Tuesday: Hili dialogue

September 24, 2024 • 6:45 am

Welcome to the Cruelest Day: Tuesday, September 24, 2024, and National Cherries Jubilee Day. As Wikipedia notes,

The recipe is generally credited to Auguste Escoffier, who prepared the dish for one of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee celebrations, widely thought to be the Diamond Jubilee in 1897.

It’s also National Bluebird of Happiness Day, Schwenkenfelder Thanksgiving (for members of the Pennsylvania Schewenkenfelder Church, a small denomination centered on Philadelphia), Kiss Day, National Horchata Day (a delicious sweet rice drink; try it with Mexican Food), and National Punctuation Day.

In honor of Bluebird of Happiness Day, I present this Gary Larson cartoon that I had in my office for years:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the September 24 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*There’s no doubt that what’s going on between Israel and Hezbollah is effectively a “war”, and Israel, I think, is trying to deter Hezbollah from mounting a huge missile attack by showing them what Israel is capable of doing.

Israeli airstrikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon killed hundreds of people and injured more than 1,000 others on Monday, Lebanon’s health ministry said, in the deadliest day of Israeli attacks there since at least 2006, when Israel last fought a war with the Iranian-backed militant group.

The Israeli military said in a statement after midnight, early on Tuesday, that its Air Force had struck about 1,600 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon on Monday and was continuing to attack.

The main roads to Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, were clogged with people on Monday fleeing to what they hoped would be the safety of the metropolis, witnesses said.

The pace and intensity of the airstrikes on Monday outstripped that of the devastating 2006 war, when more than 1,000 Lebanese were killed over an entire month. The health ministry, which compiles casualties reported by hospitals, said at least 492 people had been killed on Monday and about 1,640 were wounded. Officials did not indicate how many of the dead were Hezbollah fighters but said that dozens of women and children were among the casualties. The casualty numbers could not be independently confirmed.

The scale of the bloodshed staggered Lebanon, which was already reeling from a week of Israeli attacks on Hezbollah, including via exploding pagers and walkie-talkies, that killed scores and wounded thousands across the country.

As Israeli warplanes raced through Lebanon’s skies, air-raid sirens rang out across northern Israel as roughly 165 rockets and other munitions crossed into Israeli territory from Lebanon, according to the Israeli military. Most were intercepted by Israel’s antimissile defense system, and there were no reports of deaths or serious casualties.

Hezbollah has been firing rockets and drones at Israel since a devastating war broke out in Gaza last year after the deadly Oct. 7 attacks led by Hezbollah’s ally, Hamas. Israeli counterattacks on southern Lebanon had been common, but Israel ratcheted its assaults on Hezbollah over the past week, raising fears that the current fighting could escalate into a full-scale war involving ground troops.

Note that Israel, trying to defend itself by stopping Hezbollah, is of course being warned by many that they could escalate the conflict into a “full scale war” involving ground troops.  What that really means is that Israel should just sit there and take the repeated, year-long onslaught of Hezbollah missiles and anti-tank weapons, responding tepidly but not mounting a large-scale defense that would seriously damage Hezbollah. Note too that Hezbollah, a terrorist organization, has been committing war crimes and violating a binding UN resolution (1701), with nobody ever Hezbollah for those war crimes. Has Hezbollah been taken to the International Court of Justice? Of course not!.  This is profound hypocrisy.  My prediction, though, is that Israel will limit this to an air-and-missile war, with no Israeli books on Lebanese territory. Lebanon won’t cross the border, either, for the UN forbids that (but since when has that worked?), and if they do, they’ll be massacred. What really worries me, as I’ve said before, is the possibility that Iran will join the war against Israel. If THAT happens, I would expect the US, as Blinken promised, to defend Israel. But again, does Blinken even know what he says or thinks?

*Two other items. First, the AP reports that Israel is asking the UN to enforce the binding Security Council Resolution 1701, which Hezbollah has been violating for years but the UN has failed to enforce.

Israel’s foreign minister has urged the U.N. Security Council to implement a 2006 resolution calling on Hezbollah to move its forces far from the Israeli border.

Resolution 1701 ended a monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah. The resolution required Hezbollah to move some 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, but it has refused, accusing Israel of failing to carry out provisions.

In a letter to the council, Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the council “must act to bring about a full implementation” of the resolution. He warned that Israel would not tolerate the “ongoing war of attrition” with Hezbollah.

“Israel is not interested in a full-scale war,” he wrote. “However, we will take all necessary measures to protect ourselves and our citizens in accordance with international law as part of the ongoing armed conflict against Hezbollah.”

He also called for international sanctions against Iran, saying the Tehran government is the “mastermind” behind Hezbollah’s attacks.

No chance of that. In other news, the U.S. is beefing up its troops in the Middle East:

The U.S. is sending additional troops to the Middle East, the Pentagon said Monday.

Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder would provide no details on how many additional forces or what they would be tasked to do. The U.S. currently has about 40,000 troops in the region.

“Due to the unpredictable nature of ongoing conflict between Hezbollah and Israel and recent explosions throughout Lebanon, including Beirut, the U.S. Embassy urges U.S. citizens to depart Lebanon while commercial options still remain available,” the State Department cautioned Saturday.

I’m hoping the troops will be tasked with defending Israel and, perhaps, enforcing Resolution 1701, which is really the UN’s job with its UNIFIL troops. But those troops are too cowardly to take on Hezbollah. I can’t imagine that U.S. troops would be used to defend Hezbollah’s interests.

*The rumors that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is dead have not been confirmed. As 7 Israel News reports, the rumor that Sinwar was dead probably started when the IDF recovered a number of bodies in Gaza tunnel, victims of the IDF, and said that they were checking if any were Sinwar. But they were wrong, and Sinwar is still on the loose.

The IDF brought several bodies of Hamas terrorists who were killed during combat operations in the Gaza Strip to Israel to investigate if one of them was Hamas leader and October 7 massacre mastermind Yahya Sinwar, Channel 12 News reported.

The test results showed that none of the bodies examined were Sinwar.

On Sunday night, Kan News reported that Israel is examining the possibility that Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar was killed as a result of an IDF airstrike on the Gaza Strip.

According to the report, there is no intelligence supporting such a report, and there is a disagreement between defense officials about whether the October 7th mastermind was again just cut off from his communications or was indeed eliminated.

This is a pity, as Sinwar’s death would have, I think, led to Hamas’s dissolution, if not surrender. Given that he’s said to be surrounded by living Israeli hostages, either apprehending or killing him may be very difficult without attendant deaths of hostages.

*The guy who was caught with a gun hanging around the fence outside Trump’s golf course has now been investigated more thoroughly, and it’s clear that he was attempting to kill the former President on the links.

A man who allegedly tried to kill Donald Trump on a Florida golf course had been planning for months to shoot the former president, keeping detailed lists of Trump’s whereabouts and writing a note in case the assassination attempt failed, prosecutors said Monday.

“Dear World, This was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I am so sorry I failed you,” the handwritten note from Ryan Wesley Routh said. “I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster. It’s up to you to finish the job; and I will offer $150,000 to whomever can complete the job.”

Federal prosecutors included a photo of the note in a new court filing as they urge a judge to keep Routh detained while his court case proceeds.

A witness found the note inside of a box that Routh had dropped off months before the Sept. 15 golf-course encounter. The witness opened the box, which also contained ammunition, tools and a metal pipe, after learning that Routh had been accused of trying to kill Trump.

The note was one of several new revelations about Routh’s plans in the months and weeks before a Secret Service agent allegedly saw him pointing a semiautomatic rifle through a golf-course fence while Trump was playing a few holes away.

Routh had compiled a handwritten list of dates and places where he expected the Republican nominee to be present, and had arrived in Florida more than a month before the encounter, prosecutors said. Cellphone records showed he had on multiple days traveled near the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach—about 5 miles from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence—between Aug. 18 and the incident on Sept. 15.

Routh, 58 years old, is expected in federal court later Monday morning, where prosecutors will point to those details as evidence he should remain jailed.

Officials said Routh hid undetected near the golf course for nearly 12 hours that day, before the Secret Service agent spotted him and opened fire. Authorities don’t think Routh fired a shot. He had been roughly 400 yards away from the Republican presidential nominee, but didn’t have a direct line of sight to him, officials said. He sped off in a black Nissan but was captured soon after as he fled north on Interstate 95.

Authorities found a loaded semiautomatic SKS-style rifle with a scope, two backpacks and a bag of food in the area where the suspect had been hiding near the course. On Monday, prosecutors revealed they had also found two additional license plates and six cellphones, one of which contained a google search for how to travel from West Palm Beach to Mexico, an indication that he had hoped to flee.

Trump should consider himself lucky, and kudos to the Secret Service agent who saw the gun’s barrel sticking through the fence, as well as the passerby who photographed the alleged perp’s car and its license plate, which led to Routh’s being apprehended.  The Justice Department rules imply that Routh could have committed a capital crime for “attempting to kill or kidnap the President,”

*The Washington Post maps out eight ways either Trump or Harris could win the election. I couldn’t be arsed to go through them all given that it’s still early in the season, but one possibility intrigued me:

An electoral college tie

Finally, we’d be remiss not to mention the possibility of a tie in the electoral college. It’s true that this scenario is more of an election nerd obsession — like contested conventions — but given how close the election is, it’s a scenario we should be at least somewhat prepared for.

There are multiple ways this could happen, but the most relevant scenarios involve the two states that assign their electoral votes differently: Maine and Nebraska. They are not winner-take-all, but instead allow candidates to win individual electoral votes if they win a congressional district.

This meant that in 2020, Biden won Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, which contains Omaha and its suburbs, even as Trump won the state by almost 20 points. Similarly in Maine, Trump won its more rural 2nd Congressional District, while Biden won the state by nine points. But if Republicans are successful in changing how Nebraska assigns its votes, this scenario would actually become even likelier, because then Harris winning Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan would lead us straight to this outcome.

How this happens: If Harris wins Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, she wins 270 electoral votes exactly. But if she loses Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, there’s a tie in the electoral college; Both candidates would have 269 electoral votes, as illustrated in the map above. The same thing would happen if Trump wins Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina but loses Maine’s 2nd Congressional District. But the congressional districts aren’t the only way this happens. As we described in Scenario Seven, if Trump wins all the Rust Belt states and Nevada, we also end up with a tie.

Pitfalls: None of these scenarios are particularly likely.

But of course you’ll be asking, “What if this really happens?” Who decides the Presidency then? The Post tells us:

But even though none of these scenarios are likely to happen, it’s important to know that if there were a tie in the electoral college, the House of Representatives would decide the election, and it’s likely Trump would win in this situation. House members vote by state delegation, and based on the current polling, Republicans are likely to continue to hold the majority of House delegations after the election.

Right now the election remains too close to call, though Harris apparently has “momentum.” I do wish she’d quit avoiding interviews and press conferences, though. Her avoidance simply reinforces the message that she can’t articulate her “vision” when faced with reporters.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is, as usual, feeling peckish

Hili: The pantry has to be checked carefully.
A: Why?
Hili: I’m afraid there is a lack of stuff cats like best.
In Polish:
Hili: Trzeba dokładnie sprawdzić zasoby.
Ja: Czemu?
Hili: Obawiam się, że brakuje tego, co koty lubią najbardziej.

And a photo of the loving Szaron. You’ll be glad to hear that the cyst on his back, which was drained by the vet, has not returned.

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

From Richard:

From Cat Memes:

From Science Humor, a true story (see the article at the Guardian):

Masih gives a brief rundown of four mothers who were imprisoned simply for objecting to the deaths of their sons, killed as dissidents by the Iranian regime:

Yes, biological men have an advantage over women in fencing too, including a longer reach and greater height.  So they win in women’s fencing.

Wait for the knife. . .,

From Luana, who finds this hilarious:

From Malcolm: A dog fosters a tiny kitten. Amazing!

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I retweeted:

Two tweets from the newly retired Dr. Cobb. First, a great duck post; click the arrow for animation:

And model meets mimic:

11 thoughts on “Tuesday: Hili dialogue”

  1. Well, technically, Israel is not at war with Hezbollah, as Hezbollah isn’t a country. This is one of the many handicaps Israel faces. Hezbollah is a paramilitary force within Lebanon. Lebanon, wrongly, allows them to operate from her soil and commit terrorist acts against a neighboring state. (To be fair to Lebanon, they are hardly in a position to prevent Hezbollah from doing this, even if they were inclined to do so.) In truth, Israel would be justified in declaring war against Lebanon. As it is, Israel could impose an extreme defeat upon Hezbollah, but they could never establish a definitive peace with them (ideologies aside).

    1. DrB: how does your thinking translate for war on Hamas in Gaza and conflict with several bad actors in West Bank?

    2. Hamas isn’t a country, either. That’s why most people refer to the “Israel/Hamas” war rather than the “Israel/Gaza war”.

      Also, resolution 1701 tasks the UN with controlling Hezbollah, and they could if they weren’t so cowardly.

  2. “My prediction, though, is that Israel will limit this to an air-and-missile war, with no Israeli books (sic) on Lebanese territory. Lebanon won’t cross the border, either, for the UN forbids that (but since when has that worked?), and if they do, they’ll be massacred.”

    Agreed. I am curious though, if the UN forbids troop movements from Lebanon into Israel, does it not forbid troop movements from Israel to Lebanon as well? (Or is the mandate to stop movements in one direction only?) Is that not another reason why Israel won’t start a land invasion of Lebanon?

    1. Yes, the resolution calls for all parties to respect “The territorial integrity, sovereignty and political independence of Lebanon within its internationally recognized borders”. It also specifies that Hezbollah must not be present south of the Litani river. The IDF, of course, has every right to be anywhere within Israel’s borders, but they are not supposed to be in Lebanon, so long as Hezbollah observes the resolution. They have not, so Israel can put boots on the ground there and not be in violation.

      1. And the UN troops (as small as that force may be) stationed at the border are just going to step aside and welcome Israeli troops to march into Lebanon? Am I missing something? Is that really how it works?

    1. Nice stamps.
      Those of the arachnophobia persuasion are gonna love them 🤪 I can imagine mayhem when they pick up the letter below the mail slot.
      Our mail delivery has gone from daily to 2 x a week over the last few years and now we see an endless stream of courier vans.

  4. The golden orb-weaving spider cape is proclaimed as ‘the rarest textile on earth’, which makes me wonder how that was determined. There are likely other one-off types of textiles on the planet. Perhaps they mean it is the uniquest 🙂

    I also wonder why the spiders were collected from the wild, rather than ‘farmed’.

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