Welcome to a Hump Day (“Andro Hump” in Malagasy): July 5, 2025, and National Root Beer Float Day. (This is also known as a “Black Cow”.) Here’s one, and here’s an audio version with great electronic piano and trumpet solos:
It’s also National Fresh Breath Day, Farmworker Appreciation Day, and Hiroshima Day, marking the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima at 8:45 a.m. on this day in 1945. Video of the explosion is below, and let’s hope that the two bombs dropped in Japan will be the last (who knows?):
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the August 1 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*For reasons I don’t understand, the U.S. has slapped neutral Switzerland with huge tariffs of 39%. The Swiss president is hightailing it to the U.S. to stave this off.
The Swiss president is heading to the U.S. in a last-ditch effort to head off punishing tariffs that threaten to cripple key sectors of the country’s export-reliant economy.
President Trump’s recent decision to impose a 39% levy—one of the highest in the world—stunned the Alpine nation and upended months of negotiations in which Swiss officials believed they were on the verge of securing a favorable deal.
The aim of President Karin Keller-Sutter’s trip Tuesday is to “facilitate meetings with the U.S. authorities at short notice and hold talks with a view to improving the tariff situation for Switzerland,” the Swiss government said.
The tariff tiff presents a test for Switzerland’s export model and an example of how vulnerable even staunch U.S. allies are to abrupt shifts in U.S. policy in the new era of transactional, deficit-focused negotiations under Trump.
Keller-Sutter, whose delegation also includes Economy Minister Guy Parmelin, aims to present “a more attractive offer to the United States in a bid to lower the level of reciprocal tariffs for Swiss exports, taking U.S. concerns into account,” the government said. It is unclear whether Keller-Sutter will meet with Trump or what is included in her new offer.
Chief among those concerns is the fact that Switzerland has one of the largest trade deficits in goods with the U.S., at $48 billion this year through June. Around a fifth of Swiss exports such as watches, chocolate, pharmaceuticals and machine tools go to the U.S., its largest market. “That’s a big deficit,” Trump said last week after the Swiss tariffs announcement.
Switzerland’s government said its trade surplus wasn’t the result of any “unfair trade practices.” The country unilaterally scrapped all tariffs on industrial goods as of Jan. 1, 2024, meaning more than 99% of U.S. goods enter Switzerland tariff-free, it said. It is now the sixth-largest foreign investor in the U.S. and major companies such as Nestlé, Roche and Novartis support some 400,000 American jobs, according to Swiss business organization Economiesuisse.
So if Switzerland imposes no tariffs on U.S. goods, what possible rationale can there be for us to impost nearly 40% tariffs on their goods? As one Swiss official said, ““Switzerland is not a threat to U.S. national security,” said Jan Atteslander, member of the executive board at Swiss business organization Economiesuisse. “Our chocolate and watches don’t endanger U.S. manufacturing.”
Can someone explain this to me?
*Even Trump can’t stop the Republicans from trying to get their hands on the Justice Department’s files on Jeffrey Epstein. The House Republicans just issued a subpoena for those files, but also files on Bill and Hillary Clinton, and a bunch of other people.
In all, Comer issued 11 subpoenas for documents and testimony spanning over two decades and including a slew of former attorneys general under Democratic and Republican administrations.
Comer set an Aug. 19 deadline for records to be released from the Justice Department related to Epstein and his imprisoned associate, Ghislaine Maxwell.
“While the Department undertakes efforts to uncover and publicly disclose additional information related to Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell’s cases, it is imperative that Congress conduct oversight of the federal government’s enforcement of sex trafficking laws generally and specifically its handling of the investigation and prosecution of Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell.” Comer wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“The Committee may use the results of this investigation to inform legislative solutions to improve federal efforts to combat sex trafficking and reform the use of non-prosecution agreements and/or plea agreements in sex-crime investigations. Documents related to the Department’s investigation and prosecution of Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell are relevant to the Committee’s investigation.”
The Justice Department had no immediate comment.
Well, all this kerfuffle has made me very curious to see what is in the records. Now that Epstein is dead, why not release them (names of people who should be hidden can be redacted)? You’ve probably heard that Ghislaine Maxwell, serving a 20-year sentence at a federal medium-security prison, has been transferred to the same minimum-security prison as white-collar prisoners like Elizabeth Holmes. But it’s not normal for felons to be in that type of prison. And I’m infuriated that Trump is making noises about a possible pardon for Maxwell. She was convicted of conspiracy to sexually abuse minors, and if Trump pardons her soon for that, well, it’s just wrong!
*Over at Commentary, in an article called, “When the narrative collapses,” author Seth Mandel discusses the New York Times’s misleading use of a sick Gazan child to buttress the paper’s narrative of starvation in Gaza.
it turns out that New York Times editors tried desperately to avoid using a photo of a child with preexisting conditions precisely because they understood it to be unethical. Semafor relates some of the behind-the-scenes discussions at the Times:
“Last Thursday at 3 pm, the Times was preparing to run images of Youssef Matar, a young child in Gaza with cerebral palsy who was suffering from lack of nourishment, alongside its July 24 story that cited doctors in Gaza finding ‘an increasing number of their patients are suffering and dying — from starvation.’
“But the Times’ topmost editors wanted to err on the side of caution. After viewing the gutting photo, according to communications viewed by Semafor, they worried that it might inadvertently call into question the paper’s reporting, which said that many of the children suffering from hunger did not have preexisting health issues.”
According to Semafor, the Times‘ managing editor Marc Lacey asked why they would use a misleading picture “when there is presumably no shortage of images of children who were not malnourished before the war and currently are?” Executive editor Joe Kahn, per internal communications seen by Semafor, put it simply: “The story isn’t framed around people with special needs and the lead art really should not do that, either.”
Absolutely correct, as anyone who has worked in news reporting would know.
So the idea that it would be fine to use the picture knowing the boy had cerebral palsy has been obliterated: The Times had already changed its prospective front page to avoid that very mistake.
But there’s more to learn from the Times’ internal communications. Notice that the editors tell the staff that the story is specifically supposed to make the point that children in Gaza without preexisting conditions are suffering from malnutrition. If the reports of such widespread hunger are true, they explained, there should be plenty of photos that show exactly that. And therefore the Times must reject its first proposed front-page photo, which did not meet those criteria.
And yet, the photo they replaced it with also did not meet that criteria. It must be very easy to find proof that Israel is deliberately starving otherwise healthy children, they said—our reporting makes that claim! And then they proceeded to fail to find a usable example of such a case. They hadn’t realized, they say, that this child also had cerebral palsy, just like the first child they considered using.
You can see it slowly dawning on them that there’s something else entirely going on here, that the trend is not what they believe it to be. You can even sense the frustration creeping into their communication: You reporters, they explain, are saying one thing and then showing us another—and then after we corrected you on it, you did it again!
The unspoken next thought is: Perhaps it isn’t so easy to prove this claim about Israel.
It’s almost completely taboo to say that Gaza is not subject to widespread starvation. But before the West buys into that, we need data, and not data provided by Hamas or its Gazan Health ministry, nor by the UN nor even the NY Times. People won’t accept what Israel has to say, so how do we determine what the truth is? The article concludes:
This conversation echoes what Israel’s defenders have been saying for some time. When Israel’s defenders say it, though, they are accused of pushing hasbara, of spinning for atrocities.
The apologies owed won’t be coming any time soon. That’s because the people accusing Israel supporters of cruelty are themselves the very definition of propagandists: They will defend the printing of terrorist propaganda even knowing its falsity. That is worth keeping in front of mind, because they will soon do it again.
But, as I’ve said, Israel should send enough food into Gaza to stuff everyone—so long as it can be guaranteed that none of that food goes to Hamas. You tell me how to do that.
*In a related article, the Times of Israel reports that, as of September, Canada will join France and the UK in recognizing a Palestinian state.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Wednesday that Canada will recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly in September, in a fresh diplomatic blow to Israel as it faces increasingly intensifying international criticism over the war in Gaza.
He said the move was “predicated on the Palestinian Authority’s commitment to much-needed reforms,” including elections in 2026, anti-corruption measures, and a demilitarized Palestinian state. Carney stressed he was “not in any way or shape minimizing that scale of that task.”
“Clearly that’s not a possibility in the near term,” the prime minister said, adding that Canada has joined the efforts of other states to “preserve the possibility of a two-state solution.”
“Much has to happen before a democratic, viable state is established,” he added.
Canada had long stated it would only recognize a Palestinian state at the conclusion of peace talks with Israel. But Carney said the reality on the ground, including the mounting hunger crisis in Gaza, meant “the prospect of a Palestinian state is literally receding before our eyes.”
Among the reasons, he said, were “the pervasive threat of Hamas terrorism to Israel,” accelerated settlement construction and a vote by the Knesset calling for the annexation of the West Bank.
“Canada condemns the fact that the Israeli government has allowed a catastrophe to unfold in Gaza,” he said.
Recognizing a Palestinian state now, a state without a non-terrorist candidate leader and including Gaza, run by an explicitly terroristic and genocidal state, would be a huge mistake: it would give Hamas exactly what it wants, a sovereign state from which it can go after Israel (and of course it will). Now I don’t think that any of this recognition is going to produce a Paletinian state, though I’m not opposed to such a state under the right conditions. But rewarding Hamas for helping engineer the starvation of its own people is an absolutely stupid thing to do. For more reasons why, read the Quillette article “Against Palestinian statehood.”
Previous efforts to create a sovereign Palestinian entity failed to address even the most basic requirements of statehood, such as that the prospective state have a permanent and precisely defined territorial contour; and possess a functional government capable of maintaining law and order over such territory. That deficiency persists to this day: the main reason why Israel remains militarily engaged in Gaza is that no competent government-in-waiting exists, as Hamas (which is classified as a terrorist organisation by both the European Union and Canada) has spent the last two decades dismantling all forms of civil society lying outside its direct control. Nurturing an alternative government in this kind of politically stunted society will be the work of generations. It can’t be summoned into existence by Western leaders seeking to appease domestic constituencies.
The reader who sent me this link commented astutely, “How can the hostages survive this? It only emboldens Hamas and buys them more time to buy more time. This is a slap in the face.”
*Colossal Biosciences continues to push back on critics of its de-extinction program. Now they say they’re going to de-extinct several species of moas! Nature reprises the brouhaha without, of course, taking any stand on the issue. Perhaps they shouldn’t, but any fool knows that Colossal has not brought back the dire wolf. Rather, they created a gray wolf with 15 tweaks in its DNA. The article? “This company claimed to ‘de-extinct’ dire wolves. Then the fighting started.” (Link goes to archived version; h/t Matthew). I’ll give a few back-and-forth quotes:
The company’s announcement of the [dire wolf] pups in April, which described them as dire wolves, set off a media maelstrom. The ensuing debates over the nature of the animals — and the advisability of doing such work — have opened a chasm between Colossal’s team and other scientists.
“I don’t think they de-extincted anything,” says Jeanne Loring, a stem-cell biologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. She and many others say that the hype surrounding Colossal’s announcement has the potential to confuse the public about what de-extinction technologies can achieve.
Colossal, meanwhile, has taken an increasingly combative tone in addressing criticisms, issuing rapid rebuttals to researchers and conservationists who have publicly questioned the company’s work. The firm has also been accused of taking part in a campaign to undermine the credibility of some critics. The company denies having played any part in this.
Colossal stands by its claims and insists that it is listening to dissenters and seeking advice from them. “We have had this attitude of running towards critics, not away,” says Ben Lamm, a technology entrepreneur and co-founder of the company.
No, Colossal is running away from its critics. Remember when its head scientific officer, Beth Shapiro, said that no, they didn’t produce real dire wolves, but then did a 180-degree turn, declared that they were dire wolves because they looked like dire wolves (were the originals white?), and rejected any kind of biological species definition. But wait! There’s more! Here’s Shapiro buying into Colossal’s hype:
. . . .Shapiro argued in her 2015 book that forming a wild population is a requirement for successful de-extinction. She nevertheless considers the dire wolves to be an example of de-extinction, and says that creating them will have conservation benefits for wolves and other species.
Many scientists disagree. A group of experts on canids that advises the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) issued a statement in mid-April rejecting Colossal’s claim that gene-edited wolves could be considered dire wolves, or even proxies for the extinct species. The statement cites a 2016 IUCN definition for de-extinction that emphasizes that the animal must fill an ecological niche. The work, the group said, “may demonstrate technical capabilities, but it does not contribute to conservation”. Colossal has disputed this on the social-media platform X (formerly Twitter) saying that the dire-wolf project “develops vital conservation technologies and provides an ideal platform for the next stage of this research”.
. . . [Evolutionary geneticist Tom] Gilbert, who was a co-author of a preprint describing the ancient dire-wolf genomes2, says he is concerned that Colossal is not being sufficiently clear to the public about what it has done. “It’s a dog with 20 edits,” he says. “If you’re putting out descriptions that are going to be so easily falsified, the risk is you do damage to science’s reputation.”
Here’s Shapiro backing off her earlier claim:
But [Shapiro] and Colossal were quick to respond. “Some of y’all are real mad about this,” she began in a video posted on X in April. “You can call these animals proxy dire wolves or Colossal’s dire wolves. All of that would be correct. We chose to call them dire wolves because they look like dire wolves and reflect the key traits we found by sequencing their genome.”
Key traits my tuchas!. What about behavioral traits? They made fifteen edits to the wolf genome based on dire wolf DNA. A wolf with 20 DNA bases changed is not a dire wolf. Finally,
. . . . the company remains bullish on its other efforts, predicting that mammoth-like elephants could arrive as early as 2028. Some critics are becoming concerned about how the company will conduct its work in the future, and what the impacts of that might be. In a 2021 opinion piece in Nature3, Herridge, who had previously turned down an invitation to serve as a scientific adviser to Colossal, wrote that she felt the company’s founders were “driven by a real desire to help the world”. But after the dire-wolf roll-out, she’s concerned about Colossal’s approach and its priorities.“We have a company that is only listening to people who agree with them, who is pushing forward with statements that they aren’t backing down from,” she says. This “is not really where we want to be with a technology that has the potential to change the way our world will look”.
I’ve written about my feelings about Colossal: they have great power to make technical advances in changing genomes, but I don’t think they’re going to de-extinct stuff in our lifetime (read my Boston Globe piece on their efforts). They are not behaving like scientists, but rather more like P. T. Barnum. Well, let’s see if they get a herd of mammoths in Siberial within three years.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Szaron is speaking with Hili, but their words are still somewhat opaque:
Szaron: I see light at the end of the tunnel.
Hili: That might be a train heading this way, or just a lamp that’s not moving.
Sure, it could also mean we’re near the exit and about to resurface. Just don’t get ahead of yourself.
Szaron: You always have to jinx it.
In Polish:
Szaron: Widzę światło w tunelu.
Hili: To może być nadjeżdżający pociąg, albo stacjonarna latarnia.
Tak, może to być również koniec tunelu i powrót na powierzchnię. Nie ciesz się przedwcześnie.
Szaron: Ty zawsze musisz krakać.
*******************
From Jesus of the Day (read the description):
From America’s Cultural Decline into Idiocy:
From Cats That Have Had Enough of Your Shit:
From Masih: English translation by Grok. Both men are alive but in prison as political detainees. What did they do? Criticized the government, especially after the death of Masah Amini:
#Hassan_Ronaghi and #Hossein_Ronaghi, dear brothers, as long as they were with us, fought without any discrimination for freedom and a better future for all walks of life, with their pens, with their words, peacefully and honorably. Now it is our turn to be the voice of these two brothers whose throats have been silenced. For freedom of expression, for all the prisoners in chains, for a brighter tomorrow, for our beloved Iran.
#حسن_رونقی و #حسین_رونقی عزیز، تا وقتی بودند بدون هیچ تبعیضی برای آزادی و آیندهای بهتر، برای تمام اقشار مبارزه کردند، با قلمشان، با کلامشان، صلحآمیز و شرافتمندانه.
حالا نوبتِ ماست که صدای گلوهای اسیر شدهی این دو برادر باشیم.
برای آزادی بیان، برای تمام زندانیانِ در بند، برای… https://t.co/trQTb5UIsm— توماج صالحی🌋 (@OfficialToomaj) August 4, 2025
From Luana:
Breaking via @AmichaiStein1:
Hamas official Ghazi Hamad just said that “The initiative by several countries to recognize a Palestinian state is one of the fruits of October 7.”
Great job, Europe and Canada — you’ve done more to incentivize terror than you can possibly imagine. pic.twitter.com/ZpTX2CH90p
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) August 2, 2025
From Malcolm: I love this one!
same pic.twitter.com/XCK7YmbvAI
— Why you should have a cat (@ShouldHaveCat) July 17, 2025
And another from Malcolm; a thread of the world’s most beautiful place:
1. Mauritius is home to an incredible aerial illusion of an underwater “waterfall.”
The flow of sand & silt on the seabed gives the mesmerizing appearance of a vast, swirling vortex pulling the island downward.
pic.twitter.com/2vn1BhTjUe— Raghu (@IndiaTales7) April 19, 2025
From my feed, interspecific love:
this is my new favorite video on the internet pic.twitter.com/BhTHEZYiC3
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) August 5, 2025
One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial; this is the anniversary of the gassing of 2,514 Jews
5/6 of these Polish Jews were gassed upon arriving at Auschwitz. About a sixth were put into the camp, most to die subsequently. https://t.co/kUOMg7tq2p
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) August 6, 2025
Two from Dr. Cobb. First one unethical:
Last month, 140,000 Danes found out that their genetic data was being used in a massive research project– without their consent. I unpacked how this happened, and why it matters for @science.org http://www.science.org/content/arti…
— Annika Inampudi (@annikainampudi.bsky.social) 2025-08-04T15:57:51.557Z
How sad that we can recycle Soviet-era jokes now, and they make sense!
— George Conway 👊🇺🇸🔥 (@gtconway.bsky.social) 2025-08-03T00:48:02.039Z
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
In an earlier stage of our development most human groups held to a tribal ethic. Members of the tribe were protected, but people of other tribes could be robbed or killed as one pleased. Gradually the circle of protection expanded, but as recently as 150 years ago we did not include blacks. So African human beings could be captured, shipped to America, and sold. In Australia white settlers regarded Aborigines as a pest and hunted them down, much as kangaroos are hunted down today. Just as we have progressed beyond the blatantly racist ethic of the era of slavery and colonialism, so we must now progress beyond the speciesist ethic of the era of factory farming, of the use of animals as mere research tools, of whaling, seal hunting, kangaroo slaughter, and the destruction of wilderness. We must take the final step in expanding the circle of ethics. -Peter Singer, philosopher and professor of bioethics (b. 6 Jul 1946)
“In Australia white settlers regarded Aborigines as a pest and hunted them down, much as kangaroos are hunted down today.”
This is a wild exaggeration. There’s no doubt contact between England and a stone age culture was often unpleasant and cruel, but as an Aussie Singer should know the story better. People just assume – white man v. sacred indigenous = routine, mass cruelty and the “g’ word.
D.A.
NYC
A large fraction of the deaths of natives after Europeans arrived were caused by Eurasian diseases to which the natives had zero immunity.
Yes, the Europeans came “bringing their diseases,” part of a nefarious plot to gain ascendancy.
I wonder why it didn’t work the other way?
The place where it did is Africa.
I know of two explanations for why. One is that we evolved in Africa, and many of our long-term diseases co-evolved with us. Early humans in the Americas, and in Australia, were a bit like an invasive species, in that they arrived without their natural predators. Perhaps malaria is like this.
The second is that civilisation bred all kinds of diseases: crossovers from domesticated animals, or diseases which could spread in crowded living conditions. Smallpox, tuberculosis, cholera.
I’m not sure what podcast this is, I guess it is Fresh & Fit, but it is interesting to see what happens when they ask about Hitler. How widespread is this view? Scary:
https://x.com/Saul_Sadka/status/1948372378481745955
[stunned speechless]
I very much hope that despite appearances, the video is actually a hoax, or an acting class, or an AI™ run amok. This is the most depressing video I’ve seen recently, maybe ever.
If these are our “leaders of tomorrow” then what realistic hope is there? Are our education systems so defective that they produce this? The enthusiastic ignorance is bad enough (e.g. at 0:45, a minority student demonising The Jews for taking over the government so as to get “repercussions” for the Holocaust), but their collective stubborn one-eyed ignorance is truly indistinguishable from vicious stupidity.
Any glimmers of hope out there?
Man oh man. That was BAD. Are those the kids asking for equity? Are those the kids whose lived experience we need to take into account and inflate grades for? “repercussions”? That’s sick. It’s just as sick if somebody created that just to further stir up the pot. Either way, what a messed up bunch of garbage.
Wouln’t the huge tariffs on Switzerland be related to Swiss bank accounts? Hardly believe it’s cuckoo clocks. Rolexes, maybe? Lotta money there.
You are right, it is not watches and clocks – it’s gold bullion. I am not making this up:
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss-gold-transit-distorts-us-trade-surplus%2c-snb-paper-says/89130327
Another big part is pharmaceuticals, but Trump is planning a special category for them.
I agree with you that Israel should stuff Gaza with food as long as it can be guaranteed that none gets to Hamas. Of course. But since no one, not even Israel and certainly not Hamas, can make that guarantee, does that mean you agree with me that Israel should interdict aid to starve Hamas into capitulating? Let Hamas feed Gaza from its own warehouses while its fighters go hungry. (The reason Israel shouldn’t do this is because it might jeopardize American support in corners that matter.)
I’ve said before it’s not clear to me how much of Gaza Israel actually “controls”, and should therefore distribute food freely there. Our governments nominally control even our most violent and dysfunctional communities, even the ones who style themselves as sovereign nations, yet there is little our police can do to prevent the trade in drugs, guns, and migrants, and the just plain random brain-damaged violence in those places, and are at some personal risk to themselves just in showing up.* When the IDF or Israeli civil police can walk around peacefully in neighbourhoods in Gaza with only holstered sidearms and no intimidating body armour, supervising food deliveries and building community among civilians grateful to be relieved of Hamas oppression, then I will accept that Israel controls Gaza. That in some areas of Gaza Hamas can’t operate openly without being shot doesn’t really count.
(* Not just from being shot. Officers from big-city Ontario police departments in the south who go north — not High Arctic North, just 49-50-degrees north — on outreach visits to get reconciliation exposure report that when they assist the local constabulary in arresting a violent offender, free-roaming packs of large feral dogs will join in the fun, often biting the visiting officer because they don’t recognize him as someone who feeds them, and he’s wrestling with someone who does. This is what I imagine IDF duty in Gaza is like on a good day.)
Blocking food aid to manipulate Hamas into feeding its people only starves the people. Hamas will not be budged one iota. At least that is my opinion.
I agree.
Is there any realistic alternative to (metaphorically) scraping Gaza down to the bedrock?
If not, Israel had better do it right the first time, because world opinion will be outraged and then Israel is unlikely to be allowed a second chance. (It’s often easier to get forgiveness than permission.)
Good metaphor!
I wonder which “famine” they’re always talking about. The one yelled about “imminent” on Oct. 8 or the dozen or so since. None are correct.
Have a look at Sudan, or other actual famines – UTTERLY different from any pics coming out of Gaza for years now. Or look at Yemen or Syrian photos, which they often substitute for “Gaza” pics.
Leslie is correct, you can’t “ensure Hamas doesn’t get fed” when they control the population by violence. It is an absurd prospect.
“Some kind of two state solution” will NEVER, in our lifetime and if we had grandchildren, theirs … will this happen. It is yesterday’s naive hippy dream. That dream utterly misunderstand the entirety of Islam, Arab society and Pal society all at the same time. That dream is now dead. Thank goodness, for a Pal State that could import weapons like a state would be the end of Israel.
D.A.
NYC
Thank you, Luana.
Good to see Szaron!
Yes! I was going to say that, too.
When I am back from a long and hot day outdoors with the cameras, I make it a priority to unwind over a root beer float. This may be a peculiarly American concoction, but damn it is essential!
On the issue of Colossal Biosciences, this guy does a lot of short and funny videos, and he makes some good points here about this company with questionable motives: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/II_17U3gpR4
Completely agree about root beer floats. They’re excellent (and popular here in Canada, too).
Agreed. Hard to beat the pleasure of a brown cow. I had the joy of introducing my great grand daughter to the root beer + ice cream mix last summer. It has become our thing to do. 😊
Root beer floats are a sheer joy indeed.
As I wrote the other day, France, the UK, and Canada have breathed new life into Hamas by calling for a Palestinian state. They have given Hamas a third leverage point, adding to their holding of hostages and their capture of world condemnation. Thanks to this gift from the west, Hamas is now demanding creation of a Palestinian state before it will agree to ending the war. Even the (rampantly anti-Israel) BBC is reporting on this new demand: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce35nx49reko. This is terrible news for the Israeli hostages, as the new demand will extend any negotiations for their freedom—probably until it’s too late.
The BBC is an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, which makes sense in the Islamic Republic of England. (Sorry my cousin brits, and my mum… but I know what I see and hear reported).
D.A.
NYC
I’m disgusted with our Canadian government over this. I believe it’s a sop to all the Muslims Trudeau imported in his effort to quickly expand the population (a fixation of his which has created a huge housing crisis and driven him from office).
It’s also down to his Government’s efforts to “pivot” away from the United States on trade and foreign policy and to align closer to Europe. If the U.S. is standing with Israel, we have to comfort her enemy, because Europe is. This is a policy Canadians of all stripes overwhelmingly support. We might not give a shit about Israel — “Muslim values are Canadian values,” said Mr. Carney — but we sure do want to stick our thumbs in Trump’s eyes. That’s going to explain almost everything this Government does.
What I want to be clear about is that I don’t blame Canada’s moral failure here on America’s election of Donald Trump. What Canada has done is to use the election in a foreign country of someone who hurts our feelings as an excuse to abet a crime against humanity in a different country altogether, one whose values harmonize with what ours used to be, just because anti-American envy plays particularly well now domestically. Canadian society has never been particularly friendly to Jews but at least our Government used to get the big questions right.
I don’t want to scapegoat Canada’s Muslims for our own failings, although yes their lobby groups have been pressuring our government with threats to abandon the Liberal Party over even its tepid support of Israel’s right to exist but not to smite her enemies.
Collective stubborn one-eyed ignorance strikes again.
Regarding the idea of stuffing Gaza with food: It seems to me that if Gaza were flooded with food in many locations at once, Hamas wouldn’t be able to steal it all, and whatever they did steal couldn’t be sold profitably.
It’s not just Hamas, James. It’s every neighbourhood gang of enterprising toughs who literally corner the market by hijacking a flatbed truck and cornering the driver, threatening him until he hands over the keys and runs away. You can’t just leave pallets of food loose in the street, hoping to drive down the price by glutting the market. It will encourage more thieves to grab it, even if all they do is surround it in the street with drawn knives and demand money for it. Gaza is full of tough young men with no gainful employment. You see them standing around in all the photos, idle until a pallet on a parachute drops from the sky, then they rouse and go scrambling to be first under it. It will all be resold. It’s only the NGOs who think that food commissars will appear out of nowhere and enforce to each according to his needs, women and children first. It’ll be Animal Farm.
You do know the food doesn’t come from Israel’s production, right? It comes from NGOs under UN auspices who buy it on world markets. You see their stickers on the shrink-wrapped pallets. Israel doesn’t control the amount of food the NGOs make available to the distribution system. It only controls what it allows it to cross through its territory into Gaza. If it allows it all to pass and people are still going hungry because they can’t afford the gangs’ prices, what does Israel do then? Confiscate produce from kibbutzim Beri and Mir Oz to feed the “civilians” who followed Hamas through the breaches to loot them on Oct 7, and spat on the hostages they dragged back into Gaza? If the NGO efforts come short of what Gaza “needs”, how much of its own food should Israel throw at Gaza? Feeding 2 million extra mouths for free would make food more expensive for Israelis. Canadians and Britons put up with wartime rationing to make more food available to our soldiers. I think we would have rioted if we had been put on shorter rations so as to parachute some into Germany.
”Can someone explain this to me?“
If some country exports more to the USA than it imports, Trump thinks that that is somehow due to tariffs and thus the USA must raise theirs. He doesn’t realize that the reason people in the USA buy more Porsches than people in Germany buy pickup trucks is not because Germany imposes high tariffs on pickups.
Using tariffs to even trade imbalances is one of the dumbest things he’s doing. Not the cruelest or the craziest, but definitely the dumbest.
Let’s withhold judgement on that until after the coming winter flu season….