Welcome to The Cruelest Day: Tuesday, February 3, 2026, and National Carrot Cake Day, one of my favorite cakes even though it’s made with a vegetable. It must, however, have cream-cheese frosting, like this beauty I consumed in a Chicago restaurant on June, 2024. Note the generous size, the carrot curls on top, and the largesse of cream-cheese frosting:
It’s also American Painters Day, Four Chaplains Memorial Day (read their story here; their ship went down, and them with it, on this day in 1943), International Golden Retriever Day, National Women Physicians Day, and The Day the Music Died (the plane carrying the musicians crashed on this day in 1959). Here is a great American Painting: “The Gross Clinic“, painted by Thomas Eakins in 1875. Info from Wikipedia:
The painting is based on a surgery witnessed by Eakins, in which Gross treated a young man for osteomyelitis of the femur. Gross is pictured here performing a conservative operation, as opposed to the amputation normally carried out.
Here, surgeons crowd around the anesthetized patient in their frock coats—this is just prior to the adoption by American surgeons of a hygienic surgical environment (asepsis) which was becoming standard in Europe. Dr. Gross, in fact, regarded antiseptic surgery, or Listerism, as quackery until the end of his life. The Gross Clinic is thus often contrasted with Eakins’s later painting The Agnew Clinic (1889), which depicts a cleaner, brighter, surgical theater, with the participants in “white coats”. In comparing the two, the advance in understanding of the prevention of infection is seen. Another noteworthy difference in the later painting is the presence of a professional nurse, Mary Clymer, in the operating theater.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the February 3 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*The Rafah crossing from Gaza to Egypt has reopened, part of the cease-fire deal that, I suspect, will never be fully implemented.
The sole border crossing between Gaza and Egypt reopened on Monday after being largely closed for 20 months, a step forward in Israel’s cease-fire with Hamas.
The reopening of the crossing, in the Rafah area of southern Gaza, will for the first time allow some Gazans who fled during the two-year war to return, but only in limited numbers for now. It is also expected to expedite the exit of thousands of sick and wounded people waiting for medical treatment abroad.
The hope is that the reopening of the Rafah crossing will be a move toward gradually improving conditions for Palestinians in Gaza.
The first groups of Palestinians started passing through the crossing on Monday morning in both directions, according to Israeli officials, who said that they would have final numbers of how many crossed by the end of the day.
At a Palestinian Red Crescent Society hospital in Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza, a minibus departed for the Rafah crossing shortly after 1 p.m. with five patients, each accompanied by two caregivers.
Mohammed Mahdi, 25, was escorting his father, Akram Mahdi, 61, a mechanical engineer. The elder Mr. Mahdi was wounded in April 2024 in an Israeli airstrike near their home, in a refugee camp in central Gaza, according to his son. Shrapnel tore into his face, blinding him in his right eye and damaging his left one. Doctors in Gaza could do little more than stabilize him, his son said.
“Finally, we can get advanced treatment abroad,” Mohammed Mahdi said before boarding the minibus.
It was unclear by midday how many Palestinians had actually crossed the border in either direction. No returnees appeared to have arrived in Gaza as of early afternoon.
Israel and Egypt disagreed for months over the terms of the reopening, which is part of President Trump’s plan for ending the Gaza war. A shaky cease-fire took effect in October, but Israel kept the crossing closed as leverage until the last of the hostages seized in the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023, were returned to Israel, alive or dead.
A week ago, the Israeli military said it had retrieved the remains of the last remaining captive, Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, a police officer who was shot during the Oct. 7 attack, which set off the war.
. . . .Now that it has been opened again, the crossing will be strictly supervised and operated in a limited capacity, with dozens of people allowed at first to enter or exit each day, according to officials.
This of course is a good thing, though it would be even better if Egypt let Gazans migrate to Egypt for good. Those leaving are getting medical care, and will likely have to return. And although this opening is one of the provisions of the cease-fire, the really important one—the surrender, disbanding, and disarming of Hamas—shows no signs of occurring, as everyone knows. Israel attacked Hamas targets on Sunday, and that will continue until there is no more Hamas. Those who think that an interim government involving the Palestinian Authority will finally bring peace (and the “two-state solution”) are deluded: Gazans and Hamas hate the PA and if there are ever elections in Gaza, Hamas, if it ran, would win.
*One or two of the photos released in the latest batch of Epsteiniana showed Britain’s Price Andrew kneeling over the supine body of a woman or girl, whose face was redacted. That’s somewhat incriminating, though it’s not clear if the woman was underaged. At least it attests to the Prince’s randiness. He was asked to testify before Congress but didn’t respond; but in light of the new photos, he may have to show up in the U.S. and give sworn testimony. Britain’s former ambassador to the U.S., also implicated in the scandal, may also have to testify:
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is pressuring the U.K.’s former Ambassador to the U.S. Peter Mandelson to provide evidence to American authorities over Jeffrey Epstein, after a cache of emails appeared to show that Mandelson leaked confidential British government correspondence to the disgraced financier.
The emails also show that Mandelson, long an influential figure on the British left, had received $75,000 in wire transfers from Epstein years earlier.
Starmer ordered an urgent investigation into Mandelson on Monday after a trove of emails released by the Justice Department in recent days provided fresh details about the long-standing relationship between Epstein and the British politician, a relationship that continued well after Epstein was first charged with sex offenses.
Mandelson was removed as ambassador last year after earlier details of his dealings with Epstein came to light, and the latest revelations will add pressure on the politician. Starmer on Monday also demanded that Mandelson resign from the House of Lords, the U.K.’s upper chamber in Parliament.
Mandelson said in a statement on Sunday that he had no recollection or record of receiving the funds and that the payments “need investigating by me.” Mandelson quit the ruling Labour Party on Monday but he remains a member of the House of Lords. On Sunday, he said he wanted to repeat “my apology to the women and girls whose voices should have been heard long before now.” He didn’t immediately respond to an email requesting further comment on Monday.
And Prince Andrew:
The latest batch of emails released by the Department of Justice include other high profile members of the British establishment, notably Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, the former prince and brother to King Charles, who has already had his titles removed and is being forced out of his mansion on Windsor estate.
The latest emails, which all date after Epstein pled guilty to procuring minors for prostitution in 2008, show Andrew invited Epstein for tea at Buckingham Palace in 2010. Photos also released by the Justice Department show Andrew photographed kneeling over an unidentified woman.
Andrew, who didn’t reply to an email requesting comment, last year said he continued to “vigorously deny” allegations that he abused an American teen introduced to him by Epstein.
Epstein wrote to Andrew in August 2010, “I have a friend who i think you might enjoy having dinner with, her name is irina she will be london 20-24.” “I am in Geneva until the morning of 22nd but would be delighted to see her. Will she be bringing a message from you?” Andrew replied.
A U.K. government spokesman said that the former Prince Andrew should also provide evidence to the U.S. authorities regarding Epstein.
Andrew has been more or less demoted to being a rich commoner since the scandal, and the BBC further reports two allegations that Epstein sent to women to the UK to have sex with Prince Andrew. Fortunately for Sarah Ferguson, who used to be married to Randy Andy, she won’t have to deal with this. I originally thought that nobody beyond Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell would face consequences from involvement in the scandal, but Andrew may be guilty of sex trafficking, which would be a first for the Royal Family.
*After renaming the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Trump now plans to close it for two years for renovation. (Remember that Trump renamed the Center to include his name along with Kennedy’s.)
“I have determined that The Trump Kennedy Center, if temporarily closed for Construction, Revitalization, and Complete Rebuilding, can be, without question, the finest Performing Arts Facility of its kind, anywhere in the World,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “In other words, if we don’t close, the quality of Construction will not be nearly as good, and the time to completion, because of interruptions with Audiences from the many Events using the Facility, will be much longer.”
Under Trump’s proposal, which he said is subject to board approval, the Kennedy Center could close on July 4, coinciding with America’s 250th anniversary, with construction beginning immediately.
“Financing is completed, and fully in place!,” Trump wrote. “This important decision, based on input from many Highly Respected Experts, will take a tired, broken, and dilapidated Center … and turn it into a World Class Bastion of Arts, Music, and Entertainment, far better than it has ever been before.”
Kennedy Center President Richard Grenell confirmed the plans in a Sunday evening email to staff obtained by The Washington Post. “We will have more information about staffing and operational changes in the coming days,” he wrote.
In a post on X, Grenell cited the $257 million designated “for capital repair, restoration, maintenance backlog, and security structures” through the One Big Beautiful Bill last year.
Grenell confirmed the necessity of repairs, but also issued a groveling tweet. You can bet that Trump will be over seeing the design and construction, and that there will be more Trumpiana included in the new building.
I am grateful for President Trump’s visionary leadership. I am also grateful to Congress for appropriating an historic $257M to finally address decades of deferred maintenance and repairs at the Trump Kennedy Center.
Our goal has always been to not only save and permanently…
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) February 2, 2026
So it goes.
*How long are you going to live? Well, you could get hit by a truck tomorrow, as they say, but barring that you can get an estimate of when you’ll die from various programs (go here, for example to estimate your longevity; mine was 96!). They do ask about your family history, and a new article in the NYT says, to my joy, that genes may be more important than environment or behavior in determining your longevity (remember that the propensity to9 smoke and drink are also partly coded by your genes).
Your potential life span is written in your genes, according to a new study. You can lengthen it a bit with a healthy lifestyle. But if your genetic potential is to live to be 80, for example, it is unlikely that anything you do will push your age at death up to 100.
That, at least, is the conclusion of a paper published Thursday in Science.
Uri Alon of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and other researchers drew the data for the study from three sets of data from pairs of Swedish twins, including one set of twins that was reared apart. To test how generalizable the results are, the group also examined data from a study of 2,092 siblings of 444 Americans who lived to be over 100. Their goal was to identify outside factors that can affect how long someone lives, like infections or accidents, separate from the intrinsic factor of genetics.
They report that aging is mostly hereditary, a conclusion that flies in the face of much conventional medical wisdom regarding dieting, exercising and healthy habits. These habits are important for the quality of a person’s life, but they run into another form of conventional wisdom: You can’t make someone into a centenarian, unless that person also has a genetic inheritance of longevity.
“If you are trying to gauge your own chances of getting to 100, I would say look at the longevity in your family,” said Dr. Thomas Perls, a geriatrician and the director of the New England Centenarian Study at Boston University. His study’s published data on U.S. centenarians were used in the new analysis, although he was not associated with the study.
“This paper has a pretty powerful message,” said S. Jay Olshansky, an emeritus professor of epidemiology at the University of Illinois, Chicago, who was not involved in the study. “You don’t have as much control as you think.”
Here’s the paper; click to read:
Now a heritability of 50% really means that of the variation of longevity among people, about half of that variation is due to variation in people’s genes. That does show a sizable genetic component of longevity, and the rest is due to environment, gene-environment interaction, and other arcane factors (as the authors say, “(“This remaining variance likely stems from environmental influences (lifestyle, socioeconomic factors, health care access, intrinsic biological stochasticity , nonadditive genetic effects, and epigenetic modifications”).
The heritability is based on the correlation between twins, and remember that many behavioral factors that affect longevity, including drinking and smoking, are also affected by genetic variation. The estimated heritability of 50% is a lot higher than many previous estimates, which the authors argue is due to elimination of extrinsic factors like accidents, birth year, or infections that fuzz out the data and reduce heritability,
This does NOT give you a license to go hog-wild and start drinking, smoking, and having dangerous sex. Remember, half of the variance is due to factors that may not have a genetic component (not all drinking and smoking is based on the genes you have). But it does make me a bit happy as I want to live forever and my family, especially the women, live a long time. My grandmothers lived into their upper 90s, and although the men didn’t live as long, nearly all of them were heavy smokers. I know I’m not immortal, but, unless I get some debilitating condition, I want to live as long as I can, for I want to see what happens at the party.
*There’s a big ski-jumping scandal brewing that involves the Norwegian team, which planned to jump with modified crotches of their ski suits.
Just weeks before the start of the Winter Olympics, a cheating scandal that is equal parts bizarre and brazen, rocking one of its foundational sports and becoming a cause for national shame in Norway, has taken its latest turn.
On Thursday, after 11 months of investigation and litigation, the International Ski and Snowboard Federation’s (FIS) ethics committee handed down a harsh 18-month suspension to two disgraced former coaches and the former equipment manager of Norway’s ski jumping team. The trio admitted conspiring to manipulate the suits of the team’s top jumpers to help them beat the competition at the Nordic World Ski Championships in Trondheim, Norway, last year after a whistleblower filmed them through a curtain.
“In the panel’s view it is the fact of the violations, the admission of which was compelled by the video evidence, that justifies the imposition of the sentence,” the decision stated.
At the world championships, Magnus Brevig, the head coach of the Norwegian national team, and Adrian Livelten, the team’s suit technician, were caught on a video posted anonymously to YouTube inserting illegal stitching into the crotch area of the suits of two star jumpers, reigning Olympic champion Marius Lindvik and Johann André Forfang, after the suits had already passed inspection. The stitches essentially served to make the suits more aerodynamic, allowing the jumpers to fly farther than the competition.
Here’s the damning video, though I can’t make heads nor tails of it. You be the judge; actually, the IOC will.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili made me genuinely LOL with this:
Andrzej: Hili, these are very important papers!
Hili: That’s exactly why I’m sitting on them.
In Polish:
Ja: Hili, to są bardzo ważne papiery!
Hili: Właśnie dlatego na nich siedzę.
*******************
From Meow Incorporated:
From The 2025 Darwin Awards!!/Epic Fails!!!:
From Cats that Have had Enough of Your Shit:
From Masih: an Iranian hero who later died. Very sad.
Hollywood spends hundreds of millions creating heroes.
I dare you to look here. 👇
This is a real hero: an Iranian man carrying a wounded protester on his shoulders after the IRGC shot him. He saved multiple lives under live fire in Mashhad. His video went viral.
They later… pic.twitter.com/tQtNgy0Zy6— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) February 2, 2026
From Malcom, whose caption is “Ouch!”
The art
&
The artist pic.twitter.com/AsNBOgCFd6— The Cats 𝕏 (@TheCatsX) January 31, 2026
From Cate, a WWII rescue story:
In the autumn of 1942, a slight, 32-year-old Polish social worker named Irena Sendler passed through the gates of the Warsaw Ghetto with a carpenter’s toolbox in her arms. Beneath the hammers and nails lay a drugged six-month-old infant, breathing softly, utterly silent. One cry… pic.twitter.com/8eOYemB6gf
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) February 1, 2026
From Luana; the Brits fight back (with speech) against pro-Palestinian protestors:
This is wonderful as Brits, Jews & Iranians mock a pro-Palestinian march by playing “you can shove your Intifada up your a____.”
Hat tip @koshercockney pic.twitter.com/Bi8BvYUdQ2
— David Atherton (@DaveAtherton20) February 1, 2026
One from my feed. Scienc girl always has good tweets. She’s on the money with this one.
Baby stingrays look like little aliens trapped in ravioli
— Science girl (@sciencegirl) February 2, 2026
One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:
These two Dutch siblings were gassed as soon as they arrived in Auschwitz. The boy was nine years old. https://t.co/Nb4IlOl1og
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) February 3, 2026
Two from Matthew. The First is from a Guardian article (linked) about the woman who makes road signs keeping animals and drivers safe. Besides ducks, she made the cow signs.
I don’t remember this duck sign from when I learned the Highway Code but it was half a century ago and tbh it’s fairly clear what it means…
— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-02-02T18:39:38.361Z
Divers fouled by amphipods (a type of crustacean)!
We did a scuba dive today to swap out an instrument on one of our offshore moorings. While clearing off the biofouling, we got biofouled, hood to flipper, by caprellid amphipods (aka headbangers). Here’s my leg after moderate scraping… 🦑🧪🌊
— Steve Haddock (@stevehaddock.bsky.social) 2025-01-31T03:46:30.015Z
Thanks Luana for the video of U.K. counter-protest and song that I had never heard before, but just love…”you can shove your intifada up your ass”. Excellent!
I hope it becomes an ear worm.
There is video of fans of Glasgow Celtic F.C. when they played the Rangers in a Scottish Cup semi final match on the day Charles was coronated. Thousands of fans singing “You can shove your coronation up your arse”. It was very funny and I was amazed at how well they sang. With harmony and syncopation…it was lovely.
Celtic won, 1-0.
https://youtu.be/XExEXdlMlUw?si=cTYT9OoCzDv9ryOH
edit; crap. sorry that one has commercials. If you’re patient, give it a go. It’s funny.
Actually, I had sent that to Jerry. Maybe Luana had too.
Well, thank you too, jay! In any case, regardless of its origin story, I feel better today for having seen it.
I’ve seen some presentations on YouTube of the newest tranche of Epstein files (what we have so far may represent only 1/10th to 1/2 of them!) which include actual photographs of the pages – and they are horrifying, for a number of reasons:
1) Despite the fact that the DOJ delayed their release for months past the legally-required date, supposedly to protect the innocent, the redactions appear to be mostly to protect the guilty. Yet there are tons of exceptions. Basically, it looks like very little time and effort was put into this.
2) The picture that emerges is that what Epstein and Maxwell were running was a bona fide large-scale sex trafficking ring involving multiple countries and hundreds of women and girls.
3) Girls as young as 14 years-old were involved, and underage girls were being abused by the most powerful people on the planet – including Donald Trump and Epstein himself.
4) Much of the material released is documentation of the abused women/girls reports made directly to the FBI. The FBI was receiving these reports for at least the past 14 years. What the FBI did in response to these reports – if anything – is unclear.
5) The FBI received multiple reports from multiple victims.
6) There is at least one report from an under-aged victim that she had sex with Donald Trump who told her to her face that if she breathed a word of this to anybody, she and her entire family would be killed. Epstein made the exact same threat to at least one other victim.
7) Actual nonconsensual rape took place at these “parties”.
8) There are many reports in the tranche from FBI confidential informants who share their impressions and speculations. These include assertions that Epstein and others were long-standing CIA and Moussad assets. If true, this may help explain why the FBI basically sat on its hands, and why this scandal has been covered up.
Unfortunately, what we lack are the FBI files that indicate which reports they found credible-but-insufficient for criminal charges and which they dismissed outright. And, also unfortunately, the difference between a “cover up” and “untrustworthy accusations and hearsay dismissed with cause by FBI agents” is generally the politics of the observer and his attitude toward the accused.
Sometimes that student who earned a “D” or the one with psychological problems writes a trustworthy evaluation of the professor. Sometimes. But I’m not sure how many would want their professional reputations and personal freedom to hinge on it. Perhaps they could instead mortgage their future on the views of envious, disgruntled, or cutthroat colleagues.
The potential intel community connections have long intrigued. I have zero expectations of a smoking gun. Of course, lack of evidence will be proof that Mossad and the CIA purged the files.
I need more coffee; of that, I am confident, and over that, I have some control.
You are quite right that we need more information.
On the other hand, we know that the sex ring existed – it put Epstein and Maxwell in prison, and before that, Epstein got a sweetheart deal that itself is a scandal.
Knowing these things, it is difficult for me to discount the reports of the calls to the FBI. One of the pages I saw was from a diary from an underage victim who added blocks of letters to her entries. These were a simple-to-crack code, some damning, some apochraphal.
Skepticism has its place, but what I saw – and no doubt this and more will be publicized further – generated in me not skepticism but great sadness.
I’d like to know what “abuse” means legally. How is it different from “rape” which is also alleged to have happened but at much lower rates it seems? So is abuse something distasteful but legal? Or is it some other crime that someone should be charged and criminally punished for? If “abuse” is something in the eye of the beholder, a person can make an allegation of “abuse” without having to back it up against an accusation of defamation. We talk about “abusive” spouses, which is something that one ought not want to be, but domestic violence that is prosecutable is something else entirely.
I’d be satisfied if someone would just catalogue exactly what these “abusive” acts were that were allegedly so widespread.
I don’t think this is just pedantic. I’m thinking of that rapper Whatsizname who was charged with multiple crimes related to allegations of “abuse” but he was acquitted on all of them except bringing male prostitutes to a party and paying them to have sex with women, which was called trafficking.
My last question is, Where were these girls’ mothers? Maybe they were all pre-occupied with ferreting out the daycare satanic sex ring in the basement of the pizza parlour, or their calendars were booked up so solidly with appointments with their therapists to uncover their memories of childhood “abuse” — there’s that word again! — that they just plumb lost track of what their daughters were getting up to.
Another sad aspect is the general ineptitude of the DOJ. I would have expected them to censor more skillfully. Instead we have occasions of the victim names unredacted while names and other info that need not be redacted blacked out. The latter is obvious, since there are duplicates in the files that are redacted differently. Also sometimes the DOJ has been incapable of centering their censorship so the text is still readable.
That would have never happened under Biden. His administration was full.of experts in centering blackness.
Oh… and the spelling and grammar of FBI and police need work.
Wow. I was waiting for someone to pipe up about these. I don’t want to spend my time reading them. I just don’t have the hours in the day – or the spoons, TBH.
My question to those who’ve read them; how/why do you believe the content of the emails and interviews, etc? I mean people lie all the time. Nobody’s uncorroborated testimony should be accepted at face value (including mine :-)). Sometimes it’s not even lying; the easiest person to fool is yourself. So why should those of us who haven’t read them accept these document as the truth of the matter? Or maybe you see these as ‘truthy’; something resembling the truth, and may actually be true, but are self-serving and designed to hide or misrepresent other interpretations?
Anyway, it seems a horror show. I hope whatever truth is in there comes to light. I know, deep in my heart, that no matter what comes out, it will not be satisfactory. This Epstein thing is long past reason.
Why should Egypt “let Gazans migrate to Egypt for good.”? Egypt is neck deep in their own problems and having Hamas fans destabilize such a large and pivotal country is just asking for trouble.
Nasser wasn’t good for the Jewish state and sending Egypt into the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood would be even worse.
“This of course is a good thing, though it would be even better if Egypt let Gazans migrate to Egypt for good.”.
Not going to happen. Egyptians are not that dumb. Gazans are nothing but trouble and much worse.
I know that it’s not going to happen. My argument is that it’s also not a good idea – as opposed to our host who characterizes it as “even better” than “a good thing”.
I’m just wondering how he arrives at that conclusion.
Yes – have you SEEN the wall Egypt erected on the Gaza border? Better than the DMZ – and they just expanded it 3 years ago. The Egyptians said they’d “shoot” anybody breaching it. BTW – I have BARELY met a “Pal ally” who even knows there is a border with Egypt. (sigh)
I’m not wild about living too long – to outlive all one’s friends (assuming no children, like me) might be pretty grim. Though maybe when I’m 80, 100 year old PCC(E) will still take my calls …with his long, bony fingers answering the holo-screen! hehehe
D.A.
NYC
Even if Egypt picked over the Gazans to accept the best risks, there would still be a Will Rogers effect in reverse: The migration would cause average civilizability to fall in both Egypt and Gaza.
P.S. What does a “mechanical engineer” like Akram Mahdi do in Gaza? Design and maintain essential built infrastructure like terror tunnels?
A BIRTHDAY THOUGHT:
Writers, like teeth, are divided into incisors and grinders. -Walter Bagehot, journalist and businessman (3 Feb 1826-1877)
Clearly, many writers have their wisdom teeth taken out too soon.
Anyone else watch the “If It’s Stupid But Works” video that came up as an option after the stitch cheating video?
To borrow a line once said about bagels: no one ever went out of business by putting too much cream cheese frosting on their carrot cake.
I am 70 years old, a type 2 diabetic, I have high blood pressure (controlled with medication), High cholesterol (controlled with medication), I take 14 tablets a day to stay alive yet….according to the longevity study I’m gonna live till I’m 96!!! Yeah, right!
Hmm. I’m 82, otherwise much like you. I played the longevity estimator game. Honestly, too. It told me I can live to be 103.
Yeah, right!^2.
The insurance company’s actuaries are, um, nuts.
Please do read about The Four Chaplains. It’s a story everyone should know: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Chaplains
Good that Rafah is reopening. Israel, the U.S., and partners (Do we really have partners?) are implementing the agreement one step at a time whether Hamas likes it or not. Each step puts more pressure on Hamas to get with the program but, as you say, they may never fully comply. If as parts of the agreement are completed Hamas become irrelevant, they won’t need to comply; they will just dry up and turn to dust.
OMG. I’m living to 100! I hope I can afford it. My mother is 90, lives in her own, and walks 1.5 miles per day. She might make it to 100, too.
Finally, those baby stingrays look like they would make a delicious dish served over rice noodles, with a giant piece of carrot cake for dessert, natch.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the Japanese eat these ravioli babies over rice. The big question is whether they would prefer them live or cooked.
Thank you for the Irena Sendler post, what a remarkable person.
And to think four high schoolers in rural Kansas brought her to light after all those years.
Just so! I was scrolling the comments, about to write what you wrote. That post today sent me on an internet wander re Irena Sendler.
I’m with Tom and you on this. I hadn’t heard of Irena Sendler before. What a remarkable woman and a true hero. It’s a shame she is not more well known.
As it happens I grew up with friends whose mother received the “Righteous Among The Nations” recognition from Israel. When she was a young teen, she helped over 300 Jews cross the border from France into Switzerland. She was a local who knew the area well and was part of a group that helped people escape the Nazis, most of them Jews. She helped them cross using barns and shepherd huts she knew about in the mountains there. She married an American soldier after the war and they came to the states; that’s how I got to know the family. I remember her well and she was still very French with a thick accent (on sleep overs my friend warned not to eat her blood pancakes; something she made because it was part of the cuisine she grew up on. Yucko). She died in 2001, I believe.
The article about lifespan reminded me of something I read in a Bill Bryson book. “Longevity is 50% heredity and 50% cheeseburger.”
Has anyone seen this post on X about the reaction to the Oct 7 massacre? It seems very plausible and helps – a little – to explain the shocking moral depravity of the world’s response.
On a less important issue, I want to live as long as possible, too. That’s not just because I want to see what happens, but because I need ANSWERS, dammit. The question I want answered most of all is: Why is there something rather than nothing? This question first popped into my mind when I was still in school and has never since lost its grip on me.
For a long time, I comforted myself with the thought that scientists would surely discover the answer to this question before I die. Unfortunately, since I studied philosophy and kept up with every discovery in physics and cosmology, it eventually dawned on me that it wasn’t going to happen – nobody was going to come within a light year of discovering the answer to why anything exists during my lifetime. When I had that realization, the implications hit me like a brick: I was going to depart this universe without ever knowing the answer to the question that has tormented me my entire life.
The sheer f*cking unfairness of this fact literally enrages me. Every time I am reminded of it – thanks a whole lot, Professor Coyne! – I have to suppress an inner urge to scream and pull my hair and throw plates on the ground.
I just had to get that off my chest.
Mmmm. You must have heard this before. There has to be something for you to be able to ask the question. Maybe somewhere out there, there is a whole lot of nothing. But there is noone there to ask why is there nothing rather than something. It’s not very different to the anthropic principle. You can ask why is the universe just right for human life to have developed? Well, if it wasn’t this way, we wouldn’t be around to ask the question. Some take this to mean that there must be other universes with different physical constants (like c,G,h), but I don’t see why that necesssarily follows. We will never know about conditions far beyond our cosmic horizon (essentially equal to the cosmic microwave background), because it’s impossible to test any such speculations.
🎯
(Good to see another WAP fan. I find that usually when I try to inject WAP sampling bias into an argument about fine tuning or multiverses or whatever it gets an indifferent or even hostile reception. Maybe it’s my sometimes abrasive style, but I strongly suspect there are deeper aspects.)
Thank you for that link about October 7.
Regarding something rather than nothing, here’s how I’ve resolved that question to my own satisfaction: Something, not nothing, is the default.
Think about it. We intuitively expect the default state to be Nothingness, and so ask ourselves, where did Something come from? But according to physics, we’re wrong. We’ve got it backwards due to a sort of cognitive bias. Absolute Nothing simply doesn’t, and can’t, be.