Tuesday: Hili dialogue

January 7, 2025 • 7:00 am

NOTE: I will be out of town for a meeting from Thursday of this week through much of next week, so posting will be very light. See the announcement under the Nooz.

Welcome to Tuesday, the Cruelest Day. It is January 7, 2025, and National Tempura Day. Does anybody not like the stuff? I would even eat my vegetables if they were prepared that way! According to Wikipedia, tempura is actually a case of multiple cultural appropriation:

Earlier Japanese deep-fried food was either simply fried without breading or batter or fried with rice flour.However, toward the end of the 16th century, the technique of fritter-cooking with a batter of flour and eggs was acquired in Nagasaki by Portuguese missionaries. Peixinhos da horta was a dish often eaten during Lent or Ember days, to fulfill the fasting and abstinence rules for Catholics. The word “tempura” originates from the Latin word tempora, a term referring to these fasting times  (Spanish: Témporas). In those days, the ingredients were covered in thick batter containing flour, sugar and sake, and then fried in lard. As the batter already contained seasoning, it was eaten without dipping sauce.

This looks toothsome, and is captioned A tower-shaped kakiage bowl (Temdon), a specialty of Oarai Town, Japan (I added the link, as kakiage is a subspecies of tempura):

ジョンドウ, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

It’s also Orthodox Christmas Day, National Pass Gas Day, and National Bobblehead Day.  Here’s my bobblehead of Hitch, complete with ciggie and glass of Johnnie Walker Black, the amber restorative. Jealous?

And my tipple: a pint of Timothy Taylor’s Landlord, served to my friend Andrew in London today. He’s torturing me with photos of my favorite English beer!

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the January 7 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

I will be out of town from Thursday through the 16th of January at a conference at USC in California. Matthew has kindly agreed to post the Hili dialogues, which of course cannot be missed, and I will post as often as time permits.

*Thank goodness the Democrats don’t behave like Republicans when certifying an election they lost. Kamala Harris, as President of the Senate, certified the election of Donald Trump yesterday. She did it with grace, and there was no fracas in the Capitol. (Article is archived here.)

A joint session of Congress on Monday certified President-elect Donald J. Trump’s victory in the 2024 election, peacefully performing a basic ritual of democracy that was brutally disrupted four years ago by a violent pro-Trump mob inflamed by his lie about a stolen election.

There was no hint of a similar scene this time, although security had been stepped up at the Capitol. Unlike Mr. Trump back then, Vice President Kamala Harris did not dispute her loss in November, and unlike Republicans in the aftermath of the 2020 balloting, Democrats made no objections during the counting of the Electoral College votes.

Instead, Ms. Harris stoically presided over the certification of her own loss without interruption. The presentation of the results unfolded quickly without drama, as House and Senate lawmakers who had been designated in advance read out the number of electoral votes from each state in alphabetical order, and who won them.

One by one, the lawmakers, Republicans and Democrats, rose to declare each state’s electoral votes “regular in form and authentic,” and nobody rose to challenge any. The only sign of partisanship in the House chamber was in the applause: Only Republicans applauded after the counting of each state that Mr. Trump won, and rose at the end for a standing ovation when it was announced that he had secured a majority, while only Democrats clapped for the states that Ms. Harris won and rose to applaud when her total electoral votes were announced.

Here’s a video of the official announcement, with each side clapping for their candidate:

*Succumbing to pressure from both his own party and Canadians in general, Justin Trudeau is stepping down as head of Liberal Party and also as Prime Minister, though they need to choose a replacement for both roles before he’s gone. (Article is archived here.)

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada announced on Monday that he would step down as Liberal Party leader and prime minister, a decision that will install new leadership in Canada by late March, after his party picks a new head.

“Every bone in my body has always told me to fight because I care deeply about Canadians,” Mr. Trudeau said as he announced his decision in Ottawa, the capital. His resignation sets off a succession battle to replace him after he spent roughly a decade at the helm of both the party and the country.

The upheaval comes as the country is grappling with how best to deal with President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pledge to impose crippling tariffs on all imports from Canada on his first day in office. Canada and the United States are each other’s biggest trading partners.

Mr. Trudeau visited Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida, in late November, and his government had been in talks to address the president-elect’s concerns about border security in hopes that he would reconsider his tariff threat.

Mr. Trudeau has faced weeks of mounting pressure from inside his party’s ranks. In December, Mr. Trudeau’s deputy prime minister and finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, abruptly stepped down in a stinging rebuke of his leadership and stewardship of the country.

Her resignation incited a growing chorus of voices from Liberal parliamentarians asking him to step aside for the sake of the party, and let someone else lead the Liberal Party against the Conservatives in the next general election, which must be held by October.

, , , , Mr. Trudeau has been in power since 2015, having resuscitated the Liberals, who had crashed electorally before he took over in 2013. But he has become deeply unpopular: According to a poll released last month by Ipsos, 73 percent of Canadians — including 43 percent of Liberal voters — believed he should step down as party leader.

If it’s good enough for Canadians, it’s good enough for me. He became too woke for me, but I worry about the possibility of a Conservative Party PM after the next election. Canadian readers are invited to weigh in with their opinions about their political future.

*Where should you sit in a plane if you want to survive a possible crash?  The WSJ, discussing the recent crashes in Korea and Kazakhstan, implies it’s toward the rear, but they’re cagey. (Article is archived here.)

The two flight attendants who survived the Boeing 737-800 crash were seated in the very back of the plane, which was the only recognizable part of the aircraft left intact.

“There are a lot of reasons someone may survive in what appears to be a totally unsurvivable situation,” said Barbara Dunn, president of the International Society of Air Safety Investigators. “Depending on how the aircraft lands and where a passenger is seated has an impact. If you have your seat belt tightened, it limits the amount of flailing the body goes through. It also depends on whether a passenger is able to assume a brace position.”

Days before the Jeju Air accident, as many as 29 people survived the crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines flight that killed 38 people in western Kazakhstan. The preliminary conclusions of an Azerbaijani probe said the plane had been hit by Russian air-defense missiles. The crew battled for more than an hour to maintain constant speed and altitude before it crashed, The Wall Street Journal reported.

All surviving passengers were seated in the rear of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane.

. . . . . The relative safety of where occupants are seated during a crash varies, and one of the biggest factors is how the aircraft touches down. Passengers up front in a nose-first crash bear the brunt of the impact, but other factors also come into play.

. . . . .“A lot of people think it’s safer in the back than in the front,” Dunn said. “Not necessarily. How quick the fire takes over and how quick you can get to an exit, all those things matter as well.”

Yes, but we’re talking about averages across multiple crashes here. On average, if there are survivors, where are they sitting?  Well, Travel and Leisure has an answer:

At long last, we finally have an answer. “There actually is a safer place to sit on a plane, and that is in the rear of the aircraft,” says Dan Bubb, Ph. D., an associate professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

According to a 2015 analysis by Time magazine of 35 years of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) data, seats in the back third of the aircraft had a fatality rate of 32 percent, whereas those in the middle third had a fatality rate of 39 percent and the ones in the front third had a fatality rate of 38 percent. Even more specifically, the middle seats in the back of the aircraft are statistically the safest, with just a 28 percent fatality rate. By comparison, aisle seats in the middle of the cabin had a fatality rate of 44 percent.

But remember, these are just overall odds based on previous plane accidents — and there have been outliers. For example, when United Airlines Flight 232 crashed in Sioux City, Iowa, in 1989, most of the 184 survivors were sitting in the middle third of the plane. In the 1977 Tenerife disaster — aviation’s deadliest accident, which killed 583 people — the 61 survivors sat mainly in the front of the Pan Am aircraft that was involved in the collision, while all aboard the KLM plane perished.

There you go. Of course, if you sit in the rear you deplane last, and, depending on whether you have a connecting flight or want overhead bin space, you may want to weigh those factors versus the chance of your demise.

*This is clickbait if ever there was such a thing: a new article at the Free Press called “A ‘museum of terror’ at Columbia. Plus”  (it links to a longer article here that has not and cannot be archived).

It’s been over a year since three Ivy League presidents lost their jobs for refusing to respond appropriately to the explosion of antisemitism on their campuses.

Columbia president Minouche Shafik didn’t get grilled by Elise Stefanik. She resigned suddenly in August. But her school is arguably the worst of all.

Last year, in addition to the infamous takeover of Hamilton Hall during which 109 people were arrested, Jewish students reported being chased out of dorms, spat on, and pinned against walls. One was told to “go back to Poland.” (Read about all of that and more in this 90-page report.)

But if you thought this year was calmer, think again.

Take a recent exhibit at Columbia, named “Hind’s House” after a 5-year-old Gazan girl, Hind Rajab, who was killed in Israel’s war with Hamas. At the two-day event in November, hosted by a campus-affiliated, pro-Palestianian group called Alpha Delta Phi (ADP), Columbia students showed off the tools and plans behind their occupation of Hamilton Hall.

Wrenches, hammers, ropes, and wire cutters were treated like a museum exhibit, next to the message: “DO NOT GET YOUR FINGERPRINTS ON THESE!!”

One wall was covered with artworks calling for Ceasefire Now, with some pieces merging Jewish imagery with violence, including a blood-spattered Jewish star.

Uncredited Free Press photo

On November 14, four days after the Hind’s House event, two Jewish students at Columbia filed a Title VI complaint, which The Free Press is reporting today for the first time. In it, Shoshana Aufzien and Alon Levin describe the “terrorist propaganda and antisemitic tropes” displayed “in such a blatant manner” that it made them “feel targeted and unsafe.”

Find out what else they saw at the exhibit, along with video of a speaker calling for a “Zionist-free NYC,” by reading Maya Sulkin’s exclusive report:“Inside Columbia University’s ‘Museum of Terror’.”

Jews will not be applying in droves to Columbia in the future, that’s for sure.

*The WaPo has an op-ed taking a dim view of Biden’s presidency—a piece by columnist Matt Bai called “Biden’s legacy: a bridge to nowhere.” (Piece is archived here.)

In the long run, we tend to remember one-term presidents more for their principled stands than for their ultimate failures. Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard M. Nixon has become, over the years, a story of self-sacrifice. Jimmy Carter has been lauded by a bevy of recent historians for having challenged Americans to better themselves. George H.W. Bush is fondly recalled (by Democrats, at least) for raising taxes, consequences be damned.

That won’t be Joe Biden’s legacy. After a lifetime of noble service, he will be chiefly remembered — like so many in his generation — as a man who didn’t know when to leave.

It’s not that Biden didn’t achieve anything grand or lasting. He had, arguably, the most successful two-year legislative cycle of any president in memory, investing trillions of dollars in clean energy and high-tech industries. He led a rejuvenated NATO and managed to navigate the narrow gantlet between turning back Russian aggression, on one hand, and blundering into a nuclear war on the other. He deserves his due.

But none of that gets to the principal reason that most Americans took a chance on Biden in 2020, when he was making his third run at the presidency in his 78th year. Voters didn’t think they were buying into some New Deal sequel (no matter what the left might have read into the election results). They certainly didn’t elect Biden to guide the country through a second cold war.

What the voters thought they were getting, amida paralyzing pandemic and a teetering economy, is exactly what Biden held himself out to be: a transitional leader who would restore a sense of calm and normalcy. Biden never actually promised to serve a single term, but the implication was clear, even to some of his closest aides. His job, as he himself put it, was to act as a “bridge” — from the political ruins of his generation to whatever the next one might erect in its place.

Why did Biden’s bridge collapse so spectacularly? There’s no single answer. After a half-century of ascending unsteadily to the apex of power, Biden seemed reluctant to yield it so easily. Jetting around the world, juggling mental and physical demands that would have crushed a lot of us who were substantially younger, he must have felt that the transition could wait a few more years.

Other answers proffered by Bai include his anointing Kamala Harris as his stand-in as candidate, without a primary (as Bai says, “modern Democrats are terrified of any process they can’t orchestrate”), and his failure to step down when it was bloody obvious that he should. I was a big booster for Biden four years ago, but he turned out too woke for me, and possibly showing signs of mental deterioration.

By the time Biden took the stage for his debate with Trump in June, it was clear that history had been hijacked by a dangerous delusion — one shared and fostered by his senior aides and even the reporters who covered him most closely. It was one thing for the octogenarian president to read his State of the Union address off a teleprompter with a few ad-libs thrown in, the elated reaction to which would have made you think he had just articulated a new string theory for the universe while doing backflips. It was quite another to see him shuffle onstage and choke on his syntax while Trump grinned like Nurse Ratched.

Even now, during the waning hours of Biden’s term, it’s impossible to look at him and think: here’s a guy who should have been running for president again. Twenty years on, it will rank among the most self-evidently foolish acts of denial in which any incumbent party has ever engaged.

Bai does devote a paragraph to Biden’s accomplishments, which seem to amount to “boosting electric cars and supporting Ukraine”, but the former isn’t taking off that quickly and the latter may be a failure. And I fault Biden for his overly lame support of Israel. Still, you have to say that he was infinitely better than Trump.  Let’s reassess that in four years.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili parodies Judith Butler. When I asked for details, Malgorzata said, “Well, Judish Butler probably never said anything like that. Hili is inventing a string of incomprehensible (or newly minted) words, just to show how stupid they sound.”

Hili: I have to deconstruct the myth about the unity of intersectional and holistic thinking.
Andrzej: Please, stop it.
In Polish:
Hili: Muszę zdekonstruować mit o jedności myślenia intersekcjonalnego i holistycznego.
Ja: Proszę, przestań.

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

From Donna (artist unknown):

From David (this is a possibility, but very, very remote):

From Cat Memes, a tough Ukrainian cat:

One from Masih that I reposted:

From Malcolm; I would totally nom that cat, which appears to be accompanied by sweet beans:

From Luana; DEI is deep-sixed–at a Canadian university!

From my Bluesky feed:

Built a Lego model of my cat | Credit: Littleno | #cat #cats #catlover #ilovemycat #thisistrendytails

— Trendy Tails (@trendytails.bsky.social) 2025-01-05T14:17:44.044Z

From my Twitter feed. This is why when I went to Everest (twice) I avoided Base Camp and climbed nearby Kala Patthar (18,519 feet). It’s MUCH lovelier than all this garbage, and you get a stupendous view of Everest’s west face.

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:

Gassed to death upon arrival at Auschwitz, this French boy was just five.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-01-07T12:22:53.469Z

Two tweets from Professor (Emeritus) Cobb, First, a groaner from Stephen King (yes, the Stephen King):

Knock-knock.Who's there?Nobel.Nobel who?Nobel, that's why I knocked.

— Stephen King (@stephenking.bsky.social) 2024-12-20T15:16:08.599Z

 

And what Jurassic Park should really have looked like:

I did it again!Jurassic Park with accurate raptors, a short part 2#jurassicpark #blender3d

— Coolioart (@coolioart.bsky.social) 2025-01-05T22:17:22.673Z

48 thoughts on “Tuesday: Hili dialogue”

  1. Why weren’t the MAGA people worried that Kamala would certify herself? Four years ago the argument was that Pence could certify Trump as the winner and it was all constitutional. That was the “do the right thing”. Looks like it was all BS and they knew it was all BS.

    1. “Why weren’t the MAGA people worried that Kamala would certify herself?”

      Because Congress passed a law in 2022 that clearly specifies, as the below article summarizes, that “the vice president’s responsibilities in the process are merely ceremonial and that the vice president has no say in determining who actually won the election.” Moreover, it now prohibits a single member from objecting to the certification and consequently forcing a roll call vote—a process that both parties previously abused.

      https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/congress-approves-new-election-certification-rules-in-response-to-jan-6

  2. There should be a garbage fee for all Everest climbers that funds a collection crew. Maybe also a body fee. What a gross place.

    1. Alternatively, a group could climb Everest specifically to take out more junk than anyone thought was humanly possible, bravely pushing themselves to their limits and beyond — and the media could treat it accordingly. Front page, big articles, all of them claiming that NO ONE could EVER remove MORE junk from such a PERILOUS place as Mt. Everest.

      Then watch what happens.

    2. There have been several massive cleanups in the past. But I guess they’re just not keeping up with new garbage.

  3. Kamala Harris’ technique for keeping sublated was to visualize the unprecedented millions of Democrat voters in future elections that entered the United States through its borders over the past four years.

    1. That’s pretty much what Trudeau was hoping for too. Only he deliberately brought in huge numbers of legal immigrants plus more foreign students.

      The percentage by population was even higher than the Biden southern border illegals plan.

      There’s now a massive housing crisis in Canada. An entire generation of young people are affected. On the West Coast they can’t even afford rent never mind buy.

      Trudeau was so stupid he never even thought about where these people would live. Since they’re legal they have money and compete with residents for housing.

      It’s also affecting healthcare and other services. People are furious to say the least.

      1. Was this actually a plan? There isn’t, to my mind, any real evidence that he had such a cynical reason for bringing in the immigrants. I believe it was motivated more by “woke” reasoning about the importance of diversity and our “duty” to the poor of the world.

        1. A major reason was to stimulate the economy by increasing the population size – the usual sort of Ponzi approach to economic growth. Canada would approach a stable age distribution if not for immigration, and the Grits were hoping to gin up the number of taxpayers.

          1. Yeah that is a less cynical more pragmatic reason, but my point was more that it wasn’t “more liberal voters” reason

            I think we need a cultural and political shift to have a discussion on how to increase the birth rate because the pro immigration side are correct that the age distribution isn’t favourable without high immigration. However I don’t believe the levels that the government went to were necessary, we needed more young people but not quite as many as we got. I also think they needed a better plan for ensuring the supply of services and housing was increasing to match the growing population. I don’t know how they would enforce that though since the relevant areas (housing, teacher training, medical schools) are all provincial jurisdiction.

            I also think we need better cultural integration programs than we have (but that goes against the spirit of woke multiculturalism so is unlikely to ever happen).

          2. How did “Grit” get to be a nickname for Liberal Party members? My only exposure to that word in reference to a person meant a southern US redneck.

        2. To reply to latest comment but it is too deeply nested:

          The problem in Canada is the new immigrants can and do bring in their older parents.

          Some immigration is fine but Trudeau brought in way too many too fast.

          As an older person I am an actual beneficiary as I sold my modest condo for an incredible price to move into retirement living.

          The condo was bought by a wealthy man for his son. The real estate agent told me that young people could not buy without this type of help.

          A friend of mine has her two adult children living at home still as they can’t afford rent.

          I am furious with Trudeau and his party. I don’t care what his reasons were: it was incredibly stupid and there is no way to easily fix it now.

          1. This is for Barb Knox who asked a question about Grits.
            From a pre-Confederation political party in what is now Ontario led by George Brown, a newspaperman and later Father of Confederation who allied with what became the Liberal Party of Canada:
            “all sand and no dirt, clear grit all the way through” (attributed)
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_Grits

            The page points out policy positions that might resonate in the present discussion: proportional representation, abolition of the Clergy Reserves, reduction in government expenditure, freedom of speech, free trade with the United States, and ideological harmony with Thomas Jefferson. There is nothing new under the sun. Good ideas endure.

            Great question, Barb!

  4. They sequester the “black boxes” (flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder) in the rear for survivability and that’s good enough for me.

    Did not see anything on your meeting next week under da nooz..

    1. I remember a Tim Conway character on The Carol Burnet Show saying that he preferred the rear of the plane “because you’ve never heard of a plane backing into a mountain.”

  5. A collective sigh of relief that Trudeau has resigned is all you’ll hear up here. The last nine years—the last five with a minority government— have been exactly what you’d expect if student politics ran the place (think of The Squad in the USA), and while I don’t particularly care for PP, a change is necessary and he is what is on offer. I shall vote for him as we cannot continue with the Liberals until they have had a good long spell in opposition, and thought hard about their failings.
    Pay attention, though, to the way JT has engineered his leaving. Parliament has been prorogued for nearly three months to allow for a new Liberal leader to be selected and to run a campaign (the government will fall just as soon as the house sits again). Under the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy, it is forbidden to prorogue parliament simply to avoid a vote of non-confidence (Boris tried in the UK and was told “No” by the Supreme Court), but that is what has been done. He knows the Liberal Party would be wiped out if an election were to be held now (a no confidence vote on Parliament’s previously scheduled return at the end of January would mean JT leading the Liberals into annihilation), and he is hoping that the widespread anger and frustration will have died down by the time we get to an election in late April. So it is all to avoid the consequences of his misrule, and the Governor General JT appointed has allowed it.

    1. Thank you Mr. Moss. I rely on you and Leslie to keep me appraised of what’s going on up there.
      Our media doesn’t do an excellent job.
      D.A.
      NYC

    2. In Canada, typically the Conservatives form a government for a few years, then the Liberals, and repeat. The Conservatives are not as extreme as the Republicans in the U.S., so having them in power is not as divisive to Canadians as politics is in the U.S. Judging by the number of F**k Trudeau stickers on cars, he is not well liked at the moment.
      Admittedly he almost had my vote in the last election because he promised to hold a referendum on proportional representation, a voting system that I am strongly in favour of. In fact the results of that election were a perfect example of why we should have proportional representation (Green party and Bloc Quebecois party had almost the same number of votes, yet the Green party only had 2 seats in Parliament, while the Bloc had 33). However I’m jaded enough not to believe the promises of politicians, and wasn’t surprised when Trudeau backed out of that promise almost immediately after being elected. Neither the Liberals nor Conservatives would support a referendum on proportional representation as it would guarantee they would lose votes since people wouldn’t have to vote strategically (Don’t want Liberals in, so vote Conservative, or vice-versa instead of voting for who you want to vote for).

      1. Did you actually follow what happened to the electoral reform question? It died in committee because no one could agree on the replacement. IMO he should have just gone ahead and done something anyway but it wasn’t as if they just backtracked immediately, they studied it, got input from Canadians, and tried to get all parties to agree on some form of reform.

    3. A huge number of us are not at all happy he resigned and do not want PP.

      Trudeau was too woke, but I believe his biggest real mistake was on immigration, the woke belief that you can have unfettered immigration and still have a social welfare state is a fantasy that I believe he and too many of his cabinet were committed to. This underlays a huge amount of the problems currently facing Canada today.
      Housing prices and access to government services are both related to having too much demand and not enough supply which is a direct result of having too many people come into the country too quickly. The quality of service at health care delivery is a provincial issue.

      Trudeau’s gov brought us the child family benefit which was probably the most successful program ever to lift children out of poverty, the recent dental care act provides coverage to hundreds of thousands, many of them seniors like my mother who can finally afford regular dental visits. These aren’t nothing programs.

      This decision and the likely conservative government to come are not going to be a solution, instead we are likely to see things get worse instead of better.
      Is PP going to make the CPP better or worse?
      Is PP going to actually be able to lower grocery prices?
      Does PP have any climate policy worth mentioning?
      Is PP going to somehow force provinces to improve health care?

      Sure you can rail at the wokeness but it’s small potatoes when it comes to the federal government.

      I would rather a woke liberal government than an anti-woke conservative government.

      1. I think that the answer to all of your questions is “No”.

        Pierre Pouting has no ideas of how to fix things. All he can offer is criticism of the party in power.

      2. Are you saying that you weren’t paying for your own mother to have regular dental care even though she couldn’t afford it herself and you are happy that the Government stepped in to let you off the hook for your obligation as her son? (All it covers is cleaning and simple things. Would it really break you?)

        Only a Canadian would express it this way: that the taxpayers have an obligation to ME. People in other countries need to know that is exactly how Canadians think.

        1. As you know nothing about my family or financial situations, it’s presumptuous of you to make any assumptions about how I handled my responsibilities regarding my mother’s health care, let alone condemn me for your perceptions of how I dealt with them.

          1. Yes — I was surprised (polite term) by the apparent tone of the comment that you had to respond to, above.

      3. I agree with much of your analysis. I’ve voted NDP or Liberal most of my life. But I despise the current Liberals. They need to lose an election to make them rethink some of their crazy policies. PP is not Trump, he’s respectable.

  6. So much to comment on that the Rool on length prevents. But regarding Hitch: I’m not jealous of his cigarette or his drink—or the fact that he died at a young age. But it’s very cool to have a bobblehead. I wonder if one could have one made for oneself. Probably! Let’s see what Etsy says.

  7. Regarding U of AB and DEI, I would suspect that that is merely a rebranding. Better if they had replaced it with nothing.

  8. I saw a factoid yesterday that, interestingly, claims that this is the first certification of a Republican President since 1989 that a Democrat hasn’t objected to.

  9. Columbia has a terrible reputation. The following are quotes from Yeonmi Park.

    “I expected that I was paying this fortune, all this time and energy, to learn how to think. But they are forcing you to think the way they want you to think”
    “I realized, ‘Wow, this is insane.’ I thought America was different, but I saw so many similarities to what I saw in North Korea that I started worrying.”

    “Even North Korea is not this nuts. North Korea is pretty crazy, but not this crazy”

  10. Biden should not have run for reelection. He should have kicked out K. Harris and appointed someone to replace her. I recommended this path back in 2023, and have the Emails to show it.

  11. Our host has indicated he worries about a Conservative Prime Minister for Canada. Given that the synthesis of current polling predicts a 98% likelihood of a stomping Conservative Majority, with even Toronto Liberal seats likely to fall and the Separatists likely to not only win all the traditionally Liberal French seats in Québec but also form (ironically) His Majesty’s Loyal Official Opposition, that’s what we are going to get. I do hope Barack Obama stays out of it this time.

    The polling support for the Conservatives now outweighs the combined Leftist vote (Lib+NDP+Green). Leftists traditionally complain that when Conservative governments get in, 60% of the country wanted some species of socialism, not conservatism. This time around, if you exclude the irrelevant Québec Separatist Bloc, the Conservatives are within a whisker of sampling error of absolute majority popular support, a significant feat in multi-party politics.
    https://338canada.com/
    If anyone has a moral mandate to be PM, it will be Pierre Poilievre if he can pull this off in an actual election and turn it into the predicted seat majority. (The national popular vote doesn’t matter here any more than in the United States. It’s just what pollsters feed into their models to predict seats and states.)

    Polling taken just before Mr. Trudeau’s announcement, which has been widely anticipated in recent weeks, suggests that no putative replacement would do any better. Liberal support is currently concentrated among women over 65, the mostly white (because old) demographic that read Margaret Atwood in the 1970s and still listens to the CBC. The young multi-cults have shifted Conservative and don’t have much empathy for old white ladies sitting on over-priced real estate and consuming free health care that young people who don’t look like them have to pay for.

    Even though it is assumed there will be an election called as soon as Parliament reconvenes in March with a new Liberal leader installed, this ain’t necessarily so. The leader of the perpetually minor Leftist party, Jagmeet Singh, has said he will vote with the Conservatives against the Government in a confidence motion ASAP. But his New Democratic Party is as likely as the Liberals to be wiped out in a spring election. (That’s where that huge predicted Conservative Majority comes from.) It is also broke. With a new Liberal leader (and, by convention, PM), there would be every political reason for Mr. Singh to change his mind and see what socialist policies the rejuvenated governing Liberals might be induced to enact as a condition of his support. It’s his last chance.

    The longer we go before an election, the more likely the Conservatives in opposition are to make mistakes — bozo eruptions as they are known here — or just lose momentum. By law, the next general election has to be in October. But the Constitution sets the maximum life of a Parliament at 5 years, which takes us to October 2026. There is nothing to stop the Government from repealing the fixed-election-date law (which was passed only in 2007) and putting an election off for another year.

    It seems perverse to call (or force, if you’re the Opposition) an election you seem almost certain to lose, as Rishi Sunak did in the U.K. The Liberals could, if they and the NDP chose, have nearly two years to improve their fortunes with their new leader. (By then President Trump will be embroiled in the mid-terms and his threatened tariffs will have turned out to have been catastrophizing.) It can’t be any worse than now and during all that time, those MPs who are certain to be defeated will continue drawing paycheques and padding their pensions in the best jobs most of them will ever have….and might actually get re-elected if they can hold on long enough. And from the Conservatives’ point of view, if the country is going to melt down under President Trump’s tariffs, better it happen under the Liberals, not them.

  12. I was listening to a physics talk by Professor Ramamurthi Shankar of Yale. He explained that physicists sit in the back row of the plane, collecting everything that rolls back to them during takeoff!

  13. Must say I did think the “where to sit on an aeroplane” was settled, so was surprised to see it still being researched in 2015.

    More surprising is that the middle seat is protective. Why is that? You’d presume the aisle seat would be the safest as easiest to get off from, but perhaps you’re more at risk of projectiles there?

    Anyway, suppose there should be some benefits to the middle seat!

  14. ………and supporting Ukraine”, [which] may be a failure.

    Of late, quoting from the site I follow by subscription, Reporting from Ukraine, there was this para in a post from yesterday:

    “The United Kingdom military intelligence service recently observed that Russian forces suffered record-high casualty rates in November 2024, with an average of 1,523 casualties per day – notably higher than Russia’s claimed recruitment of 1,200 new recruits per day. As if they aimed to achieve minimal gains at maximum cost, for all their sacrifices, Russian forces managed to seize just over 800 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory in November, amounting to roughly 53 casualties for every square kilometer gained.”

    And from another post, with Russian defense faltering in Kursk, where they’re sent in North Koreans to fight with disastrous results, Ukraine has launched a new offensive there to capture more Kursk territory!

    Russia is losing tanks and other transport vehicles faster than they can repair/build replacements, too. And the ruble it taking a beating.

    1. Ukraine is in dire straits. For three years, the West, led by Biden, gave aid in tea spoons to avoid “escalation”, that is, to avoid a defeat of Russia that could make it go nuclear or cause its disintegration. For more than half a year, US aid was stopped altogether by the Republicans in Congress. The first Western aircraft that Ukraine got was 6 (six) F-16 at the 3rd (third) year of the war. Instead of helping Ukraine to win, the West, led by the USA, gave it only enough to stand, maybe under the wrong impression that it could stand forever.

      This policy bled Ukraine to death. Consistently outnumbered and outgunned, the best Ukrainian defenders have been killed, maimed, or demoralized. There is nobody to replace them. Most of the Ukrainians still in the country do not want to lay down their lives for a lost cause, seeing very well that Russia has loyal allies and advances every day with their help, while Ukraine’s “allies” have sold it down the river and apparently do not mind its total annihilation.

      When Putin attacked Ukraine in full force in February 2024, Prof. Coyne wrote that the situation was grave but, to his opinion, the most important thing was to avoid a nuclear war. This totally broke my heart. I did not comment, because if I had, I would have written something too emotional that would convince nobody and would only get me banned. My imagination immediately pictured thousands and thousands of dead defenders and civilians, ruined cities – the events that really took place later.

      To add insult to injury, high-ranking Americans of both parties are now bullying Ukraine to start sending to war young men (18-24-yr-olds), as if to make sure that the country loses any chance to have a future. Some of these unsolicited advisors had pointed out that the USA drafted 19-yr-olds during the Vietnam War. To me, they would have been slightly more convincing if they had referred to some war that the USA had won.

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