Welcome to another work week, with classes in full swing at the University of Chicago: it’s Monday, October 5, 2026, and Global James Bond Day, celebrating the “Bond franchise and is held on the anniversary of the date on which the first Bond film, Dr. No, premiered in London in 1962.” Ursula Andress was the love interest, and here’s a trailer (Ursula shows up at 2:01). I still think Sean Connery was the best Bond ever.
It’s also Do Something Nice Day, National Apple Betty Day, Rocky Mountain Oyster Day (yes, testicles), World Teachers’ Day, and World Architecture Day. Here’s a lovely work of architecture, The Big Duck on Long Island. I’ve been inside! It used to sell ducks and duck eggs, but now it sells souveniers:
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the October 5 Wikipedia page.
Da Nooz:
*This has got to be illegal: Trump has used taxpayer money (mine!) to make ads touting his own Prsidency. (the NYT article is based on 12 anonymous sources within the administration):
President Trump personally instructed his budget director to use taxpayer money for TV ads praising him and his presidency, setting in motion a $20 million contract that used funds from the Department of Homeland Security, according to people familiar with the matter.
The ads have run across cable and network television — on Fox News, CNN and MS Now, with football games on Fox and with national newscasts on CBS, ABC and NBC, including “Meet the Press,” which Mr. Trump is known to watch.
Mr. Trump was eager to see the laudatory ads on the air and told Russell T. Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, to come up with the money from within the government, the people said. Mark Paoletta, the budget office’s counsel, and Will Scharf, the White House counsel, both said it would be legal to use D.H.S. funds. The president and Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, both spoke with Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary, about the ads.
The taxpayer-funded ads have been criticized by Democrats and even some Republicans as a possible violation of federal laws against using taxpayer dollars for “publicity or propaganda purposes.” And they come as the president is also directing spending from his super PAC — MAGA Inc., which entered the fall with $400 million — for which he has been raising money since he won re-election in 2024.
It was not clear why taxpayer funds, and not money from the super PAC, were used for the spots.
The White House has called the ads public service announcements and said they are appropriate because there is no “call to action” to vote for any candidate. Some of his aides also noted that Mr. Trump is not running for office now, in an attempt to blunt criticism of the ads as violating federal laws about the use of public money.
When pressed by a reporter on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said: “If somebody said that that’s wrong, I’ll gladly pay the money.”
“But these are ads for the country,” he added. “You have to understand. I’m not promoting a candidate. I’m not promoting myself because I’m not running for office. I’m promoting the country.”
I saw the second one the other day and about fell off my seat when I read “Paid for by the U.S. Government” at the end. These are the first two released:
Somebody should sue; these are clearly campaign-related ads and therefore a violation of the law. I won’t have my dosh supporting Trump’s narcissism.
*Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal calls the upcoming week “The most dangerous week of 2026. ” What he means is that Iran has to figure out what to do, if anything, between the Israeli elections on October 27 and the U.S. midterms on November 3. Either action or inaction on Iran’s part will, says Segal, have big consequences.
It’s Sunday, October 4, and if the Islamic Republic could vote, whom would it choose: Benjamin Netanyahu or Donald Trump? It sounds like an abstract problem, but the choice facing Tehran is the same one Citizen Change posed to American voters in 2004: “Vote or Die.”
With the U.S. blockade plunging Iran into an ever-deepening economic crisis, Tehran must break the status quo. The question is when. Escalating before the Israeli election and the midterms would send the markets into an inconvenient panic and Israeli jets to Tehran. Any conversation outside of security would be quickly stifled, burying some of Netanyahu’s other indiscretions while bringing gas prices and Trump’s failures to the front of American voters’ minds on November 3. A war before October 27 is a vote for Bibi and against Trump.
Tehran, reluctant to boost Netanyahu’s security credentials, could wait until both elections are over, but that is casting a vote for Trump.
The conduct of the war in the near term won’t depend on what happens during the midterms, even if Democrats win both houses of Congress, for Trump, as Commander-in-Chief, still gets to dictate the conduct of the war. And if by “escalation” Segal means “military escalation,” Iran doesn’t stand a chance.
. . . Observant readers will notice that there is a gap between the two trips to the ballot box. Tehran has a single week, between October 27 and November 3, in which it can launch a war without helping either candidate.
There is also the risk that, unlike winter, election season makes war more likely. Trump is currently holding back to give Republicans a chance of holding the Senate, telling reporters the war will be brought to a conclusion “right after the midterms.” While I struggle to imagine a fate worse than the hell on earth Trump has already threatened to unleash multiple times, if Iran extinguishes whatever electoral hopes are constraining the president, the response is unlikely to be the controlled escalation Tehran may be hoping for.
Despite declaring at the United Nations that “the resistance of the Iranian people will only increase in the face of sanctions,” President Masoud Pezeshkian reportedly approached Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, with an Iranian compromise the same day. Like an Iranian moderate, an Iranian compromise exists mainly by comparison.
That compromise didn’t fly, and I still don’t think there will be one unless Iran meets, at least on paper, Trump’s demand that it cease production that could lead to nuclear weapons. The ending:
The truth is Iran has a larger problem than timing: its vote doesn’t matter. Trump still has months before a Democratic-controlled Congress could begin impeachment proceedings, and even while trapped in endless inquiries, he still holds the power over the military and foreign policy. Meanwhile, whoever becomes the next Israeli prime minister, in the increasingly unlikely event the election produces a definitive outcome at all, Jerusalem is not going to turn pro-Tehran. No matter who they vote for, nothing will change in time for Iran to survive.
I’ve stopped trying to predict what’s going to happen in the Middle East. The Israeli elections are uncertain and Trump is unpredictable. But I think it would be disastrous to simply pull our troops out and declare victory. Disastrous for us and disastrous for the good people of Iran.
*It’s pretty clear now that the Omani co-pilot who tried to hijack the FlyDubai flight to Israel was committing an act of terrorism, and didn’t care if he died in the act.
Hamam al-Hammami, identified by people familiar with the matter as the co-pilot on FlyDubai Flight 1073, posted a paean to flying in a now-deleted social-media post from June 2022 written in Arabic.
“What makes aviation and flight training so beautiful is that it’s anything but routine,” the post said. “There are moments you never forget—like your very first solo flight, or your first time landing an aircraft with passengers on board.”
Investigators are now trying to understand why the Omani national took a radical turn and ended up repeatedly slashing his captain with an onboard ax before trying to crash an airliner with more than 170 people aboard, the people familiar with the investigation said.
They also want to know how he got hired by FlyDubai, those people said. His first aviation employer, state-owned Oman Air, banned him from flying after authorities became aware of his interest in browsing extremist websites, people briefed on his background said. Hammami was sent through a deradicalization program and given a desk job, but later found his way to a new job in the United Arab Emirates, they said.
Oman received no requests for information from other countries to vet him for employment, the people said. The U.A.E. and FlyDubai declined to comment while the investigation is ongoing.
The U.A.E.’s attorney general said Saturday morning that the co-pilot on Flight 1073 tried to carry out a terrorist act, echoing a conclusion drawn earlier by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and another Emirati official.
An Emirati security team brought Hammami back to the U.A.E. on Thursday morning. He is currently undergoing questioning after having been interviewed earlier in the week in Saudi Arabia, where the flight he was co-piloting made an emergency landing Wednesday after the incident.
A Saudi official briefed on the interrogation said Hammami acknowledged that he wanted to intentionally crash the plane and that he wasn’t afraid of death.
What is more surprising that this is terrorism is why FlyDubai hired the copilot without vetting him. I wouldn’t be surprised (and would be pleased) if FlyDubai revenues dropped sharply after all this. I suspect Israelis aren’t going to fly on that airline simply because the company screwed up big time, and in a way that endanger Israeli lives.
*The Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle is treading perilous ground in her new piece, “Cornell raises an uncomfortable question about consent” (article archived here). We all know about the alleged Cornell gang rape, and the legal machinations around it have been convoluted, with New York governor Kathy Hochul replacing the local D.A., whom Hochul doesn’t trust, with state attorney general Letitia James. And yet many people, despite the “presumed innocent” stipulation of justice, have already convicted the perps in their minds. McArdle doesn’t think the case is so cut and dried.
There is no question that something terrible happened at a Cornell University fraternity in 2024. The question is what. Was it a brutal gang rape? Or was it something messier and more complicated, a sexual encounter that was unwise but nonetheless consensual?
What facts we have are not enough to distinguish between the two possibilities.
. . .What we cannot ascertain — and may never be able to — is whether she was too intoxicated to be able to consent. So we are now fighting over this as we have fought over so many accusations over the last few decades — the Duke University rape hoax, the allegations that Christine Blasey Ford made against Brett M. Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings, and the endless horrors unearthed by #MeToo. But why? Why is it so hard to agree on something that seems, to both sides, as though it ought to be obvious?
One answer is that sex between people who know each other is hard to adjudicate from outside, especially when one or both parties have been drinking or using drugs, thereby lowering their inhibitions, impairing their judgment and blurring their memories. Another is that different people can genuinely view an encounter differently, especially in hindsight, after regret has set in.
But I’d argue the reason these fights are so fraught is mostly that we are trying to believe too many contradictory things.
We want sex to be simple and sexual assault to be simply unthinkable. We want there to be bright lines that obviously shouldn’t be crossed so we can shout “J’accuse” at anyone who does.
But we want to proclaim that men and women are fundamentally the same, aside from socialization. We want to declare that anything goes, as long as both parties have consented. And then we want to set 18-year-olds free to live out this liberation theology.
The result is predictably disastrous. We demand that young people with poor judgment respect boundaries, and then we refuse to establish any.
I know the retort that will spring to many readers’ minds: Consent is a clear boundary. It is certainly a boundary, and sometimes it is clear. If you force yourself on someone who is screaming and pushing you away or who is trembling on the edge of unconsciousness, that person must be left alone. If you do not, we can and should put you in jail.
. . . When two people who are both extremely drunk have sex — as I believe may sometimes happen — did they rape each other? Or was the woman obviously the victim?
The author will get demonized simply by asking these questions, as guilt is often judged these days by ideology rather than by facts that dispel any “reasonable doubt”. Since most rape accusations are accurate, that puts the weight on “guilty,” but there are seven men involved, and their stories conflict. The last question is a good one for those who say there are no differences between men and women, when clearly men are stronger. Once again, as in the Lindsay Clancy case, I’m glad I’m not on the jury (there certainly will be one).
*The NYT identifies the two loudest bird species on the planet, saying in the subtitle, “A new study has identified two species of Brazilian birds, the bare-throated bellbird and the red-legged seriema, as the loudest in nature.” I say, “BUSHWAH!”
If you look at the paper in Evolution, they measured the amplitude of song in only 123 bird species from two places:
We made recordings between December 2018 and January 2025 in the United States (Commonwealth of Massachusetts) and Brazil (states of São Paulo, Mato Grosso do Sul, Rio de Janeiro, Roraima, and Amazonas).
Now the paper itself doesn’t say that the birds are the world’s loudest; it’s the NYT author Taylor Mitchell Brown who says that. And since they haven’t measured the other 11,000 species of birds, the claim has no weight. Sure, we know lots of birds that are quieter, but the proclamation will not stand until the world is scoured for louder birds.
An excerpt from the article:
Deep in the Serra do Mar mountains of Brazil, a curious call echoes from high in the jungle canopy. The sound is practically deafening, a loud metallic pang that cuts through the forest’s thick foliage.
The bare-throated bellbird, which produces such calls to attract female mates, is no larger than a dove. And yet his song is louder than a jackhammer or a chain saw. It’s louder than an elephant’s trumpet.
It is, according a new scientific study, one of the loudest birdsongs ever recorded.
“They can even exceed elephants and lions and wolves and bison,” said João Menezes, an evolutionary biologist and lead author of the study, recently published in the journal Evolution.
Joining the bellbird at the top of the volume charts, the researchers found, is another Brazilian species: the red-legged seriema.
The two birds now join a previously identified bellbird species as the loudest avians known to science.
The study also uncovered a few of the anatomical traits that allow these birds to belt such powerful songs, answering many of the questions underlying the mysteries of birdsong.
. . .Bellbirds have a distinct metallic chirp, while seriemas sing elaborate, melancholic songs that have been the subject of poetry. Both birds produced tunes that registered between 121 and 122 decibels
“The bellbirds are really super interesting,” Dr. Podos said, “because not only are they that loud, but they make those loud sounds with that small body size.”
Birds are capable of singing with such volume in part because they have a uniquely evolved organ called a syrinx, which takes air from the lungs and projects it through the long tube of the trachea.
Yes, “loudest known to science” may be accurate because science hasn’t measured the call volume of more than 1% of all birds. It sounds as if they are looking for adaptive explanations, and there may well be some. But it’s early days, and I’m betting there are louder birds to be found. In the meantimes, here are two videos showing the calling species:
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, neither Andrzej nor Hili can turn off their minds:
Hili: Sometimes I just can’t stop thinking.
Andrzej: I have a feeling I know what you mean.
In Polish:
Hili: Czasami nie mogę przestać myśleć.
Ja: Mam wrażenie, że wiem, co chcesz powiedzieć.
*******************
From Kitty Litterposting:
From Stephen:
From Stacy:
From Masih: an Iranian protestor whose “heart gave out at the gallows” was. revived and now is due for execution again:
🚨 STOP THE EXECUTION OF ALIREZA SEPAHI
Do you remember, a 25, protester who was taken to be hanged in public alongside his own cousin and his heart gave out at the gallows?
The regime in Iran took him out of hospital, patched him up, and sent him back to death row.
He was shot with pellets during arrest, tortured for 26 days, and now sits in a security wing of Dastgerd prison, waiting to die. His mother is in prison too.
Every hour counts. Raise your voice before they hang an innocent young man.
#StopExecutionsInIran
— Masih Alinejad (@AlinejadMasih) October 4, 2026
From Maarten Boudry via Luana; why Europe needs a First Amendment:
• A French writer (@doramoutot) was criminally convicted—and faces possible prison time—for saying that a trans woman is “a man, a transfeminine man.”
• An American academic living in Belgium (@nathancofnas) is being taken to court by Belgium’s official equality agency for claiming that there are racial differences in IQ.
• A German woman was jailed for a weekend for calling a man who raped a 15-year-old girl a “disgraceful rapist pig”—a harsher sentence than the rapist received.
• A British assault victim was convicted of a hate crime for calling her attacker a “faggot” in text messages.
But please, tell me again that Europe doesn’t have a free-speech problem. That there’s nothing to worry about. That it’s all a right-wing invention—as claimed by @lemondefr and many other newspapers.
For heaven’s sake, can someone give us a First Amendment already?
— Maarten Boudry (@mboudry) October 4, 2026
From Malcolm. I’m very glad this cat survived, with only a few bristles erected. Amazing!
— Crazy CCTV Moments ☠️ (@Suddencaptured) September 21, 2026
The Number Ten Cat is clearly a fan of Labour:
It must be so frustrating to be a Conservative politician and to have all these ideas for how to make the country better so soon after having 14 years in power when all they did was make the country worse.
— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) October 3, 2026
Two from my feed:
— JDS (@_MARGARITAVILL_) October 3, 2026
What a great idea! And Mama Owl was elated (sound up):
While the infertile tawny owl was away from her nest, caretakers swapped her unviable eggs for orphaned chicks https://t.co/kwSghJ56lr
— Nature Unedited (@NatureUnedited) October 4, 2026
One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:
This Dutch Jewish boy was gassed to death as soon as he arrived in Auschwitz. He was four years old, and would be 86 today had he lived.
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) October 5, 2026
And one from Dr. Cobb. What say you?
GOAT OR BIRD????
Today’s music: “What Does it Take (To Win Your Love)“, a great soul song by Jr. Walker and the All Stars that hit #1 on the R&B charts (#4 on Billboard). Recorded in 1969 and released by Motown, the son is notable for its saxophone solos by Walker (real name: Autry DeWalt Mixon Jr.). This is a “live” video but the music you hear is recorded, so there’s lip-synching.
More bird than goat.
The first thing I saw was a goat but when I saw the bird it took me some time to see the goat again. So, yes, I think it is a bird.
Possibly both?
I’ve tried, and I don’t see the goat at all.
It resembles a goat with its head turned all the way to its left. The beak is the goat’s ear.
I saw the bird and then the goat, and I can now switch between them. The problem I have with the goat is that I don’t see a nose, and the mouth does not look like a goat’s mouth to me 🙂
Yes, better bird than goat, but I can see both.
And in our modern day and age we have to wonder if this is an AI assisted picture.
I hope it is real.
Look at the pupil. Goats have a rectangular pupil. Kookaburras don’t. It’s a bird but really clever.
I believe it is also Banned Books Week.
Yep. The google says Oct 4-10, 2026. Thanks for the heads up, Robb! This is important around our house.
Thank you. Our house, too. For a change, I’m going to read some books (ok, maybe two–i’m working from Thu to Sun on a project) that AREN’T banned NOW, but were during the Victorian Age
“What is more surprising that this is terrorism is why FlyDubai hired the copilot without vetting him.” Maybe they were afraid of being accused of Islamophobia?
Since you mentioned the Cornell case, I have a question. Perhaps someone has an idea.
Apparently the president of the uni said, according to CNN: “Toward the end of his statement, Kotlikoff signaled support for reviewing the role of Greek organizations in campus life. “We will reengage students, alumni, and other members of our community to examine how we preserve what is valuable about Greek life while strengthening individual accountability, transparency, and a culture in which every member understands their responsibility to protect the safety and well-being of others,” he said.”
But what in the world is he talking about when he calls for examining “what is valuable about Greek life”? Is there really anything Greek about the fraternity other than the letters Phi Chi in its moniker? And if not, is it not a rather egregious misstep by Kotlikoff in which should be a thoroughly considered statement?
By “Greek,” he simply means “fraternities,” which are often referred to as “Greeks.”
Greek Americans should claim cultural appropriation.
And demand to be invited to the parties.
I am trying to follow the Cornell U rape case, but it’s too g.d. convoluted to decide much of anything. A major unanswered question, though, is that surely this event had spread thru the frat party so that it was known to other people and rumored to other people. And yet no one has yet come forward? And I don’t know what to make of that, even.
Contrast the objective summary above to that given by P.Z. a while ago! Wow, he seemed to know as much as the alleged victim.
Notice the provisioning of several dead rats in the tawny owl nest chamber.
According to Google, the sign stating that KC had 25 million visitors “analy” instead of “annually” was reported as a digital alteration from 2018 and the sign actually displayed by the KC streetcar was correct. (I live in the Kansas City area and just had to check!)
I suspect this is the case for most “give me the sign” photos. It’s very easy to make such changes.
Re: electric cat. I once experienced an arc flash. The cat would likely have its nose and eyes roasted. This is AI I’d say.
We have a big step-down transformer on a power pole behind our house, and a lot of squirrels in the neighborhood. Once or twice a year a squirrel puts a foot wrong, resulting in a loud bang, a bright flash, and an exploded squirrel at the foot of the pole. And the power goes out until the electric company sends a crew to reset the transformer.
At the risk of being controversial:
We actually don’t know that. It is true that few rape accusations are proven false, but then it’s also the case that only a low fraction are proven true (if by that we mean a court conviction; rape has a notoriously low conviction rate, for a number of reasons, including the difficulty of crossing the “beyond reasonable doubt” threshold in a he-says/she-says scenario).
Thus we don’t really know the prevalence of a woman consenting (perhaps while drunk) then later regretting it and re-interpreting it as rape.
Maybe it is indeed low, but we don’t have evidence showing that.
Actually, we do know that. Of every 1000 reported rapes, 975 rapists get away with the crime.
Only 5-9% of investigated rapes are found to be false. That means 91-95% of investigated rapes found that rape actually occurred.
The media portray the 5-9% as the norm, because the crime is rape and rape is the woman’s fault. What was she wearing? Why did she go to that party? Why was she drunk? What did she think was gonna happen? Ad nauseam.
The questions should be why did these men rape her? Why did they think that’s okay? Why did they rape an intoxicated woman? Why did they post a video of their rapes? Why did they text other rapists about “free pussy?”
Rape is always the rapists’ fault. They do it because they know they will most likely get away with it.
By definition, rapes are illegal and are the rapists’ fault. As our host pointed out, the relevant issue is was this actually a rape? Or have I missed the point here?
And why men are sexually aggressive is pretty well answered by evo psych, AIUI.
It actually doesn’t mean that. A small fraction of rape accusations are found to be false; a small fraction are proven true — but for ~ 8 out of 10 there is no finding either way.
It seems to me that the Cornell rape case is even murkier than a well posed yes or no question “Did she or didn’t she consent?”
The following, as I understand it and God knows if this is accurate, is what happened: She went to the party, already a bit drunk but not incapacitated, intending to have sex with a particular guy. A threesome was proposed with another guy and she consented to that. But before the sexual activity started, she consumed more alcohol and took some ketamine, as did the guys. But then as time passed and the extra booze and the ketamine set in, she became totally incapacitated. Thus the first two guys at the start probably could reasonably say they had consent, perhaps even a third guy who asked if he could join. But surely the later participants who piled on were dealing with a clearly incapacitated semiconscious or even fully unconscious girl who didn’t know exactly what was happening or even what planet she was on and very obviously couldn’t consent to anything. The transformation from drunk but cogent enough to consent to clearly and unambiguously incapacitated would have been gradual and continuous.
I agree with Jerry. I’m glad I’m not on the jury trying to untangle all that.
The perps forced her to snort ketamine several times.
An intoxicated person is by definition incapacitated. Why else do we have laws against drunk driving? If the survivor is too drunk to drive, she’s too drunk to consent. Intoxication isn’t consent.
The question we should be asking, but we don’t because it’s rape, is why so many men would rape an unconscious woman? What is wrong with THEM that this abhorrent behavior is okay?
Instead most people and media blame the woman for her own gang-rape.
Can you show us where it has been established that she was “forced” to do drugs? You are surely correct that “intoxication is not consent,” but nor does intoxication necessarily prevent one from giving consent. I agree that it is troubling that ANY man would have sex with an unconscious woman. Is that what happened in this case? If it is shown that she had voluntary sex with even one of them, and if he was intoxicated, is she guilty of rape? If not, how would a man be guilty of rape had she consented while intoxicated?
By the way, that is an alleged gang rape. Do we still have rule of law and constitutional procedures, or should we just take a social media poll and lock up the accused young men?
You wrote “…nor does intoxication necessarily prevent one from giving consent.”
By your logic, intoxication does not necessarily prevent one from operating a motor vehicle.
Anything other than an enthusiastic YES is not consent.
Again, why is the woman on trial here? Why do so many people scrutinize every minutia of HER conduct while minimizing or ignoring the rapists?
Why are these men raping — or allegedly raping — an impaired woman in the first place? If they were decent humans, they would have recognized that she was impaired and called her a cab or otherwise got her out of that party.
But NO — they raped her and posted videos and texts inviting other predators.
As for due process, we have the woman’s police reports and rape kit PLUS the video and text evidence from the rapists themselves. All these should be admissible in court.
In most countries the law is that drunken consent is still consent (so long as she voluntarily got drunk).
It has to be that way. If you’re not going to hold the woman responsible for actions (consenting) while drunk, then are you also going to give men the same deal — anything they do while drunk is similarly excused?
If both parties have consumed alcohol, why are you expecting one of them to behave responsibly but not the other one?
“The perps forced her to snort ketamine several times.”
That is QUITE an accusation. What do you mean by “forced”? The victims own words state that she felt “pressured” to take ketamine.
If someone nags you and wheedles you to take a drug, that is not the same as forcibly administering a drug to you.
I agree with Amit Segal that the Iranians are strategizing what to do: using every prayer they know, every simulation model available to them, and every free AI tool on the Internet—probably even ChatGPT. My guess is that the Iranian leadership is more afraid of the IDF than of the United States. Israel’s goal is to end the regime; the U.S. goal is less ambitious. An IDF attack would probably decapitate the Islamic Republic. The Israelis are not in a mood to play nice.
I don’t see a goat at all. What I see is a Kookaburra.
I am the same. It is obviously a bird (and a well-known species at that) and I cannot see a goat.
Start with imagining a goat looking over its left shoulder, with its mostly white muzzle tapering to the black horizontal line representing the lips. The goat’s horn is the beak of the kooka, pointing away from you. It took me a while.
It has taken me two days, but I finally see the goat.
Regarding the Tories: I firmly believe that most politicians would rather lose and be on the outside complaining about the other party than actually doing something. Prime example is the SAVE act in the US. The Republicans have complained loud and long about strengthening voting security and solicited campaign contributions based on this, but in the time that they have controlled both houses of Congress they have failed to even bring this to a vote. You can bet though that once they lose their majority in the midterms that they’ll be back to raising money on this issue. It’s easier and safer to complain about the other guy than it is to take action.
“The Republicans have complained loud and long about strengthening voting security and solicited campaign contributions based on this…”
The solution (or a big starting point) would have been the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Not a single Republican even considered voting for such a bill- too much democracy. When it comes to voting, the GOP is only interested in restrictions, gerrymandering, inventing solutions to fabricated problems. It’s a point so apparent, it doesn’t warrant an in-depth analysis.
“It’s easier and safer to complain about the other guy than it is to take action.”
After almost 2 years and total control of the hyper-executive and legislative branches, not to mention a partisan, conservative SCOTUS, they’re still blaming Biden and even Obama for their failures. It’s pretty funny to be honest. Trump is the head-phony, running the government with his boot-licking phonies. “Phonies” is a euphemism at it’s finest.
Lastly, the Biden administration was truly handed a nightmare economy, a world on Covid-fire. And he got to work. Quiet, behind the scenes, not a lot of fanfare, he got shit done. He never made bully-pulpit announcements of “woe is me, Trump gave me such a bad economy, Trump this, Trump that!” Especially after 2-years in, for Christ sake. And could you imagine if Biden, or Ceiling Cat forbid, Obama, used tax-payer money for a multi-million dollar propaganda commercial campaign right before the mid-terms? The audacity is truly astounding.
I think it would be more than Israelis being put off flying with FlyDubia. After a SilkAir flight was taken out by a suicidal captain I am in the habit of watching the crew arrive at the gate lounge… to see if the flight crew at least look happy.
“Hammami was sent through a deradicalization program”. The conventional mythology of “deradicalization programs” is akin to that of DEI programs and, for that matter, the mythology of “transgender” self-ID. It is simply the worship of WORDS, a consequence (or better, the basis) of postmodernism and postcolonialism etc. etc.. On this doctrine, the solution to things like the Cornell frat party rape scene is simple as pie: just subject all college students to a goodbehaviorism program with lots of virtuous-sounding WORDS.
“The conduct of the war in the near term won’t depend on what happens during the midterms, even if Democrats win both houses of Congress, for Trump, as Commander-in-Chief, still gets to dictate the conduct of the war.”
Congress cannot interfere with ongoing military operations. They cannot, for instance, order a bomber en route to Tehran to return to base. They cannot recall a ship already engaged in the blockade. But Congress does retain the power of the purse, and that is not an insignificant lever. They can refuse the supplemental appropriations that generally fund most extended combat operations. They can claw back unobligated money from earlier appropriations. They can effectively stop any subsequent deployments once existing fiscal year accounts and necessary supplies run out.
The current Democrats in Congress, with the exception of John Fetterman, have all voted repeatedly to have Trump stop all combat operations in Iran. That of course includes Patty Murray, the senior senator from Washington state, who will likely head the appropriations committee should the Democrats win the Senate. Somehow I don’t see funds forthcoming from a senator who has condemned Trump’s “disastrous war of choice” and demanded that we “END the war with Iran.”
I understand the political bind voters are in. Most of those who have always voted Democrat do not want to support Republicans even as some Democrats applaud a number of Trump’s actions on Israel, Iran, DEI, “gender-affirming care,” border control, and women’s sports and spaces. And given the array of policy matters with which Washington deals, one can decide that having the Democrats reverse every one of the above Trump accomplishments is a price worth paying to advance other policy goals. After all, there are no political solutions, only trade-offs.
That’s fine. If, for instance, one prefers Democrats to advance health care priorities, climate change goals, or welfare expansion, then vote for them, by all means. But a Democratic Congress in 2027 is highly unlikely to allow Trump to wage this war with Iran unimpeded. I’ll leave it to others to read the Democratic tea leaves regarding support for Israel.
What a good Mama Owl! I nearly cried while I watched the video. What a beautiful event after so much bad news.
I also saw a bird first, then had to find the goat, but mostly I still see the bird.
I loved seeing the mama owl snuggle up to the little ones and then cover them with her body (reminds me of the Bruce Springsteen song, Cover Me).
I don’t know anything more about the Cornell case than does anyone else, but a couple of things seem clear to me.
The first one is that if the girl made a police complaint at the time (I don’t know), the police and DA should have thoroughly investigated the case. And I do mean thoroughly.
Second: the University was derelict in its duty. Once the story became known to them, whether by complaint of the girl or simply by common knowledge of the chats, the university should have investigated, and brought in the police. The evidence of the chats is enough for that. Just those chats are also enough evidence for serious university action against that frat—it should be shut down—and the actual participants in the sexual activity expelled. Whether consensual or not, drugging an intoxicated girl (and I am using the word girl intentionally) and having group sex with her deserves far worse punishment than having to write an essay or take a course on “Would you want this to happen to your sister”? But as we know, colleges care far more about the reputations than the safety of their students.
And last, I agree with Ginger about one point: What the hades is wrong with these boys? (Again, intentional use of the word—these are not men.) Weren’t they taught anything at all about right and wrong? I get the late-teenage-hormone thing, I was there myself. But I don’t get this scenario. And you know what? Even if the girl “consented”, I still don’t see the attraction in having group sex with a girl too intoxicated to know which way is up.
Yes the university did investigate. Yes it was passed to the police, and yes the police did investigate. The police have also put out a statement explaining why they did not press charges — namely that the activity seemed (at least largely) consensual and that there was no evidence that she was drugged (as opposed to willingly taking drugs), and hence there was little prospect of a conviction on a criminal “beyond reasonable doubt” standard.
One can also question whether it is the task of universities to supervise sexual activity between adults, beyond passing appropriate matters to the police.
I did not see the Nobel Prize prediction contest this year but with more than half an hour to go and no insider contacts in Stockholm, I would guess Michael Berry and Yakir Aharonov for the Physics prize for their work on geometric phases.
Btw. Jerry, earlier this year I visited the US and sent you an email about picking my prize for successful prediction from two years ago but I was either too late or the email ended up in your spam folder. But one more reason for me to visit the States again.
Well, I tried. But the actually awarded scientist and the project are definitely worth the prize.
I don’t remember that, but yes, if you’re here I can mail it to a U.S. address.
IIRC, all the duck farms on Long Island closed/collapsed in connection with COVID. Have any returned?
No bird could be louder, more monotonous or more annoying than Australia’s Wonga Pigeon. Imagine an ear-piercing WOOP WOOP WOOP going on continuously for hours on end, starting well before dawn. Earplugs are totally ineffective. I spent years chasing those things away from the rainforest behind my house!
And I certainly won’t be visiting Kansas City any time soon! Prostate is perfectly healthy.