Welcome to the tail end of the week AND the tail end of the month: it’s Friday, January 31, 2025. It’s also National Hot Chocolate Day, and perhaps I’ll have some, but the best versions are in Spain or Mexico, served with freshly fried churros that must of course be dunked into the thick, rich chocolate.
It’s also the worst food day of the year: Eat Brussels Sprouts Day, Scotch Tape Day (first marketed on January 31, 1930), and Brandy Alexander Day.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the January 31 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*It looks as if everyone died when an American airlines flight collided with a helicopter Wednesday evening, plunging everyone into the Potomic River. 67 people were killed; 64 on the small plane and three in the Blackhawk helicopter.
Recovery divers were set to plunge back into the frigid Potomac River on Friday as investigators sought to piece together the final moments before a passenger jet collided with an Army helicopter outside Washington, in the deadliest U.S. air crash in 20 years.
Among the questions facing investigators was whether the helicopter had flown outside its designated path as it approached the airport just outside the nation’s capital on Wednesday evening. Four people briefed on the matter but not authorized to speak about it publicly said that the helicopter appeared to have been flying higher than air traffic control had approved.
The inquiry was also expected to look at staffing at the air traffic control tower, which was “not normal” at the time of the crash, according to a preliminary report from the Federal Aviation Administration. The internal F.A.A. report, which was reviewed by The New York Times, said the controller was handling both helicopters and planes in the area, jobs typically assigned to two people. A supervisor combined those duties sometime before 9:30 p.m. and allowed one controller to leave, according to a person briefed on the staffing, who was not authorized to speak publicly.
A recovery operation was launched for the bodies of the 67 people who were killed. The Washington fire department said its divers on Friday would be looking for aircraft parts to help the investigators, and would work on salvaging the wreckage.
Here’s what else to know:
- The plane’s path: Shortly before the crash, the jet’s pilots were asked to pivot their landing route from one runway to another, according to a person briefed on the event and audio recordings of conversations between an air traffic controller and the pilots.
- The investigation: The National Transportation Safety Board recovered the cockpit voice recorder and a flight data recorder from the plane and will have them analyzed. President Trump promised on Thursday that a thorough investigation would be conducted, while also engaging in political attacks on his predecessors.
- The victims: In addition to the many figure skaters aboard the flight, several friends returning to the East Coast from a duck hunt in Kansas were on the plane. A full list of those who died has not yet been released.
- The pilots: The two American Airlines pilots had been flying for years. Robert Isom, the airline’s chief executive, stressed their experience but provided no additional details. Two Army officials confirmed that the pilots of the helicopter — one woman, one man — and a male staff sergeant were killed in the collision.
The Guardian has a video of the moment of collision seen from the air traffic controllers’ base, as well as their reaction; click below if you want to see go to the page with the video. You can hear more extensive audio, including instructions to other planes to avoid the airport, at the AP.
A schematic of the crash from The Independent:
, . . and the information given by Wichita officials to the press on the morning after the crash (23 minutes long).
*According to the Wall Street Journal, the helicopter either didn’t here or ignored air-traffic control’s instructions to go behind the jet.
Just after 8:47 p.m. on Wednesday, an air-traffic controller at Reagan National Airport relayed a seemingly ordinary inquiry and instruction:
“PAT25, do you have the CRJ in sight?” he asked a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter, requesting it keep a lookout for an American Airlines Bombardier jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew members from Wichita, Kan. The helicopter was on a training mission, officials would later say.
“PAT25, pass behind the CRJ,” the controller then said as American Airlines flight 5342 descended over the Potomac River just moments before landing. “CRJ” is aviation shorthand for Canadair Regional Jet.
Within 19 seconds, the horror of the two colliding aircraft became clear. “Oh my…!” someone yelled, a scream briefly picked up in the background of radio transmissions as air-traffic control worked to redirect planes to nearby airports.
Audio transmissions and flight-tracking data reviewed by The Wall Street Journal offer an early look into the moments before and after the midair crash that roiled the nation’s capital as emergency crews worked to rescue potential survivors in freezing Potomac waters. The cause of the collision remains under investigation.
. . . . It couldn’t be determined if the Black Hawk heard or acknowledged the request to keep an eye out for the Bombardier. A former federal aviation official told the Journal that air-traffic controllers gave the helicopter clear instructions to pass behind it.
You can hear these instructions at the website, and yes, they are clear and explicit.
Both aircraft were somewhere between 200 and 400 feet over the Potomac around the moment they collided, according to records reviewed by the Journal. The passenger jet was seconds away from finishing its roughly three-hour flight from Kansas.
After the officials realized a tragic collision had occurred, they scrambled to divert other flights away from National Airport. Some were asked to go to Washington Dulles International. Others were redirected to Baltimore-Washington International in Maryland.
Finally, some of the dead have been identified, but not officially:
Among those killed in the Wednesday night crash near Reagan National Airport was Spencer Lane, 16, and his mother, Christine Conrad Lane, the boy’s grandparents said in a phone interview with The Washington Post. The two were aboard American Eagle Flight 5342, preparing to catch a connecting flight at the Washington airport on their way home to Rhode Island.
. . . . The dead include competitive figure skaters and their companions, including retired champions, athletic coaches and family members. The crash happened three days after the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships — the most prestigious annual event on the American figure skating calendar — concluded in Wichita.
Two renowned Russian former figure skaters, Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, were among the passengers, the Kremlin said. The Skating Club of Boston, where Shishkova and Naumov coached, confirmed their deaths, as well as those of Spencer and his mother, and of junior skater Jinna Han, 15, and her mother, Jin.
Whenever I read about such crashes, I hope that those who died did so instantly rather than being plunged into a freezing river and drowning, or living the last moments of their lives in terror.
Jinna Han in a short program:
*And while bodies were still being recovered, Trump, with his usual desire to blame rather than console, made the idiotic decision to pubicly blame the crash on DEI:
And then there was President Trump. In the wake of this week’s midair collision near Washington, Mr. Trump was more than happy to jump to conclusions and pull the country apart rather than together. After declaring it to be an “hour of anguish for our nation,” Mr. Trump just five minutes later let anguish give way to aggression as he blamed diversity policies promoted by Mr. Obama and former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. for the crash, which killed 67 people.
Mr. Trump has never been like other presidents. He does not follow many of the rituals and traditions of his office. He practices the politics of division rather than unity. Where past presidents have sought to project a comforting, paternal presence for a stricken nation in moments of crisis, Mr. Trump’s instinct is to move quickly from grief to grievance. He has long demonstrated that he is more comfortable as the blamer in chief than consoler in chief.
His decision to use the bully pulpit of the White House on Thursday to assign responsibility for the crash to his political rivals by name without offering a shred of evidence was, even for Mr. Trump, a striking performance. And it was no off-the-cuff comment. He followed up by signing an order directing a review of “problematic and likely illegal decisions” by Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden.
*Eight hostages were returned to Israel by Hamas yesterday: three Israelis and five Thai. (In return, Israel released 110 Palestinian prisoners.) The Israeli/Thai swap was so chaotic (see below) that Israel refused to release the many Palestinian “exchange” prisoners until Hamas promised that this kind of chaos would not recur:
Eight hostages abducted during the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel were released by Palestinian terror groups on Thursday under an ongoing ceasefire deal with Hamas, returning to Israel after 482 days in captivity in Gaza. Seven of them were freed in a long, chaotic process in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis that prompted fury in Israel.
The three Israelis are IDF surveillance soldier Agam Berger, 20, and civilians Arbel Yehoud, 29, and Gadi Mozes, 80. The Thai nationals are Thenna Pongsak, Sathian Suwannakham, Sriaoun Watchara, Seathao Bannawat, and Rumnao Surasak.
Yehoud, Mozes and the five Thais were released in an uncontrolled and dangerous handover early Thursday afternoon, outside the destroyed home of slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, surrounded by hundreds of masked gunmen and large, seething crowds.
Eight hostages abducted during the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel were released by Palestinian terror groups on Thursday under an ongoing ceasefire deal with Hamas, returning to Israel after 482 days in captivity in Gaza. Seven of them were freed in a long, chaotic process in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis that prompted fury in Israel.
The three Israelis are IDF surveillance soldier Agam Berger, 20, and civilians Arbel Yehoud, 29, and Gadi Mozes, 80. The Thai nationals are Thenna Pongsak, Sathian Suwannakham, Sriaoun Watchara, Seathao Bannawat, and Rumnao Surasak.
Yehoud, Mozes and the five Thais were released in an uncontrolled and dangerous handover early Thursday afternoon, outside the destroyed home of slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, surrounded by hundreds of masked gunmen and large, seething crowds.
The two Israeli civilians were forced to walk through the crowds, with gunmen at their side, from the vehicles that delivered them and, later, to the Red Cross vehicles, in protracted, chaotic scenes.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the chaotic handover was unacceptable, in a statement immediately after the release. “I view with great severity the shocking scenes during the release of our hostages,” said Netanyahu. “This is further proof of the unimaginable cruelty of the Hamas terrorist organization.”
Israel delayed the slated release of Palestinian prisoners in protest of the chaotic handover, with Netanyahu’s office saying it would not proceed “until the safe passage of our hostages can be guaranteed in the next releases.”
Berger and the Thai hostages were held by the Hamas terror group, while Yehoud and Mozes were held by Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Here’s a video of Israeli hostage Arbel Yehoud, and what a nightmare it was. Hamas did not have to transfer hostages this way, but wanted to make a spectacle of it: letting the public deride the hostages and terrifying the hostages at the same time. It’s also supposed to be a “show of force” by Hamas, I guess:
*Two of our law professors and free-speech advocates, Anthony Casey and Tom Ginsburg, urge corporations to adopt institutional neutrality in a NYT op-ed called “Corporate leaders need to keep their mouths shut” (archived here; h/t Greg).
After more than a year of exhausting controversies over free expression at colleges and universities, America’s business leaders would do well to take a simple lesson from embattled leaders in higher education:
Keep your mouth shut.
The lesson has become even more important with the recent gravitation of some corporate leaders toward President Trump. Such public fawning, which would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, demonstrates how unprincipled and fickle corporate political positions have always been.
Increasingly, universities have adopted neutrality policies to recommit to their core mission. So can corporations. The key is committing to institutional neutrality, which requires leaders to stay silent on social and political issues that do not directly affect their operations. This means reining in corporate political statements — progressive and conservative — as well as the political activity of chief executives like Elon Musk and political flip-flops by companies like Meta. Our own university, the University of Chicago, committed to this ideal in 1899 and restated that commitment in the seminal Kalven Report of 1967. This has freed individuals in our community to express their own opinions and ideas in lively debate.
For decades, few other universities have made this commitment. But its value for them — and for business corporations — has become clearer over the past year. The Gaza war created a no-win situation for university leaders accustomed to speaking out on political issues. On the one hand, bland institutional statements on current events have no impact, satisfy no one and relegate the institution to a role as a second-rate political actor. On the other, statements with real substance threaten to alienate and silence those who disagree. As a result, more than two dozen schools, including Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania — whose presidents resigned, in part, after stumbling at a congressional hearing on campus antisemitism — have now adopted neutrality policies akin to Chicago’s. More are in the works.
Corporate leaders in the private sector can benefit from these hard lessons.
The authors note that there may be compelling business reasons for companies to speak out (they use the woke Ben & Jerry’s as their example), and companies, like universities, should be free to speak out on matters affecting “the company’s ability to operate.”
Kalven is a good policy for nearly any organization: shut up except on issues that affect your organization’s mission or ability to operate. Besides the University of Chicago, only 29 other American colleges have adopted a Kalven-like policy.
*Finally, a stink flower has grown in Brooklyn, and it bloomed (I’ve added a link):
One by one, visitors to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden pulled out their phones snap pictures of the rare blooming plant before leaning in to brave a whiff of its infamously putrid scent, which resembles that of rotting flesh.
“It smells like feet, cheese and rotten meat. It just smelled like the worst possible combination of smells,” Elijah Blades said. “That was disgusting.”
The rare Amorphophallus gigas — a relative of the Amorphophallus titanum, commonly known as the corpse flower — has bloomed for the first time since arriving in Brooklyn in 2018. Native to Sumatra, the plant is known for its height and carrion scent, which it uses to attract pollinators.
It has hundreds of flowers, both male and female, inside the bloom, and it can take years between blooming events, said gardener Chris Sprindis, who first noticed the inflorescence, or cluster of flowers, around New Year’s Eve. The bloom will last only a few days before it collapses.
“So this is the first time it’s happened here,” Sprindis said. “It’s not going to happen next year. It’s going to be several years before it happens again.”
Look at this thing!
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is becoming a Senior Cat:
Hili: With age everything seems more complicated.Andrzej: I know something about that.
Hili: Z wiekiem wszystko wydaje się bardziej skomplikowane.Ja: Coś o tym wiem.
*******************
From America’s Cultural Decline Into Idiocy (my Dutch friend also says they’re going to reclaim New Amsterdam):
From I Love Cats:
From Things With Faces
:
From Masih; this Iraqui fled his country for freedom and then burned a Qur’an in Stockholm. But that didn’t give him immunity; he was just murdered in Sweden, and I’m pretty damn sure it was by Muslim extremists.
Salwan Momika burned the Quran, arguing that Islam is a violent religion. In a grim twist of irony, he was murdered by those who sought to prove him wrong.
Salwan escaped Iraq in search of safety, hoping to find refuge in Europe. But even there, his voice was silenced by… pic.twitter.com/kL0XZbFTVW
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) January 30, 2025
From Bryan, but you heard it here first (last December!). They are summarizing an article by Matthew Cobb published on the Asimov Press website. You need to know what the Central Dogmas was, and how Crick construed it (correctly, by the way).
Most people misunderstand the Central Dogma.
In school, perhaps you were taught it as “DNA → RNA → protein.” But that’s a massive oversimplification.
Francis Crick’s real “Central Dogma” was about what *cannot* happen in a cell. Let’s break it down. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/jXknIL0hdp
— Asimov Press (@AsimovPress) January 29, 2025
Form Luana. SJP should be considered for suspension at many places, including here, as I wrote in the student newspaper. It’s not what they say, as you’ll see if you read my piece, but their repeated violations of campus regulations.
The University of Michigan has suspended SAFE, its chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, for two years.
This group has repeatedly disrupted campus, violated university rules, and targeted the homes of university regents.
They have no place on campus. pic.twitter.com/IpvlHGM10M
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) January 30, 2025
A lovely deer (I think), probably leucistic rather than albino:
I actually thought someone had left an ice sculpture by the side of the road then an ear moved! So rare & beautiful!🦌✨ pic.twitter.com/Aj2X8lBxus
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) January 30, 2025
From Simon; a big cat acting like. . . well, a cat:
Cats will be cats, no matter the size..🐆😍
— amazingnature ☘️ (@amazingnature.bsky.social) 2025-01-29T00:12:20.520Z
From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:
Gassed upon arrival, this Dutch boy was 12 years old.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-01-31T11:19:39.280Z
Two posts by Matthew. who tells me that Kindra is Francis Crick’s granddaughter. His legacy is both intellectual and genetic!
‘Entwined I’A print with details in graphite that contain the first written description of DNA replication. #sciart #JanuArty #curve #printmaking #monoprint
— Kindra Crick 🧩 (@kindracrick.com) 2025-01-29T16:56:35.860Z
Speaking of Crick, Matthew is editing his postscript, and says “ergh”. . .
Oh dear. I seem to have gone a bit mad last night editing the brief Epilogue to CRICK. And it wasn’t even drunk editing. Not sure I can make head or tail of this. #ripitupandstartagain
Some good additional information on helicopter routes and altitude histories from Juan Browne on ten-minute you tube video at
Again, we need to wait for final ntsb report, but, meanwhile, this channel generally provides information rather than speculation, so I am comfortable recommending it.
Occurred to me I should check Blancolirio last night – always straight ahead and clear – thanks for this.
[ post edit time update]
Yep – everything Juane said and shows. Completely clear … or, as he puts it – the “Swiss cheese model”, clearly showing all the holes that would contribute to the accident.
At least now I’m not in that unstable state before, not knowing anything. Same happened with the Kobe Bryant crash – very unstable, then, at least back to Earth. Actually, I’ll go see the update on that.
Really everyone should watch this if they are confused to understand, and just avoid all the politics entirely. Juane provides such an important service.
I was going to post exactly that link! Juan Brown can’t be beat for accurate and insightful information about anything related to flying.
Did you know
The “Swiss Cheese model” of accident analysis is a published piece by James T. Reason.
The Contribution of Latent Human Failures to the Breakdown of Complex Systems
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences
327 (1241): 475–84, 1990
The layers of barriers to capture human error can line up, allowing the error to slip through.
Here’s Juan Browne’s update as of the NTSB report with voice recorder data to the accident which includes short discussion of the Swiss cheese error model : youtu.be/v8sNVcm9TMU?si=ibz7qBkS0SSqzobu
And of course :
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model
That deer is very beautiful but is going to be in trouble when the snow melts, sadly.
I’ve a nasty feeling that the big cat has had its claws removed :o( .
I had the same sad thought, but then, watching very closely, saw claws.
Phew! Your eyesight is obviously better than mine.
The father of the youngest Israeli hostage is going to be released tomorrow, but without his family. The fate of his wife and children is very concerning. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/31/hamas-to-release-israeli-hostage-yarden-bibas-wife-children-family
The poor family.
Ahh, I understand the reposting of Matthew’s article now – they could have put his name in the eXtwitter thread, I am perplexed by that. It is in fact on the article on the website.
Great to read again!
The deer could be a true albino, but I can’t quite make out if its eyes are red or not.
Let me plant a flag for the Brussels Sprouts: roasted with a balsamic glaze, maybe a touch of cranberries for some sweetness, yum. I am glad you don’t like them, more for me.
And regarding the plane crash, why don’t Trump and the Republicans just eliminate the FAA and air traffic controllers entirely? After all, they are just big government employees telling privately owned airplanes where they can and cannot fly! Regulations? Abolish them!
Mick West had a good preliminary analysis of the crash. The helicopter may have been looking at the wrong plane. Short video (3:19) but to the point:
And there is a DEI scandal at the FAA, although it may be unrelated to this crash:
https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-faas-hiring-scandal-a-quick-overview
The Blocked and Reported podcast covered this a while back. It is very strange how they changed the hiring process.
We should see the qualifications and even recent work schedules of all involved personnel in the final ntsb report.
“The helicopter may have been looking at the wrong plane.”
Juane Brown / the Blancolirio channel makes perhaps a related point – the parallax (as I see it) or “head on”/”beak-to-beak” view of the aircraft light at night added to the city lights results in the aircraft blending in with the background. Night vision goggles – one of two types – were I think in use, reducing peripheral vision.
But see his video – the scenario is made very clear.
He says this is a known issue with DCA – the city lights and head on flight paths – he shows the map of the paths.
I immediately thought of that. Probably not relevant to this crash but worthy of a read. And a good link to send to anybody who thinks DEI is “harmless”. As many on the left do think.
D.A.
NYC
A very good link indeed. The situation seems appalling. And do take the time for the “biographical” screening test linked to by the linked article; WEIT readers will almost certainly fail. It’s plausible that [gritting teeth] Trump has a point about ATC DEI (in the same sense that a stopped analogue clock is right twice a day).
I’ve read about it too.
Well, lets see what the ntsb report says about the peopleinvolved. They should have histories for each in final report. As they look for probable cause.
I’m not saying it’s the case for this event. Obviously we don’t know what caused it at this point.
Trump was not only stupid to say something like that but very tactless. People are grieving.
Trump probably heard about it too and he seems to say the first thing that comes into head.
I wouldn’t hold my breath that the crash investigation will tell us much about DEI. The beauty of DEI as done in America is that it is plausibly deniable. Unlike in Canada, you can’t legally say you are going to make only diversity hires (except for the Supreme Court, apparently), so no individual can be proved to have been a diversity hire. You might suspect that many were, just by eyeballing the group photo — count the dwarves — but you can’t prove that any individual wasn’t hired on merit. Nor can you prove that any one controller’s being diverse was causally related to the crash, even if his/her/their error of omission or commission was the proximate cause. All you know are three conclusions: Controller X made a mistake (if indeed it turns out to be a controller’s error), Controller X is diverse (if that is indeed the case), and there is an aggressive culture of DEI in the ATC hiring process (which we seem to know but might not be a focus of the investigation.) How will you ever know if the crash would have been averted if someone more meritorious than Controller X had been hired when you don’t know if Controller X was even hired for his diversity because there is no paper trail showing that?
And if Controller X is not diverse, DEI could still be working its invisible mischief in management decisions around scheduling, evaluation, and promotion so that the DEI culture eroded the culture of safety enough that it caused a non-diverse controller whose work was slipping undetected to make a mistake.
Just because Trump says something, and in a non-tactful way, doesn’t mean that it must be wrong.
While the guy withdrew, this gives some idea of what sort of people the woke-and-broke high-level Democrats were pushing: https://x.com/mazemoore/status/1885148210659840037
It had been almost impossible to imagine Trump sinking any lower but then he did with his crass remarks, absent the slightest evidence, that Biden, Obama and everyone connected to them were to blame for the Washington DC air crash on account of their support for DEI. Regardless of the relevance of any such comments this was not the time or place and it is beyond belief that any Head of State, particularly of a First World Democracy should make any such remarks.
Surely the US cannot suffer this for the next four years.
Re a first-world democracy, the end of empire is never pretty, and its population seldom sees it coming. Consider the rapid disintegration of the recent British empire and some of the ongoing effects of that. And the French, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, Spanish, Portuguese, Mongolian, Seleucid, Roman, Alexandrian, etc. etc.
While it is certainly premature to place the blame for this accident on DEI, A reasonable case can be made for the argument that the ATC staffing issues are related to DEI.
There is a current class action lawsuit by thousands of prospective controllers who believe they were rejected for not being diverse enough.
Reading a few of the stories of those involved, it is hard to not be sympathetic. It would be very frustrating to study Air Traffic Management at a top rated university, receive excellent scores on the required examinations, then be rejected because of a “biographical questionnaire”.
While pursuing a career as an ATC through the traditional path is much harder for non diverse individuals, the FAA has expanded their program to allow on the spot non-competitive hiring of individuals in targeted groups.
“Targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the Federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring. They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism.”
I suspect Trump made his claims in reference to the order he signed on Jan 20th ending discriminatory hiring practices at the FAA. I think his statement was in poor taste, but probably not “without evidence”, as the networks like to claim.
Hostage handover. (Remember what bizzarro-world we’re living in here: these are civilian HOSTAGES traded for murderers)…
With that in mind did anybody expect a handover to be done well?
The fools also showed their faces and don’t understand that face reading tech can see “through” masks. Cretins and monsters.
The equivalence of support for Hamas and “Palestine” is the international version of being anti-vax. Once you know it about somebody you can’t treat their broader opinions seriously ever again.
It is an IQ and morals test.
Onwards Israeli heroes.
D.A.
NYC
They’re brutes! Who expected a shred of decency?
On the white deer I had to look up Leucism. Which “is a condition that causes partial loss of pigmentation in an animal, resulting in white, pale, or patchy coloration. It can affect the skin, hair, feathers, scales, or cuticles, but not the eyes.”
Learn something new and interesting at WEIT every day. Not just cat videos!
🙂
Will listen to Day 3 of the conference tomorrow. Days 1 and 2 were great. Thx.
D.A.
NYC
Here’s a brief summary of coat variants: https://deerassociation.com/deer-color-phases/
Piebald deer were unusually common on Orcas Island, where they lived in splendid isolation from the mainland. The deer of the island are small variants of the Mule Deer.
Cool! Thanks Mr. Gilinsky. I had no idea. Growing up in Australia and living the last three decades in Manhattan I think I’ve seen more kangaroos than deer in my life!
I don’t think ‘roos come in white. They do come angry, though, the other day a guy was seriously hospitalized by one (I bet a dog was involved as usual).
D.A.
NYC
I was certain that you would discuss the hostage release, and I’m glad you did. The show of force by Hamas is probably staged to give the appearance of strength rather than being an indication of real strength. There’s no doubt that Hamas has been seriously degraded.
But the main point I want to make with my comment is that the behavior of the snarling crowds is telling. How many innocent civilians really are there in Gaza? Thanks to decades of propaganda through UNRWA and elsewhere, it appears that the entire population is poisoned by hate. Ironically, it was the armed Hamas fighters who protected the returning hostages from the Gazans who would no doubt have abused or even killed them.
They’ve all been militarized, Norman.
This is an argument I’m doing my best to put about in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s defence if the scoundrels ever arrest him
We secular westerners find it hard to get our heads around an entire society built on the idea of religiously ordered murder and genocide, trained into kids since birth and by all media in their language.
We have no other mental models to understand the evil of “Palestine” and how deep it goes there. There are no civilians in Gaza, few in J. & S./West Bank.
We can’t imagine that… so we don’t.
I have more to say but I’m already pushing da roolz. 😉
D.A.
NYC
The BBC did analysis of the first round of this ceasefire’s hostage releases and found that Hamas had presented a misleading impression of the crowds and their number of fighters: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/c5y2gzl091go
Re Matthew Cobb’s editing of the postscript: I had to laugh, as that page resembled some pages of my dissertation as I was revising. Arrows here, arrows there, scribbled comments, etc. Sometimes decoding the changes was like doing a very complex jigsaw puzzle.
As projector in Chief, Trump blames DEI on everything, yet he is vying to be the biggest DEI executive in history. It’s all in Project 2025. The only difference is his hires are PSL: Priggish Sycophantic Loyalists. Same program, different personnel. It’s only been a week and the incompetency of his hires and/or potential hires makes me really want DEI. Please, can we haz it back?
I’m a fan of Asimov, but had never heard of Asimov Press. There is a link to a company with a similar name. Any connection to Isaac Asimov?
Yeah, I saw “Asimov” and “central doctrine” and was expecting “A robot must not harm a human being nor, through inaction, allow a human to come to harm.”
I think institutional neutrality can help institutions navigate in a political climate full of landmines. Any time they are accused of being too woke or too colonialist, they can point to their commitment of neutrality.
However, isn’t this just a form of self censorship? Sure it makes more sense if a university or company doesn’t have an official position, but the leaders should not censor themselves from speaking about how they really feel.
I don’t know where I stand on this, but interested in hearing people’s thoughts.