Wednesday: Hili dialogue

October 2, 2024 • 6:45 am

Welcome to October 2, 2024: it’s Wednesday and therefore a Hump Day (“”Siga ni Hump”  in  Fijian).  as well as National Fried Scallops Day.

It’s also National Smarties Day, World No Alcohol Day (not for me!), National Produce Misting Day, National Pumpkin Seed Day, International Day of Non-Violence, and, celebrating what is perhaps the world’s worst vegetable, National Kale Day.  Kale is simply a selected and inferior variety of cabbage.

Here are starving children collecting kale (the Wikipedia caption is “Children collecting leaves of red Russian kale (Brassica napus L. subsp. napus var. pabularia (DC.) Alef.) in a family vegetable garden”.

woodleywonderworks, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the October 2 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Iran started its “reprisal” attack on Israel, firing ballistic missiles at the country.

UPDATE:  There was appreciable damage to Israel, but, fortunately, no deaths of Israelis, and only one death in total.  The WSJ analyzes the damage:

Despite the widespread assault, health authorities in Israel reported no deaths and only minor injuries. A Palestinian from the Israeli-controlled West Bank town of Jericho was killed after being struck by shrapnel.

Apparently five Iranians were also killed by a missile that prematurely exploded.

Back to the report of the attack:

Iran fired a barrage of missiles at Israel on Tuesday evening, an attack that could set off a sharp escalation in the long-simmering conflict between Israel and Iran and tip the region further into turmoil and a widening war.

“A short while ago, missiles were launched from Iran to Israel,” the Israeli military said in a statement.

Air raid sirens sounded across Israel, including in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Loud booming explosions were heard above Tel Aviv, and flashes of light from the arcing intercepting rockets of Israel’s air defense system were visible.

The salvo of missiles from Iran came a day after Israeli forces began a rare ground invasion of southern Lebanon aimed at crippling the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah there. Iran backs Hezbollah and Hamas, the two militias currently fighting Israel, as well as the Houthis in Yemen.

A senior White House official said the United States would help defend Israel and warned that a direct attack against Israel “will carry severe consequences for Iran.”

U.S. officials assess that Iran will launch mostly, if not solely, ballistic missiles at Israel in the next few hours, and likely in more than one wave. President Biden and Vice President Harris held a meeting on Tuesday morning with national security officials “to discuss Iranian plans to imminently launch a significant ballistic missile attack against Israel,” according to the White House. They reviewed plans to help Israel defend against the attacks and protect Americans in the region.

This is the big one, folks. Israel will have to respond, and then there will be a three-front war (actually, a seven-front war if you count countries like Yemen and Syria). As Malgorzata told me the other day, “Everybody wants to kill Israel.” As I write the ballistic missiles are heading to Israel from Iran, and the people there are, I’m told, deeply worried.  But, sooner or later, Israel will retaliate, which is one reason why some commentators thought that Iran would restrain itself. It didn’t. I’m glad the U.S. is helping Israel, and I’m also hoping that other countries will as well.

There is a live feed of the attack here.

*Meanwhile, after a couple of forays, Israel made a serious incursion into Lebanon.

Israel launched limited ground raids into southern Lebanon late on Monday night against Hezbollah forces and infrastructure positioned along Israel’s northern border, hours after the security cabinet approved plans for the newest phase of the war against the Lebanese terror group, in a move that the US appeared to warily support.

Announcing the incursion in the early hours of Tuesday morning, the IDF said that “limited, localized, and targeted ground raids” had begun several hours earlier.

It said they were focused on “Hezbollah targets and infrastructure” in a number of Lebanese villages along the border that posed an immediate threat to Israeli towns on the other side of the Blue Line.

Ground troops operating inside southern Lebanon were being assisted by air and artillery forces, the military said, adding that the operation was based on plans drawn up by the IDF’s General Staff and Northern Command.

The IDF’s formal confirmation that Israeli troops were operating in Lebanon came several hours after various conflicting reports emerged on social media and in some Arabic media outlets as to whether some troops had already crossed the border.

. . . Lebanese troops had further added to speculation when they pulled back about five kilometers (three miles) from positions along the border late on Monday, apparently opting to stay on the sidelines, as they have done historically in major conflicts with Israel.

Ahead of the IDF’s announcement of the incursion, an Israeli official told the Times of Israel that their US counterparts had been informed that the goal of the limited operation was to remove Hezbollah positions along the northern border, thus creating the conditions for a diplomatic agreement under which the terror group’s forces would be pushed back beyond the Litani River, in line with a UN Security Council resolution.

In an apparent attempt to assuage US concerns, two Israeli officials told the Axios news site that the operation would be limited in both time and scope and was not intended to occupy southern Lebanon.

I predicted that Israel would not send soldiers across the border. I was wrong. But at least—right now—this doesn’t look like a drawn-out engagement. On the other hand, why would Hezbollah allow itself to be pushed north of the Litani River, as UN Security Council resolution 1701 has mandated for Hezbollah?

*In a victory for collegiate free speech, a federal court has ruled that a University cannot charge outrageous “security fees” for speakers to appear on campus. This has largely been a tactic to prevent conservatives from speaking on (mostly liberal) campuses by shifting the burden of security from the University to the organization inviting a speaker.  in this case the speaker is Riley Gaines, who became well known (and widely hated) for speaking out against biological males who identify as females competing in women’s sports.

in a significant free speech victory, U.S. District Judge David Urias has enjoined the University of New Mexico from imposing a $5,400 security fee for former collegiate swimmer and activist Riley Gaines after speaking on campus.

UNM has a history of cancellation campaigns against conservative and libertarian speakers, as previously discussed on this blog.

Gaines has become a national figure in her campaign against biologically male students competing in women’s sports. While it is a position that is supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans, faculty and students have repeatedly targeted Gaines with cancel campaigns and disruptive protests.

In this case, UNM originally demanded over $10,000. The lawsuit brought by the Leadership Institute named UNM President Garnett Stokes and other UNM officials as defendants. Judge Urias was legitimately suspicious of the demand and found that it violated the First Amendment.

In his 16-page order in Leadership Institute v. Stokes(D.N.M.), Judge Urias noted that Gaines travels with her own security (itself a sad statement about this Age of Rage).  The court noted the rather fluid standard applied to Gaines:

[T]he quote of over $10,000 was for every officer UNM employed—thirty-three officers; nearly one for every three attendees the students expected. When TP-UNM asked why Defendant Stump intended to assign every officer to the Gaines event, and whether it was because of the speaker or the inviting organization, he responded that “it’s all based on individual assessments,” that they were looking at the “individual,” and that “there is not a criteria [sic].”

He also told the students that if an organization were to screen the Barbie movie in a venue on campus, he likely would not require even a single officer because the UNM police were “not worried about the Barbie movie.” He then said that security was “consistent” in how it assessed fees “to Turning Point” in the past. He described past TP-UNM events featuring other conservative speakers that generated protests at UNM. A few times during the meeting, he reiterated that UNM assesses security fees on a “case-by-case basis.” …

Notably, the court detailed how fewer than 10 protesters actually showed up and demonstrated outside of the room. Nevertheless, UNM hit Turning Point with the fee for twenty-seven officers at the event who charged for a total of 95.25 hours.

Yes, it is a victory for the angels, for these sanctions aren’t used against left-wing speakers, who, of course, aren’t as subject to student protest.

*Today Mexico gets its first woman President, the accomplished Claudia Sheinbaum, age 62. While Mexico is making a big deal of her sex, people neglect the fact that she’s also Jewish.

Claudia Sheinbaum will take office on Tuesday, the first woman and Jewish person to lead Mexico in the country’s more than 200-year history as an independent nation.

A former climate scientist and Mexico City mayor, Ms. Sheinbaum won in a landslide in general elections in June, and is succeeding her mentor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, as president of the world’s largest Spanish-speaking nation — and the United States’ top trading partner.

Ms. Sheinbaum, a leftist, campaigned on a vow to continue the legacy of her predecessor, and her win was seen by many as a clear vote of confidence in Mr. López Obrador and the party he started, Morena.

In Mexico, a country steeped in machismo where seven in every 10 women have experienced some form of violence, Ms. Sheinbaum’s inauguration is a milestone and a symbol for many of women’s empowerment.

Ms. Sheinbaum’s list of achievements is long: She has a Ph.D. in energy engineering, participated in a United Nations panel of climate scientists that was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize and governed the capital, one of the largest cities in the hemisphere.

Ms. Sheinbaum (pronounced SHANE-balm), 62, calls herself “obsessive” and “disciplined.” Her staff describe her as a tough boss with a quick temper who inspires both fear and adoration — someone more comfortable quietly getting things done than selling herself or her achievements.

To many people, she is largely perceived as a thrills-free, almost aloof politician — the opposite of Mr. López Obrador, who founded and built Morena around his outsize persona and undeniable charisma.

The descendant of Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews who emigrated to Mexico in the 20th century, Ms. Sheinbaum is also the country’s first Jewish president — a watershed moment for some and a trivial detail for others who have seen her rarely discuss her heritage.

From Wikipedia:

Both of her parents are scientists: her mother, Annie Pardo Cemo, is a biologist and professor emerita at the Faculty of Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and her father, Carlos Sheinbaum Yoselevitz, was a chemical engineer.

EneasMx, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

*The International Longshoremen’s Association is striking for a huge increase in pay, stopping all entry of good into the U.S. at many ports. This will cost the country billions of dollars and all of us are in for more inflation.

Dockworkers at dozens of U.S. ports are digging in for a massive pay increase, seeking to flex their power in a strike that aims to strangle the flow of trade across much of the country.

“This is going down in history what we’re doing here,” Harold Daggett, the head of the International Longshoremen’s Association, told hundreds of dockworkers on the picket lines at the East Coast’s busiest port at New York-New Jersey. “Nothing is going to move without us.”

Daggett rejected an offer late Monday of a 50% wage increase over six years, a boost from an earlier proposed 40% increase in wages, along with other improvements in benefits. The ILA wants to raise the base hourly rate for its roughly 45,000 members to $69 from $39, a 77% pay increase, over six years as a condition to sit down to talks with maritime employers, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.

Dockworkers typically earn a six-figure annual salary because of work rules and overtime requirements. In the financial year that ended in 2020, more than half of 3,726 dockworkers at the Port of New York and New Jersey earned more than $150,000, according to a report by the port’s regulator. About one in five dockworkers at the port earned over $250,000 that year.

Dockworkers late Monday gathered in groups several-hundred-strong, outside closed port facilities in New Jersey, blasting rock music, smoking cigars, holding placards protesting the use of automated equipment on the docks and waving American flags.

“I am here to support the union and to support the middle class of America,” said Matthew Dombrowski, a former Marine who now works as a crane operator. “We are fighting to go against automation. We are fighting to keep crane operators.”

I don’t think $150,000 per year means you’re middle class, but this is above my pay grade. It does seem to me that, with the given salaries, a demand for a 77% pay increase over six years is a bit excessive, well ahead of the rate of inflation.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili noticed that Andrzej was going to the grocery store:

A: I’m going.
Hili: Come back with what I’m thinking about.
In Polish:
Ja: Idę.
Hili: Wróć z tym, o czym teraz myślę

And a photo of sweet Szaron, who may have to have an operation to remove his cyst (it’s not malignant, but filled with fluid). He’s on antibiotics for another few days.

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

From Cat Memes:

From Jesus of the Day; a groaner:

From America’s Cultural Decline into Idiocy: a “DUH” moment:

From Masih; “Halal” means “permissible” in Islam, while “harm” means forbidden by Islamic law.  A seriously mess-up faith.

From Bryan, a big surprise:

From Susan, two funny tweets with typos:

From Malcolm, an anti-Trump meme:

From the Auschwitz Memorial, a girl, age eight, was gassed upon arrival at Auschwitz:

Two tweets from Professor Cobb. First, surely you can name this animal. It’s very hard to see in the wild:

Matthew had a retirement party, and I wasn’t invited!

41 thoughts on “Wednesday: Hili dialogue”

  1. Oof – a mix of hilarity and the worst darkness…

    You know who likes kale?

    Guinea pigs.

    They can tire of it, but generally enjoy it.

  2. Also from Wikipedia, President Sheinbaum’s Ashkenazi grandparents emigrated from Bulgaria to Mexico to escape WW2-period persecution of the Jews. Part of the assimilated diaspora.

  3. I love kale. Steam it and toss it with toasted sesame oil and tamari! Everyone seems to love that.

    1. Fry kale in bacon grease and onions, add a little Worcestershire sauce and other seasonings, smother it in cheese, and then spread it on garlic toast. People will love it even more. Don’t forget to pair it with an appropriate wine.

  4. And regarding typos, while I have disabled autocorrect in my copy of Word, versions of AI still creep in from other sources such as Hotmail (and even WEIT comment textwriter) to “help” me….aaargh! An early, 1990’s story from when I was chair of our local K-12 school board and my day job was with NASA: these were the early days of office software technology automation and NASA was about a year ahead of the public schools in implementation. One day I received a draft memo, for the addition of my signature to the school system Superintendent’s, that would be sent to all parents of the 31,000 students in our school division. It was short, and as I read it before signing, I read that “The Newport News Pubic Schools….”. I called the Superintendent and asked if this were really what he meant to send out, and after a short silence, he exclaimed something like “no…how could this happen?!” Well sir, you (or more likely his secretary) typed a legitimate word from the software’s dictionary, so it was not flagged – in the early days just spelling, not context was checked. He asked if there were a way to avoid a recurrence and I said that our IT guy could likely remove the offending word, “pubic”, from the text software dictionary which would lead to it being flagged before anyone put it in correspondence. Relieved, he corrected the subject memo to “Public” but would remain forever wary of his office software thereafter.

    1. Yep. One needs to be very careful. I’ve used Microsoft Word for as long as there has been Word, and I’ve managed to tame it. (There are ways to tell it to avoid changing certain words, etc.) I have yet to tame the spelling correction algorithm on my Apple iPad or phone, but I’ve left it on because it helps some of the time. Sometimes the word changes really p*ss me off and cause yelling (from me not from the iPad). Apple seems to be more insistent than Word at changing what I write, probably because Apple is politically further to the left than Microsoft. 🙂

      2. Yes Apple is very insistent on “fixing” spelling. I use an iPhone and I’ve learned to live with it. It usually makes good guesses.

        Of course I’m not using it for work!

    2. I need an AI-assisted spellchecker that can sort out certain homophones. My eye passes right over them, hear, their, and everywhere.

      I just went into my MS Word options to see whether I could find such a beast. I didn’t, but I did note that I can set options for “inclusiveness”—nine wonderful ways to police my writing so as not to offend the children.

        1. I did in my first draft, Leslie, but my spellchecker caught that one!

          Sew, eye due knot no what ewe mean. I needed some measure of authenticity!

    3. Classic typo joke:

      A priest, a pastor, and a rabbit entered a clinic to donate blood.
      The nurse asked the rabbit: “What’s your blood type?”
      “I’m probably a Type O”, said the rabbit.

      (By “classic” I mean I first heard it over a month ago.)

  6. It will be very interesting how Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum leads her country. Mexico is a huge trading partner, and the U.S. will need her close cooperation at the border and in trade relations. Her biography is very impressive.

    Cute reunion with Grandma at the airport. Amazingly, it looks like no one was arrested!

    And on National Kale Day. My wife and I belong to a farm share plan whereby, for an annual fee, we get wonderful vegetables from a local farm every two weeks from spring to fall. Some of the vegetables are picked for us; others we pick in the field. Kale is one of those that we pick. This time of year—as well as in late spring—there are several varieties of kale available. One has reddish leaves, another dark green and crinkly, another lighter green and crinklier. We are allowed to cut (with scissors) a certain number of leaves from each type of plant. (Are you retching yet?) Today is the day we’re scheduled to pick up vegetables and cut our kale. The several types do taste different—mostly in terms of the level of bitterness, but they are all excellent raw in salads and cooked in other recipes. They’re an acquired taste. Acquiring a taste for kale is not required. It’s OK not to like it!

    1. “Her biography is very impressive”: I am reading Michael Oren’s history of U.S.- Middle East relations. He laments that in the many countries where Jews assimilate and are very successful, they are in trouble for taking over everything, but if they are not highly successful, then they are looked at as a drain on the economy. Why the existence of Israel is essential.

      1. Yeah. If you’re Jewish, you can’t be an unmitigated success. There’s always an implied asterisk by your name. I’m glad to have been born in the U.S.A. 🇺🇸 but of late I have come to have the sad opinion that there is only one country where Jews are welcome without reservation, and that country is Israel. As you say, Jim, Israel is essential.

        And speaking of Michael Oren, I attended an online discussion with him a couple of years ago, before October 7. He, too, was impressive. Very clear-headed and firm in his convictions. I had the honor of asking him a question—one of many from the online audience—but I felt honored to be able to talk with him nonetheless.

    2. Respectfully, Norm, I might decline your and your wife’s dinner invitation on my next drive through your city.
      best,
      D.A.
      NYC

    3. The secret to raw kale salad is to massage the leaves with some salt and then wait a half hour before serving.
      I also like to roast it.

  7. Captain Obvious here. I don’t see any merit to the dock workers strike, given the high salaries and other benefits that they enjoy. No one will sympathize with this.

    1. Lieutenant-Commander Obvious replies:
      The strike isn’t meant to benefit anyone except the longshoremen. Merit and sympathy are entirely beside the point….unless the government needs to appeal to popular sentiment to legislate them back to work.

    2. Regarding Jerry writing about the striking dock workers:

      I don’t think $150,000 per year means you’re middle class, but this is above my pay grade.

      One of the very rare cases where Jerry is very much wrong. Though he deserves credit for recognizing that this is “above his pay grade.”

      These dock workers are very well paid, especially given their level of education. They are upper-middle class. In 2022, the fourth (from the bottom of the income distribution) pre-tax household income quintile (60th-80th percentiles in the income distribution) was between US $ 94,000 and 153,000, with a mean income in this quintile of US $ 119,900 (source given below).

      How come these workers are so well-paid? They sit at a choke point of the economy, and face no competition. That is why I think the government should intervene and break the strike, if it lasts a while. This strike is akin to firemen striking in the sense that firemen face no competition either. Without competition, consumers can expect the equivalent of economic blackmail.

      Household Income Quintiles: 1967 to 2022
      https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/household-income-quintiles
      Source: US Census Bureau. Historical Income Tables: Households. March 2024. [Data source: Current Population Survey, 1968 to 2023 Annual Social and Economic Supplements (CPS ASEC).]
      Tables H-1 and H-3
      https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-income-households.html

      The news item Jerry quoted said this:

      In the financial year that ended in 2020, more than half of 3,726 dockworkers at the Port of New York and New Jersey earned more than $150,000, according to a report by the port’s regulator.

      In 2020, a pre-tax household income of $150,000, put a household in the top income quintile of the household income disribution (that is, above the 80th percentile of the household income distribution). In that year the upper limit of the fourth quintile of this distribution was $141,110.

  8. The port unions are costing the US economy tens of billions a year (literally) by imposing on the country the world’s most inefficient ports, refusing all modernisation and automation. It’s akin to a union having a monopoly on labor for construction, and then insisting that no-one may use mechanical diggers, and that all digging must be done by their members using teaspoons. Sometimes (not always) unions just need to be smashed to smithereens for the wider good.

    1. Yes, Coel.
      And this just in: “Janitors Union rejects vacuum cleaners.”
      🙂

      If you look at the efficiency of US ports – and the unions have been anti-tech since… forever… ours lag not just behind East Asia and the (new) Middle East Gulf states ports but even some ports in Africa. To be beaten by Luanda, Angola and Pointe Noir, Congo b/c our unions don’t like machines… at the cost to all Americans, is terrible.

      D.A.
      NYC

    2. 1 in 5 workers makes over 250k?!! their overtime pay must scale like crazy. You ain’t getting there on $39 an hour. If their demands are met the highest paid would make over 400k. I mean how much education does this job actually require? This seems really ethical too. Healthcare workers should have went on mass strike during Covid and let a bunch of people die. Firemen should demand a few grand if a building is on fire. I’d have Logan Roy tell em what to do.

  9. Mexico made little progress before AMLO. Mexico made little progress under AMLO. Mexico is unlikely to make much progress after AMLO. Take a look at FRED series NYGDPPCAPKDMEX. Constant dollar per-capita GDP has grown very little since 1981. This really should not be too surprising. Mexico’s PISA scores are quite low. Note, that Mexico did quite well before 1981. Indeed, it was common to talk of the ‘Mexican miracle’ (with no sarcasm) at one time. Neoliberalism has not been kind to Mexico. ‘Free trade’ has not been kind to Mexico. The PRI was better in retrospect, than was generally believed at the time. Amazingly enough, Alexis Tocqueville wrote about this.

  10. Dockworkers: The head of their union is apparently a disciple of Orange Julius, so this is all intended to sow discontent in advance of the election.

    Kale: Au contraire – kale is more the wild-type; cabbage was domesticated from something like it some millenia ago – there seems to be wide uncertainty when. My black friends agree that kale is just collards for white boys, and in any event it needs to be cooked with smoked meat, and if you try using smoked turkey, I doubt you’ll ever go back to ham hocks.

  12. Everyone is dumping on the dockworkers. Probably rightly so, but it is useful to remember that the disruption of shipping caused by the pandemic resulted in profits for the shipping industry that were greater than all previous years combined. Those companies relied on the distress of the world and made stunning, enormous amounts of money in the past few years. There’s a whole lot of thievery going on in this world and the dockworkers are just trying to get their share. They can be denied their demands and the bloody wealthy will get even richer. Same as it ever was.

    1. Proposed solution: allow new entrants into the market who can open new docks using automation. The new firms will introduce more efficient competition within the dock owners as well as the labor they employ. Lower prices for the loading and unloading of ships would reduce the costs of goods for the rest of us.
      I don’t know why this hasn’t happened yet, but I’d guess there’s some degree of political funding from both the dock owners and the union going to politicians. Or it could be the docks are either owned or managed by the local or state governments, again, with well-funded politicians making the rules. Again, same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was…

  14. I don’t care if Sheinbaum is Jewish, a woman, or even has a cute Australian shepherd dog like I do: she’s a disaster for Mexico. And us.

    She’s an extended phenotype of the hideous, commie Amlo and he helped to arrange her succession with a bunch of strategic moves, a type of political “dead hand” that’ll have his dirty fingers directing things way into the future.
    She’s a disaster.
    And you just know that when she fails… it won’t be the woman, or the dog they blame. It’ll be “JEW!”

    David Frum has reported on this extensively.

    D.A.
    NYC

  15. Thank you Prof Cobb for the pic of the Aardvark. I spent a happy 10 mins reading up about this creature, including the gem that the name derives from Afrikaans for earth pig.

  17. Let me offer a modest defense of the sign about roads and water. All roads get wet when it rains. However, most roads don’t flood. Some do and they should be avoided. A few years ago, I tried to help some folks who we trapped by water. They (their house and cars) suffered no damage. However, the street in front of them had two feet of water. They could not go anywhere (except on foot).

  18. Seeing a live aardvark in Africa is about as easy as seeing a Corn Crake in Europe.
    We once saw a dead decaying one. I wonder why they are hard to see. So funny looking. Rabbit and donkey and other genes must be involved.Where are they easiest to see? What kind of habitat?

  19. Well, no one can force you to eat kale! Sort of like eating a washcloth if you dont have anything else. But collard greens are just great….greasy greens with bacon and fat. No BBQ place I know would feature kale…..it’s just gotten this reputation from vegans and vegetarians, who need to suffer a bit when they eat. I prefer not to. Maybe it’s their religious objection to eating meat, especially bacon or pork. It doesnt make them virtuous though.

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