Welcome to CaturSaturday, November 22, 2025 and shabbos for Jewish cats. In South Korea it’s National Kimchi Day (most North Koreans don’t have the privilege of getting kimchi). Below is a video about an angry woman who was kimchi-shamed for making the condiment on her kitchen floor:
It’s also National Cranberry Relish Day, and Humane Society Anniversary Day,
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the November 1 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*Trump wants and end to the war in Ukraine, and he wants it to happen by Ukraine giving up some of its territory. Some way to make peace: allowing a dictator to invade another country and proclaim “peace in our time”. As I recall, that happened with Hitler and Neville Chamberlain.
President Trump said he wants Ukraine to accept a sweeping U.S. deal to end its nearly four-year old war with Russia by Thanksgiving, giving Kyiv less than a week to decide whether to agree to a draft plan that would make major concessions to Russia.
“Thursday is, we think, an appropriate time,” Trump told Fox News Radio’s Brian Kilmeade in response to a question about whether he has given Ukraine a Thanksgiving deadline to agree to the plan. “We’re in it for one thing. We want the killing to stop.”
Trump suggested he may extend the deadline “if things are working well.” But he noted that Ukraine forces were on the verge of losing more territory in the Donbas region to Russia. Trump also said that Russian President Vladimir Putin would “be stopped” and “is not looking for more war.” Putin, Trump added, is “taking punishment.”
The 28-point U.S. plan includes territorial concessions, a cap on the size of Ukraine’s active duty military and other provisions that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has previously rejected, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
More about the plan from another WSJ article, plus a map of what would apparently go to Russia (the reddish region below):
A draft of the blueprint posted online that the White House confirmed was authentic calls for Ukraine to cede the eastern Donbas region now under its control to Moscow and accept Russia’s de facto control of other parts of Ukraine where the front line would be frozen.
Ukraine’s military would be capped at 600,000 personnel and its goal of joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would be foreclosed.
Taken together, the proposals seek to address many of Putin’s longstanding demands for ending the war. The inducements offered to Ukraine are far more limited, reflecting Trump’s prioritization of ending the bloodshed over maintaining U.S. support for the target of the Kremlin’s 2022 all-out invasion.
Many of the White House ideas were so at odds with longstanding Ukrainian positions that some analysts called the blueprint a nonstarter for negotiations.
In addition to the 28-point plan, a separate U.S. document lays out security guarantees White House officials are prepared to offer Ukraine in case Russia renews the war, including “intelligence and logistical assistance” or “other steps judged appropriate” after consultations with allies. It doesn’t commit the U.S. to provide direct military assistance, a copy of the document reviewed by The Wall Street Journal shows. The guarantees would last 10 years and could be extended.
. . .Russian forces continue to advance in eastern Ukraine, while Moscow’s attacks on Ukraine’s energy systems have left much of the country with electricity for only a few hours a day.
The Trump administration has plenty of levers it could pull to increase pressure on Zelensky to try to coax him into agreeing to the deal, such as cutting off intelligence assistance or provision of weapons.
This is a losing plan for Ukraine; Russia gets everything and Ukraine almost nothing. If Russia complies they’ll even be allowed to rejoin the Group of Eight and many of the sanctions imposed on the country by the U.S. would be lifted. But what choice does Zelensky have? He’s begging for help from other European countries, but they aren’t going to help much. Trump has, by allowing Putin to take what he wants, set a bad precedent.
*Trump called some Democratic congresspeople “traitors” on Thursday because they urged people in the military not to follow unlawful orders. He even reminded them that the penalty for sedition is death.
The threats came in response to a video released Tuesday of six Congress members with military or intelligence experience, who cautioned that “threats to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad, but from right here at home.” The message appeared to rattle a president who is known for seeking retribution against his perceived foes and who has successfully lobbied for federal investigations of their conduct, upending enduring norms that insulate federal law enforcement from political influence.
It was not immediately clear which orders concerned the lawmakers, but some representatives have said they are hearing from service members questioning the legality of strikes that have targeted people the Trump administration alleges are trafficking narcotics by sea.
This Truth Social post was reproduced in Nellie’s column at the link below:
If no orders were specified by the Congresspeople, then there’s no sedition: it is in fact fine to refuse to obey an unlawful order. Nevertheless, the six Congresspeople who made the video are now under 24/7 protection because they’ve received a number of threats.
*Trump met with Zohran Mamdani yesterday, and I wonder who set up that meeting.
Before (Friday afternoon):
After months of trading attacks, President Trump and Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City, will meet on Friday at the White House.
The outcome of their meeting — and their relationship in the coming months — could be hugely consequential for the nation’s largest city, and the dynamics are complicated.
Mr. Mamdani, 34, has been known to disarm high-powered skeptics with charm and a willingness to listen and engage. But if he treats Mr. Trump with kid gloves, Mr. Mamdani’s backers may feel that he has betrayed his progressive roots.
Mr. Trump faces a similar conundrum. He has spent months belittling Mr. Mamdani, falsely calling him a communist, threatening to arrest him and warning that he would bring ruin to New York City.
He views Mr. Mamdani as a liability for Democrats in the midterm elections next year, and would not seem to be motivated to do anything that might help him — he even gave Mr. Mamdani’s chief primary rival, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, his endorsement on the eve of Election Day. At the same time, it is unlikely that the president wishes to be seen as contributing to the city’s decline.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on Thursday “it speaks volumes” that a “communist” was going to the White House. (Mr. Mamdani is a democratic socialist.)
After (Saturday morning):
President Trump and Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City, put on a remarkable display of bonhomie in the Oval Office on Friday, with Mr. Trump showering praise on the democratic socialist and promising to help him succeed.
Just weeks ago, Mr. Trump was warning New York voters that electing Mr. Mamdani would amount to an existential threat to the nation’s largest city.
“I expect to be helping him, not hurting him — a big help,” Mr. Trump said, adding, “I think this mayor can do some things that are going to be really great.”
For his part, Mr. Mamdani, who had vowed on the campaign trail to stand up to the president, called their meeting “productive” and said that he looked forward to working with Mr. Trump to improve life in New York.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Mamdani, who had lobbed labels like “communist” and “despot” at each other during a mayoral campaign filled with vitriol, nodded approvingly as each spoke and struck an optimistic tone with reporters. But they also sidestepped questions that might have highlighted their most polarizing positions.
This is all phony, of course; these guys hate each other’s guts and this was a fake show of amity. But it wouldn’t do if Trump were to say, as he was surely thinking, “I’m going to destroy this Communist.”
*As always, I’ll steal a few items from Nellie Bowles’s weekly news-and-snark summary, called this week: “TGIF: His emails.”
→ We are all little piggies: Epstein is in the air, and everyone is talking like a creep. A female reporter asked Trump this week, “What did Jeffrey Epstein mean in his emails when he said you ‘knew about the girls’? ” Trump’s response:
“I know nothing about that. They would have announced that a long time ago. It’s really what did he mean when he spent all the time with Bill Clinton, with the president of Harvard. . . . With respect to all of those people that he knew including JPMorgan Chase. Yeah, Jennifer, go ahead, go ahead. Quiet, quiet, piggy.”
Piggy? Republicans remain baffled over why young women are allergic to the party. I can’t imagine why. I go over it again and again and come up with no possible reasons why women would feel weird with that response, and so I tell myself quiet, quiet piggy. Michelle Obama might’ve been correct that we are not ready for a Miss Piggy Presidency. I do think it’s funny that Dems are trying to make the Epstein files a Trump thing when the Epstein files are an everyone thing. And if we had to pick, this little piggy honestly seemed mostly to circulate in elite lib spaces (seemingly every professor at MIT and Harvard; heck, even I met him once right before the end, when he wanted an NYT profile). Sharon Waxman at The Wrap has a great take on this: “The Epstein Emails Show That Conspiracy Theorists Are Right: ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ Is Real.” She writes that it’s not partisan but almost worse, that Epstein’s emails show a vast American elite who were completely involved in his sexual exploits. Amid all the pressure, President Donald Trump went wee wee wee all the way home and announced on social media Wednesday night that he had signed a bill directing the Department of Justice to publicly release all its Epstein-related files. And apropos of nothing, The Phantom of the Opera was blasting at the White House the other day (why not double down on the creepy factor).
→ Great news about autism: Looks like that spike in autism might just be Somali fraudsters gaming the system to siphon money to the al-Shabaab terrorist group back home. Yes, today I bring you a City Journal article headlined: “The Largest Funder of Al-Shabaab Is the Minnesota Taxpayer.” A ton of Somali immigrants to Minnesota are gaming the autism diagnosis system and setting up fake treatment centers to get taxpayer cash. And a lot of it. From the article: “Autism claims to Medicaid in Minnesota have skyrocketed in recent years—from $3 million in 2018 to. . . $399 million in 2023.” Honestly, I’m not a taxpayer in Minnesota so this seems like a them problem. But I’m a worried mom, and I love hearing that autism rates are being inflated by scammers. We’re healthier than we thought. That’s great news.
There’s a long article about this Somali corruption in City Journal, and Trump has said he’ll deport them all:
→ How are things for the Jews? Well, this week a crowd of protesters gathered outside a New York synagogue to yell “Death to the IDF” and “globalize the intifada.” The synagogue was hosting an organization that helps Jews move to Israel. Not to a settlement—just to Israel, the country. Like, just moving to Tel Aviv. I’m sure keffiyeh-clad protesters screaming death, death at a synagogue will discourage those Jews from moving to the one place Jews can eat a falafel pita on the beach and not get spat on. But logic doesn’t matter. The goal is to find Jews and scream death until there’s enough consensus that it can be more than screams. Ohhh, actually! Maybe Birthright Israel hired actors to yell at synagogues to increase aliyah. Now that would make sense.
Our mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is reportedly supporting New York State Assembly candidate Aber Kawas, who has called 9/11 a terror attack that “a couple of people did,” and a product of “the system of capitalism, and racism, and white supremacy, etc., and Islamophobia.” Meanwhile, a top member of Mamdani’s transition team, Hassaan Chaudhary, has used Jew as a slur and praised former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who said Israel is “a cancer which will be eliminated soon.” Chaudhary—now noted as Mamdani’s political director and formerly his campaign’s director of Muslim engagement—also once called Israel “barbaric” and a “bloody country.” (He issued a very formal-sounding apology.). . . . [there’s more]
I’m telling you, Mamdani is an antisemite, but is hiding it well.
*As for Trump’s calling a woman reporter (Mary Bruce of ABC News) “Piggy,” which is about as disgusting as you can get, especially for a President, the White House Press Secretary had her usual non-explanation:
Last week, President Trump snapped at a journalist when she asked him about Jeffrey Epstein. “Quiet!” the president told Catherine Lucey, a reporter for Bloomberg News. “Quiet, piggy.”
Mr. Trump’s use of a schoolyard epithet raised eyebrows. “Disgusting and completely unacceptable,” scolded CNN’s Jake Tapper. A press watchdog group said that “targeting women reporters with humiliating insults should not be tolerated.”
On Thursday, Mr. Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, put a different spin on the remark.
“I think everyone in this room should appreciate the frankness and the openness that you get from President Trump on a near-daily basis,” Ms. Leavitt told reporters during a briefing in the West Wing.
Ms. Leavitt, who was asked by a journalist to explain what Mr. Trump had meant when he used the term “piggy,” presented the following logic:
“The president is very frank and honest with everyone in this room. You’ve seen it yourself. You’ve all experienced it yourselves. And I think it’s one of the many reasons that the American people re-elected this president, because of his frankness. And he calls out fake news when he sees it. He gets frustrated with reporters when you lie about him, when you spread fake news about him and his administration.”
She added: “The president being frank and open and honest to your faces, rather than hiding behind your backs, is, frankly, a lot more respectful than what you saw in the last administration.”
(Ms. Leavitt was seeking to draw a contrast between Mr. Trump, who fields questions from reporters on a near-daily basis, and former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who met infrequently with the press.)
You won’t find anybody who defends Trump’s idiotic remarks more fiercely than Leavitt, but of course that’s her job. But “piggy”? How is that being “frank and honest”. It is in fact insulting. (It could have been worse if Bruce were chubby, but in fact she’s not fat and is pretty attractive, so the origin of “piggy” is a mystery. Remember, this man has more than three years to go pulling stuff like this (he’s also repeatedly intimated that he wants to pull ABC’s broadcasting license, but there’s no way that’s gonna fly.
*The moral arc is bending upward. The Canadian government has introduced a bill that prevents animals like elephants and great apes from being put into captivity. This is the announcement from the Canadian government itself:
The Government of Canada is committed to protecting wildlife. This includes protecting wild species of special concern in captivity, such as elephants and great apes, building on Canada’s whale and dolphin captivity laws.
On November 21, 2023, the Government of Canada introduced Bill S-15, which would prohibit the new ownership of elephants and great apes in Canada, unless a permit or licence has been issued for either the best interest of the animal’s welfare or conservation, or scientific research, subject to potential conditions.
Elephants are self-aware, highly social, and emotional, with vast home ranges in Africa and Asia. Captive elephants can exhibit serious health, behavioural, and reproductive problems, as well as shorter lifespans. In Canada, elephants have been used in the past for performances for entertainment purposes, which this Bill would ban. Due to Canada’s climate, they must spend significant time indoors during the winter. Over 20 captive elephants live in Canada.
Great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans)—humanity’s closest living relatives—are self-aware, highly social, and emotional, with complex habitats. Great apes in unsuitable conditions can exhibit serious health and behavioural problems. At the same time, all great apes are endangered, and accredited captive breeding programs may have conservation and scientific value. Approximately 30 captive great apes live in Canada.
Bill S-15 builds on Canada’s federal whale and dolphin captivity laws, adopted by Parliament in 2019. Bill S-15 also follows the introduction of Senate public bills on elephant and great ape captivity by the Honourable Murray Sinclair in 2020, and the Honourable Marty Klyne in 2022. Senator Klyne will sponsor Bill S-15 and delivered a speech on the Bill in the Senate earlier today.
Bill S-15 fulfills the Government of Canada’s mandate commitment to introduce legislation to protect wild animals in captivity. Bill S-15 also follows the announcement of Environment and Climate Change Canada’s new regulations to fulfill the Government’s mandate commitment to curb the trade in elephant ivory and rhino horn. In addition, the Government of Canada will engage with provinces, territories, and stakeholders to discuss the potential value of a national approach to protecting animal welfare and public safety for captive wildlife.
You can see the bill here, and I wholeheartedly approve. Sentient animals should not be put in prison, and we’ve all seen them get neurotic, pacing back and forth in their small cages. In fact, the only animals that should be in zoos are those where one can simulate their natural habitat and give them a lot of space. Those might include some reptiles and insects, but it’s time to stop taking animals from the wild and using them for entertainment. Mencken had it right in his 1918 essay, “The Zoo“. They are there not for educational purposes, but to make money. Animals are not entertainment, and there are plenty of YouTube videos showing their behavior in the wild. A quote from Mencken:
But zoos, it is argued, are of scientific value. They enable learned men to study this or that. Again the facts blast the theory. No scientific discovery of any value whatsoever, even to the animals themselves, has ever come out of a zoo. The zoo scientist is the old woman of zoology, and his alleged wisdom is usually exhibited, not in the groves of actual learning, but in the yellow journals. He is to biology what the late Camille Flammarion was to astronomy, which is to say, its court jester and reductio ad absurdum. When he leaps into public notice with some new pearl of knowledge, it commonly turns out to be no more than the news that Marie Bashkirtseff, the Russian lady walrus, has had her teeth plugged with zinc and is expecting twins. Or that Pishposh, the man-eating alligator, is down with locomotor ataxia. Or that Damon, the grizzly, has just finished his brother Pythias in the tenth round, chewing off his tail, nose and remaining ear.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is committing rodenticide, and I don’t like it.
Hili: I killed a mouse.
Andrzej: Why?
Hili: You could call it a conflict of interest.
In Polish:
Hili: Zabiłam mysz.
Ja: Dlaczego?
Hili: Można to nazwać konfliktem interesów.
*******************
From The English Language Police II; how many mistakes can you find? The penultimate one is the best:
From CinEmma:
From The Dodo Pet (missing an apostrophe which they could borrow from above):
From Luana: Graduate schools of education are pretty dire. . .
Oh this is hilarious. Sad but hilarious.
This study finds (and others confirm) that a teacher earning a graduate degree has a NEGATIVE effect on student achievement
Attending a graduate school of education literally makes teachers WORSE at their job pic.twitter.com/Gyt8xSoS3k
— Daniel Buck, “Youngest Old Man in Ed Reform” (@MrDanielBuck) November 19, 2025
From Malcolm, who doesn’t like this either, but it’s worth seeing.
Cutting cat shaped cakes in front of cats
[🎞️ tin.ca214 / Sora, ai]pic.twitter.com/oATuqbWiQ4
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) November 5, 2025
An older one from Luana posted after Greta’s second attempt to reach Gaza on the “Freedom Flotilla”:
Breaking: The Swedish Foreign Ministry confirms Greta never reported any abuse to the Swedish diplomats who repeatedly visited her in Israeli custody. Israeli court transcripts likewise show she made no such claims before the judge.
Instead, she refused to sign a deportation… pic.twitter.com/Ytar4dJRgq
— Daniel Schatz (@drdanielschatz) October 18, 2025
Two from my feed (readers are invited, of course, to send me tweets). First, the increasingly toxic Oxford Union:
The Oxford Union used to host the brightest minds on earth. Now it’s a cesspit of screaming children who can’t hold a basic conversation. pic.twitter.com/SwUCP41WZG
— Samantha Smith (@SamanthaTaghoy) November 20, 2025
And a true avian belly dance:
belly dance pic.twitter.com/QZFP1Ox7jU
— Manoco (@Moonlighhy) November 20, 2025
One that I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial:
A French Jewish girl (left) was gassed to death as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz. She was thirteen. https://t.co/vuUYJpngkF
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) November 22, 2025
. . . and two from Dr. Cobb. First, a “Happy Friday” post:
Happy Friday (Five Little Kittens, 1955)Artist: A Macgregor
— Helen Day (@lbflyawayhome.bsky.social) 2025-11-21T08:10:30.786Z
. . and another cat-related cartoon:
It never fails… ▪️ A recent commission for a cat loving bibliofile.
— Landis Blair (@landisblair.bsky.social) 2025-11-17T19:49:15.200Z
UK news “Dozens of children will be given puberty blockers on the NHS from early next year after a trial was granted ethical approval. The study by King’s College London will recruit about 250 girls and boys aged 10 to 15 who identify as transgender, and who have parental consent. […]
“The trial is meant to fill an evidence gap about how best to treat gender dysphoria in children, but critics have threatened a High Court challenge to stop it, saying recruiting to the study is like putting “lambs to the slaughter”.” (paywalled link)
Other UK News: “The University of Manchester suspended Peter Pormann, banned him from campus and described him as a “potential risk to colleagues” after he used [the n word in a meeting]. No students were present.
“Sources familiar with the situation said Pormann, 54, a classics professor and philologist — a student of words and language — rejected the allegation and had used the word in reference to its entry in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) to explain how the meanings and usage of words change.” (paywalled link)
Wow. Manchester used to be a serious university. Now it seem to have sunk as low as Oxford. Not that I mean to denigrate anyone….
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
What loneliness is more lonely than distrust? -George Eliot (pen name of Mary Ann Evans), novelist (22 Nov 1819-1880)
The Oxford Union video looks like Jonathan last year when he and his team, which included Natasha Haussdorff batting clean-up did such a superb job in countering the put-up job Israeli resolution by Oxford Union officials.
I thought I saw that just in the last couple of weeks the Oxford Union has gained new, rational leadership. Maybe Coel or Jez or Matthew knows something about that?
After Israel I follow the economics/politics of Russia quite closely as a frame for studying the Ukraine war – I think it is the biggest factor. And I understand finance better than the military stuff – however fun that is. 🙂
Putin has REALLY overleveraged the Russian economy. Kicking “the can” down the road big time and the problem just grows the further he kicks. I guess he thinks he can keep kicking and stave off bankruptcy LONGER than Ukraine can hold out (before Ukr. runs out of men to get killed – a finite resource).
For some economic reasons (made-up money into the war economy)… it’d be hard for Putin to stop the war.
Damn I hope Ukraine “wins” though. Like in Israel, it is the border of.. civilization.
D.A.
NYC
Does anyone know what bird that is doing the belly dance? Or is this just another AI-created video? Thanks!
Hmm, got lucky with a screen shot, and google identified it as a White-browed Bushchat (Saxicola macrorhynchus), also known as Stoliczka’s Bushchat.
From Wikipedia: “This desert specialist has a small, declining population because of agricultural intensification and encroachment, which qualifies it as vulnerable.
The white-browed bush chat is found in an area of semi-arid country in north-western India and eastern Pakistan.”
Exactly. And I would expect a similar outcome for Europe this time around.
“I’ll have two OAPs at £6.90 each, please”.
These idiots with the cat cakes should be locked up for cruelty to animals. I hope they got covered in scratches.
The reference to Hitler and Neville Chamberlain is inexact, as the Munich appeasement occurred before Hitler’s direct outright aggressions. An analogue to Trump’s plan would be a peace plan, offered in early May 1940, that Hitler keep western Poland and all of Denmark and Norway, and with provisions limiting the sovereignty of France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
🎯
If intentional infliction of emotional harm is actionable regarding animals, lock ’em up. If however they are just garden-variety involuntary idiots, community service cleaning cattery litter boxes should suffice.
“And I would expect a similar outcome for Europe this time around.”
Do I correctly understand that your expectation and the current state of affairs is due to a Russia-led Warsaw Pact-like military alliance expanding westward during the past three decades (having reneged on an agreement not to move one inch westward in exchange for the reunification of Germany)?
Dems telling soldiers to disobey unlawful orders is just another tactic in avoiding the consequences of the fact that the Dems and their policies were rejected in the last national election. Soldiers can, indeed, disobey unlawful orders, but their scope for determining on their own what is an unlawful order is very limited, and, of course, a soldier who disobeys a lawful order would be in a lot of trouble. The Dems don’t carry about that. Rep. Jason Crow was on Fox News with Martha Callum this week, and, in response to being asked four times to name an unlawful order that Trump issued, he couldn’t.
Why is it that so many problems in this country—homelessness, illegal immigration, crime, drugs, entitlement fraud—seem to be things that the Dems want more of? Trump could go away, but the Dems would still be wrong.
Also, Ukraine has lost the war. It is unfortunate, but no one should expect that peace can be had as if they had won. Zelensky originated the tactic that the Dems tried with the shutdown: stick your fingers in your ears and go la-la-la until the other guys get tired and give up. In the meantime, people suffer.
This comment is so hilariously wrong on so many levels that I don’t even know where to begin. I guess it’s just a sign of someone just lucky enough to be born into a country that hit the geographical jackpot and isn’t under any non-nuclear threat.
Yeah.. those idiot Ukrainians dying for their freedom and sovereignty. A concept totally alien to a US conservative.
Well, Canada, also a geographically lucky country, is not going to lift even a finger for Ukraine, so we can’t criticize America from this quarter for saying enough is enough after contributing far more. And I’m not sure that U.S. forces don’t face a non-nuclear threat to its deployed naval ships from submarines and air-launched long-range anti-ship missiles. That was the Cold War scenario. Eventually Putin is going to take a chance if his army is on the point of collapse with his war aims out of reach due to American escalation. All of Ukraine is not worth to the U.S. the disabling of an aircraft carrier especially if the Navy had to let the Russkies shoot first.
US forces deployed abroad are not the USA. The nation of the US doesn’t face any non-nuclear threat to its sovereignty.
Canada is not as lucky, as it shares a long border with a larger, militarily superior neighbor.
US citizens don’t have to contemplate potential subjugation.
Also, the US is doing very little in the way of support. It shares intelligence that helps reduce casualties from Russian air strikes. Allowing allies to buy weapons at market value is not support.
Maybe Trump’s art of the deal is coming through where he refuses European money in order to gain nothing on the world stage.
Yes very “unfortunate” to be invaded and to have to defend yourself. Of coarse empathy for Ukrainian sovereignty and freedom won’t win a war however Zelenskyy didn’t run when the russian invasion commenced and neither did the Ukrainian people. Zelenskyy knows very well what current threat and future the Ukrainian people are under and to call him out “la la la” is an insult to those brave people who seem to have a few more clues of what democracy and freedom mean than dems and reps, which seems like nasty vindictiveness and petty.
I would not hold up the US political shit show as a value of anything worth mentioning when it comes to actually fighting for your right to self determination, democracy and freedoms we enjoy.
Wait, what Dr. B?
I must dissent. Ukraine has humbled what we all thought – all our lives Dr. B., was the 2nd most powerful, terrifying force on the planet – and has shown it to be barely the 2nd most powerful army … in Ukraine.
It has shown their Evil Empire to be a thoughtless, callous deeply corrupt inefficent monster failure. Which can’t deliver on its promises and can barely hold its broken, snowy, ruined country together.
And the kerfuffle of our Dems or GoPs, our wokes or magas, pales into insignificance at the coal face of civilization which runs through Eastern Ukraine.
D.A.
NYC
If iDJT pulls the plug and Europe folds like a house of cards, then it’s time for Ukraine to deploy the suicide-grandma assassination squad. (See my previous post on the subject.)
Trump, unsuprisingly, spelled Tim Walz’s name wrong in his tweet (it’s not Waltz).
Captive animals:
The Canadian Government normally introduces bills that it wants to pass as Government policy into the House of Commons, the elected lower House of Parliament, not the Senate, which is appointed (traditionally a sinecure for long loyal party members and bagmen, and compliant retired journalists and TV personalities) and has only advisory power. A “Government bill” that reaches a vote in the House must pass or risk triggering an election for loss of confidence. Only Government Commons bills normally become law because the Government controls the elected legislative House. It doesn’t let Parliament pass any old law it takes a collective mind to that might contradict or hobble Government policy.
Not so the Senate. Passage or defeat there has no legislative or political impact because no one in Canada cares what the Senate does. If the bill passes in the Senate, the Government isn’t obligated to move it to the Commons where it could become law, and almost certainly the Government will not do that. Presumably the reason for introducing this bill in the largely ceremonial Senate is so the fragile Liberal minority Government doesn’t have to stake its confidence on what is clearly a politically trivial but possibly contentious matter if it had actual consequences, such as the fall of the Government if the Opposition wanted an excuse to trigger an election. Think of suburban parents tearing their hair out about coming up with ways to entertain their children during long school breaks who are glad the zoo is on their list.
The guiding principle in Canadian government is subterfuge. In arranging for this bill to be introduced in the Senate, the Government presumably had some political purpose — indigenous kow-towing perhaps, given the reference to former Senator Murray Sinclair — , but banning zoos from replenishing their display animals certainly isn’t it. Sorry.
I’m not entirely persuaded that the lot of captive animals is in all cases as bad as sometimes portrayed. In some zoos, the lions get artificially heated rocks to snooze on, and primates get fruit treats placed on tree branches for them. Maybe the film “Madagascar”, beside being very funny, contained some reality.
Totally agree that sentient beings should not be kept in captivity. The Canadian bill seems like a good one.
It’s not clear why President Trump is pushing Ukraine to accept a proposal that gives up territory and kneecaps future Ukrainian defense by cutting its armed forces in half. Why would Zelensky accept this “deal” except out of fear of losing U.S. support? My most charitable interpretation is that Trump really does want to see the killing stopped, but why is he pressing Ukraine to accept such a lopsided deal? My take is that he is impatient and wants to take a “short cut” to ending the war. But in doing so he is not taking sufficient account of what might happen in the future. If Russia is rewarded by getting part of Ukraine, it will be emboldened to go the rest of the way. So, in Trump, we may be seeing someone who sincerely wants the killing to stop—as he says repeatedly regarding Ukraine and other conflicts—but also someone who is impatient and not sufficiently forward-looking. A more cynical view is that he just wants credit for ending the war whatever the consequences. I am currently holding to the more charitable view, but my position is provisional.
Finally, as cruel as cutting cat cakes in front of cats appears, the video is fascinating. Do the (real) cats empathize with their glutinous brethren? Do they imagine the same happening to themselves? The video is interesting and may have implications regarding self-awareness.
Psychological experiments show that humans react strongly to images of maimed people, even when told beforehand that no-one was harmed in the making of them. It seems instinctive, which is reasonable.
“Cutting its armed forces in half”. Let’s start there.
There were peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul in 2022, soon after the invasion, which for various reasons came to naught. There, the Russians demanded that the Ukrainian standing army be capped at 85K, but the Ukrainians insisted on the right to a standing army at…250K. Now we are at a proposed cap of 600,000, which, though certainly smaller than the Ukrainian army now, while at war, would still be the second largest standing army in Europe (after Russia), would be larger than the U.K., French, and German armies combined. So spare me.
Secondly: The Maidan uprisings in 2014 were centered in large part over Ukraine’s desire to join the EU, which Russia undermined. Russia, in this deal, has agreed to allow Ukraine to join the EU. NATO, of course, is a different story.
I could go on. But the fact is that Ukraine has lost territory, including Crimea under Obama in 2014, and they are never getting it back militarily. And they are not getting it back under any conceivable diplomatic resolution either. Instead they are slowly losing this war, at great cost to their men and their infrastructure and will one day lose it all.
I get the anger at Russia for starting this war in 2022, and the resistance that Russia should actually gain from, rather than suffer consequences for, their unsupportable actions. I really do get it. But the question is, whether you want the slaughter and the destruction to continue, or whether you choose survival and another day.
And Right of Conquest is a thing. It’s why most of North America is English and not French, and why the United States is English-American and not Spanish or aboriginal. After 1945 the New World Order was supposed to render Right of Conquest obsolete by making all existing national borders inviolate forever, (except that they would decolonize), with the United Nations springing into action to punish violators.
Russia is going to exert Right of Conquest over the eastern portion of Ukraine, and maybe more of it in a future war. Yes it galls that Russia is going to gain territory from starting a war. But literally might makes right unless superior might can be marshalled against it. From Putin’s point of view there is no value in going home with nothing, after so much military effort. He might even be deposed and hanged. There is no “Supreme Court of Nations” that can rule Russia’s victory illegal and make it withdraw. Thank Ceiling Cat for that, or the same Court would be ruling that Israel has to fight the 1967 War over again, and lose this time.
“If no orders were specified by the Congresspeople, then there’s no sedition: it is in fact fine to refuse to obey an unlawful order.”
And because no specific orders were specified by the Congressmembers, it makes this political stunt a deeply irresponsible one. Every member of the officer corps—from which I have retired—knows that they should refuse to comply with unlawful orders. The junior ones count on the senior ones to have their backs and not relay unlawful orders in the first place.
This is lawyerly language in the video, with a vagueness meant to deflect responsibility and provide deniability while simultaneously sowing doubt about lawful orders: “This Administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens. . . . Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad but from right here at home.”
In what manner is the military being “pitted” against American citizens? They don’t say. Ah, unnamed “threats” rather than “attacks” against the Constitution. Menacing yet vague. They stepped right up to the line, knowing full well that young troops could hear this as “Our Constitution is under attack. American citizens are at risk. You have an obligation to refuse to obey. Right NOW! Your oath demands it.” Remind yourself that while we speak of “military professionals” a large share of the enlisted in uniform are akin to your freshmen and sophomore students, and as with many of that age are impulsive, impressionable, and prone to moral grandstanding. Even some in the junior officer corps are like hyperexcited first-year grad students—more velocity than vector.
If the President issued an unlawful order, name it. Show it is clearly unlawful and not in need of adjudication by the courts. Then stand on the Senate and House floors every day demanding impeachment. Hit the media circuit every day with specifics. Behind the scenes, consult with members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and, more importantly, the combatant commanders who hold chief responsibility for executing any military orders issued by the President, and have an even more frank discussion. Start with the recently-retired commander of US Southern Command and his successor; they are the ones who execute strikes against alleged drug boats.
That would be the proper way to exercise Congressional oversight. But, no, the “we’re just reminding you of your responsibilities, I mean, just in case” Congressmembers take this message directly to young troops and intimate that American citizens are currently threatened, and suggest that all the troops need is strength and backing to do the right thing and defy the President.
Sedition? No, but deeply irresponsible.
Yes. When I saw that commercial on TV I immediately thought that it was terrible—a purposeful and unhelpful provocation. If this is what’s meant by “muscular” Democratic opposition to Trump, it backfired. If you have an actual policy dispute with Trump, call it out. But if you’re implying that the chain of command is giving illegal orders without backing your claims up, shut up.
The ad was pretty clearly about hypothetical future orders. IF.
The cake/cat videos were very funny. We should all cut the cats some slack (in my opinion). I was fooled for a while.
For those interested in Ukraine, in the last few days both Preston Stewart and William Spaniel both have break downs of the TERRIBLE “deal” Ukraine is about to widely ignore and turn down …. politely so as not to anger a certain somebody in his new gold ballroom. 🙂
For my money.. the above two and (Aussie) “Perun” have by far the best analysis of the wars (Israel also). Respectively they are a former serviceman (Preston), an academic game theorist/I.R. analyst and a defense economics guy (Perun). I never miss any of their short daily or weekly youtube videos. The mainstream media is useless on Israel and sketchy and often vague and stupid on Ukraine. These chaps are top notch – hehe – better than my own column!
D.A.
NYC
@DavidandersonJd
I can recommend Niels Puck Andersen.
Spaniel is too blinded by bias.
It was theater, like much of politics, nothing more. The Orange Toddler responded exactly how he always does, with angry belligerence, designed to incite.
As for illegal orders, does deployment of national guard troops to do law enforcement count? That’s a serious question- I really don’t know. I’m not picking a fight here.
Oops meant as a reply to Doug’s excellent comment above.
That was awful, what they did to those poor kitties. It wasn’t funny, it was cruel. Those cats were terrified. I can see why their shocked responses are amusing but I don’t like that kind of humor at all.
I believe every one of the cats/cakes incidents were fake; all AI-produced. “tin.ca214 / Sora, ai” is in brackets above the initial photo and also a Sora watermark appears in the 2nd cat/cake incident. Be very aware these days.
Searches indicate that the video showing cutting cat shaped cakes in front of cats is an AI fake. You can also find AI fakes of people cutting parrot cakes in front of excited parrots.
Re Mr. Mamdani being a democratic socialist — he’s a Democratic Socialist.
Re graduate studies in “Education”, as you say above that zoo animals “are there not for educational purposes, but to make money”. There is some truth in the old jibe that those who can, do; those who can’t do, teach; and those who can’t teach, teach teachers. (And what about the Education professors who teach Education Education to the next generation?)
(For the record, I do know some excellent teachers.)
Donald T acts everywhere and anytime like a reality show character but the media insist considering him a “president” instead of laughing (I know there’s tragedy inside) at him whenever he opens his mouth. Mamdani is a well packaged and worded empty suit, in a way another reality star ready for any stunt. That’s why they got along so well
I don’t think a cat would mistake a cake — or any cat figurine — for another cat. Entirely different scent, for one thing!
On the other hand, though, I once showed a plushy armadillo I’d been given to a visiting cat, and he Did Not Like. I wasn’t trying to frighten him; I just thought he might be interested. But he floofed up a bit, then stood behind me (I was sitting on the floor.)
After a moment he looked at me, then cautiously reached out and batted the toy. Then he slapped the thing a few times to show it who was boss, and after that he ignored it.
Ha. When I first read “plushy armadillo” I thought it was a species of real armadillo. (We don’t have armadillos in Canada.. All I know is they have bands.) I was on tenterhooks to read what was about to happen!
Five mistakes in the English Language Police sign. And apostrophes are not that hard.