Monday: Hili dialogue

July 20, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to another damn week as we move one day closer to The Big Nap. It’s Monday, July 20, 2026, and Spain is the World Cup champsion. Argentina disgraced itself not only with a lackluster performance, taking almost no shots on goal despite 30 minutes of extra time, but also by trying to fight the victorious Spanish players after the game.  National Fortune Cookie Day. These cookies did not originate in China; Wikipedia notes:

The exact origin of fortune cookies is unclear, though various immigrant groups in California claim to have popularized them in the early 20th century. They most likely originated from cookies made by Japanese immigrants to the United States in the late 19th or early 20th century. The Japanese version did not have the Chinese lucky numbers and were eaten with tea.

Bored Panda has a list of 86 funny cookies fortunes. Here are two:

It’s also Moon Day, celebrating the first human walk on the Moon on this day in 1969, Nap Day, National Lollipop Day, and Space Exploration Day,  Here’s a video of the first walk on the Moon, and I saw it live:

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 20 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Footy news: Well, despite my hope, Spain won the World Cup in extra time, beating Argentina 1-0 in a game in which Spain controlled the ball but the superb Argentine goalkeeper Martinez kept turning away Spain’s shots on goal. And there was roughhousing after the game, with disgruntled Argentinian players attacking Spanish players.

The performance imbalance is seen in the report below from ESPN:

 Ferran Torres‘ goal early in the second period of extra time was enough as Spain secured their second World Cup with a 1-0 win at New York/New Jersey Stadium (MetLife Stadium) on Sunday.

The Barcelona forward had side-footed the ball home after Nico Williams‘ header fell to him following Pedro Porro‘s cross. Before that, it had been Spain with the better chances, controlling possession and forcing a number of choice saves from Argentina keeper Emiliano “Dibu” Martinez, including a superb stop from a Williams shot at the start of extra time.

The game itself followed the script many had predicted, with Spain possessing more of the ball and Argentina waiting for their moment to find Lionel Messi. Accommodating his 39-year-old legs had served them well during this World Cup as he proved decisive in late comebacks against Egypt and England. But Spain were simply fresher and more technically gifted than previous opponents, and the end result is that Argentina’s first shot of any kind came in the 115th minute, a record of futility for a World Cup.

The upshot was a physical game, with referee Slavko Vincic loathe to intervene and opting to let play run on. But Enzo Fernández left him little choice when he upended Pau Cubarsí in injury time, earning a second yellow card.

Messi had said this was his last World Cup, and he left the stage after a tournament that saw him record eight goals and four assists. It was the third time that Argentina reached the final in the last four World Cups, having lost to Germany in 2014 and beating France in 2022.

As for Spain, already the reigning European champions, they crown a tournament that saw them concede a single goal in eight matches, against Belgium in the quarterfinals. Coach Luis De La Fuente surprised many with some of his team selection, with Pedri again starting on the bench, but he was ultimately vindicated. — Gab Marcotti

It was a hard watch for much of the time, and arguably the worst World Cup final in living memory, but Spain held their nerve and beat Argentina through sheer persistence and belief that their superior quality would win in the end.

It did, and it was a victory for control over chaos. Spain dominated possession in every game they played and Argentina couldn’t get close to the European champions by fair means, so they attempted to drag the down by less savory methods. But Spain maintained their composure long enough for Torres to win the game with his goal deep into extra time.

By the end, Spain had registered 20 shots compared to two by Argentina, with 12 on target and none by the outgoing world champions.

Pathetic; Argentina was either completely incompetent or not hungry enough. Even Messi’s great corner kicks could not save them.

Here are the highlights.  The goal by Spain is at 16:32 on the video:

And the NYT republished this from The Atlantic. Enough, already!:

Apropos, here’s today’s Google Doodle; when you click on it you’ll get scores and fireworks. (I hate the drawn out ‘GOOOOOOOOOOL’ cry!)

*Fighting has increased between Iran and the U.S. as two American military were killed in Jordan.

Two U.S. servicemembers were killed and several were wounded in an Iranian attack on an air base in Jordan, further escalating a weeklong exchange of fire where both sides have been striking increasingly sensitive targets.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East, confirmed the deaths and said another servicemember is missing as a result of the attack. Centcom later said the U.S. launched fresh strikes against Iran to punish the regime for targeting Americans and to degrade its ability to target shipping.

Four servicemembers were medically evacuated to Jordanian hospitals and have since been discharged, according to Centcom. Other personnel who were evaluated for minor injuries have been returned to duty, Centcom added.

Manned and unmanned aircraft were also hit in the attack, according to people familiar with the matter.

Iran has adapted to U.S. defenses, firing missiles that travel at extremely high speeds and can maneuver as they streak toward the earth, according to U.S. officials. Iran’s ability to hit sensitive targets also has raised concerns that the regime is getting targeting help from China or Russia, the officials said.

The American deaths are the first resulting from hostile fire since President Trump declared a ceasefire in early April. They will test the president’s restraint amid an escalating exchange of fire between the U.S. and Iran that stretched through the past week. The president has previously said he would consider going back to war if Iran kills U.S. troops.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Saturday that the loss of the servicemembers would stiffen the U.S.’s resolve.

Lawmakers offered their condolences to the families in social-media posts, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, a top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Shaheen added that “the President must negotiate an end to this disastrous war.”

The Iranian attack took place at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, which U.S. warplanes have used for operations against Iran, according to U.S. officials. The U.S. casualties came as American and partner forces were defending against missile and drone attacks, Centcom said.

Such is the half war we’re in.  It can’t go on indefininitely, but if I were in charge (and thank Ceiling Cat I’m not!), I’d tell Iran I’d bomb Kharg Island unless they surrendered indefinitely. That’s where nearly all of their oil is pumped onto taknkers.

*And, at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal analyzes the latest escalations.

For now, neither side wants full-scale war. Trump appears to be playing for time until after the midterm elections. Iran, for its part, is content to assert its sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz and knows that any new round of escalation would deposit its energy infrastructure in the U.S. target bank. Tehran has been happy to walk right up to the line without crossing it.

On Friday, it crossed it—whether by design or miscalculation is still unclear. Two U.S. servicemen were killed in an Iranian missile attack on a U.S. base in Jordan, the first American deaths in the conflict since April. Manned and unmanned aircraft on the ground were also hit, another break from the pattern of recent exchanges. The base has been struck before—an Iranian drone damaged a radar component of the THAAD antimissile system defending it in March, forcing the U.S. to replace it—but until Friday, no one stationed at the base had been killed.

The attack was not just an escalation. It was a show of strength. Iran is adapting to American missile defenses, firing high-speed, maneuverable missiles at U.S. bases across the region. Nor is it adapting alone: U.S. officials believe Beijing and Moscow are enabling Iranian targeting—China through a reconnaissance satellite sold to Iran in 2024, Russia by providing the locations of American warships and aircraft and sharing drone tactics.

Washington has already answered Friday’s attack, striking Iranian coastal surveillance and air defense facilities, maritime capabilities, missile and drone storage sites, and the IRGC unit responsible for the attack. And more is coming: F-16s from Germany are being rushed to the region, with F-35s from England and aerial refueling tankers to keep them all flying close behind. The State Department has issued a travel warning for the region—a smaller signal, but one pointing in the same direction.

It is a bizarre state of affairs: This may be the first time in the region’s history that the entire Middle East is under fire while Israel alone stands untouched. That restraint is itself a signal of Iran’s reluctance to escalate further—to strike Israel now, on top of everything else in motion, would turn the current “ceasefire war” of tit-for-tat exchanges into a war with no modifier.

Meanwhile, whatever Trump’s occasional talk of returning to the table is worth, the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding still has no pulse. Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei declared Trump’s signature “invalid,” and Tehran announced it is suspending its commitments, though some regime voices—Parliament Speaker Mohammad Ghalibaf among them—still argue for negotiations. Trump does not seem especially bothered. Asked about Iran’s withdrawal from the deal, he replied: “I couldn’t care less.”

His solution?

That said, full-scale war is not necessarily the best means to that goal either. For now, the surest path to keeping Iran from the bomb remains something far less glamorous than either strikes or negotiations: a blockade. Until Iran is starved, Trump cannot safely dismount the tiger.

As someone once said, “All this is as plausible as anything else.” But aid can enter Iran from land, including from Pakistan and Afghanistan. Would those countries agree to a blockade?

*A WSJ op-ed reports a very high rate of hormone therapy given to Oregon kids who report gender dysphoria, and the kids are young.

If you live in Oregon and your child is confused about her sex, the state is ready to medicate her and perhaps even put her under the knife. The Beaver State has become a national leader in providing life-altering hormones to minors.

According to a new study published in Research Connections, at age 17, roughly 1 in every 240 girls and 1 in every 630 boys in Oregon received cross-sex hormones for “gender dysphoria” between 2016 and 2023. These figures are triple and double the national average for girls and boys, respectively. For younger children the disparity is even greater: Cross-sex hormone use in the study was four to five times the national rate among 14- and 15-year-olds, and puberty-blocker use was more than five times the national rate at age 14.

Oregon classifies hormones and surgery as “medically necessary” treatments for gender dysphoria, which the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders defines as a mismatch between one’s sex and one’s subjective perception of “gender,” accompanied by distress or difficulty functioning.

According to the study, teens in Oregon are being diagnosed with gender dysphoria at alarming rates: 1.51% of girls and 0.46% of boys received a “transgender-related diagnosis,” almost always gender dysphoria, between 2016 and 2023. The figure for both sexes is 0.98%—10 times the prevalence of Type 2 diabetes in this age group and only slightly lower than the share of teens who described themselves as transgender on state surveys in those years (1.18%). In Oregon, calling oneself transgender is a fast track to medical diagnosis, drugs and in some cases even surgery. About 1 in 4 diagnosed minors in Oregon received such interventions, the study finds.

“Gender transition” involves the disruption of an adolescent’s natural hormone production and regulation. The goal is to mimic the appearance of the opposite sex or attain a sexually ambiguous appearance, all at the expense of the body’s healthy functioning. The known and suspected harms of these interventions include infertility, sexual dysfunction, cognitive impairment, cardiovascular disease, bone health problems and cancer.

Health authorities in several European countries have banned or restricted access to hormonal interventions for minors following rigorous evidence reviews. In Oregon the trend has been one of reckless acceleration. The apparent ease with which distressed Oregon teens go from transgender identification to diagnosis and dangerous medical intervention is no accident. It flows from deliberate choices made by state health authorities a decade ago.

The part that bothers me are operations on minors. My impression is that most rational people think that hormones and surgery should not be given to minors until they’re of an age of maturity (I waffle between 18 and 21). This rules out puberty blockers, but those are still considered experimental in much of Europe. And surely not surgery or adult hormones before then! But that’s happening, too:

Among minors, transgender-related diagnoses in Oregon rose threefold between 2017 and 2023, according to a Manhattan Institute insurance database analysis. Hormone prescriptions soared, and surgery became more common. In 2019 alone, 33 minors had double mastectomies and two had hysterectomies, according to data from the Oregon Health Authority’s All Payer All Claims Reporting Program.

Oregon has slightly more than 1% of America’s teens, but between 2019 and 2023 its clinics accounted for at least 7% of all “gender” mastectomies on teen girls. During those years 26 minors had “bottom surgery”—23 hysterectomies and three castrations.

These are minors, mind you.  It’s Oregon, of course, but it’s unconscionable to do surgery on children that young. And there appear to be no lower age limits, even for Medicare payments.

*I haven’t seen the highly-touted movie The Odyssey yet, but already classical scholars are beefing about its accuracy.

For Greek translator Emily Wilson, the release of director Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” has been gratifying in various ways. Her acclaimed 2017 edition of Homer’s epic has reached the top 5 on Amazon.com, leading a wave of similar books boosted by the movie. Nolan has even cited her translation, notably the opening line “Tell me about a complicated man,” as inspiration.

. . . The divide between scholars and critics seems in part a matter of whether the balance should tilt toward Nolan or Homer. Wilson and fellow translator Daniel Mendelsohn both expressed admiration for Nolan’s cinematic flair and ambition, what Mendelsohn calls his “great visual panache.” Both speculated that his desire to make a “Christopher Nolan” movie led to unfortunate decisions.

Mendelsohn is an author, critic and translator and his assessment appeared Friday in The New York Review of Books, where he is an editor-at-large.[You can read Mendelsoh’s review for free here.]

Mendelsohn had previously defended Nolan’s controversial decision to cast a Black actor, Lupita Nyong’o, as Helen of Troy, calling it a worthy way to “provoke, challenge and discomfit how we think about beauty and identity.” But he faulted the director for giving us an Odysseus with “no cleverness, no humor, no wily charm.” One of the Western canon’s formative tricksters has been transformed, he contended, into the kind of haunted protagonist featured in such previous Nolan movies as “Oppenheimer” and “Memento.”

“This tormented, guilt-ridden Odysseus, stripped of humor and wit, seductiveness and cleverness, is a sibling of Memento’s anguished amnesiac, of Batman, of Oppenheimer, men tormented by pasts they wrestle with in different ways,” wrote Mendelsohn, whose “Odyssey” translation came out in 2025. “Nolan has merely remade Homer’s hero in his own image.”

Here’s Mendelsohn’s last paragraph in the NYRB:

But whatever his lifelong fascination with the epic, Nolan has merely remade Homer’s hero in his own image, just as he has imposed on Odysseus’s adventures values utterly foreign to Homer. Is his new vehicle for Odysseus’s tale impressive in its visual impact and distinctive in its structural ingenuity? Yes. But is its “essential” Homeric? On that I’ll let Penelope have the last word: “The structure is nothing without the people’s respect for its meaning.”

Back to the AP piece:

Wilson, a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, said she didn’t want to come across as a “snobby,” nitpicking expert at odds with any deviation from the original text. But she questioned a range of omissions and other choices, from the absence on screen of the Gods Zeus and Poseidon (Athena is played by Zendaya ) to the “incoherent” messaging that condemns both war and physical cowardice. She found Penelope’s role so thinned out that it endangered “any possibility of believing in this marriage.” Wilson also that thought parts of the movie, notably the scenes with Odysseus’ dog, Argos, “catered towards modern sentimentality.”

Of course scholars will nitpick, but I’m not yet sure I’ll see this movie anyway. First I’ll have to find an IMAX theater showing it, and hope that they give discounts to seniors. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej is off in la-la land:

Hili: What did you say?
Andrzej: Nothing important. I find myself talking to myself more and more often.

In Polish:

Hili: Co powiedziałeś?
Ja: Nic ważnego, coraz częściej mówię sam do siebie.

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

From Addicted to Ducks:

From Meow Incorporated:

From Strange, Stupid, or Silly Signs:

From Masih, a very rare video, showing cellphone video of a notorious Iranian prison smuggled out to her:

From Steve Stewart-Williams, who has a new book on sex differences. (BTW, in that book he takes for granted that there are two sexes.) I guess I would have been reported before I retired.

From Luana, more on those plotting the destruction of Western values. (Can you tell me that this doesn’t concern you in the least?)

Two from my feed.  First, a fascinated tiny primate:

And a protective eagle:

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

And two from Dr. Cobb, Ph.D.  The France/England game ended on a genial note, perhaps because it wasn’t for the championship, and it was a great and competitive game:

In an angry, divided world, this is a great image from last night's France-England game 👏

— Howard Goodall (@howardgoodall.bsky.social) 2026-07-19T06:19:15.848Z

Matthew calls this a “four-eyed fish”, and, indeed, that may be a false eyespot designed to mislead predators:

Sometimes even a bland composition can be exciting just because you so rarely capture a decent picture of a particular type of fish. The foureye butterfly fish is one of those that I struggle to capture at all, so I consider this a success! #MarineLife #scuba #photography

— Actual Ape (@anthroprof.bsky.social) 2026-07-19T05:08:13.220Z

32 thoughts on “Monday: Hili dialogue”

  1. It was a hard watch for much of the time, and arguably the worst World Cup final in living memory,

    I would argue that the 1990 final may have been even worse. It followed a very similar script with Argentina coming out to kick the opposition (West Germany) rather than the ball and featuring that era’s greatest footballer in the World (Diego Maradonna).

    Messi is unlikely to play in another World Cup and Maradonna probably shouldn’t have as he was sent home in disgrace during the 1994 World Cup after failing a drug test.

    In 1990, two Argentinian players were red carded so at least the referee was more competent. The match also finished without needing extra time, so that’s in its favour too, I guess.

    Anyway, it’s sad for Messi but he was complicit in his team’s tactics, so I’m not shedding tears. The team that wanted to play football won and we should be grateful for that.

    Reply

    1. Messi was not only complicit in the tactics, he was nowhere after the game when his teammates were attacking Spanish players. What kind of a team captain is that?

      He’s good with his feet on the pitch but not much of a personality off it.

      Also, this behavior is just par for the course from Argentina, and also Uruguay and to some extent Paraguay. Try to cheat your way through the game and then get outraged when it doesn’t work. Is it something in the culture that produces this kind of behavior that you’d never see from other nations?

      Reply

      1. Very well said both. And let’s not forget that Messi tried to get the referee to give Cucurella a red card for briefly having his hand on his lips. He’s a detestable player. Not quite at the low bar set by Paraguay against France, but those teams share a culture of dirty play.

        Reply

  2. It was all Spain! Argentina couldn’t even get moving. The German statistician Joachim Klement who claims to have predicted three World Cups in a row got this one wrong. He picked Netherlands to win, which they did not. But it was not an outlandish prediction.

    I wonder how long it would be for us to get a new winner. Spain in 2010 was the last time. And before that it was France in 1998. Netherlands, having reached the finals three times, seems a likely candidate.

    Towards the latter stages of the WC the games become less frequent, making it easier for me to adjust to post WC life 🙂

    Reply

    1. I think Netherlands for this Word Cup was definitely a stretch. They are not the team they used to be although I did expect them to at least make the round of 16.

      Reply

  3. On this manned-landing-on-the-moon anniverary, SpaceX announced this morning that in looking over the Starship stack this weekend after last Thursday’s pretty dramatic T=0 launch abort, they are looking toward a launch attempt for this test flight 13 at a non-specific “later in the week”. Before this most recent update, they had been targeting tonight at 6:45pm ET, but in the close look at the stack and review of Thursday’s data, they are not yet ready to commit. I generally keep up to date at the Space.com site url
    https://www.space.com/news/live/spacex-starship-flight-13-launch-updates-july-20-2026

    Reply

      1. And IIRC, the first song they played after that was Video Killed the Radio Star. (Begone thou intrusive Earworm….)

        Reply

  4. I don’t know what those England and France players are doing, but one story I saw said that they were praying.

    Reply

    1. Most memorable fortune cookie: helped a friend move after his wife kicked him out of their apartment (it was well-earned punishment); Chinese dinner afterward; first fortune cookie from the plate says, “You will be doomed to marital bliss.”

      Reply

  6. I had to smile at the “Pecker’s Cutoff” sign, as it suddenly reminded me of a situation I was in almost 30 years ago, somewhere in Europe. I was in telecoms at the time, and was at the annual ITU (Int’l Telecoms Union) event, which involved enormous vendor displays and many meetings with government officials. Anyway, one evening over drinks, I was sitting with another American woman, an Irish guy and 3 or 4 Finnish government officials, all women. Someone asked one of the Finnish women about another Finnish guy at the event, and whether they worked together, and the woman answered, in English with a heavy accent, “no, there are no Pekkas in our ministry.” (Pekka is a common male name in Finland.) The other American woman and I basically fell over laughing hysterically at this statement, much to the confusion of the Finnish women and the eye-rolls of the Irish guy. Whenever the other American woman and I saw each other the rest of the event we’d start laughing. Juvenile, I know, but I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard since then. ;-J

    Reply

    1. When I was in college, I took a PE class for women with a Swedish instructor. In one exercise he had us do, he told us to make a “screwing motion” with our hips, which caused us all to break out in hysterics. Since we were too embarrassed to explain why it was so funny, he kept using that phrase and became increasingly annoyed at us for laughing every time, which made it all that much more amusing.

      Reply

    2. A small group of us were talking about typewriting skills over dinner. “I’m a 50-wpm touch typist” said one person, who then asked my wife if she was as well, or if she was “a hunt ‘n’ pecker.” To which my wife replied, “Not since I’ve been married!”

      Love that woman so much!

      Reply

    3. I was once debating with Japanese colleagues whether the dinosaurs were killed off by an asteroid impact or a giant volcanic event. One of those colleagues confidently stated “I think a giant erection killed the dinosaurs” (he meant eruption). At first he did not understand why everyone was laughing!

      Don’t get me started on former PhD student Dong Hung Lo, who could not understand why undergrads were laughing as they walked by his office. Once he understood it had to do with his first name, he changed his name on the door sign to Dick Hung Lo – and the laughter continued, much to his puzzlement!

      Reply

  7. I’m guessing the answer to the question of how often the sign announcing “Pecker’s Cutoff” needs to have the population figure updated is “Not Often”.

    Reply

  8. On this Moon Day, it worth remembering the following:
    January 13, 1920, The New York Times published a short editorial called “A severe strain on credulity” regarding Dr. Robert Goddard’s plans for a “multiple-charge rocket” that would travel to the Moon.
    The editorial said, “That professor GODDARD, with his ‘chair’ in Clark College and the countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation between action and reaction, and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react—to say that would be absurd. Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools…after the rocket quits our air and really starts on its longer journey, its flight would be neither accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left. To claim that it would be is to deny a fundamental law of dynamics, and only Dr. EINSTEIN and his chosen dozen, so few and fit, are licensed to do that.”

    On July 17, 1969 (the day after Apollo 11 launched), the Times finally retracted its earlier editorial: “Further investigation and experimentation have confirmed the findings of Isaac Newton… and it is now definitely established that a rocket can function in a vacuum as well as in an atmosphere. The Times regrets the error.”

    Reply

  9. If the Twitter post that states:

    “People like this should be deported. No sane nation would allow the growth of a cancerous political faction in their own borders whose stated goal is the destruction of the state.”

    is reasonable, and it may well be all on its own, then it seems to me that changing it to:

    “People like this should be deported. No sane nation would allow the growth of a cancerous political faction in their own borders whose stated goal is the destruction of the state through the deliberate use of terrorist murder.”

    would be even more reasonable.

    Which brings us to my complete bewilderment with Israel, who for 59 years has allowed exactly that, with no serious discussion about deportation or arrest – even of a limited number of the leaders of that faction.

    Reply

  10. The P0IUATI0N 2 sign appears to be an obvious fake as even AI agrees. But is this still funny as a peckers joke or does its pretense of reality make it non-funny? Similarly, there are numerous pretty videos of Union Pacific steam locomotive 4014 that are even more obviously computer generated. One commenter said, so what, it is a pretty image. But does no one care that imitation is presented as reality? Sure, the sign is funny, but wouldn’t it be more entertaining if it were real?

    Reply

  11. The World Cup final was exactly what turns Americans off to the sport. It’s as if Argentina in particular thought “This was a decent tournament which may progress the sport in America…so let’s kill that momentum right now.”

    I love football, but it is games like this that highlights its flaws. One team, Argentina, effectively refused to play yet could have won the match. I can’t imagine a similar scenario in any North American sport, or other popular sports like rugby or cricket. The low scoring nature of football makes this tactic of ultra-defense + thuggery viable against a much better team.

    A very easy fix would be to aggressively punish this habit that certain nations have of crowding and bullying the referee after any decision they don’t like. Yellow and red cards for anyone other than the team captain that approaches the ref.

    Other changes are needed but this one seems obvious and easy to implement.

    Reply

    1. One team, Argentina, effectively refused to play yet could have won the match. I can’t imagine a similar scenario in any North American sport, or other popular sports like rugby or cricket.

      It does happen in other sports. For example, in cricket in the 1980’s the West Indies bowling tactics were often to bowl bouncers practically all the time. I bouncer is a ball aimed at the batsman rather than the wicket. For balance (I’m English) see also the Bodyline Tour.

      A very easy fix would be to aggressively punish this habit that certain nations have of crowding and bullying the referee after any decision they don’t like. Yellow and red cards for anyone other than the team captain that approaches the ref.

      That would help but also, the referee punishing players appropriately for foul play would also help. Argentina would not play as they do if they didn’t think they could get away with it.

      The “problem” with any of this is that, at first, less leniency would result in absurd situations with teams with half their players sent off and the people that run the game are not prepared to put up with it for as long as it takes the players to learn how to behave properly.

      Reply

  12. I was for a Spain win, they did to Argentina what they did to France. Well done… the Arge had only bargy from what I saw with the England match. As for their behaviour during and after the match I’m actually glad they bombed.

    Reply

  15. The bar chart showing the percentage of students who think a professor should be reported for making various statements reveals something very interesting: It is only “liberal/left-leaning” and (supposedly) “independent/apolitical” students who, to a significant degree, think a professor should be reported for any statement, and then, only for those statement that contradict leftist ideology.

    In contrast, there is no statement for which more than 15% of “conservative/conservative leaning” students think a professor should be reported. Interestingly, statements that run afoul of conservative dogma get the least—only single-digit—support by conservative students for reporting the professor.

    These data contradict the narrative that cancel culture is a “both sides” phenomenon.

    Reply

    1. Haven’t you heard? Freedom of speech and opinion is a “far right” and “white supremacist” position these days. The self-styled “liberals” of today are anything but liberal.

      I guess that’s why so many of them chant “Palestine will be free” when freedom is the very last thing Palestinians actually want – they want instead to impose a totalitarian Islamofascist theocracy on the region, with no freedom of any kind.

      Reply

  16. The fact that nearly three times as many girls as boys are diagnosed with dysphoria is great evidence that most of the girls are victims of social contagion, rather than suffering from genuine dysphoria, since females were statistically much less likely to experience severe dysphoria than males before transgenderism became a ‘thing’ in youth culture.

    Also, the fact that these diagnoses are concentrated in Oregon demonstrates that medical professionals can be as susceptible to social contagion as teen girls. They are not a credit to their profession.

    The cat-as-ad blocker meme reminded me to give readers here a tip: U Block Origin is your friend. It’s literally been years since I’ve seen an ad on my computer.

    Reply

    1. Abigail Shrier presented the social contagion theory in Irreversible Damage. In response, Chase Strangio wrote, “Stopping the circulation of this book and these ideas is 100% a hill I will die on.” That remark was a turning point for me and caused me to lose confidence in the ACLU’s commitment to defending free expression and civil liberties.

      Reply

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