Welcome to the sabbath for goyische cats: it’s Sunday, July 27, 2025, and National Scotch Day. My favorite single-malt Scotch is made at the place below:
It’s also National Beef Burger Day, National Hamburger Day (yes, they’re different!), Menstrual Hygiene Day, and National Brisket Day, which I celebrated at the City Market in Luling, Texas in 2004> note the absence of utensils.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 1 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*The Free Press continues its coddling of religion, and I’m beginning to suspect that osculating faith is part of its program. I’ve mentioned this before, but have a look at their new article, “On pilgrimage with 20,000 young Catholics,” by, of all people, Rod Dreher, who used to write for The American Conservative and is still an editor there (see three of my posts about Dreher here, here, and here). His schtick is atheist-dissing, and he’s got a nice, warm stall in the stable of the Templeton Foundation’s prize horses. The FP story concerns an annual pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres (62 km). I prefer to take the train.
Outside of Saint-Sulpice, I stop to chat with a group of young women wearing the uniforms of France’s Scouting movement, which has historically been tied to the Catholic Church, unlike its more secular version in the Anglosphere. I ask one—Isa, 19, from Orléans—why she is there.
“Jésus,” she declares.
Then she adds: “I love this pilgrimage. The ambience, the hope. It’s very hard, very physical. But it’s beautiful.”
. . . . The reasons for the quiet revival of Catholicism among the young vary, but they all come down to the search for meaning, purpose, stability, and identity. These new converts—or “reverts,” for the baptized who have rediscovered their faith—are drawn to ancient forms of Christianity because these traditions are more rooted, and more demanding, than the looser, therapeutic model of contemporary Christianity. They also rely much more on liturgy and beauty to incarnate theological principles—“smells and bells,” as some have it. These things have stood the test of time.
. . . . “I think we’re on the crest of a new wave,” says Matthew Witzane, 25, actually from Saskatchewan, but marching with an American chapter as there was no official Canadian presence. “We’re seeing lots of young Catholic communities popping up all across North America.”
. . .Though most of the pilgrims do not speak in philosophical categories, all of them are preoccupied with the question of meaning. After the opening mass ends, I meet Viennese pilgrim Anna at a nearby café.
It’s the cheerful 24-year-old’s first Chartres walk. She has the air of a superfan at a Taylor Swift concert. Why is she here?
“Tradition is the only safe future we have,” she replies. “What are you going to build your life on, if not God?”
. . .Chartres stands to them as a beacon of what the world might be again. It is a prophetic manifestation of light and beauty amid the darkness of an ugly world that does not comprehend the message engraved in its walls, and proclaimed in the glow of its ruby, emerald, and azure glass. In the wonder of this medieval cathedral, a symphony of stone, they hear the Latin-chanted melodies and the beacons of bejeweled light summoning them out of the dark wood of modernity.
“Hope is a memory that desires, the memory is a memory that has enjoyed.” This is the essence of the Christian hope that Chartres gives these young idealists. The man who wrote those words was Honoré de Balzac. A Frenchman, naturellement.
My guess is that someone at the Free Press has a penchant for saying that religion is a big palliative for the world’s troubles, and also pretends that religion is undergoing a revival in light of those troubles. But the proportion of Catholics in the world (or among Christians in general) has remained pretty stable, while the proportion of Christians in the U.S. has declined substantially in the last 18 years. Still, people are making a big deal about how Christianity has leveled off in the lst two year. Regardless, what is new in this article? It says nothing that hasn’t been said recently by the likes of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and, most recently (and loudly), by Ross “You Gotta Be Religious” Douthat. It’s interesting to suss out what the Free Press’s ideology is, though it pretends not to have one.
*The NYT reports that, according to four Israelis (including two military officials), there is no evidence that Hamas ever stole humanitarian aid from the United Nations. (See article archived here.)
For nearly two years, Israel has accused Hamas of stealing aid provided by the United Nations and other international organizations. The government has used that claim as its main rationale for restricting food from entering Gaza.
But the Israeli military never found proof that the Palestinian militant group had systematically stolen aid from the United Nations, the biggest supplier of emergency assistance to Gaza for most of the war, according to two senior Israeli military officials and two other Israelis involved in the matter.
In fact, the Israeli military officials said, the U.N. aid delivery system, which Israel derided and undermined, was largely effective in providing food to Gaza’s desperate and hungry population.
Now, with hunger at crisis levels in the territory, Israel is coming under increased international pressure over its conduct of the war in Gaza and the humanitarian suffering it has brought. Doctors in the territory say that an increasing number of their patients are suffering from — and dying of — starvation.
More than 100 aid agencies and rights groups warned this past week of “mass starvation” and implored Israel to lift restrictions on humanitarian assistance. The European Union and at least 28 governments, including Israeli allies like Britain, France and Canada, issued a joint statement condemning Israel’s “drip-feeding of aid” to Gaza’s two million Palestinian residents.
Israel has largely brushed off the criticism.
David Mencer, a government spokesman, said this week that there was “no famine caused by Israel.” Instead, he blamed Hamas and poor coordination by the United Nations for any food shortages.
These reports disturb me, though I don’t think Israel really does have an obligation to feed the country run by its enemy. Did we sent humanitarian aid to Germany or Japan in WWII? Nevertheless, the information on starvation comes from the usual suspects (the UN and Hamas) and I am not yet convinced that either starvation is pervasive or that Hamas has stolen aid (there used to be videos of Hamas shooting at those trying to pilfer its sequestered aid). But what would really disturb me, and could be documented by evidence from both video and the IDF itself, is evidence that the IDF is deliberately trying to shoot Gazan civilians trying to get aid, a fact reported widely. Were that to be true, it would show that the IDF and Israel have betrayed their deepest principles. We shall see.
*And, according to the WSJ, the U.S. has grown increasingly frustrated with the actions by an Israel emboldened by its recent military successes. (See article archived here.)
Israel has emerged from a string of stunning military successes with nearly unchecked power in the Middle East. Now Washington is struggling to adjust.
The Trump administration in recent days has expressed frustration with Israeli actions in Syria and Gaza. President Trump’s MAGA supporters, in particular, are growing more critical of his support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who they fear will drag the U.S. deeper into a morass of regional wars.
Israel this month bombed Syria’s military headquarters and presidential palace in Damascus, saying it was defending the Druze religious minority group from sectarian violence. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. helped broker an agreement to de-escalate the situation after characterizing the clashes between Israel and Syria as a misunderstanding. The U.S. has backed interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s efforts to unite the country.
Separately, Israel drew widespread condemnation, including from the Trump administration, after it struck a Catholic church in Gaza, killing three people. Israel said it was an accident.
The White House said this past week that Trump was “caught off guard” by the bombing in Syria and the strike that hit the Catholic church.
The dissonance in part reflects Israel’s new position of power after a series of wars that have left it with no significant regional rivals, according to former officials and analysts.
“The fundamental change that has to be recognized in addressing the future of the Middle East is that Israel is now the strongest power in the Middle East,” said Amos Hochstein, who was a senior adviser under President Joe Biden. “They are the absolute, overwhelming, dominant military hegemon
The last bit is nothing to deplore: Israel is, after all, the only democracy in the Middle East, and it does not start wars. As for three civilians killed in church, that’s a tragic accident, but what war has not have those? (Certainly the U.S. did things like that in Iraq and Afghanistan.) And as for bombing Syria, yes, the Druze need to be protected and the new Syrian regime does seem to be conducting a real genocide there. (BTW, I highly recommend Bret Stephens’s NYT column, “No, Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza,” a dumb accusation if ever there was one, but an accusation echoed by the many benighted NYT readers commenting on the column.) Jew hatred is increasing in America.
*More about Israel and the war:, French President Emanuel Macron has decided to recognize Palestine as a state, and that includes a Gaza run by Hamas.
French President Emmanuel Macron announced Thursday that France will recognize Palestine as a state, in a bold diplomatic move amid snowballing global anger over people starving in Gaza. Israel denounced the decision.
Macron said in a post on X that he will formalize the decision at the U.N. General Assembly in September. “The urgent thing today is that the war in Gaza stops and the civilian population is saved,’’ he wrote.
The mostly symbolic move puts added diplomatic pressure on Israel as the war and humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip rage. France is now the biggest Western power to recognize Palestine, and the move could pave the way for other countries to do the same. More than 140 countries recognize a Palestinian state, including more than a dozen in Europe.
The Palestinians seek an independent state in the occupied West Bank, annexed east Jerusalem and Gaza, territories Israel occupied in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel’s government and most of its political class have long been opposed to Palestinian statehood and now say that it would reward militants after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack.
This is symbolic, for such a state would never be approved by the UN’s Security Council so long as the U.S. is on it. (That is, unless AOC becomes President.) Worse, it’s a serious mistake, for what Macron wants is a state run by Hamas (in Gaza) and the Palestinian Authority (in East Jerusalem and the West Bank). In other words, he thinks he’s doing a good thing by recognizing two states run by terrorist organizations. What is the man thinking? If he thinks he’s leaving a legacy of peace, he’s sadly mistaken, and any fool knows that. So Hamas stays in power in Gaza, and that is supposed to leave Israel in peace? Sorry, but in this respect Macron is a blithering fool. The Prime Minister of Italy, on the other hand, is more sensible, for she says that she will not recognize a Palestinian state before it’s established. (Macron simply wants to establish one by fiat.)
*Chicago is a “sanctuary city,” in which local lawmakers are not generally required to help the federal government enforce immigration policy. The Department of Justice sued Chicago over this behavior, but a federal judge just threw out the lawsuit on the grounds that the feds lack standing to sue.
A federal judge on Friday dismissed “in its entirety” the Trump administration’s lawsuit against Illinois, Cook County and the city of Chicago over “sanctuary city” policies that the Trump administration has said impede its efforts to crack down on undocumented immigrants.
U.S. District Judge Lindsay C. Jenkins for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division said the Trump administration “lacks standing” to invalidate the state, city and county laws that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, adding in her ruling that “contrary to the United States’s arguments, the Sanctuary Policies here do not comparably regulate [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] operations or meddle with the contractual rights of private individuals working with ICE.”
“The individual defendants are dismissed because the United States lacks standing to sue them with respect to the Sanctuary Policies; Cook County Board of Commissioners is dismissed because it is not a suable entity separate from Cook County … The United States’s complaint is dismissed in its entirety without prejudice,” Jenkins wrote.
In February, the Trump administration sued Illinois and Chicagofor interfering with the federal immigration crackdown, arguing that the city’s Welcoming City ordinance and the Illinois Trust Act reflects “an intentional effort to obstruct the Federal Government’s enforcement of federal immigration law and to impede consultation and communication between federal, state, and local law enforcement officials that is necessary for federal officials to carry out federal immigration law and keep Americans safe.”
The lawsuit also named Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D), Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D), the Cook County Board of Commissioners, Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling and Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart.
The judge also ruled that compelling Chicago and Illinois law enforcement authorities to assist federal agents with deportation efforts is unconstitutional.
I don’t particularly have a dog in this fight, and if the government doesn’t have standing, well, it doesn’t have standing. The apprehension of undocumented immigrants is a federal issue, and so long as local governments don’t impede that effort, they’d not doing anything illegal.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili’s ears are perked up because Andrzej got an big award (Hili’s monologue is called “Prize”, or “Negroda” in Polish
Hili: Guys, what’s going on here?
In Polish:
Hili: Ludzie, co tu się dzieje?
Listy gives the details of Andrzej’s award:
B’nai B’rith International is hosting a ceremony to honor Polish citizens who have shown commitment to preserving Jewish heritage in Poland and to fostering Polish-Jewish relations. The award, now in its third consecutive year, is called Wdzięczność–Gratitude–הכרת הטוב – in Polish, English, and Hebrew – and recognizes outstanding contributions by individuals and institutions in these areas.
Starting this year, the award will be presented in honor of Marian Turski (1926–2025), a Polish-Jewish journalist, historian, Holocaust survivor, and member of the B’nai B’rith Poland lodge. The B’nai B’rith organization has been active in Poland (with interruptions) since 1923.
This year’s recipients are:Robert Kobylarczyk, Andrzej Koraszewski, and Ireneusz Socha.
Jerzy Luty accepted the award on my behalf.
On July 26, Jerzy Luty and his wife Agnieszka came to Dobrzyń nad Wisłą and personally handed Andrzej Koraszewski the diploma and statuette in the garden belonging to Paulina Raniszewska, who hosted the meeting held for this occasion and also served as the resident photographer. Paulina is not Andrzej Koraszewski’s biological granddaughter – she is his supernatural granddaughter, capable of everything and more.
Andrzej getting his award (and he’s not even Jewish!).
*******************
From Meow:
From Things With Faces, a happy cloud:
From Another Science Humor Group:
From Masih, Azizi Pakhshan, sentenced to death by Iran last year for political activism. It looks like she will soon be hanged.
The regime wants to hang her to make an example.
The death sentence of #Pakhshan_Azizi has been confirmed for the third time.
She is one of many brave women the Islamic Republic is trying to punish for the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising.
And yet… the free world still does… pic.twitter.com/yvRv79pTdP
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) July 24, 2025
Speaking of Islamist denial of women’s rights, here’s a letter from an Afghani woman sent to J. K. Rowling:
From an Afghan woman to Dear @jk_rowling ,
I am writing to you as an Afghan girl whose only crime is being born a woman in a land where womanhood is punished.
Here, we are not allowed to speak loudly. Even our voices are considered threats.
We are locked inside our homes,… pic.twitter.com/JycBUBxvN7— WDI.Afghanistan (@WDIAfghanistan) July 25, 2025
From Simon, a science nerd post:
When your lab has its own confocal
— Oded Rechavi (@odedrechavi.bsky.social) 2025-07-17T19:02:13.611Z
From Malcolm. Is this really a family? Is Mom so small?
Family ❤️ pic.twitter.com/1QF84yYdIz
— Cats all the way (@nekocatts) June 15, 2025
From Barry:
Field Marshall Otto Von Pussmarck
— "Radical" Russ Belville (@radicalruss.com) 2025-07-19T21:21:49.697Z
One that I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:
A German Jewish woman who spent two years in the camps and perished at 24.
— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-07-27T10:02:27.538Z
Two posts from Dr. Cobb. First, cat t.v.:
Who wants to come over and watch squirrels
Matthew calls this one a “nutjob”:
The technical term for this is 'batshit bananas bullshit'. If he believes it, he's a nut. If he's lying about believing it, he's a conman.
— Dr_Aust_PhD (@draustphd.bsky.social) 2025-07-15T15:58:10.705Z
The United Nations Security Council has no authority to confer or recognize statehood. And if it passed such a resolution it would not be binding on any country to obey it. Recognition is an individual decision by one sovereign state to acknowledge that the foreign entity functions effectively as far as it is concerned, with the activity expected of a sovereign state, that it has borders, enforces laws inside them, and can collect taxes. Indeed it is a violation of international law to recognize as a state an entity that is currently in a dispute over territory or governance with a parent state. That would be interfering in the domestic affairs of the parent state. (The notion that the United States would recognize an illegally seceding Alberta as a state while it was not clear if Canada still controlled it is a local example. Albertans would have to pay Federal taxes to Canada and submit to Canadian law (on guns, for example) until Canada says they don’t, no matter what the U.S. or anyone else says.)
http://uniset.ca/microstates2/PDF_Anerkennung__en_05.pdf
Even if every country in the world recognized Palestine as a state in Gaza (and in Judaea/Samaria?) this would not hamper the right of Israel to make war on it. Indeed, the laws of inter-state conflict would make destruction of a dangerous foreign state more cut and dried. Be careful what you wish for, Palestinians.
Sorry but the UN itself says that recognition of a state, at least by the UN, must pass the Security Council:
How does a new State or Government obtain recognition by the United Nations?
The procedure is briefly as follows:
Two different things. Admission to the United Nations of a member state is not the same as diplomatic recognition by other sovereign countries. The UN has no supra-sovereign authority whatsoever over any country. You are quoting the UN’s own rules about how it runs its own club, is all. Admission to the UN would not obligate any country to recognize it, not even the countries that, perhaps for cynical reasons that abound in diplomacy, voted for it to be admitted to the UN.
The above is correct as a matter of international law – which, btw, includes some realpolitik, kinetic options etc.
A lot of the “UN says no!” crowd, many sadly retarded intellectually, think shouting “international law!” is some kind of debate ending conclusion. It is not.
An example is the “consensus” that Judea and Samaria (“The West Bank”) is “illegally” occupied. Nonsense.
Onwards Israeli heroes.
D.A., J.D.
NYC
https://x.com/DavidandersonJd
The “not stealing aid” story (New Woke Times and Washington Post)is so “not even wrong” I don’t know where to start.
That and the French.
Whom, I assume, will be recognizing the Taliban and ISIS soon. Zut allors.
Makes me wonder just what is the end point of lefty and Eurotrash support of terrorism? Actually signing up, strapping themselves with bombs and exploding? (Works for Hamas).
D.A.
NYC
see my rantings uncensored (by my various column editors who sometimes, sensibly, hold me back)
https://x.com/DavidandersonJd
I think the word “systematically” as used in the article is a weasel-word. What do they mean by that? Do they mean consistently stealing every delivery? It sounds like a word that let’s them think they aren’t lying.
Yes. “Not systematically” is doing heavy lifting here. As militias pilfer and sell UN aid in practically every conflict (they certainly did in the Syrian civil war), it’s not plausible that it hasn’t happened here. The scale may well be revelant for decision-making, though.
I was looking for a spot to comment. Information from a wide variety of sources in Gaza are largely uniform in saying that there is considerable starvation in Gaza, and that is the one detail that I am willing to believe. Maybe it’s a portion of the population, while others are not. So some can claim there is starvation, and point out evidence for that, while another camp can say there isn’t.
I don’t know the root cause of this. One cause which I read about is that there are crooks who steal a goodly portion of the aid and sell it at high prices that many cannot afford. So they starve. Then of course there is Hamas, which is the root of all evil over there as far as I am concerned.
All I need to know about the “not stealing aid” story is that Hamas just blew up the latest ceasefire negotiations by reversing a previous agreement on aid distribution, and are now demanding the U.S. and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) not be involved at all anymore. Can’t imagine why.
Also, I seem to recall that strident words were used by the UN over Israel’s decision to pause aid delivery recently. And yet, that is exactly what the UN itself did, not so long ago:
https://www.un.org/unispal/document/auto-insert-209885/
All of this; the hunger, starvation, the deprivations of the Gazan civilians – all of it would end if Hamas, already defeated as a military, surrendered and released the hostages. ALL of this is Hamas’s fault.
Personally, I feel bad for Gazan civilians who’re suffering. But I also have no doubt what the answer would be if you asked those suffering in Gaza the question; ‘Does Israel have a right to exist?”. Remembering who they are tempers my sympathy somewhat.
edit: I see now that I’m repeating what Dr Gilinsky says below. I know da rulz discourage repeated posts, but I think that only applies to the same commentator.
FWIW, I heard on NPR this morning that Israel has been pausing fighting for 10hrs every day for aid to get into Gaza. For how long this has been happening I have no idea.
Macron is terrified of the large and perpetually angry Islamic population of France. But no matter what he does to appease them, that crocodile will not eat him last.
That crocodile may also be the subtext to the attempted Christian revival exemplified by the Chartres pilgrimage story here.
Indeed. At least Christianity is supposed to be a religion of peace, so if we have to have religion in society at all, better it be a peaceful one rather than the religion of war.
Local cops have no problem arresting bank robbers or kidnappers…but hands off illegal aliens. What hypocrites.
Talk about a non-sequitur.
AIUI (and IANAL): state and federal laws are different jurisdictions; where they conflict then federal generally prevails; there is no overall requirement for states to enforce the laws of other jurisdictions (state, federal, or foreign).
The details of course get complicated, e.g. “full faith and credit” among states re their court decisions.
Regarding Palestinian statehood, one of the primary determinants of international recognition is (or used to be) whether the state in question was viable, above all whether it could defend its claim to sovereignty by the protection of its territory. Clearly, Palestine fails on this test. In contrast Israel has show repeatedly that it can protect its claim of sovereignty.
The core of Christopher Hitchens’ response, from chapter 15 of Hitch-22:
“Very often, when I give my view that there is no supernatural dimension, and certainly not one that is only or especially available to the faithful, and that the natural world is wonderful enough – and even miraculous enough if you insist – I attract pitying looks and anxious questions. How, in that case, I am asked, do I find meaning and purpose in life? How does a mere and gross materialist, with no expectation of a life to come, decide what, if anything, is worth caring about?…
A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called “meaningless” except if the person living it is also an existentialist and elects to call it so. It could be that all existence is a pointless joke, but it is not in fact possible to live one’s everyday life as if this were so. Whereas if one sought to define meaninglessness and futility, the idea that a human life should be expended in the guilty, fearful, self-obsessed propitiation of supernatural nonentities…but there, there. Enough.”
I’ve long been comforted by “The Myth of Sisyphus”, in which Camus concedes the meaninglessness of life but then rebuilds an argument for sustained collective discovery of meaning and goodness and satisfaction through fellowship and love. Camus comes close to finding the source of that urge toward meaning in our evolved behavioural traits, but doesn’t quite get there. Evolutionary psychology hadn’t happened when he was thinking and writing. I think Camus would have loved Hitchens and Pinker.
The US did send food aid to Japan… After WWII was over.
And Britain sent food to (conquered) Germany, even though food was sparse in Britain, too.
I think a discussion of Israel’s responsibilty to allow and facilitate distribution of food (they don’t have to pay for it) would revolve around the question of Israeli ground control in Ghaza, and on de facto border control, and on whether the war is still actively going on and prevents safe food distribution.
Clearly, one party that doesn’t want the food situation resolved is Hamas, but theirs are not moral standards one should hide behind.
A clear case of a war crime by preventing the entry of food is the German WWII siege of Leningrad. One aim was simply genocide, secretly acknowledged by a Berlin official: “post war, a huge Slavic settlement there is not in Germany’s interest”. I cited that from memory.
There was starvation in Leningrad during the German siege. Indeed, there was cannibalism. The penalty (imposed by the Soviet government) was death. No criticism of the Soviet government was meant or implied. The Soviets built railroads on ice (quite a trick) to bring supplies to Leningrad.
In Leningrad, if you lost your ration card, you were not re-issued with a card, so you died. If you had your ration card stolen, you died. If you were found with a ration card not in your name, you were shot. If you were found with more than one ration card, you were shot. I also recall that printers were shot for printing unauthorized ration cards.
Careful. The United States Navy, just as the Wehrmacht at Leningrad but on a bigger scale, did attempt to prevent all shipping from reaching Japanese ports from Dec 1941 right up until Japan capitulated. The goal was to strangle Japan of everything it needed that came out of the sea (like fish) or sailed over it. The USN modeled its submarine efforts with growing effectiveness on the German Navy’s submarine campaign against British commerce going on contemporaneously. The peculiar nature of submarine warfare excused a lot of what would otherwise in a more chivalrous era be a war crime. At least that’s what the Nuremberg Tribunal thought, in sparing Adm. Karl Dönitz from being hanged.
I think the goal in a naval blockade, or its land equivalent of a siege, just is to reduce the enemy’s ability to make war, by starving him. It’s hard to see how a blockader could allow even food into an armed, militarized, resisting city when he knows the military authorities who run the city will feed soldiers and other combatants preferentially, or even exclusively. If the blockaded, fighting city is facing a humanitarian crisis from starvation, surely it is the duty of the authorities to surrender, so food delivery can resume and will then go by definition only to non-combatants. If the non-combatants are sequestered from combatants, in refugee camps, say, where the aid can’t be diverted to soldiers, then I can see there is a greater humanitarian obligation, and less military motive to starve them. Israel should allow aid (free of contraband) to reach camps, yes, but free diffusion into Gaza? Not so sure. All discussions of war crimes get percolated through military necessity….which, if someone wants Israel to be finally defeated, he will never grant to Israel.
It might have been a war crime for the German Army to interdict food into Leningrad that was being delivered by the Red Cross, who would be trusted not to give it to Russian soldiers fighting in the city. (But would not the desperate men who had guns have simply taken it from those who hadn’t?) But hardly genocide in itself, unless the Third Reich was seeking to kill all Slavs, not just those who happened to be trapped in Leningrad.
In 1914, the British Navy cut off the flow of nitrates into Germany (the Haber-Bosch process was invented in response). The nitrates were used as fertilizer (and too make war). Were the British guilty of an attempted ‘genocide’? The British had an even more painful (literally) plan for Germany. They cut off the supply of Opium/Morphine to Germany. The Germans responded by inventing Demerol.
Conversely, the Germans were trying to cut off the flow of food (from Canada, the US, etc) into the UK in WWI/WWII. Were they guilty of ‘genocide’?
This is all very unclear (at least too me).
Incidentally, regarding the WWI hunger blockade against Germany, which went on until 1919 and caused close to a million direct deaths: This was one of the reasons Hitler thought Germany needed more land to feed itself, so it could not be starved by outside powers.
Standards have changed since WWII. Areal bombing is also banned now.
Intent matters. The German military leadership’s intent in Leningrad is known. Berlin even ordered the local generals not to accept a surrender (though Leningrad never did surrender). They wanted the city to die.
See what I wrote above, that the question of Israeli obligation revolves (among other things) around Israeli ground control in Gaza. When you have de facto military control over the area (i.e. you have already largely won the war), you gain responsibility towards the civilians. This was accepted even in WWII, except by the Germans who actively wanted to decimate the population of the Eastern areas they conquered, as we all know.
I am deeply disturbed by the recent reporting that the IDF is deliberately harming civilians in Gaza seeking food. Some of this may be Hamas propaganda disseminated by an anti-Israeli media at a time when Hamas is desperate and has nothing left to lose. (The Hamas propaganda machine is working overtime.) But some of the reports may be true and, if so, I hope that Israel will respond by helping to distribute the aid. Israel isn’t obligated to aid and abet the enemy, but to the extent that there are innocents in Gaza, Israel, as a civilized nation, should help. So yes, I am disturbed.
But I am yet again also deeply disturbed by the fact that almost no one—not the press, not the western powers—is calling for Hamas to lay down its arms, return the hostages, and surrender. Why is it that famine in Gaza is blamed on Israel, when Hamas can end the aid crisis immediately if it would surrender? This inversion of causality—that the suffering in Gaza has been caused by Israel rather than Hamas—has attended the entire conflict and attends it even now. One can only speculate why this might be so.
All very very true.
I don’t understand why the trick car is a confocal (confocal microscope). Other than that the microscope uses a very narrow wavelength of light?
ALL unusual looking pictures on social media are now suspect for being at least partially a product of AI. So I don’t trust the picture of the cat family as being real, since kittehs are not likely to just sit there like that.
There are web pages that endlessly crank out that sort of stuff in order to monetize their page. The InsectWars Facebook page is an absolute abomination, for example, as it is full of realistic pictures of fantasy AI insects, and the text is AI as well. Many of these are where the creator steals actual pictures on the internet, re-works them (this launders them from copyright infringement), and then up it goes. Several professional photographers who own these pictures are complaining, but to no avail.
Confocal microscopes have the ability to focus on a “slice” of, say, a cell. So while a cell is 3D, you get a 1D image of it along the Z axis; a slice of the cell, if you will.. So this skinny car is a like a sliced regular car.
That car, BTW, is a Ford Festiva / Kia Pride / Mazda 121 – all the same, except that in one or both of the latter you could get four doors.
“Were that to be true…”
According to an eyewitness, a US veteran, it is indeed true.
There’s a video on Youtube “Former US Green Beret says Israel committed war crimes at Gaza food distribution site | BBC News”. (Interview starts around 4 minutes in.)
GHF Spokesperson responds to allegations made by Mr. Aguilar:
“GHF launched an immediate investigation when Mr. Aguilar’s allegations were brought to our attention. Based on time-stamped video footage and witness statements, we believe his claims are materially false.
This former contractor was terminated by UG for misconduct over a month ago. We have seen written communications in which he pleaded for his job back and threatened retribution if not reinstated, which raise substantial questions regarding his motives. We also have evidence he may have falsified documents and presented misleading videos to push his false narrative.
GHF and its contractors would remind media outlets of the relevant legal and ethical standards associated with publishing false allegations, such as these, and reserve all rights in that respect.
We take the safety and security of our operational sites extremely seriously. When behavior falls short of our standards, we take action.
We remain focused on our core mission: delivering food to the people of Gaza in a safe, direct, and uninterrupted manner, as we have done since launching operations on May 27. Since then, we have distributed more than 92 million meals to the Palestinian people in Gaza.”
Chartres is indeed impressive. If you can stomach it, have a read of https://www.roman-catholic-saints.com/our-lady-of-chartres-miracle.html , straight from the horse.
From which end of the horse, though, Barbara?
Both. 🎯
On a sadder, technically apolitical, note, Tom Lehrer passed yesterday at age 97.
I was thinking about him this evening, technically apolitical…