Welcome to Thursday, February 13, 2025, and National Cheddar Day. May I recommend Montgomery Farmouse Cheddar, aged 24 months and sold at Neal’s Yard Dairy in London? It would make an awesome ploughman’s lunch along with a pint of Timothy Taylor Landlord. Le fromage:
It’s also National Tortellini Day (cultural appropriation, but a good pasta), International Self Love Day (!; otherwise known as Trump Day), National Crab Rangoon Day, Kiss Day, and National Italian Food Day (more cultural appropriation).
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the February 13 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to predict that the war between Hamas and Israel may start up again if Hamas doesn’t return more hostages on Saturday. From the WSJ:
Just over three weeks into a cease-fire that has brought the Gaza Strip relative peace, Israel and Hamas are already moving toward a return to war.
The combatants have backed each other into a corner, with Hamas saying it won’t release hostages until it gets more humanitarian supplies, and Israel saying it will hit pause on the agreement and start fighting again if the militant group doesn’t let the hostages go free.
President Trump, who helped close the deal before taking office, added a volatile new variable by laying down an ultimatum of his own, demanding that Hamas release all the hostages it holds, not just the ones due to be freed this week under the deal’s prescribed stages. The comments have emboldened Israel and alarmed Hamas.
This three-way game of chicken will come to a head on Saturday when the next round of releases is scheduled. Israel’s military has ordered more troops to Gaza and told them to prepare to fight. After Trump’s ultimatum, Hamas gave orders to its fighters in Gaza to go into hiding, revert to safer communication and prepare for combat, people familiar with the matter said.
Whatever the result, the road ahead will be difficult. The escalating dispute foreshadows a much more serious crisis that mediators expect to build over the next three weeks before the first phase of the truce ends.
Mediators believe the current crisis can be resolved and Saturday’s exchange of hostages for prisoners can be salvaged. They said the fact Hamas threatened not to release the hostages well in advance of the scheduled exchange indicates that the militant group was hoping to work it out and not spark a crisis.
. . . . David Meidan, a former senior Israeli official in the Mossad intelligence agency, said that he believed Hamas wants to maintain the agreement and proceed to phase two. Meidan secured the 2011 deal with Hamas that freed Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit from captivity in Gaza. He said the militant group may have miscalculated how its ultimatum would escalate.
“I think Hamas understands it doesn’t have much to gain from the continuation of the war, and what it wants most is to end the war,” Meidan said. “It has few alternatives.”
Indeed it doesn’t. But there will come a point when all the hostages will be released, and then Hamas has nothing to gain and everything to lose by staying in power, for they’ll be destroyed. Somehow they should be “persuaded” to surrender unconditionally, but then who will run Gaza. Right now that problem seems intractable, but Hamas will only lose more face when they start returning coffins instead of living hostages. There will be no ceremonies or “graduation certificates” then.
*It looks like Trump has finally gotten around to his campaign promise to end the war in Ukraine and, as I suspected, he probably wants Ukraine to give away part of its territory to Russia (Trump appears to love Putin!). The two just had a phone call:
President Trump said on Wednesday that he had a “lengthy and highly productive phone call” with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, characterizing it as the beginning of a negotiation to end the war in Ukraine.
It was the first confirmed conversation between the two men during Mr. Trump’s second term, coming as Mr. Trump has made clear to advisers that finding a U.S.-backed end to war that Russia began is a priority for his administration.
“We discussed Ukraine, the Middle East, Energy, Artificial Intelligence, the power of the Dollar, and various other subjects,” Mr. Trump wrote in a social media post.
And defense secretary Pete Hegseth implied that Ukraine will have to resign itself to giving up even more of its land (remember, they lost Crimea):
A return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is “an unrealistic objective” and an “illusionary goal” in the peace settlement between Ukraine and Russia that President Trump wants to accomplish, Pete Hegseth, the U.S. defense secretary, said on Wednesday at a meeting of countries supporting Ukraine.
In his first meeting that included NATO and Ukrainian defense ministers, Mr. Hegseth told them that Mr. Trump “intends to end this war by diplomacy and bringing both Russia and Ukraine to the table.” But for Ukraine to try to regain all of the territory Russia has seized since 2014, as it insists it must do, “will only prolong the war and cause more suffering,” he said.
“We will only end this devastating war and establish a durable peace by coupling allied strength with a realistic assessment of the battlefield,” he said.
And from the WaPo:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday called Ukraine’s desire to recover all of the territory it has lost to Russia since 2014 an “unrealistic objective,” pledging that the Trump administration will pursue peace negotiations to end the two nations’ war while pointedly shaping them at the outset.
And that, to me, means that Ukraine will have to give up some of its land in the eastern part of the country to Russia. I don’t know if Trump can broker some kind of peace, but I also wonder if the Ukrainian people want anybody to broker a pece agreement!
*This is from a video I saw when I woke up, but I didn’t believe it. But it appears that the verbal claims were indeed made, though whether these nurses actually killed Israelis has yet to be determined (click headline to read the NY Post article, whose claims have been verified on other sites; h/t Williams):
Two Sydney nurses have been stood down after disturbing footage emerged of the pair saying they would “kill” and refuse to treat Israeli patients.
It’s understood the clip, which showed two workers from Bankstown Hospital wearing New South Wales Health uniforms, was filmed during a live stream on Tuesday night.
The video shows the pair speaking to a popular Jewish influencer in Israel.
During the conversation, the man who claims to be a doctor tells the influencer: “I’m gonna be really honest with you … you actually got really, really beautiful eyes, but I’m so upset that you’re Israeli, like eventually you’re going to get killed.”
“Why do you think I’m going to get killed?” the influencer asks, before the female nurse interjects.
“It’s Palestine’s country, not your country you piece of s–t,” she says.
“One day your time will come and you will die the most,” she continues before the video cuts out.
“Listen to me when your time comes, I want you to remember my face so you can understand that you will die the most disgusting death.”
Wanting to ask a question, the influencer begins to say: “Let’s say an Israeli, God forbid …”
“I won’t treat them, I’ll kill them,” she interrupted. “Not God forbid, I hope to God.”
“You have no idea how many Israeli … dog came to this hospital and … ,” the man added, gesturing a knife through his neck.
“I literally sent them to Jahannam.”
Jahannam is the Arabic word for “hell”.
NSW police confirmed they are investigating the video, announcing Strike Force Pearl, which investigates anti-Semitic attacks, has taken carriage of the investigation.
“NSW Health, believe they have identified the individuals involved and are currently assisting detectives with their investigation,” a NSW police spokesperson said in a statement.
Here’s the video contained within a news report:
One thing is for sure, neither of these nurses will ever get another medical job again. Still, the degree of antisemitism in Australia surprises me, but whether these people broke the law by endangering Israeli patients needs to be investigated. If they did, it’s murder or manslaughter (I don’t know Australian law.)
*Tulsi Gabbard has squeaked through the Senate as National Intelligence Director on a straight party-line vote:
The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman turned Trump supporter, to serve as President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence.
The Republican-led Senate confirmed Gabbard by a party-line vote of 52 to 48 after a handful of GOP skeptics said she had assuaged their earlier concerns about her views on the acquisition and protection of classified intelligence, and about her past conciliatory approach to U.S. adversaries. Only one Republican, the former Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (Kentucky) — one of the last sitting GOP lawmakers who has exhibited a willingness to buck Trump — voted against Gabbard’s confirmation.
Gabbard, 43, who represented Hawaii for eight years in Congress, has committed to implementing Trump’s desire for cuts at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) as part of his administration’s larger quest to slash government bureaucracy and spending.Republicans have argued in recent weeks that Congress designed the ODNI to be a “lean” organization when it was created in the aftermath of 9/11 to be a conduit and coordinator for the United States’ myriad intelligence collection services. Since then, they say, it has become bloated.
Gabbard has pledged to provide Trump with honest, unvarnished intelligence assessments, as her job mandates. But the former Democrat and Iraq War veteran also has a long track record of controversial views that have put her at odds with the U.S. intelligence community and sets up a test for how well she will be received by career intelligence agents.
She drew tough questions from members of both parties during a tense confirmation hearing last month. Several Republicans interrogated her support for Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor indicted on espionage charges after he leaked classified information; her sympathetic comments about hostile regimes in Russia and Syria; and her opposition to a government surveillance program, known as Section 702, that intelligence officials say is critical to national security.
“Entrusting the coordination of the intelligence community to someone who struggles to acknowledge” the severity of threats posed by Russia and China and by intelligence leaks like Snowden’s “is an unnecessary risk,” McConnell said in a statement following the vote. “So is empowering a DNI who only acknowledged the value of critical intelligence collection authorities when her nomination appeared to be in jeopardy,” he added, referring to Gabbard’s recently reversed stance on Section 702.
Shoot me if you must, but though I think there are better candidates, I’m not as worried about her as, say, RFK Jr. She’s a surfer, used to be a Democrat, is a Hindu (the first one in Congress), and is a Lt. Col. in the Army Reserve, having served in both Iraq and Kuwait. All of this makes me like her more. Now you can go after me because I don’t condemn her absolutely!
*The Free Press was there when Salman Rushdie, who lost one eye and the use of one hand during a knife attack, testified at the trial of his attacker: “Salman Rushdie faces his alleged attacker.” (Read Rushdie’s book, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, about the attack and his recovery; it’s very good.)
In meticulous detail, the Booker Prize–winning author testified about the maniacal knife assault he endured while onstage at an arts festival on August 12, 2022. The attack—and he was stabbed 15 times before Good Samaritans in the audience subdued his assailant—left Rushdie’s then–75-year-old body punctured from his throat to his liver.
“It occurred to me, quite clearly, that I was dying,” the British American novelist methodically told the 16-person jury made up of rural New Yorkers. His alleged attacker, Lebanese American boxing enthusiast Hadi Matar, 27, sat impassively across from him, clad in a baggy, light blue dress shirt and oversized trousers. “And that was my predominant thought,” Rushdie added.
The stabbing cost Rushdie partial use of his left hand, along with his right eye. He wears a special pair of glasses, with a darkened lens covering the missing eye. At a dramatic high point of his testimony, Rushdie removed the spectacles to show the jury members exactly “what’s left.”
“It was a stab wound in my eye, intensely painful, after that I was screaming,” the Indian-born writer said. “A lake of blood, that was clearly my own blood. . . was spreading outwards.”
. . . .Rushdie’s alleged would-be assassin fascinates me, but he reveals little of himself through body language; he spends the proceedings sitting stoically at the defense table, occasionally taking notes on a yellow legal pad or appearing to nod off.
The exceptions—and they were significant—came as he entered court each day.
“Free Palestine. Free Palestine,” he told a phalanx of reporters in a soft voice as he came in on Monday. On Tuesday, the slogan was: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
. . . . U.S. officials have told The Free Press that the Iranian government, at the very least, appeared to incite Matar’s actions. While Tehran denied being behind Matar’s attack, circumstantial evidence points to a role for Tehran: The State Department sanctioned an Iranian organization, the 15 Khordad Foundation, shortly after the attack for repeatedly offering a payment to anyone who’d murder Rushdie. The bounty’s grown to $3.3 million, though no link to Matar was alleged.
Author Jay Solomon says that he’s been able to find out little about Matar, who is a cipher even to Rushdie, whose book tries to figure out what motivated the man to try to kill him. He even has a long imaginary conversation (a quite good one!) with Matar near the end of Knife.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Andrzej are joking around:
Hili: What did Hannibal need the elephants for?Andrzej: He wanted to ensure his place in Wikipedia.
Hili: Po co Hannibalowi były słonie?Ja: Chciał sobie zapewnić miejsce w Wikipedii.
*******************
From Things With Faces: a cooking-oil elephant!
From My Cat is an Asshole; surely photoshopped but still good:
From The 2025 Darwin Awards!!!/Epic Fails!!!:
Masih and friends call out dictators:
STOP being politically correct when it comes to dictators like Putin, Khamenei and Maduro. Stop giving them democratic titles.
They are killers and they cannot be reformed.
Please listen and join us. @WLCongress @HFXforum #UnitedAgainstDictators pic.twitter.com/JbfK0eSUZJ— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) November 23, 2024
From Cate; one that I retweeted:
You can look up inosculation here: https://t.co/QevTEsEs9E
Similar to grafting, it occurs most often between trees of the same species (I don’t know if that’s the case for this pair). https://t.co/VU4r3XxFDY— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) February 12, 2025
From Simon, a screenshot (did the original disappear?)
From Luana:
— i/o (@eyeslasho) February 11, 2025
Two tweets from my feed:
The desks of authors and historical figures 🧵
1. Einstein’s desk on the day he died, 1955 pic.twitter.com/ahq0P5tXWo
— Jeremy Wayne Tate (@JeremyTate41) February 10, 2025
Sound up!
Speed : 100
damage : 1 pic.twitter.com/B90NtYPy3T— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) February 11, 2025
From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I retweeted:
A 31-year-old Danish woman living in Norway was gassed upon arriving at Auschwitz, and so was her 4-year-old son.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-02-13T11:07:10.084Z
Two posts from Professor Cobb. First, Larry the Cat gets behind the Downing Street barriers:
Mornin Boss. Tracking went off piste a bit as I was trying to pet him when he stopped 😆
— Justin Ng (@justin-ng.bsky.social) 2025-02-11T12:57:29.156Z
I can’t vouch for this, but if it’s true it just verifies the status of the First Bullgoose Looney:
I had to check for myself to make sure this was real, and holy shit it is. How scarily unhinged American politics have become.www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c…
— Daniel Sohege (@danielsohege.bsky.social) 2025-02-11T17:27:51.605Z
The amazing thing about the video of the nurses is that they must live in such a woke bubble that they think that wanting to kill Israelis is a normal and acceptable thing to say out loud.
The degree of third-world immigration into Anglophone countries nowadays surprises and puzzles many people.
“The amazing thing about the video of the nurses is that they must live in such a woke bubble that they think that wanting to kill Israelis is a normal and acceptable thing to say out loud.”
Perhaps they are regulars at Pharyngula.
Why would they use an Arabic word for “hell”?
Yes. They are not Australians, they are Muslim extremists (?). They aren’t anti-Semitic, they are anti western. I saw an ex Muslim woman on Apostate Prophet (YouTube) give a message to the woke campers supporting Hamas, about what Islamists would like to do to them “They will hang you!”
Apostate Prophet is excellent. He’s a very thoughtful brave young chap.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzREuchzOqiawpEpvEM0Tyg
I was put onto him by my friends at jihadwatch.org who publish my column.
The internet is fantastic. The true values and dynamics of things like Islam, scientology, etc were almost invisible to most people. Now a click away!
D.A.
NYC
Perhaps more interesting is that the pair have through their lawyers apologised for what they’ve said. I’d have expected for the pair to claim that they were edited in such a way as to make it seem that they said such things. Instead they’ve not denied it.
However the investigation itself is awaiting (the last I heard) the unedited version of the footage.
All Australians are appalled at the antisemitism and many questions are now being asked about the safety of medical care.
Here is one idiots response and reason for it. Entrapment pfft.
https://x.com/DrewPavlou/status/1889864925079806140
The idiots involved claim it was a joke. This has not passed the pub test. It’s not a joke if no one is laughing.
https://x.com/tigertuffmark/status/1889547360918798722
The hospital has said they are investigating the incident and this is their first action.
https://x.com/VoteLewko/status/1889560767579467899
The authorities trying to punish the messenger for the advance warning.
https://x.com/VoteLewko/status/1889803984082477531
He came over as a 12 yo Afghan refugee and claimed citizenship 4 years ago.
https://x.com/JordanSchachtel/status/1889532419771912638
We imported problems and are still importing problems. The Australian government has issued visas to 3000 Gazans.
https://x.com/BFacist/status/1889538772439801867
No one in Australia has asked for any of this. We are flummoxed and furious.
I heard about the Gazans. Pretty much everything this ALP (Labor, left party) has done is a total abortion. From the idiotic “the Voice” aboriginal patronizing onwards.
I can’t effect anything there, I don’t vote or live there anymore, but I can be annoyed!
And I’m annoyed!
D.A.
NYC
Indeed the Australian Labour party has singularly managed to spectacularly annoy everyone in Australia. Quite the achievement. They are toast.
The inosculation is … OK, I’ve seen simple variations, but this shows very clearly how the tree can be cut off from its roots yet survive!
Reminds me of the word – occasionally used here – osculate .. “kiss” .. I thought it meant like pat … amusing… learn something new every day…
Let’s be fair, how could the Ukraine war end except with Ukraine giving up territory? Trump doesn’t have to “love” Putin for that to be true. In theory, Ukraine could keep fighting, but all it would be doing to is staving off the inevitable with no hope of substantially changing its bargaining position.
Russia’s resources are seriously depleted. Resorting to importing North Korean soldiers, using third-string armored vehicles, and faring poorly against Ukrainian drones. Putting the brakes on Ukraine would be a tragic mistake, from the input I get.
But aren’t the Russians the ones currently gaining territory, small amounts at great cost, but they’re still the ones advancing (e.g. BBC update). And however depleted the Russians are, Ukraine is suffering too: their army is utterly exhausted, they’re losing a thousand men a month, young people are doing all they can to avoid conscription, and polls say that a majority of Ukrainians now want to sue for peace. Yes it would be great to push the Russians out, but ever since the vaunted Spring Offensive of 2023 got nowhere against dug-in Russian lines, that prospect has not looked realistic.
Yes – the Russians can absolutely outlast in every respect. The North Korean contingent (representing two weeks of human input into the meat grinder and no more) isn’t going well but doesn’t move the needle much.
Like Steven Kotkin, and evidently this administration, I think Ukraine will have to cut its losses in Donbas and Crimea.
D.A.
NYC
I believe that Russia recently lost around a thousand in a single day. They’ve recently gained some territory in Kursk, too, which remember, they took from Russia. They’ve been hitting large Russian ammo and fuel dumps deep in Russian territory, and taking out officers at a distance, too.
My source on all of this, as noted in the past, is by modest subscription to Reporting from Ukraine (rfunews.com).
It just sucks so bad is all. I am still hoping for a turn of events like an internal insurrection against Putin. Something that would change the equation. Of course that hope is pretty unrealistic since Putin has culled anyone who could possibly stand up to him.
The USA could help Ukraine properly, as it promised when it disarmed Ukraine with the Budapest Memorandum, and then Ukraine & Allies would win.
Instead, Biden’s administration has secretly working towards Ukraine’s defeat since late 2022 (because Putin’s regime threatened to go nuclear), and now Putin’s fanboy Trump has come to complete the dirty job. He is making very important preemptive concessions before negotiations have even started.
Ukraine is not invited to the negotiations. Trump has personally contacted Putin.
The only reason Tulsi Gabbard might be less threatening than RFK Jr, is that Trump already appointed Pete Hegseth to weaken US national security. So Gabbard may have less to destroy. Though having our allies afraid to share intelligence with us is pretty problematic.
Another problem with Gabbard. She belongs to a cult that splintered off the Hare Krishna weirdos. So it’s misleading to say she’s a Hindu.
No religion can be defended scientifically but there are cults that are considerably worse than the mainstream variants.
Hare Krishna is one of them.
Hi FK,
I prefer the old Krisnas hopping around airports sort of clownishly to today’s woke cults. At least the Krishnas had good cheap food! They didn’t mutilate kids.
What happened to them anyway? Better airport security? Knees gave out? hehehe
Seriously though, Gabbard is a disaster but with less “reach” and ability to do much real damage next to that rat and obvious psychopath RFK. He is the most dangerous American.
D.A.
NYC
Definitely RFK Jr is more dangerous. Unfortunately the news just arrived that he has been confirmed.
And look what we have to look forward to:
https://publications.aap.org/aapnews/news/31289/Measles-outbreak-in-Texas-grows-to-24-cases?autologincheck=redirected
I find Gabbard more dangerous, for she is a Putin’s fangirl.
Interesting that Moscow Mitch was the only R standout against Gabbard. I understand that he was also the only R to vote against RFK Jr. Who would have predicted that a few years ago?
The USA routinely leaks intelligence provided by allies, either by low-ranking employees having access (e.g. Snowden, Teixeira), or by top officials informing the Russians about Ukrainian plans to ensure the defeat of Ukraine. The latter was done in the summer of 2023; that’s why Ukrainians kept their US “allies” in the dark about the Kursk operation, and it succeeded.
I agree with your comment on Tulsi Gabbard. Her judgment is terrible. A Putin and Assad fan girl.
Re: the refulgently noble and edifying “fan girl,” “puppet” and “asset” name-calling of Gabbard: verily, name-calling constitutes rational argument. I’m reminded of the (“Either For Us Or Against Us”) Bush-Cheney crowd similarly labeling those who disagreed with their Iraq adventure.
Also the claim that Gabbard is a “disaster.” As compared to whom? Warmongers John Bolton, Victoria Nuland, Mike Pompeo and their neocon ilk? As compared to those apotheoses of congressional hearing witness truth-telling, John Brennan and James Clapper? Keep on keeping on with that warrantless mass surveillance and data vacuuming of U.S. citizens.
I reasonably assume that Gabbard will no longer be surveilled by Quiet Skies federal air marshals when she flies, apparently the result of her criticizing Kamala Harris and presuming to differ with U.S. foreign policy.
Unlike with Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, I take it that noble Mitch McConnell did not have sufficient influence to prevent Gabbard’s being considered in the first place.
Apparently, a lesson intended for the rest of us “puppets” is not to be like Scott Ritter, who had the backbone to state his opinions about U.S. foreign policy, apparently resulting in his being escorted off a flight bound for a St. Petersburg, Russia economic conference, his passport confiscated and soon thereafter his house being raided by the FBI. I have yet to hear the U.S. government ex cathedra declare Ritter “wrongfully detained” as it did Marc Fogel. (Perhaps it was Ritter’s misfortune not to have medicinal cannabis with him at the time.)
In a recent opinion – uh Ah mean – news article the Associated Press labeled Gabbard’s foreign policy views as “unorthodox.” Well, I now know where to go to determine the approved orthodoxy.
The Ukraine-Russia war was reasonably predictable from George W. Bush’s decree from Mount Olympus at the 2008 Bucharest NATO summit that Ukraine and Georgia would become NATO members. What Russian aggression westward during the three decades prior to 2022 provoked NATO eastward expansion during that same time frame? I’m waiting to hear Lindsay Graham and his confreres specify how many Ukrainian deaths will satisfy them.
I gather from the so far prevailing approved orthodoxy that Russia had less cause to invade Ukraine than the U.S. did invading Grenada (and other Latin American countries over the years). Is another friendly reminder invasion of Grenada overdue, what with American Exceptionalism, the Monroe Doctrine, Full Spectrum Dominance and all that?
You’re welcome to your opinion of Gabbard of course.
But your facts on Russia are wrong. Putin wants Ukraine because it used to be of Russia. It has nothing to do with NATO—that’s propaganda spread by Putin. He’s done a lot of that. Source’s available if you want.
Steven Levitsky & Lucan A. Way:
“The Path to American Authoritarianism: What Comes After Democratic Breakdown
…
U.S. democracy will likely break down during the second Trump administration, in the sense that it will cease to meet standard criteria for liberal democracy: full adult suffrage, free and fair elections, and broad protection of civil liberties.
The breakdown of democracy in the United States will not give rise to a classic dictatorship in which elections are a sham and the opposition is locked up, exiled, or killed. Even in a worst-case scenario, Trump will not be able to rewrite the Constitution or overturn the constitutional order. He will be constrained by independent judges, federalism, the country’s professionalized military, and high barriers to constitutional reform. There will be elections in 2028, and Republicans could lose them.
But authoritarianism does not require the destruction of the constitutional order. What lies ahead is not fascist or single-party dictatorship but competitive authoritarianism—a system in which parties compete in elections but the incumbent’s abuse of power tilts the playing field against the opposition.”
Source: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/path-american-authoritarianism-trump
In The 2023 Economist Democracy Index the USA already count as a flawed democracy (rank #29). They may well become an even less (liberal-)democratic hybrid regime (an example of which is Turkey under Erdogan) during Trump’s second presidency: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index
I just read this article, and was immediately reminded of a previous Hili dialogue where you said you’d fallen repeatedly on ice. It advises that putting socks over your shoes really does work to improve grip on ice. So, maybe keep a pair of socks tucked in your backpack, in case of ice emergencies in the future!
Oh I don’t think the country of my birth has an anti-semitism problem. It is one of the LEAST anti-S. countries in the world I can assure you. Right up to about 20 years ago, even with quite a lot of Arab immigration. (Much of it Christian but still many Muslims many fleeing Islam – Iranians for eg. Or NPCs like Indonesians.)
In the past few decades Australia seemingly removed the filter so now they have an Islamic problem.
Islamic problems are like “gun problems” – if you don’t have Islamic immigrants or guns you don’t have those kinds of problems.
D.A.
NYC
Just got the news: RFK Jr confirmed.
The clown show is complete!
Oh bugger. I’d endure a hundred drunken handsy Hegspeths and a dozen Krshna Gabbards for one RFK’s make polio great again in terms of damage.
He’s the WORST.
D.A.
NYC
As to DJT re-naming everything, how about just “TrumpLandia” or some variation thereof. Google can do it electronically instead of printing anything. Just give his staff shiny new golden stickers to put on everything.
Better than him revisiting the suggestion to add himself to Mt Rushmore.
“I also wonder if the Ukrainian people want anybody to broker a peace agreement!”
The Gallup organization asked this question of Ukrainians this past August and October. Only 38% of Ukrainians surveyed said that “Ukraine should continue fighting until it wins the war” and 52% said that “Ukraine should seek to negotiate an ending to the war as soon as possible.” I suspect support for the war is much higher among liberals in the United States than it is among those people bearing the cost in Ukraine.
As far as land, as I’ve posted here before, if Zelensky wants Crimea back, then he needs to take it. If he can’t recapture it, then it is lost. War works that way. All that matters is whether one can impose his will on another. Trump will not be negotiating away land; the land is already lost. One can lament that loss, one can rage about it, one can volunteer to fight and die for it, or one can send others to continue to die for it. Those are the options.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/653495/half-ukrainians-quick-negotiated-end-war.aspx
Doug, that’s a pretty clear-headed commentary about Crimea.
Trump is being called a Putin lackey or worse, but it’s not like Biden’s strategy enacted any change whatsoever except maybe preventing the Russians from advancing further. The only thing that’s happened since the initial invasion seems to be piles of dead kids and lots of dollars flowing to the companies that make the devices that create those piles of dead kids. It’s time to stop that and negotiate peace. Or make a big action to support Ukraine with US, NATO or other armed forces, which no one has had the guts to do so far and as far as I see, no one is proposing to do in the future.
Biden practically invited Russia in. The Ukrainians I know have maintained from the beginning that the leaders of their country have always been puppets of either Russia or the US. They want the war to end and which superpower is calling the shots matters less to them than to us. They all speak Russian. Their culture is Russian. They simply want to get back to the mundane matters of everyday life. That’s not my opinion as an American. Those are their opinions as Ukranians.
Seems that the drone warfare as practiced by Ukraine is increasingly effective and inexpensive to implement. I wouldn’t be surprised if Russia cracked in a few more months. Also, the assassinations of Russian butchers in Moscow must have Putin rattled.