DID YOU SET YOUR CLOCK FORWARD LAST NIGHT? IF NOT, IT’S DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME, AND AN HOUR LATER THAN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS!
Welcome to the Sabbath for goyische cats: it’s Sunday, March 9, 2025, and National Meatball Day. Here’s the world’s largest meatball, put together in Ohio: 1110.5 pounds—more than half a ton! What I want to know is what they did with it? Did they have spaghetti on hand?
Don’t forget that the stupid DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME BEGAN at 2 a.m, in America, so unless you live in Hawaii or Arizona you’ve lost an hour of sleep.
It’s also National Crabmeat Day and Amerigo Vespucci Day, honoring the birthday in 1454 of the explorer whose voyages haven’t been shown to have really taken place (he claimed to have discovered the New World by landing in Brazil).
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the March 9 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*This was inevitable as Democrats ponder our big loss last November. Should we resist and double down, especially since Trump seems prone to self-sabotage, or should we move more towards the center and become concerned with the issues that trouble most Americans. I have opted for the latter since I don’t think “progressive” Leftism can take hold of the country, but the WSJ reports how the internecine fight continues among Democrats.
The Democratic Party, overpowered by President Trump’s command of the national political debate, is fighting over how to fight back.
When Rep. Al Green of Texas stood up, shook his cane and yelled at Trump during the president’s address to Congress this week, the progressive group Indivisible called it the leadership the party needs. “It was behavior that raised the alarm about how extreme this administration is,” said the group’s co-founder, Ezra Levin.
To Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York, Green’s outburst was a distraction from the bread-and-butter issues that win elections. “Instead of focusing on protecting Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare…too many Americans are talking about a member of Congress being removed from the chamber,” he wrote online. “This is not helpful.”
Their diverging strategy perspectives reflect a schism inside the party over Democrats’ most promising pathway back to power. Progressives want constant action and are urging core supporters to flood town hall meetings and congressional phone lines to demand an aggressive response to Trump. Moderates say that approach risks turning off centrist voters in highly competitive districts—such as Suozzi’s—who dislike partisan politics and vote their pocketbooks.
The pro-confrontation crowd believes that angry voters turning out at town hall meetings have scared GOP lawmakers, who in turn could become a moderating force on Trump. Many progressives reject the idea that their party has little ability to counter the president’s efforts to fire federal workers, idle entire agencies and unwind longstanding ties with U.S. allies, even though Democrats don’t control the House, the Senate or the White House.
That last sentence is the key issue. Even if Democrats win in the midterms, there’s always Trump’s veto and the conservative Supreme Court.
. . . In a mid-February Blueprint poll, 65% of voters agreed with the statement “No one has any idea what the Democratic Party stands for anymore, other than opposing Donald Trump.” Smith said that Democrats should discard any gesture that distracts from showing how the party would help voters if they regained power.
“Voters expect something very clear from the Democratic Party: ‘You are the center-left party, the party of Social Security and Medicare and the little guy when we are being stepped on,’ ” Smith said. “Be center-left. Don’t be a spectacle.”
Rahm Emanuel, former congressman and White House chief of staff to former President Barack Obama, has said that confrontation won’t help Democrats reach voters. “They’re close to having you on mute, anyway. If it’s only one tone, they’ll shut you down,” Emanuel said at a February panel of the Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas.
I’m with Smith and Emanuel. The Democrats’ raucous performance in Congress, shouting and waving signs, embarrassed me. But who knows how Trump might self destruct? A little inflation, a little more osculation of the tuchas of dictators, and, well. . . . I don’t know. . .
*Reader Norman sent a Gallup poll that shows a strong political divide among Americans in their feelings towards different countries. As he wrote, “For the past several years, I have been more concerned about antisemitism from the left than from the right. On the right it has been largely confined to the far right—which has limited political power and is widely derided in the media. But on the left, antisemitism—and especially antiZionism—have become mainstream. And since the left has a great deal of political power, the left is what I worry about.”
Well, to me it looks like the power balance is exactly the opposite, but the polls show a huge division between Democrats and Republicans. A quote and a figure:
Americans rate Canada, Japan, Great Britain and Denmark the most positively among 22 countries asked about, with each country viewed favorably by over 80% of U.S adults. Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan are the least well-liked countries, all with 15% favorability or lower.
The highest- and lowest-rated countries tend to be rated similarly by Republicans and Democrats. Partisans diverge most in their opinions of Israel — 83% of Republicans versus 33% of Democrats have a favorable opinion of Israel, as do 48% of independents. Fifty-four percent of Americans overall rate Israel positively.
. . . . n addition to Israel, Republicans also have substantially more positive views of Russia and Saudi Arabia than Democrats do. Democrats’ favorable ratings of Panama, France, India and Germany are 10 points higher than those of Republicans.
And the data. I’ve put rectangles around countries with the biggest differences between Democrats and Republicans.
Yep, the Republicans like Israel a whole lot more (and Palestine considerably less) than do the Democrats. I’ll refrain from saying that Democrats are more anti-Semitic, for one could always say that they are referring to Israel’s behavior in the Gaza war, not to Jews. But if that’s the stand you take, what about the behavior of Hamas, hiding among civilians and holding hostages? As for Russia, neither party really likes it a lot, but Republicans like it five times more than to Democrats, a reversal of the old days when the Left was more pro-Communist. I suppose they’re following Trump and his love of dictators.
*Speaking of dictators, Andrew Sullivan’s Weekly Dish column, “The Bully in his Pulpit,” takes out after Trump again, calling his speech to Congress as an instance of “liberal democratic collapse.”
. . . . Yes, yes, I know I recently pledged not to respond to every provocation from the troller-in-chief and focus on policies and long-term results. But to understand the moment we are in — and the policies that will follow — we simply cannot look away from what Tuesday night revealed about the state of our republic. I know I’m repeating myself, and have been since early 2016, but part of Trump’s psychological abuse is wearing down opponents so they stop repeating themselves, and give in to the lies. I will not be worn down. Truth matters.
Here it is: We have a sociopathic president in total command of a cult-like party; a Congress that, as long as the GOP controls it, is a rubber-stamp version of the Russian Duma under Putin; a court balanced precariously between a modest defense of the unitary executive and an Alito wing bent on empowering an American Caesar; and a Justice Department openly planning persecution of the president’s political opponents.
The speech itself, mind you, was masterful. He’s at the top of his game and clearly loving every second of it. If you knew nothing of history or reality apart from it, you’d have been inspired, entranced, even ebullient about the greatest comeback of any country in all of human history by far! And the poignant individual stories were pitch-perfect, with the Democrats’ cringey lameness the cherry on the cake.
Trump’s ability to invent and sustain a false narrative, however crazy and however incoherent, is preternatural. So are his profound skills in psychological abuse deployed to make it stick: gaslighting, intimidating, manipulating, and menacing you so that, in the end, you have no idea what the truth is or could be, and submit to the man if only to get out of his way.
He then gives an example of Trump’s lies (the exemplar is his huge distortion of the popular-vote margin of his win), lies that we no longer notice because they’re so common. But Sullivan notices, for he’s a conservative:
This matters because it is central to Trump’s success: no sane person with a grip on reality — unless they had just arrived from outer space — could believe vast tracts of his speech. With huge self-evident lie after huge self-evident lie, insane exaggeration after insane exaggeration, you are instantly forced to choose between walking away from the nutter or acquiescing to his madness. And since he is president, you can’t walk away. So the lies become Truth for millions; narrative replaces reality; aggressors are victims; exploding debt is fiscal prudence; weaponization of the law is anti-weaponization; and on and on.
Sounds like Nineteen Eighty-Four, no?
Notice how post-modern this is. These are not the usual politicians’ lies, which pay some deference to the truth, even when eliding it. Trump, like the critical theorists, has contempt for the truth. “Truth” is entirely a myth he creates at will to justify the use of power. Critical Trump Theory, so to speak, is unfalsifiable, irrational, and seeks to replace objective reality with Trump’s lived experience so that, in the end, only his power remains. Brute power — immune to fact, argument or debate. Trump power. That’s what the Founders started this country to resist. And it’s what a majority of Americans have now given up on.
It continues, recounting Trump’s unconscionable humiliation of Zelensky and our allies, DOGE, the tariff wars—the list goes on and on. And the result?
So yes, I will wait and judge the consequences of Trump’s policies. Some — like ending DEI, mass migration, and the medical abuse of children — I support. But at the expense of reason, decency, and the rule of law?
What I saw Tuesday night was a whole new low in mass deception, delusion, and democratic collapse. What I saw was a new stage in the transition from democracy to a form of tyranny in real time. The institutional trappings remain, as they did in Rome. But the institutions no longer function as the Founders understood them; and reasoned deliberation has become utterly irrelevant. The cooling saucer of the Senate on Tuesday night was chanting “USA! USA! USA!” like a mob. If Ben Franklin witnessed the scene, his worst fears would be confirmed.
I cannot allow myself to believe that tyranny like this can last for more than for years, but remember that Vance is waiting in the wings and learning his lessons well. Whether the tyranny continues depends on whether America becomes so sick of Trump that they can’t bear to elect another Republican. I internalize my frustration, but it’s seeping out as depression.
*The Free Press held a debate (co-sponsored by, of all groups, FIRE, about a topic that’s becoming increasingly popular: the supposed religious “revival” in America, a revival that looks more like a leveling-off of belief in God and not a big increase in religiosity. Further, the salubrious nature of religion is adduced solely by a correlation between bad stuff happening in the world and the slowing of the decline of religion in America. (Note that the slowing is not happening on other Western countries; religion in general is on the wane in Europe) Of course, people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali see religion as a bulwark against the incursion of ideologies like Communism and Islamism into the West, but she, along with her debate partner Ross Douthat (who’s floggins his new book on the need for faith), also actually believe in things like the Crucifixion and the Resurrection, and Douthat also claims to believe in Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell.
You can see the 1½-hour debate here (it starts at 02:45), but only if you’re a Free Press subscriber. But the godless people won, thanks from Michael Shermer and Adam Carolla, who were on the “no side” of the proposition: “Moved: The West needs a religious revival.” Bolding is mine. Check the Pew data to see how unimpressive the “religious revival” really is.
But as churches emptied, people began searching for meaning elsewhere—politics, activism, astrology, and therapy started to fill the void God once occupied. And now, after decades of decline, faith is creeping back. A new Pew study suggests Christian identification in America may be ticking upward again. And a recent piece by The Free Press’s Peter Savodnik showed that this revival is being led by many of our leading intellectuals.
What’s going on? Could it be that humanity needs religion? Last week, 1,300 people packed into the Paramount Theatre in Austin, Texas, for a Free Press debate on this subject.
In the audience were a monk from Marblehead, Massachusetts; a couple from Portland; a father and daughter from Toronto; metalworkers from Detroit; and Entourage star Adrian Grenier. All of them made the trip to Austin to watch Ross Douthat and Ayaan Hirsi Ali (who argued yes) face off against Michael Shermer and Adam Carolla (who argued no) to hash out the question: Does the West need a religious revival?
At the beginning of the debate, a whopping 73 percent of the live audience voted in favor of religious revival.
As Douthat stated in his opening statement: “The convergence of secularization with political derangement and cultural despair is not a coincidence.”
But, later in the discussion, Carolla countered that point: “I think the uptick of despair is more physical. We were meant to go out and work and be on our feet and be in nature. And in the last 10 minutes, we took everyone and put them in a cubicle and blasted air-conditioning at them and told them to do data entry on a computer and we started eating our own brains.”
By the end of the debate, Shermer and Carolla were able to convince 12 percent of the audience to switch to their side—that religion is not the answer—changing more minds than their opponents, and winning the night.
One audience member and past Free Press debater, Michael Shellenberger, disagreed with the outcome: “I think the affirmative side is obviously right that the absence of religion leaves a God-sized hole that has been filled by dangerously juvenile secular religions including fascism, communism, and wokeism.” Although, he added, “I’m skeptical we will see a mass return to Christianity in the West, even though that has been my own journey.”
A screenshot of the audience poll before the debate:
And after the debate. Atheists win! Atheists win! (Though of course 61% of the presumably smart audience still needs its god.)
The godless people won—at least in terms of changing more minds. It still baffles me that people with brains think that the solution to the world’s problems—and the personal problem of having a “need for meaning” (described as our “God-shaped hole”)—depends on taking as true a set of propositions for which there is no evidence. The credibility of Christianity is no greater than the credibility of Scientology; the only reason people make fun of Scientology is because we were alive when the religion was made up. The tenets of both faiths are equally risible and unevidenced.
*Trying to follow the news on Israel is like trying to catch a greased pig: once you think you’ve got the situation in hand, it changes. The U.S. is apparently talking to Hamas, while Hamas claims that it’s negotiating with Israel, and Israel denies it. The tenuous ceasefire is holding, though an occasional rocket is fired from Gaza. The Guardian, not clearly biased for once (though they do distort the news below), summarizes the uncertainty in an article misleadingly called, “Dread haunts Gaza as airstrikes dent hopes of a renewed ceasefire.”
The territory is mired in a ‘grey zone’ of uncertainty as the peace process has stalled and neither side seems willing to compromise
Fears of a return to war in Gaza are intensifying this weekend, with faltering diplomatic efforts and almost daily airstrikes by Israeli forces in the devastated territory.
There has been relative calm in Gaza since a ceasefire for prisoners deal between Hamas and Israel came into effect in January, pausing 15 months of conflict. However, the first phase of that agreement expired more than a week ago and a second phase has stalled, leaving Gaza plunged into a “grey zone” of uncertainty.
“I feel happiness and relief that the fighting has been stopped for so long but right now, I am really anxious the war will start again. I follow the news continuously,” said Ranan al-Ashqar, who works in the education ministry in Gaza City.
Many observers see only a narrow and unlikely pathway to any durable peace. “We are in a grey zone. I am pessimistic about the potential going forward because the political calculations for the Israeli leadership do not favour a ceasefire that would involve an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza,” said Hugh Lovatt, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Some analysts fear a return to wider hostilities within days as Israel seeks to pressure Hamas into new concessions.
Others suggest that a large-scale ground and air operation by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) “within weeks” is more likely if no new deal is reached. Last week, senior IDF officers told Israeli journalists that if Israeli forces launched a renewed offensive, it would be massive and very destructive.
So far, the IDF has limited itself to a series of airstrikes across Gaza, though these appear to be increasingly frequent.
The distortion here is that Israel only launches airstrikes to take out a missile site when one is launched at Israel. And the IDF fires only at Gazans who, despite warnings, approach the IDF forces in northern Gaza and along the border with Egypt. If Hamas just stopped being aggressive, this “denting of hopes” would not happen.
That said, I do think the war will resume for one reason. The present situation is untenable, though, as Yigal Carmon think, it could last for years. Israel, despite wanting its hostages back, knows that I cannot put up with a Gaza permanently controlled by Hamas. And Hamas will not voluntarily give up power. That is all ye need to know.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is pulling rank and telling Andrzej to plan his next post.
A: May I go back to the computer?Hili: First tell me what are you going to do there.
Ja: Czy mogę wrócić do komputera?Hili: Opowiedz mi najpierw co tam będziesz robił.
*******************
From Merilee, a very old cat meme, but still a good one:
From Nicole:
From Divy, a very true diagram of cat behavior:
Masih highlights a new documentary about a fighter for women’s rights in Afghanistan, the indomitable Roya Mahboob:
Breaking Firewalls, Breaking Chains: The Courage of Afghan Women in Technology!
On this International Women’s Day, we are honored to celebrate the release of Rule Breakers, a powerful documentary showcasing the extraordinary resilience, vision, and impact of Roya Mahboob, a true… pic.twitter.com/YNc3HBunug
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) March 7, 2025
From Simon, a science-nerd poster (but what do you expect at a science march?). Grahm Coop is a very good geneticist at UC Davis:
The science version of "JD Vance skis in jeans"
— Dr. Emily Dolson (@emilydolson.bsky.social) 2025-03-08T03:13:00.451Z
From Bryan: a clear (5.5-minute) explanation about how a car differential works, from 1937. Very clever! And then, the incomparable Feynman tells us how a train stays on the tracks. It’s not the flanges on the wheels, as I thought until now!
Here’s Richard Feynman explaining it in 2.5 minutes via his unique storytelling approach:
• Starts with how a train stays on its track
• Then describes the purpose of a car differential pic.twitter.com/GYxGUOs4G6— Hassan O. (@AuthorOnTheSide) March 7, 2025
I presume a “female-only phallus-free environment” can include unphallused trans-identified women. Things are getting complicated!
A woke spa in San Francisco is having difficulty navigating the natural consequences of their policies. They held a “women’s only night” and so many bepenised ppl showed up that even the SF Wokes revolted and now, they’re having alternating “phallic” and “non phallic” days… pic.twitter.com/b6Yi8yPXlT
— The Heretical Liberal 🇨🇦 (@Rob_ThaBuilder) March 7, 2025
From the Auschwitz Memorial, one I reposted:
French Jewish girl gassed immediately upon arriving at Auschwitz. She was five.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-03-09T10:15:13.802Z
Two posts from Dr. Cobb. First, a “medieval kot”:
One of my faves ~ looks like this little medieval critter has just discovered a literary version of a cat-flap. This front & back view of the page is said to be from a 1485 Book of Hours, held in the National Museum in Krakow, Poland
— Journal of Art in Society (@artinsociety.bsky.social) 2025-03-08T06:43:49.306Z
. . . and a gaggle of geese combined with a raft of ducks:
When the traffic lights stop working during rush hour #birds #ducks #geese #waterfowl #trafficjam
— Bob Bell 🇨🇦 (@thebirderbob.bsky.social) 2025-03-03T11:28:08.825Z
It’s early (time change in U.S.), but As I read the opinion chart, it looks like you summarized it opposite to what it says: republicans favor Israel much more than dems and dems favor Pali territories much more than republicans. Yes?
Shellenberger said “god-sized hole” not the usual “god-shaped hole”. Wow, that’s some hole!
I have long failed to understand why the fact that we have a “god-shaped hole” in us is any argument for the gods. In other words, sure, we have a “gap” in us, if by that we mean that we are often dissatisfied, unfulfilled, and not very fond of growing old, falling apart and dying a slow painful death. But this is no argument whatsoever for a god or gods. Rather, it is more evidence of how we fashion our gods to fit our needs. Thus we should speak of “human hole shaped gods” rather than than a “god-shaped hole”.
Excellent point – “human hole-shaped gods”!
Reminds me of the late great Robert Ingersoll: “An honest god is the noblest work of man.”
Yes, I’ve corrected this; it was a typo.
Here in Europe, we’re still on standard time until Sunday 30 March. My ex-pat American wife has declared the next three weeks to be Daylight Confusion Time, because she has to remember that her family in North Idaho is only 7 hours behind the U.K., and not the usual 8 hours. This makes a difference when she and her Mom agree what time to Skype each other.
Now if Trump would put you on permanent standard time it would make up for some of the silly stuff, and the rest of us would be sure to follow. There has to be something to compensate us for 250% tariffs on dairy.
Hi Christopher,
It’s Canada who applies tariffs ranging from 249 to 298% on dairy products imported into our country, as part of agricultural supply management. This is a hill the Canadian Government seems willing to die on, even at the cost of trade troubles with not only the United States but Europe and New Zealand. (The latter won a dispute against us at the WTO.). This is related to parochial internal Canadian political considerations that we need not bore readers with.
The recently announced US dairy tariff of 250% you allude to is purely symbolic. Under the quotas inherent to supply management, Canadian dairy farmers are not allowed to produce enough milk to export any, even if they wanted to.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
A full belly to the labourer is, in my opinion, the foundation of public morals and the only source of real public peace. -William Cobbett, journalist, pamphleteer, and farmer (9 Mar 1763-1835)
“What I saw Tuesday night was a whole new low in mass deception, delusion, and democratic collapse. What I saw was a new stage in the transition from democracy to a form of tyranny in real time. The institutional trappings remain, as they did in Rome. But the institutions no longer function as the Founders understood them; and reasoned deliberation has become utterly irrelevant.” – Andrew Sullivan
Here are two highly recommendable books that show in detail how authoritarian populists in power subvert democratic institutions:
Wojciech Sadurski: A Pandemic of Populists (Cambridge UP, 2022)
This book “highlights the variety of constitutional and extraconstitutional strategies that populists have used to undermine the institutional fabric of liberal democracy.” (Quoted from the publisher’s website)
Samuel Issacharoff: Democracy Unmoored: Populism and the Corruption of Popular Sovereignty (Oxford UP, 2023)
“A powerful new account of how populist movements are sabotaging political institutions from within and undermining democracies across the globe.” (Quoted from the publisher’s website)
“The four years of the Trump presidency marked a profound shift in the United States. This change in the very nature of political practice far exceeds any easily identified policy demarcations. We have begun to see the unwinding of modern America. The effects did not simply evaporate when Trump left office. Lasting damage has been done to public trust in democratic institutions, government capability, the status of news media, the ability to invoke science and proof, and more. Putting our political culture and democratic system back together will require more than mere policy repair.”
(Issacharoff, Samuel. Democracy Unmoored: Populism and the Corruption of Popular Sovereignty. New York: Oxford University Press, 2023. p. 182)
The big problem for liberal democrats is that things are getting even worse, because the next four years of Trump’s second presidency will mark an even more profound shift in the United States.
Trump is bad, no doubt. But the Dems are not much better (though a bit more diplomatic). I give you 3 policy areas where the Democratic Party has not given a rat’s ass about the public’s policy preferences (as demonstrated by the behavior of the Biden administration and many state governments controlled by Democrats):
The Dems can’t shut up about how Trump does not care about respecting the laws of the country. However, when it suits them, the Dems disregard the laws as well – hiring quotas by race/ethnicity, etc, are illegal. But the Dems don’t care. Remember that DEI is just a tissue of lies since it’s not about diversity and inclusion – it’s about hiring quotas (affirmative action in disguise) and creating political homogeneity (So if you are the wrong kind of woman, or the wrong kind of black, too bad for you – wrong kinds include people like John McWhorter, Glenn Loury, Carole Hooven. While the US academy has been chock-full of diversity blather over the last 30 years, it has also gotten ever more political homogeneous. How come?).
Yes, the Dems do care more about protecting social security, Medicaid, etc.
But please don’t tell me that the Dems represent democracy. They don’t. They reflect the policy preferences of the highly educated people (who do not make up the majority of this country, but they do think they should rule – Plato, etc) and the rest of the country knows that. And that’s why the Dems are down right now. And this will not change until the Dems change or Trump screws things up really badly.
A French Marxist by the name of Piketty has shown that “left” parties (all over the Western world) have been taken over by “Brahmins” (his term). The cultural “left” has ruled the “left” for quite some time. Forget Trump, Biden, Hillary, and Kamala. This trend goes back decades.
I don’t know how anyone is going to “protect” Medicare and Social Security. These are both enormous intergenerational wealth transfers that rely on large numbers of current workers paying for current elderly claimants. If you have fewer workers you have to finance both with debt or taxes. But old people vote, and dammit, we’re going to vote for what’s ours. (Youth and vigour is no match for age and treachery.)
And it gets worse. The baby boomers are just hitting their stride. The current cohort aged 65-100 is still largely the small Silent Generation born during the Depression and the Second World War. Just wait until the boomers are in their 80s. You’ll be cutting us down with a scythe.
(Strictly, Medicare is not an intergenerational wealth transfer. It’s an inter-sectoral transfer of wealth from workers in all industries to those in the health-care industry. The elderly are beneficiaries of care but not direct recipients of cash. If Medicare ended, the elderly would spend some of their private wealth on health care but not all that is currently spent on them. Whether future generations of elderly freed from paying Medicare taxes while working would accumulate more wealth, only to hand it all over to a hospital during their final illness is the subject of debate.)
I’ve been paying Social Security and Medicare taxes my entire working life and I am 70 years old. Not to mention Medicaid taxes which I have never used. That is the social contract. It comes with obligations.
I couldn’t care less if my contributions don’t equal my benefits paid, although I would bet it is at least close in my case. If the gap between contributions, investment returns, and benefits is problematic, that is Congress’s dilemma to solve, not mine. And there are easy and fair ways to do it.
I depend on Social Security and Medicare to survive. It’s that crucial. And if MAGA thinks they can renege on that social contract to me and a hundred million other Americans, it’s going to be torches and pitchfork time and I won’t just be watching from afar.
Absolutely agree that the Dems (and left in other countries) needs to stop supporting these unpopular ideas.
But right now Trump’s foreign policy (talking revisiting the US / Canadian border) strikes me as being far more threatening than any Dem policies.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/07/world/canada/trump-trudeau-canada-51st-state.html
Thanks for the book recommendations.
The Biden administration was highly successful in undermining the USA. On his first day in office he allowed males into female sports. Of course, illegal immigration soared under Biden. See “Border crossings plunge to lowest levels in decades: New data” in Axios.
I’m convinced by the evidence that Israel’s wider war in Gaza is imminent. Data – including a huge call up of reservists and machinations within the gvt, Smotrich’s (sp?) visit to DC included, suggest this.
Good.
Hamas must be destroyed in a biblical/koranic manner.
D.A.
NYC
Agreed. Public opinion matters a lot in this matter. Not US public opinion, but Israeli public opinion. Hamas signed it’s death warrant, when it returned dead hostages (children no less).
People like us, Frank, and many readers here, whose interests and hobbies include international relations and history always seem to overestimate US public opinion on international stuff.
“The Afghanistan withdrawal will END Biden!” etc.
A month later most Americans are like: “Afgh..what now?”
Never moves the needle at all unless planes are flying into buildings near my own home. hehe Sad but true.
In Israel where international events are very real, very close and very fast they do matter. The dead hostages had a larger effect in Israel than I expected (I’m not Israeli).
But the whole Oct 7 and subsequent war will ensure the horrid nightmare of a lefty wet dream of a “Two State Solution” will never ever exist in our or our grandchildren’s (if we have ’em) lifetimes. Never ever.
D.A.
NYC
So true. American public opinion took little notice of events in Europe until Pearl Harbor. Even after Pearl Harbor, FDR did not seek a declaration of war against Germany. His aides wanted a declaration of war against Japan and Germany. Hitler solved that problem by declaring war on the USA.
This is not meant as a criticism of FDR. I attended a party (yes, a party) in a building that was used to make artillery shells in WWII. Times have changed and not always for better.
I do like the film on differentials, though I’m not sure if the average student of today could follow the explanation. Yet in 1937 everyone, presumably, did so.
I suspect mechanical engineers are not only the cleverest of all types of engineers, but they have the most “engineeriest” brains.
There’s another old one on shock absorbers you might like.
I love old-fashioned info-films!
My father and several uncles were owner-operators of “Charlie’s Auto Parts and Service” for some time in the fifties thru seventies. (Charlie was my grandpa, but he was not much of an active presence.) I didn’t become a hot-rod kid but was exposed to a lot of car talk.
And the absolutely standard everyday term for the differential was “rear end”.
No matter that that was also vernacular for buttocks. But when I did a project for fifth grade on how a car works, and brought in parts from the shop, I finally heard the term “differential” and got some guidance on home language and school language.
“Yep, the Republicans like Israel a whole lot less (and Palestine considerably more) than do the Democrats.”
I think you meant just the opposite.
Yeah.
The way to fix typos is to EMAIL me, which I get a lot faster than reading comments.
Ok.. did not know. Will do in future. Thanks
I find the question “what is your overall opinion of country …” almost impossible to answer, really. It depends on too many factors, and can be completely different depending on whether one is talking about the culture, language, landscape etc. or the current government. I love Iran/Persia, but despise it’s current regime (as well as its previous one, for that matter), to give just one example.
Iran has produced one of the most beautiful movies of all time. I am referring to “The Color Of Paradise”.
Good point. It’s not Russia I dislike, it’s Putin.
Not sure if the pipette mouthing is such an insult, in my experience it’s something experienced lab workers tell the students not to do but then do it themselves.
On the topic of DST, I one did a similar trip as PCC(E) did last year: a conference in Vegas followed by a tour de canyons in Arizona and Utah that took place around the DST change. Since Arizona doesn’t change time and Nevada is in a different time zone, I had to reset my watch several times during that trip.
I don’t recall if I’ve ever mouth pipetted, but I suppose it depends on what one is pipetting. A suspension of E. coli bacteria should never be pipetted that way. But phosphate buffered saline seems ok.
I come from chemistry so the dangers are different there and I have seen people mouth pipetting some stuff they really shouldn’t. I’ve never done it, I’ve always been overtly cautious in the lab and later moved to theory and simulations.
Speaking of revivals, I am reading an interesting book right now, The Stammering Century (1928, New York Review of Books Classics 2012) by Gilbert Seldes. Seldes is trying to show how the Revivalism of the early eighteenth-century led to movements like spiritualism, prohibition (Maine-law-ism), Millerism, Mormonism, abolitionism, women’s rights, etc.
Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY). Where have I heard that name before? He would be the only representative who would publicly agree with Seth Moulton (D-MA). The story about the spa in San Francisco was really funny.
Oh wow – one of the most indelible of Feynman’s video clips – the train! Goes perfectly with the differential demo.
I liked Carrolla’s point made with Ozempic – how something in the body—mind axis atrophies without some sort of … rising to confront things… I’ll need to find it again.
Carrolla’s Ozempic bit is Here :
x.com/thefp/status/1898376158850506823?s=43
Alert to PCC(E) : Free will sort of invoked (but as “agency”)…
I love world values surveys and read them every year, even though they don’t change much.
Humanity prefers Japan and Korea, Scandanavia and France it appears. For good reasons.
Humanity broadly over the last three decades seems to deeply revile Iran and North Korea, international hooligans and global punks that they are!
(see why I like WEIT – I could never write the above in my column … but it is TRUE!) haha
The interesting data is in the details and plots out kinda how you’d expect over the years. The US is equally hated and admired and I’m happy to report Australia always does well. Fosters and kangaroos and deadly animals are great marketing!
D.A.
NYC
I don’t get the Dems. Last week, when I learned that my own Senator, Patty Murray, wouldn’t attend Trump’s speech to Congress, I told her in a communication via her web site that attending the speech is her job as a Senator, that failure to attend is not useful, and that I will remember at election time that she didn’t do her job. Representative Al Green’s performance wasn’t a good look either.
I’m with Jonah Goldberg and your Senator on this one. The best thing that could happen would be for no one to attend such hammy displays. As it was, since I live in Texas and have no democratic representative or senators, I wrote a few random dems and begged them to behave like grownups.
Feynman – +mucho
At least R’s seem to like Ukraine substantially more than they like Russia.
Unlike Palestine where the hatred is both literally religious (see Koran) …..AND.. deeply ingrained by culture and education… I doubt most Russians hold ill will towards Ukraine. (I bet there’s an IQ correlation to that question in Russia).
Consequently I think we need adjust our priors when it comes to criticizing ordinary Russians on the situation there and their (fake elected) government.
Palestine as always is different.
These moral choices matter.
D.A.
NYC
Off topic, but does anyone know why South Korea is now considered a “sensitive country,” at least by the DOE?
I’m wondering if they have acquired nuclear weapons.
Doesn’t it stem from President Yoon declaring martial law during election (and ensuing events)?
Rumor – Israel did a “Canada” on Gaza and turned off the electricity there today. (Kidding Kanuks, we love you).
That is on top of a massive IDF call up.
The noose is tightening for the death cult Hamas – they’d better pray to their deity because a full blown double buggering is expected to commence soon. I’m sure the prayers will help. 🙂
Consider for a moment that for decades Israel has provided free electricity, telecom and water to their self declared mortal enemy. In what bizarro world is this normal? Note also that the grateful recipients repurposed the water pipes to shoot rockets.
Again.. what bizarro world?
It demeans us to accept the moral squalor of the Palestinians seriously.
Let the festivities begin.
D.A.
NYC
Trump has condemned Ukrainians to misery and uncertainty. He’s basically doing an “Assad on Aleppo” letting the Russians pound the Ukrainians.
And so it goes, Putin and Trump love peace so much they will let and shell the hell out of anyone who gets in the way to acheive it.
On a much lighter note, I recently saw a pair of socks that I almost purchased for our host. Cat quote was “I hate you the least”. 😄
Funny. I’d always thought that the world’s largest meatball was Prince Harry…