Tuesday: Hili dialogue

August 19, 2025 • 6:45 am

Welcome to Tuesday, August 19, 2025, and it’s the Cruelest Day, with no hope in sight. It’s also National Potato Day,  Here’s a 15-minute video about how potatoes are harvested on a farm. Don’t you want to know where your fries and chips come from?

It’s also “Black Cow” Root Beer Float Day (we recently had another one!), National Aviation Day, National Soft Ice Cream Day, International Orangutan Day, World Photo Day.and National Hot and Spicy Food Day.

In honor of the last holiday, here’s Jennifer Lawrence, whom I love, eating a series of increasingly spicy chicken wings: She starts weeping in pain at about 15:10 (I am not a sadist!) She gets interviewed at the same time.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the August 19 Wikipedia page.

I have several appointments today and tomorrow, so posting may be light until the end of the week. Bear with me; I do my best.  In addition, my insomnia has come roaring back and I may not be able to post tomorrow’s Hili. Again, I will do my best.

Da Nooz:

*I’m not sure if we’ll know by this morning what transpired between European leaders, Zelensky, and Trump at the White House yesterday (I’m writing this on Monday afternoon), but I doubt that Europe can move Trump. Tuesday morning: we don’t know much, and the question of security guarantees is completely unclear.

Part of he NYT’s take as the meeting gets underway:

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine was set to arrive the White House on Monday, backed by an extraordinary delegation of European leaders who rushed to Washington at short notice to support him in a day of meetings that could determine the future of his country.

The Ukrainian leader, now three and a half years into a war with Russia, was expected to confront a difficult choice from President Trump: give up land to Russia in exchange for U.S. promises for Ukraine’s future security, or hold his ground and risk reigniting Mr. Trump’s anger.

In a sign of the alarm among allies, a posse of European leaders — including Keir Starmer of Britain, Emmanuel Macron of France and Giorgia Meloni of Italy — arrived at the White House before Mr. Zelensky for a separate meeting with Mr. Trump. They and other top European officials had rushed to Washington in an attempt to show solidarity with Ukraine and “to defend the interests of the Europeans,” according to Mr. Macron.

Several top European officials have warned that if Mr. Putin is not stopped in Ukraine, he could ultimately try to take more European territory by force.

Mr. Zelensky has steadfastly rejected ceding any territory to Russia, and the security guarantees Mr. Trump has offered have been vague. But with Mr. Trump aligning more closely with Russia in recent days after his warm meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin on Friday in Alaska, the pressure is on Mr. Zelensky to persuade the United States that Ukraine should get a better deal.

Mr. Trump repeated such pressure in social media posts heading into the meeting, putting the onus on the Ukrainian president to quickly move toward a peace plan.

Mr. Zelensky — who is also trying to avoid a repeat of his disastrous last visit to the Oval Office, when Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated him in February — had one bright spot. On Saturday, Mr. Trump offered support for U.S. security assurances for Ukraine after the war, and his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, who attended the summit with Mr. Putin in Alaska, said on Sunday that the Russian leader had accepted the idea. Though details were unclear, Mr. Zelensky on Sunday called the comments “a significant change” in the U.S. position.

But he doesn’t have the authority to make the most important concession Mr. Trump said he needs to make: giving up all of the eastern Donbas region, including parts Ukraine still controls, to Russia.

Ukraine’s going to lose Donbas and maybe more if the fighting keeps going on. For you can be sure that any additional land Russia gains before an agreement will become part of Russia. As for security guarantees, I don’t trust them. What if Putin doesn’t adhere to them? Will Europe take military action against Russia, which of course has nukes.

*The post on Israel I put up yesterday was emotionally draining, as were several very nasty emails and comments I received, as well as the loss of yet another friend. But several readers sent me two articles about Gaza that I feel obligated to post.

First, the Free Press has an article about 12 Gazan children who are emaciated, and whose pictures have been used to promote the idea that children are starving (because of Israel, of course). One you know about, Mohammed Zakaria al Mutawaq, who suffered from cystic fibrosis and whose photo was used on the front page of the NYT to show that the child was starved. He was, but by the disease, and the NYT had to issue a correction.  The Free Press shows another dozen children, all used to tout starvation of children, and all suffering from debilitating other ailments:

When the so-called paper of record updated its story with an editors note four days later, it also quietly deleted the mother’s claim that her son was “born a healthy child.” There was still no mention of the boy’s brother, who appears healthy in the background of another photo that appeared online.

This incident wasn’t just a one-off.

An investigation by The Free Press reveals that at least a dozen other viral images of starvation in Gaza also lacked important context: The subjects of those photos have significant health problems. Those appeared all over social media, in the reports of leading international aid organizations, and on some of the most prestigious news outlets in the United States, including CNN, NPR, and the Times—without disclosing the complicated medical histories that help explain their stark appearances.

It’s not that there isn’t hunger in Gaza. There is. The World Health Organization reported 63 deaths from malnutrition last month alone, including 25 children. Some of them might have been sick or worse even if there was no war. In 2022, about 50 Gazans under the age of 20 died from malnutrition, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

Yannay Spitzer, an economist at Hebrew University of Jerusalem who has been tracking food prices in Gaza during the past few months, said hunger in Gaza is largely declining since Israel resumed aid deliveries in late May after its nearly 80-day blockade. During that period, prices for basic necessities like flour skyrocketed by 4,000 percent, according to his review of data from the Gaza Chamber of Congress and the World Food Programme.

“If a situation like that lasts more than a few days, a lot of people will go hungry but not starve to death en masse. That’s the beginning of a process, which the media portrayed as already at the catastrophic end stage,” Spitzer said, before pausing. “But it never happened.”

. . . . those photos have helped convince a growing number of Americans that Israel has induced famine and is committing war crimes in Gaza.

. . . . The children in all of the images reviewed by The Free Press were either sick or facing death at the time their images circulated online, according to local reports in Arabic. Their situations were dire. But in every instance, they were already facing grave situations because of their health, irrespective of any third-party action.

You can look at the photos yourself. They are heartbreaking, but do not show what they’re being used to show.  And at his website, journalist David Collier, who exposed the NYT hoax (it was a hoax since they deliberately cropped out photos of healthy relatives), expands on one of the cases below: Maryam Dawas.  (The title is “Rinse and repeat: another Gazan famine lie goes viral.”)

Coverage of Maryam’s tragic case involved deliberate omission. She has siblings – all apparently healthy. In some of the photos, they were present on the same mattress. Editors cropped them out, because their health would expose the lie.

If this were widespread famine, her siblings and mother would also show signs of starvation. They do not.

There are photos, and Collier somehow got Maryam’s redacted medical records,  Her appearance is caused by malabsorption problems in her gut, for her family members (also cropped out of The Irish Independent) are all normal.  He concludes:

Yes – war is awful. During conflict, wherever possible, very sick people should be evacuated so they can access the treatment they need. The tragic reality is that many will still not survive.

But tragedy is no excuse for fraud. We do not want media to wave an Israeli flag. We just ask that they stop acting as a mouthpiece for Hamas, and return to the most basic duty of journalism – we want them to tell the truth.

But if it wasn’t starvation, people would fault Israel for other things: before famine it was the “disproprtionate” civilian/terrorist death toll, which turned out to be one of the lowest in the history of recent warfare.

*It was inevitable, I guess, that the Texas state Democratic congresspeople would come back to Texas after fleeing the redistricting that Republicans were planning.  They were going to lose at one point or another, and so now they’re back:

Texas Democrats are set to return to the state after a two-week walkout, all but ensuring the Republican-backed redistricting plan endorsed by President Trump will be passed.

Dozens of House Democrats fled the state earlier this month in an attempt to thwart a Republican redistricting effort that could result in the GOP gaining five new seats.

Texas House Democrats Monday confirmed they were back in Austin and ready to end their 15-day quorum-break, after encouraging states such as California to take measures to counter Texas’ proposed redistricting.

The Texas Legislature is beginning a second special session, which Gov. Greg Abbott ordered after the Democrats’ walkout stymied the first.

Abbott instructed the legislature to take up the unusual mid-decade redistricting upon the request of Trump, who asked Texas to draw new maps with five more Republican congressional seats.

The proposed efforts to redraw maps breaks with tradition under which seats are reallocated once every 10 years. Democrats have argued the proposed maps amount to cheating, while Republicans have called redistricting efforts fair game and necessary to hold a national majority. Republicans currently hold a 219-212 House majority, with four vacancies.

It is cheating, and I abhor such gerrymandering. But two wrongs don’t make a right, and California is doing the opposite kind of gerrymandering. This sets a bad precedent, and I wonder where it will end.

*I didn’t realize that MSNBC had parted ways from NBC, but it has, and has been ordered to take a new name. The parting is apparently the result of people being dissatisfied with having two NBC news stations, one of which took partisan stands and the other didn’t (or tried not to):

Changing its mind about keeping its name, the MSNBC news network said Monday it will become My Source News Opinion World, or MS NOW for short, as part of its corporate divorce from NBC.

The TV network, which appeals to liberal audiences with a stable of personalities including Rachel Maddow, Ari Melber and Nicole Wallace, has been building its own separate news division from NBC News. It will also remove NBC’s peacock symbol from its logo as part of the change, which will take effect later this year.

The name change was ordered by NBC Universal, which last November spun off cable networks USA, CNBC, MSNBC, E! Entertainment, Oxygen and the Golf Channel into its own company, called Versant. None of the other networks are changing their name.

Name changes always carry an inherent risk, and MSNBC President Rebecca Kutler said that for employees, it is hard to imagine the network under a different name. “This was not a decision that was made quickly or without significant debate,” she said in a memo to staff.

“During this time of transition, NBC Universal decided that our brand requires a new, separate identity,” she said. “This decision now allows us to set our own course and assert our independence as we continue to build our own modern newsgathering organization.”

And a reason for the split:

The affiliation between a news division that stresses objectivity and one that doesn’t hide its liberal bent has long caused tension. President Donald Trump refers to the cable network as “MSDNC,” for Democratic National Committee. Even before the corporate change, NBC News has been reducing the use of its personalities on MSNBC.

Some NBC News personalities, like Jacob Soboroff, Vaughn Hillyard, Brandy Zadrozny and Antonia Hylton, have joined MSNBC. The network has also hired Carol Leoning, Catherine Rampell and Jackie Alemany from the Washington Post, and Eugene Daniels from Politico.

Maddow, in a recent episode of Pivot, noted that MSNBC will no longer have to compete with NBC News programs for reporting product from out in the field — meaning it will no longer get the “leftovers.”

“In this case, we can apply our own instincts, our own queries, our own priorities, to getting stuff that we need from reporters and correspondents,” Maddow said. “And so it’s gonna be better.”

I watch the regular NBC News each evening, and sometimes in hotels I watch MSNBC. There are very few stations I deliberately neglect: it’s just that I don’t watch television. I used to like RachelMaddow, but haven’t heard her for several years, so don’t know where she’s at right now. (I’m sure she’s still “progressive,” though.)

*Paris is getting hot, and by that I mean temperature-wise. Apparently the City of Light is about to become the City of Heat.

Imagine Paris at 122 degrees Fahrenheit, or 50 Celsius.

The asphalt streets would melt in spots, making it virtually impossible for ambulances and buses to pass. The lights and fans could cut out in neighborhoods if underground cables burned or junction boxes shifted. Cellphone service might go down as antennas on boiling rooftops stopped working. Trains would halt as outdoor rails swelled, keeping nurses, firefighters and electricity engineers from reaching their jobs when they were most needed.

Those are situations city officials are already planning for.

“A heat wave at 50 degrees is not a scenario of science fiction,” said Pénélope Komitès, a deputy mayor who oversaw a crisis simulation two years ago based on those presumptions. “It’s a possibility we need to prepare for.”

France has recently experienced its second heat wave of the summer, with temperatures reaching record highs last week in the southwest and heat alerts covering three-quarters of the country. In Paris, this has become the new normal. Eight of the 10 hottest summers recorded in the city since 1900 occurred since 2015.

In 2019, temperatures in Paris hit a record, nearing 109 degrees. Scientists say it will get worse, particularly since climate change is warming Europe at more than twice the global average.

. . . . In 2022, city officials asked climate scientists if Paris might experience heat waves that reach 50 degrees in the near future.

Their answer was yes, possibly, by the end of the century, or as soon as around 2050 if greenhouse gas emissions increase exponentially. But the scientists’ modeling showed that scenario was unlikely if global pledges from the Paris climate accord were met and the rise in warming was kept below 2 degrees Celsius.

Those pledges will never be fulfilled; I fear we’ve passed the tipping point. I might as well get cremated, because were I buried I’d cook anyway.  And given Paris’s lack of air conditioning, heat waves like this will kill a gazillion people. One thing I foresee is the installation of a lot of AC units in Europe in the next decade.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej is out of it:

Hili: You seem a bit distracted.
Andrzej: Why do you think that?
Hili: That’s the third time you’ve checked your pocket for the keys.

In Polish:

Hili: Chyba jesteś roztargniony.
Ja: Czemu tak sądzisz”
Hili: Trzeci raz sprawdzasz, czy masz w kieszeni klucze.
Wersja angielska:

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

From Meow:

From Things with Faces: a duck in the Grotto Geyser in Yellowstone National Park:

From Zoliya:

Masih is quiet, so JKR is standing in for her. The backstory from The Pink News:

In a statement issued on Monday (18 August), organisers of the LGBTQ+ writing award confirmed that this year’s proceedings had been put on hold in the wake of the backlash, which has seen other nominated authors withdraw from the competition.

Public backlash was ignited earlier this month after the Polari Prize included Earth, the latest novel from The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas author Boyne, on its long list.

In July, Boyne described himself as a “TERF” – a trans exclusionary radical feminist – in defence of his friend and fellow author, JK Rowling, whose views on trans issues are well-documented.

Related to the news above, this item comes from Luana:

From Malcolm; interspecific love:

Two animal posts from my feed. First, what is going on here?

D*g protects guinea pig:

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

And two from Professor (Emeritus) Cobb:

You can see the video of this one here. That fish is a snail magnet!

i bet this feels amazing if you're a dead fish

— Nicolae Carpathia (@nicolaecarpathia.bsky.social) 2025-08-18T15:31:56.072Z

Matthew also sent this video showing the work of a man who builds realistic miniature scenes. I can’t embed the tweet with the video, but if you’re on the “progressive” Bluesky site, click on the screenshot below to see a man building a TINY CITY FOR CATS!

64 thoughts on “Tuesday: Hili dialogue”

  1. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
    Read to children. Vote. And never buy anything from a man who’s selling fear. -Mary Doria Russell, science-fiction writer (b. 19 Aug 1950)

  2. Hili: Andrzej is fine. Better to check for your keys three times, or even more, than lock yourself out of the house. It is a really empty feeling to be on the outside of your locked front door looking in to see your keys still resting on the foyer table!

  3. Cropping photos to pretend that children are starving, when they aren’t, is immoral.

    It’s no wonder people distrust mainstream media when they try to manipulate the truth. They are in danger of becoming the boy who cried wolf. One day they will scream that there are starving children and it will be true, but we will turn our backs because we won’t believe them.

    Lies like this damage Palestinians, it doesn’t help them at all.

      1. We probably are with many publications, but I hope some will stand firm for the truth. I’m fast losing hope though as much of the media now reports that a rape was done by a woman when it was actually done by a man in a dress. #NotWomensCrimes.

  4. I am kind of surprised that MSNBC isn’t also dropping the “MS” (or MSN), which is a holder over from when this was a joint MSN/NBC venture. With regards to the new name, though, some wag has called is “Ms. Now”, and I am afraid I won’t ever hear it as anything else.

    2. Me, too. And I’m wondering if they vetted this with Microsoft. MS is a very widely used abbreviation for Microsoft, yet MSNBC, and certainly MS NOW, has no affiliation whatsoever with Microsoft. MSNBC had a historical connection to Microsoft, so I can see why MSNBC remained MSNBC. But with this break, even that connection has been severed.

  5. Long Sigh My feeling is that Zelensky will capitulate to the Putin tyrant sooner than later, there being no reason to let one more Ukrainian hero die. And here we are, where it is still possible that a more powerful country can seize territory from another, just because it wants to.

    2. My feeling is Ukrainian’s are very much against being ruled by a thug that bombs their hospitals, schools, cafes, market places with missiles. By giving them, the russians, more of the worst time possible to take Ukraine which for 3 years on they have… the russians have deeply miscalculated to shameful personnel loses not to mention military equipment.
      If the Ukrainian’s are confident they can maintain a steady front all the while developing their own weapons systems with European backing I think they are not going to roll over for the thug of Moscow.
      Then again “it is very hard to predict especially the future”.

      I thought this was an interesting interview with a ex pat russian, who has family still there and visits regularly… which includes thoughts on the Russian publics current take on the war. You have to wind in a bit for that comment.

      https://youtu.be/2697pPORYuw?si=uQ_abzbb6HmI-rbL

  6. These “friends” ending friendships because they disagree with you on a geopolitical issue…

    Are they firing back with detailed analysis of where you are wrong? Are they exposing errors in your logic? Or are they just expressing their “disappointment” that you are saying things they don’t want to be true?

    It comes across as manipulative and childish to tell someone that “because of your opinion on X, I am sad to say I am ending our friendship.” Emotional blackmail.

    I think that rather than losing a friend, you’ve seen some folks’ true colors exposed.

    1. Totally agree, Jeff. And not just manipulative and childish, but approaching cruel cancel culture. (E.g, if you dare question trans ideology you’re marked as a hateful transphobe and must be shouted down and silenced.) I’m surprised that such views are coming from supposedly scientific minds. What a strange, sad world we’re in where disagreement becomes enmity. I’m sorry it happened to Jerry.

      2. Some people just can’t handle the truth. It really is like dealing with a religious fundamentalist who expresses outrage and runs away from anyone who dares challenge their beliefs.

    3. It’s really a childish attitude to take. It’s like saying, you’re too fragile to hear a different opinion. There is probably far more that you agree on with others than disagree on. I’m an atheist, socialist, Scots indy supporter. I often attend women’s rights rallies with religious, Tory, unionists. So what? We are stronger when we stand together. I got cross when people started to cause unnecessary divisions because of different views so I made a meme with the following…..

      “You don’t have to agree with someone on every topic before you campaign with them on topics where you agree.

      A socialist and a Tory can campaign together against child abuse, whilst also opposing each other on every other topic.

      It’s called being an adult.

      If you only ever stand with those who agree with you on everything then you will stand alone.”

    4. It’s not just childish, but unreasonable. If you believe that Viewpoint X is relying on very persuasive propaganda, with a powerful network of advocates supporting it with deceptively plausible arguments and cultural approval far too high — wouldn’t this go a long way towards excusing an otherwise fair and rational friend who falls for it? They aren’t the real problem — the ideology is the problem. The friendship can still be maintained.

      Of course, taking this approach entails that we also excuse those who join in with cancel culture and end a friendship over a single sincere disagreement. After all, doing this is constantly being sold as the moral thing to do by Powerful Ideology. Not necessarily their fault then.

      The reasonable position looks pretty fatalistic, come to think of it.

      1. That hits on another reason why one shouldn’t jump to alienate people. If you cut people off, then you cannot help them to see reason when they have been brainwashed and they may then, in turn, brainwash others, bringing down the global IQ.

        When I was active on Facebook I spent a lot of time debating with flat earthers and chemtrailers. Not because I expected them to change their minds (the psychology of conspiracy theorists shows they rarely change), but because debating with them was a way of giving facts to onlookers that they may have tried to brainwash.

        After being told that the Earth “must be flat” because railway tracks aren’t bent to curve around the earth 🤦‍♀️, it gave me a chance to explain that tracks are 66 ft long (in the UK) to enable them to handle the curvature of the earth.

        When I was checking my facts before sharing, I learned that US tracks are different lengths to those here, and that if a rail track was manufactured a mile long, then one end would be 8″ higher than the other. My brain seems to accumulate a lot of useless information 😂

    5. I believe it comes from the same motivation as when cults insist that acolytes break contact with family members. it is about limiting exposure to differing opinions.
      The fact that a person joined the cult in the first place is a sign that they are likely easily manipulated.
      allowing them to hear reasoned arguments that run counter to the cult’s orthodoxy is risky.

    6. I’ll choose my friends, thanks. And I won’t invite people into my house who pretend to care about “innocent children” – but only if they’re from Gaza. Or perhaps they really do care about all the other suffering children in the world, except the ones called Bibas. Kids called Bibas aren’t innocent and their suffering was somehow just.

      Like Hitchens, I will not love my enemies. I will fear them because one day they may come for my family just like they came for my grandparents’ families. Even if they won’t lift a pitchfork, they are continuing the blood libels that have kept Jews living in fear for over 2000 years.

      1. Where did I say one needs to be friends with their enemies?? I didn’t say that because you don’t.

        I simply said that there are many things we can disagree about without alienating people. I gave examples of party politics, nationalism and religion. These are not things that should break up friendships. JKR is on the opposite side to me on the independence issue, but I defend her to the hilt on the topic of women’s rights.

        This doesn’t mean there aren’t some issues that are so serious that it is reasonable to disassociate.from people. If I discovered an acquaintance was a paedophile or a rapist, I would certainly cut myself off from them.

        I have no idea what you mean by ‘biba’. I only know it as a famous shop so I googled, and it is a term of endearment in Punjabi or a medical acronym. None of these seem to fit your context.

        1. I doubt if your political opponents on questions of socialism, Scottish independence, and feminism actually wish you literally dead, Joolz. Those things don’t even matter to more than a handful of people, really. They are just squabbles about dividing up the pie that someone else made. Chanclas is talking about the kind of enemies who really do wish him or her dead, and devote their lives to making it happen, or at least inspiring and abetting those with the will and the means.

          From the indentations I’m not sure that you two were actually talking to each other, but whatever, you and s/he are talking about very different things. Even rapists and pedophiles pick their victims one at a time and don’t typically kill them, although of course they do sometimes. That cut-off would mean that we should regard the Hamas terrorists as not such bad sorts after all as long as we can tell ourselves the reports of rape on Oct 7 are not entirely substantiated. You live in a different world if the Bibas family doesn’t ring a bell.

          1. Again, I DIDN’T say that one should sup with one’s literal enemies.

            From what I’ve read Prof Coyne doesn’t seem to want anyone dead, and i haven’t seen him. “inspiring and abetting” others to murder.

            “you and s/he are talking about very different things”. Exactly, and that is what I was pointing out, so you agree with me. Chanclas was talking about murderers and rapists, and those crimes are reason enough to call someone an enemy, whether they commit those crimes singly or en masse, as it was on 7th Oct. Jerry hasn’t spoken in support of these crimes, which is why it is illogical for a friend to disassociate themselves. The friend is free to drop any friends s/he wants, of course, but it doesn’t help us move forward if we block everyone we disagree with.

            You are so far off base if you think my comments can be interpreted as Hamas terrorists are “not such bad sorts”. That is unjust criticism, attacking something I didn’t say and don’t believe.

          2. Chanclas is talking about the kind of enemies who really do wish him or her dead, and devote their lives to making it happen, or at least inspiring and abetting those with the will and the means.

            During xmas dinner with a (now ex-) friend in December 2023 I explained how Jews had left burning ghettos with just the clothes on their backs and educations in their brains, having to start from nothing elsewhere only to have their ghetto burned down again. I told her how my mother stressed the importance of always having a valid passport just in case I lived in the same time and a place as other ghetto-burning thugs. I guess this is the Jewish version of “the talk”.

            My friend shrugged flippantly and said, “those things will never happen again.” Yet there we were, less than 3 months after the most devastating pogrom in both our lifetimes’. She laps up Hamas propaganda like warm milk. She thinks that the Palestinians have always yearned for peace and a two state solution both of which are denied to them by those nasty “Zionists”. She thinks that “Zionists” raise their kids to be hateful little terrorists who want to kill Palestinians. I’ll stop there because we all know the other beliefs these people hold.

            It’s irrelevant whether or not I tried to show her the error of her ways (I tried) because it’s not on me to educate my enemies. It’s on me to run from them.

            It really doesn’t hurt my feelings if others think I’m, “not just childish, but unreasonable” for cutting people like this off. Even if I were, “too fragile to hear a different opinion” (I’m not), the choice is still mine with whom I choose to keep company and the onus is not on me to un-pickle their brains.

            Perhaps, before I die, just one of the friends I’ve cast off will let me know that they didn’t just get it a little wrong, they had the facts reversed. But I’m neither holding my breath nor losing any sleep.

  7. There are two turtles in the turtle circle who are mating. That is all I got.

    The image of a cat watching birds is nice and all, but it is clearly AI.

    1. I dunno….if you pause the video, those turtles in the circle are identical. My AI spidey sense is tingling.

      1. I am not surprised! Today, all remarkable pictures need to be scrutinized.
        You know, seeing AI being passed off as real ticks me off to a degree that is not really rational on my part. I hang out in photography enthusiast web sites, and many followers are pretty naive, unfortunately. So there are regular posters that put up “amazing” pictures and they get the greatest # of Likes and Shares and compliments. But they are AI.

        1. It’s robbed us of the spontaneous joy we used to feel the first time we saw a truly special photo.
          The soul sucking continues.

      2. I thought those turtles looked suspiciously like a stone turtle lawn ornament I have. Not AI, then, but doing it the old-fashioned way – staging.

        Or they’re real turtles doing something weird. Don’t know.

      1. I still cling to the hope that there are enough of us old-style Liberals around to rebuild after the collapse. But I’m too optimistic too often.

  9. Re sick Gaza kids.
    There are several X accounts with teams devoted to exposing, with proof, the fraudulence of a LOT of the pro-Gaza propaganda produced. Two amazing things are how ham fisted, simple and hilariously bad/low IQ nearly all of it is, also the fact it is so popular, viral, and widely believed. Quite dispiriting.
    Here’s one:
    https://x.com/GAZAWOOD1

    D.A.
    NYC

    1. FWIW: ham fisted, simple, and low IQ are likely their target audience. Rather like the Nigerian Prince scam.

  10. It’s difficult sometimes to talk with friends and family members who, like most people, pay only passing attention to the news. They, like many, read the newspaper and Web site headlines and watch CBS or MSNBC (soon to be MS NOW). The most erudite may even go to the BBC web site thinking that they are getting deeper reporting, more balanced reporting, reporting not sullied by U.S. politics. And what do these well-meaning friends and relatives read and hear, day after day after day? Lies about Israel.

    We get together with these folks on occasion for dinner, to go for a hike, to watch a game. Being a secular Jew, the topic of Israel often comes up. I avoid the subject if I can. If I can’t avoid it—because someone asks a direct question, for instance—I tell them that what they are reading is terribly slanted. (I am compelled to do so because my lifelong regard for truth demands it.) I tell them that some of what they are reading are lies, and that some of the pictures of dying children and distraught mothers are frauds.

    I doubt that my friends and relatives believe me. They are polite. After all, these are long-term relationship that have built large reserves of respect and trust. But it has become impossible to convince them of how badly biased the reporting is. Their reluctance to believe is quite rational. After all, how can all the news outlets be so bad? How can that possibly be the case?

    As Jerry writes above, it’s emotionally draining. The propaganda is so pervasive that fighting it is like standing at the edge of the ocean and trying to stop the tide.

    3. The difficulty in persuading educated friends that they are uncritically swallowing misinformation and disinformation is directly proportional to the vehemence with which those same friends denounce the uneducated and the Trump fans for wallowing in misinformation and disinformation. If only it were limited to perceptions of Israel.

      1. I can relate to Norman’s comment 100%. Experiencing exactly the same with family and friends. I try to avoid the topic entirely because it is so depressing to hear otherwise intelligent people repeat the propaganda. But sometimes it is not possible to avoid. It makes me sad and mad at the same time.

    4. I just wonder why it seems as if the entire mainstream media has gone full anti-Israel and pro-Hamas to the point of pushing outright fake news, lies and propaganda as facts. This goes back some time, to the infamous NYT and WaPo headline “Israel Bombs Hospital Killing 500” fake news story and even before that. How did so many once reputable news institutions become so infected with hatred of Israel? Is it just a generational thing, a result of young journalists coming straight out of indoctrination at so-called journalism schools that have been taken over by the hard left?

  11. Last week we met some friends of my wife who had visited Paris a few weeks ago. It was 40°C when they arrived and 14°C a few days later. Fifty Celsius in a city like Paris would be pretty unbearable – the temperature was in the 50s in Iraq recently when they had a major power outage and all the air conditioning went off. Yikes!

  13. I avoid arguing with people about Israel and Gaza. There’s nothing to be gained. Israel must live is all I can say. So far as “genocide” is concerned — I think that word is being misapplied by critics of Israel, as others here have noted many times. (I could argue it in detail, etc.)

    I missed yesterday’s early morning post about Jerry’s colleague. (oversubscribed to emails) The friendship cancellation gives me pause on my own reactions when A Friend is Wrong (wrong, wrong!). One thing I learned from yesterday’s thread was the reminder of the virtual living room and the invitation to be on a first name basis with our host. This is an implicit reminder of mutual courtesy. roolz & all that. And if someone’s views are so unacceptable as to provoke avoidance, does that demand notification — one might just not show up?

    Re the big question posed yesterday, no solution from me.

    One more thing: Norman Gilinsky, above wrote a bit I liked: “long-term relationship that have built large reserves of respect and trust.” Just so — there’s a lot to consider before trashing a friendship over politics and policy, I must keep telling myself.

    1. My wife and I (centrist Lefties) are very close to a couple down the block (far Righties, borderline evangelical Christian. Trump flag in the yard, etc…). We usually stay the hell away from politics and religion, but if Dangerous Topics come up we exchange widely different views, have a laugh, and just move on. We completely trust one another.

      “Let friends be wrong” is a quote from somewhere, or it should be.

      1. My wife and I spent years splitting our time between a far-left university town and far-right rural community in the Deep South, complemented by two decades of military life rotating us through both deep blue and ruby red states. Generally, local friends and acquaintances in neither place could fathom what I liked about the other. Like you and your wife, my wife and I (well, me, my wife is always agreeable) would steer clear of certain conversations depending. Not everything needs to be said to everyone!

        I have also noticed that those on the right are usually more informed about left-leaning concerns than the other way around. That is mostly because the education, entertainment, and other cultural megaphones broadcast almost uniformly left-leaning messages and depict the right in caricatures. But it is also, in part, because those on the left are more likely either to break relationships or not form them in the first place with those with whom they disagree.

        You asked about a poem a week or two ago. I have no idea! It sounded a bit like Carl Sagan channeling Sun Tzu. Hope you find it someday.

  14. I flew a 707 freighter into Kuwait City during the Gulf War, and it was 112 degrees F (where’s the degree key on a mac?)
    That was beyond the operational envelope of the aircraft, so we had to spend the night in a bombed-out hotel. When we opened the airplane door, it felt like opening the door to a furnace. We left early in the morning after the temperature had dropped below 110. I wouldn’t think humans could survive in 122 degree heat.

    2. 50C (122F) is, to put it mildly, unpleasant. A major city at that temperature would probably be uninhabitable, unless quite arid. It would still be unpleasant for virtually all people and require a great deal of effort from all people.

      I have had the joy of working in such environments, both arid and dripping humid. Neither is pleasant, and neither, for me, is sustainable for very long.

      1. AIUI, even very dry heat at 50℃ will kill you. At such a temperature no amount of perspiring will cool you sufficiently. Paging Dr. Smith….

  15. Calling all evo. biologists here:

    The Uncanny Valley Theory of Human Evolution (13 min)

    I like the O2 North youtube – this theory has me a bit stumped. I’m not sure evolved characteristics (like fear of fire, snakes) last so many thousands of years as this asserts, AFTER the “threat” has gone.

    D.A.
    NYC

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