Tuesday: Hili dialogue

April 9, 2024 • 6:45 am

Welcome to the Cruelest Day, Tuesday, April 9, 2024, and National Chinese Almond Cookie Day (they’re better than fortune cookies, but don’t have a message). Here are some fancy ones:

I, Mo707, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Today’s posts (including this one) may be light because of eclipse-viewing yesterday plus a lack of sleep PLUS I have to go to the dentist to get my new crown glued on. As always, I do my best.

It’s also Appomattox Day (the day Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses Grant in 1865, ending the Civil War), National Gin and Tonic Day (a favorite summer drink of mine), National Pimento Cheese Day (a Fifties favorite that I still like), Day of the Finnish Language in Finland, National Former Prisoner of War Recognition Day (United States), the heathen holiday of Remembrance for Haakon Sigurdsson (The Troth), and, in Canada, Vimy Ridge Day in Canada, honoring the WWI battle in which, for the first time, all Canadians fought as a unit. 

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the April 9 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The big news in the Solar System yesterday was, of course, the total eclipse, though we had only 95% totality in Chicago, not enough to make it really dark (even 5% of the sun is sufficient to efface palpable darkness unless you were really attentive. From the NYT:

The full force of the moon’s shadow crossed the United States on Monday, as the first total solar eclipse in seven years plunged the day into darkness and reminded all in its path of our planet’s place in the cosmos.

Totality reached North America at 2:07 p.m., when the silhouette of the moon ate into the yellow orb of the sun. As the silvery glow of the corona materialized, the temperature dropped and D.J.’s stopped blaring music. A sense of hushed calm ensued as people captured the event with their phones.

Behind eclipse glasses or other safe means of viewing the phenomenon, they watched the moon’s shadow grow until the light was extinguished. In some places, it was dim for as long as some four and a half minutes.

The eclipse continued its path across the continent, entering the United States in Eagle Pass, Texas, along the border with Mexico, then concluding the American portion of its journey in Houlton, Maine, at 3:32 p.m. Eastern time.

As totality wrought its final moments of coronal blackness, the crowd in the Pine Tree State quieted, couples wrapped arms around each others’ shoulders and small flocks of birds darted over the town square, as orange light glowed on the horizon.

The eclipse continued across pockets of eastern Canada, from the steeples and spires of Montreal to the rugged coastline of Newfoundland. There in the city of Gander, gaps in the thick clouds revealed moments of the eclipse’s effects on the horizon.

The next opportunity to see a total solar eclipse in the 48 contiguous U.S. states and Canada isn’t until 2044. To see a total eclipse before then, you’ll need to travel abroad — the next event will be in August 2026 and cross through a number of European countries including Iceland and Spain.

An email from a friend who went to Ohio to see totality:

Amazing.  The light, the light.  . .

First.the porch door lights came on.  Then the street lights.  The frogs started to croak.

My pinhole box worked great.  Colander did not.  Glasses were great.  It got dark and cold and we saw Mars and Jupiter.
I’m jealous. There’s a huge difference between totality and 95% totality!  Here’s a lovely tweet that Matthew found:

Here’s a long NASA movie of the eclipse from different places and in different phases:

A group of us from the Department watching the Sun vanish (photo by Trevor):

Sadly, the pro-Palestinian activists, always ready to co-opt an event for their aim of eliminating Israel, combined eclipse viewing with propaganda.  Israel probably tried to cover up the Sun!

*I now have a pretty good idea of what’s going to happen in Israel based on rumors I’ve heard, which were were verified to some extent by an announcement in the Hebrew-language press in Israel, as well as by Netanyahu in the Times of Israel, in an article called Netanyahu: “‘There is a date’ for IDF to enter Rafah, no victory unless we operate there’.” It’s short and here it is in its entirety:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that “there is a date” for IDF troops to go into Rafah, and repeats in a video statement that there is no victory without an operation in the southern city.

He also says that he received a detailed update on the talks in Cairo.

“We are working to achieve our goals all the time,” Netanyahu says, “primarily releasing all our hostages and achieving total victory over Hamas.

Of course if Netanyahu is going to invade Rafah, and doesn’t want to lose funding or amity with the U.S., the IDF has to move the civilians out of Rafah; that was always part of Biden’s “deal”. Perhaps they are going to the city below:

*The NYT has an article about Gazans returning to their city of Khan Younis, a about 8 km (5 miles) north of Rafah. First, a map showing Khan Younis and Rafah in southern Gaza, taken from Wikipedia. Note how small Gaza is: 365 km²:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Gaza_Strip_map2.svg

Bolding is mine:

The withdrawal of Israeli ground troops from southern Gaza over the weekend allowed some Palestinians to return to the city of Khan Younis and check on their homes. But in the aftermath of a fierce, monthslong battle and Israeli bombings, some found only destruction.

“When I saw the scene I couldn’t handle it,” said Dr. Ahmad al-Farra, who went back on Sunday to find his family’s three-story villa reduced to a pile of rubble, surrounded by the few trees that were left standing in what was once a lush garden.

“I completely collapsed and nearly fainted,” he said in a phone call on Monday, adding that his wife and two teenage daughters burst into tears when they saw what was left of their home.

“I worked for 20 years to build this house,” said Dr. al-Farra, 54, who ran the pediatric ward at Nasser Hospital before the family fled south to Rafah in January. “You build a home corner by corner, stone by stone.”

“And in the end,” he added, “with a press of a button, it is reduced to rubble.”

The rest of Khan Younis was “unrecognizable,” Dr. al-Farra said. Most buildings and homes were completely demolished, partially destroyed or burned, and the streets had been bulldozed. “Khan Younis was annihilated like it’s World War II or even worse,” he said.

Dr. al-Farra said “many, many people” had returned to Khan Younis on Sunday. He soon realized that staying at his home was not a possibility. But like many other Gazans sheltering in Rafah, he said that he soon planned to move his family’s tent to somewhere in Khan Younis. He and others fear Israel’s pledge to send ground troops into Rafah in pursuit of Hamas’s leaders and fighters, an invasion that many believe will come after the end of the holy month of Ramadan this week.

*Remember Kamala Harris proclaiming confidently that Israel should not go into Rafah because “she’s studied the maps” and knows there’s nowhere for civilians to go?  Here:

Reader Rosemary made an AI picture of Kamala Harris, Cartographer (see tweet just above):

*The WSJ reports, as most of us already know, that migrants—not just in the U.S. but worldwide—are taking advantage of “asylum” or “refugee” immigration rules to migrate not because they’re fleeing, but for economic advantage. Because in places like the U.S., economically-drive migrants are released into the country without monitoring, and it could take years for their cases to come before an immigration judge, this creates a sense of unfairness among citizens.

That simple request [for asylum] is the main driver of record illegal immigration in much of the Western world. People travel thousands of miles, on foot and across seas, to turn up at the land borders of rich countries to ask for asylum, a form of legal protection for people who face persecution in their home country.

It’s also become a key loophole for economic migrants, who aren’t under threat but want better working opportunities. Quirks in the law and an overwhelmed processing system nearly guarantee entry, at least for a time.

The U.S. received more than 920,000 applications for asylum during its 2023 fiscal year, compared with just 76,000 in 2013. Since a single application can cover multiple members of a family, the figures underestimate the actual numbers of people seeking asylum.

Family groups, who now almost always ask for asylum, make up about half the roughly two million people encountered by authorities who illegally crossed the U.S. frontier with Mexico last year. Another half million came through legal ports of entry, many using a Border Patrol smartphone app that launched in January 2023 to make an appointment to cross and ask for asylum.

The law in the U.S. typically gives migrants who have a reasonable claim of persecution the right to live and work in the country while their cases progress through the courts. So many are now coming that the U.S. lacks the capacity to quickly screen their cases, either at the border or in courts, where a typical asylum case now takes four years.

Even if an application is ultimately rejected, migrants by then have put down roots, often had American children and are rarely deported because of the costs and logistical challenges. They are left in limbo—they lose the right to work legally but aren’t kicked out.

This is the fundamental unfairness that makes people demand immigration reform. The law was meant to shelter refugees, not admit those who only want economic advantages. Yes, some of the latter were the heartblood of America, and we need some of them, but the U.S. can’t handle all of them. This is why immigration is the #1 issue for most voters, and, unfortunately, the Republicans have the advantage here

*A porch pirate disguised him or herself in a garbage bag to steal a package from a doorstop. From the WaPo:

When a package was stolen from Omar Gabriel Munoz’s doorstep last week, he discovered it had been taken by a thief in an unusually trashy disguise.

His door camera captured the moment of theft — when someone covered in a black plastic trash bag lumbered up Munoz’s front walk in Sacramento. The video shows a bag, with feet sticking out from underneath, move up to the porch and swallow a package.

“At first, I thought they were messing with me,” Munoz told ABC10.

He told the news outlet his initial reaction was anger, but then he saw humor in the thief’s creativity. He told Fox News that he didn’t report the incident to police, saying the two phone chargers in the package only cost about $10.

Munoz, who provided the door-camera footage to Storyful, said he’d gotten a notification of the package’s arrival while at work but couldn’t find it when he got home.

The parcel was small. He wondered if the wind had blown it away. Then he checked his security camera and found the unexpected footage.

“At the end of the day, it was kind of funny,” he told ABC10. “I take everything in the good way because that’s part of life. If you see the bad way of everything, you’re going nowhere.”

You can see the video of the enbagged pirate by clicking below:

A door camera in Sacramento captured a person wearing a black trash bag stealing a package from a porch on March 29. (Video: Omar Gabriel Munoz via Storyful)

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has a deep question for Andrzej:

Hili: Do social media strengthen social bonds or destroy them?
A: That depends on the users.
In Polish:
Hili: Czy media społecznościowe wzmacniają więzi społeczne, czy je niszczą?
Ja: To zależy od użytkowników.
And a photo of the affectionate Szaron:

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

From Strange, Stupid, or Silly Signs:

From somewhere on Facebook (I can’t recall):

From The Dodo Pet:

No tweets from Masih today! She must be busy–or hiding.

From Barry; a cat scared of a persistent turtle:

From Gravelinspector, who says, “I note that the landing avian touched down left foot first. I wonder how consistent that is from bird to bird, or even across families or species.”

From Luana; a job for a school superintendant, with a bizarre requirement.

From Simon, a skirmish in the war of Democrats versus Republicans:

From my feed:

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I posted:

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. First, a ginger cat hexing another cat:

And a 1907 movie of what is clearly a solar eclipse:

29 thoughts on “Tuesday: Hili dialogue”

  1. The daylight surrounding you in Trevor’s photo does look odd. A perfectly blue sky, sunny day, but the light is like that when a storm may be coming in. I noticed the same effect here in VA with only 80% totality. It was a bit eery.

  2. OT: I just read Uri Berliner’s piece in The Free Press on NPR and I’m wondering what you and your friends think of it.

    1. I stopped listening to npr years ago because I found it to be arrogant and obnoxious (IMHO as some readers say). Uri lost me totally when he raised the Covid origins non-issue which I see as a clear case of scientific research papers conclusions vs U.S. political agency assertions.

      1. I see the COVID Origins as an example of the extremes making an issue an ideological test and doing nothing for understanding of the issue. Trump calls it the Chinese virus, (he does this because his supporters like it) and then NPR has to take the other side. At first I thought it’s probably animal origin, but when I heard the WHO wasn’t allowed by the Chinese full access to me that opened up the possibility of a lab leak. And I think it’s better to find out than score points. I agree with what he said about NPR, (especially the not trusting part) which I miss and the only part I listen to is VPR classical, hosted by Helen Lyons, who could make reading a dictionary beautiful.

        1. From all that I understand, a zoonotic origin is most likely, on principle since the virus is quite capable of jumping from species to species. But a lab leak can never be ruled out entirely.
          I am confident that Chinese authorities would reflexively block access by WHO regardless of Covid origins. So that they blocked access means nothing, either way.

          1. Yes, I agree. It just leaves the door open. Another reason why transparency is something the CCP and NPR should strive for.

          2. Try this Bayesian analysis of the probability of a laboratory escape:
            https://zenodo.org/records/4477081
            The author starts with a very conservative prior of 0.012, then uses conservative estimates for all of the other factors and ends up with a posterior of 0.98 in favour of a laboratory escape.
            Warning the PDF is 193 pages.

        2. Interesting section about the treatment of the covid origin hypothesis. See my comment above.

          1. Yes. I’ve never understood the heat on any side of that issue. Proponents of any view on it tend to think anyone holding the other view must be an idiot or comprised by politics / ideology.

        3. Thanks for linking to that story. Very interesting to hear it from an insider. It’s interesting he dates the big change to 2011. My displeasure with NPR began when they fired Bob Edwards in 2004. Immediately thereafter the hosts became jocular and began addressing one another with “heys” and far too many reporters started their coverage with the phrase, “I think”. A big red flag went up for me.

    2. I think it’s excellent, a very clear explanation from the inside. I was a long-time day sponsor, but dropped it some years ago.
      I now find myself listening to 2 Guys Named Chris when I’m in the car. At least they’re fun, and not haranging me.

  3. On this day:
    1609 – Philip III of Spain issues the decree of the “Expulsion of the Moriscos”.

    1682 – Robert Cavelier de La Salle discovers the mouth of the Mississippi River, claims it for France and names it Louisiana.

    1860 – On his phonautograph machine, Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville makes the oldest known recording of an audible human voice.

    1865 – American Civil War: Robert E. Lee surrenders the Army of Northern Virginia (26,765 troops) to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the war.

    1939 – African-American singer Marian Anderson gives a concert at the Lincoln Memorial after being denied the use of Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

    1940 – Vidkun Quisling seizes power in Norway. [Germany invaded Denmark and Norway the same day.]

    1945 – The United States Atomic Energy Commission is formed.

    1947 – The Journey of Reconciliation, the first interracial Freedom Ride begins through the upper South in violation of Jim Crow laws. The riders wanted enforcement of the United States Supreme Court’s 1946 Irene Morgan decision that banned racial segregation in interstate travel.

    1957 – The Suez Canal in Egypt is cleared and opens to shipping following the Suez Crisis.

    1959 – Project Mercury: NASA announces the selection of the United States’ first seven astronauts, whom the news media quickly dub the “Mercury Seven”.

    1967 – The first Boeing 737 (a 100 series) makes its maiden flight.

    1969 – The first British-built Concorde 002 makes its maiden flight from Filton to RAF Fairford.

    1992 – A U.S. Federal Court finds former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega guilty of drug and racketeering charges. He is sentenced to 30 years in prison.

    2003 – Iraq War: Baghdad falls to American forces.

    2017 – After refusing to give up his seat on an overbooked United Express flight, Dr. David Dao Duy Anh is forcibly dragged off the flight by aviation security officers, leading to major criticism of United Airlines. [I can’t believe it’s been seven years already!]

    Births:
    1770 – Thomas Johann Seebeck, German physicist and academic (d. 1831). [In 1822 he observed a relationship between heat and magnetism. The following year Ørsted called this phenomenon the thermoelectric effect.]

    1806 – Isambard Kingdom Brunel, English engineer, designed the Clifton Suspension Bridge (d. 1859).

    1821 – Charles Baudelaire, French poet and critic (d. 1867).

    1883 – Frank King, American cartoonist (d. 1969). [Best known for his comic strip Gasoline Alley.]

    1893 – Victor Gollancz, English publisher, founded Victor Gollancz Ltd (d. 1967). [Published George Orwell’s early books, but refused to publish Homage to Catalonia, ending their relationship.]

    1898 – Paul Robeson, American singer, actor, and activist (d. 1976).

    1906 – Hugh Gaitskell, British politician and leader of the Labour Party (d. 1963). [He introduced charges for NHS spectacles and dentures in 1951, prompting the leading left-winger Aneurin Bevan to resign from the Cabinet.]

    1908 – Paula Nenette Pepin, French composer, pianist and lyricist (d. 1990).

    1916 – Julian Dash, American swing music jazz tenor saxophonist (d. 1974). [He is recognised, with Hawkins and fellow sax player Bill Johnson, in composing the swing tune “Tuxedo Junction”, which became an immense hit when recorded by other (mainly white) bands, notably that of Glenn Miller.]

    1918 – Jørn Utzon, Danish architect, designed the Sydney Opera House (d. 2008).

    1919 – J. Presper Eckert, American engineer, invented the ENIAC (d. 1995).

    1921 – Mary Jackson, African-American mathematician and aerospace engineer (d. 2005). [NASA’s first black female engineer, she is one of the protagonists in the 2016 film Hidden Figures and features in the book it was based on.]

    1926 – Hugh Hefner, American publisher, founded Playboy Enterprises (d. 2017).

    1930 – Wallace McCain, Canadian businessman, founded McCain Foods (d. 2011).

    1932 – Carl Perkins, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1998).

    1933 – Jean-Paul Belmondo, French actor and producer (d. 2021).

    1936 – Valerie Solanas, American radical feminist author, attempted murderer (d. 1988). [Known for the SCUM Manifesto, which she self-published in 1967, and for her attempt to murder artist Andy Warhol in 1968.]

    1937 – Valerie Singleton, English television and radio host.

    1941 – Hannah Gordon, Scottish actress.

    1945 – Steve Gadd, American drummer and percussionist.

    1954 – Dennis Quaid, American actor.

    1955 – Joolz Denby, English poet and author.

    1967 – Sam Harris, American author, philosopher, and neuroscientist.

    1977 – Gerard Way, American singer-songwriter and comic book writer. [ “When I was a young boy, my father / Took me into the city to see a marching band…” ]

    1978 – Rachel Stevens, English singer-songwriter, dancer, and actress.

    1980 – Sarah Ayton, English sailor.

    1998 – Elle Fanning, American actress.

    It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world. (John Steinbeck):
    1626 – Francis Bacon, English jurist and politician, Attorney General for England and Wales (b. 1561).

    1768 – Sarah Fielding, English author (b. 1710). [She wrote The Governess, or The Little Female Academy (1749), thought to be the first novel in English aimed expressly at children.]

    1882 – Dante Gabriel Rossetti, English poet and painter (b. 1828).

    1926 – Zip the Pinhead, American freak show performer (b. 1857). [It is estimated that during his 67 years in show business, Zip entertained more than one hundred million people.]

    1940 – Mrs Patrick Campbell, English actress (b. 1865).She

    1944 – Yevgeniya Rudneva, Ukrainian lieutenant and pilot (b. 1920). [She was the head navigator of the 46th Guards Night Bomber Regiment and posthumously awarded Hero of the Soviet Union. Prior to World War II she was an astronomer, the head of the Solar Department of the Moscow branch of the Astronomical-Geodesical Society of the USSR.]

    1959 – Frank Lloyd Wright, American architect, designed the Price Tower and Fallingwater (b. 1867).

    1976 – Phil Ochs, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1940).

    1978 – Clough Williams-Ellis, English-Welsh architect, designed Portmeirion (b. 1883). [The iconic 1960s TV show The Prisoner used Portmeirion as the filming location for “The Village”.]

    1997 – Mae Boren Axton, American singer-songwriter (b. 1914). [She co-wrote the Elvis Presley hit single “Heartbreak Hotel” with Tommy Durden.]

    1997 – Helene Hanff, American author and screenwriter (b. 1916). [Best known as the author of the book 84, Charing Cross Road, which became the basis for a stage play, television play, and film of the same name.]

    2007 – Dorrit Hoffleit, American astronomer and academic (b. 1907).

    2011 – Sidney Lumet, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1924).

    2015 – Margaret Rule, British marine archaeologist (b. 1928). [Today’s Woman of the Day, see next post below.]

    2015 – Nina Companeez, French director and screenwriter (b. 1937).

    2021 – Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (b. 1921).

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

      Dr Margaret Helen Rule, CBE FRSA (born 27 September 1928, died on this day in 2015) was a British archaeologist. She is most notable for her involvement with the project that excavated and raised the Tudor warship Mary Rose in 1982.

      Rule, née Martin, was born in Buckinghamshire on 27 September 1928. She studied chemistry at the University of London.

      Rule changed to a career in archaeology where she initially helped evacuate bomb sites in London after the Second World War.

      In the 1960s, Rule assisted in the discovery, excavation, and ultimately became the first curator, of the Fishbourne Roman Palace near Chichester, West Sussex. Rule subsequently was integral for transforming the site into a viable tourist attraction.

      Rule was still the curator of the Fishbourne Roman Palace, when she began her work in maritime archaeology.

      Rule assisted fellow marine archaeologist Alexander McKee in the 1960s where she was consulted on the initial search for the wreck of Henry VIII’s war ship Mary Rose in the Solent, due to her local reputation as a land archaeologist. Here the Mary Rose 1967 Committee was founded, later to be formalised as the Mary Rose Trust in 1979.

      During this time Rule learned to dive with the Southampton branch of the British Sub-Aqua Club in order to supervise and work on the wreck for herself. Rule continuously contributed to maritime archaeology by assisting in the passing of the Protection of Wrecks Act in 1973. In 1974 Rule became a member of the Advisory Committee formed to review all applications to the Department of Trade for designating a ‘protected wreck site’.

      Rule played a pivotal role in both the publicity and campaign for vital backing in order to raise the Mary Rose.

      A notable addition to the diver team under Rule’s leadership was the then Charles, Prince of Wales.

      The Mary Rose was raised on October 11, 1982 with Rule present on the floating crane Tog Mor. This was viewed on live TV worldwide by an estimated 60 million viewers.

      In March 1982, Rule visited Adelaide, South Australia, as the keynote speaker to the Second Southern Hemisphere Conference on Maritime Archaeology. During the conference she visited the historic Murray River port of Morgan and dived with members of the Society for Underwater Historical Research (SUHR) on a project to record and recover items from the riverbed alongside the town’s massive wharf.

      She was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. In 1995, the National Maritime Museum awarded her its Caird Medal. In 2001 the University of Portsmouth named a new 342 bed student accommodation block Margaret Rule Hall after her. In 2008, she was awarded the Colin Mcleod Award for “Furthering international co-operation in diving” by the British Sub Aqua Club.

      Since 2012 Rule worked closely with the Maritime Heritage Foundation, as chairman of its Scientific Advisory Committee.

      Rule had been living with Parkinson’s disease and arthritis in her later years. She died on 9 April 2015, aged 86.

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

    2. That first Boeing 737 to fly on this date in 1967 was bought by NASA in 1975 and for thirty years was flown as a highly instrumented and modified testbed at NASA Langley Research Center. Projects involving airliners such as wind shear detection and avoidance and landing on contaminated runways along with multiple issues of crew/vehicle interface were tested on this airplane, designated NASA 515 until its retirement in 2003.

      1. Oh. This was the first 737 aircraft off the Boeing manufacturing line to fly and to the best of my knowledge, we never had a door or panel fall off in flight, nor was any plug lost in flight over thirty years of demanding flight research. They built ‘em good back then!

    3. I knew Mary Jackson (BTD 1921) at NASA Langley when she served as head of Equal Opportunity and the Federal Womens Program there. She was just excellent! As a supervisor, I could always count on her thoughtful advice and expertise based on her long technical career at the lab. Thanks for recognizing her here today.

  4. Unless the image is reversed, the duck landed right foot first, assuming that the track at the start of the skid was the first to touch. The two feet could have touched simultaneously if the left was held in front of the right.

    GCM

  5. Even more perverse than examining in whiteness is the requirement to foster joy. In whom?

    2. “Unwaveringly committed to anti-racist actions” – but racism towards white people is A OK, presumably.

  6. I didn’t expect Israel to conduct major operations during Ramadan. A pause also serves as a break to allow Israel time to calibrate its plans against the pressure the U.S. is bringing.

    My guess is that the current rhetoric coming out of Israeli leadership (e.g., a date certain for Rafah) is to encourage people to leave the area. (AFAIK no actual date has been announced, so Israel has flexibility regarding any incursion.) Once the Rafah area has been sufficiently cleared, the IDF will have more degrees of freedom for their operations. They can either clear Rafah with small-scale operations or they can go bigger if necessary. Meanwhile, more aid is getting in, which will also help people move from Rafah to parts further north. Finally, of course, continued negotiations for release of hostages may also impact Israel’s decision on what to do in Rafah.

    It seems that Israel is trying to create as many degrees of freedom as possible. I think that the goal here will be to evict Hamas from Rafah using the lightest touch that will do the job.

  7. Israel had many forewarnings including ten years ago in 2014 when, as in October, Hamas launched a huge rocket attack (mostly stopped by Israel’s Iron Dome/ABM system), and Israel “retaliated” against the “human shielded” targets in Gaza where kids were killed while Hamas terrorists (in the shelters under the hospitals, schools, cribs) laughed, knowing they were following the well worn Viet Cong insurgency route to Gullible Western Left Wing Victory.

    This time, the Hamas attack was rather more “effective” than in 2014, so the response was rather different. Ben Net then responded simply by promising to do the impossible: to totally wipe out Hamas and prevent it ever launching another Tet Offensive style breakthrough. A lot of tunnel shelters under hospitals, schools, needed to be blown up somehow. Drones and missiles were used with devastating effect. Everytime the enemies of Israel REALLY try to destroy it, as in the 6 days war of 1967 (or any other example), Israel doesn’t fight with hands tied behind back. It turns the propaganda on its head and fights in such a manner as to try to credibly deter child hostage takers, chicken pathetic child murders, and their anti-Jewish supporters from further attacks.

    This is incredibly destructive. The BBC is currently moaning that for every Jew murdered by Hamas terrorists last October, the IDF has killed roughly 50 Palestinians, aid workers, journalists in Gaza. War is tragic. What Israeli has to do in the future is to concentrate on DETERRENCE and DISARMAMENT of terrorists. The UK only got a working “peace agreement” with the IRA by first shutting off their arms supply routes, a very hard job for the SAS and others. Disarm them, then you know their peace promises will have a glimmer of truth.

  8. Regarding the New York Times coverage of the eclipse — particularly “The Morning” newsletter [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/09/briefing/solar-eclipse-photos-us.html]:

    I haven’t seen this level of New-Age “woo woo” press coverage of an astronomical event since the Moronic… err, Harmonic, Convergence of August 1987.

  10. No, the Civil War did not end with Lee’s surrender on this date in 1865. Lee surrendered only his Army of Northern Virginia.
    ”
    While it was the most significant surrender to take place during the Civil War, Gen. Robert E. Lee, the Confederacy’s most respected commander, surrendered only his Army of Northern Virginia to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.

    Several other Confederate forces—some large units, some small — had yet to surrender before President Andrew Johnson could declare that the Civil War was officially over.

    The Grant-Lee agreement served not only as a signal that the South had lost the war but also as a model for the rest of the surrenders that followed.

    After Richmond fell and Davis fled, Confederate commanders were on their own to surrender their commands to Union forces. Surrenders, paroles, and amnesty for many Confederate combatants would take place over the next several months and into 1866 throughout the South and border states.

    Not until 16 months after Appomattox, on August 20, 1866, did the President formally declare an end to the war.
    ”

    https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2015/spring/cw-surrenders.html

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