Friday: Hili dialogue

June 14, 2024 • 6:45 am

Welcome to the tail end of the week: Friday, June 14, 2024; National Bourbon Day. Maker’s Mark is an alternative to the two popular bourbons Jim Beam and Jack Daniels, but I find Maker’s Mark sweeter than the others. Here’s how it’s made; the video is quite interesting.

It’s also Flag Day (the U.S. flag was adopted on this day in 1777), the Army’s Birthday (“On June 14, 1775, the American Continental Army formed”), International Feta Day, National Strawberry Shortcake Day (yay!), World Blood Donor Day, National Cucumber Day, National Marriage Day, and Liberation Day in the Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (liberation from Argentine occupation in 1982).

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 14 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The multimillion-dollar “floating pier” built by the U.S. to deliver aid to Gaza appears to be nearly kaput. 

The $230 million pier was installed amid the Israeli military advance in the city of Rafah and the closure of the two southern border crossings that were supplying most of the aid to the Gaza Strip. The maritime corridor between Cyprus and Gaza—and an ongoing airdrop campaign—was meant to supplement ground deliveries, which are cheaper and more efficient.

But the hastily constructed pier was never designed to handle the Mediterranean Sea’s rough waters, which are expected to worsen over summer, and the logistics of delivering aid from the pier to the Gazan population proved vexing. The floating structure broke apart late last month after 10 days of operation, something defense officials privately described as all but inevitable, and some humanitarian organizations have all but given up making longer-term plans around the pier.

After a week of repairs, the pier went back in place Saturday, only to be shut down again Sunday because of the rough waters, the Pentagon said. It reopened Tuesday.

The life and near death of the pier reflect the Biden administration’s larger struggle to deal with the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza. Three months after President Biden announced the pier during his State of the Union address, only enough aid to support Gazans for a few days has flowed through this maritime route, a fraction of what is needed for more than 2 million civilians facing severe hunger and famine.

During his address, Biden said the pier “would enable a massive increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance getting into Gaza every day.”

The Pentagon, which only learned about the president’s plan to mention the pier days before his speech, began scrambling to put it in place, U.S. defense officials said.

. . . .Aid began traveling again from Cyprus to Gaza on Saturday, and U.S. Central Command said that roughly 1.1 million pounds of humanitarian aid was delivered to Gaza through the pier.

“Let’s see how long this lasts,” one U.S. defense official said shortly after the pier resumed operations.

The lesson: be sure you’ve got it right first; then go ahead. The misleading cries that Gaza was starving led to a too-hasty construction of the pier.  The WSJ adds, “If the pier shuts down permanently, the aid could end up being delivered by sea to the Ashdod port in Israel, and then sent along the very land routes the maritime corridor was meant to bypass.”

*Politico assesses Kamala Harris’s popularity, and finds that it’s pretty low. So is Biden’s:

With voter concern about President Joe Biden’s age haunting his chances of reelection, a new poll shows his next in line, Vice President Kamala Harris, facing serious doubts about her ability to win the presidency herself, or to perform the job well were she to inherit it.

The POLITICO/Morning consult poll reveals that only a third of voters think it’s likely Harris would win an election were she to become the Democratic nominee, and just three of five Democrats believe she would prevail. A quarter of independents think she would win.

That skepticism extends to her potential future role as the head of her party. Forty-two percent of voters described her as a strong leader, including three-quarters of Democrats but only a third of independents.

The poll shows that Harris shares the same poor ratings as Biden. Both are well underwater, Biden at 43 percent favorable and 54 unfavorable, Harris at 42 percent favorable and 52 percent unfavorable.

Three-quarters of Democrats think Harris is a “strong leader”? What kind of world are they living in. Here are the stats from rigstered voters, and the “unfavorable” column is high:

Harris’ efforts to reboot after a rocky start appear to have paid some dividends with important Democratic constituencies, in ways that might move the needle in a close election. She outperformed Biden among Black voters, a shift from when the two competed for the Democratic nomination four years ago. And among Democrats, she has extended her lead over potential rivals in a hypothetical 2028 matchup.

Harris also polled well on some key issues, such as abortion, while lagging on others, such as immigration.

Overall, the findings suggest that Harris is unlikely to quell anxiety among voters about what would happen if Biden became unable to serve. Attitudes about Harris could play a more pronounced role in the campaign than with a typical vice president as voters assess handing another four-year term to the 81-year-old president.

One more graph about likelihood of winning an election. Even the Democrats aren’t that enthusiastic:

Yes, Harris has done her share of yakking, but what has she done? If you say that VPs aren’t supposed to do anything, well, remember when Biden tasked her with “fixing the border problem”? That is more than talk but is action, but Harris did bupkes. 

*Speaking of elections, the Economist shows, depressingly, that Trump seems to have a real (but not huge) lead over Biden. (Don’t shoot me; I’m just the messenger!). They give Trump a 2 out of 3 chance of winning the electoral vote. Oy, my kishkes! Here are the methods:

The Economist’s model of America’s presidential election estimates each major candidate’s chances of winning each state and the overall electoral college. Developed with a team of scholars at Columbia University, the forecast combines national and state-level polls with fundamental data about the state of the economy, historical voting patterns and the demographics of each state to predict the likelihood of various outcomes of the race.

The model does this by constructing thousands of scenarios, each one containing different vote shares in each state and different values for the impact of polling biases and other characteristics. The model is more likely to generate scenarios that are closer to matching the polls and fundamental data it has been given. The win probabilities presented here represent the share of these scenarios won by each candidate.

For more details on exactly how the model accomplishes this and the thinking behind its design, read the full methodology.

Click to enlarge:

The predictions over time up to yesterday:

And the predictions for each state. Illinois, of course, is pretty safe for Biden:

FiveThirtyEight, however, shows Trump less than a percentage point ahead of Biden:

*A post on the Times of Israel recounts how museums are the new battlefront in the drive to demonize Israel—to the extent that some museums have even been closed by pro-Palestinian protestors.  Yep, they’re doing Iran and Hamas’s work for them.

Museums are fast becoming the latest battleground in the campaign to turn Americans against Israel. Hamas supporters recently occupied parts of the Brooklyn Museum, defaced a sculpture, damaged artwork, and harassed staff members. In the atrium of the Museum of Modern Art, protesters unfurled “From the River to the Sea” banners. Extremists tried to disrupt the annual gala of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, by hurling smoke bombs and flares at the museum’s entrance.

Perhaps the most ominous development has been the growing ability of Hamas backers to actually shut down museums. In February, they forced a month-long closure of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, in San Francisco, and brought about the resignation of its chief executive by inundating her with what she described as “vitriolic and antisemitic” hate mail.

The anti-Israel forces are also crowing about the month-long shutdown of the Wing Luke Museum in Seattle. The closure was engineered by pro-Hamas staff members of the museum, who walked out in protest over some of the wording in an exhibit concerning an anti-racism campaign by American Jews in the 1940s and 1950s.

The wording that got the Museum closed is in the second paragraph below. bolded:

America is now witnessing a massive resurgence of anti-Jewish hatred. The fact that some of it is thinly disguised as hatred of Israel or Zionism cannot obscure the truth. When anti-Israel protesters talk about “Zionists controlling the media,” they obviously mean Jews. The same is true of phrases such as “dirty Zionists,” and “Zionists keep out,” and so many other ugly slurs that have been chanted or displayed at recent anti-Israel protests.

The staff members who have shut down the Wing Luke Museum in Seattle are focusing their ire on a sentence in the anti-racism exhibit that states a simple fact: “Today, antisemitism is often disguised as anti-Zionism.” In Richard Rothschild’s day, bigots disguised their hate with euphemisms about “cultural differences” or “neighborhood integrity” or “people preferring their own kind.” Today’s euphemism is “Zionism.” The striking staffers at the Wing Luke Museum don’t want the exhibit to acknowledge that fact because it discredits their cause. But that’s the reality.

The leaders of the Wing Luke Museum, and the officials of the Washington State Jewish Historical Society who helped create the anti-racism exhibit, now say they are working on changes to the exhibit and will re-open it after a month-long hiatus. One can only hope that the changes will not involve capitulating to the strikers’ demands. Because if extremists can intimidate museums into altering historically accurate exhibits, a precious aspect of free society will be gravely threatened.

The staff at the Museum are reprehensible, because it is true that “Jews” are generally just called “Zionists” now, and hatred of Israel or Jews by the Benighted is called “anti-Zionism”, which is supposed to cleanse it. But it’s just a euphemism, and I hope the Wing Luke Museum doesn’t capitulate!

*Lia Thomas, the transwoman swimmer who has retained male musculature and genitalia, has lost a legal battle and won’t be swimming in the Olympics. (I use the pronoun “her” with some difficulty.) World Aquatics, as I recall, banned transgender women from swimming in the male category in major competitions. However, the ruling was not based on athletic prowess, but on standing:

The US swimmer Lia Thomas, who rose to global prominence after becoming the first transgender athlete to win a NCAA college title in March 2022, has lost a legal case against World Aquatics at the court of arbitration for sport – and with it any hopes of making next month’s Paris Olympics.

The 25-year-old also remains barred from swimming in the female category after failing to overturn rules introduced by swimming’s governing body in the summer of 2022, which prohibit anyone who has undergone “any part of male puberty” from the female category.

Thomas had argued that those rules should be declared “invalid and unlawful” as they were contrary to the Olympic charter and the World Aquatics constitution.

However, in a 24-page decision, the court concluded that Thomas was “simply not entitled to engage with eligibility to compete in WA competitions” as someone who was no longer a member of USA swimming.

The news was welcomed by World Aquatics, who hailed it as “a major step forward in our efforts to protect women’s sport”.

“World Aquatics is dedicated to fostering an environment that promotes fairness, respect, and equal opportunities for athletes of all genders and we reaffirm this pledge,” it added.

World Aquatics introduced its new rules after Thomas beat Olympic silver medalist Emma Weyant by 1.75sec to win NCAA gold in the women’s 500-yard freestyle in 2022.

In a scientific document that informed its decision, it said swimmers such as Thomas retained significant physical advantages – in endurance, power, speed, strength and lung size – from undergoing male puberty, even after reducing their testosterone levels through medication.

While it is understood that World Aquatics was prepared to argue the merits of the scientific evidence at Cas, the hearing solely focused on whether Thomas, who is no longer a member of USA swimming, was allowed to challenge its rules.

Ultimately, the ruling was based not on athletic prowess of transgender women, but on Thomas’s standing.

On Wednesday it ruled that Thomas had no standing to sue World Aquatics’ transgender policy, with a key paragraph stating: “The panel concludes that since the Athlete is not entitled to participate in ‘Elite Event’ within the meaning of USA Swimming Policy, let alone to compete in a WA competition, which occurs upon registration with WA prior to a competition or upon setting a performance which leads to a request for registration as WA world record, she is simply not entitled to engage with eligibility to compete in WA competitions.

“The policy and the operational requirements are simply not triggered by her current status.”

There will come a day when a court will rule on the scientific data, though.  And that may be the U.S. Supreme Court.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn: I have never heard Andrzej sing before but Hili apparently has, and doesn’t like it:

A: I will sing you a song.
Hili: For God’s sake, don’t do it!
In Polish:
A: Zaśpiewam ci piosenkę.
Hili: Na litość boską, nie rób tego!

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

From Linkiest:

From Strange, Stupid, or Silly Signs. Read it carefully:

From Science Humor; NOT a good boy!

From Masih; an Iranian singer blinded by police buckshot.  The song he sings is lovely.

From Luana; this woman can’t really name her privileges:

Two from Barry, who says of the second one: “There’s definitely some side-eye going on here.”

From Malcolm; a good idea:

From my Twitter feed; the crowd still knows all the words (and I don’t!):

From the Auschwitz Memorial, a 41 year old woman killed in Auschwitz:

Two tweets from Herr Doktor Professor Cobb. The first one I can’t embed for some reason, but if you click on the screenshot, you’ll see a video that Matthew calls “brutal.” (It is, and I usually wouldn’t put it up, but it is very striking):

Akira Endo is the man who discovered statins. He died on June 5 at age 90.

 

35 thoughts on “Friday: Hili dialogue”

  1. Latest Episode of This Week in Virology (TWiV) discusses the NYT Op-Ed about Lab Leak. There are links to other episodes of the podcast where they discuss in much more detail. This is the part of the episode that goes through the points:

    https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/

    What is interesting to me is that there seems to be no new evidence linking the virus to the lab, but every time something like the NYT piece comes out it gets treated like new evidence for the lab leak.

    1. It appears that the playbook seems to be leaning to “bury em in BS” at this point.

    3. +1. Yes, I highly recommend this 55-minute “Special Edition” extract from the longer weekly TWiV episode. Also I would remind readers that the OpEd writer is a young post doc who, along with her science writer (of no formal science education) co-author continues to hawk their book on the subject in all her public appearances and writings.

    5. I have received, ever since I dropped my nyt subscription several years ago, a daily email with “headlines” from the times that day. Except for the first headline, all other articles were behind paywalls, but I never unsubscribed as it was simple to just trash it each morning. However today was the last straw and I did unsubscribe a few minutes ago. Today, after running that absurd covid origins op ed piece (creating their own data and market), Leonhardt ran a piece on “lab leak vs zoonotic spillover- you decide” in which he volunteered that he thought it was 50-50. Hell, given the history of zoonotic spillover vs lab leaks in general, I don’t think it was even 50-50 in Dec 2019. In any case I had finally had it with this scurrilous rag and am now, hopefully, totally cleansed of it knocking on my e-door.

  2. From ‘The Free Press’

    “Attendees at the Nova Music Festival exhibition were harassed in Manhattan, my colleague was mobbed while trying to report at a protest, and a masked thug on the subway barked in a train, “Raise your hand if you’re a Zionist. This is your chance to get out.” And that’s only what made the news. In New York. That was all Monday.”

    https://www.thefp.com/p/nyc-progressives-anne-pasternak-antisemitism

  3. Kamala Harris said she was going to go the Central America to study the origins of the problem at our border. I observed at the time that that was like going to Minnesota when the levee breaks in New Orleans.

    1. Totally agree. I remember thinking that a trip to Central America was an exercise in avoidance. She should have carried on a fact-finding tour at the border, meeting with all of the governors of those states. What was she thinking?

  4. Sorry, but I don’t feel much empathy for cyclists.

    I’m sure those who bike in cities feel overpowered, and there should be bike lanes to accommodate them. But I live in the country, where cyclists come in droves on weekends and pretend that nobody lives here and that they own the place.

    When we had our flea market business, I would leave for Albuquerque, EVERY Saturday morning in good weather and have the roads blocked by gazillions of them. I had a recurring fantasy that I could find out where one of them lived, get just ahead of him/her on a weekday morning as they were leaving for work, and drive five miles per hour in a way that they couldn’t pass me, just to see how they liked it. They had absolutely no concept that those of us who live in the country have better things to do with our lives than follow mobs of cyclists at a crawl to get where we’re going.

    I also had another incident where I was trying to get a badly injured goat to the vet. Three of them were riding abreast on a hilly road, and refused to move over so I could pass. It was too dangerous to risk passing when I couldn’t see over the hill. We lost the buck, probably would have anyway, he was that badly hurt, but there was no reason for him to have had to suffer longer because of cyclists taking their time.

    L

    1. I used to ride a bike when I was in my 60s. I always had a mirror attached to my helmet so I could see traffic behind, and if there was a line of cars formed I would pull over on the shoulder to let them pass (unless I forgot to look). Took a couple of seconds. I was retired, not in a hurry. It’s not a good idea in the country to dawdle when people have things to do, especially when most people drive pick-up trucks with large side mirrors.

    2. Linda,
      I have no doubt that you have encountered many inconsiderate bicyclists. As someone who commutes thousands of miles a year using a bicycle, and also enjoys recreational rides, and also takes advantage of motorized transport, I can attest to the fact that there are many rude and inconsiderate motorists, too, in addition to the small percentage of bicyclists that ignore common road courtesies.

      The overwhelming majority of public road users are motorists, at least in the U.S. so some perspective on the issue of total road usage by vehicle type is justified. However, roads are public facilities built for ALL users, which include pedestrians, horses, automobiles, trucks, and bicycles. It saddens me to hear you have no empathy for those of us traveling by bicycle. Maybe the Amish traveling by horse garner a bit more empathy from you. The vast majority of us are just using the public roads as they are intended and not out to interfere with your travel plans. Sorry about your goat.

    3. I commuted on a bike for years, and never ran a red light, skipped a stop sign or biked in the middle of the lane.

      One day I got hit. Badly. I was biking on a marked bike lane, in broad daylight, had a helmet on, was wearing florescent purple, and had the right of the way on a green light going straight. The left turning driver never saw me until they hit me. I don’t buy the whole bike-lanes-make-you-safer spiel. Perhaps safer than a total anarchy on the road, but not by much. Drivers are the problem. Cyclists get doored on bike lanes and get cut by impatient drivers on right and left turn. Therefore educating drivers to be more considerate is what’s gonna make cyclists safer and transportation greener.

      By the way, I had broken ribs and bruised tailbone and that was “lucky”.

      1. What a terrifying experience. I agree with you about the bike lanes. If they’re not completely protected and separated from automobile traffic (as in some European/Scandanavian countries) they are mostly a “feel good” measure installed by politicians. I often see motorists driving in them — Quite intentionally — for long stretches. Even when they’ve got those flexible bollards making it impossible to not know it’s a bike lane.

      2. I live in Chelsea, Manhattan and for years I worried I’d be hit by a car. In the last 5-10 years I’m convinced it isn’t the White Van that’ll kill me, it’ll be errant lawless bike delivery people. They’ve made several attempts lately.

        There are MANY more bikes and mopeds about lately in large part refugee food delivery types who it seems come from countries with utterly bizarre road rules.
        Caracas sidewalks must be HELL!

        D.A.
        NYC

      3. Years ago, I was taught to call out, “on your left” when I was passing a person on foot on the trail that was for cyclists and pedestrians. There were far fewer racers then, most of us were cyclists who were just riding for pleasure. Now, if you’re a pedestrian on the trail, you must be sure to stay on the far right side of the trail, and you don’t dare step or lean towards your left. Because very few cyclists call out anymore, and racers feel entitled to pass as close to you as possible so as not to break their speed.
        But even a careful pedestrian can be hurt. About 15 years ago, a 60 year-old man was killed on the trail in Boulder, CO, when a racer came flying around a corner and plowed right into the man.

  5. Wow. The Economist’s model is pretty impressive. Unfortunately, the Republicans have a lot of ammunition to use in their campaign against President Biden: Afghanistan, the border, bribes paid to those holding college loans, Kamala Harris, inflation, the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, campus unrest, etc. (I’m not necessarily agreeing with these, just reprising them.) But watch for the Republican attacks based on Biden’s age. There are so many video and sound bites out there that his age will be front and center. His handlers will try to hide the signs, but enough will get out there—right or wrong—that these most visible of his negatives will end up being his most difficult to overcome.

    1. I’m guessing that the first live debate, in two weeks time, will clarify considerably whether Biden is indeed too old.

    2. Focusing on age is interesting. That feels like a Democrat reframing of the issue, and the Republicans will likely look to steer away from it: Trump is already older than Biden was at the start of the current term.

      The real challenge is if Biden is compos mentis. The evidence does not look kindly on this – not least choosing not to prosecute him for breaking the law because he would likely be ruled unfit for trial.

      1. The Republicans would be delighted to have Biden ruled unfit for trial—it would be perfect fodder for the “senile Biden” myth. They chose not to prosecute Biden because they didn’t have a strong enough case. So they had to settle for Hunter Biden’s tomfoolery.

    3. Like this clip from the G7 that started zipping around X / Twitter yesterday. If this is even close to an accurate representation of what happened, with all the other G7 leaders concerned and covering for the wandering Biden as they pulled him back into the group, then we will see it frequently. One doesn’t need to be a Biden hater or a Trump lover to be concerned with this. Compare it to Fauci; he’s older than Biden and sharp as a tack. This is not simply “old age.”

      https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/1801300939372118420

      1. CollinRugg is a known liar and troll. A bad actor totally, one of the worst on Twitter in the class of the Malaysian maniac Ian Miles Chong. Avoid both at all costs.

        Apparently in the clip Biden moved to meet a paragilder who’d landed who was later edited out of the clip. This kind of sleight of hand is common with advances in video editing.

        D.A.
        NYC

        1. Thanks, David. Trolls and liars abound, and clips are their greatest tools, thus the caveat “if.”

          I’m a wanderer myself! I would have walked away from that group at 20, let alone 80, if I found something of interest elsewhere. That doesn’t bother me. What gives me pause is the way the other leaders responded, the looks of concern on their faces, the corralling of Joe back into the group, the attempts to make it look as though they are just all shifting position rather than retrieving him. This suggests that they are not entirely confident in his faculties, or that they have seen questionable behaviors elsewhere in their interactions with him.

          Whatever the truth, this remains the most dismaying presidential election of my life. I don’t know who to rail against more: the Republican primary voters who gave us Trump again, or the Democratic Party, which did everything it could to not give us choices.

  6. Coleman Hughes has just written this piece in The Free Press about George Floyd’s death and whether Chauvin received a fair trial. This piece replies to criticisms from Radley Balko.

    Overall, I conclude that Chauvin’s culpability is way less than supposed by the mainstream narrative.

  8. I’m totally unconcerned by Biden’s apparent flip flop on Israel and the bs he has to mouth to shut up the crazed left in his party. On the ground in Israel it doesn’t matter. I see it as cosmetic, throat clearing at best.

    The future of Israel will be decided in Israel, not in Washington. Thankfully.
    The fight, like in Ukraine, is civilizational.

    Onwards Israeli heroes.

    D.A.
    NYC
    https://themoderatevoice.com/author/david-anderson/

  9. The crowds singing Bohemian Rhapsody made my day. 🙂
    How fun to have been there as a Queen fan.

    D.A.
    NYC

  10. “Lia Thomas, the transwoman swimmer who has retained male musculature and genitalia, has lost a legal battle and won’t be swimming in the Olympics. (I use the pronoun “her” with some difficulty.)”

    The term “transwomen” is part of a ploy to cast “cis” women as just one type of women, on a par with transwomen. People adopting such language, perhaps out of kindness, has partially enabled the chaos we have today of men in women’s sports, prisons, shelters, etc. Same with the pronouns. I can understand the argument about being civil, but a) the people who demand pronouns are not civil and b) it doesn’t make sense to use the pronoun if you don’t think that such people are female in every respect.

    1. I completely agree. There are no such things as “transwomen.” These individuals are correctly called trans-identified males, since sex is binary and immutable. Even the trans-identified males who have their penises amputated remain biological males.

      Mr William Thomas has been credibly accused of sexual harassment by all the female swimmers against whom he competed. They allege that in their locker room, he walked around nude with a full erection and taunted them. Naturally, the denial of one man (Mr Thomas) far outweighed the dozen or so women eyewitnesses.

      That NCAA allowed him to compete against women (not “cis” women, but WOMEN) is a travesty.

  11. As some readers here may know, I follow space technology issues fairly closely. Yesterday I got an update about an online conference called “Space Science in Context,” which is scheduled for October 17-18 this year.

    The theme of the conference is “Justice in Action.” As I accessed the website to find more information about the conference, I ran across a page titled “Call for Community Action.” It lays bare at least one intent of the conference — to harm Israel and support Palestine.

    This isn’t the only incursion of “social justice” ideology into the space science community* that I’ve seen, but it certainly is the most blatant. (The page links to similar efforts in related communities involving mathematics, astronomy, and physics.)
    https://spacescienceincontext.com/call-for-action/

    *By “community” I mean people who have an interest in the subject. It includes both scientists and non-scientists (such as myself). In the past few years the space-oriented community has had an influx of people who focus on the “sociology” of space science, including space exploration and space settlement. (“Colonization” is a word now often eschewed for its presumed racist connotations, though I continue to use it for its biological and ecological meanings.)

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