoted without any caveats or mentions that CNN cannot verify them.

CNN is about the most biased source of journalism on the war save, perhaps, Al-Jazeera in Arabic.

*The Wall Street Journal tells us that people are kvetching because the U.S. and Israel are sharing intelligence.

A secret memorandum that expanded intelligence sharing with Israel after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack has led to growing concerns in Washington about whether the information is contributing to civilian deaths, according to people familiar with the issue.

Among the worries is that there is little independent oversight to confirm that U.S.-supplied intelligence isn’t used in strikes that unnecessarily kill civilians or damage infrastructure, the people said.

The secret U.S.-Israeli intelligence-sharing agreement has received less public scrutiny than U.S. weapons sales to Israel. But it is prompting increasing questions from Democratic lawmakers and human-rights groups, even as alarm mounts within the Biden administration over how Israel is conducting its military campaign in Gaza following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks, which killed about 1,200 Israelis.

The concerns about intelligence sharing in some ways mirror those over the provision of American weapons as the death toll mounts in Gaza, and President Biden has left open the possibility of withholding some arms from its closest ally in the Middle East. That possibility hasn’t been raised with intelligence, but its potential for contributing to civilian casualties is being discussed in the administration and on Capitol Hill.

“What I’m concerned about is making sure our intelligence sharing is consistent with our values and our national-security interests,” Rep. Jason Crow (D., Colo.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview.

Crow, who in December wrote to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines seeking details of the sharing arrangements, added that he worried that “what we’re sharing right now isn’t advancing our interests.”

Israel’s military operation since the Oct. 7 attack has led to the deaths of about 32,000 residents of Gaza, many of them women and children, according to Palestinian health authorities, whose figures don’t distinguish between militants and noncombatants. Israel’s military says the total death toll is roughly accurate but disputes the composition, saying more than one-third of the dead are militants.

The intelligence sharing with Israel is conducted under a secret memorandum that the White House issued shortly after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack and amended a few days later, U.S. officials said. At about the same time, the U.S. expanded its intelligence collection on Gaza, having largely relied on Israel to spy on the enclave in recent years.

Once again, the civilian deaths in Gaza could have been severely reduced by Hamas, but Hamas wants them, and people are apparently too ignorant to realize that simple fact.

*If you can, watch the total solar eclipse on April 8, as there won’t be nearly as accessible for a while:

Full solar eclipses occur every year or two or three, often in the middle of nowhere like the South Pacific or Antarctic. The next total solar eclipse, in 2026, will grace the northern fringes of Greenland, Iceland and Spain.

North America won’t experience totality again until 2033, with Alaska getting sole dibs. Then that’s it until 2044, when totality will be confined to Western Canada, Montana and North Dakota.

Unless you want to go to Alaska, this is it for two decades, when I’ll be dead.

There won’t be another U.S. eclipse, spanning coast to coast, until 2045. That one will stretch from Northern California all the way to Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Aside from Carbondale, Illinois, in the crosshairs of both the 2017 and 2024 eclipses, it usually takes 400 years to 1,000 years before totality returns to the same spot, according to NASA’s Korreck.

More info:

The peak spectacle on April 8 will last up to 4 minutes, 28 seconds in the path of total darkness — twice as long as the total solar eclipse that dimmed U.S. skies in 2017.

This eclipse will take a different and more populated route, entering over Mexico’s Pacific coast, dashing up through Texas and Oklahoma, and crisscrossing the Midwest, mid-Atlantic and New England, before exiting over eastern Canada into the Atlantic.

An estimated 44 million people live inside the 115-mile-wide (185-kilometer-wide) path of totality stretching from Mazatlán, Mexico to Newfoundland; about 32 million of them are in the U.S., guaranteeing jammed roads for the must-see celestial sensation.

The eclipse will allow many to share in the “wonder of the universe without going very far,” said NASA’s eclipse program manager Kelly Korreck.

And of course be sure you have your eclipse glasses. As the AP site says:

During totality when the sun is completely shrouded, it’s fine to remove your glasses and look with your naked eyes. But before and after, certified eclipse glasses are essential to avoid eye damage. Just make sure they’re not scratched or torn.

Totality will be between 3½ and 4 minutes.

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

I misplaced the tweets today; they are going above the memes.

*From Masih, who’s interviewed about the Iranian regime’s attempt to kidnap and kill her.

Re the post I put up yesterday, this person doesn’t like Kendi very much! It is true that I think Kendi has refused every offer to debate, including from John McWhorter.

From Luana; what banning standardized tests does:

From Barry, who says, “How is it that the pigeon is not afraid of the cat and that the cat doesn’t seem to mind all the pecking? I no longer understand the world I live in.” My response is that the pigeon is Israel and the cat is The Rest of the World:

Angry kitten!

From the Auschwitz Memorial, a post I retweeted:

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. First, a lovely beetle that gets a “!” from Matthew. Is it a mimic?

A double helix poem that Matthew came across while writing his Crick biography:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is inundated with know-it-alls:

Hili: Is there anybody who knows everything?
A: Unfortunately, a multitude, and I don’t know how to escape from them.
In Polish:
Hili: Czy jest ktoś, kto wie wszystko?
Ja: Niestety bardzo wielu, nie wiadomo jak od nich uciec.

And here’s a photo of Jango:

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

An Easter Post on the Truth Social site from you-know-who.  People are going to VOTE for this deranged clown?

From Divy, volleyball kitties!

From The Dodo Pet:

 

From Strange, Silly, or Stupid Signs:

49 thoughts on “Monday: Hili dialogue”

  1. On this day:
    [A good day for national air forces.]

    1789 – In New York City, the United States House of Representatives achieves its first quorum and elects Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania as its first Speaker.

    1873 – The White Star steamer SS Atlantic sinks off Nova Scotia, killing 547 in one of the worst marine disasters of the 19th century. [White Star’s SS Titanic saw them contending for that title in the 20th century too, of course.]

    1918 – The Royal Air Force is created by the merger of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service.

    1924 – Adolf Hitler is sentenced to five years imprisonment for his participation in the “Beer Hall Putsch” but spends only nine months in jail.

    1924 – The Royal Canadian Air Force is formed.

    1933 – The recently elected Nazis under Julius Streicher organize a one-day boycott of all Jewish-owned businesses in Germany, ushering in a series of anti-Semitic acts.

    1937 – The Royal New Zealand Air Force is formed as an independent service.

    1939 – Spanish Civil War: Generalísimo Francisco Franco of the Spanish State announces the end of the Spanish Civil War, when the last of the Republican forces surrender.

    1947 – The only mutiny in the history of the Royal New Zealand Navy begins.

    1949 – The Government of Canada repeals Japanese-Canadian internment after seven years.

    1954 – United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorizes the creation of the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

    1960 – The TIROS-1 satellite transmits the first television picture from space.

    1969 – The Hawker Siddeley Harrier, the first operational fighter aircraft with Vertical/Short Takeoff and Landing capabilities, enters service with the Royal Air Force.

    1970 – President Richard Nixon signs the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act into law.

    1973 – Project Tiger, a tiger conservation project, is launched in the Jim Corbett National Park, India.

    1976 – Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak found Apple Computer, Inc.

    1979 – Iran becomes an Islamic republic by a 99% vote, officially overthrowing the Shah.

    1989 – Margaret Thatcher’s new local government tax, the Community Charge (commonly known as the “poll tax”), is introduced in Scotland. [Its unpopularity led to Thatcher’s downfall.]

    1997 – Comet Hale–Bopp is seen passing at perihelion.

    2001 – Same-sex marriage becomes legal in the Netherlands, the first contemporary country to allow it.

    2004 – Google launches its Email service Gmail.

    2011 – After protests against the burning of the Quran turn violent, a mob attacks a United Nations compound in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, resulting in the deaths of thirteen people, including eight foreign workers.

    Births:
    1578 – William Harvey, English physician and academic (d. 1657).

    1647 – John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, English poet and courtier (d. 1680). [My dad’s friend, Doyne Byrd, wrote and performed a one-man play about Wilmot, whose poetry isn’t for the faint hearted, at the Edinburgh festival.]

    1776 – Sophie Germain, French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher (d. 1831). [Today’s Woman of the Day, see next post below.]

    1815 – Otto von Bismarck, German lawyer and politician, 1st Chancellor of the German Empire (d. 1898).

    1868 – Edmond Rostand, French poet and playwright (d. 1918).

    1873 – Sergei Rachmaninoff, Russian pianist, composer, and conductor (d. 1943).

    1883 – Lon Chaney, American actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 1930).

    1885 – Wallace Beery, American actor (d. 1949).

    1895 – Alberta Hunter, African-American singer-songwriter and nurse (d. 1984).

    1898 – William James Sidis, Ukrainian-Russian Jewish American mathematician, anthropologist, and historian (d. 1944). [Entered Harvard University at age 11 and, as an adult, was claimed by family members to have an IQ between 250 and 300, and to be conversant in about 25 languages and dialects. Some of these statements have not been verified, but many of his contemporaries, including Norbert Wiener, Daniel Frost Comstock, and William James, agreed that he was extremely intelligent.]

    1910 – Harry Carney, American saxophonist and clarinet player (d. 1974). [He spent over four decades as a member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra. He played a variety of instruments, but primarily used the baritone saxophone, being a critical influence on the instrument in jazz.]

    1911 – Augusta Braxton Baker, African American librarian (d. 1998).

    1916 – Sheila May Edmonds, British mathematician (d. 2002).

    1917 – Sydney Newman, Canadian screenwriter and producer, co-created Doctor Who (d. 1997).

    1921 – Arthur “Guitar Boogie” Smith, American guitarist, fiddler, and composer (d. 2014).

    1926 – Anne McCaffrey, American-Irish author (d. 2011). [Known for the Dragonriders of Pern science fiction series, she was the first woman to win a Hugo Award for fiction (Best Novella, Weyr Search, 1968) and the first to win a Nebula Award (Best Novella, Dragonrider, 1969). Her 1978 novel The White Dragon became one of the first science-fiction books to appear on the New York Times Best Seller list.]

    1929 – Milan Kundera, Czech-born novelist, poet, and playwright.

    1932 – Debbie Reynolds, American actress, singer, and dancer (d. 2016).

    1939 – Ali MacGraw, American model and actress.

    1940 – Wangari Maathai, Kenyan environmentalist and politician, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2011). [She founded the Green Belt Movement, an environmental non-governmental organization focused on the planting of trees, environmental conservation, and women’s rights. In 2004 she became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.]

    1946 – Ronnie Lane, English bass player, songwriter, and producer (d. 1997).

    1949 – Gil Scott-Heron, American singer-songwriter and author (d. 2011).

    1950 – Samuel Alito, American lawyer and jurist, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

    1961 – Susan Boyle, Scottish singer.

    1962 – Chris Grayling, English journalist and politician, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. [Became known by the moniker “Failing Grayling” used by The Guardian, The Independent, opposition MPs, and allegedly his own Cabinet colleagues. Amongst other fiascos, as Secretary of State for Transport, his department awarded a £13.8m contract to British firm Seaborne Freight, to provide additional cross-channel freight capacity in case of a “no-deal” Brexit on 29 March 2019. On 2 January 2019, it was reported that Seaborne Freight had never run a ferry service and owned no ships. The firm’s online terms and conditions had been cut-and-pasted from a food delivery service.]

    1985 – Beth Tweddle, English gymnast.

    1995 – Logan Paul, American YouTuber, actor and wrestler.

    Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things. (Arthur Schopenhauer):
    1204 – Eleanor of Aquitaine, queen of France and England (b. 1122). [One of the wealthiest and most powerful women in Western Europe during the High Middle Ages.]

    1580 – Alonso Mudarra, Spanish guitarist and composer (b. 1510).

    1917 – Scott Joplin, American pianist and composer (b. 1868).

    1946 – Noah Beery, Sr., American actor (b. 1882).

    1963 – Agnes Mowinckel, Norwegian actress (b. 1875). [Norway’s first professional stage director.]

    1965 – Helena Rubinstein, Polish-American businesswoman (b. 1870). [Having emigrated from Poland to Australia in 1896, with no money and little English, she was the founder and eponym of Helena Rubinstein Incorporated cosmetics company, which made her one of the world’s richest women.]

    1968 – Lev Landau, Azerbaijani-Russian physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1908).

    1971 – Kathleen Lonsdale, Irish crystallographer and prison reformer (b. 1903).

    1976 – Max Ernst, German painter and sculptor (b. 1891).

    1984 – Marvin Gaye, American singer-songwriter (b. 1939).

    1991 – Martha Graham, American dancer and choreographer (b. 1894).

    1999 – Jesse Stone, American pianist, songwriter, and producer (b. 1901).

    2017 – Lonnie Brooks, American blues singer and guitarist (b. 1933).

    2021 – Marcus Clawrelius, our stoical toothless cat.

    1. Woman of the Day:
      [Text from Wikipedia]

      Marie-Sophie Germain (French: [maʁi sɔfi ʒɛʁmɛ̃]; born on this day in 1776, died 27 June 1831) was a French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher. Despite initial opposition from her parents and difficulties presented by society, she gained education from books in her father’s library, including ones by Euler, and from correspondence with famous mathematicians such as Lagrange, Legendre, and Gauss (under the pseudonym of Monsieur LeBlanc).

      One of the pioneers of elasticity theory, she won the grand prize from the Paris Academy of Sciences for her essay on the subject. Her work on Fermat’s Last Theorem provided a foundation for mathematicians exploring the subject for hundreds of years after.

      Because of prejudice against her sex, she was unable to make a career out of mathematics, but she worked independently throughout her life. Before her death, Gauss had recommended that she be awarded an honorary degree, but that never occurred.

      On 27 June 1831, she died from breast cancer. At the centenary of her life, a street and a girls’ school were named after her. The Academy of Sciences established the Sophie Germain Prize in her honour.

      See the Wikipedia article for her full biography.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie_Germain

  2. Ok, I confess–I’m the atheist! Thanks, everybody, for recognizing me today!
    Wait . . . what day is it?

    1. You are loved
      You belong
      You matter
      You are deserving

      … or so the love-bomb road signs tell me… why would they do that?…

      I took a look at speculative philosophy, German Idealism, to see if there’s a connection there… as the adjective specular means reflective like a mirror… perhaps like projection of the self in a mirror…. like a certain figure from Greek mythology….

      But I digress…

  3. The poem as 2D projection of a double helix poem is great – reminds me of that poem in Alice in Wonderland.

  5. To Elder of Ziyon’s point, I wouldn’t say the press is taking Hamas’s claims at face value, but rather that Hamas is writing their copy for them.

  6. Maybe it’s just me, but I get the impression D.J. tRUMPf is not basking in the afterglow of a fun filled Easter weekend?

    1. Did you notice that his all-caps post is a single run-on sentence? And that all the people he names who are supposedly destroying America are people who are prosecuting him? As if putting the man away for his crimes would destroy the country along with him. The man is pure crystalline Ego.

      1. I also love that he says the investigations are hindering his election campaign as if they all started after he announced his Presidential run. He seems to think that running for President is just like being President and he should be immune from prosecution. The tweet is a grand projection of his deranged and rotten state of mind (he sounds desperate and scared), just the type of mind we need running America!

    2. Is this odd typography for the former president’s name some shibboleth I should know about? Like wearing medical masks out in public? Or was the CAPS LOCK key just stuck and belatedly unstuck at the end?

    1. I put Andrew Doyle’s clip on the post from the other day… and now I can listen…

    2. Here’s the post : whyevolutionistrue.com/2024/03/27/scottish-police-explaining-ridiculous-new-hate-crime-law-parody-j-k-rowling-as-an-example/

    3. I am a member of a small forum that has maybe ten active members. Today the administrator received an email message that said that it had been reported to Police Scotland for two threads: one about Israel and Hamas and one about trans-gender stories.

      The former mostly follows the “party line” in the sense that most posters are very anti-Israel. I only post on it occasionally and then only to point out obvious falsehoods like “Israel is an apartheid state” and “Hamas does not want to drive Israel into the sea”. The latter consists mainly of links to stories about the likes of Lia Thomas etc.

      The email we got included a screenshot of an acknowledgement by Police Scotland of the complaint. If we are typical of the kind of thing now being reported, I would say they are probably swamped.

      1. Graham Linehan is suggesting that the whole thing will prove so utterly unworkable that Hamza Yousaf will end up looking like an idiot.

      2. I’ve seen a report that one small Police Scotland unit has received 12 complaints about Humza Yousaf being racist because of a speech he gave listing the top positions in Scotland that are filled by white people. Because it’s April Fools’ Day it is impossible to tell if the report is serious.

        (There are legal arguments about whether an old post or speech that is still online is republished each time it is viewed, so theoretically historical expressions of opinion could still be reported under the new law. We’ll only know if/when such a case makes it to court.)

        There’s a good summary of the possible legal position here: https://archive.ph/CA6Aa

  9. I gave up on CNN with their coverage of the war in Gaza. I had been a regular viewer since they burst into prominence during the Gulf War. I stuck with them for a long time even though the became worse and worse, but the ideologically biased coverage in Gaza ended the relationship. I do look at the Al Jazeera web site, even though I know what to expect, but CNN is arguably worse because they appear superficially to be respectable. But for a few journalist holdouts, they are not.

    Camera has many interesting articles taking biased reporting to task. CNN, the AP, NPR—all the usual suspects—and more: https://www.camera.org/. Worth a look.

  10. “People are going to VOTE for this deranged clown?”

    They are. Just as people will vote for Biden despite opposing all the Woke initiatives and attacks on free speech being pushed by his Administration. There are substantial illiberal and authoritarian forces at play in both parties, but most Americans are not “extremists” bent on destroying the country. There are social forces at work, however, that threaten to push each of us into either tacit support or open alliance with the illiberal elements to whom we most bear a family resemblance in our overall political preferences.

    Our two-party system and the unrepresentative nature of our primaries is exacerbating this. The segregating of our schools, neighborhoods, workplaces, and the few remaining community organizations into little tribes of the similarly-minded and educated creates an environment of mutual incomprehension when faced with the voices and desires of people whose social class or way of life differs greatly from our own. This then makes it all too easy to see others as enemies rather than as fellow citizens. Real leaders would find ways to lower the temperature, to bridge the divide—not talk about building bridges while simultaneously exploiting social tensions in the hopes of short-term political gain.

    We need better choices—and not because our two leading candidates are shuffling or angry old men.

      1. Translation of Trump’s Easter Day message: The Evil Democrats have brought charges against me without merit; they resent me for my wonder-working powers and my goodness; they want to cast lots for my assets and divide my properties amongst them; they will crucify me after their crooked courts and leave me for dead; but I WILL RISE AGAIN!

    2. I have a theory — which is mine — that no American these days votes for a candidate. They only vote against the other one.

    3. It seems you’re trying to normalize Trump; that’s the only way you can truly compare him with Biden. Angry old man? Talk about a euphemism. I don’t know what kind of special bridge-building leader you’re dreaming about, but if you’ve been paying attention, you’d know by now you can’t build a bridge to MAGA.

        1. Your 1st two sentences. You’re suggesting Biden being “woke” on a policy here or there is equivalent to Trump’s neo fascistic politics of hate and retribution. You consider MAGA a “political preference” when it has nothing to do with politics- it’s a cult of personality. I already pointed out the euphemism of “angry old man.” That’s normalizing him. I wish he was just an angry old man and not a deranged, narcissistic sociopath.

          1. Then let’s dissect those first two sentences a bit. The first was a clipped response to Jerry’s rhetorical question. To expand it: Yes, people are going to vote for the deranged clown. Hard to see how making a simple statement of fact somehow “normalizes” the man. The point of the second sentence is that many Biden voters will face a dilemma in this election and will be voting for things they abhor; as Coel notes, they will do so because it is more important to many of them who—and what—they are voting against. That situation is no different from what many Trump voters will face; they are not all “MAGA,” as you would have it. Few people want to see either of these men in the race. But here we are.

            As to your other comments, most of us have “political preferences” that long predate Trump and Wokeness. Those might be large-scale, like a preference for centralizing government control over dispersing it to the states. They might be policy oriented: abortion, gun control, environmental regulation, etc. Core elements of those “political preferences” can still be found, depending on one’s orientation, mingled with either the illiberalism of the Woke or with the illiberalism one can find on the Right. Each of us will thus bear a family resemblance, in the light of our political and policy preferences, to some of the ugliest factions in our political body. As these illiberal factions are transcendent on both sides of the aisle, our vote will support one or more of them—whether we want it to or not. This is elementary to anybody with anything other than a Manichean view of politics and a fixation on “MAGA.”

            And as to the last point about Trump being an angry old man, it really is tiresome, these people who insist that you cannot mention the Orange man without listing every negative trait the man possesses. We have a 600-word limit here, after all. Does one really need to say that Trump’s Easter Day message is the work of a deranged narcissist? Really? Is that not obvious? Do you never tire of the laundry lists of Trump’s transgressions—both real and imaginary—and declarations of his unfitness for office? You can always go to MSNBC if being part of the Amen Choir is your thing.

            I won’t elaborate on the rest of my post, as I think it speaks for itself to anyone who comes to it without partisan assumptions. (That’s not the same as saying my observations are true.) But, truly, thank you for jumping in, once again, as an illustration of some of my points.

          2. You spend a lot of effort normalizing the man. You pretty much proved it here. A bit of a sweaty mess if I can say so…

      2. Nearly impossible to build bridges to the Republican Party for years prior to Trump. Mitch McConnell stated forthrightly that his intent as leader of the RP was to oppose everything the DP introduced and to never work with them on anything. And he did a very good job of keeping his RP Representatives and Senators in-line. It’s as if people forget history within weeks of it happening.

        And prior to Mitch there was Newt Gingrich and then Karl Rove who trailblazed the Republican Party’s tactic of abdicating their responsibility to do the work of governing. Say what you will about the Democratic Party, and there is plenty to criticize, but they have always been willing to work with Republicans, always willing to negotiate and make compromises. Even after being burned time after time.

  11. Have you made plans for your own departure from this mortal sphere? A little foresight helps.

    I had to look up ‘Pomerantz’. I thought it was a local word for an orange seller. But it looks like it’s Mark Pomerantz, a lawyer who has ended up on the wrong side of Trump.

    People are going to VOTE for this deranged clown?

    I expect so. There are many who don’t think he is a deranged clown. Who is going to save America if not the intrepid Trump? 🙂

    1. And a follow up query: When was the last time any politicians, Cabinet officials, other senior policy makers, generals, or public intellectuals were held to public account for their poor advice, decisions, and failures, whatever the matter of life or death?

      You see, as long as you are not a member of the “other” party, and sometimes even then, you are allowed to fail upwards on such matters and are given the chance to do it all over again. All will be forgotten. I don’t say forgiven; that requires acknowledgement of fault.

      After all, these situations are complicated, and our motivations were good. It’s so easy to criticize in hindsight.

      What’s that? We didn’t listen to you then?

      Well, these situations are complicated, and our motivations . . .

  13. “one way to know a country is to know how people die there. Here, everything is anticipated.” -Camus

    I was reminded of the quote upon seeing the strange funeral home with beef jerky hut tweet.

    I love Jango’s icy green eyes.

  14. I enjoyed sharing the 2017 total eclipse with my wife at 10,000 feet from Rendezvous Mountain in Wyoming, near Jackson Hole. It was fabulous, of course. I also went on a long road trip with some friends in 1991 to Mexico to see that year’s total solar eclipse, which was super fabulous. And, it lasted a total of about seven minutes, a duration for totality that will not be repeated for a very long time.

    We had planned to see this year’s total solar eclipse ever since 2017, but recently decided to not go. The 2017 eclipse primed so many people for this year’s eclipse that air fares skyrocketed and hotels doubled or tripled their rates — if you could even find one. And the path of totality is predicted to be a mess of traffic and not enough restrooms. And, of course, weather is always iffy.

    But if you haven’t seen a total solar eclipse, I would still very much recommend trying to see this one. It’s a marvelous celestial event made possible by a fortuitous accident that makes the apparent size of the Moon about the same as the apparent size as the Sun, but involving a little orbital wiggle dance where the partners vie for being larger than the other. This year it is the Moon that is the slightly larger partner (which, for a brief few minutes, causes darkness to fall on a small portion of Earth).

    If you can, go see the dance!

    1. I’ve seen here and there that the upcoming eclipse had been named (by what omniscient soul and by what sociological/psychological/cultural warrant?) “The Great North American Eclipse.” Was the 2017 eclipse somehow less so?

      1. It was indeed less so. The umbra crossed only one country in North America.

        1. Also, maximum totality for the 2017 “Great American Eclipse” was shorter — a bit less than 3 minutes, versus 4+ for 2024. And because the Sun is now at “solar maximum,” the outstretched silvery corona during totality should be more complex, and prominences (red plasma filaments near the Sun’s edge) could be more active and visible than in 2017.
          https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/skywatching/how-is-the-2024-total-solar-eclipse-different-than-the-2017-eclipse/

    2. I really enjoyed the 2017 eclipse. We have a fancy telescope with motorized tracking and a sun filter, which had not really seen much use.
      But the eclipse went right over our summer house, so we set up the telescope on the lawn and got the kids and some of their friends for a viewing party.
      We had a great time, took lots of photos, and observed the livestock looking confused and disoriented.
      The upcoming one is going right over my wife’s family ranch, but we will not be there. Poor planning on our part, as we will also miss the 90th birthday of our matriarch.
      My wife is quite keen on observing such unusual events. I am kind of jaded, having seen hundreds of blue flashes, lots of sun dogs and other oddities. The only thing that really impressed me was St. Emo’s fire, which is truly freaky.

      1. I love my plasma ball! (As do my wife’s grandkids.)

        I haven’t seen Saint Elmo’s fire, but I’ve seen Doctor Megavolt! At the link is a 3-minute video of a good show presented by him just outside San Francisco’s Exploratorium in 2009, when it was still in its original location at the Palace of Fine Arts. (He also explains why his outfit protects him from electrocution.)

        (It might take a few moments to load, and be prepared for a commercial that you can skip.)

        1. We saw him at a Maker Faire. Pretty cool stuff. I always wanted to make one of those, but it requires specialized parts. We did make a Jacob’s Ladder, and a big scary one at that.

          The weirdest thing about St Elmo’s fire is the movement. We were on a ship, following a hurricane from Africa to the US. Not that following it was our objective, it was just going where we wanted to go, and we kept as close as was safe. So, a dark and misty night, lightning in the distance every three seconds or so, and these bluish-green balls rolling around on the crane wires and the deck. Not very bright, and they appeared to be perhaps a meter across. They just casually roll up and down the crane wires (30 degrees from horizontal), pausing here and there, then hopping to the next crane and rolling back down.
          Even knowing exactly what it was, it was hard to not perceive it as deliberate movement, playful.
          It occurred for several nights.

        2. I think you are right, that what I described was ball lightning. We called it that at the time, but I had always assumed that the two phenomena are closely related, or even different forms of the same thing.
          Your linked article says they are “separate and distinct phenomena”, so I suppose that is so, and I will be more specific going forward.

          I never felt particular danger, because the ship’s bridge is a well-grounded steel box, I would not have wanted to climb to the top of one of the crane towers, though.

          1. There are reports of substantial explosions beyond any electrical effects. I would be cautious if I saw what you saw. But I’d love to see it myself!

  15. Is there a handy pocket guide somewhere that summarizes the difference(s) between ISIS and the Taliban? Or should that be ISIS, ISIS-K and the Taliban?

  16. Israel getting a bunch of flak for surgical strike bombing of Hezb clowns in Syria.
    So…. if Israel carefully selects targets to kill, rarely hurting even the people in the NEXT APARTMENT! (were there collateral damage we’d certainly hear about it: “Look! My pet rat shit itself when they blew up the apartment next door!” with songs and wailings about the rat all over Al Jaz and CNN. Anti-rat-rights judicial committee established in the Hague… “Never forgive that rat’s poo, Zionist rat haters…”
    )
    )
    —or—
    )
    If Israel goes in, as in the history of most of mankind until about 5 minutes ago, and thoroughly trashes the entire area (many of whose citizens all want Israel dead), or nukes them…. “INDISCRIMINATE KILLING! MURDERING ZIONISTS!”

    Israel is f–ed no matter what. The double standard makes me puke.
    ———–
    Consider the base of ops that Shifa hospital was for Hamas. IDF fought for (another) 2 weeks to clear it of terrorists – every internet idiot outraged, no retard left un-shouty.

    But who were they fighting for those 2 weeks? Who was in there?
    Were they trading shots with the anesthesiologists for 2 weeks? The dentists?
    Gimme a break.
    D.A.
    NYC

  18. The ISIS ‘caliphate’ stretched “from the Levant to Southeast Asia”? Southeast Asia is Thailand, Vietnam etc right? I’m pretty sure ISIS didn’t beat Alexander the Great’s conquest like that.

    Maybe a typo for “Southeast Asia Minor”? Or is the point that ISIS claimed some disconnected bit of Indonesia? In which case the word ‘stretching’ is… well, a stretch. On that basis Britain’s territory stretches to the Caribbean, the South Atlantic and the Indian and Pacific Oceans but there’s an awful lot that isn’t Britain in-between..,

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