Good morning on Monday, July 7, 2025, and it’s National Fried Chicken Day. While other countries have forms of this dish, I will go out on a limb and say that America’s is best. Here’s a Southern version from Wikipedia, labeled “Fried chicken with side dishes, fried okra, and macaroni and cheese.” in the American South, mac and cheese is considered a vegetable.
Again we will have a very short Hili today (the dialogue, not the cat!). First, the dialogue, featuring Paulina, one of the upstairs lodgers and half of the staff of Kulka.
Paulina: Would you like to be petted?
Hili: Yes, please.
Paulina: Pogłaskać cię?Hili: Tak, poproszę.
Da Nooz:
*Ducks first: I have a report from Botany Pond that yesterday three of the remaining five ducks were gone. You may remember that there were seven for two months: Esther and her brood of six. Two ducklings left, appropriately, on Independence Day, and the remaining five were observed flying with confidence on the pond on July 6. Well, I have this report from yesterday from a member of Team Duck:
Two on the pond this morning – neither of them Esther. [A duck tender] was there this morning. The two were not very interested in pellets, but she gave them lots of mealworms.
No other ducks.I hope your flight went well.
Ah, but the appropriate wish is that the ducks’ flight went well. I am sad that they are leaving, but, after all, that is the goal of duck tending. It’s just that they left too soon, and especially that Mother Esther apparently went with them. I had hoped she would stay and undergo her yearly molt, which, since her flight feathers are shed and regrown
She was an absolutely terrific duck mom, and never left Botany pond once for the whole two months of fledging. We had slim hopes for her as a mother because, after all, instead of nesting safely on a ledge, she scraped a crude nest out of the dirt under a tree. But thanks to the kindness of the people in Facilities, they put a fence around the tree so she could incubate her eggs in peace. They hatched on May 6, and hit the water swimming the next day. It takes ducks about two months from hatching to fledging, and they kept that schedule. Farewell, my fethered children!
*The death toll in the floods in Texas hill country continues to increase. First it was 12, then 20, and now it’s over 80:
Rescuers rushed on Sunday to find more survivors of devastating floods that killed at least 81 in Central Texas, as dramatic tales emerged of those who experienced the disaster and endured the agonizing wait for news of loved ones.
Survivors and family members shared stories about rescues and reunification, as well as accounts that ended in tragedy. In Kerr County, the hardest-hit region, a Christian girls’ summer camp was a hub of loss. A veteran high school teacher camping with his family near the Guadalupe River, which rose 20 feet in two hours on Friday, was also killed. So was a woman driving to work at Walmart when her vehicle was caught in rising waters.
Dozens more people — at least 41 — are still missing, and rescuers, volunteers and family members braved renewed downpours to search for them on Sunday, navigating fields of debris with helicopters, drones, boats, golf carts and horses. One man said his hopes were revived after a body that had initially been identified as his brother-in-law turned out not to be him.
On Sunday, some parts of Central Texas saw heavy rain, but the areas already hit the hardest, including Kerr County, appeared to avoid more devastation. Meteorologists said that there was an uptick in thunderstorms in Bexar County, which includes San Antonio, but that chances of more flooding in the Hill Country had decreased.
I’m sure some of you, like me, wondered how Christians would react when pondering their god’s intentions in flooding a religious girls camp and killing many campers, but let’s face it: all these horrible deaths, religious people or not, bspeak the mindless and often destructive face of nature. The suffering going on in Texas right now is unimaginable.
*An Israeli negotiating team is in Qatar once again trying to iron out details with Hamas of a ceasefire in Gaza, while PM Netanyahu is in Washington about to hold talks with Trump.
An Israeli negotiating team was set to travel to Qatar Sunday for indirect talks with the Hamas terror group on a hostage release and ceasefire deal, as mediators bear down on the sides amid intensifying efforts to clinch an agreement.
The Prime Minister’s Office announced the plans late Saturday, but also cautioned in a statement that Hamas had suggested several “unacceptable” amendments to a brewing US- and Israel-backed proposal.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dispatched the team to Qatar just as he was set to depart for Washington to meet with US President Donald Trump Monday for talks on Gaza, Iran and other subjects.
Hamas on Friday gave a “positive” response to the framework proposal on the table, which would see about half of the living hostages and about half of the dead hostages held by terror groups in Gaza returned to Israel over 60 days, in five separate releases. (Eight living hostages would be freed on the first day and two released on the 50th day, according to an Arab diplomat from one of the mediating countries. Five slain hostages would be returned on the seventh day, five more on the 30th day and eight more on the 60th day. That would leave 22 hostages still held in Gaza, 10 of them believed to be alive. It is not clear whether Israel or Hamas would determine who is to be released.)
The source said that Hamas wants the agreement to say that talks on a permanent ceasefire will continue until an agreement is reached; that aid will fully resume through mechanisms backed by the United Nations and other international aid organizations; and that the IDF withdraw to positions it maintained before the collapse of the previous ceasefire in March.
I doubt this will work, for Hamas’s demands once again mean that it stays in power, a lingering and existential threat to Israel. If there is to be any peace in this region, Hamas must be destroyed.
*In related news, a coalition of sheikhs in the West Bank has made its own proposal to carve out Hebron as an area that accepts the Abraham Accords and recognizes Israel as a legitimate state, something that neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority has done.
“We want cooperation with Israel,” says Sheikh Wadee’ al-Jaabari, also known as Abu Sanad, from his ceremonial tent in Hebron, the West Bank’s largest city located south of Jerusalem. “We want coexistence.” The leader of Hebron’s most influential clan has said such things before, as did his father. But this time is different. Sheikh Jaabari and four other leading Hebron sheikhs have signed a letter pledging peace and full recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Their plan is for Hebron to break out of the Palestinian Authority, establish an emirate of its own, and join the Abraham Accords.
“The Emirate of Hebron shall recognize the State of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people,” the sheikhs write, “and the State of Israel shall recognize the Emirate of Hebron as the Representative of the Arab residents in the Hebron District.” Accepting Israel as a Jewish state goes further than the Palestinian Authority ever has, and sweeps aside decades of rejectionism.
If this plan was followed by Gaza and the other parts of the West Bank, it could provide a framework for true peace. The two problems with it are that it requires Hebron to deny the leadership of the Palestinian Authority, which the PA will not tolerate, and that Israel is rightly suspicious of yet another state on its borders—at least right now. This offer has not been widely discussed in the media, which also makes me think that it doesn’t really have legs.
From Cats That Have Had Enough of Your Shit:
I sent this Jesus of the Day cartoon to Heather Hastie on December 22, 2019. She didn’t make it, and died 3 years later. She was fond of Legos, and I still have a kit she asked me to
From CinEmma:
Retweeted by JKR. Where are the Western feminists—and especially the United Nations and UN Women?:
For over four years, Afghan women have been deprived of all their rights — education, work, freedom, and participation in society — while world leaders and the UN remain silent.
The lost years cannot be restored or forgotten.
This global silence in the face of such oppression… pic.twitter.com/3EvxfKaOC0— WDI.Afghanistan (@WDIAfghanistan) July 6, 2025
One from Luana, I hope you get the last line:
From Malcolm: a prisoner cat. Somebody should adopt it STAT!:
his face 😭 pic.twitter.com/fPjAbZhNWb
— The Cats 𝕏 (@TheCatsX) June 25, 2025
From my feed: Ozzy Osbourne does his last concert, unable to stand. As Wikipedia notes:
Osbourne played his final show, billed as “Back to the Beginning“, alongside the original lineup of his band Black Sabbath, at Villa Park in Birmingham on 5 July 2025. The band and Osbourne each played a short set, watched by a crowd of over 40,000 spectators and a peak livestream audience of 5.8 million. Having been rendered unable to stand from Parkinson’s disease, Osbourne performed seated on a black throne. All proceeds from the event will be donated equally to the Cure Parkinson’s foundation, Birmingham Children’s Hospital, and Acorn Children’s Hospice.
Last night Black Sabbath made history at their final show.
There are other videos in the thread that follows this one:
A thread 🧵
1. This is how Ozzy came out on stage pic.twitter.com/5unX1TCMW3
— 🎸 Rock History 🎸 (@historyrock_) July 6, 2025
And two from Dr. Cobb, the first from the Auschwitz Memorial:
6 July 1940 | A Hungarian Jewish boy, Istvan Ferenc Reiner, was born in Miskolc to Bela and Livia.In June 1944 he was deported to #Auschwitz and murdered in a gas chamber after the selection.
— Auschwitz Memorial (@auschwitzmemorial.bsky.social) 2025-07-06T11:01:29.877Z
This is why you should do your research instead of relying on ChatGPT. This is an Irish seizure of cocaine, and note that the ship is called the MV Matthew:
The poster to whom Jimmy Gandhi was replying with the satirical “In this house we believe” sign had argued that because Mamdani was born in Africa, he is an African-American. By that logic, Elon Musk is the most successful African-American in History.
We’ll see what happens in Gaza. With Netanyahu in the United States meeting with President Trump, I’m expecting something to happen. Trump wants a ceasefire, so he may push Netanyahu to accept the deal that’s on the table.
It’s a bit vague to me whether Hamas will remain in power in the end. So long as the parties are negotiating with Hamas, Hamas is in power by definition. There have been murmurings about Hamas leaders (whomever remains) going into exile, but I haven’t read whether that is baked into the pending agreement or not. Hamas needs be gone in the end.
And, of course, the deaths in Texas are a huge tragedy. No one should have to go through this horror. It’s true that some are thanking God for their survival—implying that God can limit acts of nature but cannot prevent them—but it’s hard for those affected to keep a rational head under the circumstances.
Relying on AI for legal advice is becoming increasingly common, often with unexpected results. A barrister and firm of solicitors were castigated by a judge a few weeks ago because the legal submission included five non-existent cases, which it is likely ChatGPT or similar had “hallucinated”.
Yes, I’ve thought of Texas and theodicy and appreciate that the atheist asks for no explanations or justifications that rely on supernatural wish thinking and hand wringing over the ‘why?’. Life as an atheist is pretty straightforward when it comes to tragedy. I feel bad for those families nonetheless.
A comment at a Texas flood article at WaPo suggests they install air raid sirens. They’re used successfully in tornado country.
Most of the criticisms in the comments focused on penny pinching Republicans, at all level of government. A flood warning had been rejected earlier.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025/07/06/texas-flood-risks-warnings-alerts-preparation/
Lots are blaming the DOGE cuts, I saw that even AI is weighing in with blame (I did a google search on the subject)…whether true or not, it’s no surprise that the cuts are implicated.
The cost cutting started before DOGE.
Plus it was at state and county levels, too. I expect more reporting on this soon.
In 1987, at almost the exactly same spot where those young girls died, 10 boys in a summer camp died in a flash flood of the Guadalupe. This was LONG before DOGE, of course.
It’s possible budget cuts may have contributed, but that area of the Guadalupe is prone to flash floods, with major floods occurring almost every decade. Forecasting accurate rainfall is not a precise science.
But, OF COURSE DOGE and Trump are to blame! It’s all political. Even the weather.
And thanks for the Ozzy mention…I hadn’t heard they were doing a last show. When he was inducted into the Rock ‘n Roll HoF this year as a solo artist, he was also seated, but he still had that Satanic aura. LOL! Black Sabbath is one of the greatest and most important rock/heavy metal bands of all time. I’m still blown away when I listen to their eponymous 1st album and consider it was released in 1970.
Hamas, like Putin, really do not want peace and just continue to make impossible, ridiculous demands which they know will not be agreed to. To them, hostage release is a game. What a ridiculous formula. The imprisoned Gazan terrorists are in no great hurry to return to Gaza. They are being paid, receiving a free education, and despite claiming miserable conditions, receive items from the PA, Gaza, & bleeding hearts internationally that make their imprisonment quite comfortable. I have no sympathy for them.