Welcome to shabbos for all goyische moggies: it’s Sunday, October 19, 2025, and National Gin and Tonic Day. It’s a refreshing drink; I prefer mine made with Bombay Sapphire and a good tonic. Here’s a photo from Wikipedia:
The cocktail was created by British military officers in India during the 19th century. In India and other tropical regions, malaria was a persistent problem for Europeans, and during the 18th century the Scottish doctor George Cleghorn studied how quinine, a traditional cure for malaria, could be used to prevent the disease. Finding its bitter taste to be unpleasant, as early as 1825 British officers stationed in India took to adding quinine to a mixture of water, sugar, lime and gin in order to make the cure more palatable, thus creating the cocktail. The officers were already given a gin ration as part of their rations, and the sweet concoction made sense. Since it is no longer used as an antimalarial, tonic water today contains much less quinine, is usually sweetened, and is consequently much less bitter.
It’s also National Seafood Bisque Day, LGBT Center Awareness Day, and Rainforest Day. Here are two photos I took on a visit to the La Selva rainforest preserve in Costa Rica (2012). Can you identify the critters? (The birds are sexually dimorphic.O)
Yesterday evening, Steve Pinker visited the U of C and gave a one-hour talk on his new book for the Chicago Humanities Festival. He was, of course, wearing cowboy boots, photographed below (the interlocutor was philosopher Jason Bridges).
Afterwards, the Boot Boys went to an Afro-Caribbean restaurant for dinner, and compared boots. The last time Steve and I dined together I didn’t wear cowboy boots, and he called attention to that; I was definitely the beta male. So this time I decided to don my fanciest boots: hand-stitched peacock-feather boots by Rocketbuster. Every stitch is made by hand, and the bootmaker hates it when an order comes in for these: it’s a ton of work.
The dominance test: the comparison of boots after dinner. Steve was wearing caiman, and admitted that he’d been “outbooted”. Peacock feathers are, of course the product of sexual selection.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the October 19 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Trump has commuted–big time–the jail sentence of disgraced former Republican congressman George Santos. He wouldn’t do that for a Democrat, of course, and Santos’s crimes, which seem pretty serious, don’t to me suggest that he should go free right away. But that’s just my opinion.
Former Representative George Santos of New York, the disgraced Republican fabulist whose lies made him an object of national scorn, was released from a federal prison on Friday night after President Trump commuted his seven-year sentence for fraud.
His lawyer, Joseph Murray, said that Mr. Santos was released from the Federal Correctional Institution Fairton in New Jersey after 10 p.m. on Friday night. “A great injustice has been corrected,” Mr. Murray said.
In a social media post, Mr. Trump suggested that politics had been a major factor in his decision, commending Mr. Santos for sharing his views and contrasting him with Democrats. Calling the former congressman “somewhat of a ‘rogue,’” Mr. Trump said that he believed that Mr. Santos’s sentence was excessive given the nature of his financial crimes.
The president also suggested he had been moved by Mr. Santos’s accounts of being in prison, which he had published in a regular column in a local Long Island newspaper.
“George has been in solitary confinement for long stretches of time and, by all accounts, has been horribly mistreated,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media. “Therefore, I just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY. Good luck George, have a great life!”
Mr. Santos, 37, reported to prison in July after pleading guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. He served fewer than three months of his 87-month sentence.
He will also no longer be required to pay more than $370,000 in court-ordered restitution to his victims, according to a copy of the commutation posted online by Ed Martin, the U.S. pardon attorney.
The commutation — which cuts Mr. Santos’s sentence short but does not wipe out his conviction — is part of a blitz of grants of political clemency that Mr. Trump has doled out to his political allies or other figures who have been embraced by his right-wing supporters.
Santos was duly convicted and sentenced, for he was guilty as hell. Cutting a seven year sentence to three months is ridiculous, and even the monetary fine was wiped out. We can expect more of this, but commutations should be based on palpable injustice, not politics. Who gets pardoned next: Ghislaine Maxwell?
*Democratic Congressman Tom Suozzi has a solution to the immigration problem. I’ll bite, as I’ve said the problem needs to be recitified, though the problem seems to have been largely solved, with few immigrants entering the U.S. at the southern border:
When it comes to fixing our immigration system, Democrats and Republicans in Congress both need to admit where they have been wrong. This includes acknowledging that for decades, both parties ignored the main problem: the cartels that have made billions of dollars smuggling people, drugs and weapons into the United States.
Democrats must concede that Donald Trump was right about the importance of securing the border. He was right about the need to create a joint task force — involving multiple government departments, agencies and military branches — to fight the cartels. And he was right about the need to deport violent criminals who are in this country illegally.
But Republicans have to realize that the Trump administration risks squandering the progress it has made by conducting raids on workplaces and neighborhoods throughout the country, such as the disastrous crackdown it began five weeks ago in Chicago. These raids — rounding up people who often have lived here for decades, raised families, held jobs and committed no crimes beyond lacking proper documentation — are economically unwise, socially destructive and morally wrong.
The raids remove workers from businesses that rely on them. They erode trust between law enforcement officers and the communities they police. And they separate families.
While Democrats must denounce these raids, we do need a crackdown — on the cartels. The cartels and the human traffickers known as coyotes who work for them teach migrants to exploit loopholes in our immigration law and deliberately overwhelm our asylum system. In the chaos, they smuggle drugs, traffic people and expand their grip on both sides of the border.
. . . I recently visited the southern border in Arizona with a bipartisan group of fellow U.S. representatives. We met with immigration officials, law enforcement officers, Border Patrol agents and intelligence officers, all of whom issued the same warning: Though the border is officially closed to asylum seekers between the ports of entry, the cartels and coyotes are still hard at work, spreading false promises and luring families north.
This may be true, but there are no data on the proportion of undocumented immigrants that come in via coyotes and cartels versus on their own. We need that data before we start confecting plans. The reason we’re having the chaos we see now is that gazillions of people entered the country illegally during previous years, and the Democrats seem to think that’s just fine. (Note the claim above that immigrants who entered illegally “committed no crimes beyond lacking proper documentation.” But that is a crime!)
Unfortunately, Trump is going about fixing the problem in a hamhanded, offensive, and retributive way. I am wondering if the Zeitgeist for liberals it to just to favor deportation of violent undocumented immigrants, and leave the rest alone. Is there another solution to find those people who entered illegally, and put them before an immigration judge minus all the policing and high-handedness of Trump? Isn’t that what the Democrats were supposed to do when they had control of Congress? In fact, there are plenty of people here illegally who didn’t use coyotes or cartels, and just came on their own, or others who overstayed their visas.
*According to the Wall Street Journal, Hamas is not the only side breaking the Gazan cease-fire deal. Israel appears to be striking at militants in the territory.
Israel has carried out a number of strikes in the Gaza Strip during the current cease-fire, saying it was targeting militants who posed a threat or vehicles that came too close and didn’t stop when warned.
The incidents are adding to the stress on the cease-fire, which negotiators say was hammered out at a high level and left some details to be worked out on the fly.
Hamas’s failure to hand over the remaining bodies of hostages in Gaza was already creating pressure on the deal. Both sides expected it would be difficult to find all 28 bodies, but Hamas sparked an uproar in Israel when it initially returned only four. Under pressure, it has now returned a total of 10.
Israel’s military said it fired at militants who exited tunnel shafts and posed a threat to troops in two separate incidents Friday in the southern Gaza Strip. Israel struck a handful of militants in the city of Khan Younis it says exited a tunnel shaft about a mile into the Israeli side of the so-called yellow line that marks the Israeli area of control after it pulled back under the cease-fire, according to an Israeli official. In the second incident, the military said it returned fire after militants in Rafah, also inside the yellow line, fired at troops operating in the area, but there were no injuries, the official said.
In a third incident Friday, the Israeli military said it fired at what it called a suspicious vehicle after it crossed the yellow line and ignored warning shots. Hamas said the incident left two families, including several children, dead as they were hit by tank fire while trying to return home.
. . .While such incidents aren’t expected to collapse the deal brokered by President Trump, they underscore the deep lack of trust between the two sides and some of the many difficulties they are likely to encounter as they work toward a more complicated second stage of the agreement.
Hamas handed over another body overnight that was confirmed through forensic testing to be that of deceased hostage Eliyahu Margalit. Margalit was killed during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack and his body was taken to Gaza, according to the Israeli military.
Israeli officials have accused Hamas of delaying the handover of the remaining bodies of hostages in Gaza as required by the agreement.
In response, Israel has delayed the opening of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt and slowed the pace of humanitarian aid entering the enclave to pressure the group to release more bodies. The Rafah crossing has been closed since a January cease-fire deal, which collapsed in March. According to the agreement, Gazans are supposed to be able to enter and exit the enclave through the crossing in coordination with Egypt.
Well, I can sort of justify shooting at Hamas members perceived to pose a threat to Israeli forces, especially in Israeli area of control, but I hope the IDF really believed it was threatened. What is clear is that Hamas, executing people in the streets, not disarming and (probably) withholding bodies, is breaking the cease-fire. And that cease-fire is fragile. At least the living hostages are home, but by no means do I think we should be optimistic about a stronger solution.
*Yesterday I reported that there were two survivors of a U.S. strike on a Venezuelan “submarine” boat supposedly carrying drugs. Now I learn, to my surprise, that the two survivors, in military custody, are being returned to Venezuela
The alleged drug runners were expected to repatriated this weekend, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive and ongoing operations. It is unclear if the two suspects have any links to Venezuelan criminal organizations. They did not have serious injuries from the strike, said two of the people familiar with the matter.It was not clear why the survivors were being returned to their home countries if this military strike was in response to a declared armed conflict.
. . .The Colombian Embassy in Washington declined to comment. The Ecuadorian Embassy in Washington, the State Department and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In previous armed conflicts, such as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, when U.S. troops came in contact with enemy fighters and there were survivors, those fighters were taken prisoner. In drug interdictions that occurred before President Donald Trump began ordering armed strikes on boats, drug runners were detained by U.S. law enforcement and charged.
Since the strikes began in September, U.S. forces have killed at least 27 people, according to the administration — though officials have not provided evidence of drugs onboard the vessels nor the identities of the victims. This was the first time there were survivors.
If these boats really were smuggling drugs, why were the survivors, who must have been complicit in what Trump thinks is a capital crime. So why were they returned? I have no idea, but readers are welcome to comments.
*A chain of kosher restaurants in Washington, D.C. was forced to shut down after a boycott by pro-Palestinian activists.
Shouk, an Israeli-inspired kosher restaurant chain serving plant-based fare in and around Washington DC for the last decade, was forced to close the last of its five locations last week following a sustained boycott campaign by pro-Palestinian activists.
Campaign groups including DC for Palestine and Washington Socialist had been calling on locals to boycott the chain since the war in Gaza began, claiming that Shouk’s falafel-centric menu appropriated Palestinian cuisine and accusing the business of being “complicit in Israeli apartheid” because it imported Israeli products and brands.
Jewish owners Dennis Friedman and Ran Nussbacher said the ongoing harassment and loss of revenue as a result of the boycott made it impossible to keep the business afloat.
Friedman told the Guardian: “The ability to continue to operate wasn’t there. I feel terrible because Shouk wasn’t a political place; Shouk was a place for people to come together. To become a target and be mislabelled and thrown into things that aren’t true is unfortunate.”
Washington DC-based activist group DC for Palestine celebrated the kosher chain’s closure in a social media post last week, calling it a “small win” as Shouk was “one of the main targets” of their “Apartheid? I don’t buy it” consumer boycott initiative. Other “targets” include several Iocal Israeli-owned or inspired restaurants and companies that import Israeli goods.
Shouk is the latest victim of a wider boycott movement that leaves few international events and competitions untouched.
European broadcasters have been threatening to boycott the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest if Israel is not banned from the competition, and last month hundreds of Hollywood stars – including Emma Stone, Olivia Colman and Mark Ruffalo – backed a boycott of Israel’s state-funded film industry over the government’s actions in Gaza.
This is ridiculous. Falafel originated in Egypt, is popular throughout the Levant and Middle East, including Israel, and the Palestinians have no particular claim on it. And even if they did, then anybody eating a “culturally appropriated food” could be boycotted.Even more ridiculous is to drive a restaurant chain out of business for serving this “culturally appropriated” food; it is designed to hurt people. Such a boycott has exactly no effect on Palestine or the Gaza war; it is simply an antisemitic gesture, taking revenge on a business because it is Jewish. Finally, there is no Israeli apartheid: Israeli Arabs (Muslims) have the same rights as Israeli Jews, and in fact can avoid the mandatory enlistment in the IDF. It is Palestine where there is apartheid: there are no Jews in residence there, and it is an all-Muslim state (20% of Israelis are Arabs). This is just one more sign that the movement for a “ceasefire” was really a movement to get rid of Israel.
Have any Palestinian facilities had to shut down after boycotts by Israeli “activists”?
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, we have a very sweet Hili dialogue:
Hili: Carrying me for half an hour each day isn’t too much to ask.
Andrzej: Could we make it three ten-minute rounds instead?
In Polish:
Hili: Pół godziny dziennie noszenia mnie na rękach to nie są za duże wymagania.
Ja: A czy możemy to rozbić na trzy razy po dziesięć minut?
*******************
From The 2025 Darwin Awards!!!/Epic Fails:
From Laughter is the Best Medicine:
From The Dodo Pet:
For some reason I can’t embed Masih’s tweets (I bet X blocked that for some reason), but if you click on the screenshot, you can see her getting herself into hot water with Iran again. They’ve already tried to kill her at least twice, but nevertheless, she persists. She’s a very brave woman!
For all his foibles, like wearing shorts on the Senate floor, I am a big fan of John Fetterman, who always speaks his mind (and it doesn’t hurt that he says the right things). He’s a Democrat, but, as Axios reports, the Dems are plotting to “oust” him by running other Democrats against him in a 2028 primary. This tweet comes from Luana:
How about that: https://t.co/2iC7OTTNI3 pic.twitter.com/mbU85ZZf8i
— J.D. Haltigan, PhD 🏒👨💻 (@JDHaltigan) October 17, 2025
I found this exchange about the “cheese tax” on Emma Hilton’s feed. Read from bottom up:
From Malcolm, a babysitting cat:
This Mom was struggling to calm the baby while cooking. Her cat noticed this, and stepped in to help her out 🥺❤️ pic.twitter.com/FWzVWYO1H5
— cuteness overload (@cutecattoX) September 13, 2025
One from my feed–another very helpful cat who saves a child:
— Dogs are our lives (@loveDoges111) October 17, 2025
One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial
This Dutch Jewish boy was gassed to death as soon as he arrived at Auschwitz. He was ten years old. https://t.co/EVG3eyg22x
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) October 19, 2025
Two posts from Dr. Cobb. The first one he calls, “Sprites (and Andromeda)–not aliens!
🔭 Красные спрайты и галактика Андромеды в ночном небе Западной Австралии ✨📸 JJ Rao
— Старый Ворон/Old Raven (@oldvalravn.bsky.social) 2025-10-18T03:51:50.435Z
I remember this quote, which I believe is from Douglas Adams:
“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”
— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2025-10-10T05:37:50.360Z
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
The same people who can deny others everything are famous for refusing themselves nothing. -Leigh Hunt, poet and essayist (19 Oct 1784-1859)
Meanwhile, in the UK:
A Jewish gentleman was arrested and held for 10 hours because he was wearing a small Star of David necklace in public, which the police suggested could antagonise pro-Gaza protestors.
And a councillor was investigated by police for saying in a TV interview (while discussing immigration) that she was “born and bred here”. Apparently this phrase could be offensive to migrants.
And fans of a Tel Aviv soccer team have been banned from attending their team’s match in Birmingham (because they might be attacked by members of Birmingham’s large Muslim population).
Most impressive picture from the telescope! And, yes, the quote is from Douglas Adams, near the beginning of chapter 8 of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Lovely and touching photo of Andrzej with the Princess.
And soooo many galaxies. Sagan’s old line of billions and billions of stars in billions and billions of galaxies….and that simply uses numbers that we can sort of understand…there is a lot more I expect.
To get a grasp of how big these numbers are: put a million dots in a word document and print it out. Depending on fontsize you get something like 200/250 pages of only dots: ……………….. It is very intimidating!
I showed my ‘book’ to elementary schoolkids (12 years old). They were in awe.
That picture of the sprites, Andromeda, and sunset seems too good to be true. I don’t think it is possible to photograph that much of Andromeda so close to sunset.
My take on why those survivors of the boat bombing are being returned is that they have no evidence that these boats are really running drugs. I will be closely watching the Ecuadorian news to try to find out who they are and what they were doing in that boat.
I did talk to a Venezuelan friend about this, and she does believe that Venezuelans are running drugs in boats, and she hopes Trump kicks out Maduro immediately.
Also the birds are Great Curassows, Crax rubra. The black one is the male. They are big chunks of meat, so they are very rare these days except in national parks. The frog is a poison arrow frog, and when Jerry took that picture, it would have been called Dendrobates pumilio. Now it is in a different genus, Oophaga. It feeds its own eggs to its tadpoles!
Do keep an eye on the Venezuelans. If there is no evidence of drug smuggling, I’d think our administration would lock them away or send to a 3rd country as a means of covering it up. So it is a puzzle.
Astrophotography has gotten amazing. But I can see how this picture might have been made as multiple long exposures, each to properly expose either the foreground, the sunset, or the sky. Adjustments made in post to bring out the best in them, and then combining them together.
We just got some news about the survivors. The “boat” was actually a drug submarine, and both the Colombian and Ecuadorian survivors will be arrested and tried in their respective countries. To my surprise it looks like this was a legitimate target.
The thing about Andromeda is that it is really faint away from its core, and the camera is facing the brightest part of the sky. It could have been taken much later at night, and then stuck into this sunset. Usually one has to wait an hour or so after sunset to photograph an object this faint.
That would be a bit dis-honest, but in photography most things can be fair game.
Some years ago I was watching a YT video about astrophotography, as I am astrophotography-curious (though I’ve never tried it). The presenter had a wide angle picture of the night sky over a city, with very bad light pollution. But the image was in camera RAW so the data about the stars was still in there! He moved up a slider (don’t know which one), and zoooop, out came the stars and the Milky Way galaxy. I’m sure it was very noisy and the foreground would have been blown out with over-exposure. But the picture was sky only.
Trump has no boundaries of common decency. That is obvious.
With George Santos now able to even walk away from paying restitution from his victims, presumably bc they stemmed from federal charges, can those victims still pursue justice by civil lawsuit? I should hope so!
Re who gets pardoned next, that depends on the lurching squirrels. But in his third term, as presidente vitalicio, the first one will be for himself and his family, for everything, forever. Then they will be issued in the order of who pays the most.
Quinine is also used for its scent. Trumpers make Eau de Quininine aftershave which has sharp quinine topnotes and a warm floral basenote, and Pinaud make an Eau de Quinine hair tonic. I think I’ll use the Trumpers today!
Suozzi’s suggestion seems very evenhanded. However, it does not address the problem of illegals already in the country about who we know three things: They are getting aid in various forms to the tune of billions of dollars, the Dems want them considered for purposed of Congressional apportionment, and the Democrats want to allow them to vote. Given that they are here illegally, none of those things should happen. The only way to prevent this with the change of parties in power is to get them out of the country. Suozzi’s suggestion is, essentially, that the GOP surrender on this issues.
Beyond deporting illegal immigrants, Trump’s roundup seeks to deter future crossings—no matter which political party later holds power. Mothers might hesitate to endure the cartels and the desert if they fear getting arrested next time a Republican is in power. Will it work? I’m not sure, but if you only deport the violent felons, and if employers keep hiring illegally, then the flood of illegal migrants will resume once the Republicans lose the White House. Many Democratic party leaders and some of their educated supporters clearly want it that way. Those fueled by emotion should talk to people who have seen non-English speakers overwhelm the schools, or others who have seen their communities destabilized, or those of the working class who have seen the value of their home crash when five families and six pickups moved into the house next door. Or is sympathy for working class struggle restricted to the select non-native few?
Conventional (pre-Trump) Republicans still like illegal migrants (cheap, pliant workers).
The WSJ keeps running editorials against the migrant round ups and it’s not because they’re sappy leftists.
I suspect that the reason the Venezuelans were returned was that bringing them to the U.S. would create all kinds of legal issues about their seizure on the high seas. This would give rise to another spate of injunctions, etc. The attacks on smugglers in international waters seem questionable.
Yes, that seems like a good explanation. I am surprised that they were not simply “disappeared”. There must still be a bit of human decency out there.
Prof. Coyne writes: “Note the claim above that immigrants who entered illegally “committed no crimes beyond lacking proper documentation.” But that is a crime!”
Not necessarily. Most undocumented immigrants in the U.S. are only guilty of a civil offense, not a criminal offense.
Here’s what AI says about that:
Grok is correct.
BUT…..
Many illegals are re-entering the US after they have been deported previously. Usually this is a specific felony as an entry bar is attached upon their deportation (most of the time).
So re-entries are probably committing a felony.
D.A.
NYC
That is why I wrote that “most” undocumented immigrants are only guilty of a civil offense rather than a criminal offense. I was thinking of the statistic that most undocumented immigrants are visa-overstays, people who entered the U.S. legally but did not leave….
That’s true, fellow Dave. A very large p/c are (were) here legally, overstayed. If they have a bar on entry (often 5-10 years) they don’t pass the airport.
I really meant illegal entrants, border hoppers.
heheh Class difference!
Keep well,
D.A.
NYC
Even if the illegal alien has committed no crime at all, the government still has the administrative remedy of deportation of any alien who has no valid current documentation or is undesirable. Here’s an example: a foreigner applies for and receives an education visa valid for two years, say. During her time in the U.S., the State Dept. receives “derogatory information” about that person. (She burned a U.S. flag at a demonstration and called for the overthrow of the U.S. republic, or attempted to sway public opinion against American foreign policy toward an ally.) Or perhaps she flunked out of her course of study and de-registered from her school. Whatever, State revokes her visa. She hasn’t committed any crime under U.S. law but no longer has valid “documentation”. She must leave the country immediately. If she doesn’t, ICE will arrest her and deport her under the rules of administrative process, which may involve taking her before an immigration judge to verify ICE followed its rules. No conviction is necessary.
When ICE raids locations where aliens without documentation congregate and arrest them, again the issue is not to convict them of crimes. It’s to remove them from the country. I don’t think you are seriously arguing that the government can’t deport undocumented aliens wherever it finds them. It can deport anyone who is not a citizen.
I think you are reading more into my simple observation than I intended. I am certainly NOT arguing that the U.S. government cannot deport anyone it wants. I was simply bouncing off the statistic that, for years, most undocumented immigrants in the U.S. were visa over-stays. There was no illegal entry, just the civil offense of “unauthorized presence in the U.S.” I would not condemn all undocumented immigrants as criminals any more than — I hope — no one would brand me as a criminal because I broke the law 4 times this morning: exceeding the speed limit twice on the way to the grocery store; an illegal right-on-red at 6:45 a.m. when there were no other cars in sight; and jay-walking. I just hope my confession here does not get me stripped of my citizenship and deported.
Your citizenship can’t be revoked for breaking laws minor or serious. That’s a non sequitur and mischievously misrepresents what the Trump Administration is doing. If you have no other citizenship it can’t be revoked for any reason because no person can be made stateless. If you are a naturalized citizen and still have your birth citizenship, you can lose one of them under certain circumstances. There was a dual citizen of Canada and the UK who went abroad to fight for ISIS. Neither Britain nor Canada wanted to repatriate him from whatever desert hell-hole he ended up being incarcerated in. The British beat us to the punch by stripping him of his British citizenship, which meant we couldn’t strip him of his Canadian citizenship. We immobilized him by the simple expedient of revoking his passport, which means he can’t board an international flight. If he swims to Halifax and can prove he’s a Canadian citizen we’ll have to let him in.
Even permanent residents (who aren’t citizens by definition) can be deported if they have been convicted of crimes. In Canada the rule is that if the sentence is more than six months in jail*, the immigrant has to be deported upon being released, even if paroled sooner. US Homeland Security has recently advised that Canadian holders of Green Cards who committed serious crimes even many years ago who were not deported, will be.
Some critics argue that Homeland Security should not deport illegal aliens who merely overstayed their visas many years ago and haven’t committed any other crimes, because it seems “wrong” somehow. The rebuttal is that this is the group ICE should target if it is trying to deter the large group of fellow visa over-stayers. No, you won’t win a de facto amnesty if you can evade the authorities long enough. No matter how many children you raised in the United States, if we catch you you are going back to where you were born. If your country won’t take you back, you might be on a plane to Rwanda.
(* Canadian law doesn’t have the concept of felonies and misdemeanours, so it’s difficult to translate what such an equivalent crime would be in the US, and to make it confusing we don’t use grand juries for our “indictable” offences. Nor do we have the concept of a “civil offence” against the Crown. In a contract dispute you could sue the Crown for non-payment and the Crown could sue you for non-delivery, just like any other civil lawsuit. There’s no concept of guilt in a civil proceeding as we understand it.)
The video of the cat and the baby is AI according to several people on the thread. It’s getting harder to tell.
What made me dubious about the video is that whoever was filming just impassively watched the baby fall, without doing a thing to stop it. People may be rotters, in general, but they’re not that bad.
But I agree: AI is getting far too good. I really hate that a part of my mind is always asking “is this real?” when I see videos these days. It may help me avoid being duped, but at the same time, it really spoils my enjoyment.
Yes, I suspected that may have been faked; there are too many videos where the filmer just stands there when a near-disaster happens.
As a cis het peahen, I strongly approve of male peacocking. We need more of it. You and Steven are on your way to forming a lek.
On a much drearier note, how the hell can Trump ‘forgive’ restitution to Santos’ victims? It’s their effing money, not his! He’s as good as saying, tough luck suckers (who are, just incidentally, among the American citizens Trump claims to defend): if you’re defrauded by any of my loyalists, you don’t have a right to your money. They do.
I think “victims of fraud have no right to have their money returned” was one of the lessons taught by Trump University back in the before times.
Oh right! There are so many legal atrocities connected with Trump that I forgot about that one. I shouldn’t have been surprised.
Beautiful boots! My wife went to Nashville a number of years back on business and came home with some wonderful red cowboy boots. I love when she wears them, although I do wish that she had gotten boots for me, too!
I want Israel to adhere to the agreement until Hamas breaks it definitively. Failing to return all of the dead hostages on time is not definitive, as there is room for doubt over whether Hamas really has them or not. (Returning hostages a couple at a time when Israel raises hell does suggest that Hamas is withholding bodies, but it’s not definitive—or “definitive enough” in my view.) Hamas will break the agreement definitely at some point, and Israel will need to respond. But I want the U.S. and the other partners in the region to see the response as justified—whether they say so publicly or not.
George Santos is both a criminal and a nutcase. He was allowed to go free prematurely, but so long as we never hear from him again that may be acceptable. The problem is that he may be able to put together a comeback—undoubtedly via more of his shenanigans. He may emerge as the long, lost seventh Earl of Glockenspiel. If that happens, let’s hope that people recognize who he really is.
I read about the kosher restaurant chain and was saddened at the injustice. Is “Social Justice” really anything more than a slogan for justifying another form of hate? I cringe when I visit the many web sites of Jewish synagogues in our area and elsewhere and they list “social justice” as one of their initiatives. They need to rethink the company they keep.
Awwww. McChicken is such a cute kitty!
Norman, a few years ago, I took it upon myself to try to understand some of this post modern mishigas so I would be able to make sense of things, but maybe more importanrly so that I could explain it to my friends who were bright and mostly retired professionals might get it. The simple explanation I gave them on “social justice” was that lower case social justice was a good thing that we should strive for, but that kendi’s and others capitalized “Social Justice” was racist bullshit (neo-racist Coleman Hughes might say) to be called out as such at every opportunity. So if your shul strives for social justice, that is good, but if they support Social Justice as an initiative, that should definitely be rethunk!
It looks to me like the kitten is having an identity crisis over its name.
Love the sprites!! And that photo of Andrzej and Hili is probably the sweetest one that has ever appeared on this website. I’m so happy they have each other.
I think the peacock boots win the show. Take THAT Pinker! 🙂
D.A.
NYC
Re the cease-fire, which negotiators say was hammered out at a high level and left some details to be worked out on the fly — yes, technically “some details” is not inaccurate, but it is misleading; more accurate would have been “the most difficult aspects”. And IMO “on the fly” would more accurately be “in your dreams,” the same ongoing dreams as the Oslo “final status agreement”.
“On the fly” = “In your dreams!”
I like. 👍
And, frequently late o the discussion, I also like this:
“technically “some details” is not inaccurate, but it is misleading; more accurate would have been “the most difficult aspects”.”
Late to this thread, but I’ll add. I don’t often drink gin, but when I do, it’s Bombay Sapphire.
Those peacock boots are indeed the GOAT.
Years ago, in college, I met Tom Stoppard, and he was wearing a handsome pair of blue cowboy boots.
Regarding emigration to western countries, there is a distinct disconnect on the progressive (rather than left) side. Most western societies have an inherent social contract whereby we pay taxes and social insurance based on the idea that this payment funds things like pensions, unemployment benefit and in many countries, free or low cost health services.
Unfettered immigration, at least in the European context breaks this contract. As a bit of context, I saw a statistic a while back that the cost of the 2015 wave of immigration from the middle east to Sweden exceeded the cost of the entire Swedish health system at the time.
On purely Peter Singer- style moral grounds it is the ‘correct’ choice but as societies we cannot exist using such calculus (who would choose to feed five starving children from the third world rather than one of their own children?)
Looking across the water from Europe it seemed like the US had a much easier problem to solve. Shutting down the border stops the increase in migrants, while removing those with criminal records gets rid of those that the electorate worry about most. You are still left with a lot of undocumented migrants but, unlike in Europe, most are not a burden to the social welfare system (they are not able to avail of government pensions and free healthcare). It seems to me that a compromise could be reached where those undocumented who have been present for a long time without gaining a criminal record could be deemed safe and granted leave to remain, while those who have only been in the US for a short time would not. The critical point here is that using long term crime free residency is a useful vetting process that could identify the set of migrants who are politically viable – many of whom are ingrained in the US economy as manual workers and whose removal comes at a cost.
Due to the disconnect, the Democrats and similar parties are being voted out in country after country. There are two viable alternatives: right-wing populist parties, or leftist parties such as the social democrats in Denmark who have woken up and smelled the coffee.
FWIW, Fetterman’s visit to M’Lago was just before the inauguration. Just before that and just after that, his wife Gisele was in Braddock, running her Free Store.