Welcome to Tuesday, not the Cruelest Day this week because in America this “work week” has only four days. It is September 8, 2026 and it’s National Ants on a Log Day. What is that? This “healthy snack” comes from my childhood, and consists of peanut butter spread on a celery stick and dotted with raisins. Wikipedia, which has an article on this comestible, says there are variants:
Ants on a log is a North American snack made by spreading peanut butter, cream cheese, ricotta cheese, or another spread on celery, pretzels or bananas and placing raisins, blueberries, or chocolate chips, etc. on top. The snack and its name are presumed to originate in the 1950s. The classic peanut butter version of ants on a log is recommended as a healthy snack by the McKinley Health Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
. . .There are numerous variations of ants on a log, including:
- Gnats on a log: currants
- Ants on vacation: without “ants” (raisins)
- Ants on a Slip ‘n Slide: add honey on top of the peanut butter before adding raisins
- Ants on a canoe: substitute apple slices for traditional celery
- Pigs in a pen: substitute pimento cheese for peanut butter and replace “ants” (raisins) with bacon bits (pigs)
- Ants on a ranch: substitute ranch dressing for peanut butter and peas for raisins
- Fish on a stream: Hummus spread on a celery stalk and topped with Goldfish crackers
The “classic” version, not to be mistaken for the much tastier Chinese dish called “ants climbing a tree.”
It’s also International Literacy Day, National Ampersand Day (&), National Date Nut Bread Day, National Actors Day, and National Pledge of Allegiance Day (“The day takes place on September 8, marking the anniversary of the day the Pledge first appeared, in 1892, in The Youth’s Companion).”
To celebrate actors day, here are two of them in a great scene from the 1954 movie “On the Waterfront“: Marlon Brando (perhaps the greatest actor of our time) and Eva Marie Saint. Saint is still alive at 102; it’s hard to believe that someone who acted with Brando in that movie is still with us. She won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, and Brando won for Best Actor. The film is seen as having popularized method acting—acting in which an actor’s life experiences and personal emotions are used to inform the role.
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the September 1 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*A far-right German political party, the Alternative For Germany (AfD), trounced its rival in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, but in the German system that may not give it the power to govern. This victory, according to another NYT, may be a bellwether for far-right victories in other European countries.
The Alternative for Germany party dominated a crucial state election on Sunday, according to near-final results, but fell short of the absolute majority needed to become the first far-right party to govern part of the country since the Nazi era.
If those results hold, the AfD, as the party is known by its German initials, could still assume power in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt in the coming weeks, depending on the negotiations among rival parties that have vowed not to support an AfD government.
Saxony-Anhalt is a relatively small state, and the heart of the AfD’s power base in eastern Germany. But the election result sent shock waves through the country’s political system, which was designed after World War II to prevent extremist parties from ever returning to power.
“The AfD’s electoral victory in Saxony-Anhalt is less a reflection of the appeal of its political agenda than a stark demonstration of the political establishment’s failure to articulate a convincing vision for the state’s economic, political and social future,” said Jana Puglierin, the head of the Berlin branch of the European Council on Foreign Relations.
The political establishment has treated the AfD as a pariah. Still, the party tapped into voter frustration on a wide range of economic and social issues to win about 44 percent of the vote in the state, and was set to claim 39 of the 83 seats in the Parliament.
Remember that this was a small state (population about 2 million) and was absorbed into East Germany; it was re-constituted when Germany was unified. From the second link:
Rarely has the result of a regional election been viewed with such portent for the fate of democracy in Europe.
This wasn’t just any European country; it was Germany, a country that has relentlessly isolated far-right political parties since the calamity of Nazism. And it wasn’t just a strange outlier, but rather the latest step in a steady, decade-long march that has brought the far right ever closer to the fulcrum of power in Europe.
With elections scheduled across Europe next year, the striking success of the party, Alternative for Germany, could be a harbinger of further far-right victories, according to analysts, as well as a template for how they can be engineered. Its populist, anti-immigrant message echoes those of nationalist leaders in Britain, France, Italy and Spain, all countries where voters harbor many of the same grievances as those in Germany.
From the WSJ:
Germany’s Alternative for Germany scored a historic victory at a regional election on Sunday but was just short of the majority needed to form the country’s first far-right government since World War II, according to preliminary results.
The result will present other parties on the right and the left with a stark choice: continue banding together to keep the AfD out of power despite deep political differences—a decades-old strategy known as the firewall—or let the AfD form a minority government for the first time.
Now the ball is with Chancellor Friedrich Merz and his center-right Christian Democratic Union. The path he takes could decide his fate and that of his government.
Merz has ruled out even passive cooperation with the AfD, but CDU lawmakers in Eastern Germany, where the far-right party is strongest, are divided about the firewall, setting the stage for a possible split in the party. Critics think ostracizing the AfD has alienated voters and forced the CDU to govern with parties that don’t support its agenda, leading to policy paralysis.
This move to the right is also going on in England, Spain, and Italy; it’s curious that immigration is barely mentioned in the two NYT articles, even though it was a selling pint for the AfD, which takes a pretty hard line:
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has designated the AfD as a “suspected extremist” group and its Saxony-Anhalt branch as “extremist.” Some of the party’s leaders have played down the Holocaust and adopted Nazi slogans. Others have strong ties to Russia. The AfD has also said that Islam is incompatible with the German Constitution and has vowed to conduct mass deportations of immigrants.
*Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal sees the Gaza situation over the last 7 months as one that “has been maintained by an unstoppable force colliding with an immovable object—the former being Israel’s determination not to give an inch of ground, the latter, Hamas’s refusal to disarm.” According to an unnamed source on the Trump-mandated Board of Peace, Israel now has four options:
The first is to keep the current policy, which “could lead to another October 7”: attacking Hamas but never fully destroying it, with Hamas still in control of the Gazan population, still fully armed, and with more terrorists than it had before the war began. I would quibble with the prediction of another October 7, but the reputational and alliance costs he didn’t explicitly mention are considerable.
The second option is to hand Gaza over to the PA. This is the preferred option of most of the Arab states and the UN, which is itself enough to disqualify it. I would count this as the most likely to lead to another October 7.
The third, according to them, is for Israel to conquer and control all of Gaza, assuming responsibility for 2 million Gazans with no international support and likely copious amounts of international hostility. The IDF would have to draft tens of thousands of reservists to take Gaza and even more to maintain their hold on the Strip. This we can agree is unviable.
The fourth and “only viable option,” they claim, is to cooperate with the Board of Peace and abide by the 20-point peace plan. It’s a “win-win for Israel,” they insist. Israel keeps the Yellow Line and does not withdraw. If Hamas fully disarms, the BoP and National Committee for the Administration of Gaza take control of Gaza, headed by President Trump. Israel withdraws fully only after Hamas is removed from governing and stripped of all its military capabilities. If Hamas does not fully disarm, then Israel has a green light to destroy it, while the BoP takes care of the population in areas outside Hamas control. No isolation for Israel, no bill for occupation.
. . .Yet for all my criticism of his framing, I don’t disagree. Israel needs to entertain the process and put the pressure back on Hamas to start moving on disarmament. Despite what newly minted Israel critics may claim, the country never had the luxury of unconditional support or a blank check. Uncompromising stubbornness comes at an incredibly high price, but Israel can reduce the bill with the occasional cooperation. It’s called give and take.
My take: see how many Kalashnikovs the BoP can collect, how many Hamas members they include in their police force, and proceed accordingly. Regardless, ensure Israel isn’t the one to blame if the process collapses. But as Kushner accurately diagnoses, none of this will happen before elections.
Segal, like me and “The Source,” sees option 4 as the best by far. This is not a “two state solution” but it’s the best that can be done right now. Segal doesn’t think Trump gives a hoot what happens in Gaza, but Israel does! I cannot believe that, after all this, Hamas will disarm.
The new head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council on Sunday said Tehran plans to announce an “exclusion zone” outside the Strait of Hormuz aimed at vessels it believes are attempting to transit the waterway.
Mohsen Rezaei’s comments to Iran’s state broadcaster came with few details, a day after the U.S. struck three Iranian oil tankers in response to Tehran launching ballistic missiles at U.S. warships. Experts called the launches a dangerous escalation after Iran’s previous attacks at sea targeted commercial shipping.
The new zone should be announced in the coming days and weeks and “will begin from the line of the U.S. naval blockade, extend toward the Strait of Hormuz, and from this side continue into the Persian Gulf,” Rezaei said. “Any ship that enters this area with the intention of passing through the Strait of Hormuz and is identified will be placed on our sanctions list.”
It is not clear where Iran defines the location of the weekslong U.S. blockade, which is aimed at Iranian ports and keeping Tehran from shipping out its oil. The U.S. military has said over 20 warships are supporting the blockade, which as of Sunday had redirected 92 commercial ships and disabled three.
The U.S. has been introducing new measures to increase the economic pain on Iran after negotiations collapsed and no end to the intermittent fighting appears in sight. Meanwhile, Iran continues to attack some ships trying to transit the strait, which has become an important source of leverage for Tehran in the war that began Feb. 28 with U.S. and Israeli strikes.
I wonder what the Iranian “sanctions list for ships” consists of.
*Mayor Zohran Mamdani promised free universal childcare were he elected, and there’s a small program for poor families with young kids. But as for the “universal part,” the WaPo reports that, based on New Mexico’s experience, it’s probably impossible.
But Rivera lives in a city with an acute shortage of child care centers. She still spends her days piecing together care with help from family members, canvassing social media and searching for babysitters.
She’s on 10 different waiting lists.
“I think the systems that they put in are great, sure, but it’s just not there yet,” Rivera said, as she triedto answer work emails while holding her 8-month-old daughter, who was cooing and waving a plastic giraffe. “In five years, maybe. For parents trying to do it now, it’s impossible.”
When Lujan Grisham first announced the programin a state with a majority-female legislature, it was widely praised as a historic step to address an issue that consumes the lives of parents everywhere — and their incomes. Costs for caring for an infant can often exceed a year’s rent, according tothe U.S. Department of Labor.
But the groundbreaking program, in part funded by the state’s sizable oil and gas revenue, has had a rocky debut.
The number of children who have enrolled has skyrocketed, far outpacing the capacity of day care centers in the state. Lujan Grisham has had to grapple with legal challenges, including a whistleblower case from the program’s chief financial officer, who says she was fired after flagging an $83 million budget deficit.
Critics have raised concerns that annual costs could balloon to more than $800 million — nearly $400 million more than when the program debuted. State legislative analysts have also found that newly eligible, higher-income families may be squeezing out some of the lowest-income recipients. The state’s GOP leaders dubbed the program“Nannies for Millionaires.”
The stakes could not be higher as more Americans say raising children is too expensive and as political leaders look to New Mexico as they try to address overwhelming child care needs. Vermont and Connecticut already have smaller-scale programs, and New York MayorZohran Mamdani (D) is rolling out free day care for thousands ofthe city’s 2-year-olds — a move that has also had a bumpy start.
When I asked Grok why the program had a rocky start, it told me this:
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s free 2-K program for 2-year-olds—the first phase of his campaign promise of universal childcare—has faced a rocky rollout because of delayed city payments and contract approvals that have left many daycare providers short of cash just days before the September 10, 2026 start date.
Providers report they have not received the usual August advance payments needed for furniture, supplies, teacher salaries, and utilities. Some have warned parents their sites may not open. City-offered interest-free bridge loans have also been slow to arrive, forcing operators to tap personal savings, 401(k)s, high-interest loans, or family members. One Bronx operator with four planned 2-K classes put it bluntly: the city created the program “but they didn’t set up the infrastructure to make it work.”
These delays are not new. New York’s early-childhood contracting system has struggled with late payments for more than a decade, beginning with the 2014 Universal Pre-K launch under Bill de Blasio. The problem worsened under Eric Adams after hundreds of staff—including instructional coordinators who worked directly with providers—were cut or reassigned. The Division of Early Childhood Education remains understaffed, and launching a new 2-K cohort on top of existing 3-K and pre-K programs added more contracts than the depleted office could process quickly.
Nobody believes that Mamdani will keep a majority (or any) of the pie-in-the-sky promises that got him elected. But neither do people care. He’s a socialist and hates Israel, and that is apparently what’s important to people.
*And the ever-reliable AP Odd News site reports a massive theft of Guinness Stout:
British police have a stout task ahead: recovering 70,000 pints worth of stolen Guinness.
Two trailer truckloads of the famously creamy dark beer valued at 115,000 pounds ($155,000) were stolen from a depot near Liverpool in northwest England, the Cheshire Constabulary said Thursday.
“It is famously said that ‘Guinness is good for you,’ but that is only the case when it has been bought and paid for,” Det. Sgt. Gary McClatchy said. “We will settle for nothing less than the full recovery of all the items stolen.”
The Guinness had been destined for pubs, but was snatched Monday night by two drivers who pulled up to an industrial park in Runcorn and hauled away the trailers containing about 800 barrels of stout.
The value of the trailers was estimated at 50,000 pounds ($67,000).
The theft comes just weeks after a beer heist in the United States captured the public’s attention because of the brewer’s cheeky social media posts about the loss of roughly 34,000 cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon.
What I don’t understand is this: these are not cans or bottles of Guinness, but CASKS that were intended for pubs. So what is going to happened to the 800 barrels of purloined stout? You need a whole system (including a cool cellar) to tap these kegs, and there are hundreds of them. It’s a very odd thing to steal!
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the conversation is getting antiwoke:
Hili: And again, we’ve turned today into yesterday.
Andrzej: Please, don’t tell me that time is a social construct.
In Polish:
Hili: I znów zmieniliśmy dziś we wczoraj.
Ja: Proszę, nie mów, że czas to konstrukt społeczny.
*******************
From The Language Nerds:
From CinEmma:
From Terrible Maps:
From Masih; the fiancée of an executed protestor took her own life. Please remember these things when you think about Iran.
THEIR WEDDING WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THIS MONTH.
But Aida could not bear the pain of losing her fiancé to the regime’s bullets, and ultimately took her own life. 💔
Aida Heydari, 25, was engaged to Abolfazl Soleimani, a 27-year-old young man who was shot and killed by regime forces… pic.twitter.com/pqefuuF6up
— Masih Alinejad (@AlinejadMasih) September 7, 2026
From Luana. I don’t know what’s worse: people helping others to cheat who then lose their jobs, or people simply cheating. I suppose it’s the former.
Any way you want to look at this it’s insane:
“At its peak early this decade, at least 40,000 people in the city were being paid to do other people’s homework, researchers estimated” pic.twitter.com/10FvS3DEpu
— Thomas Chatterton Williams (@thomaschattwill) September 7, 2026
It looks like Milo Yiannopoulos has become Muslim. When he was gay (no longer, I think) he was violently opposed to Islam. Wikipedia says this:
Yiannopoulos is a frequent critic of Islam and has said the “fear of Islam is entirely rational”.[91][needs update] He has blamed Islam, not just extremist groups and terrorists, for violence against women and homosexuals. Yiannopoulos said “I’m not talking about Islamists. I’m not talking about terrorists. I’m not talking about radical Islam. I’m talking about mainstream Muslim culture”.
The Prophet ﷺ said:
خيارُكم في الجاهليةِ ، خيارُكم في الإسلامِ إذا فقُهوا
“The best of you in the time of ignorance (Jāhiliyyah) are the best of you in Islam, if they gain understanding.”
— Sahih al-Bukhari 3383; Sahih Muslim 2378 pic.twitter.com/3aaSBugNt8
— MILO (@Nero) September 6, 2026
The Number Ten Cat looks as if he’s been ridden hard and put away wet:
My old pal @PoliticalPics caught me between naps https://t.co/PtfQj88cKX
— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) September 7, 2026
One from my feed. Sound up to hear the otter’s squeals of joy:
Lola the baby otter tries fish for the first time
[📹 paulcuffaro] pic.twitter.com/45n60nu9ag
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) September 7, 2026
One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:
A Czech Jewish girl, here photographed at age 2, was gassed as soon as she arrived in Auschwitz ten years later. https://t.co/JJaFnNeXy4
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) September 8, 2026
Two from Doctor Cobb. Look at all those rays!
A circling school of Cownose Rays near the beach in Clearwater, Florida yesterday. Nature is Awesome! Notice the long trail of sediment being stirred up by the rays. Different marine life often leaves different tracks to follow just like land animals. #animals #wildlife #nature #florida #awesome
— See Through Canoe (@seethroughcanoe.bsky.social) 2026-09-07T13:59:16.175Z
Matthew took this photo himself, and I think I’ve been to this store!
Great antiques shop window in Edinburgh.
— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-09-06T18:18:11.947Z
The media does indeed call them “far right”, but one could equally suggest that they are the only moderate, centrist party, and that all of the others have succumed to radical far-left doctrines.
The idea that Europe benefits from importing multiple millions of people from poorer countries, who then overwhelmingly live on benefits, and who have radically different cultures and sympathies, really only appeals to far-left “open borders” advocates. The vast majority of Europeans are strongly opposed.
Up to WWII, London was >99% ethnically British. Now, British kids are only 20% of London primary schools. 80% are children of post-WWII migrants.
In the country overall, British kids are down to 55% in primary schools (and dropping steadily as mass immigration continues), so we’ll almost certainly have a future where British people are in a minority in Britain.
This is so damaging to Britain’s economy that GDP-per-capita has stagnated for 20 years now. The fraction of workers, compared to those supported by the taxpayer, is at an all-time low, resulting in the economy being over-taxed, and hence a spiral to being a low-wage, poorer country.
(Contrast to, say, Poland, which has said no to migrants, where GDP-per-capita is growing strongly.)
But, let’s all parrot the mantra: diversity is our greatest strength, and being opposed to mass immigration makes you “far right”.
Anyone who has traveled extensively understands the beauty of different cultures. Of course there was small-scale immigration between countries which was tolerable: immigrants to England wanted to be English, and tried their best to fit in. They tried their best to shed their accents, and adopted the mannerisms of their new country.
Aside from the massive numbers of immigrants to Western Europe and North America, something else has happened. Immigrants are demanding that the host country adapt to their own cultures, and, in some cases, recognize as valid practices abhorrent to the host cultures—especially regarding treatment of women.
Why should a country like the US or England need to print documents in languages other than English? (Think of the reaction if something similar was suggested in France.) Forcing the immigrants to learn the language of their host country is the way for those immigrants to be able to get ahead in the society in which they live. And there is no reason for hardworking, educated immigrants not to get ahead in the US: social mobility is one of the things that has differentiated the US from other countries.
Western countries need immigrants: look at the low birthrates to understand. But open borders is a catastrophic policy: healthcare alone will crash the economy, unless a multi-tier residents policy is instituted. what is needed is an intelligent immigration policy for each country, as opposed to the all-or-none policies seemingly favored by politicians.
‘…millions of people from poorer countries, who then overwhelmingly live on benefits…’
Do you mean that they stay on benefits in perpetuity? If so, I’m interested to know where you’ve got the numbers for this assertion. I’m not trying to be argumentative, just genuinely interested in the source.
Yes, they cost money throughout their lifetimes. UK government data says low-paid migrants arriving at age ~20 “cost £150,000 each” by age 66, then £500,000 each if they live to 80. Similar for Denmark, Netherlands, etc. Poorer-country migrants are always a net negative. And the pattern continues to the second generation (and possibly the third, though data on that is sparse)! E.g. Link.
Starwolf: I’m not convinced that demographics mean we need migrants. Over the next 5 years, many jobs will disappear, taxi driver, delivery driver etc to self-driving vehicles; many jobs relating to paperwork will go to AI; and on a 10- or 20-yr timescale humanoid robots will do almost all physical tasks. One high-paid worker will talk to an AI that supervises 500 bots.
I’ve always been puzzled by the idea that immigrants can solve the problem of low birth rates. Either the adapt or they don’t. If they don’t, then one has the usual problem of parallel societies. If they do, then their birth rates will drop, and one has merely postponed the problem. Also, too many will lead to the demise of the host culture. And many send money back home rather than into the local economy. The proper response would be to find out why the birth rates have dropped and take measures to counteract that.
We know a couple of things about birth rates. One of them is that birth rates are strongly negatively correlated with women’s education. (Educated women may not want to have e 6 children.) Even so, education does not explain why the number drops below population sustainability.
I have no idea of how to solve either problem—immigration or population sustainability. I simply would like to see some way of screening immigrants for a real desire to integrate into Western culture, rather than trying to import the same problems that they are running from in the first place. In the US, we see that all the time, and people try (and sometimes succeed) in actually electing such people into positions of political power. It amazes me that people vote for candidates that curse American society, and pretend that the cultures from which they escaped are paradise, and teach their descendants the same values. Certain members of “the Squad” come to mind as examples.
Regarding the AfD—-anyone who supports Putin is supporting evil. It is that simple. And Europeans who support Putin are fools if they think that somehow that will help their countries retain their national identity.
There have been societies where educated women had enough children.
Yes, the AfD support Putin and deny the reality of human-caused global warming. Both dangerous. Some other positions are definitely right-wing by any definition. That doesn’t change the fact that they are non-woke and centrist in other positions. A problem is that progressives have been calling everyone who is non-woke “far-right” for so long that the real far-right are no longer perceived as dangerous, and a group like the AfD which is non-woke AND traditionally right-wing populist is thus perceived by many to be in the same category as J. K. Rowling, which is absurd.
Thanks Coel. I think my only challenge would be that in the UK we’ve had instances where migrations from poorer countries has been a net benefit (e.g India), but I appreciate the rest of your response.
We all know about the woke left (often criticized here) and the non-woke left (our host and many commentators here). There is a huge problem in that many “progressives” term everyone who is non-woke “far-right”. But the AfD is both non-woke AND right-wing by the usual definition (one can debate what “far” means). On many issues, yes, perhaps best described as centrist, but on others definitely positions traditionally described a right-wing.
They also support Putin and deny AGW.
Why does wanting to restrict immigration come along with a host of other reactionary beliefs? If things are as bad as Coel says, why isn’t it a mainstream belief? I’m genuinely confused.
Apparently some 25% of AfD are Holocaust deniers, compared to 2% of the German population.
In France, Marine Le Pen kicked these people out of her Party. Perhaps she’s a better model.
“Why does wanting to restrict immigration come along with a host of other reactionary beliefs? If things are as bad as Coel says, why isn’t it a mainstream belief? I’m genuinely confused.”
Wanting to restrict immigration is a mainstream belief. The problem is that there are no mainstream politicians; just far-leftists, who refuse to solve the problem, and far-rightists, who at least promise to. Mainstream voters end up voting for the rightists out of desperation.
I was going to write exactly the same thing. The same applies to the whole TRA debate. Almost no-one goes along with their policy, but few if any centrist or left-leaning parties want to speak oui against it.
Today is the 60th anniversary of the airing of the first episode of Star Trek, a show that my mom (now 85) loved, although she didn’t like reading sf.
That’s because Star Trek was to good sci-fi writing as a Frappuccino is to a nice espresso.
Not that it is bad mind you…Star Trek was great entertainment and the writers certainly had good sci-fi chops, as did the creator Gene Roddenberry. But they knew they had to make a show that would appeal to the masses.
My mom, who would be 92, also was a Star Trek fan, but not generally a sci-fi fan. Dad loved sci fi in general and Star Trek in particular. This makes me feel guilty because I was born a few weeks after ST premiered, and I know how impossible it is to watch tv in a house with a newborn. Fortunately, they had plenty of time to catch up with syndicated reruns.
And now there is the present series (Strange New Worlds), that seems hell bent on destroying it. They had a musical episode, and a (gag) episode where the crew were changed into Muppets!!! W … T…. Holy ….F.
Well, the muppet show did debut ten years after ST, nearly to the day.
I just read the other day that Frank Sinatra was considered for the Brando role in Waterfront.
I swear M. Yiannopoulos (and Greta Thunberg for that matter), are human weathervanes that quickly pivot to whatever direction they think the wind may be blowing.
Rod Steiger, who played Charley in On the Waterfront, was a great actor too. I tend to think he was better than Brando.
That was such an amazing movie. And surely it had some of the most quotable movie lines of all time.
I agree with you — I rate Steiger above Brando.
“It looks like Milo Yiannopoulos has become Muslim…”
In times past, unless they came from money, semi-clever, somewhat charismatic young people who were too lazy to work eventually had to knuckle down and get a job. The alternative was to be destitute.
Now, technology allows people like this to put on a new costume every few years and actually make money through their narcissism and need for attention.
I think that Milo has approximately zero belief in Islam. It’s just his latest way of attention-farming.
I agree. There are NO news stories about him converting. It’s a publicity stunt, IMO.
Unrelated: the baby otter eating fish is adorable.
Socialism = waiting lists.
Back in the glory days of communism in the Eastern Bloc, there was the following joke:
A reporter walks up to people in different countries and asks:
“Excuse me, what is your opinion of the bread shortage?”
American answer: “what’s a shortage?”
Polish answer: “what is bread?”
USSR answer: “what’s an opinion?”
Israeli answer: “what’s excuse me?”
Why is the Israeli answer: “what’s excuse me?” Are Israelis rude? I don’t understand.
That joke was told in Israel. At that time, Israelis were famous for being rude. Very nice and welcoming, but rude, as if they did not have the time for manners. Waiting in line was unheard of, but no one would ignore a stranger in trouble.
Things have improved here since then.
HAAHHa, In my limited experience, I have found Israelis… kind of .. less than polite all the time.
🙂
D.A.
NYC
A long time ago (1988-1991), I worked as a reservation sales agent at a car rental company in Canada. This was pre-internet, so if you wanted to rent a car overseas, you had to call and talk to a human being, who would consult the company’s computer reservation system.
There were two types of caller we hated getting – one was for camper vans in Australia (because they involved reciting a lengthy list of legal conditions before even discussing prices) and the other was calls for car rentals in Israel (because the callers tended to be rude). Since then I’ve met many Israelis and, while most have been warm and lovely people, they have tended to be rather, um, forthright 🙂
” According to an unnamed source on the Trump-mandated Board of Peace, Israel now has four options [in Gaza]…”
Israel has an additional option, that seems to me to be well-justified, has multiple historic precedents involving Palestinian violence, appears to be legal under International law, but is political poison: deportation.
Gaza is the sovereign territory of Israel under actual International law, and Gazans are not citizens of Israel. Sovereign states are allowed to deport non-citizens for their behavior for security reasons, and it is hard to imagine any state, save Israel, who would tolerate the behavior of Gazans, such as it is, over the past 78 years.
Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Syria, the US, and the UAE have all deported Palestinians based on their behavior. And in none of those cases was the behavior of the Palestinians as reprehensible as the behavior of Gazan Palestinians toward Israel. Kuwait expelled up to 400,000 Palestinians.
Gazan Palestinians have engaged in thousands of instances of terrorism against Israeli Jews for six decades before Hamas won its election in 2006, and in tens of thousands of acts of terrorism since. I don’t need to list all ways Gazans have dedicated themselves for five generations to the destruction of Israel and the inculcation of Jihadi terrorism – their record of murderous violence is sufficient to justify expulsion.
So long as the Gazans are not expelled to regions where they would be expected to be tortured or killed, as far as I can tell, their deportment is legal under International and humanitarian law.
It may be political poison, but it sure seems justified to me. And it is an arguably better outcome for Gazans than endless war and casualties, and certainly better for Israel in the long run, who deserves peace and security within its legal borders.
Even if Palestinians wanted to leave Gaza, where would they go. And if they don’t want to leave, where would they be deported to forcibly?
How about Egypt or Jordan?
But where would they go? No one wants them.
This is easy: Britain’s Labour Party and indeed Polanski’s Green Party would both be happy to welcome them all.
(I wish I were joking 🫨)
Yes Roger. I can’t imagine another country putting up with such a cancerous, hostile population as Gaza.
Who are, b tw, mainly Egyptians.
Try selling that tho,
best regards,
D.A.
NYC
Gaza: My inclination is to agree with Amit Segal that the Board of Peace is the best option. It’s probably the most manageable option, as it is a written, negotiated agreement and has some international backing. The other options seem more volatile. Maybe under the modicum of stability promised by the Board of Peace, the Palestinian Arabs of Gaza will come to their senses and start to value their own well-being more than they hate Israel. (Hope springs eternal.)
Iran: By extending their maritime control even further, Iran is testing the U.S. We need to stand up to this provocation. But the snake is slithery. If we stand up to the expansion—by destroying everything Iranian that moves within their new maritime claim, for example—would we be de facto ceding control of the Strait itself? This is how Iran expands its reach, one step at a time. We need to pay attention to their game! We need to free the Strait of Hormuz in its entirety, and not give in.
I worry about this development in that it will spread our forces pretty thin. I think the Iranians have calculated this.
Yes indeed. The more territory they claim to control, the more spread out our forces need to be to contain them.
I remember reading Ulysses S. Grant’s autobiography some years ago in which he tells how white plantation owners in the South looked down on the poor whites who picked cotton and did other menial work done by black slaves as “white trash”. The implication being that slaves were needed because some jobs were beneath whites.
When I hear arguments here about the need for immigrants because “who will pick the crops?”, I hear the echo of those plantation owners’ words.
not buying the squashed donut picture:
1) donut in empty position not flat in partially opened box
2) donut too (and evenly) flat
no big deal overall, but look at all the obviously fake videos that many people think are real and wonder which ones i mistakenly accept. an independent objective reality no longer exists. if it ever did
I don’t doubt that AfD is tainted with some blood-and-soil types; that happens when no other party is willing to address voter concerns about mass immigration. The question is whether that element characterizes the party.
I want to be cautious about drawing parallels with the U.S., but I’m far from the only one who has seen Clinton-era Democratic Party positions smeared now as “far right” by many of the same people who once held those now-disparaged views. What, precisely, qualifies AfD (as opposed to some individual supporters) as “far” right and their policies a sharp divergence from the realpolitik strand of post-war German governance? Where is the stunning novelty or throwback to the Reich, or are they more guilty of violating this decade’s establishment taboos?
I also noticed that AfD earned about 60% of the working-class vote in Sachsen-Anhalt. It seems that no matter which of the establishment parties they vote for over the last 15 years, the working classes across many Western countries largely get ignored on some core matters of importance to them. Forgive them if some begin to think that their social betters want to rule rather than lead. The expert class across Western countries can, indeed, project an attitude that their conclusions and studied concerns should not be subject to democratic veto.
I have a general rule in politics: those who try to silence, smear, ostracize, or otherwise block from power those who peacefully dissent probably have fewer facts on their side than their confidence allows. And they rarely deserve the label “liberal” no matter their own conceits.
What confuses some people is that the AfD are non-woke but ALSO right-wing in the traditional sense. Like the little boy who cried “wolf”, “right-wing” is now perceived to be harmless—if both Boy George and J. K. Rowling are right wing, how can one argue with that. A typical right-wing (and dangerous) AfD position is their belief that human-caused climate change is not only not real, but that it is a hoax. That is a typical traditional right-wing position. Their support of Putin is hard to put into the left-right spectrum, but is definitely dangerous. But I suspect that they got many votes from those who are fed up with wokeness. Just a couple of days ago the (trolling?) neonazi who suddenly became trans in prison went to a women’s prison, a direct result of a change in the law passed by the previous administration. The CDU wants to undo it, but the SPD, part of the previous administration, don’t. A coalition government is always a compromise government. (But I strongly prefer proportional representation to first-past-the-post.) As the only non-woke party (except the BSW, which also supports Putin), they probablt got many votes from people fed up with wokeness who don’t realize the danger of their positions which are actually right wing, or just decided that wokeness is worse.
How would the AfD thinking that climate change is a hoax translate into action that would result in danger? When weighing the negative impact that they could have on global climate change vs the positive impact that they could have in immigration reform, if I were German I’d favor the concrete ability to limit anti-Western immigrants over some ethereal climate change negative impact. I have read that the AfD is in favor of reviving nuclear energy in Germany, which would be a positive action (though their support for coal would be a negative).
Amit is correct: the Gazans will never disarm and it is stupid to think they will. This is for “Two State” naive Westerners.
Rather… the new YELLOW LINE – which reduces the “Strip” to a “landing strip” if you will (heheh) MUST be the new border.
I refer to jurisprudential precedent of “FAFO.”
— In the useless garbage department:
Milo is the class clown but I think our American civilization will carry on after his departure. Note he’s into Islam now.
D.A.
NYC
In Germany, there has been a legal right to a free place in kindergarten for many, many years. Unsurprisingly, the system does not work. The government does not have enough money to build kindergartens or hire educators and caregivers. So, there are not enough kindergartens; there are not enough teachers.
Some parents have taken their case to court to secure a spot and have even won. But that has not changed the reality. Free universal childcare is a pipe dream.
It’s not something which can happen overnight. In Germany, there is free universal (and high-quality) university education, free schooling (from 9 to 13 years depending on the type of school), and, in mamy places, free pre-school. Making the rest of the pre-schools free is small compared to the total costs. It will happen before long.
Note that “Kindergarten” in German is “pre-school” in English. The cognate of “pre-school”, “Vorschule”, is the English kindergarten.
Of course, some pundits will say that free university education is a pipe dream. It’s a dream I’ve lived, long ago (and still possible today).