Saturday: Hili dialogue

February 8, 2025 • 6:45 am

Welcome to the Sabbath for moggies; it’s Saturday, February 8, 2025 and National Potato Lover’s Day, apparently honoring only a single person who loves potatoes. Who is that person? (This is a lesson in apostrophe use.) At any rate, here is where one can supposedly get the best French fries (aka Liberty Fries) in Chicago. I have never been here, but must go now. Give me the Buried Alive Fries!

It’s also Boy Scouts Day (it was founded on this day in 1909), National Molasses Bar Day, Propose Day (mainly in India), and Opera Day.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the February 8 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Trump’s latest stunt is to call for (he hasn’t yet done it) the closure of the Agency for International Development, the source of half of all U.S. foreign aid, and with a $50 billion annual budget (a judge has temporarily halted part of the closure):

President Trump on Friday directly called for the closure of the U.S. Agency for International Development just hours before most of its staff were expected to be suspended with pay or laid off, the latest sign that his administration will dissolve the government’s main provider of global humanitarian and development aid.

“CLOSE IT DOWN!” Mr. Trump wrote of U.S.A.I.D. on Truth Social, accusing the agency of unspecified rampant corruption and fraud. He had previously asserted that the agency was “run by radical lunatics.”

Mr. Trump’s demand to end the agency came as the vast majority of the agency’s direct hires were expecting to be placed on indefinite administrative leave, while contractors were to be let go. The notice announcing that change, which was posted to the U.S.A.I.D. website on Tuesday, also informed foreign service officers that the agency would pay for them to return home within 30 days, with extensions offered on a case-by-case basis.

That guidance was amended overnight to inform workers that they had the option of staying abroad longer at their own expense.

A new frequently asked questions section, with just one entry, was appended to the original notice on U.S.A.I.D.’s website, explaining that foreign service officers could remain overseas if they were willing to cover the cost of travel themselves. It did not specify whether workers who stayed overseas while on administrative leave would continue to have their cost of living subsidized.

Only a small subset of U.S.A.I.D. officials received notice this week that they had been deemed “essential” personnel.

“This your formal notification that you are expected to keep working, effective immediately, and until notified otherwise,” the emailed notification sent to those personnel said, according to a copy reviewed by The New York Times.

It was not immediately clear how many employees fell into this group.

The obvious question is this: what happens to all those people who really needed foreign aid from the U.S.? Stuff like food, medical care, and so on.  Nobody is going to step in and replace that $50 billion, which is the largest amount of foreign aid given by any country in the world,

*The WSJ reports that the mood of the American consumer is going downhill. That, of course, is expected when the news is telling them that they’ll likely pay more for stuff and that the price of eggs will keep rising (even if it is due to bird flu).

The Trump bump in consumer confidence is already over.

Tariff threats, stock market swings and rapidly reversing executive orders are causing Americans across the political spectrum to feel considerably more pessimistic about the economy than they did before President Trump took office.

Consumer sentiment fell about 5% in the University of Michigan’s preliminary February survey of consumers to its lowest reading since July 2024. Expectations of inflation in the year ahead jumped from 3.3% in January to 4.3%, the second month in a row of large increases and highest reading since November 2023.

“It’s very rare to see a full percentage point jump in inflation expectations,” said Joanne Hsu, who oversees the survey. Republicans have come off a postelection surge in confidence, she said, and Democrats and Independents also seem to believe that economic conditions have deteriorated since last month.

Morning Consult’s recent index of consumer confidence, too, fell between Jan. 25 and Feb. 3, driven primarily by concern over the country’s economic future.

“I don’t like the turbulence. I don’t like the chaos in the market,” said Paul Bisson, a 58-year-old, who writes proposals for a flight safety company and co-owns a dog daycare in San Antonio. Bisson voted for Trump, but feels “his policies have led to that chaos.”

Bisson is hoping to retire in the not-too-distant future, and is worried that won’t be possible if Trump follows through with his tariff threats rather than just using them as a negotiating tactic.

“That will make the economy worse, and that’s not what we signed up for,” Bisson said. “We’ve already cut back. There’s no more cutting back to do.”

I learned at my economist father’s knee that tariffs are never a good thing, and I’m hoping Trump doesn’t follow through with his bluster about China, Canada, and Mexico (he’s already delayed tariffs with the latter two countries). But if the economy doesn’t pick up, and it doesn’t look like it will, the Republicans will lose big time in the midterm elections. They could even lose both houses of Congress.

*The U.K. is acting badly again, demanding that it be able to access ANY content that any Apple user has uploaded to the Cloud, even encrypted content!  It’s one giant Pecksniffian demand!

Security officials in the United Kingdom have demanded that Apple create a back door allowing them to retrieve all the content any Apple user worldwide has uploaded to the cloud, people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post.

The British government’s undisclosed order, issued last month, requires blanket capability to view fully encrypted material, not merely assistance in cracking a specific account, and has no known precedent in major democracies. Its application would mark a significant defeat for tech companies in their decades-long battle to avoid being wielded as government tools against their users, the people said, speaking under the condition of anonymity to discuss legally and politically sensitive issues.

Rather than break the security promises it made to its users everywhere, Apple is likely to stop offering encrypted storage in the U.K., the people said. Yet that concession would not fulfill the U.K. demand for backdoor access to the service in other countries, including the United States.

The office of the Home Secretary has served Apple with a document called a technical capability notice, ordering it to provide access under the sweeping U.K. Investigatory Powers Act of 2016, which authorizes law enforcement to compel assistance from companies when needed to collect evidence, the people said.

The law, known by critics as the Snoopers’ Charter, makes it a criminal offense to reveal that the government has even made such a demand. An Apple spokesman declined to comment.

Apple can appeal the U.K. capability notice to a secret technical panel, which would consider arguments about the expense of the requirement, and to a judge who would weigh whether the request was in proportion to the government’s needs. But the law does not permit Apple to delay complying during an appeal.

This is unconscionable, and it begins with the British government’s order not being disclosed.  It continues with the demand that Apple disclose not just encrypted material, but do so for anybody in the entire world.  Nothing you’ve stored in the cloud is safe from the Pecksniffs, and a further egregious provision is that even if Apple appeals, the UK can get busy sticking its nose in people’s business during an appeal, which could take a lot of time,

*As always, I’ll steal a few items from Nellie Bowles’s hilarious and snarky weekly news summary at The Free Press, called this week, “TGIF: Mar-a-Gaza“. A lot of the items are too long to post here, so subscribe!

→ The Jews should have hid in the attic, says Cooper Union: A lawsuit filed by a group of Jewish students against Cooper Union can continue, says a district court judge, which dismissed the college’s attempt at getting the suit thrown out. You may remember this, but: After October 7, a group of pro-Hamas protesters held one of their many days of solidarity with Hamas’s war effort. Pro-Israel counterprotesters came to do their counterprotest thing. Later, a handful of those Jewish, pro-Israel students were in the school library, and the protesters got wind of it. They got past security and began pounding and shaking the locked library door, screaming “Palestine will be free.” Cooper Union security suggested the Jewish kids hide in the attic, which Cooper Union put in their legal defense. Like, surely that makes us look good? Where else are you supposed to keep Jews? It would take too long to get them under the floorboards since we installed the wall to wall last year!

Here’s the judge: “The court is dismayed by Cooper Union’s suggestion that the Jewish students should have hidden upstairs or left the building, or that locking the library doors was enough to discharge its obligations under Title VI.”

Cooper Union, I’m as baffled as you are.

→ Pronouns are dropping everywhere, every day: London mayor Sadiq Khan. Pete, former transportation secretary and mayor. AOC. What do these people have in common? We have no idea what their pronouns are now. We have no idea how to address them. Because pronouns have been dropped from their bios. Quietly, one by one. Is it Mx. Buttigieg? Sir Sadiq? How will we ever guess?

→ Stop making such a big deal out of the hostage babies: Zeteo, the media start-up founded by Mehdi Hasan, published a piece last week titled:“Is Israel Weaponizing the Tragic Deaths of the Bibas Children?”

An excerpt: “Israel’s government has apparently known their tragic fate for 14 months but has chosen to deliberately pretend they were still alive to capitalize on the narrative of Palestinian ‘monsters’ holding a baby hostage.”

It’s besmirching the beautiful name of Hamas to suggest they would hold living babies hostages, per Zeteo. Because sweet, noble Hamas would only kidnap babies and then kill them by bringing them into a war zone and then hold their dead bodies for barter. Which is much better! They would not keep living babies hostage. You ghoul, how could you suggest that! Israel is “weaponizing” these children by talking about them so much when they’re totally dead, Zeteo writes. You gotta admire this: Hamas kidnapped two babies into Gaza and may now be holding their dead bodies, and still Israel is somehow the aggressor.

→ Thank god for James Carville: While the entire Dem establishment seems committed to losing at every opportunity they have, one James Carville is screaming into the void. “We ran a presidential election. If we were playing the Super Bowl, we started our seventh-string quarterback. . . . You can’t address a problem unless you’re honest about a problem.”

When the glowing orb of Carville pops up on the TV, you know you’re about to be yelled at. You know there’ll be spit on that table. Carville said people would be shocked to know that there are Dem candidates that “can actually complete a sentence, that actually know how to frame a message, that actually have a sense of accomplishment, of doing something.” Where are they hiding? Maybe in Governor Phil Murphy’s attic. Maybe somewhere in South Bend. But it’s time, guys: We need a complete-your-sentence–level politician, and we need one ba

I love Carville. When you look in the dictionary under “curmudgeon,” you’ll see his picture.

*Finally, from the reliable Associate Press’s “oddities” section, we learn something that was absolutely predictable: there was a huge egg heist. To be specific, around 100,000 eggs were stolen, and that’s a lot of omelets!

The heist of 100,000 eggs from the back of a trailer in Pennsylvania has become a whodunit that police have yet to crack.

Four days after the theft that law enforcement say could be tied to the sky-high cost of eggs, no leads have come in, Trooper First Class Megan Frazer, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania State Police, said Wednesday.

“We’re relying on leads from people from the community. So we’re hoping that somebody knows something, and they’ll call us and give us some tips,” she said.

Police are also following up with any possible witnesses and looking into surveillance footage that could help them identify the perpetrator as they race to solve the mystery.

“In my career, I’ve never heard of a hundred thousand eggs being stolen. This is definitely unique,” said Frazer, who has a dozen years on the job.

Bird flu is forcing farmers to slaughter millions of chickens a month, pushing U.S. egg prices to more than double their cost in the summer of 2023. And it appears there may be no relief in sight with Easter approaching.

The average price per dozen eggs nationwide hit $4.15 in December. That is not quite as high as the $4.82 record set two years ago, but the Agriculture Department predicts egg prices are going to soar another 20% this year.

The 100,000 eggs were snatched from the back of Pete & Gerry’s Organics’ distribution trailer on Saturday about 8:40 p.m. in Antrim Township, according to police.

Let’s see: if 12 eggs are 4.15, then $100,000 eggs represent a theft of $34,583.  And that is grand larceny. in every state in the Union.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn,  Hili, a centrist, despairs:

Hili: I’m losing hope.
A: For what?
Hili: for the victory of moderates.
In Polish:
Hili: Tracę nadzieję.
Ja: Na co?
Hili: Na zwycięstwo umiarkowanych.

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

From Facebook:

From Things With Faces, a bunch of sad bananas:

From I Love Cats:

Masih on Pakhshan Azizi, a Kurdiah-Iranian activist sentenced to death for “armed rebellion against the state” (nobody believes that), and who has suffered physical and psychological torture already during a long stint in prison.

A long but very good tweet by Rowling:

From Simon, who says, “It’s a good question, though.”

This poor man. No one deserves that.

— George Conway (@gtconway.bsky.social) 2025-02-07T03:06:05.540Z

From Malcolm; spot the cat!

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:

An 11-year-old Dutch boy who either died in transit or was gassed on arrival at Auschwitz.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-02-08T10:57:56.289Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. The first he labels “a good man”, Read the Forbes article here.  An excerpt:

But Feeney has come in from the cold. The man who amassed a fortune selling luxury goods to tourists, and later launched private equity powerhouse General Atlantic, lives in an apartment in San Francisco that has the austerity of a freshman dorm room. When I visited a few years ago, inkjet-printed photos of friends and family hung from the walls over a plain, wooden table. On the table sat a small Lucite plaque that read: “Congratulations to Chuck Feeney for $8 billion of philanthropic giving.”

Chuck Feeney here who died in 2023.A man who made an estimated €8 billion out of Duty Free and then gave it all away to make the world a better place.A modest man too. Which is why you may never have heard of him.www.forbes.com/sites/steven…

— Otto English (@ottoenglish.bsky.social) 2025-02-07T07:49:10.925Z

Look at this gorgeous butterfly!

Hamadryas have a mix of grays, blacks & hints of blue & white. Hamadryas are particularly attracted to tree sap.They use their proboscis to sip the liquid from wounds/damaged areas on trees. The sap provides the sodium needed for their diet. #butterfly #biology #nature #photo #insects #wildlife

— D. C. Fitzgerald (@dcfitzgerald.bsky.social) 2025-02-07T08:10:07.785Z

40 thoughts on “Saturday: Hili dialogue”

  1. Re: Big Brother vs. Apple :

    “Give me the man and I will give you the case against him” is an interpretation of what Soviet secret police chief Lavrentiy Beria might have said out loud as judged by memoirs.

    I found all the above from Wikipedia but the link didn’t make it – if anyone wants to see.

    … that’s funny, I never made that connection til now… the 1984 Super Bowl Big Brother Apple Computer ad.

  2. The Houston Texas ABC news station ran a story yesterday about how millions of dollars of US agricultural products, already bought and paid for, are wasting away on the docks because they were intended for USAID distribution. At least as it’s paid for our farmers weren’t stiffed, but that’ll be coming.

    1. USAID buys $2billion worth of food from American farmers annually. Perhaps Musk can start buying their goods. This won’t end well.

  3. A fun fact about that Hamadryas butterfly and its congeners: They are the only butterflies I know that make loud clicking sounds with their wings when the take off. They also have special ears on their wings to hear these sounds. The clicks appear to be mainly a territorial or mating display, though it might also startle potential predators. One of their common names is “Cracker butterfly”.

  4. Asking about the people who really need help is the wrong question because it’s incomplete. The more relevant question is how does this aid benefit the American people…and keeping people alive is a benefit. Also ask if the aid is efficiently getting to the people who need it. Not asking and acting on those questions have allowed agencies like UNRWA to exploit suffering abroad at the expense of lifting people up here at home.

  5. Comment by Greg Mayer

    Like Twitter/X before it, much of Bluesky is invisible to anyone without an account; whatever it is that George Conway is commenting on cannot be seen here at WEIT or on Blusesky.

    GCM

    1. It’s a guy named Elon Green asking:

      “ok, just because this is close to my heart: who’s the worst person with your first name?”

    2. I was going to mention that. I don’t have an account and can’t see it.

      I don’t know that it’s “much of BlueSky” as it’s the first time I’ve seen it.

  6. If people around the world need aid, let the billionaires step up. Maybe Soros should start feeding people rather than funding elections for corrupt prosecutors? Maybe Schwab and the WEF should feed them rather than trying to push a global government? And if they want to fund transgender comic books, too, they can.

    1. Actually some billionaires have stepped up, but that doesn’t negate the moral and practical reasons for foreign aid. Maybe you can ask Musk for a hefty donation?

    2. Who is going to feed all those Palestinians if the UNRWA is shutdown? I agree that Soros and friends should pay for them. Iran should pay the bills. Iran has lots of money.

      1. I think that they should be fed less. Having to earn their living like all normal people will limit their available time for terror activities, and will encourage family planning.

  7. “Zetio” – excellent. NOW I know how to avoid Mendi Hassan effectively. Hassan is a scumbag’s scumbag, a set piece and the creme de la enema of lies and narcissism. He’s like what Elon called a (something like a) cloak of virtue around cruelty.
    See him interview our friends Dawkins or Pinker just for starters.

    To know how to avoid his lying dog face in the media is valuable indeed.

    D.A.
    NYC

    1. Mehdi Hasan inspired one of my favorite sayings

      “China is very good at building dams. The US is very good at enforcing PC. Which system will dominate the 21st century?”.

      Of course, my comment is much more than an critique of Mehdi Hasan.

  8. I live in Britain. I use an Apple laptop and and iPad. I’m not losing any sleep over the British government’s latest attempt to gain a “back door” into encrypted software products and services. The politicians involved simply don’t understand that their demands are futile in a world where strong encryption is the norm, and where Apple doesn’t even hold the decryption keys that the politicians are telling them they have to hand over. This will end the same way it’s ended several times before: Apple will say no, and the politicians will move on to something else.

    1. It’s the why does the government need access to everyone’s messages. Quite an over reach and really smacks of authoritarianism.

      I am not convinced that this would stop any terror attacks but an attempt to stifle ordinary people to moan about living conditions and the illegal immigration.

      1. I think you greatly overestimate the competence of the British government if you think it could stifle the British people’s ability to moan about things. It’s one of our national sports, after all.

  9. I was excited to see the MMWR (morbidity and mortality weekly report) from the CDC appear in my inbox this week after a two-week post inauguration day hiatus (reportedly the first such break in more than 50 years service). Though I was disappointed that its two feature articles were on wildfire associated ED visits, certainly a public health issue, but with nothing on viruses such as H5N1. The wapo had an article yesterday saying that the epidemiology stuff was originally slated to appear, but had been purposely censored. Then this morning, Dr Dan on the weekly clinical edition of TWiV and Vincent expanded on the MMRW issue and also provided their regular patter on H5N1, marburg, ebola, polio, tb, etc. see TWiV episode 1190, clinical update with dr. Dan at https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/

    Bottom line: TWiV is my new MMWR…I must re-up my support for them this afternoon.

    1. The Democrats had only two candidates who could lose to DJT. One dropped out after a debate disaster. The other was anointed to run for the White House. She lost. Of all people, Sunny Hostin killed (by accident) Kamala’s chances. Did the Democrats really think they were going to win with a candidate that had her own Etsy store?

    2. What I don’t understand is why politicians don’t just give voters what they want.

      In the U.S., large majorities of people want to keep biological males out of women’s sports, want to curb illegal immigration, want voter ID, and want reliable, cheap energy.

      In Europe, large majorities want drastically less immigration from Muslim countries.

      The real mystery is why politicians don’t go along with the popular will.

      1. And they become hysterical when the voters elect someone like Trump, who will fill at least a few of the voters’ requests.

        I thought of myself as being on left for decades but now I’m lost politically.

        1. I think it was Niall Ferguson who said if centrists don’t control immigration as the voters demand they’ll elect fascists who will.
          Germany is finding this out at the moment with AfD.
          The UK might soon. And it is one particular type of immigrant that seems to be the sticking point. I’ll let you speculate.

          I am in the same boat as you Frau Katze as are, and what seems like most of the high IQ center left. Abandoned. “Leftugees” as Michael Shellenberger says.

          The moral panics and social transmitted manias of the past decade have done me in. As a volunteer for Hillary’s campaign a decade ago I never would have believed that last year I wished Mitt Romney would come back!
          D.A.
          NYC/FL

    3. The political skills of the Democratic candidate for President can actually be empirically measured. Of course, they were/are nil. In 2019, Harris ran for President against many others in the Democratic primaries. She got exactly zero delegates. Zero is a good estimate of her political talent. The NYT has/had a few comments on her 2019 campaign.

      “How Kamala Harris’s Campaign Unraveled – Ms. Harris is the only 2020 Democrat who has fallen hard out of the top tier of candidates. She has proved to be an uneven campaigner who changes her message and tactics to little effect and has a staff torn into factions.”

      In 2024, she outspent Trump 3:1 (some estimates are higher, some estimates are lower). She lost anyway (not that money is all that important in my opinion).

  11. This is interesting. I am quite familiar with one private foundation. They are able to administer a $100 million grant portfolio with three people, and they only pay 12% indirect.

    In a Friday night move that quickly drew howls of protest from the U.S. biomedical research community, President Donald Trump’s administration today announced it is immediately reducing by at least half the so-called indirect cost payments that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) makes to universities, hospitals, and research institutes to help cover facilities and administrative costs.

    A 15% indirect cost rate will now apply to all new and existing grants, NIH said in a memo from its Director’s office. Typically, about 30% of an average NIH grant to an institution is earmarked for indirect costs, according to NIH, but some universities get much higher rates. In 2023, NIH, the world’s largest funder of biomedical research, spent nearly $9 billion on indirect costs; the change would likely leave research institutions needing to find billions of dollars from other sources to support laboratories, students, and staff.

    https://www.science.org/content/article/nih-slashes-overhead-payments-research-sparking-outrage

    1. Oh, hah. I hadn’t seen your post before I left mine in the thread below this. We must have just been on the same wavelength, Lysander!

    1. We will see how it plays out. However, as a PI my first reaction is that more of the grant money going to science and less to bureaucrats is a good thing.

      1. Yes, I don’t disagree with that. But I’m still worried about my job and the jobs of others that aren’t essential to a lab. If this policy leads to a need to lay people off to compensate for some of the loss of money somewhere, there go our statisticians.

  13. In re. egg prices: Back in the later ’80s on a flight, I think from Stockholm, I wound up sitting next to a man who was probably in his 70s, who said that he had been in the State Dept, stationed in Helsinki at the end of WWII. How dire were things then? Eggs were scarce that they came over from Stockholm in the diplomatic pouch, $1@.

    What’s $1 from 1945 in current dollars?

  14. Wrt “buried-alive fries”, if you can’t eat them with your fingers they’re not fries they’re poutine.

  16. On USAID, the “AID” being a bit deceptive. It is common to conflate “foreign aid,” “foreign assistance,” and “humanitarian assistance,” which is a subset of the former. The Democrats in Washington do so intentionally, wanting everyone to believe that Trump will starve babies and let women die of preventable disease. It shouldn’t need to be said after years of institutionally-sponsored hyperbole and panic, but whenever people start to fearmonger, one should really look deeper before either accepting the fear or dismissing it altogether. “Would you rather have a living son or a dead daughter?” is not the only form of emotional blackmail our activists employ.

    USAID, which falls under the State Department, does much more than provide food and medicine (and they are not, by far, the only federal agency that provides international assistance). Without looking at their budget, it is hard to determine how much more they do. Even then it can be difficult. For instance, in the President’s Fiscal Year 2024 budget request, Biden requested $6.5 billion in “humanitarian assistance” for USAID-administered accounts (with an additional $4.0 billion for non-USAID accounts at the State Department). This humanitarian assistance allocation to USAID is only 20% of its entire foreign assistance budget. There is some additional humanitarian assistance under separate program names, such as some of the aid to Ukraine, but most of the USAID budget goes to activities other than providing food, medicine, and so on. Like what? Well, in that same year, Biden also requested $3.1 billion for State and USAID to implement abroad the National Strategy for Gender Equity and Equality, which includes “marginalized populations,” and another $200 million for the Gender Equity and Equality Action Fund. That $3.3 billion for gender equity and equality is over 10% of the entire USAID budget for foreign assistance. (It would also account for more than 10% of the State Department’s entire budget for “diplomatic engagement.”)

    Now, some of these “Equity” expenses might be justifiable, but a healthy share involves exporting the Woke revolution. But setting aside programs for trans, nonbinaries, and other “progressive” fascinations, we also must explore the degree to which USAID is funding media outlets, NGOs, and governments around the world and to what purpose. This activity goes by many names, whether it is shaping the information battlefield, proselytizing for Western (progressive) views, advancing US policy perspectives, fostering democratic governance (which often means undermining countries and Administrations, even democratically-elected ones, that our ruling party doesn’t like), economic assistance, and so on.

    In short, a great deal of domestic culture war activity and policy coercion is carried out and exported in the name of “foreign assistance,” which, to repeat, involves far more than disaster relief and saving lives. Moreover, a number of US senators and representatives have complained, long prior to all the current uproar, about USAID’s unresponsiveness to congressional oversight requests, effectively impeding attempts at accountability. I am all for the exercise of some elements of US “soft power,” but we need to take a serious look at the degree to which this serves as a cover for an incestuous group of progressive and other activists in government, NGOs, and the media funding each other and their desired cultural revolution abroad.

    https://reliefweb.int/report/world/fiscal-year-fy-2024-presidents-budget-request-united-states-agency-international-development-usaid

    1. One complexity here is that our adversaries like Russia and China, Turkey and Iran all have very well financed propaganda outlets. Russia’s particularly has very much contributed to terrible events in West Africa. Several Russia media inspired coups later three countries are no longer western allies.

      I think a lot of the annoyance is what flavor of media we’ve been financing rather than that we are doing so at all.

      Dpt of State etc are quite lefty and purity spirals result in some pretty extreme programs abroad that should be reined in.
      Not just b/c they’re far left (though there’s that) but often they’re wildly unwelcome and counterproductive. Rainbow and BLM flags over our embassies? Really?

      D.A.
      NYC

  17. The US embassy in Kabul flew the “Pride” flag when the US ran the place. I doubt the Taliban have similar idea. You could take “gender studies” at Kabul University at one time. Now women are barred from universities in Afghanistan.

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