Monday: Hili dialogue

October 13, 2025 • 6:45 am

Welcome to the start of another “work” week: Monday, October 13, 2025, and both Columbus Day (which you had better not celebrate) and Indigenous People’s Day, which is kosher.

It’s also Native American Day, National No Bra Day, English Language Day, Good Samaritan Day, Thanksgiving in Canada (they should give thanks that they’re not our 51st state), National Yorkshire Pudding Day (cultural appropriation alert) and National M&M Day.

Wikipedia notes that M&Ms (I prefer the chocolate ones) were devised less than 100 years ago:

The confection came into production in the United States in 1941 and have since been sold in more than 100 countries. It was conceived in partnership between Forrest Mars and Bruce Murrie (representing the “M” and “M”), the son of the president of the rival Hershey Chocolate Company. Murrie sold his minority share in the venture to Mars in 1949.  M&M was likely inspired from Smarties that Mars may have encountered during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). A sugar coating made it possible to carry chocolate in warm climates without it melting and that characteristic eventually prompted his company’s longest-lasting marketing slogan that became, “the milk chocolate that melts in your mouth, not in your hand”.

Only in France would they show this commercial; it was aired in 2008 and features a stripping peanut M&M with the chocolate onlooker crying, “Show me your peanut!”  There’s another one featuring strip poker.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the October 13 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*All the living hostages have been released by Hamas, and Trump is in Israel to take credit (he wants that Nobel Peace Prize). But all 20 living hostages are HOME!

President Trump was set to address Israel’s Parliament on Monday morning, hours after Hamas released the last 20 living hostages from Gaza as part of a cease-fire deal that was brokered in part by the United States.

The hostage releases marked a crucial step in the deal between Israel and Hamas that took effect on Friday. The 20 Israeli hostages returned to Israeli territory after Hamas freed them early Monday. In exchange, buses carrying Palestinian prisoners released by Israel arrived in the West Bank city of Ramallah, the first of nearly 2,000 prisoners expected to be freed in the coming hours.

As Mr. Trump walked through a hallway in the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, a reporter asked if the war was officially over. “Yes, as far as I’m concerned, yes,” he replied.

But the cease-fire and prisoner exchange did not end the war, and there are many lingering questions about what comes next in Gaza, including whether Hamas will agree to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand that it disarm.

Many of those questions were expected to come up at a summit on the cease-fire deal that Mr. Trump and other world leaders were scheduled to attend in Egypt later on Monday. The Egyptian government said that Mr. Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, would participate in the summit, a rare meeting between the two as the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians has stalled.

Crowds of Palestinians gathered in the West Bank city of Ramallah in anticipation of the release of loved ones who have been imprisoned in Israel.

Al-Jazeera is broadcasting footage from Ramallah that shows Palestinian prisoners stepping off the bus that brought them from Ofer Prison after their release. Some of the men are wearing keffiyehs and flashing victory signs as they stop off the bus into a big crowd of people.

In both Israel and Gaza, the cease-fire and the start of the exchange on Monday brought relief after two devastating years of war.

The toughest questions remain, of course: will Hamas disarm and disperse, and who will run the Gazan government now.  There the talks in Cairo are supposed to deal with that, but I have a feeling that Hamas will not go gentle into that good night, nor disarm.  Trump regards the release of the hostages as a good thing, but no, the war is far from over. Today, though, there is great joy in Israel as those taken prisoner for two years are HOME and with their loved ones. And, as the report notes, there’s also joy in Gaza as Palestinian prisoners come back to a home that’s considerably changed.

Here are the Red Cross vehicles bringing the hostages to Israel:

*Here’s a clickbaity op-ed in the NYT: “Voting for Mamdani taught me why Trump won“. And it was written by someone—writer Michael Hirschorn—who voted for the future mayor of NYC. What is there to understand? Here’s his argument:

Over dinner with a politically sophisticated college friend, I explained that I was planning to vote for Zohran Mamdani for New York City mayor. In full Gen X snark mode, she asked, “Because vibes?”

She was alluding to the fact that some of Mr. Mamdani’s most meme-able campaign slogans are impossible as actual policy. A few are not even good ideas to begin with.

Take “Freeze the rent,” his rallying cry, understood to refer to the city’s million or so rent-stabilized apartments. Freezing the rent has been tried; it helps in the short term, but it exacerbates many long-term problems. Low-income renters would be better served by a laser focus on increasing housing supply. I’m voting for him anyway.

Or take free buses. Mr. Mamdani has said little about how he’d deliver on this promise, since New York’s mayor does not control the city’s mass transit system and the institutions that do are most likely to hate the idea. I’m voting for him anyway.

I’m doing it because he’s freaking out the business-as-usual power elites and driving establishment members of his own Democratic Party bananas. Because things have gone dangerously wrong in this country, and like a lot of other New Yorkers, I’m ready to tear the whole playhouse down (metaphorically speaking!).

That is the same spirit that motivated a great many people to vote for Donald Trump. You can see the irony: There may be no two politicians further apart on the ideological spectrum. Or two who are less personally aligned: Mr. Trump has repeatedly vowed to destroy the “Communist” Mr. Mamdani — and beyond him, New York — if Mr. Mamdani is elected. But the appeal they make to voters, and the way voters respond, is uncannily similar.

. . . Trumpism is more than politics. It’s an emotional gas-main explosion, from people who felt unheard, patronized, left behind. The Mamdani phenomenon is a pressure valve, too, an outlet for voters to make a statement against the Democratic burghers who claim to represent “the people” but who are compromised by PAC money and conventional thinking.

I’m confused: I thought that Mamdani was supported largely by the AOC crowd: rich and entitled white people who like the idea of “democratic socialism”. But what do I know? And, at any rate, Mamdani has no realistic possibility of “tearing the system down”; after all, he’ll only be may of one large city.  Will he be a Presidential candidate in 2028. Nope: too “progressive”.  But Hirschorn disagrees:

Centrist Democrats have nonetheless insisted that Mr. Mamdani’s approach would be political suicide anywhere outside New York. Do you really think, they ask, that a democratic socialist has half a chance in Arkansas?

What made Mr. Mamdani broadly popular isn’t his party affiliation; it’s the fact that he actually listened to New Yorkers, including those who voted for Mr. Trump. They told him what they cared about most — the insane cost of living — and he built a hyperlocal campaign around that, all while resisting pollingism’s suburban-strip-mall blandness. Do I think that approach would work in Arkansas? I sure do, and in Cedar Rapids or Sioux County, Iowa.

Well, I don’t.  And when Mamdani fails to keep his promises in NYT, that isn’t going to hurt him? Let his opponent debate him on that!

*Dumb decision of the week.  I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw this headline, and even thought it was a joke. But it’s not (click to read):

Yep! Except it’s exaggerated: not a “foreign military base” but some kind of unspecified “facility:”. An excerpt:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday announced a finalized agreement that will allow the Qatari Emiri Air Force to build a facility at the Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho.

The agreement, which Hegseth announced alongside Qatari Minister of Defense Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani at the Pentagon, will allow Qatari pilots to receive training alongside U.S. soldiers. There are no foreign military bases in the U.S., but some foreign militaries do maintain a presence for training. The Singaporean Air Force also has a presence at the Mountain Home base.

Hegseth said he is “proud that today we’re signing a letter of acceptance to build a Qatari Emiri Air Force Facility at the Mountain Home Air Base in Idaho.”

“The location will host a contingent of Qatari F-15’s and pilots to enhance our combined training, increase lethality, interoperability, it’s just another example of our partnership,” Hegseth said. “And I hope you know, your excellency, that you can count on us.”

Later Friday, Hegseth clarified that Qatar would not have its own base in the U.S., writing on X: “The U.S. military has a long-standing partnership w/ Qatar, including today’s announced cooperation w/ F-15QA aircraft. However, to be clear, Qatar will not have their own base in the United States-nor anything like a base. We control the existing base, like we do with all partners.”

The move is another demonstration of the Trump administration’s increasingly close relationship with Qatar.

President Trump signed an executive order last month “assuring the security of the state of Qatar,” following Israel’s decision to carry out a military strike in Qatar’s capital city of Doha, where the vast majority of Qataris live. “The United States shall regard any armed attack on the territory, sovereignty, or critical infrastructure of the State of Qatar as a threat to the peace and security of the United States,” the executive order reads.

Not a great idea given that Qatar, while it does host a US/UK airbase on its territory, is at the same time hosting the rich bigwigs in Hamas, and in fact has funneled money to Hamas (some of it with Israel’s approval). The U.S. also beefed loudly when Israel tried to take out Hamas officials in Qatar. Given that, I can’t see calling Qatar an “ally”.  And what is the benefit to us to training Qatari air training in U.S. planes? Who had that crazy idea?

*A well-known conservation organization is considering banning the release of “de-extincted” animals into the wild. If it takes effect, it’s bye-bye Colossal, but there are problems. (h/t Loretta; article archived here).

One of the world’s most important nature groups is weighing a call for a moratorium on allowing genetically engineered plants or animals, such as canines edited to appear like extinct “dire wolves,” from being released into the wild.

Advocates for the temporary ban, which is being considered at a meeting of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), worry about the dangers of engineered organisms upending nature. The consequences of any misstep, they say, may be uncontainable and irreversible.

“We need to put funding towards nature conservation strategies that we know work and not trying to bring back animals that don’t exist,” said Joann Sy, a scientific adviser to a Paris-based conservation group called Pollinis, a lead sponsor of the moratorium.

But there are problems with a blanket ban.  I agree that dire wolf mimics and hairy elephants called “woolly mammoths” should not be released in the wild, and since that Colossal’s aim (“de-extinction”), the company would be pretty much screwed by the moratorium (note that it’s not final by a long shot). However, there are reasons to modify animals if the dangers (which are unknown for “dire grey wolves” and “hairy elephants”) are not large:

While the moratorium would carry little legal weight if enacted, those working to save species with genetic tools worry it would have a chilling effect, freezing funding and other support for their work. With hundreds of thousands of species at risk of vanishing, they say there is precious little time to stave off more losses.

“It’s so maddening,” said Ryan Phelan, co-founder and executive director of the nonprofit Revive & Restore, which opposes the pause. “The moratorium would really cause a halt to advancing science.”

From the opponents:

Franziska Achterberg, policy head at Save Our Seeds, a group that backs the ban and has also been critical of genetically modified crops, said in a statement: “There is no evidence that these technologies will help protect or restore nature.”

Pollinis, which works on protecting pollinators, has warned that genetically modified microbes could harm bees. It has also raised concerns about a form of genetic engineering called gene drives, which aims to push modified genes through a wild population.

The thing is, the majority of genetically modified crops, once thought to be Frankencrops, have turned out pretty much okay, and some, like golden rice, have no palpable downside but could do enormous good.  I can’t see that for “de-extincted” animals,, but of course Colossal objects, since it gets billions of dollars for the hype about de-extinction:

Matt James, Colossal’s chief animal officer, worries the moratorium, if passed, would make it harder to build public and financial support for “de-extinction” efforts.

“It would be very negative from a public relations standpoint, from a technology investment standpoint,” said James, who is in Abu Dhabi lobbying against the motion.

“We are at a crossroads in terms of our fight against biodiversity loss,” he added. “If we continue to slow down the development of technology that will help us get ahead of the loss, then we are accepting failure.”

Susan Lieberman, vice president of international policy at the Wildlife Conservation Society, is among the several scientists who are skeptical of the company’s claims it brought true dire wolves out of extinction. “If they even produce the species they’re saying they’re producing, it has no habitat, has no ecosystem,” she said.

And one more reason not to make this moratorium apply universally:

Phelan noted that millions of people depend on coral reefs as a source of fish to eat and as a buffer against waves. Yet more than 2 in 5 reef-building coral species are at risk of vanishing due to rising temperatures and ocean acidification. Her group backs biotechnologies meant to make coral more resilient.

“It’s appalling to think that we’re going to just stymie scientists from advancing and using the new tools of biotechnology,” she said. “What we know is how desperately in need of attention coral reefs are.”

*Another NYT article (archived here, or click on the screenshot if you have a subscription).  The sad part is that this is island (really an archipelago) is one that I just visited: Svalbard.  I’m glad I saw it before the polar bears die, but very, very sad that it’s warming. The article has lovely photos and video, and if you have any interest in the Arctic, I’d recommend going there soon.

Oy!:

On an island in the Arctic Ocean, in a region that is warming as much as seven times as fast as the rest of the planet, the food chain is being turned upside down.

Underwater kelp forests are surging into once-frozen waters, replacing other native species. Reindeer, cut off from traditional foraging routes over vanishing sea ice, now graze on seaweed when they cannot reach inland grasses and lichen.

And polar bears, deprived of the ice platforms they once used to hunt seals, have turned inland, raiding bird nests, hunting reindeer and, increasingly, clashing with humans.

Scientists are watching this ecological upheaval unfold in real time from an international research station in Svalbard, a cluster of islands near the North Pole. And it’s making their work more dangerous.

The scientists must carry rifles. A new brochure warns that if anyone comes face-to-face with a polar bear, “Stay calm. DO NOT RUN.” If it charges: “Be prepared to use any possible deterrence (shovels, ski poles, rocks, blocks of ice, water in a thermos, etc.).”

Well, as long as I remember, people who encounter polar bears on foot always carry rifles, even in Canada, so this is nothing new. Polar bears are mean, hungry, and aggressive. But the polar bears and reindeer are vanishing, and kelp forests taking over. And WE are responsible!

Svalbard is controlled by Norway but governed by an international treaty that allows foreigners to live and work. At the Ny-Alesund international research station, the world’s northernmost human settlement, scientists vetted by Norwegian authorities study every level of the Arctic ecosystem.

As the region continues to warm, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, the full consequences of this rapid transformation are still unfolding and it is unclear if plants and animals will be able to adapt.

“The question is can they find a winning strategy that will let them survive given those changes?” said Gil Bohrer, an environmental engineer at The Ohio State University. He helped create an archive of data from sensors that track animal movements across the Arctic to understand how wildlife responds to rapid environmental change.

. . .The ice is forming later, melting earlier and getting thinner each year, and the snow cover is lighter. What was once a glacier 17 years ago has melted into the sea. As the ice disappears, more heat gets absorbed by the dark fjord water, contributing to warming and shrinking the next year’s ice even more.

Over decades, Dr. Gerland and other scientists have watched this feedback loop play out, a frozen world slipping into retreat. Collapsing ice affects everything, Dr. Gerland said.

Seals can’t dig breeding dens without snow cover, which means less food for polar bears and foxes. Indigenous communities in other areas of the Arctic lose the frozen highways they’ve used for hunting and travel for ages.

There’s more, but it’s all depressing. Go while you can. I’ll once again put up a photo I took of a polar bear chowing down on what we were told was a sperm whale carcass. How the carcass got atop an ice floe remains a mystery.  The photo was cleaned up by Mark Richardson, who did not change the colors:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, things are getting heavy in the human/cat discussions:

Hili: A house cat is just a jobless proletarian on a hefty allowance.
Andrzej: I’ve suspected your radical leftist leanings for a while now.

In Polish:

Hili: Udomowiony kot to bezrobotny proletariusz na sutym zasiłku.
Ja: Od dawna podejrzewałem cię o skrajnie lewicowe poglądy.

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

From The 2025 Darwin Awards!!!/Epic Fails:

From Give Me a Sign:

From The Language Nerds:

Nothing new from Masih, so here’s one retweeted from her stand-in, JKR. This is outrageous (there’s a report in The Daily Fail):

From Michael, a fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus) in India making a rare catch of a monitor lizard (Varanus sp.; see the news story here). An excerpt:

A rare wildlife encounter in India’s Sundarbans has offered conservationists fresh insights into one of the world’s most elusive cats — and highlighted the power of modern monitoring tools to protect endangered species.

During a boat trip through the mangrove forests, naturalist Soumyadip Santra spotted a fishing cat in July taking down a monitor lizard.

It was an unusual meal for the nocturnal predator, which typically feeds on fish, Mongabay India reported. Wildlife photographer Sudipta Chakraborty captured the moment from another angle.

“As a naturalist, I have studied the ecology and behavior of fishing cats,” Santra told Mongabay India. “But I have never seen them preying on a monitor lizard.”

Israeli advocate who goes by the X name “Shay” (her name is Shay Szabo) burns the “progressive” Young Turks for sexualizing her. In fact, I’m surprised that these two Turks are playing this game.

From Pinkah! ME ME ME!

I found this while browsing Twitter (Ana Kasparian, of all people):

From Malcolm, a fishing moggy (and its pal):

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

A French Jewish boy, almost one year old, was gassed to death as soon as he arrived in Auschwitz. He woiuld be 83 today had he not been exterminated.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-10-13T10:23:37.741Z

And one from Dr. Cobb, who’s headed to Shanghai; deep sea critters:

Another folder of never-before seen Aliens dives has been sorted, and I present you with a collage of B-listers that would otherwise go unloved – this time from 9-13 May, 2024. Have fun zooming in!

— Chris Gug (@gugunderwater.bsky.social) 2025-09-08T11:21:01.631Z

39 thoughts on “Monday: Hili dialogue”

  1. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
    There’s no such thing as a wrong note.- Art Tatum, musician (13 Oct 1909-1956)

    1. I don’t know about your example but you may be confusing plate techtonics with global warming.
      The Burgess Shale. Ancient sea life high in the Canadian Rockies.
      “Fossilized marine life, such as trilobites and brachiopods, can be found there because the region was once covered by a shallow sea.”

    1. I grew up in a neighborhood of “off the boat” Italians. Me, being Irish Catholic, called them “Guidos” (I didn’t know until adulthood that that was a slur), butg I was accepted in every one of their street hockey games, they always let me help the other kids rake the courts and serve the old guys their Grappa while they yelled at each other over the Bocce games. I learned everything I needed to know about the good life from them; they stuff you to the gills with the best food imaginable if you stumble into their homes, they have the best shoes, the best men’s suits, the best bicycles, they can argue better (and more) than anyone in the world and they know how to have fun.

      Happy Columbus Day, indeed.

  3. Because comments seem to be sparse this morning, I will just add that I watched about thirty minutes of “trump live at the knessett” this morning while I was waiting for the 0745ET appearance of Hili/WEIT. He was incredibly coherent and seemed to touch all the points of giving credit both to US players and Israeli players, all of whom were in the audience…like a state of the union message but to the Israeli congress.

    1. I watched the video of his speech when I was at the gym. It was excellent, sharing credit generously as you say. A really good, upbeat speech imploring everyone listening to take advantage of this opportunity to expand peace and prosperity across the region.

  5. Given that Colossus only edited 20 base pairs out of 1.5 million base pairs in which grey wolves and dire wolves differ, isn’t it a bit absurd to worry about environmental ramifications from releasing the trans dire wolves into the wild?

    1. I don’t know Michael, he said with tongue firmly planted in cheek, sounds like gain of function research that we do not want to escape from the lab.

  6. There’s another SpaceX Starship launch planned for today (7:15 ET, 23:15 GMT). These are usually entertaining, one way or another.

    1. Thanks Coel. At risk of over commenting, for readers’ additional information, I do want to add that it looks like this will be a repeat of the trajectories of the last flight test (no return to launchsite mechazilla catch) but with a number of smaller technology experiments not obvious to the casual observer on the vehicles.

  7. Another NYT cry-baby story on climate change…also known as evolution. I live in the Arizona desert where you can find sea shells. Man made warming? Yes Virginia, humans are part of the ecosystem as well.

        1. Matthew got the point. The earth changes whether we like it or not…to the point that the ocean floor is now a desert.

          My separate point is humans are part of the earth’s ecosystem…just like polar bears. We are not intrusions.

          Yup, I should have written that post more clearly.

  8. I wonder if the Idaho Qatar facility comes out of the deal making that the administration has been doing in the middle east.

  9. I’m paying attention, but I’m also reading the coverage about the freed hostages. Comments may be light today. 🙂

  10. they should give thanks that they’re not our 51st state

    A nice summation of the entire purpose of Canadian Thanksgiving.

  11. Reminds me of Marcion of Sinope. He considered the god of the first bible a malevolent, tribal god. The god who sent Jesus is the benevolent one, the true Supreme Being and a thoroughly nice chap.

    But Marcion must have been wrong because his view was denounced as heresy by the nibs of the time.

  12. The volleyball game in Ontario was indeed outrageous. It has been questioned by (Fox News!) if all five were actually men. Fox says it could confirm only that two were, including one who had played on the college’s men’s team earlier.

    I remember the original Rebel News coverage of the game in 2024, whose video we see in the tweet. The outlet’s chief shit-disturber, David Menzies, — we love you David! — reported himself only that “the players” appeared to be male and both teams resisted his efforts to get close enough to talk to any of them. He chased some of the male-looking players through the public halls as they returned to their dressing room. (That’s our David!) Several male voices can be heard mocking him and saying, “Fuck off, Whitey!”, which is a common slur used here by aboriginals. Menzies did report that none of the apparently female players on the team seen lounging on the bench were ever rotated onto the court.

    In Ontario, as in all provinces in Canada, self-identification is the law. We’re kind, you see. Any organization (i.e., anything other than a private individual in a private context such as negotiating for sex) that discriminates in the wrong direction on the basis of gender expression or identity can be hauled before a Human Rights Tribunal and made to pay many thousands of dollars to the misgendered, plus the legal costs of its futile defence. (The complainant doesn’t have to put up any money so it’s a no-lose proposition for him.). Athletic clubs, indeed all organizations, professional practices, school boards, and businesses are terrified of Humans Rights Commissions and their kangaroo courts. (The national tax-funded umbrella organization of gay trans rights, Egale, ensures additionally that government funding of amateur sport goes only to bodies that honour self-ID.) They exert iron discipline on their members not to do or say anything that might be seen as expensively transphobic. Note how even the losing team of women didn’t want to utter a peep about this. Omertà.

    This is pretty small potatoes even though it’s still wrong. “Colleges” in Ontario are two-year vocational training institutions that grant diplomas, shunned by high-school grads who have better options. Both academics and athletics in these backwaters can be described as recreational, with no money or athletic careers at stake. A student enrolled in food-service admin there, especially a straight white settler male who can legally be discriminated against, isn’t going to risk expulsion for speaking out. It really is his last chance at any job that requires more than a high-school diploma. It would be usual that a game between two colleges would draw fewer spectators than players. If Mr. Menzies and his “far-right” news organization hadn’t received a tip about the makeup of this team, the word would likely never have got out, and there’s no route to make an effective complaint anyway. Rather, the legacy media tut-tut about the hateful harassment of the transgendered volleyball women, the same way they cover all these stories from the States.

  13. The US Air Force has training agreements with many allies and partners. Foreign military pilots in American skies are nothing new. Nor is it unusual for the partner country to fund training facilities on US bases. This is especially the case when countries buy billions of dollars in military aircraft from us and if they lack the uncluttered air space and sparsely-populated regions within their own borders for effective training. The Germans were in New Mexico for years, and one could readily name a dozen countries that have trained their pilots at other stateside bases.

    The professional military colleges for select mid-grade and senior officers also have a strong foreign contingent, to include officers from the Middle East, which can account for well over ten percent of the student population. I was walking a hallway at one of them one day when I saw an officer running toward me. I knew who he was, but we hadn’t met. I greeted him in Russian; he reflexively returned the greeting in Russian, and then I heard him come to a sharp halt behind me as he realized what happened. Yes, we even had Russian partners at stateside bases once upon a time. There is a certain wisdom in keeping one’s former and potential adversaries close.

    I understand the frustration with having US forces in Qatar. But please recall that we moved there largely from Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia when a continued robust presence in that country became politically untenable after 9/11 and the Iraq War. Additionally, without Qatar, the hostage deal between Hamas and Israel would likely have failed. So, has Trump been doing some quid pro quo deals with them the last couple months? Certainly. Both countries play the other. But it was the Biden Administration that officially named Qatar a “Major Non-NATO Ally,” and it was that official act that further opened the door to a formal training agreement.

    https://www.war.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/2917336/major-non-nato-ally-designation-will-enhance-us-qatar-relationship/

    1. This has long been true. A high school friend of mine became an F-16 pilot with a distinguished career. During part of it (he has since retired) he spent time at an air base (I do not recall where) training pilots from Egypt. The Egyptians had built a facility at the airbase for their F16s to be housed (hangers, I suppose) as well as a barracks, which ncluded classrooms and cafeteria. I know this this because he used to send me snap shots of him and his students!

      So my guess this Qatar thing is something like that. It is my understanding that at the very base the Qataris are building their thing, the Singaporeans have one too.

      These days we all have to be angry at everyone else about SOMETHING. Might as well be something totally made up, right?

    2. “The US Air Force has training agreements with many allies and partners. Foreign military pilots in American skies are nothing new. Nor is it unusual for the partner country to fund training facilities on US bases.”

      How many other of these “many allies and partners” are the chief funders of terrorism in the world?

      How many other of these “many allies and partners” harbor Hamas leaders?

      How many other of these “many allies and partners” are one of the chief defenders of Islamism in the world?

      How many other of these “many allies and partners” have spent many tens of billions of dollars – and that’s only what we know about, the true amount is likely way more – in the US alone to promote Arab Islamism and delegitimize Israel?

      1. All true—or, close enough. And how many of the other allies and partners would have been able to pressure Hamas to secure a hostage deal?

        I deal with the world as it is. Administrations of both US political parties have, for better or worse, deepened ties with Qatar. Few are the critics who consistently rant at each of them; outrage is usually partisan and selective. But for those who are consistent in trying to reorient (or lessen) the US military footprint in the Middle East, I applaud them for the effort. In the meantime, one takes advantage of the opportunities that circumstances present.

        1. Qatar could have pressured Hamas not to commit October 7th – if they wanted to. They didn’t. They funded them.

          They could have pressured Hamas to surrender. Or give up the hostages any day of the two years they have been held. They didn’t. They funded them.

          They got Trump to OK a deal where 1900 convicted terrorists have just been released back into Gaza while Hamas has not laid down their arms. Just who is pressuring who here?

          That Trump has offered a protection pact with the Qatari terrorist state, and is now giving them rights to an airbase is a complete dereliction of Republican principles wrt terrorism.

          I fail to see any lessening of the US military footprint in the ME, nor do I see a reason why the US would want to do so. I fail to see any opportunity being offered, unless capitulation to a terrorist state is seen as an “opportunity”. I’d bet my bottom dollar we will find out in future of some sub rosa deal to line Trump’s pockets with Qatari cash as the only real opportunity here. If so, that lucre will be dripping Israeli blood.

          1. Yes, and this would be the first time that Israel traded a ridiculous number of prisoners for a hostage, wouldn’t it? Or was the 2011 Shalit deal Trump’s fault, too? And the granting of ally status to Qatar the year before the October 7 attacks despite their funding of terrorism, Trump again? Both political parties have maintained robust support for Israel while playing footsie with Qatar. That might be foolish, but it is hardly new. I look forward to your outrage when the next Democrat sits in the Oval Office. I save mine for things I know rather than for things I presume.

            I look at the complexities of diplomacy rather than presuming hidden facts of financial self-dealing. (But RFK Jr. might have some openings for you; I hear he likes to plumb those rabbit holes, too.) Some of us know what we don’t know. There are mountains of bipartisan bullshit and a lack of accountability for many lost lives—both American and other—hiding behind that curtain of government secrecy, but it is a foolish man who stands away from it and thinks he has in front of him all that is necessary to see.

            I suspect this deal will crumble in the crucible of Middle East hatred, but I would ask you: would you prefer the hostages still be cowering in tunnels and holes? If not, then what exactly are you ranting about?

            I’m done posting on this conversation thread, but I will gladly read any response.

    3. I’m guessing there’s an element of “if we want them to spend all their petro-dollars on buying fighter jets from us, then we have to agree to host and train their pilots to fly them”?

  14. NYT (emphasis added) :

    “Climate change is 🚩transforming🚩 ecosystems in the far north.”

    Compare to a UNESCO document (emphasis added)

    “Transformation is the red thread running through all the Sustainable Development Goals, the United Nations’ agenda for responding to global challenges facing humanity and the planet.”

    Transformation is a major theme in esoteric thought that runs back through antiquity.

  16. Great about the hostages of course. Good to remember though how many Hamas/IJ actually killed while they were held.

    And I have this nagging horror of whom, exactly, are being released from Israeli jails. S/t like 1,000 – all criminals BY DEFINITION – the germline of the next Sinwar whom, you’ll remember, was released in 2010-ish in a similar deal. (The Gilad Shalit deal).

    Still… had to get the hostages home!
    Plus, Hamas’ leverage is kaput, or as Henry Kissinger said (in 1973 I think):
    “And then the wider war…. begins.”

    D.A.
    NYC

    1. Israel will have to track down and eliminate some of those prisoners that were released today. At least 1,000 prisoners were released into the wild in that 2011 deal for Gilad Shalit.

  17. Why is Qatar important? Qatar co-owns (with Iran) the North Dome natural gas field. Quote from Wikipedia “The South Pars/North Dome field is a natural-gas condensate field located in the Persian Gulf. It is by far the world’s largest natural gas field, with ownership of the field shared between Iran and Qatar. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the field holds an estimated 1,800 trillion cubic feet (51 trillion cubic metres) of in-situ natural gas and some 50 billion barrels (7.9 billion cubic metres) of natural gas condensates. On the list of natural gas fields it has almost as much recoverable reserves as all the other fields combined. It has significant geostrategic influence.”

    The ruling family of Qatar are the Qataris. I have ties (very indirect) to the ruling family. I tried to get them tickets to Disney.

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