Wednesday: Hili dialogue

May 28, 2025 • 6:45 am

Welcome to a Hump Day (“Rahina Bonggol” in Balinese): Wednesday, May 28, 2025, ergo June is coming soon. And it’s National Brisket Day, celebrating America’s finest BBQ. Here I am in 2004, consuming one of Texas’s finest BBQ brisket at the City Market in Luling, Texas (don’t forget the sauce, and see this video). Note the pickle and stack of crackers (the only other condiments are raw onion and bread). For me it’s in the top three or four BBQ joints in Texas, which means also in the U.S. as a whole.

It’s also International Hamburger Day. Voilà, where the late Anthony Bourdain got his burgers. It was his favorite restaurant in Los Angeles:

 

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the May 28 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Is WWIII impending? Well, I hope not, but Trump, considering more sanctions on Russia, has said that Putin is “playing with fire” and the U.S. is eyeing the Baltic and Scandinavia as sites for us to reinforce NATO.  A bit of each WSJ story:

President Trump expressed renewed frustrations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying the Russian leader was “playing with fire” as peace talks with Ukraine have sputtered.

“What Vladimir Putin doesn’t realize is that if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD. He’s playing with fire!” Trump wrote Tuesday on social media.

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump over the weekend indicated he was considering sanctions against Moscow, which people familiar with the matter said could come as early as this week. “He’s killing a lot of people,” Trump said Sunday of Putin. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him. What the hell happened to him?”

Trump has been unable to coax significant concessions from Putin on a negotiated peace with Ukraine, and the Russian leader has intensified the war recently. Hours after Trump’s comments Sunday, Russia launched its largest-ever drone-and-missile assault on Ukraine overnight into Monday. Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched more than 350 explosive drones and at least nine cruise missiles. The Russians characterized the strikes as retaliation for Ukrainian bombings within Russian territory.

I’m amused at Trump’s language: “and I mean REALLY BAD”!  Often he talks like a 6-year-old, but I suppose that appeals to a lot of his supporters.  And about military planning:

The high north and the Baltics have been thrust into the center of U.S. war planning, as their access to shipping routes, territory and energy reserves will be crucial to the West in a new era of geopolitical conflict. The region is hawkish on Russia and is driving European efforts to rearm and boost defense budgets, including support for Ukraine’s armed forces.

During a three-week exercise, U.S. and U.K. forces joined Nordic and Baltic troops to practice potential war scenarios including live-fire drills, blood resupplies by drone and airborne jumps above the Arctic circle in Norway.

The goal was twofold: deter Russian aggression and more firmly integrate allies in this strategic corner of Europe, including new NATO members Finland and Sweden.

This is one thing I’m optimistic about, because I don’t think that either the U.S. or Russia wants to be destroyed.  But remember that Trump’s finger is on the button. . .

*In Liverpool, a man drove his car into a crowd of fans celebrating Liverpool’s Premier League title. It does not seem to have anything to do with political terrorism.

The driver of the car that hit fans celebrating Liverpool’s Premier League title has been arrested on suspicion of drug driving and attempted murder after he “followed” an ambulance past a roadblock, police have said.

The 53-year-old British man, from the West Derby area of Liverpool, was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, dangerous driving offences and driving while unfit through drugs. He is being interviewed in custody.

Detectives have been given additional time to question the man until around lunchtime on Wednesday.

“It is believed the driver of the Ford Galaxy car involved in this incident was able to follow an ambulance on to Water Street after the roadblock was temporarily lifted so that the ambulance crew could attend to a member of the public who was having a suspected heart attack,” Merseyside’s assistant chief constable Jenny Sims said.

“There was no intelligence to suggest an incident of this nature would take place,” she added, reiterating that it was not being treated as terrorism.

Fifty people were treated in hospital, Sims said. Eleven were still in hospital for treatment on Tuesday afternoon. She said all were in a stable condition and “appear to be recovering well”.

There were no “major traumas” or life-threatening injuries among the victims, medical staff at Royal Liverpool university hospital said. Marc Lucky, the divisional medical director for surgery at Aintree university hospital, said: “We were very, very fortunate yesterday, I must say.”

The Washington Post notes that the description of the suspect differs from normal police reporting:

“We can confirm that the man arrested is a 53-year-old white British man from the Liverpool area,” Liverpool police said in a post on X while paramedics were still treating injured fans and getting dozens of them to hospitals.

The biographical detail was a departure from the typically closed-mouth approach of British police as investigations unfold, especially in their early hours. But officials were seemingly determined to head off the kind of dangerous backlash that has accompanied other shocking attacks and accidents, some of which have been followed by a wave of racially charged disinformation that leads to further violence.

“It was a real step away from the usual information released,” said Peter Williams, police communications expert at John Moores University’s Liverpool Center for Advanced Policing. “The social media part of this is something they have been really grappling with.”

It seems to me that they wanted to either reassure the public that the suspect was not a Muslim, which might stave off a wave of anti-Muslim bigotry, or to reassure people that this was not an Islamist terrorist incident. Regardless, if they describe ethnicity in this case, then shouldn’t they give it in every case? Or is it the job of the police to mete out only parts of the truth to control public reaction. The good news is that nobody was seriously hurt, which, if you see the video, is amazing. (Warning: video shows people getting hit):

*The administration is continuing its crusade against Harvard University, and announced that it intends to deep-six all federal contacts with the university.

The Trump administration is set to cancel the federal government’s remaining federal contracts with Harvard University — worth an estimated $100 million, according to a letter that is being sent to federal agencies on Tuesday. The letter also instructs agencies to “find alternative vendors” for future services.

The additional planned cuts, outlined in a draft of the letter obtained by The New York Times, represented what an administration official called a complete severance of the government’s longstanding business relationship with Harvard.

The letter is the latest example of the Trump administration’s determination to bring Harvard — arguably the country’s most elite and culturally dominant university — to its knees, by undermining its financial health and global influence. Since last month, the administration has frozen about $3.2 billion in grants and contracts with Harvard. And it has tried to halt the university’s ability to enroll international students.

The latest letter, dated May 27 from the U.S. General Services Administration, is expected to be delivered Tuesday morning to federal agencies, according to an administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the official had not been authorized to discuss internal communications.

The letter instructs agencies to respond by June 6 with a list of contract cancellations. Any contracts for services deemed critical would not be immediately canceled but would be transitioned to other vendors, according to the letter, signed by Josh Gruenbaum, commissioner of the G.S.A.’s federal acquisition service, which is responsible for procuring government goods and services.

Contracts with about nine agencies would be affected, according to the administration official.

Examples of contracts that would be affected, according to a federal database, include a $49,858 National Institutes of Health contract to investigate the effects of coffee drinking and a $25,800 Homeland Security Department contract for senior executive training. Some of the Harvard contracts under review may have already been subject to “stop work” orders.

“Going forward, we also encourage your agency to seek alternative vendors for future services where you had previously considered Harvard,” the letter said.

You can read the GSA’s letter, apparently publicized before it was sent to Harvard, at this site. The letter mentions Harvard’s “race discrimination”, as well as antisemitism, as trouble aspects of the University that apparently prompted this latest move (see below). But this again seems like retributive punishment of Harvard (probably because it’s elite), and will undoubtedly wind up in the Supreme Court. I expect Harvard to file a lawsuit within two days.

*French President Emmanuel Macron appears to have been slapped or shoved in the face by his wife as the door opened.  Now it’s a big deal all over the Internet:

The door of a plane carrying the French president, Emmanuel Macron, had just been opened by staff in Hanoi, Vietnam, when two hands reached out and pushed Mr. Macron smack in the face.

He looked stunned at first. Then he looked up at a camera filming the scene from outside on Sunday and waved.

The video spread quickly. The hands belonged to the French first lady, Brigitte Macron.

On Monday, Mr. Macron said that the video had captured him and his wife “bickering and rather, joking around,” something, he said, “we often do.”

“I’m surprised by it, it turns into some kind of global catastrophe where people are even coming up with theories to explain it,” he said on Monday. “It’s nonsense.”

Mr. Macron, whose arrival in Vietnam marked the start of a five-day state trip to Southeast Asia, said it was the latest in a string of disinformation put out by “crazy people” targeting him in recent weeks. The footage was real, he said, but the interpretations were fake.

Here’s the video:

To me it looks like a push, and while it may or may not be playful, it is not a “slap”. But Macron and his wife resolutely ignore each other as they descend the stairs.

And reader Christopher sent a screenshot of the Telegraph front page this morning, which reported both stories but seems to have gotten its photos mixed up:

*At the famous Sutton Hoo archaeological site, workers have finally uncovered the function of an ancient (6th century) Byzantine bucket. the “Bromeswell Bucket”.

Archaeologists say they have crackedthe mystery of a 1,500-year-old bucket unearthed from an Anglo-Saxon royal burial site, with new analysis revealing it contained cremated human and animal remains — suggesting it was used to bury an important person.

The Bromeswell bucket is a 6th-century artifact that was discovered in 1986 at Sutton Hoo, an Anglo-Saxon royal burial site in Suffolk, England.

For many years after the bucket was discovered, researchers puzzled over what it wasused for andwhy it was buried. It is believed to have made its way to England from the Byzantine Empire, according to Britain’s National Trust. Archaeologists began to find answers when missing pieces of the bucket were uncovered in 2012 and last year.

Now, they believe it was used to bury the cremated remains of “an important person in the Sutton Hoo community,” National Trust archaeologist Angus Wainwright said in a news release. The person’s identity is still not clear.

“We’ve finally solved the puzzle of the Bromeswell bucket — now we know that it is the first of these rare objects ever to have been used in a cremation burial,” said Helen Geake, an Anglo-Saxon expert with the television program “Time Team,” which has documented the dig.

The discovery “epitomizes the strangeness of Sutton Hoo — it has ship burials, horse burials, mound burials and now bath-bucket burials,” Geake added in the news release. “Who knows what else?”
How did they come to this conclusion? This way:

After scanning and X-raying it, they realized it contained the base of the Bromeswell bucket, and that the bucket was filled with cremated human and animal bones, as well as a double-sided comb that was probably made from an antler.

The bucket’s design features a hunting scene, with armed men and animals including lions and dogs. The contents and fragments of decorative features suggest “that it was being kind of reinterpreted and reimagined as a … very special kind of cremation vessel,” because the remains of Anglo-Saxon cremations “were normally contained in ceramic vessels in pots and urns,” said Helena Hamerow, a professor of early medieval archaeology at Oxford University, who was not involved in the dig.

“So this, we assume, was a very, very special individual from a very important family whose cremated remains were interred in this extraordinary object,” she saidin a phone interview Sunday.

Here’s a video showing the bucket and an interpreting archaeologist:

*Finally, reader Jack tells me that the Site that Shall Not Be Named “is officially off the edge and over the cliff”. After recounting the story of two French girls in WWII who joined the Resistance and, before being caught, had actually executed Nazis, the post finishes with a rousing call to arms, which clearly suggests that we should start executing Americans as well, presumably odious people like United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, assassinated by Luigi Mangione. I guess Thompson was a Nazi. . .

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili isn’t sure she’s been complimented:

Andrzej You are looking like a beaver.
Hili: Is it a compliment or the opposite of it?
In Polish:
Ja: Wyglądasz jak bóbr.
Hili: To komplement, czy wręcz przeciwnie?

 

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

From Now That’s Wild:

From CinEmma:

From Cats:

Masih is still quiet, but here’s an exchange featuring J. K. Rowling:

From Luana; someone “deconstructs” Cathy Young:

From Bryan, who says these are real names. I’ll take his word for it.

Two from my feed.  First, the eloquent Natasha Hausdorff takes apart Amnesty International and its bogus claims. How far that organization has fallen!

A d*g who plays volleyball!

One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:

A Jewish girl, aged 1.5 years, was gassed, together with her mother, upon arriving at Auschwitz.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-05-28T10:12:06.200Z

Two posts from Matthew. First, a genet:

This was the first time I’ve managed a good view of a Large-spotted Genet – I usually only see the eyes of this nocturnal and often elusive species reflecting in a light!📍Akagera National Park, Rwanda.#NaturePhotography #Wildlife

— Will Wilson (@2wsphotography.bsky.social) 2025-05-21T11:37:23.092Z

George R. R. Martin is the author whose novels were turned into the t.v. series “Game of Thrones,” and that series features a dire wolf. Beyond that I doubt he made any contribution to this Colossal paper (except, perhaps to give the grey wolves they produced a white color, as in the series):

George RR Martin is an author on the dire wolf paper. Presumably to make sure there’s plenty of incest, cos these wolves will have no one else to fuck except each other.

— Adam Rutherford (@adamrutherford.bsky.social) 2025-04-12T07:35:31.728Z

27 thoughts on “Wednesday: Hili dialogue”

  1. The British police were entirely correct to put out information saying that the suspect was a white British person within an hour.

    This contrasts with the aftermath of the Southport killings, where the police had the suspect — a black son of immigrants from Rwanda — in custody within an hour, but refused to give his identity for days. This led to rumours and misinformation and contributed to the anger that spilled over into riots.

    The problem now is that, having set a precedent, if next time the police don’t release the identity, then everyone will conclude that that means that the suspect is indeed a black or Muslim immigrant or something else not British.

    2. Agreed. Jonathan Hall KC, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorist Legislation, commented yesterday:

      “The lesson has been learnt, don’t give any fuel to the conspiracy merchants. You’ve got to roll with it. If it had been a Muslim, an Asian, a black man or woman, they would have to say that. You’ve got to be fully consistent”.

      Let’s hope all UK police forces take note.

      1. Steve and Coel: For a country that pretty much invented modern policing…. you friends in the UK seem to have some deep deep problems with your policing. The invention of modern policing was ESSENTIAL to the civilized life we live today and was copied as far as Israel and Japan.

        But now: the whole two tier Thing there is pretty obvious to observers. Disparate treatment like that is deeply cancerous to society and civic order. Talk of blasphemy laws (FFS) and intemperate social media posters banged up at His Majesty’s Pleasure for some reason.

        There’s an excellent (law) book: “Why people obey the law” or some such title I read years ago which explains … what it says it does.

        Git ya act together our UK friends or.. (and I love this Britishism).. on yer bike!
        Affectionately yours,

        D.A.
        NYC
        (with British mother)

        1. Yes, you’re right, and it’s appalling. Way too many Brits have abandoned the principles of free speech (always supposing that it’ll be people like them who do the censoring) and too many have forgotten the principle that British policing is “by consent” (again, supposing that the police will only go after bad people).

          The fundamental problem is that the British people are strongly (>70%) mass immigration at rates causing population change of 1% to 2% a year, whereas the mainstream politicians and the mainstream media are in favour — this is causing huge tensions that are leading to clamping down on speech to try to keep the people subdued. (Hence, for example, the draconian sentence for Lucy Connolly.)

          And also the mainstream politicians are now running scared to the electorate. Polls are now putting Reform (upstart anti-immigration party) at over 30%, with Labour down to about 23% and the Conservatives (who, bizarrely, oversaw mass immigration of millions, totally against the wishes of their own voters) down to about 16%.

          1. Yes Coel. I’ve been following the Lucy Connolly case and some others – there’s a commonality in the Anglosphere which, despite translation software, remains and your trials are similar to ours.

            And with immigration anywhere… the dosage size – and nature of the culture you’re importing – is the issue.

            Also in Australia I note (where I was born and grew up) there’s a tendency to just import our most idiotic American culture war nonsense, like an injected bolus, into your countries. As evidence I note the murderous BLM’s “Don’t shoot” marches directed at…. unarmed British bobbies. That’s a telling case.

            I have a lot of faith in you chaps to be able to (ultimately) titrate new and social media with the values you’ve given to the world. The world thanks you and wishes you the best on that score.

            D.A.
            NYC

    3. Indeed. It was the same police force in both the Southport killings by Axel Rudakubana and this week’s car incident so perhaps they have learned a lesson? We’ll have to wait and see.

    4. I’m not sure it was wise of the British police to make this precedent. If they quickly inform the public when the criminal is white and British and say nothing when the criminal is an immigrant Arab or Pakistani or African, then saying nothing is the same as telling everyone that the criminal is not British. Next time it might be be a Pakistani immigrant and they will not want to quickly announce that and possibly provoke anti-immigrant riots..

      1. We have a similar dynamic here in the US Michael: witness black vs white crime.
        best as always,

        D.A.
        NYC

    5. Regarding the release, it’s already like that in the US and UK.

      I now pretty much know the protocol of what gets said or not, and once you catch on, you will be able to figure out demographics with amazing accuracy.

  2. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
    Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. -William Pitt, British prime minister (28 May 1759-1806)

  4. I also saw the unnerving post over at the Un-named Site. Yech, I thought. Of course he is implying for someone else to murder someone they didn’t like. Not him, of course. This is structurally dangerous, even.

    1. I had a similar thought. If you think that murdering CEOs of healthcare companies is acceptable, then you should be asking yourself whether you would be willing to do it.

  5. Editorial suggestion: Rather than the Auschwitz Section, or possibly in addition to – what about a daily insert at WEIT from your friends at MEMRI.org?

    The Holocaust, while worthy of memory, is past but Memri is incredibly valuable (I mention it in many of my own articles) because it itemizes today’s threats to both Jews and Western civilization.

    People are familiar with the Shoah but almost nobody knows the daily, popular, often state paid antisemitism in the Islamosphere’s media, esp. TV.
    And it is toe curling, vile stuff.

    D.A.
    NYC

  6. In regard to the road trip map, I can confirm that Pee Pee Creek absolutely exists in Pike County, OH, birthplace of my mother and much of my family on both sides. It is rather crooked and is crossed several times by US Rt. 23. The name comes from early settlers encountering a tree with P.P. carved in its trunk in the late 1700s. Nobody knows who P.P. was, assuming those were his or her initials.

    1. Odd, to be a pioneer and have a creek named after you — and yet you’re still a name lost to history.

    2. Poo-poo Point really exists too, outside Seattle in a town called Issaquah. It is known for being a popular launch site for hang gliders. A world’s record flight (for time aloft, I think) was once held by a glider who launched from Poo-poo point.

    3. On a less excretory note, one of my HS summer office jobs was going through a very large box of Addressograph¹ printed strips (in lexical order by US state then city then addressee) to mark where the cities changed.² Anyway, this meant I encountered every city name in this nationwide mailing list, and there were enough entertaining ones to keep me from going bonkers from boredom. The one I still remember is Olla in Louisiana — oohlala.³

      ……….
      ¹ A stone-knives-and-bearskins technology for printing addresses on bulk mailings.
      ² To make the very tedious job, by the pool of keypunch operators transcribing the entire mailing list into digital form, slightly less tedious.
      ³ Ok, looking at it now in cold print without the permanent-marker fumes, it’s not that entertaining. But I was so bored….

    1. Barry – Mendi Hassan is the very worst commenter you can find on this – or any – issue.
      He is egregiously dishonest and has a history of being an Islamist of the “kill the pigs and monkeys” – that’s us, school of thought) until mainline CNN style antisemitism gave him a job. Amazing.

      HAHAH. You can always read my own column!
      https://democracychronicles.org/author/david-anderson/ (variously syndicated including Forbes, TheModeratevoice, and some Jewish News(es)

      or even what PCC(E) selects here at WEIT is very balanced.

      best and keep commenting Barry,

      D.A.
      NYC

  11. I agree with Bourdain and stop at an In-N-Out Burger whenever I can. Perhaps fortunately for me, the nearest one is 20 miles away. Bourdain is having a ‘double double’ and I know many people who adore these. Personally I prefer the single cheeseburger. To me the ratio of meat to cheese to bread is perfect. If very hungry, I have two. One reason their burgers are so good is that they grill the inner surfaces of the bun, maybe with butter, until they are crisp. I started doing this at home when making burgers and it is worth another dirty pan. If you go, the drive through lines are usually insanely long and going inside to order is a better bet (and you’re not burning gas while you wait).

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