Monday: Hili dialogue

July 22, 2024 • 6:45 am

Welcome to the beginning of a new “work” week: it’s Monday, July 22, 2024, and National Mango Day (didn’t we just have one of those?)  I believe it’s mango season in India now, but it’s too bloody hot to go there. Here is what we are missing—and mangos are my favorite fruit.

SnapMeUp, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

It’s also National Onion Rings Day (I love ’em!), International Ragweed Day, National Chocolate Eclair Day, World Rainforest Day, Pi Approximation Day (see also March 14), as 22/7 is a good approximation of Pi, and Ratcatcher’s Day, also celebrated on June 26.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 22 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz.

This was all written before Biden’s resignation yesterday. Everything’s shaking out right now and I don’t have much to say. My own favorite, Gretchen Whitmer, said she won’t be running, and everyone else seems to be anointing Harris as Biden’s successor.  It’s considered almost heresy to want, as I would do, for an open primary in which the candidates debate in a group, and then again, and then the electors choose the candidate. But it’s almost too late for that to happen. I also find it telling that in the rush to endorse Harris, Barack Obama remained silent. The NYT says that’s not because Obama is anti-Harris, but wishes to remain an elder statesman in the party:

“We will be navigating uncharted waters in the days ahead,” Mr. Obama wrote in the post. “But I have extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges.”

Republicans interpreted that as a snub. But people close to Mr. Obama, who has positioned himself as an impartial elder statesman above intraparty machinations, said not to read too much into it — and had no alternate candidate in mind when he made the decision not to immediately endorse Ms. Harris.

At any rate, there’s a lot to come in the next few months (for one of them I’ll be in South Africa), and perhaps a few surprises. Stay tuned.

*The NYT discusses how Biden’s age problem, and the questions it’s raised in the minds of Democratic voters, may be endangering Congressional Democrats as well. The problem is that candidates who endorse Biden are seen to be tainted by that endorsement.

Senator Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin Democrat seeking re-election, has noticed voters returning to the same question in recent days as she crisscrosses her state to make the case for her campaign: Does she think President Biden can win in November, and should he even try?

“Typically, I’ll go to an event; I’ll share my remarks,” Ms. Baldwin said in an interview on Friday at a newly opened campaign office in southwestern Wisconsin. “And then people come up one by one and — at first in a whisper — are really concerned.”

A soft-spoken two-term senator who has carved out a reputation for her cross-party appeal, Ms. Baldwin easily cruised to victory in 2018, and her race this year was never expected to be ultracompetitive, even in this crucial swing state. But rising concerns about Mr. Biden’s age and fitness to run have introduced new risks for Democratic candidates like Ms. Baldwin just 100 days out from Election Day, imperiling even seats that were once considered relatively safe for the party.

That has left Democrats already anxious about losing the White House to former President Donald J. Trump contemplating the prospect of widespread losses in Congress that could leave the party locked out of power altogether during a Trump presidency and well beyond.

In recent days, as Democratic leaders have privately pressed Mr. Biden to step aside, two other senators up for re-election, both in the tightest races in the nation — Senators Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio — have called on Mr. Biden to step aside. It comes as Democrats have received polling suggesting that voters distrust elected officials who vouch for Mr. Biden’s mental capacity and endorse his candidacy.

This is a problem because such candidates are in a bind: they want to look loyal to the sitting administration but have their own seats to worry about.  I guess if I were one of them, I would be honest and talk to Biden directly, but tell voters something like, “I’m concerned and I’ve discussed it with President Biden.”

*Even though the Republican God almost lost his life to a shooter armed with an AR-15 assault rifle, you know Republicans aren’t thinking twice about banning those weapons, or even fully automatic weapons, from the street.  Yet they have been successfully banned in my own state.

Assassination attempts against U.S. presidents have led to major gun laws, but the July 13 shooting at a rally for former President Donald Trump appears unlikely to be a pivotal moment in the divisive U.S. gun debate.

In the days since Trump narrowly escaped a bullet fired from a would-be assassin’s rifle, the two sides in America’s argument over gun rights remain at odds over whether firearms are the major problem leading to such violence.

President Biden and some of the nation’s leading gun-control groups last week increased calls for a nationwide ban on AR-15s, the gun used in the assassination attempt at Trump’s Pennsylvania rally. Republicans and gun-rights groups pushed back, saying that the issue wasn’t the gun but rather a massive security failure. Both Trump and his vice presidential running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, left gun policy out of their convention speeches.

The assassination attempt at Donald Trump’s Pennsylvania rally has reignited the debate over gun policies. PHOTO: JEFF SWENSEN/GETTY IMAGES

Attacks on American presidents, including the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the attempt on Ronald Reagan’s life, have led to some of the biggest overhauls to gun laws in the country’s history. But in this hyperpartisan era, now in the midst of a contentious campaign, few expect that Trump and his party will waver in their robust support for gun rights.

“Everybody gets into a ruckus, but by the time they get around to doing anything, it all falls by the wayside,” said Jerry Henry, executive director of GA2A, a prominent gun-rights group in Georgia. “This is not going to be a watershed moment.”

The Republican National Committee’s platform this year made only passing reference to Second Amendment rights and took no specific policy positions regarding firearms, a move that sparked concern from gun-rights groups. With the exception of 2020, when the convention didn’t adopt a platform during the pandemic, RNC platforms for decades included discussion of gun policies and positions.

The Second Amendment’s call for a “well regulated militia” is now deeply outmoded, but try taking the guns out of the cold, dead hands of the GOP.  These weapons have no use in private self-defense, and are prized by shooters like Thomas Matthew Crooks.  Clearly no legislation can take place on the national level (the GOP House would never allow it, but Illinois recently and successfully banned assault rifles, including the AR-15, and the Supreme Court left the law in place.  Thus there’s no issue about the Constitutionality of such a ban; all it takes is the will of the people. Sadly, that is lacking.

*The Times of Israel reports on Israel’s strike on Yemen—a strike following a Houthi drone attack on Tel Aviv that killed one person—in greater depth than before.

The Israeli Air Force on Sunday released footage showing its airstrikes a day earlier against the Houthi-controlled port of Hodeida in western Yemen, which came following a deadly drone attack on Tel Aviv Thursday overnight carried out by the Iran-backed group.

The video showed missiles launched by IAF fighter jets striking four large container cranes at the port used to unload shipments.

The IAF also released footage showing fighter jets being refueled amid the operation, dubbed “Outstretched Arm,” as well as the arrival of some of the aircraft back at Israeli airbases following the strike.

You can see some of that footage at the site.

The strike, carried out by dozens of Israeli aircraft, targeted fuel depots and energy infrastructure at the port, in addition to the cranes.

The Israeli strike group included F-15, F-16, and F-35 fighter jets, reconnaissance aircraft, and refueling planes — the latter of which was due to the target being some 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) from Israel, making it one of the farthest-ever actions carried out by the IAF.

According to the military, the strike on the fuel depot was a major blow to the Houthi economy, and the cranes being taken out of service prevents the group from bringing in more Iranian weapons via the port that have been used to target Israel, along with commercial and military ships in the Red Sea.

Saturday’s strike on Hodeida Port used more force than the IAF needed, aimed at sending a message of deterrence as well as causing financial damage to the Iran-backed group and impeding its ability to import weapons.

Strikes carried out by an American-led coalition in Yemen have only targeted Houthi military infrastructure, and not sites that are also used by civilians, such as the Hodeida Port, which is also used to bring in humanitarian aid to the war-torn country in addition to the Iranian weapon shipments.

The Israeli rationale is that this is not a civilian target, but, by virtue of bringing in Iranian weapons, is a huge boon to the terrorists (apparently 6 civilians were killed in the massive bombing). And of course the Houthi are attacking not just Israeli ships, but seem to be targeting ships willy-nilly with respect to their nationality, all to prevent traffic through the Red Sea. Given the nexus between Iran, Lebanon, Yemen, and Gaza, I despair of these hostilities ever coming to an end. And remember that Iran will soon have nuclear weapons. . .

Here’s a map of the area and where the strikes took place. It’s from the Wall Street Journal:

*On her Substack site “The Truth Fairy,” Abigail Shrier informs us of a new law in California, and when the news of it gets around Gavin Newsom can kiss a Democratic Presidential nomination goodbye (h/t Rosemary). The piece even has a preface by Shrier about why she considers this story so important, but you can read that yourself (it’s free, but subscribe if you read often).

The “SAFETY Act,” AB 1955, signed by California Democratic governor Gavin Newsom, legally forbids schools from adopting any policy that would force them to disclose “any information related to a pupil’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to any other person without the pupil’s consent.” Schools may not, as a matter of policy, inform parents of a child’s new gender identity unless the child volunteers her approval. The law also prohibits schools from punishing any school employee found to have “supported a pupil” hurtling down a path toward risky and irreversible hormones and surgeries.

The law effectively shuts down the local parents’ rights movement in California by eliminating its most important tool: the ability to organize at the community level to stop schools from deceiving them. No longer can families hope to convince their school boards to require schools to notify parents that their daughter, Sophie, has been going by “Sebastian” in class; that her teacher, school counselor, and principal have all been celebrating Sebastian’s transgender identity; that they’ve been letting her use the boys’ bathroom and reifying the sense that she is “really a boy.”

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the law supports the priming of minor children for a secret life with a new gender identity. This includes having school-aged children participate in sexualized discussions and make identity declarations with school faculty, which are often actively hidden from the child’s parents. Elon Musk called the law “the final straw” for families and announced his intention to move both SpaceX and X, two of California’s most prominent tech companies, out of the state as a result. “The goal [of] this diabolical law,” he tweeted, “is to break the parent-child relationship and put the state in charge of your children.”

While researching my book, Irreversible Damage, and in the four years since its publication, I have talked to hundreds of parents whose daughters suddenly identified as transgender. Many of their daughters were encouraged in this revelation by school counselors and teachers in school districts across America. One parent told me a California school counselor had given her son the address of an LGBTQ youth shelter and suggested he emancipate himself from parents who were loving but skeptical of his sudden transgender identity. Another recent California law, AB 665, would have made reclaiming that young man from the youth center all but impossible because he was over the age of twelve.

In California, instruction in sexual orientation and gender identity has been mandatory for all public school students K–12 since the passage of the Healthy Youth Act in 2016. Because such instruction typically occurs within the required “anti-bullying curriculum” rather than the sex education curriculum, parents cannot elect that their children opt out of what is, in practice, a full-bore indoctrination into gender ideology.

When a child then predictably decides in class that she too may be nonbinary or transgender, this revelation will often trigger schools’ gender support plan, effectively a school-wide conspiracy to promote the child’s new name and gender identity without tipping off Mom and Dad. Official documents and emails and report cards are sent to parents to preserve the child’s birth name and pronouns, concealing the social transition from parents.

Call me old-fashioned, but I think the parents do have a right to know. After all, this is crucial information about their child that a parent would want and need to know. Further, it makes the schools complicit in “affirmative care”, and parents are left out of the loop. That seems to me unfair given that minors may not have the maturity to make such a decision.  Schools simply cannot act in loco parentis in such cases.  Shrier adds:

Recent polling shows that voters across the political spectrum believe that schools should be required to inform parents if their children are using different gender pronouns at school than they are at home.

But California Democrats appear ready to drag their party down with them. Parents’ best hope may be federal legislation mandating parental notification before a school can reassign a child’s name and gender. Candidates for president and vice president ought to be asked whether they would support such a bill.

Indeed they should! This is exactly the kind of action that is costing Democrats any chance to keep the Presidency, much less the Senate.

*An emotional support alligator—the only one in the world—was kidnapped by pranksters, and animal control mistakenly released the gator into the wild. This was in May, and here’s a video from the time. Here’s a story:

In ordinary times, the social media accounts devoted to Wally Gator document the nearly six-foot-long emotional support alligator’s adventures around Pennsylvania: visiting nursing homes, splashing around in Philadelphia’s Love Park fountain, meeting with the mayor and smiling contentedly in his red harness as various admirers hug and hold him.

In recent days, however, they’ve been overtaken with pleas for help: Wally is missing in Georgia, where his owner Joie Henney says he was kidnapped, recovered and released into a swamp.

Henney and Wally were visiting friends in Brunswick when someone took the gator from his pen in the early morning hours of April 21, the Wallygator Facebook page posted on Saturday.

“Wally was stolen by some jerk who likes to drop alligators off into someone’s yard to terrorize them,” the account posted the following day. “Once discovered they called [Department of Natural Resources], DNR then called a trapper. The trapper came and got Wally and dropped him off in a swamp with about 20 other alligators that same day.”

A short news video:

This is very sad, and, as I just found out by an Internet trawl, Wally still hasn’t been found.  But the gator is chipped, so he could be identified. But who’s going to go into the water and check the gators for chips?

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn. Yes, the mole was saved and returned to the wild.

Hili: Szaron brought a baby mole to the verandah.
A: Is it alive?
Hili: Yes, it holed up behind the basket.
A: I’m running to save it.
In Polish:
Hili: Szaron przyniósł małego kreta na werandę!
Ja: Żyje?
Hili: Tak, schował się za koszykiem.
Ja: Już biegnę go ratować.

And a photo showing both Szaron and Baby Kulka (Kulka to the right):

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

From Cat Memes:

From Science Humor:

From Things With Faces:

For some reason I can’t embed this video tweet from Masih, but if you click on the shot below, you can see it on “X”:

Two marine tweets from my feed:

From Malcolm, the wonderful reflexes of cats:

A lovely scene, retweeted by Ricky Gervais, from his fantastic series “After Life.”  Here Gervais visits his dad, who has dementia, in his care facility, and dad has a moment of recollection in which he recognizes Gervais as his son,

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I retweeted:

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. First, cats scatter during a thumderclap:

A lovely photograph from Mars:

47 thoughts on “Monday: Hili dialogue”

  1. I’ve learned to stop worrying and love our candidates. All of them.

    Quote:
    “So, Ukraine is a country in Europe…….it exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine. So, basically, that’s wrong, and it goes against everything that we stand for.”

    – Kamala Harris.

    👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾

    She gets it!

    1. I wonder what Harris gets about the U.S. invasions of Grenada (1983) and Panama (1989).

      1. Or about Hamas attacking Israel and raping women, killing babies (in ovens) and kidnapping more than a two hundred hostages, some, infants.

        Incidentally, my post was snark. Not to be taken literally.

  2. I’m just glad to know at least there are no communist revolutions developing within the United States at the moment.

  3. Kamala Harris was a DEI pick, and voters know that. She failed to win even a single delegate in the 2020 Dem primary.

    I think she is the designated fall guy to lose against Trump, but perhaps stem the losses in the House and Senate. I think that is the strategy at this point.

  4. Musk has helped publicize that new CA trans law by his announcement last week that, because if it, he is moving the headquarters of Space X and regular X to Texas.

  5. In Virginia k12 public schools, in general, if school personnel learn that a child is contemplating suicide, they are directed to notify parents. But Virginia school law also has an explicit exception that kicks in when school personnel have reason to believe that the parents are a part of the problem, and in such cases, are directed NOT to contact parents, but rather go directly to courts or social services – I cannot recall which. Not all of us were brought up in rational, supportive households reflected in the 1950’s U.S. tv sitcom “Leave It to Beaver”. Thank Ceiling Cat these are exceptions, but they do exist and must be accounted for in state law.

    1. Agree they should.

      But. They are the exception, not the rule. Not letting a parent know that her child has socially transitioned and is living his life (now) as “a girl” while at school is unconscionable.

      It’s actually mad, reflective of the greater madness ailing the democratic party.

      2. +1 and yet, Dems would rather double-down on this unpopular stance than have a chance of winning this election.

    2. Sounds sensible….
      So a rebellious adolescent invited to trans himself in Virginia can manipulate the system into bringing child protection services down on his parents by threatening suicide at school, blaming his non-affirming parents for being “part of the problem.” It all depends on whether the courts will hold that not affirming transition counts as child abuse or neglect, which traditionally includes withholding or obstructing necessary medical care. Since everything is medicalized today so that insurance will pay for it, looks like the parents are going to lose their kid if they can’t be re-educated.

      This isn’t so much the school’s fault, that they have to notify the state about suicidal thoughts instigated by parents. It’s that affirmation as the wrong gender (as opposed to, “You are not going out of this house dressed like that!”) is in the realm of medical care that parents must provide…and that’s our fault as doctors.

  6. Social transition, which is what the schools want to do because the political ideology of the teachers’ unions is to undermine the bourgeois family structure, is not a neutral act. “You don’t own your children. We do.” To be enabling this as California is doing by law, and most Canadian provinces do by policy, is to enlist children in deception.

    “Now remember class, today is the school concert. Sarah’s parents will be there. I know you have been very good at remembering to use Sarah’s name and you know she’s a girl, but don’t forget that her parents don’t know that. So just this once you have to call her “Jason”, and Sarah please use the boys’ bathroom with no meltdowns. I know we call that dead-naming and it’s really cruel to mis-gender someone. (If we still had corporal punishment you would get the strap, in fact.). But it’s really really important that we all keep the secret from Sarah’s parents or they might beat her to death. Soto voce: we have no evidence that Sarah’s parents are anything like that but our union tells us to say that, so it must be true!”

    1. Cute Leslie, but the fact is that Jason/Sarahs and this home situation do exist…as exceptions, but do exist…and I think we must try to account for them, rare as they might be, in school policy.

      1. Jim, I appreciate your view comes from a good place. But I think it’s necessary to quantify the harms done to (1) the Jason/Sarahs vs. (2) the kids who are wrongfully shuffled down the path of social & medical transition by teachers’ unions. I agree with you Jason/Sarahs probably do exist; so do the others.

        The more important problem with shielding Jason/Sarah from his parents’ intransigence is that the shielding does nothing to address Jason’s psychological problems and risks reifying them and making them worse. Jason was not born in the wrong body and isn’t a girl and won’t become a woman by growing long hair and wearing a skirt in the girls’ bathroom. Jason’s immediate problem might be his parents’ rejection of his gender ID, but his potentially life-long problem is his false gender ID.

      2. The problem is that such rules can and are regularly abused.
        “The parents might disapprove” gets transformed into some sort of specter of abuse.
        It is used wholesale. It was used against my family.

        In many cases, ours in particular, staff in the school introduced the idea that our child might be trans, and worked to convince them for a couple of years before we found out.

        We found out when I was looking for something in my kid’s room, and found a bottle of prescribed hormone pills. The pills came, not from our family doc, but from someone the school arranged for. Secretly.

        I have known a bunch of trans kids and their parents. The vast majority of them showed no signs of gender confusion before the school started proselytizing to them. It is not a case of the teachers and counselors reacting to something already present in the child.
        I have met exactly one intersex person, an adult. Their situation is completely different than the trans people I know.

        Anyway, there is an established system for teachers and doctors to notify the proper authorities when there are strong signs of abuse. Even as that system is sometimes abused, there are checks and balances and an appeal process.
        It is not all just left to a middle aged lady with blue hair and a nose ring to rule unilaterally and in secret.

  7. Severing family bonds is the central dynamic of cults.
    At risk children of course exist and always have and there are mechanisms to protect them. (outlined above).

    “Gender” is waaaay out of these parameters in all but the most rare, extreme cases.
    Which you have to divide by the HUGE increase in Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria ROGD.

    So how many actual cases of Gender Dysphoria (one in 20K boys and one in 50-10K girls) have insane parents? Probably not enough for this blanket policy to be anything other than wildly counter productive.

    Further, “social transition” is in effect forcing the entire school to LIE to an emotionally fragile child, statistically one who has autism or some other problem.

    The entire gender cult will be looked back on in future as an outrage half way between lobotomy and FGM.

    D.A.
    NYC

    1. Agree. +1

      Increasingly, the “progressives” cater to the exception than the rule. Laws are being passed for the anomalous case vs the norm.

      The fallacies inherent in the ideology and the consequences of it are appalling.

  8. I hope they find Wally!

    And, yes, I do care about the Presidential campaign, but we have to wait and see if it’s Kamala or if another candidate emerges. I expect the former, in which case the VP pick becomes interesting.

    And, the California law that sets schools against parents is crazy. As others (above) are discussing, there are situations where schools need to intervene to protect children, but these have got to be exceptions, not the rule. We’ll see if the law holds up. (No. It doesn’t help Gavin Newsom’s quest for the presidency.)

    1. Yep Norman. They are the exceptions but they do exist and if the schools are to serve ALL children as almost all school divisions claim, then these kids must be accounted for in policy. I agree that it ain’t easy.

      1. The law must favor the rule, not the exception. The exception must be covered, but it cannot override the rule. The problem with contemporary “progressive” ideology is that it caters (almost always) to the exception.

  9. Laws trying to subvert family relations in the name of gender identity and “protecting” children. Gender “transition” for minors: no questions asked, no age limits allowed. Executive orders from the White House that undermine merit, endanger science, and try to institutionalize DEI insanity throughout the federal government—much of which is likely unlawful. Judges appointed who will uphold the madness.

    Perhaps those here are more hopeful than I that the Democratic Party will break free from its ideologues. At least that is the claim: the Party is captured by the ideologues. When will people start to consider that the party leaders are, themselves, the ideologues? Are there any potential presidential candidates in the Democratic Party who will run in opposition to these measures? Any Senate candidates? If not, why not? Are they ideologues? Or do they misread their constituents because so many educated voters are publicly silent about their opposition to these policies? Or do the activists hold sway because few educated Democrats will leave the party—no matter what they oppose within the party? Or has the Democratic Party lost its collective mind?

    Whatever the answers, if it doesn’t get fixed within the Party, then we can look forward to either far more of the same or we might very well be hearing “Hail to the Chief” before every formal event with President J. D. Vance.

    It is very difficult when you haven’t left the Party, but the Party has left you. Especially when there is only one other party.

    1. You’ve got *that* right. I say I left the Democratic party because, in fact, I did. The party left me first, though, and I was tired of being pressured and badgered by people too afraid to stand up for their beliefs to stick around any longer. Enough was enough. For me, it was enough before the 2020 election when I did allow myself to be influenced by others’ fears and, in spite of quitting the party, I voted for Biden. Four years of this b*llsh*t getting even worse is more than enough for me. Just as I wouldn’t become a Christian (a la Hirsi) as a tactic to stop Islam, I will not vote as a Democrat simply to shut out Republicans. I’ve “thrown out” votes before and I’ll do it again. If more of us did, we might effect more change.

  11. I’m reminded in the video linked below how eloquent, knowledgable, and passionate Beto O’Rourke is. He’s interviewed by Marc Elias, founder of Democracy Docket, and Partner at Elias Law Group, which focuses on voting rights.

    Posted 10 days ago:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kq5obBcuf4

    Marc Elias is a bit annoying — as are the occasional intrusive commercials — but O’Rourke makes a good case for Texas going Blue and becoming key to winning 40 electoral votes. My wife & I just donated $100 to O’Rourke’s voting rights advocacy group, “Powered by People.”

  12. I also posted on the NASA History Office tweet about the Mars Viking lander.
    https://x.com/Jon_Alexandr/status/1814817721420542038

    “I recently exhumed from storage and re-hung a late 1970s-era framed panoramic photo from the Viking lander, including the boulder called “Big Joe.” My wife’s color glass sunset mosaic below it provides some color context for the image, which I cropped from a black & white poster.”

  13. I find myself strongly in favour of an open convention, no doubt with various thumbs on the scale but still recognisable as a form of democracy. The “disunity” could even be a selling point vs. the MAGA cult. And it would surely get a lot of media attention. Of course failure is always an option, and typical short-sighted self-interested career politicians would have ample room to totally blow it up.

    1. Like you and some others, Sam Harris would also prefer an open convention.

      Much as I admire Sam’s thinking, I think an open convention would be a terrible mistake because there is way too little time for a reasonable consensus, either in the party or in the country, given current U.S. political mechanisms. That option would not be giving democracy a chance to work, and I think it would be much more dangerous to go that route than sticking with Harris, who is already getting a blizzard of support from ordinary citizens, whose relief with this option is palpable. Trump must be defeated, and Harris is the best choice now.

      With that in mind, I’ll quote Sam Harris from his Substack essay today, in which he doesn’t totally excoriate Kamala Harris.

      “I believe Vice President Harris can overcome most of her liabilities by pivoting, if only 10 degrees, toward the center of our politics. As many have observed, what she really needs is a Sister Souljah moment that reveals some daylight between her and the far left—and she needs this even more than Bill Clinton did in 1992. Whether the topic is immigration, or Gaza, or California’s new gender-identity law—or all three in a single, astounding utterance—she must string 500 words of common sense together at the earliest opportunity and catch the first flight out of Wokistan.”

      I hope Harris can do it. I think she can.

  14. I’ve been a little surprised at the speed with which Democratic sentiment is coalescing around Harris. I thought James Carville’s suggestion of a “mini primary” would have some traction, but I suppose Biden’s dithering may have left the timeline too tight.

    At this point many of the people mooted as potential candidates have already removed themselves from contention, so it doesn’t look like the nomination will be a competitive one. Unlike some here I do think Harris can beat Trump, but probably not as handily as some other candidates might.

  15. Is it heresy to admit that I don’t like mangos? They always taste like turpentine to me. I thought maybe it was just poor ones in US stores, but I had the same experience with fresh ones in Costa Rica.
    Maybe it is something about my taste buds?

    1. Mangoes are physically too stringy for my tastes, though they taste fine to me. Nothing special, in any case.

      My wife can’t stand cilantro for its “soapy” taste, which 23andMe confirmed from her genetic profile.

      Her son-in-law once secretly put cilantro into a dish (he’s a good cook), but my wife got really mad at him. She immediately noticed the cilantro.

      I used to dislike bell peppers for their metallic taste. Not so much anymore.

    2. Mangoes taste sweet and delicious to me, so I did a google, and lo and behold, you’re not alone:

      “Mangoes can sometimes taste like turpentine due to a compound called turpentine oxide, which is naturally present in mangoes. This compound is part of the terpenoid family of chemicals and is responsible for the distinctive taste and aroma that some people perceive as resembling turpentine.

      “The presence and concentration of turpentine oxide in mangoes can vary depending on factors like the mango variety, growing conditions, maturity, and storage conditions. Mangoes that are not fully ripe or have been stored for too long are more likely to develop this off-flavor. Additionally, some people are more sensitive to the presence of turpentine oxide and may detect it more readily than others.”

      https://www.quora.com/Why-do-mangoes-sometimes-taste-like-turpentine

      1. Woohoo! Thank you.!
        I think I must be more sensitive, because others will be eating the same mangos and describe them as delicious.

  16. I am so relieved that Biden has bowed out. I think Kamala Harris has a chance to beat Trump. I think she is underrated. When has a vice president ever really had a noticeable public role? Plus she has needed to stay close to the senate to often provide the tie breaking vote.
    Time will tell, I guess.

    1. Biden bowing out is a good way for him to say he beat Trump twice. So much of Trump’s campaign was devoted to the old, feeble man. Now we have a young able woman and only one old, feeble man still standing. Talk about flipping the script! The fact that the GOP is wetting the bed trying to “make” Biden run for re-election is most telling. The first hope in this election I’ve felt for some months. Kamala can get it done. She already broke a record of small donations in one day…over $80 million. That’s a sign of hope. I doubt Trump will debate her, and that is also telling. Too many eggs in one basket for MAGA, and Trump’s House going after Hunter on and on. All POOF! Surprisingly, they really didn’t see this coming. Haley had some prescient words some months ago about if Biden bows out, Harris is a shoe in.

      Edit: Why do I get moderated comments? Been going on for a while now and I barely even post nowadays.

      1. Curious. Had you often posted multiple links? A couple times I got automatically “moderated” for posting multiple links, which I no longer do in a single post. But there are no links in your post above…

          1. Could it be your political perspective? That seems doubtful, but I see Jerry sometimes banishing people for what I would consider to be relatively innocuous comments. Or maybe some words trigger the site software?

            You could email Jerry and ask directly. That’s how I learned about the issue with multiple links.

  17. Parents have a right to know of their children’s school behavior and “gender choice” in my opinion. Someone brought up an edge case of domestic violence; yes, the school may get law enforcement involved in such as case outside of direct notification of the parents, but the parents are then notified by same law enforcement or others. Different situation.

    Regarding assault rifles and the AR15: the AR15 may look assaultish (AR does not stand for “Assault Rifle”), but it can only operate in semiautomatic mode to be considered legal. Fully automatic weapons are highly restricted. I personally know someone who hunts with an AR15. It is a weapon used in some high-file cases, but is not in and of itself more dangerous. They sell a lot of them to gun enthusiasts legally. They can be used for personal protection, just as a hand gun or shotgun can; this is a matter of personal preference. I like a semiautomatic pistol for the easier handling; on the other hand, rifles and shotguns also have their advantages.

    Totally agree that VPs typically don’t do much, so it’s not entirely fair criticism that Harris didn’t do much as a VP. On the other hand she was specifically and publicly tasked with handling the illegal immigrant influx at the border. Therefore, we can take that into account. She either A) Failed, as evidenced by the numbers who have entered this country through the southern border; or B) Succeeded in implementing what the administration wanted, as evidenced by the numbers who have entered this country through the southern border. Neither of those is what I want to see.

    1. If VP Harris was assigned the responsibility of fixing the border, her boss must have delegated to her the authority, which includes staff and other resources to come up with a workable plan that he as chief executive would approve and implement. If he gave her only responsibility but no authority then that is the textbook definition of “accountability”, a recipe for failure. In this context, since she cannot be fired for failure, that can be seen as merely cementing her role as insurance against his own impeachment.

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