Monday: Hili dialogue

May 5, 2025 • 6:45 am

It’s another wretched week, and one week closer to the Big Nap; but it’s also the first Monday in May: May 5, 2025, and National Hoagie Day (that’s a large sandwich on a roll, sometimes called a “sub” or “submarine sandwich“). The origin of the name “hoagie” is unclear, but here’s a Philadelphia version, the Philly cheesesteak: Here’s the restaurant editor of Bon Appetit trying to find the best version in Philly, trying 19 cheesesteaks in 24 hours. The winner: Angelo’s.

It’s also Square Root Day: 5/5/25!  As well, it’s Cinco de Mayo, National Enchilada Day, Oyster Day, and Museum Lover’s Day (who is the one lover?).

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the May 1 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Well, I’ll be!  Just when you think that the Trump Administration has all but abandoned Ukraine, stealing its minerals and then schmoozing up to Putin, it turns around and disses Putin and helps Ukraine. Now we’re facilitating the delivery of a missile system from Israel to President Zelensky (article archived here).

Ukraine is getting more help in its war with Russia.

A Patriot air-defense system that was based in Israel will be sent to Ukraine after it is refurbished, four current and former U.S. officials said in recent days, and Western allies are discussing the logistics of Germany or Greece giving another one.

The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions, declined to describe President Trump’s view of the decision to transfer more Patriot systems to Ukraine.

The White House’s National Security Council does not provide details on the strength and placement of defense systems, said James Hewitt, a spokesman for the council. “President Trump has been clear: he wants the war in Ukraine to end and the killing to stop,” he said.

Here’s one explanation:

A former White House official said that the Biden administration had secured the agreement with Israel in September, before the election won by Mr. Trump. The Defense Department said in a statement that “it continues to provide equipment to Ukraine from previously authorized” packages, referring to weaponry pulled from existing inventories and new purchases.

And yay for Germany and Greece, but where are the UK and France?  I’m happy that Ukraine is getting more aid, for this is an unjust war and I want Russia to lose (though that won’t happen) and I also want Ukraine to get Crimea back, too.  Who knows what’s going on in Trump’s mind, but I imagine he envisions himself as a Great Peacemaker on the diplomatic front and a Great Warfighter on the tariff front.

*All I knew about Warren Buffet is that he was one of the world’s richest men, one to its savviest investors, and he didn’t care about the perks of being rich: I heard he still brought his lunch in a brown paper bag. Now, at 94 (!), he’s retiring, and the WSJ tells us why there will never be another of his kind:

There’s only one Warren Buffett, and there will never be another.

On May 3, Buffett announced that he will step down as chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway , the conglomerate he has built into one of the most successful investments in history. There are three reasons why he has no equal and never will: the person, the period and the package.

Let’s start with the person. Buffett is not only brilliant, but he has also spent nearly his entire long lifetime obsessed with the stock market. Especially in his early years as an investor, his unparalleled success depended on an unbearable sacrifice: forgoing a normal social and family life.

A later writer called the great 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza “the god-intoxicated man.” Buffett is the stock-intoxicated man.

Ever since 1942, when he bought his first stock at age 11, he has devoured information about companies, reading corporate reports the way most people listen to music. 

As a young investment manager, Buffett would wander through his house with his nose in a corporate annual report, practically bumping into the furniture, oblivious to the comings and goings of family and friends. While his kids played at an amusement park, he would sit on a bench and read financial statements. Buffett was there physically, but mentally and emotionally he was off in a world of his own, fixated on tax-loss carryforwards and amortization schedules.

Expertise is rooted in pattern recognition, and Buffett has seen every conceivable pattern. Given what I know about his work habits, I estimate—conservatively, I believe—that Buffett has read more than 100,000 financial statements in his more-than-seven-decade career.

And his memory is almost supernatural. Years ago, winding up a phone interview with Buffett, I mentioned a book I was reading. He exclaimed that he had also read it—more than a half-century earlier. As he began describing a passage, I grabbed the book, found the page and realized to my astonishment that Buffett recalled almost every sentence verbatim.

His unparalleled exposure to financial information, combined with his prodigious memory, made Buffett into a human form of artificial intelligence. He could answer almost any query out of his own internal database.

And Buffett didn’t merely succeed. He succeeded over one of the longest career spans any investor has ever had. He took over Berkshire, a tattered manufacturer of textiles, in 1965. By the end of last year, Buffett had racked up an annualized average return of 19.9%, compared with 10.4% for the S&P 500.

Almost anyone with a reasonable amount of luck can beat the market over a year. So far as I know, no one in history has beaten the market by so wide a margin over a period of six decades—because only Buffett has combined extraordinary investment skill with such extraordinary longevity.

There’s more, but it doesn’t say anything about him bringing his lunch to work in a brown paper bag.

*The ‘WaPo describes how the Trump Administration hustled to deport Venezuelan gang members to that horrible prison in El Salvador, even after Venezuela had decided to take them.

The message from Secretary of State Marco Rubio to El Salvador’s Foreign Ministry outlined an audacious plan: The United States would be sending as many as 500 Venezuelan gang members to the Central American nation, and it planned to do so within 24 hours.

The March 13 communication was part of secretive negotiations with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and served as Rubio’s formal notice that the Trump administration was sending the Venezuelans to be imprisoned there for a year “or until a determination concerning their long-term disposition is made,” documents show. Detainees at the megaprison have no access to lawyers or contact with their families.

A Washington Post investigation shows how officials raced to execute the plan, rounding up some of the men at their homes the same day Rubio’s message went out. And they pressed forward with the removals, even as Venezuela agreed to accept deportation flights, in a high-stakes bid to show power and deter migrants from attempting to cross the border illegally.

The Post examined immigration and court records, and conducted interviews with attorneys, friends and family members, to piece together information about more than 50 of the men believed to be imprisoned at the Terrorism Confinement Center, the megaprison often referred to by its Spanish acronym, CECOT. The review shows that despite the administration’s claims, many of the immigrants sent to El Salvador had entered the United States legally and were actively complying with U.S. immigration rules.

. . .In response to detailed questions from The Post, a senior State Department official acknowledged that the Venezuelan government had planned to accept deportation flights the same weekend as the flights to El Salvador, but dismissed those as “one-offs.”

“The Venezuelan regime began to accept regular repatriation flights of Venezuelan nationals only after the U.S. began the criminal alien deportation flights to El Salvador,” the official said.

We’ve all seen videos of that horrible prison in El Salvador–the place nobody leaves except in a box. And there’s still many of these people either mistakenly deported or who were legally entitled to stay in the U.S. because of pending immigration claims. But “NO HEARINGS” is the watchword of the administration, and it feels like Trump wants the deportees to be locked up for life, enlessly tortured by their surroundings. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador. I was going to say that Trump should spend a day there, but the chance that this would give him more empathy is zero.

*It’s struck me how many rap icons, despite their wealth, engaged in flagrantly illegal activity that could land them in prison for life.  R. Kelly is in for 29 more years, and not Sean “Diddy: Combs is about to go to trial for sexual predation and related issues, including “Freak Offs”:

Hip-hop impresario Sean “Diddy” Combs once presided like a prince over his White Parties in the Hamptons, attracting A-list celebrities, gossip columnists and photographers. But at a trial starting Monday, prosecutors will cast the entertainer as a criminal sexual deviant who exploited his fame to abuse women at gatherings held far out of public view.

For over two decades, prosecutors allege, the Bad Boy Records founder used the power and prestige he’d gained in building a hip-hop empire to destroy young lives.

He faces an indictment that includes descriptions of “Freak Offs,” drugged-up orgies in which women were forced to have sex with male sex workers while Combs filmed them.

Numerous witnesses have come forward to accuse Combs of terrorizing people into silence by choking, hitting, kicking and dragging them, often by the hair, prosecutors say. Once, the indictment alleges, he even dangled someone from a balcony.

f convicted on all charges, which include racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transporting people across state lines to engage in prostitution, Combs faces a possible sentence of decades in prison.

. . . Although dozens of men and women have alleged in lawsuits that Combs abused them, this trial will highlight the claims of four women.

Her lawsuit, which offered the first public account of the Freak Offs described in the indictment, was settled in a day. Four months later, though, federal investigators raided Combs homes in Los Angeles and Miami and confronted him at a private airport in Florida, seizing 96 electronic devices. They also found three AR-15-style rifles with defaced serial numbers.

The three-time Grammy winner was indicted last September. He has since been held in a federal jail in Brooklyn after judges ruled that he would be a threat to intimidate witnesses and victims if released.

The 17-page indictment against Combs accuses him of using employees of his business endeavors — including record labels, a recording studio, an apparel line, an alcoholic spirits company, a marketing agency, a television network and a media company — to facilitate his crimes through acts that included kidnapping, arson and bribery.

Let’s face it: these are big names, and they could have sex consensually with gazillions of people, but they chose to break the law in horrible ways. Did they think they could never get caught? Or is this what the “gangsta” lifestyle entails? Or were they simply psychopaths? I don’t know, but I think Combs is going to spend many years in prison if the allegations are correct. Unless he’s gay, he won’t find much sex there.

*And, to lighten the mood, how about a three-minute video of the magic of Eden Choi. I found this amazing and have no idea how the guy does it (his sleeves are rolled up.) Watch it on YouTube:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is still upset with the state of the world:

Hili: Absurdity after absurdity.
A: And what about it?
Hili: That’s the problem because nothing ever comes of it.
In Polish:
Hili: Absurd goni absurd.
Ja: I co?
Hili: I to jest problem, bo nic z tego nie wynika.

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

From Things with Faces, happy parking devices:

From America’s Cultural Decline into Idiocy: is this really a coyote?

From My Cat is an Asshole, a glamour puss:

Masih is still quiet, but here is a long and eloquent take of Rowling on not only the UK Supreme Court’s decision, but on the irrationality of pretending that a human can change their biological sex. She doesn’t pull punches, and it makes me ashamed that I haven’t called Agustín Fuentes “not sane”:

And I thank Ceiling Cat that this woman is on our side. She is perhaps the smartest and most eloquent defender of Israel. Her Natasha goes up against the BBC:

From Stephen, who says this is the best video he’s seen on “X” for a while:

From Simon, who says, “This picture has done great service.”

🗣️ DO YOU WANT TO BE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR??!?

— The Lincoln Project (@lincolnproject.us) 2025-05-02T18:19:47.133Z

From Malcolm, some unexpected animations:

One from the Auschwitz Memorial that I reposted:

Gassed upon arrival at Auschwitz, this French boy was only six years old.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-05-05T11:16:22.261Z

Two posts from Professor Cobb. He said he thought the first one was a meringue:

— Bodega Cats (@bodegacats.bsky.social) 2025-05-03T20:20:30.689Z

About this one he says, “I’d make a pun but I can’t.” Still, live and learn.

The words 'fiction' and 'dough' derive from the same root.They both stem from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to knead; to shape".'Fiction' came to English through Latin and French. Its meaning denotes what's shaped by the mind.'Dough' was inherited from Germanic.Here are their journeys:

— Yoïn van Spijk (@yvanspijk.bsky.social) 2025-05-03T17:15:08.980Z

45 thoughts on “Monday: Hili dialogue”

  1. Buffett’s brown paper lunch bag: did he use a fresh bag each day or take his neatly folded, empty bag home each day to be used all week like a frugal Nasa engineer would do. Glad your computer problems of yesterday appear to be solved!

    1. Funny that you ask. When I was a kid, I would fold my paper bag and return it to my mother for the next day’s lunch. Each bag lasted five days.

  2. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
    Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it. -Christopher Morley, journalist, novelist, essayist, and poet (5 May 1890-1957)

    And as a lagniappe here is a thought not associated with anybody’s birthday:

    When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king. The palace turns into a circus. -Turkish Proverb

  3. I’ll buy 5•5=25 as square root day.

    I’ll add from yesterday – through the overwhelming “May the 4th” chatter – drummer Vinnie Colaiuta posted this new one (to me) on eXtwitter (transliterated for your convenience):

    [begin eXtweet]

    Happy 5/4

    [ photo of Joe Morello, drummer on Dave Brubeck’s Take Five ]

    I know. I know. Sorry. I had to.

    [end eXtweet]

    Original : x.com/vinniecolaiuta/status/1919169290084700349?s=46

      1. Blue Rondo à la Turk is one amazing Brubeck piece. My we are getting esoteric now, aren’t we?

        1. Speaking of Brubeck, don’t forget “Eleven Four.”

          But if you really want to get esoteric, consider the “Sonatine for flute and piano” by Pierre Boulez. If you follow the score at “https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjUTJDO-2uk” you will see the time signature change with almost every measure. There is 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, and 2/8 through 7/8, all possible dates. But until somebody divides the year into 16 months with each month close to 23 days, then the time signatures of 3/16 through 9/16 fit no calendar.

  4. That’s funny – I just saw a post about the inconsistent pronunciation of these words :

    dough
    cough
    tough
    trough
    plough
    furlough

    … I might have added some, and there way have been more … I get a kick out of that – here’s another favorite :

    ghoti

    Pronunciation is left as an exercise to the reader! 😁

    Also for a good word origin book see

    The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World
    David W. Anthony
    2007
    Princeton

    A quote: “Roughly half the world’s population speaks languages derived from a shared linguistic source known as Proto-Indo-European. “

      2. I knew that one too, immediately! I don’t know where I learned it—probably in high school.

    2. The list misses the “oo” sound in “through”, the “aw” sound in “bought” , and the “up” sound in “hiccough” (although that’s an archaic spelling nowadays). But I might be relying too much on my British pronunciation of the examples given.

  5. I thought I posted this in response to Leslie and a few others talking about heroin/ drug prices yesterday but I think I forgot to post it properly. Still relevant:

    Globalization and technology have reduced the cost of all drugs of addiction since the 70s. Quite dramatically.

    Many professionals can keep a habit in check with few financial worries. We notice dysfunctional people who are addicted mainly bc they’re dysfunctional generally.

    An exception is psychedelics whose price hasn’t moved much (relative dollar speaking) but they’re not addictive (at all) so there isn’t the motivation to MUST HAVE IT. And they’re not pricey anyway. 🙂

    D.A.
    NYC

  6. Love the Moose video! And the J.K. Rowling tweet. And who among us doesn’t love the brilliant Natasha Hausdorff? Thank goodness that sane and rational beings—the Moose, Ms. Rowling, and Ms. Hausdorff—still live among us!

    1. The JKR tweet, in particular, is glorious – but yes, I appreciated the other things too.

  7. “I’m happy that Ukraine is getting more aid, for this is an unjust war and I want Russia to lose (though that won’t happen) and I also want Ukraine to get Crimea back, too. ”

    I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of the world would like to see Ukraine get Crimea back. An interesting question, should Ukraine actually get Crimea back, would then be “Is Ukraine occupying Crimea?” The answer would be a resounding “No” and the reason has to do with International law.

    Believe it or not, this has direct relevance to Israel! Natasha Hausdorff touched upon this exact point when she gave evidence to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee chaired by the horrible Dame Emily Thornberry. Please forgive me for being pedantic about this.

    Crimea had been under Russian control for hundreds of years. The Crimean people speak Russian, are ethnically Russian. In 1954, Nikita Khrushchev changed the administrative control of Crimea from Russia to Ukraine, both being satellite states of the USSR. This changed the official borders of both states.

    When the Soviet Union dissolved, Ukraine became an independent nation, and its borders were determined by the universally-applied International law principle known as Uti Possidetis Juris, which says that the borders of a new nation shall be the last administrative borders of the previous state. The new independent state of Ukraine therefore includes Crimea, and the world recognizes that Russia’s 2014 invasion and annexation of Crimea is illegal. Therefore, should Ukraine take back Crimea from Russia, nobody would accuse Ukraine of “occupying” Crimea. The UN has repeatedly passed Resolutions denying Russia’s sovereign rights to Crimea.

    And yet …

    The exact same situation applies to Israel, but the UN has, uniquely in the case of Israel, taken the exact opposite stance. The borders of modern Israel were also determined under Uti Possidetis Juris to be those of the Mandate for Palestine – from river to sea. Jordan, like Russia did to Ukraine, illegally invaded Israel and held the territory from 1949 until 1967 until Israel liberated its own territory. And yet, to this very day, the UN accuses Israel of “occupying” Judea and Samaria.

    Never let it be said that the UN treats Israel fairly.

    1. I had a feeling that’s where you were headed and, of course, you are correct. Always a double standard in the case of Israel.

  9. Hard to see why the BBC would even have her on. This so-called interviewer constantly interrupts and instead of asking legitimate questions and letting her answer, he seems to view his role as a contrarian to anything she says. And then literally shutting her up at the end by turning down the volume.

    1. Why? To discredit her. Take as a given that every interview like this is done with the full knowledge of the interviewee’s position and approximately what they will say (once you realize this, you look at interviews much differently). BBC knew what she’d say, so they brought her on so that the interviewer could turn the viewing public’s opinion against Israel and paint Gaza and Hamas in a more sympathetic light.

  10. I’ve puzzled over the question of why people believe TWAW & TMAM as it is clearly not a sane or logical position to take. A very small segment of the population has taken an inordinately large presence in public discourse and has successfully obtained rights that have taken rights and opportunities away from others, not just in terms of direct action, such as men replacing women on medal podiums, but also in terms leveraging this position to cause career damage to those merely speaking the truth of the situation.
    I agree with JKR; many people don’t really believe this, but they do believe that TM/TW should be treated as women/men legally (but only partially; I’ve noticed that “transmen” haven’t been sent to male prisons, and I have not read any stories about TM forcing themselves into men’s locker rooms). Some certainly really believe it. For some reason this is the fashionable position to take among a certain segment of the public, including most mainstream media and academics.

    I’ve not looked into this much, but I wonder if the women who want to preserve female-only spaces also think that men should be allowed to have male-only clubs or spaces in which females are not admitted.

    1. I think different people have different reasons for accepting TWAW & TMAM. Just to improvise an answer (reasons given in no particular order):

      1) Belief in Butlerian queer theory.

      The “naming” of sex is an act of domination and compulsion, an institutionalized performative that both creates and legislates social reality by requiring the discursive/perceptual construction of bodies in accord with sexual difference.
      (Judith Butler: Gender trouble. 1990)

      In queer theory boundaries are bad and need to be transgressed.

      2) Belief that this is the civil rights struggle of our time (Joe Biden said so, for instance). It’s gay rights 2.0 – and we know how the gay rights struggle ended. So you want to be on “the right side of history.”

      3) Belief in the arguments that people like Agustín Fuentes peddle (scientifically speaking, people really can change their sex), coupled with ignorance of what biologists really know.

      4) The Republicans oppose it. So I must be for it. (The enemy of my enemy is my friend.)

      5) Social conformism. Just side with those who you perceive to have the power.
      a) Social proof – so many people believe TWAW & TMAM, so it must be true.
      b) I have a family to provide for. I can’t afford to be cancelled.

      1. And then you have those who, because of 4 and 5, convince themselves that 2 and 3 are true–to include biologists who should know better.

  11. I admit I don’t know how Mr. Choi does his tricks. But reality-TV talent shows are themselves fake, appearing to be unscripted when they really are scripted. See the audience reaction at 0:09 which looks not genuine and is also a heartbeat too late to be truly a real-time reaction to the climax of the trick it purports to be amazed at. The fellow is a stooge, opening his mouth on cue. I’m not convinced the audience is even present watching this show in real life. Delirious excitement over sleight of hand? Really? At least on Let’s Make a Deal the audience was really there because Monty Hall walked among them.

    So it is entirely possible that the only people watching are Mr. Choi’s confederates and stage hands who don’t have to worry that a naive audience will rumble to the stagecraft used to make his magic, and which the electronic magic of TV can hide from us. This would include even the show’s “judges” or whoever those people on the dais are pretending to be. Once there’s a little fakery, why not the whole nine yards?

    1. I bet that is true, Leslie.
      I’ll also add that – just my interpretation, no evidence – that MANY of the online “cute animal and kid tricks” are AI or faked.
      Think… what are the odds somebody was filming their pet/kid at THAT moment for a base rate.
      Constants like security cameras, dashboard cams, cop cameras are much more believable, but still…sometimes iffy.

      Doesn’t matter though – they are entertaining!

      D.A.
      NYC

      1. It’s been a long while since I read Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death : Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (2006). Time for a reread.

    2. I’ve seen a lot of Reality TV filmings behind the scenes. Yes, they’re faked. Assume crowd reactions are b-roll (“ok, now everyone act like something real exciting happened – roll camera”). For the participants in situation-based reality shows, multiple takes of the same scene (“this time when you say “I hate you”, slam your hand on the table”). Scripted lines practiced before the actual filming. Scenes filmed out of sequence to minimize camera movements to save time and money. Magic tricks that only look like “magic” from one particular camera angle. “Mind readers” that are completely set up with 3 takes of the same “Is this your card?” finale. Multiple takes of the reaction for “the big reveal” (“Oh my god, I can’t believe how you pimped my ride!” OK, let’s do that one more time – but this time put your hands on your face when you say it). Judges / “stars” blow in for a couple of shots, then blow back out.

      That said, Mr. Choi is amazing!

      1. While Mr. Choi’s prestidigitation is indeed amazing, note that he wears mat black pants, shirt, and jacket. It is hard to tell where one begins and the others end. It is also hard to see pockets and the bulges that represent their contents.

        Copy the video and play it back at a slower speed. At about 1:05 minutes he seems to pull a playing card out from behind the jacket on his right side. But the black object he holds is bigger than the card. Fifteen seconds later he has transformed the card into a long white tube, which then disappears behind his jacket with a metallic spring sound as if it’s being pulled back. Note also that he puts one hand behind his back before some tricks, and while doing the trick the other hand, which no one is paying attention to, rubs against the shirt or jacket as if preparing tricks to come. The hand is indeed quicker than the eye.

  12. So the logic is Alcatraz should be reopened because “due process”? OK. Well at least this should be easier than annexing Canada.

    CNN-President Donald Trump on Sunday said he would order the government to rebuild and reopen Alcatraz, a former prison on a small island of the same name off the coast of San Francisco that once housed some of the most dangerous criminals in the country, including Al Capone, George “Machine Gun” Kelly and James “Whitey” Bulger.

    The prison, which closed 60 years ago due to its crumbling infrastructure and high maintenance costs, “will serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social Sunday, later telling reporters it was “just an idea” he had as federal judges pushed to ensure deported migrants had due process.

    On Monday, the US Bureau of Prisons Director William K. Marshall III said his agency will “pursue all avenues” to implement Trump’s plans for reopening Alcatraz.

    “I have ordered an immediate assessment to determine our needs and the next steps. USP Alcatraz has a rich history. We look forward to restoring this powerful symbol of law, order, and justice. We will be actively working with our law enforcement and other federal partners to reinstate this very important mission,” Marshall said in a statement.

    Turning Molokai into a penal colony will be next…

    1. Molokai was a leper colony, not a penal colony.

      Recommended reading: Molokai by Alan Brennert

      1. I know, that’s why I said “turning” it into a penal colony a la Devil’s Island.

        Thanks for the reading tip.

        Edit: I see my icon changed again 🧐

        1. I seem to already be reprogrammed to skip over the icons. Still, I’ve chosen to try to overlook the names of commenters until after reading them. It keeps me honest.

          1. I just want a cool icon, dammit! I like this new olive green one with the akimbo arms, but it probably won’t stick. I should just create some kind of turtle-photo icon and travel the internet as the red-eared slider.

  13. Like Trump, Diddy has been a known quantity in NYC and its people for over quarter of a century. Neither of them have positive reputations amongst MOST New Yorkers.

    I always thought given our situation in culture and our loudmouthedness, New York wisdom spread across the country. Amazing so many people didn’t seem to learn that Trump is a conman and Diddy a criminal psychopath and (alleged) violent rapist.
    We’ve known for a long time.

    D.A.
    NYC

  14. Re The Don’s ongoing relationship with Russia’s capo dei capi, is it not (ghost)written in The Art of the Schlemiel to keep your friends close, all the better to stab them in the back?

    1. [Oh bother. The Muse dances to its own rhythm, and insisted on this.]

      It’s transactional, -actional
      It’s just transactional
      Nothing metaphysical
      Let me hear your bribes and threats, bribes and threats
      Mine are greater, you can bet

      It’s transactional, -actional
      It’s just transactional
      Needs no steenking principles
      Watch me bluff and stall for time, stall for time
      What is yours will soon be mine

      [Outro]
      I demand you show respect, show respect
      Give me that and take the rest

      © 2025, no charge for noncommercial use, all other rights reserved.

  15. Re a spokesman for the NSC saying “The White House’s National Security Council does not provide details on the strength and placement of defense systems”; or at least it didn’t until very recently.

  16. Re Dippy spending many years in prison, and unless he’s gay not finding much sex there; true, but it will find him.

  17. Can someone help me understand the legal aspects of what’s going on here?

    About the UK’s Supreme Court ruling on sex-based rights, some people on Twitter are claiming “organisations are under no obligation to make any changes” until the statutory guidance has been updated. The EHRC’s guidance is not statutory and therefore no changes are necessary at this time. For example,

    https://x.com/Frances_Coppola/status/1918581576863977577

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