Monday: Hili dialogue

October 6, 2025 • 6:45 am

Welcome to the beginning of the “work” week, so I’m told: it’s October 6, 2025, and National Noodle Day. Who doesn’t love them, save folks allergic to gluten? Here’s a Chinese chef hand-pulling the world’s thinnest noodles, as certified by the Guinness World Records.  0.18 millimeters! You could fit 143 noodles in an inch of space.

It’s also Blue Shirt Day (World Day of Bullying Prevention), Garlic Lovers Day,  National Orange Wine Day (it’s real; see here), World Habitat Day, National German American Day, and National Badger Day.  Here are some adorable baby badgers.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the October 6 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:  This may be short today as I have to write a prospectus, my being is being sapped by insomnia, and I need more non-website time.

*Yes, the government is still closed for business, and the divides between the parties seems to be getting even larger. As the NYT headline states, “Both parties are resigned to deadlock as shutdown takes hold.”

At the White House, President Trump is posting A.I.-generated memes about the government shutdown, depicting his wonky budget director dressed as the Grim Reaper and ready to visit death on the federal bureaucracy.

In the Senate, Democrats show no sign of backing down from their demands in the shutdown fight, while Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, has given verbal shrugs to reporters who ask about the status of his nonexistent negotiations with the other party about how to bring the crisis to an end.

“I don’t know that there’s a lot to sort out,” Mr. Thune said on MSNBC on Friday, before sending senators home for the weekend.

And in the House, Speaker Mike Johnson has canceled votes for this week, telling his members they could stay home for the third straight week given the shutdown logjam.

With Mr. Trump and lawmakers having made no progress on a deal that would reopen the government, one thing was clear as the shutdown headed into its second workweek: There was little sense of urgency in Washington about cleaning up a mess that has thousands of federal workers facing furloughs and possible layoffs, and could disrupt critical federal programs.

It all reflects the reality of two parties so convinced that they have the political advantage in their partisan battle that a shutdown has seemed inevitable for weeks, and a quick resolution feels out of reach.

Republicans who hold a governing trifecta have adopted a mostly passive posture in the shutdown fight, insisting that Democrats accept their short-term government funding bill without concessions.

Trump really ought to be showing more gravitas in this; memes are not the thing he should be emitting now. And why is there no urgency? Clearly because the Senators get to keep their jobs, healthcare and pay during this furlough, and are way removed from any pain they are causing the American people.  I think the Democrats are at least on the more moral side here, as they’re favoring a continuation of Obamacare, but in times of exigency, both sides are going to have to compromise. The American people blame the Republicans more than the Democrats over this, although 31% of people say both sides are equally responsible.

*According to the WSJ, the Israeli/Gazan peace deal in the making was prompted by Israel’s attack on Hamas leaders in Qatar, which, as you remember, didn’t kill the targeted terrorists. But perhaps it will bring peace.

U.S. and Arab mediators had worked fruitlessly for months to craft a deal to at least pause the fighting in Gaza and free more of the Israeli hostages held there. In the end, it was an act of war that set the stage for an ambitious plan to end the conflict once and for all.

On Sept. 9, Israeli missiles slammed into an office in Qatar where Palestinian militant group Hamas’s top negotiators were meeting to discuss President Trump’s latest proposal for a cease-fire. The attack on the soil of a major U.S. security partner came with little warning to Trump and none for Qatar.

Qatar and its Persian Gulf neighbors, who had acted as vital go-betweens for the U.S., Israel and Hamas, were furious and demanded Israel set things right. Trump and special envoy Steve Witkoff feared their peace efforts would go off the rails.

Trump decided to try to turn the crisis to his advantage.

The attack was a sobering reminder to Arab countries of the risk of regional escalation, focusing their minds on peace. It also gave Trump some more leverage over a chastened Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leaders who were now becoming a bigger risk for their Arab hosts.

Trump and his aides redoubled efforts. And after three weeks of shuttle diplomacy and frequent meetings among top officials from Israel, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Trump stood before cameras in the White House and announced that he had a plan.

Netanyahu, standing by his side, voiced acceptance of the plan and said he was willing to end the war. A host of Arab and Muslim leaders followed suit.

It was, in Trump’s estimation, “potentially one of the great days ever in civilization.”

Well, there have been many wars, all of them ending, and Trump tends to exaggerate. But never mind; all of us want an end to this war. But some of us also want Palestinians to be out from under the thumb of Hamas (many of them, of course, don’t want to be). Hamas is not only trying to kill Jews, but it’s deeply depriving its own people of well being,

‘I wonder what would have happened had Israel informed Qatar and the U.S. of that strike.  I doubt Qatar would have said it was okay, and then maybe we wouldn’t have peace talks. I still don’t think Hamas will ever want to give up control of Gaza, which would scupper any peace deal unless Israel is insane, and I still don’t think that we can trust Qatar at all. Although we have a military base there, they aren’t really our allies so long as they house Hamas terrorists and funnel money to the group in Gaza.  But. . . the hostages will come back—all of them. My greatest fear is that most or all of them will be dead.

*The title of the WaPo editorial-board op-ed on this deal, called “Groundhog Day in Gaza“, implies that, yes, here we go again: in this case Hamas raising fatal objections to the peace.

In previous attempts to stop the war, Hamas also agreed to a ceasefire in principle but pushed back against specifics. Trump’s plan stipulated in no uncertain terms that Hamas must disarm and disband. Hamas’s conditional acceptance of returning hostages made no mention of disarmament and insisted that it plans to participate in “a comprehensive Palestinian national framework.”

As in “Groundhog Day,” the repeating script doesn’t play out the same way each time. On Friday night, Trump seized on the Hamas statement as an opening and demanded that Israel stop bombing Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who reportedly saw the Hamas response as a rejection of Trump’s peace proposal, nevertheless ordered a pause to Israel’s assault on Gaza City. Bombing significantly subsided on Saturday.

This morning’s Washington Post, however, says that Israel is still bombing Gaza.

There’s more (bolding is mine):

Negotiations are set to resume Monday. Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner are flying to Cairo to participate. After getting Israel to stop attacking, Trump immediately pivoted to warn Hamas that it “must move quickly, or else all bets are off.”

There might be a path to a broader breakthrough, but the potential stumbling blocks are significant. For Netanyahu, who is up for election in the next year, Trump’s peace proposal contains three wins he hopes to ride to victory: a return of all hostages, a convincing end of Hamas as a military threat to Israel and an end to Hamas as a political entity in Palestinian politics.

Hamas has been severely degraded. All of its general and colonel equivalents have been killed. But the group can still launch rockets into Israel. What’s left of Hamas does not want to disarm, but Israel will not be able to accept anything less.

Similarly, Hamas’s demands that it participate in Palestinian politics going forward is probably a bridge too far, especially for the far-right elements of Netanyahu’s coalition, though there is perhaps some wiggle room on that question. Trump’s proposal offers “amnesty” for Hamas members willing to lay down their weapons. Those people could plausibly reenter politics. They might even be able to serve on the temporary “technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee” that Trump’s plan envisages for governing Gaza, under the supervision of an international board.

Does the Washington Post know that Hamas is dedicated to killing Jews and eliminating Israel? Has the paper read the Hamas charters? In my view, not a single Hamas member should have a role in the “day after” government in Gaza. This is not letting “the perfect be the enemy of the good”, as the Post scolds. It is simple common sense based on the history of Hamas in Gaza.

*Colorado and 20 other states which have banned “conversion therapy” for those below a certain age are going to have their laws tested in the Supreme Court.

Under a 2019 Colorado law, if clients under 18 tell her that their same-sex attractions are causing them stress, as a licensed therapist, she is forbidden from counseling them to change their sexual orientation. If they want to talk about their gender identity, she cannot advise them to change it.

Colorado lawmakers and major medical groups say that kind of counseling is ineffective and potentially harmful for minors, and it is therefore appropriate for state governments to outlaw it for licensed mental health professionals.

[Therapist Kaley]. Chiles, an evangelical Christian with a master’s degree in clinical mental health from Denver Seminary, says the law violates her First Amendment rights, constraining what she is allowed to say in therapy sessions with young people who have sought out her care.

“It seemed like an invasion for the state to kind of be peering into our private counseling sessions,” Mrs. Chiles said in an interview. “My speech is being censored because my clients are not able to see me and make certain goals that the state does not endorse.”

The Supreme Court will on Tuesday hear Mrs. Chiles’s challenge to the Colorado law, in a case with implications for more than 20 states with similar laws. It will now fall to the justices to decide whether Colorado’s law, as it applies to talk therapy, is about properly regulating medical treatment or impermissibly censoring speech.

. . . . The case is being argued in the first week of the court’s new term and puts the justices back at the center of a contentious political issue. Five years ago, the Supreme Court extended civil rights protections to gay and transgender workers. But the court’s conservative majority, with three justices nominated by President Trump, has since appeared to shift, amid pushback among more Americans to expanded rights for transgender people.

In June, the court was divided 6 to 3 along ideological lines when it upheld a Tennessee law banning certain medical treatments for transgender teens and allowed religious parents to withdraw their children from story time with L.G.B.T.Q.-themed books at odds with their faith.

The justices will also this term review a pair of state laws barring transgender athletes from participating on girls’ and women’s sports teams, an issue the Trump administration has seized on as it seeks to limit transgender rights on military service, bathroom access and athletics.

The first one is a tough one, as it does constrain therapists from saying what they think it’s helpful. But many think that it’s not helpful to push people in one direction or another. In fact, good therapy helps patients explore their feelings, leaving it up to them to decide what they want to do. And before age 18, a mental decision should not be an inexorable decision. I’d say therapists pushing children one way or another shouldn’t be allowed until a patient is of a certain age . Whether that should be the law is another matter.  Banning medical treatments is easier for teens, as most are not mature enough to make serious decisions with respect to drugs or surgery.  (I think 18 or 21 are appropriate ages.) Banning transgender athletes from women’s sports (that is, trans-identified men) is something I agree with, but I don’t favor barring trans people from the military.

I find it odd that Chiles is defended by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal organization, which is also behind recent challenges at the court to abortion access, insurance coverage for contraception, and gay and transgender rights.” Yet they’re defending her right to push patients to become gay or trangender, which to me doesn’t jibe with the rest of their agenda.

*As you might have heard, Trump ordered the deployment of Oregon’s National Guard, calling the state “war ravaged”, which isn’t true.  Then a federal judge blocked that order, as the law specifies that the National Guard can’t be deployed for peacekeeping in a state unless the state’s governor concurs or there’s a massive need for it. Oregon’s didn’t meet those standards. Neither did California.  But Trump is pulling a fast one, sending the California National Guard to Oregon! Can he even do that? I see this morning that a federal judge has now blocked the use of out-of-state troops, too.

From yesterday’s AP:

President Donald Trump is sending 300 California National Guard members to Oregon after a judge blocked the administration from deploying that state’s guard to Portland, according to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Newsom pledged Sunday to fight the move in court.

There was no official announcement from Washington that the California National Guard was being called up and sent to Oregon, just as was the case when Illinois’ governor made a similar announcement Saturday about troops in his state being activated.

Newsom, a Democrat, said in a statement that California personnel were on their way Sunday and called the deployment “a breathtaking abuse of the law and power.”

“The commander-in-chief is using the U.S. military as a political weapon against American citizens,” Newsom said in the statement. “We will take this fight to court, but the public cannot stay silent in the face of such reckless and authoritarian conduct by the president of the United States.”

A Trump-appointed federal judge in Oregon on Saturday temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s plan to deploy the Oregon National Guard in Portland to protect federal property amid protests after Trump called the city “war-ravaged.” Oregon officials and Portland residents alike said that description was ludicrous.

U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, who was appointed by Trump during his first term, issued the order pending further arguments in the suit. She said the relatively small protests the city has seen did not justify the use of federalized forces and allowing the deployment could harm Oregon’s state sovereignty.

So is that district judge going to be allowed California’s National Guard to be sent to Oregon? It appears not, but it also looks as if Trump is going to defy her. And what can just 300 people do in a state where not much is happening (a lot less than a while back!). This is of course just another attempt of Trump to punish Democratic states, and I doubt it will stand.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili still wants to know how to find truth:

Hili: Can you pursue truth in a herd?
Me: Many are attempting it.

In Polish:

Hili: Czy można stadnie szukać prawdy?
Ja: Wielu tego próbuje.

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

From Animal Antics:

From English Language Police II:

From Things With Faces; a ghost leaf for Halloween:

Masih is quiet again but JKR reposted this letter from British Jews damning an attack on a mosque.

More on the mosque attack, with the first from a historian:

From Simon. If you don’t get the allusion, you’re not old enough (or don’t know your history):

Fat Man and Little Boy bombed.

— Kara Swisher (@karaswisher.bsky.social) 2025-10-01T00:59:03.283Z

From Malcolm, an 18th-century clockwork swan (sound up as it’s also a music box):

One from my feed. Poor duckie, and the babies won’t even EAT bread, I bet. (Don’t feed it to them.)

One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:

This fuzzy picture shows an Italian Jewish boy, whose life was extinguished by cyanide gas as soon as he arrived at Auschwitz. He was five years old.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-10-06T10:43:44.695Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. First, a lovely moth. Do you know what those things sticking out the back are?

Not my photograph but thought others would enjoy. And if you know what it is, Kenneth Geisert would appreciate an ID. 🌿 #lepidoptera #peru #insects #moths #inaturalist http://www.inaturalist.org/observations…

— Colin Purrington (@colinpurrington.bsky.social) 2025-10-05T11:21:04.134Z

 

. . . and a roman duck, certainly a male mallard:

#MosaicMondayRiver #Nile scene, detail of Ducks, a Cobra snake and a Mongoose. The mosaic currently resides in Naples’ National Archaeological Museum, with inventory references connecting it to Pompeii and Casa del Fauno#Italy #romanarchaeology #Art #History#Roman #Archaeology

— Jon Hawke (@archaeohawke.bsky.social) 2025-09-22T07:18:40.405Z

25 thoughts on “Monday: Hili dialogue”

  1. Regarding the attack on the mosque in the UK (in the video two people got out of a taxi, poured petrol on the door steps of the mosque, and then lit it), there are claims on Twitter (ok, so not entirely reliable) that in the longer version of the video the two people are speaking Urdu. If so it’s likely a false-flag “attack”. We’ll see what the police investigation turns up. Or I could end up with egg on my face for spreading misinformation from Twitter …

    1. I had a look at UK news sites and read that the mosque arsonists were speaking Urdu, so it does seem this could be a false-flag operation – perhaps to promote perceptions of widespread “Islamophobia” in the UK and/or to push the Islamist attack on the Manchester synagogue out of people’s minds.

    2. Comment by Greg Mayer

      No reason to think it’s a false flag operation without further information than that the assailants were Urdu speaking. The deep enmity within Islam between contending sects has often led to violence.

      GCM

      1. There is a long (and bad) history of violent conflicts in Islamic world. For example, there have been many Sunni vs. Shia conflicts. Of course, the Christian world has been hardly exempt. The 100 years war may have killed 1/3 of the population of Germany.

  2. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
    It’s said that “power corrupts”, but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. When they do act, they think of it as service, which has limits. The tyrant, though, seeks mastery, for which he is insatiable, implacable. -David Brin, scientist and science fiction author (b. 6 Oct 1950)

    1. An add on if I may:
      “Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control.”

      — Denis Diderot (1713–1784)

    2. I’ll stick with power corrupts. Consider relatively normal people who become particularly famous for one thing or another. Many respond to all that adoration by coming to believe that they really are the entitled superior being that the crowds insist they are.

      Clearly power also particularly corrupts the particularly corruptible. Buckminster Fuller called them “power junkies”.

    1. From the link:

      “The South Carolina Supreme Court duly sided with McMaster . . . argued that the judge had not made clear what damage she believed the original plaintiff . . . might suffer if the data were released.”

      At Governor McMaster’s next news conference, perhaps an intrepid reporter will ask for the governor’s social security number (and other private information), and force the governor to go on the record about what damage he might suffer from doing so.

  5. I get that the Left would like the shutdown to be the GOP’s fault, and that MSM basically makes its revenue off pushing the “everything wrong is Trump’s fault” line, but it’s hard to see how that is true. Congress needs to pass a stop-gap funding measure. The Dems want to include $600M additional spending, including things that Congress has cut in the last six months. I guess it IS the GOP’s fault that the Dems are the minority party and don’t have the votes to do that, but the Dems are the roadblock here.

    Here is a useful discussion of the Obamacare subsidies issue.

    1. I would say that it is the GOP’s fault that they don’t have enough votes in the Senate to pass their spending bill. They knew that beforehand and made no offer to acquire the required votes.
      Why should the opposition roll over and support the government, when there is not an inch of compromise? It is the job of the government to govern and of the opposition to oppose…. literally.

      1. IMO that’s a rather parliamentary way of looking at it. One never hears a phrase like the “loyal opposition” in US politics. The closest it comes is the “distinguished Senator, [spit]”.

  6. I think the Democrats are at least on the more moral side here, as they’re favoring a continuation of Obamacare…

    That reminded me that Obamacare is still there. I recall that the Republicans tried to repeal it around 2016 but failed. But why have they not repealed it since then? Were they not able to get enough votes?

  8. The fuzzy picture of the Italian Jewish boy, killed by the Nazis, is so sad. That fading visage is all that remains. Soon even the survivors of the Holocaust will fade from the scene, and the Holocaust itself will risk fading into the mists of history.

    1. Norman, I am afraid that I think it has already faded with the passing of all the WW2 soldiers who came home to our neighborhoods in the 40’s and 50’s from the European Theatre.

  9. I suggest that the duck may not be a mallard but a common shellduck. White breast and rusty bar down the side is more consistent with shellduck than mallard.

    1. And what’s with the cobra? It seems very chill considering it’s facing a deadly foe.

  10. The swan automaton reminded me of the Peacock Clock in the Hermitage in St Petersburg, so it was interesting to see that the clock is also by James Cox. Sadly, the clock wasn’t in operation when I was there, but I still took lots of photographs of it.

    Here are some details, and a link to see the intricate clock in operation…..

    “The Peacock Clock is a large automaton featuring three life-sized mechanical birds. It was manufactured by the entrepreneur James Cox in the 2nd half of the 18th century and through the influence of Grigory Potemkin it was acquired by Catherine the Great in 1781. Today it is a prominent exhibit in the collections of the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg”.

  12. Banning [gender-“affirming”] medical treatments is easier for teens, as most are not mature enough to make serious decisions with respect to drugs or surgery. . . .

    In “normal” medical-surgical treatments, there is a straightforward approach to this near-universal situation. The parents (or legal guardians) consent on behalf of the child so that he can receive medically necessary care. Thus do we avoid the perverse situation where a child would go without needed treatment just because he couldn’t consent to it. There is no magic age at which the child-patient becomes capable of independent consent. The doctor must satisfy himself according to professional norms that this child is (or isn’t) today able to give consent to this treatment. If he believes the child is capable, he can go ahead and treat. The parents are involved in the decision and depending on the child’s maturity and intellectual capacity they may of course have substantial or decisive input. The state bans outright no other treatment in a child under a certain arbitrary age. This approach is more like consent to sexual intercourse, drinking alcohol, or getting a tattoo, which can never be relied on in respect of a child under the statutory age. If parents were keen to consent to their fourteen-year-old child having sex with an adult, they wouldn’t be very good parents.

    So why is the state making an exception here and prohibiting cosmetic sex-trait manipulation for minors? Why can’t parental consent be relied on for this “medically necessary” treatment, just as it can be for surgery for appendicitis? The only reason can be that the legislature in doing its duty to oversee medical practice has concluded that the treatment is harmful and has no legitimate medical use. Applying the bans only to minors implies that the treatment is harmful below some arbitrary age — even our host can’t decide if it should be 18 or 21 — but is beneficial for older patients. This is absurd: There is no treatment where the age of majority determines not only consent power but medical benefit itself. A harmful treatment, which must not be prescribed even with parental consent, doesn’t magically become beneficial at some cut-off age specified in the law.

    Laws banning cosmetic sex-trait manipulation (with drugs or surgery) are really saying, “This is harmful treatment. Period. Don’t do it.” It’s easier to ban it in minors under a child-protection rubric*, where the state has a lower threshold to act. But the state can ban any harmful treatment at any age. It’s illegal (and professional misconduct even if legal) to do ritual female genital mutilation in a consenting adult woman. In legislating this, we are saying that FGM has only harms and no benefits. We’re really saying the same about gender-“affirming” treatment. But then it should be illegal and cause for professional censure for doctors to do it at any age, too.

    There is no formulation of autonomy that obligates a doctor to provide treatment that he believes on good evidence and judgement to be harmful, and there is further a positive obligation not to provide it. Medicine has seriously lost its way here. That’s why the state is stepping in.

    1. Laws are different in different places. In general, one must distinguish between things which are banned outright, those which are banned for physicians, those which physicians can do but are not covered by health insurance, and those which are banned for minors, and take all combinations into account. As you say, there are many things which are banned for minors and allowed for adults even though they are harmful at any age. The difference with so-called gender-affirming care is that there is now a wave where parents are consenting to harmful care. In some caes, circumcision of minors (both sexes) is banned, as it should be, but it is not illegal for adults to consent to the practice.

  13. Thin they are, but only 141 noodles would fit in an inch, according to google arithmetic.

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