Welcome to the Cruelest Day, a Tuesday, and June 16 to be exact. It’s also National Cannoli Day, which brings to mind this scene from “The Godfather”. The original script called for Clemenza (Richard Castellano) to say just, “Leave the gun.” But Castellano ad-libbed an addition, “Take the cannoli,” which Coppola decided to keep. It’s one of the most famous lines in the trio of movies.
And it’s Bloomsday, commemorating the day in 1904, when, in Joyce’s novel Ulysses, Leopold Bloom wanders around Dublin, Ireland, emitting his inner monologue. Why this day? As Wikipedia notes, “Joyce chose to set his novel on this date as it was the date of his first sexual encounter with his wife-to-be, Nora Barnacle.” Since October 7 I’ve been surprised at how antisemitic Ireland has become (or, I guess, always was); my impression is that it’s the most antisemitic country in Western Europe. The WSJ, in an op-ed inspired by Bloomsday, “Ireland’s spiral of antisemitism,” calls this to our notice (h/t Bat):
Ireland is preparing for Bloomsday, the annual celebration of James Joyce’s “Ulysses” and the day—June 16, 1904—that the novel’s hero, Leopold Bloom, spends wandering Dublin.
Published in 1922, “Ulysses” is celebrated for its revolutionary stream-of-consciousness style and its portrait of modern alienation. For years I thought Joyce had made an oddly prosaic choice in Bloom: a lower-middle-class Dubliner stalled in his career and trapped in an unhappy marriage.
But Joyce chose perfectly. Bloom is an Irish Jew. As he moves through the city, he endures not only the private pain of his wife’s unfaithfulness but the casual, corrosive antisemitism of his fellow citizens.
Growing up in late-20th-century Ireland, I saw no such prejudice and assumed Joyce had exaggerated the past for dramatic effect. But recent events have shown how well Joyce understood his country—and how prescient he was about its future. The Hamas massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, lifted the veil. Ireland, once famed as the land of a thousand welcomes, has become, almost overnight, a cold house for Jews.
. . .Meanwhile Ireland’s political class has grown incandescent at the prospect of the Irish national soccer team playing Israel in Dublin in October. Amid threats of protests and concerns about violence, there were calls to cancel the match—even though it would harm the Irish team’s international standing. Such was the anger about the possibility of Israelis and their fans being in Dublin that the game will be moved to a different country and played without spectators.
Ireland hasn’t progressed since Joyce wrote “Ulysses.” It has regressed. In the conservative deeply Catholic Ireland of 100 years ago, Leopold Bloom was insulted and threatened, but Jews could at least still freely wander the streets of Dublin. In the Ireland of 2026, he would be advised not to try.
I’ve pointed this out several times, got pushback from at least one Irish person, but I think that I (and Irish author Phelim McAleer) am right.
It’s also Fresh Veggies Day, National Cherry Tart Day, National Fudge Day, National Tortilla Day, and World Sea Turtle Day. Here’s a sea turtle (readers are invited to tell me the species) I photographed in Hawaii in June of 2019. It was basking.
I have a time-consuming podcast today that won’t be broadcast until next year, but that means that my preparations for Hili tomorrow will be thin, as will ancillary posts today. Bear with me; I do my best.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 16 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
Breaking news ripped from the headlines: Netanyahu has said that Israel is not going to abide by any peace deal that makes it withdraw from Lebanon and allow Hezbollah to continue attacking northern Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a defiant address to Israelis, suggested on Monday that he did not feel bound by the newly reached cease-fire agreement between the United States and Iran.
“The struggle has not ended,” Mr. Netanyahu declared.
Foreshadowing potential trouble for the peace deal, he said he had no intention of withdrawing his forces from neighboring Lebanon — a key demand of the Iranians during negotiations with the United States. Israeli soldiers there are fighting Hezbollah, a militant group allied with Iran.
In March, soon after the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran began, Hezbollah began firing on Israel in a show of solidarity with the Iranians.
Trump cannot force Israel to stop defending itself just so he can have his peace deal. This is an existential crisis for those in Lebanon (Hezbollah’s rockets can hit Tel Aviv), and if there is to be a peace deal involving Israel, it would involve an unbreakable stipulation that Hezbollah disarm and disband. The NYT morning newsletter adds this:
If [the war with Iran] is ending, it will be without any of the results President Trump was looking for when he started it: the destruction of Iran’s ability to wage war; the crushing of its nuclear ambitions; the end of its theocratic leadership; and the liberation of its people.
*Footy: In another upset, the tiny island nation of Cape Verde (population ∼530,000) forced Spain, a favorite (and population about 50 million), to a 0-0 draw in the World Cup. The 40-year-old goalkeeper was terrific, making save after save in a game that was largely defensive for Cape Verde.
Wow, just wow. At 1.57pm Atlanta time, 3,291 miles from home, the final whistle went on Cape Verde’s first game in a World Cup finals tournament – and they had only gone and done it.
What they had done was madness: a tiny nation, a debutant, had held one of the favourites, Spain, the European champions, to a 0-0 draw. Bubista, the coach who had led them here, had said he wanted the world to see who and what they are – and, boy, did they see. Qualification, he had insisted, was more than football, it was music, it was culture, it was everything. So what was this? This was wonderful. What a moment and what a noise greeted the moment when the impossible had become real.
An Atlantic archipelago of 600,000 people. A Shamrock Rovers centre back from Crumlin, Dublin, learning Creole and found on LinkedIn. A 40-year-old goalkeeper from Portugal’s second division, another Josimar leaving his mark on the history of this competition and a million minds, left in tears at the end and to be talked about for generations. All of them, each and every one. They had come to the US, faced Spain, and resisted them, their bodies on the line and their hearts on their sleeves. Even the introduction of Lamine Yamal, the teenaged icon cast as Spain’s saviour, couldn’t defeat them.
Here are the highlights:
*Here are the sketchy details of the Iran-Israel peace deal from the NYT; bolding is mine.
The United States and Iran signed a framework agreement for peace on Monday, as oil prices tumbled, fighting in Lebanon appeared to ease and Iranians expressed wary relief that a conflict that has killed thousands could soon end.
The actual text of the agreement was not published by either side. Since the war’s start on Feb. 28, it has not produced the results President Trump vowed to achieve: destroying Iran’s military capabilities, abolishing its nuclear ambitions, toppling its theocratic leadership or liberating its people.
President Trump said the deal would restart safe passage of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital conduit for world’s energy supplies, solving one problem created by the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. Returning to the prewar status, when the strait was open to shipping, could relieve Americans of soaring gas prices, a political liability for Mr. Trump, but experts say it will take months. A similarly long process could begin of healing for Iran’s economy.
Mr. Trump previously said the deal meant the strait would be “permanently toll-free.” But the Iranian foreign ministry’s spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, suggested on Monday that Iran could charge fees “in exchange for the services that are provided” on ships transiting the strait.
Pakistan, which has been mediating talks between Washington and Tehran, said a ceremonial in-person signing of the agreement would take place in Geneva on Friday. After that, a 60-day period of negotiations toward a more comprehensive peace agreement would begin.
The deal could still come apart, and the talks are likely to be complex.
Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, said on Monday that negotiations will grapple with two issues on which neither side has shown much willingness to compromise: easing American economic sanctions against Iran and limiting Tehran’s nuclear program. And they will be made more difficult, he said, by “a history of broken promises.”
. . .It was also unclear what the deal would mean for Lebanon, where the Israeli military has been attacking the Iran-backed militant group, Hezbollah. Iran and Pakistan, a mediator in the negotiations, said the agreement called for an immediate end to military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon.
Israel and Hezbollah appeared to scale back their fighting in southern Lebanon on Monday. In a statement, Hezbollah congratulated Iran for what it described as the “major achievement” of securing a “comprehensive cease-fire on all fronts, including Lebanon.”
Yet Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said in a statement that he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposed withdrawing Israeli troops from Lebanon. Israel was not directly involved in the U.S.-Iran talks.
I’ve put the key sentence in bold. Can anyone disagree with that? It’s dispiriting (see next item)
*Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal calls the agreement between the U.S. and Iran “Total surrender“:
It begins with an immediate, multi-front ceasefire—including Lebanon—and the lifting of the U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports in exchange for Iran “opening” the Strait of Hormuz. Iran is demanding an initial payment of $12 billion before the strait is opened, and is unlikely to be denied, judging by the hunger for a deal in Trump’s eyes.
A significant ambiguity remains over the strait, however. While Trump claims the opening will be “toll-free,” Iranian officials have previously indicated they may still impose fees or retain regulatory control—effectively securing a major Iranian war aim, with American assent lending it legitimacy. The deal also stipulates that within 60 days of its scheduled June 19 signing in Geneva, the two nations will begin follow-on talks addressing the termination of all U.S. sanctions, the nuclear issue and Iran’s economic reconstruction.
The framework appears to diverge significantly from earlier U.S. positions. Trump, who once insisted on the destruction of all Iranian nuclear facilities and zero uranium enrichment, told The New York Times that Iran would now be permitted low-level enrichment—meaning “zero enrichment” will not even be making it to the negotiating table. The IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency, for its part, framed the deal as a “tactical pause in the war rather than a final settlement,” warning that “many more concessions would be needed” for any future agreement and that Iran’s experience with U.S. bad faith makes one “unlikely.” Tehran is giving little ground elsewhere too: against the U.S. demand for a 20-year enrichment ban, it is countering with a mere five-year pause, and it is maneuvering to unlock at least some of its frozen assets early in the MOU process—easing U.S. leverage and securing vital economic relief before the core nuclear negotiations even begin.
Trump has declared that should those negotiations fail, the U.S. would return to war—which deserves to be taken as seriously as every other time he’s said it in the last 68 days.
So, to summarize: Iran gets its ports unblocked, sanctions relief and de facto recognition of its sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz—in exchange for complying with the original ceasefire, restoring freedom of commerce and ceasing its random acts of violence. In the nuclear negotiations to follow, it will not be required to halt its program completely; only lower its enrichment, and only for somewhere between five years and, at the very most, twenty.
The American position in a word: surrender.
Yep. We’ll see about Hezbollah and Iran later, but now that Trump is proclaiming peace, I can’t see him restarting attacks on Iran. Here’s the Washington Post‘s headline:
*I saw this on Facebook, and, checking it out, found out it’s true (“SJP is the odious organization Students for Justice in Palestine”). Smith College is a tony, high-class women’s college in Massachusetts. (Click screenshot to go to the post if you want, but there’s nothing save comments.)
From the Daily Hampshire Gazette:
A monthslong push by Students for Justice in Palestine to persuade Smith College to divest from weapons manufacturers tied to Israel ended last week when a trustee advisory committee voted to reject the proposal.
The proposal, titled “Ethical Investment Policy & Procedure Request,” was put forth by SJP and its sister organization, Alumni for Justice in Palestine (AJP), and called for the college to cut financial ties with weapons companies, military contractors and other corporations that aid in the assault on Gaza.
“I can’t think why a liberal arts institution like Smith College, founded on lofty ideas and now committed to such noble aims as equity, inclusion, diversity and excellence, would want to be invested in weapons or technologies of war, genocide and environmental devastation,” said Katherine Sullivan, a member of the Class of 1975. “Let’s put our money where our mouths are. Let’s invest in green technologies, innovative health and medical initiatives and other activities that benefit humankind. Let’s be a light in this dark world.”
SJP argued that its proposal is meant to align the college’s financial investments with its historic track record for standing with human rights, comparing the proposed divestment from Israel to the college’s 1986 divestment from the South African apartheid. However, the college’s Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility (ACIR), in its written response to the student activist organizations, cites a misalignment between the proposal and the college’s mission statement as a reason for the proposal’s rejection.
“After careful and exhaustive review, the ACIR concluded that the proposal does not fully satisfy the criteria required to recommend further consideration or action by the Investment Committee,” the committee wrote. “Specifically, the proposal lacks mission alignment, societal impact, and community consensus. There is also concern that it would have a negative financial impact, limiting the ability of the endowment to support the college’s mission and conflicting with the trustees’ fiduciary responsibility.”
The first comment on the post is “A Women’s college with balls.” Note that SJP is also associated with the walkout below. Note, too, that they’re citing the “assault on Gaza,” which was actually a defense of Israel against an assault on Israel by Hamas. But nobody seems to remember that, and they still throw around the word “genocide,” which characterizes not Israel, but Hamas.
A similar proposal, also by SJP, was submitted to Smith in late 2023 and was rejected by Smith for similar reasons in Spring, 2024. Divestment is one of the only weapons remaining for SJP (who I suspect is funded by terrorist-linked organizations), for they surely did not fulfill their from-the-river-to-the-sea mantra.
*The daily antisemitic news (h/t Luana): Stanford students walked out of their graduation when Google’s CEO got up to speak. Why? Because of Google’s ties to Israel, and also to ICE. And again behind the walkout is Students for Justice in Palestine, who have accomplished nothing politically except rile up a bunch of college students.
Numerous Stanford University students reportedly walked out of their graduation ceremony as Google CEO Sundar Pichai took the stage to deliver a keynote address.
Around 200 students walked out as Pichai took the stage during Sunday’s event, SFGate reported.
The walkout was organized by Students for Justice in Palestine and other groups to protest Google’s ties to Israel, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other companies. Videos posted on social media showed some of the students walking out were carrying Palestinian flags, while others displayed banners reading “Genocide Runs on Google” and “ICE spies with Google AI.”
“Pichai was met with the sight of hundreds of students who showed they could not be allured anymore with the talk of a dollar or rapidly expanding AI. We know about the crimes of Google in collaborating with Israel, ICE, and companies like Palantir,” the Stanford chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a pro-Palestinian student organization. said on Instagram, alongside clips of the walkout.
“Nothing that was done today could have been done without the students, faculty, and community members who spread the word and who showed up. We congratulate the graduates as they continue on to their next step beyond Stanford. To the graduates of today who joined us. May your future steps to the future continue to be guided towards doing whats right.”
Pro-Palestinian protesters have criticized the deal Google has with the Israeli government and military, under “Project Nimbus,” to provide cloud computing and AI services.
The $1.2 billion contract was signed in 2021, when Israel first tested out its in-house AI-powered targeting systems.
Google has repeatedly denied that its technology would play a role in Israel’s war in Gaza, saying in a statement that the contract “is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.”
That doesn’t matter, for what the students really object to is any partnership with Israel. And did Pichai say anything about Israel? Nope. Again, that doesn’t matter:
Pichai’s remarks drew from his own life experiences as he urged students to focus on optimism, tackling difficult challenges, and pursuing what excites them.
“You have thousands of moments ahead of you. The important thing isn’t to get them all right; it’s to find a way to keep moving forward,” he said.
“You already have the California optimism to see life’s golden hills, and a Stanford diploma proving you can do hard things. Now, go out and set your heart ablaze!”
As you can see above and in the video below (you need only watch the first two minutes), it’s an anodyne rah-rah-go-get-them address. He said nothing about Israel or ICE.
*According to the AP, a “whale necropolis” has been discovered in the Indian Ocean, containing dozens of whale skeletons both new and ancient, going back over five million years.
Scientists have unearthed communities of marine life — including jellyfish, tubeworms and brittle stars — thriving on a millions-year-old whale graveyard.
These graveyards form when whale carcasses fall to the sea floor, becoming a sustaining snack for nearby critters. This one, located up to 23,000 feet (7 kilometers) below the surface of the southeastern Indian Ocean, spans the largest area and is so far the deepest and oldest found.
A whale’s sheer size and the unique chemistry of its bones are the keys to forming these unique underwater neighborhoods, said Xikun Song, a biologist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering.
“At the same time, the very nature of the deep ocean makes these sites exceptionally difficult for scientists to locate,” Song, who was involved with the latest find, wrote in an email.
Researchers explored the remains during multiple deep-sea submersible trips in 2023, collecting samples and mapping the extent of the necropolis. They found five carcass sites and fossils, including skulls belonging to beaked and baleen whales. The oldest bones date back 5.3 million years.
Feeding and living on the carcasses were myriad creatures, large and small, including sea cucumbers, squat lobsters and saltwater clams. Many of them are likely species that have never been documented, according to findings published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
“The potential number of specimens is just astounding,” said paleontologist Stephen Godfrey with the Calvert Marine Museum in Maryland, who wasn’t involved in the research.
Many factors likely conspired to preserve the bones for millions of years, according to the study authors. They’re dense enough to outlast attacks from bone-eating worms, and located deep enough in the ocean to avoid getting buried by dust and loose particles. The bones also were coated with a light layer of minerals from the surrounding seawater, which may have prevented them from degrading.
Why did so many whales die here? Maybe they were already living in the area and died of natural causes. A few could have perished from exhaustion or illness caused by deep-sea diving. The area’s shape, akin to the letter V, could also have funneled the remains to their resting spot, the authors wrote.
Here’s a video:
I sometimes wonder about the death of large marine mammals. Does a whale die while swimming, and suddenly sink to the bottom? Or, moribund, does it go to the bottom first, and then die?
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej again evinces wisdom:
Hili: The past doesn’t come back.
Andrzej: It returns in our memories, sometimes with pain, sometimes with a smile.
In Polish:
Hili: Przeszłość nie wraca.
Ja: Wraca w pamięci, czasem boli, czasem przywołuje uśmiech.
*******************
A duck has become Mexico’s symbol for its World Cup team:
Julián Quiñones and Raúl Jiménez may have scored the goals, but a duck stole the show.
As Mexico celebrated its World Cup-opening victory over South Africa on Thursday, Merlin, a 2-year-old duck dressed in the national team’s colors, became an unlikely internet sensation and the tournament’s first unofficial mascot.
Images of Merlin parading through Mexico City, wearing a Mexican national team jersey — and socks — as thousands of fans celebrated, quickly went viral, racking up millions of views across social media. Overnight, and as if by the magic of the famous wizard who inspired his name, Merlin had captivated the internet.
Here’s Merlin!
From Stacy, a story that appears to be true:
From CinEmma:
From Give Me a Sign:
Masih is quiet, probably distressed at the so-called peace deal, but we have Emma Hilton talking about SRY, a condition in which a person has a 46 + XY karyotype or somehow has acquired in an XX background the SRY gene that kicks off the male-characteristic determining pathway—but that SRY gene isn’t active. This results in a female appearance but usually an inability to reproduce because of gonadal dysgenesis. Emma is working on developing a quick lab test to detect whether there’s an SRY gene, which is nearly always an indication of biological maleness, and such a test would be useful in, say, the Olympics:
I’m going to unpack some of this.
1. The premise that women are unknowingly carting around a Y (with SRY) is massively over exaggerated. The risk of Surprise SRY is minimal.
2. The risk of Surprise SRY is, however, non-zero. But in reproductively healthy women who have had… https://t.co/SGYIYdClrL
— Emma Hilton (@FondOfBeetles) June 15, 2026
This game finished with a 0-0 tie! I suppose if you bet on a team to win, you lose if they tie. Larry gives us the deets:
Someone’s just learned an expensive lesson https://t.co/GTmKhL8Wxi
— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) June 15, 2026
From Luana. As the tweet says, the minimum wage in California was raised; it went up 25% from $16 per hour to $20 per hour.
McDonald’s announced they’re replacing cashiers with kiosks in California just after the $20 minimum wage kicked in. Shocking to absolutely no one who understands basic economics. When you artificially price labor above its market value, employers find substitutes. Machines,… pic.twitter.com/Hia8p8Tzj4
— Handre (@Handre) June 15, 2026
Two from my feed. First, a rock medley of bird songs; very good:
Nature just dropped the best beat of the year pic.twitter.com/ciNbRNWTdo
— Science girl (@sciencegirl) June 15, 2026
And a Muslim explains why women can’t wear backpacks outside their abayas. Get a load of this explanation!
Women in Muslim countries can’t wear backpacks now….but hey, it’s no big deal, because they can’t go to school anyway. pic.twitter.com/XURFypnM0V
— Diana Alastair💚🤍💜 ⚢ ❌❌✡️ (@sappholives83) June 15, 2026
. . . and one I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:
This Dutch Jewish woman was taken to Auschwitz at age eighteen. “She did not survive.” https://t.co/HkW9ulVIxu
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) June 16, 2026
Two from Dr. Cobb, about to head to Lyon from Switzerland. Two tweets he made from Switzerland:
It’s not all massive summits here in the Alps. Fabulous alpine flowers and rocks.
— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-06-13T13:59:39.905Z
Cool goats, taken to pasture each morning and brought home in the evening:
Valais blackneck goats in Zermatt, safe in their night quarters by the station. sound up
— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-06-14T16:09:02.604Z
“Divestment” in a college investment sense is entirely ineffective against the booming Israeli economy. Financially speaking the scale is… laughable. To think it matters beyond lefty virtue signaling is as absurd as the entire Palestinian myth, grievance and moral arguments. A joke.
Love the Godfather clip. Do “They got Sonny on the turnpike” next please!
What a fine, so essentially New York movie: unmatchable in my book. NY Italian mafia culture is one of this city’s most precious cultural gifts. Which keeps on giving (the Sopranos!) long after the actual “Five Families” were… done.
No New Yorker would ever abandon the cannoli!
D.A.
NYC🗽
Nicholas Kristof is acting badly again. He’s giving favourable treatment in his columns to people (Bill Gates is one) who donated to his failed bid for governor of Oregon.
The NYT promised readers he would not do this.
https://www.semafor.com/article/06/14/2026/new-york-times-kristof-quoted-former-campaign-donors-in-columns
Katherine Sullivan:
“I can’t think why a liberal arts institution like Smith College, founded on lofty ideas and now committed to such noble aims as equity, inclusion, diversity and excellence, would want to be invested in weapons or technologies of war, genocide and environmental devastation, [..] Let’s put our money where our mouths are. Let’s invest in green technologies, innovative health and medical initiatives and other activities that benefit humankind. Let’s be a light in this dark world.”
Just wanted to highlight and marvel at this masterpiece… wow .. how do they do it? And ostensibly off-the-cuff like that?
I’ve read a lot about antisemitism in Ireland and have been disgusted. When a friend and I were talking about where we wanted to visit the next time we go to Europe, the friend said her choice was Ireland. I told her that I’d written off Ireland due to what I’ve learned about the rampant antisemitism. She doesn’t think that alone is a sufficient reason to boycott an entire country, but I strongly disagree. For one thing, I would hate to give them my tourism dollars, on principle. But an even larger reason is that I know that if I was there, the knowledge that the nice folk I was meeting – supposedly my people!* – might well turn into raging antisemites if talk turned to Israel would taint the entire experience for me. It’s not going to happen.
*My Irish last name is by marriage, but my paternal grandmother was a second gen Irish Catholic immigrant – as might be guessed from the fact that she had 15 siblings.
Brava! I would do the same.
I’ve wanted to visit beautiful Ireland for a long time but I’m holding back – their wild antisemitism puts me off also.
Might I suggest you alter your travel plans to visit New York instead then, Brooke?
We’re always welcoming… a bit pricey but you WILL have a great time!
Plus you’ll meet me and my adorable puppy!
🙂
D.A.
NYC 🗽
That’s a great idea actually. I do love NYC. If I take a gander up your way, I’ll be sure to let you know.
Thank you.
I know of at least one company that is looking for a R&D/manufacturing site in Europe. When Ireland was proposed, it was taken off the table by the Board because they could not consider a place where their Jewish and Israeli workers and visitors would be at risk. When it was pointed out that those risks exist at present, in just about every country, one of the directors remarked that they did not have to choose the country with the highest risk—not to mention an antisemitic government as well.
This is a company founded by academic scientists, mostly from the US. Some are Jewish, some are not. One is Israeli. The point is that the company wants to recruit the best people, and cannot do that when some of those people are in danger if they visit the European site.
Many companies in the UK, e.g. Tescos, M & S have their head offices in Dublin. It may be for tax reasons. Ironic given that often their founders were Jewish.
I think your Spain vs. Cape Verde betting note supports bookies over Polymarket as bookies “only” take 10% juice on a tie or, as an alternative, allow the bet to be a “push” wherein you to place the money on a subsequent game. Not that I have a preference, just had an acquaintance who was a bookie in college.
I also think Trump will declare “severely degrading” Iran’s nuclear weapons program and military capabilities as meeting those two goals. How you define the level of degradation is above my pay grade but I think MAGA types can be expected to call that a win.
Go Merlin!
The adlibbed line makes sense. His wife told him to bring cannoli!
New Bedford, MA has plenty of people with roots in Cape Verde. They must be delighted.
Tunisia bettered Spain in a different sense: they sacked their coach after the 5-1 loss to Sweden. They fired him in the middle of the World Cup! That’s better than Spain, who fired their coach just three days before the 2018 World Cup.
EDIT: What’s wrong with herding goats through Walmart while drinking alcohol from a jug? Is this not the land of the free?
“What’s wrong with herding goats through Walmart while drinking alcohol from a jug? Is this not the land of the free?”
Yes, but, even in Texas, you can’t legally drive drunk. ANd the audacity to do it through a great institution like Walmart, yet!
Snap!
That’s a ’41 Packard One-Eighty LeBaron in the Godfather clip. At the time it was owned by a guy I once knew.
And who makes a podcast planned not to air for at least six mos?
Does the car still exist? If so, it would be cool if Jay Leno purchased it. He recently purchased the car that Mannex drove on the eponymous television show.
And as a beer can and breweriana collector, my favorite vehicle in The Godfather was the yellow Rheingold beer truck
As far as I know the Packard still exists. It wound up in Arkansas with the owner, who sadly got into pretty bad shape. When I saw pix of it in the estate sale, it clearly hadn’t spent the intervening years in a heated garage.
I just found this, which is the correct provenance, and indicates that it passed through one set of hands since the estate sale. Looks like the subsequent owners didn’t even wash the Arkansas dust off of it before selling it via Sotheby’s for $27K. I have no idea where it is now.
Israel is not a party to the Iran deal—as far as I can tell. (The text has not been released.) Israel’s first obligation is to protect the Israeli people, so it must and it will defend itself against Iran’s proxies. I understand that President Trump wants Israel to limit its Hezbollah campaign—he wants to get the “deal” over the finish line and is worried that continued fighting in Lebanon will put it in jeopardy. But if Lebanon and Iran are to be linked—a bad concession made to Iran by the Trump administration—then any Hezbollah offensive against Israel must be seen as an Iranian breach of the agreement. Even in Trump world, an Iranian breach demands a response.
But even absent such a linkage, Israel’s job is to protect Israel, and Netanyahu’s statement is meant to inform everyone—President Trump included—that Israel will do its job.
We’ll see what emerges. The MOU is just a plan for a plan. The real negotiations are yet to come, and the Iranians are masters at negotiation. My frustration with the entire matter is that we could have done much better. Why did the U.S. not continue attacking Iran during the 60 days or so when we allowed them cease-fire relief? We had all our forces in place ready to act. Once U.S. forces start to withdraw from the region, it will be too costly to move them back even if Iran breaks the (yet-to-be-negotiated) agreement, which it will. When the U.S. had its boot on the Iranian neck, it should have crushed the neck.
Not what the American people wanted their elected Commander-in-Chief to do I think, Norman. Which they made abundantly clear. President Trump may have hoped that the West winning a war for once would have brought the American people around to him. But it was not to be.
One columnist I read somewhere opined that the American people regard peace as the highest purpose of government. To the Israelis, the highest purpose is security. I found that interesting and probably true. Once the war started to affect pocketbooks—gasoline prices—the American people called for peace, even if it meant leaving some of the war objectives unmet.
“. . . the American people regard peace as the highest purpose of government.”
Count me skeptical. In virtually every major U.S. conflict since the attack on Pearl Harbor, the public provided moderate to strong support for war in the early phases. Support remained solid if the conflict was over quickly and was waged at little cost to the U.S. (Gulf War; Kosovo; Libya). However, as reality struck and costs piled up in other wars, support either faded or turned to open opposition (Korea; Vietnam; Afghanistan; Iraq). Historical distance eventually leads to reevaluations of the wisdom of military involvement, yet few individuals ever publicly acknowledge they were wrong.
Yet with the Iran War we see a reversion in the U.S. to the pre-Pearl Harbor aversion to military engagement overseas. Why? Reflexive opposition to Trump plays a role. The hangover from Iraq is another. The nuclear threat feels increasingly abstract to many Americans. We lack the clarifying Cold War binary. Proliferation has deadened our senses. Some people need to experience suffering and see close-by destruction to be stimulated to action. Others assume deterrence will work until they see proof to the contrary. Many, especially among those who are thoroughly secularized, still do not understand the nature of the Iranian regime. And I don’t discount antagonism among many Americans toward both Israel and Netanyahu.
These factors each operate differently in Israel, to the degree they exist at all. The Israelis, as a result, are far more clear-eyed about Iran. Let’s hope you and I—and they—one day have the luxury of historical hindsight and opportunity to acknowledge whether we are the ones who were wrong.
🎯
“In virtually every major U.S. conflict…”
This wasn’t a major conflict (yet?). I suppose it was a major incursion. But we all know it was a conflict/war/incursion of choice.
American Presidents have never done what Trump did. He just started bombing Iran without any marketing of the endeavor beforehand; he didn’t sell it, didn’t even try. His selling point was that months before Iran’s nuclear abilities were “totally obliterated,” the threat gone! So what changed? He didn’t say. Why was the nuclear threat no longer “totally obliterated?” He didn’t say. Americans feel he’s just going on his gut, whatever that is.
Iraq is still very real in the memory of voting Americans and getting involved again in the ME is just a bridge too far (to mix a WW2 metaphor). Trump should have known this and he needed some serious PR to establish a modicum of home grown support…think Bush/Cheney before the Iraq invasion. They really sold that shit! And they got approval from Congress. That is what was missing here…among so many other details. Disregarding the closing of Hormuz as a possible Iranian leverage point was the biggest tactical (political?) blunder since…I don’t know. Historians can sort that out.
And who did Trump put in charge to negotiate this “deal”? Kushner? Witkoff? Are you kidding me? Real-estate devolopers and grifters? What did anyone expect?
I do wonder if the predictable blowback Trump is getting right now with this shitty deal will cause him to reconsider his failures and reengage. I doubt this fiasco is over…far from it.
It may be true that the major concern of many Americans are prices. I get that. (I wish we had a bit of consumer awareness in Israel.) However, I do not believe that this deal will lower oil prices in the long term. The Iranians will hold the strait hostage, and they are already talking about “service fees” for ships traveling in the strait.
If the “understanding” goes forward, it is bad news for us here. Trump has already demonstrated his attitude when Israel responded to Hezbollah rockets with strikes in Lebanon. Trump did not understand why Israel had to respond, as no one was killed or injured. He does not understand that people have to run for cover during every such barrage, especially if they tend to happen at the exact hour when schoolchildren are riding buses to schools. So even if no one is hurt, the barrages still cause considerable danger and disruption. Is there any country in the civilized world that would not respond to such attacks? But it seems that, according to the “agreement” (to which we are not a party, by the way) we will be constrained.
Israel was not informed in advance of the terms of this agreement. Being that it concerns us, that is bad. Trump’s excuse was that he feared that details would be leaked. And for once, his logic is correct. Bibi has a long history of leaking secrets for political gain. There is no reason that he should be trusted to keep matters secret. Notwithstanding the damage done to Israel by countries discussing our fate without our participation, whether or not /trum wanted to include us, informing Bibi of any details would have damaged the process.
I only wish Trump had had some tactical or strategic reason, even an erroneous one. IMO¹ it was likely that that he would throw Israel under the bus as the first designated scapegoat for his loss to Iran; since he, by some Divine Right², can never be a loser. The list of Trump’s former allies is a long one. It’s Bullying 101 to pick on those you expect not to fight back, and “allies” are relatively soft targets.
…………
¹ As in my previous comments on his actions.
² It’s either a matter of theology or psychology; take your pick.
“A Texas woman accused of herding goats through a Walmart while drinking margaritas from a jug”
What would raise any doubts about this story?
1) Reported source is a Detroit TV station.
2) Orlando FL PD photo for Texas woman.
3) Texas/Florida woman and Walmart customer story.
4) No link to an actual news story shows up in searches
Perhaps the closest is this:
Published 10:13 AM PDT, January 14, 2019
WICHITA FALLS, Texas (AP) — Police in northern Texas say a woman has been banned from a local Walmart after she spent several hours driving an electric shopping cart around the store’s parking lot while drinking wine from a Pringles can.
Police tell the Times Record News that officers responded to a report of a suspicious person around 9 a.m. Friday at a Walmart in Wichita Falls. The city is about 125 miles (200 kilometers) northwest of Dallas, near the Oklahoma border.
Wichita Falls police spokesman Jeff Hughes says the woman had reportedly been riding the electric cart around the parking lot for about three hours.
Hughes says police eventually found the woman in a nearby restaurant and told her not to return to the store.
Police say the woman wasn’t arrested and her name was not released.
Information from: Wichita Falls Times Record News, http://www.timesrecordnews.com
Thank you! A good reminder that even when a story tickles our funny bone, and even perhaps especially when it does, we should not automatically assume that it is true, simply because it ads to the pleasant hilarity. Question everything! is a healthy attitude in life, and we should all exercise it and stay vigilant.
Are you sure? 🙂
And yes, that was a very good catch.
The turtle looks like an olive ridley, the commonest and second smallest marine turtle (Kemp’s ridley is the smallest).
I’ve got a book on the Godfather series called Take the Gun, Leave the Cannoli, well worth a read if you’re a fan of the movies.
Wife and I just got back from a 6 week trip to UK and Ireland. In Dublin we watched a very large pro-Palestine protest go by the pub we were in. It was raining, but that didn’t dampen the marchers’ enthusiasm. I’d guess that well over half were of non-Irish descent. In the old days, we might have called them outside agitators. There were also many gray-haired folks, primarily women, marching along, similar in appearance to what I’ve seen at the “no kings” rallies here.
We had an animated discussion with some locals who were of the opinion that some Irish looked on the plight of the Palestinians as similar to what they had to deal with regarding the English, but that they also saw the influx of people from North Africa and the Middle East as contributing to the popularization of the Palestinian cause, as no one is willing to call those immigrants out due to potential charges of racism. Apparently the racism only can go one way though, as the marchers hoisted signs and effigies showing all the big antisemitic imagery.
We didn’t see Clemenza buy the cannoli, so that was a scene that was probably cut, or why else was there a box containing containing cannoli on the back seat. I think you can see the light going on in Clemenza’s head when he sees the box, so he says the line. What I see as quite remarkable is the actor who plays the driver does not hesitate to follow the fiat, instead of standing there saying, “Hey, dat ain’t in da script boss”.
In Islamic law, Hudna refers to an agreement to temporarily pause fighting the infidel in order to regroup and rearm. That is all Iran is doing with this so-called deal.
As for Ireland, its antisemitism goes back a long way. In 1945 its government expressed condolences upon hearing of the death of Hitler. That said, there is one lone pro-Israel anti-Islam voice in Ireland; see https://markhumphrys.com/
Smith is literally “a women’s college with balls.” Smith now accepts as students men who think they’re women.
Actually, that means Smith is no longer a women’s college at all. Very sad.
War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength; ….
Trans women are women.