Tuesday: Hili dialogue

October 6, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to The Cruelest Day, Tuesday, October 6, 2026, and National Noodle Day. Here’s a bowl of hearty beef noodle soup that I had in Hong Kong ten years ago. It’s a famous dish there, and I went to a place that specialized in it:

It’s also Garlic Lovers Day, National Badger Day, and National Orange Wine Day,

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the October 6 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*The Supreme Court’s new term began yesterday, and it’s expected to adjudicate about 60 cases in this session. The NYT morning newsletter describes three important ones:

My colleagues Ann E. Marimow and Abbie VanSickle have a useful preview of the cases the justices will hear — and what’s at stake in them. Here are three:

Suncor v. Boulder

First up, with arguments today, is a major environmental case about whether state law can be used to hold companies liable for the costs of climate change. It pits the city and county of Boulder, Colo., against Suncor Energy and Exxon Mobil, companies those government entities say concealed the risks of climate change.

If the justices agree, the companies would have to reimburse Boulder for damages from wildfires, floods and other extreme weather. If they don’t, the ruling would have wide impact — dozens of other cities, counties, states and tribal governments around the country have filed similar suits seeking billions of dollars from energy companies.

St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy

In November, the court will hear a case brought by the Archdiocese of Denver that challenges Colorado rules requiring preschools that receive public funding to accept the children of gay and transgender parents.

The archdiocese and two Catholic schools argue that doing so would be at odds with church teachings — but that excluding its schools from public funding would violate the First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.

Lower courts have upheld the Colorado law on the grounds that the state could require participating schools to abide by its anti-discrimination rules, so long as the requirements are applied to all schools and without regard to religion. And so here we are.

Viramontes v. Cook County

This one’s a blockbuster dealing with the question of whether state and local laws banning semiautomatic rifles violate the Constitution, a subject that the court has avoided for years.

The case, slated for oral argument on Dec. 2, concerns Illinois and Connecticut, but the decision could seal the fate of similar laws around the country aimed at restricting the ownership of military-style rifles, such as the AR-15.

It’s a deeply polarizing subject. AR-15-style rifles are among the most popular long guns in the United States. People hunt with them, shoot them for sport, derive comfort from having one in the name of personal safety. They’ve also been used in mass shootings, including in both the Sandy Hook and Uvalde elementary school massacres.

Those who support the bans point to those catastrophes, and characterize the rifles as unusually dangerous. They argue that their restriction is an important use of governmental power to ensure the safety of the public.

Opponents say such bans violate citizens’ right to bear arms. They cite a judicial precedent of “common use” to argue that a gun that tens of millions of Americans use lawfully cannot be banned anyway.

Read more about the Supreme Court’s new term here.

My quick take on these three cases in order: 1. seems unworkable, 2. schools getting publis funding should accept those children, and 3. military-style rifles should be restricted. If not, how can they restrict automatic weapons, grenade launchers, or tanks? You could argue that all of those are permissible under the Second Amendment since they might be useful in a “well regulated militia”.

*The U.S. has removed all B-1 bombers from a UK RAF base in light of a suspect terrorist plot involving the planes. (The B-1 is a long-distance, high-speed bomber, and was used in U.S. attacks on Iran.

The U.S. removed all its B-1 bombers from the U.K.’s RAF Fairford air base, a decision made because of security concerns over suspected plots to attack the facility, American officials said Sunday.

The decision represents a shift for the U.S., which has used the military base northwest of London as a hub for launching bomber strikes in Iran. Until their recent departure, a dozen B-1s had been stationed at the base.

“While operational security precluded us from confirming the movement of our assets and forces in real-time, we can acknowledge now that all U.S. bombers that were deployed to RAF Fairford have redeployed to their home stations in the United States,” the Pentagon said in a statement, adding that the U.S. bombers remain ready to carry out attacks from the U.S. The U.K. Ministry of Defense declined to comment.

The decision follows the arrest of six suspects in connection with a suspected attack on the base that U.S. and British officials said was foiled last Sunday. U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said there were “strong indications” that Iran played a role in the incident, which was shrouded in mystery after the U.K. released the suspects on bail but continued to investigate the situation.

U.S. officials were aware of an Iran-linked plot to attack the bomber aircraft and kill personnel at the base, The Wall Street Journal has reported. A branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had recruited U.K. nationals to carry out the plot, which involved multiple steps including a diversion in the neighborhood nearby, according to a senior U.S. official.

In the U.K., authorities are still trying to piece together what happened, and some U.K. officials question the level of sophistication of the planned attack.

And here’s what the WSJ says in the link above about the plan, which in fact does seem to have involved attacks on the bombers:

U.S. officials were aware of an Iran-linked plot to attack the bomber aircraft and kill personnel at the base, according to an official familiar with the intelligence. A branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had recruited U.K. nationals to carry out the plot, which involved multiple steps including a diversion in the neighborhood nearby, an official said.

I’m glad the plot was foiled, though information has been notably slow in coming. Why were the suspects released if they were planning acts of terrorism?

*To its shame, the Green Party of the UK has adopted a motion that Zionism is racism, that Israel is committing genocide, and, worst of all, there should be a “one-state” solution, which of course means the elimination of Israel. By Party protocol, these now become official positions of the Green Party. (Bolding is mine):

Britain’s Green Party voted on Sunday to class Zionism as a form of racism, drawing criticism from British Jews and from the Israeli government which said it now viewed the party as “a body that gives legitimacy to terrorism.”

The party – which received 6% of the vote in national elections in 2024 – said it regarded Zionism as “an ethnonationalist political project” and repeated its call for Britain’s Labour government to end all arms trade with Israel.

“The motion also restates the Green Party’s backing for the right to self-determination and calls for the establishment of a single democratic state throughout historic Palestine,” the party said in a statement.

The definition of Zionism – which inspired the foundation of the modern state of Israel in the 20th century – and what it implies for the rights of non-Jews in Israel and neighbouring territory, is contentious. Jewish groups sometimes define it as a right to Jewish self-determination.

The Green Party motion passed by a majority of 1,022 to 813 despite opposition from many senior figures. Party leader Zack Polanski, who is seeking election to Parliament on Thursday in former Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s now-vacant London constituency, did not vote.

The result was condemned by British Jewish groups.

“The Green Party has made antisemitism party policy and become a racist party,” the Movement for Progressive Judaism said, adding that the support of some Jews for the motion did not mean it would not be used to discriminate against others.

. . .Mothin Ali, deputy leader of the Green Party and a supporter of the motion, told Sky News on Saturday that the heavy Palestinian death toll in Israel’s conflict with Hamas – which followed the Palestinian militant group’s deadly 2023 attack on an Israeli music festival – was the key context for the vote.

“The motion defines Zionism quite clearly. It defines it as an ethnonationalist movement. It defines it as ethnic cleansing. It defines it as genocide,” Ali said.

This is all complete lunacy, especially calling for the effective elimination of Israel via a one-state solution. We’ll see how many UK politicians or public figures will condemn this vote. According to the Guardian, four of the five Green Party members of Parliament oppose this policy. If you’re a Green, defend the policy, and its implicit call for the elimination of Israel, in the comments. If you can’t, you shouldn’t be a Green.

*Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal reveals that the target of the FlyDubai hijacker was not just the passengers on the plane, but the Tel Aviv airport.

It’s Monday, October 5, and a few days ago, we believed that without the heroism of the passengers on Flight 1073, the almost 180 people aboard, 27 of them children, would have been killed. Now we know that without the bravery of Capt. Smit Machchhar, Yaniv Hayun, Tzvika Mans and Assaf Rajuan, we would be facing a catastrophe likely worse than October 7.

Under interrogation, Hamam al-Hammami, the Omani co-pilot, confessed that after killing the pilot his plan was to fly a normal landing approach and, in the final seconds, when interception was no longer possible, crash the plane into Ben Gurion Airport. That is why, rather than striking at the outset, he attacked the captain only once the plane was over Jordan.

The flight was due to land around 9:30 a.m., at the height of Sukkot, when traffic through the airport peaks. Tens of thousands of travelers would likely have been in the terminal when it arrived, and the death toll could easily have run into the thousands. Under interrogation, al-Hammami admitted that on previous trips to Israel he had “gathered information,” perhaps on where a crash would claim the most lives.

Had he managed to crash the plane into the Saudi desert, as we originally believed was his intention, the aftermath would have been catastrophic. The day would have gone down as the second-deadliest terror attack in Israel’s history, with nearly five times the death toll of the third. The central artery of the Abraham Accords, the 30-flight-a-day corridor, would have been severed, and the steadily warming relations between the Emirates and Israel would have frozen.

Had his original plan succeeded, it would have been, by a wide margin, the worst attack in Israel’s history, and it would have closed far more than one flight corridor. Even if the physical damage at Ben Gurion could be quickly repaired, no airline would risk flying to Israel. The country would face an aviation isolation worse than anything it experienced even at the peak after October 7.

. . . The most obvious and striking parallel is that Israel almost had its own 9/11, nearly exactly 25 years after the first. Not in the loose, figurative sense in which the phrase is so often used, but literally: a plane turned into a weapon, with a death toll that may have been comparable to that disaster, and far greater relative to Israel’s population. And the effect would have been even more disastrous. The World Trade Center was a symbolic target, while Ben Gurion is the heart of Israel’s connection to the outside world. It would have done more to isolate Israel from the world than any single Hamas attack.

I guess al-Hammami will be tried in the UAE and I hope he gets a stiff sentence. Israel has requested extradition because of the destination, but the UAE refused to send the suspect to Israel. The UAE does have strict laws against terrorism, though, and given that he’s likely to be convicted, his sentence wouldn’t be light.

*Convicted murderer Christa Pike remains comatose and on a ventilator after two botched attempts to execute her by lethal injection of pentobarbital.

Christa Pike has remained unconscious and on a ventilator at a hospital in the four days since her failed execution in Tennessee, and her prognosis might not be known for days more, one of her lawyers said Sunday.

Little has been released about Pike’s condition since Wednesday night’s execution attempt. She has since remained hospitalized under guard as doctors try to get the massive dose of the barbiturate pentobarbital out of her system.

When asked whether she ever regained consciousness after the execution attempt, Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell, Pike’s lawyer, said on CNN’s “State of the Union”: “Not that I am aware of.”

Pike, now 50, was 18 when she and her boyfriend tortured and killed a classmate, Colleen Slemmer, in a jealous rage in 1995. She became one of the youngest women to be sent to death row.

Tennessee prison officials gave Pike two doses of the lethal injection drug on Wednesday night. The pentobarbital didn’t kill her, but her lawyers said her arms were burned and blistered from the caustic drugs.

Pike gave someone her medical power of attorney and that person is protecting her privacy, Ferrell said.

This was the second time this year Tennessee has not been able to execute a prisoner who was seemingly moments away from death. In May, Tennessee stopped the execution of Tony Carruthers after staff placed an IV into his right arm but couldn’t get a secondary IV line.

. . .It is unclear what will happen in her death penalty case. Pike’s lawyers have asked the governor to commute her punishment to a life sentence.

“If she recovers, she may not fully recover. And there may be issues about her competence,” Ferrell said.

The governor has suspended all executions, but only for the rest of the year.  And if Pike remains comatose, the execution would turn out to be a life sentence under intubation, unless her medical guardian decides to pull the tube. The sick part of all this is that if she manages to revive, the state may well decide to kill her anyway. That is in fact what happened in the case of Robert Breechen in Oklahoma in 1995. Breechen tried to kill himself with an overdose of sedatives shortly before his scheduled execution.  They rushed him to the hospital, revived him, and then executed him, only two hours behind schedule.  I vehemently oppose state-sanctioned executions on several grounds, but if they are going to kill somebody, they should use a tried and true method, like the firing squad or guillotine. But that’s too gory for the government!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn,

Hili: Don’t make me laugh now.
Andrzej: Why?
Hili: Because I’m trying to look really serious.

In Polish:

Hili: Nie rozśmieszaj mnie teraz.
Ja: Dlaczego?
Hili: Bo próbuję wyglądać bardzo poważnie.

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

From Now That’s Wild:

Screenshot

From CinEmma:

From Bad Spelling or Grammar on Signs and Notices:

From Masih; a heartbreaking execution of an Iranian protestor. Just before he was to be hanged, he had a heart attack.  They put him back in a cell, and then he got married over the phone.  They then hanged him the day after his wedding:

From Jeff Maurer; another person went to Heaven and came back, assuring us that Jesus was a man and about 6 feet tall:

From Malcolm. Dogs like bread?

Two from my feed. First, a rejection from Nature of work that later won the Nobel Prize (read about it here):

Drama kitteh:

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

And the last from Dr. Cobb: an amphipod parasite that represents a new branch of animals.

We have a new branch in the family tree of animals: Atreyea- a previously unrecognized lineage among the closest unicell relatives of animals.Led by @konsmitsi.bsky.social & @freejakoba.bsky.social together with a fantastic team of collaborators.🔗 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers….#protistsOnSky

— Iñaki Ruiz-Trillo (@multicellgenome.bsky.social) 2026-09-28T11:41:15.759Z

Today’s song was chosen by my friend Tim, who knows his soul songs.  This Motown number, “Since I Lost My Baby,” is performed by the Temptations but was written by Smokey Robinson and Peter Moore. Tim likes it because, he says, it shows what life is like: what a spurned lover would really feel—even though the bosses are paying. It came out in 1965, and here’s a bit from Wikipedia:

Longing and melancholy, “Since I Lost My Baby” tells a story about the pain of losing a lover. Temptations lead singer David Ruffin, portrays the song’s narrator, bass singer Melvin Franklin is also heard out front after each of Ruffin’s first two lines on the first verse. It was Ruffin’s third straight lead on a Temptations single.

Cash Box described it as a “tender, slow-shufflin’ pop-r&b tearjerker about a lad who has been singing the blues since his romance went kaput.”

One thought on “Tuesday: Hili dialogue”

  1. Reading The Cauldron by Simon Sebag Montefiore. Realized there are no notes. It seems like this detracts from the book being taken seriously? Which would be a shame as it is full interesting insights about the M.E..

    Reply

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