Thursday: Hili dialogue

June 25, 2026 • 6:26 am

Welcome to Thursday, June 25, 2026, and it’s Bourdain Day, celebrating the affable and engaging Anthony Bourdain, chef, writer, presenter, and foodie traveler, who was born on this day in 1956 (he committed suicide in 2018). Here he is visiting and reviewing the Waffle House:

It’s also Color TV day, celebrating the first color television broadcast on this day in 1951, National Catfish Day, National Strawberry Parfait Day, and Global Beatles Day, explained this way:

The day was founded in 2009 by Faith Cohen. It takes place on June 25th, because that marks the day that the first live satellite production was broadcasted globally. It was a British program titledOur World [1967], and it ended with the Beatles’ performance of “All You Need Is Love”. Artists from nineteen countries were included in the program, and it is estimated that at least 400 million people watched it, which was the largest television audience up until that time.

Here’s the performance (stop it after you’ve heard enough or it will play continuously). Note George Martin in the control ro

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the June 25 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

Footy News:  Another first: South Africa beat Korea 1-0, advancing to the knockout stage for the first time:

As South Africa’s football team danced the night away in Guadalupe’s Monterrey Stadium after making World Cup history, fans in Johannesburg were celebrating in the streets long before the sun came out and heralded what would become an unparalleled day in the nation’s football history.

Two red cards, one loss, a draw and a win later, South Africa did it all in their group stage matches at the World Cup and advanced to the knockout round of the tournament for the first time.

Thapelo Maseko fired into the net in the 63rd minute to give Bafana Bafana a stunning 1-0 win over South Korea, who now straddle the uncertain line between possible round of 32 qualification or elimination.

Monterrey Stadium will long reverberate with the raw emotions of South Africa fans and players celebrating the win in a fairy-tale ending to their group stage run that began with a disastrous opening match loss for Hugo Broos’ side.

While much of the nation had yet to wake up to the team’s historic achievement, die-hard football fanatics sacrificed sleep to watch the South Korea kickoff at 3am, oblivious to the quiet countdown of history about to be made.

Below are the game’s highlights.  The play that scored the one goal for South Africa begins at 6:13 on the video:

*Is the “progressive” Left, or even their more radical allies, the Democratic Socialists, ready to take over the Democratic Party? That’s what the victory of three Mamdani-endorsed New York Democratic primary candidates suggests, with Mamdani, a man I detest, now described as a “kingmaker”. It’s a scenario that brings chills up my spine.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his allies swept a series of congressional primaries in New York City on Tuesday in a remarkable show of strength for the insurgent left that sent shock waves through the Democratic Party.

Mr. Mamdani’s candidates toppled a pair of incumbents backed by the city’s political establishment, including major labor unions and the House Democratic leader. Another candidate backed by the mayor won an open House seat, and a handful of democratic socialist challengers he supported were winning down the ballot.

For months, Mr. Mamdani threw himself and his energized political organization into the three marquee congressional contests, campaigning late into the night in the race’s final days and calling the election a referendum on the direction of the party.

All the winning candidates share Mr. Mamdani’s progressive economic platform, and they each ran campaigns that focused intently on ending American support for Israel, a sign of how far public opinion has shifted on the issue, even in New York.

Late Tuesday night, the mayor stood beaming at a victory party in Brooklyn, where supporters chanted “Free, free Palestine” and “D.S.A.” After embracing many of the same advisers who led his own successful campaign last year, he declared “a new chapter in our party’s history.”

“A year ago, it was not the end of a political movement,” he said. “It was the beginning.”

Mr. Mamdani’s deep involvement amounted to an audacious gamble for a brand-new mayor trying to lead an already fractious city. He alienated key allies along the way, but the payoffs were far-reaching.

Indeed, and the thought crossed my mind “If I was much younger, I’d contemplate moving to Israel.” Or, as a friend of mine—a long time liberal Democrat but now an independent—emailed me mournfully, “We are homeless.” It’s not just the Jewish Democrats who are becoming homeless, but the centrist Democrats as well. The chant of “Free, free Palestine” at the victory party really means “Erase, erase Israel.” It’s appalling. See the post on one of the victorious Democrats later today.

*Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal tells us about “The peace Washington missed.”

It’s Wednesday, June 24, and there is a famous phrase: “If you want peace, prepare for war.” For Israel, the experience has been closer to “If you want peace, be at war.” While fighting still raged in Gaza, while Israel was striking Syria, and while another war with Iran loomed, peace with two of those countries looked genuinely within reach. Lebanon might finally be rid of Hezbollah; a newly independent Syria might normalize with Israel. Now that the fronts have gone relatively quiet, both of those options are off the table.

At the outset of yesterday’s talks—the fifth round between Lebanon and Israel—Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Leiter remarked that “we all got on the same train.”

“We sat in the same car and traveled to the same destination, with the United States serving as the locomotive. The train was heading in a very clear direction: full peace between the countries, Iran and its malign influence out of Lebanon, the disarmament of Hezbollah, and peace and security for Lebanon and Israel. Today, this train is in danger of derailing. I hope we can get it back on track,” Leiter said.

The truth is, it’s already a wreck. What began in April as a desperate Lebanese effort to stop Israel’s advance on Hezbollah has completely inverted. The supplicant now makes demands: President Joseph Aoun set the tone before talks even started—”we accept nothing less than an end to the Israeli occupation”—and Lebanon is reportedly now pressing for a complete Israeli withdrawal, with Hezbollah’s disarmament looking less and less like a precondition it is willing to accept.

The roads to peace have largely disintegrated because, instead of peace going forth from Jerusalem, it is being dictated by Washington.

. . .Egypt and Saudi Arabia are currently pushing a plan to integrate Hezbollah into the armed forces—which, apart from being unlikely, seems to require a complete Israeli withdrawal as a precondition. It’s unclear whether the plan is even being discussed in higher circles, but the question remains: Why are Egypt and Saudi Arabia effectively helping Iran?

Because, contrary to what some might assume, there are not two axes in the region but three. There is the anti-Iran axis, with Israel at its center; there is the Axis of Resistance, with Iran at its head; and then there is the go-along-to-get-along axis, which includes Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

. . . Personally, I’ve got a suggestion for President Aoun: if you want to regain the south, start with the north and work your way down. Once you’ve reclaimed sovereignty in the Bekaa Valley and Dahiyeh, I’m sure Israel will be happy to hand you the land south of the Litani.

Let us suppose, for a moment, that the U.S. had demanded normalization from Syria as a precondition for sanctions relief, or that it had maintained overt pressure on Iran rather than opening negotiations. There is a real possibility that an Israeli embassy would now be under construction in Damascus—while, with no other option remaining and plenty of regional backing, Hezbollah was being driven out of Beirut. As the vice president has been fond of saying recently, the U.S.’s and Israel’s interests are not always aligned—but I believe that would be a region better for all involved.

It looks like Lebanon is now aligning itself with Hezbollah, and may have plans to use Hezbollah as the Lebanese army, which would be a serious mistake for Lebanon, which used to be a great country and well worth visiting. Now it’s ridden with terrorism that it doesn’t seem keen to expel. As long as Hezbollah’s there, it will be trying to erase Israel.

*The NY Post reports that “Left-leaning Wikipedia blocked founder from editing site—after he campaigned to make it more balanced.”

Left-leaning website Wikipedia has taken the drastic action of permanently blocking one of its founders from editing pages — after he had campaigned to make it more balanced and fair.

Last month, Larry Sanger launched WikiProject Intellectual Diversity (WID), a group designed to help reinforce the online encyclopedia’s “original, firm commitment to intellectual diversity,” by emphasizing neutrality and transparency.

However, Sanger — who coined the name “Wikipedia,” drafted the site’s foundational set of rules and guidelines, and launched the site alongside Jimmy Wales in 2001 — is now indefinitely blocked from editing, the most drastic action the site can take against an editor.

“I am flabbergasted,” Sanger told The Post, saying the decision was made by a group of the site’s volunteer editors. He described the modern Wikipedia community as being like a “mob or a blob,” noting users do not feel obligated to a specific vision of the rules, but rather to each other.

“They are constantly trying to gauge what other people think, and this is the way ultimately these people are able to influence each other,” Sanger said. “Even a lot of the hard and fast policies are regarded as just guidelines if everybody is on board.”

Sanger became unpopular among the site’s most prolific editors for making public calls for those whose viewpoints have typically been underrepresented — Hindus prominently, but also, most pointedly, American conservatives — to be more involved. The exact reason for his blocking was not given.

Wikipedia makes a lot of noise about how its content is created by volunteer users, citing a figure of 267,000 people contributing or editing over the last 30 days on its website.

However, Sanger has long argued the real power rests with a small, largely anonymous class of Wikipedia administrators — who he has identified as being just 62 accounts, which he calls the “Power 62,” of which 85% hide behind their screennames and have never revealed their true identities.

For Sanger, the swiftness of the block highlights a glaring lack of procedural fairness. “There is no due process,” he argued. “People are being blocked—in other words, disciplined—and yet there is no respect for certain expectations that any other serious disciplinary procedure would be held to.”

He likened the platform’s arbitration to being judged by a “faceless mob,” with the absence of basic structural safeguards like a distinct prosecutor, jury, or opportunity to mount a formal defense.

After making the fact he had been blocked public on X Monday, Sanger was permanently banned from Wikipedia and any avenue for appeal was closed by the site.

, , ,The campaign to oust him was instigated by one of the most combative editors on the platform, who goes by the handle TarnishedPath. The same editor was a driving force behind one of the most controversial maneuvers in Wikipedia’s recent history: a 12-month “moratorium” that froze the lead of the site’s “Zionism” article, locking in a sentence that critics — and this reporter, in Tablet Magazine — have documented as effectively equating the movement for Jewish self-determination with ethnic cleansing.

TarnishedPath has been extremely active in gender issues on Wikipedia, pushing strongly to have JK Rowling labeled “anti-trans” or “transexclusionary radical feminist” (TERF). The editor eventually placed a banner on Rowling’s entry alleging it expressed a non-neutral point of view. “She should be referred to as having ‘anti-trans’ or ‘trans-exclusionary radical feminist’ views,” the editor wrote last June.

Whaddya know? The progressives have taken over Wikipedia!  Luana recommends Grokipedia as an alternative, but I haven’t yet investigated it.  It of course uses AI to write entries.

*The Reflecting Pool Story continues: the latest is that there seems to be no evidence of vandalism that resulted in the pool’s peeling paint and fulminating algae growth.

President Trump says the peeling blue coating and algae blooms that mar his $16.4 million renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool are the fault of vandals working with “knives” in the “dark of night.”

But government documents obtained by The New York Times show that while National Park Service workers found two cuts in sections of foam between the pool’s expansion joints, those were not directly related to the “American flag blue” coating that is now peeling, or to the algae that has turned the pool a bright shade of green.

Even as the documents show workers were attempting to address deteriorating conditions, Trump administration officials were insisting publicly that the pool was pristine.

The pool had been drained, resealed and then refilled by June 5. Four days later, Park Service workers discovered holes, cracks and peeling caulking in parts of the pool, along with cuts in sections of the foam, according to the documents.

The cause of the cuts was unclear. While a June 9 report by the U.S. Park Police described the cuts as “razor blade slashes” made along a 20-foot-long stretch of the foam, the administration has yet to present evidence supporting that assertion. The documents reviewed by The Times described them as two 171-foot blade cuts but did not address how they were made.

By June 16, workers had noticed that chunks of blue sealant that covered the pool’s bottom were peeling and floating to the surface, the documents show. That sealant was separate from the foam in the pool’s expansion joints, which allow its concrete slabs to expand and contract.

The workers had also discovered that some devices installed to kill algae were not working as intended, according to the documents. And enormous algae blooms had turned portions of the pool bright green instead of dark blue.

. . . . Mr. Trump also told reporters on Monday, without offering evidence, that vandals had poured fertilizer into the pool to feed the algae.

Neither the Interior Department nor the White House would provide charging documents, citations or the names of anyone arrested. They did share the Park Police incident report, which said any suspect or suspects were unknown. The report also did not mention any damage to the pool’s blue sealant, nor did it describe any vandals dumping fertilizer.

Katie Martin, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department, did not answer specific questions about the government documents but said in an email on Tuesday that the pool was “clear” and “reflecting beautifully.”

I now think that nobody has been arrested, or have been arrested and there’s not enough evidence to mount a case against them.  But I’m still wondering why this one issue is dominating the news!

*Daily anti-Semitism news: NBC News reported that a Jewish congressman in New York has been attacked by and barred from a local coffeeshop because he’s a “genocide enabler”.  He went in to find a restroom for his daughter, and bought about $10 worth of coffee to compensate. He was treated cordially (the man was one of the Democrats who lost to a Mamdani-endorsed candidate), but then got this from the coffee shop:

A New York coffee shop said on Instagram that Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., should never return to it because of his pro-Israel views

The post came just ahead of Tuesday’s primary elections in New York, where Goldman was defeated by former City Comptroller Brad Lander, NBC News projects, in one of the most notable races in the state.

Both candidates are Jewish, and Goldman had been endorsed by pro-Israel lobbying groups J Street and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, while Lander was backed by progressives like New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

In the harshly worded post, Poetica Coffee alluded to Goldman’s stance in support of Israel, which progressives like Lander and human rights groups have strongly criticized over the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon, and mentioned genocide and AIPAC.

“Do you see how it doesn’t taste like genocide juice?” the post said, accompanied by what appeared to be a security image of Goldman looking at his phone while he was at the register.

“See, here at Poetica, we don’t serve racists, fascists, homophobes, genocide enablers, or anyone in between,” the post continued, according to screenshots that circulated on social media and were reported by several news outlets. “Too bad we didn’t recognize you right away, or we would have turned you away.”

. . . . Goldman wrote in response that he was “sorry to see this post,” adding that the barista “could not have been nicer to my 7-yr-old daughter and me” because the shop allowed her to use the bathroom without making a purchase first.

“I made sure to buy a coffee in return for her kindness,” he added. “I hope you at least make sure she gets the tip that she deserved.”

Poetica Coffee and its founder, Parviz Mukhamadkulov, could not be reached for comment. The coffee shop’s Instagram account appears to have been deactivated.

On its website, Poetica Coffee says it goes by the credo that “whoever walks through the door is treated with unconditional dignity.”

In an interview with NBC News on Tuesday afternoon, Goldman said he was shocked by the post, “because the interaction in the shop could not have been nicer.”

“I walked in, a woman, who, the only employee there was a woman in a hijab. She was exceptionally nice,” he added.

Goldman said that he “certainly had no problem” if the coffee shop wanted to oppose the Israeli government.

“I do too, and I’m really, really upset and angered by what this Israeli government has been doing in many ways. And I voiced that a lot. But to take out frustration or opposition to what another country’s government is doing on American citizens who are only affiliated to that country based on religion is outright discrimination and prejudice,” Goldman said.

. . . . “Now, I may disagree as to whether or not there’s a genocide, but come on, we’re better than this, and we need to be better than this,” he told CNN in a separate interview.

The Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into this incident. This makes me really angry; it’s like a bad joke: “A Jew and his daughter walk into a coffeeshop.”  And how did they find out who the guy was?  Goldman’s temperate response is admirable, and it’s sad he was defeated by a Jew-hating Mamdani supporter.  I hope the shop is found to have violated the civil rights laws (imagine if a black customer got a similar response based on their ethnicity!).   Every Jew and Israel supporter should simply stop patronizing Poetica Coffee.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili becomes Taxi Driver Cat. Look at that wistful expression!

Andrzej: Get off the table.
Hili: Are you talking to me?’

In Polish:

Ja: Zejdź ze stołu.
Hili: Do mnie mówisz?

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

From somewhere on Facebook:

From Funny and Strange Signs:

From Richard:

 

Another Iranian protestor held without proper counsel, tortued, and even subjected to two “mock hangings”!  The regime that did this is the one we’re supporting:

From Luana: scientific misconduct by promoters of “affirmative care”, including the falsification of data:

From the Number Ten Cat, who’s hot. I didn’t realize England was as hot as this:

Two from my feed. First, a final flight for a Southwest Pilot, announced by his First Officer, who happens to be his daughter!

Crickets from the Special Rapporteur. She could have apologized for what happened to this woman, but. . .

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

Two from Dr. Cobb. First, a mystery:

Small fish in the tarn at Sunnegga trying to get close to the inflow, presumably because of higher O2 and nutrient levels. How did the fish get there? The traditional answer is as eggs on bird’s feet or plumage. But has anyone observed this?

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-06-15T13:18:26.898Z

And a squidworm!

The squidworm (Teuthidodrilus samae) isn't a squid. It's a swimming polychaete from ~3,000 m down in the Celebes Sea. The ten "tentacles" off its head are sensory appendages as long as its body, used to smell and feel through the dark. #WormWednesday #marinelife Images from doi.org/10.1098/rsbl…

— Dr Craig R McClain (@drcraigmc.bsky.social) 2026-06-24T14:15:46.204Z

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