Category: Hili Dialogue

Thursday: Hili dialogue

July 30, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to Thursday, July 30, 2026; August is right around the corner, and today is National Cheesecake Day. Here’s a photo of a slice proffered as dessert on my first trip to Antarctica in 2019.  I miss those free cruises to one of the most beautiful places on Earth, but Hurtigruten no longer sees the need for outside lecturers.

This is of course only one of several desserts I had at this meal; the slice is quite thin:

It’s also International Day of Friendship, National Chili Dog Day, and World Snorkeling Day. Of course Wikipedia has an entry on the Chili Dog, and

There are several versions of this dog, with the first created about 1918.  Here’s a chili dog with cheese (probably Cheez Whiz) and a side of fries taken that article. It’s good for you, even if Cheez Whiz is not legally cheese.

bryan… from Taipei, Taiwan, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 30 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Breaking news ripped from the headlines: The U.S. struck back at Iran this morning in response for their breaking a “pause” in fighting by firing missiles at U.S. assets in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia joined us to a limited extent:

U.S. Central Command announced new strikes on Iran in response to Iranian forces targeting U.S. military assets in the Middle East, after a day in which fighting reignited across the region.

Central Command, which directs the U.S. military in the region, said early Thursday local time that it had completed a “heavy wave” of strikes on Iran, targeting military command centers, missile and drone facilities and coastal surveillance sites, among other targets.

“The strikes aimed to further diminish threats posed by Iran and its proxies to American forces, commercial shipping, and neighboring Gulf countries,” it said on social media.

On Wednesday, American and Saudi fighter jets had attacked Iran-allied militias in Iraq, Iran fired missiles at bases in Jordan used by U.S. forces and an American-owned tanker in an Egyptian port was set on fire in an apparent drone strike.

*Yesterday hostilities resumed between Iran and the U.S. (and Israel, though lately Israel has been immune to attack), with Iranian missiles fired at U.S. troops in the Middle East:

Iran’s surprise missile attack on U.S. forces in Jordan shows Tehran’s military leaders would rather risk ramping up the war than play defense or accept a peace deal that would expose them to greater domestic political pressures.

Iran fired ballistic missiles on U.S. troops early Wednesday local time, demonstrating a willingness by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which exerts more power than ever in Tehran, to escalate during a relative lull in the conflict and attempt to seize the initiative after weeks in which Iran has mostly reacted to U.S. and Israeli attacks.

President Trump was cited by Fox News as saying the U.S. would hit Iran hard in response to the attack. “They’re going to get a beating,” chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst early Wednesday quoted Trump as telling him. The White House didn’t immediately respond to request for comment.

A senior Jordanian government official said five missiles were intercepted in Jordan’s eastern desert and caused no injuries or material damage. The official declined to comment on the specific targets of the missiles. U.S. troops are posted to a Jordanian base near the Syrian border and at a separate air base in the desert where an Iranian missile strike killed two American servicemembers earlier this month.

Trump keeps saying stuff like “they’re going to get a beating”, but he doesn’t ever seem to deal out any beatings.  At any rate, if you want Amit Segal’s take on why Israel is suddenly immune to attack by Iran, read the second item at Amit Segal’s “It’s noon in Israel“. An excerpt:

For the past few weeks Iran has been hammering Kuwait, Jordan and Bahrain for the apparent crime of aiding operations against the Islamic Republic. Israel was spared the chaos—seemingly because it kept its hands clean. Katz just revealed it hasn’t. Turns out Iran is simply too scared.

That is a complete inversion of the classic American role in the region. For decades the U.S. presence in the Gulf was the deterrent—the thing that made striking Riyadh or Abu Dhabi unwise. Now the American presence draws fire onto its allies, while Israel’s presence shields the Americans.

It is also a repudiation of Washington’s classic approach to the region. For years the instinct was to restrain Israel—to reassure the hostile regimes that they were firmly on the leash. Brandishing Israel as a threat was thought to antagonize the very governments America wanted to court, and to alienate everyone else. Turns out the opposite is true: a bad cop frothing at the mouth gives the good cop room to work. Israel wants to hit Iran’s energy infrastructure; Washington won’t allow it. Iran takes the good cop’s strikes without responding directly—because it knows who waits behind him, eager to join.

Few things could better advertise stronger U.S. cooperation with Israel than Iran’s hesitancy. During the war Israel invited the United States to relocate some of its regional bases onto Israeli soil. Israel offers the region’s best air defense and a military that can help the U.S. repel threats rather than watch them from the runway. Washington has been pulling squadrons and tankers out of the exposed Gulf bases and into Ben Gurion and Ramon, and is reportedly weighing whether to move its Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi operations into the Negev outright.

*Yesterday’s NYT morning newsletter by Sam Stifton, which came in email, says this:

The fires threatening central Spain and southwestern France over the past two weeks may be small by American standards. In Europe, though, they are tremendous. Some are the largest in their countries’ modern histories, raging in places not accustomed to fires of this scale: on the outskirts of Madrid, for instance, or near the ancient vineyards of Bordeaux.

Firefighters have been struggling to contain the fires before another heat wave descends on the region today, with temperatures soaring to 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Last month was the hottest June on record in Western Europe, and climate experts say the continent can expect even higher temperatures in the future. The heat dries vegetation, making it more susceptible to fire. (It also exhausts firefighters.)

And more destruction may lie ahead. Last year had a record-breaking fire season across Europe, my colleagues report, with more than 2.5 million acres burned, about 60 percent of them in August. The fires of the last two weeks have put 2026 ahead of last year at the same time.

These charts tell the terrible story:

Two graphs showing the number of acres burned by wildfires in France and Spain.
Source: European Forest Fire Information System, as of July 28, 2026. The New York Times

“A wake-up call”

The fires have been particularly hard on Madrid, which in recent years has become a booming European capital. Residents can’t recall a time when such a large fire advanced so close to the city, reports Jason Horowitz, our bureau chief there:

In a country led by a government that has defined itself by the seriousness with which it takes climate change, the flames have come unsettlingly close to the capital. The fires around Madrid have brought to tears the region’s president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso. Experts say they are a harbinger for the damage to come on the world’s fastest warming continent.

“These are difficult hours,” Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Monday afternoon during a news conference in Castellón, on Spain’s eastern coast, where a new fire raged and forced thousands of new evacuations.

“This is a wake-up call,” one Madrileño told Jason. Another said that even before the fires, weeks of record-breaking heat had exhausted her. “It just keeps spreading,” she said, looking at a sunset ruined by smoke. “Just don’t let it reach here.”

It’s hard to imagine smoke surrounding Madrid and devastating Bordeaux, but so it is.  I’m starting to think that anthropogenic climate change is what’s causing this (I of course accept the data, but can’t pin specific weather incidents on it.)

*Bret Stephens is not a total rah-rah fan of Israel, as seen in his NYT column yesterday, “A blunt warning for Israel” (archived here):

Because Israel is routinely the victim of double standards — Will Zohran Mamdani ever make a personal cause of denouncing his native Uganda for criminalizing homosexuality? Or tell a human-rights malefactor like Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, that he, too, isn’t welcome in New York? — it’s tempting for the Jewish state’s stalwart defenders, including me, to downplay its failings.

That goes especially when we see the country having to defend its legitimacy against scoundrels. Or when allegations made against it later prove sloppily reported or entirely unfounded. Or when the chorus of condemnation is loud enough already without lending our voices to it.

But anyone who cares about Israel’s well-being shouldn’t be silent about anti-Palestinian settler terrorism in the West Bank and the nothing-much-to-see-here policy of Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister. That’s not only because the terrorism is a menace to Palestinian lives and property, or an affront to Jewish ethics, or a stain on Israel’s reputation — though it’s all those things. It’s also a direct threat to Israel’s security and statehood, and thus to Zionism itself.

That’s the point of a public letter to President Trump, issued Sunday by Matan Vilnai, a retired deputy chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, on behalf of an organization that includes hundreds of retired senior Israeli officers.

“Whereas our security agencies excel in dealing with Hamas and other West Bank Palestinian terror groups, they are severely constrained when it comes to Jewish terrorists,” the letter notes. “It is no secret that certain members of our current government orchestrate much of this chaos, including by shielding their followers — who are armed and driven by messianic impulses — from the law and its enforcement.”

“Unless arrested swiftly and decisively,” the letter bluntly warns, “escalating violence in the West Bank is poised to ignite the region and carries severe ramifications for both Israeli security and U.S. regional interests.”

That reality was again brought home last week, when extremist settlers went on a rampage in several Palestinian villages, reportedly setting fire to a home and two mosques, attacking a stonecutting factory and committing other acts of outright terrorism. That followed an incident in which four Palestinians and two Israelis were killed after a confrontation involving a group of Israelis who, without prior coordination, had trespassed into an area under Palestinian civil control.

This sort of episode has become routine. As The Times of Israel reports, “the I.D.F. recorded 867 incidents of nationalistic crime and settler violence in 2025.” That’s up from 682 the previous year.

Netanyahu’s answer to all this, as he told CNN’s Dana Bash, is that the violence is the work of about 150 “juvenile delinquents” and that he doesn’t accept “vigilantism.” But it’s preposterous to think that a government that can assassinate a Hamas leader in a Tehran guesthouse finds itself unable to contain a wave of Jewish thuggery. If the prime minister wanted to end the problem, he could. Like Bartleby, he would prefer not to.

. . . I’ve written before that the purpose of Zionism — for which I’m a lifelong advocate — is Jewish self-rule: “Neither rule by others nor rule over others.” It’s why I still believe in a Palestinian state, even if the conditions for it are probably far off. It’s why I more fervently believe in a Jewish state, governed by law and recognizing limits. Under this Israeli government, that’s slipping away.

As I said, I haven’t paid much attention to the West Bank, and didn’t even know of this letter. But, having read it, and knowing its source (Stephens writes, “Vilnai is no peacenik: He served in a previous Netanyahu government as the minister of home front defense and was one of the commandos who, 50 years ago this month, liberated Jewish hostages in the Entebbe raid), the situation sounds dire, and yet another reason to call for Netanyahu’s removal through the political process.

*Anthony Fauci—”director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) from 1984 to 2022 and Chief Medical Advisor to the President from 2021 to 2022″.—took the Fifth before Congress many times yesterday. His behavior has not been absolutely impeccable with respect to the origin of the Covid virus, but now he’s worried about being incriminated. As a NYT op-ed noted:

Just before leaving office, President Joe Biden took the remarkable step of providing Dr. Fauci with a blanket pardon covering all of his activities from 2014 to early 2025. This pardon would not protect against new accusations of perjury if Dr. Fauci were found to have lied during sworn testimony after Mr. Biden left office in 2025. On the advice of his lawyers, the 85-year-old Dr. Fauci made the extraordinary choice during Wednesday’s hearing to plead the Fifth Amendment. As Republican senators peppered him with often hostile questions, he repeated over and over again that he respectfully declined to answer.

By doing so, Dr. Fauci became the speechless cipher to whom committee Republicans and Democrats argued their irreconcilable stories — about the pandemic, but also more broadly about science and public health in America. The effect was a useless drama that offered zero insights to a public desperate for them.

This is from the WSJ:

Anthony S. Fauci repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment during a Senate hearing Wednesday where Republicans pressed the retired government scientist on whether he was sufficiently truthful in past testimony about the coronavirus pandemic.

Fauci, who helped lead the nation’s pandemic response and frequently appeared before Congress during his 54-year government career, said that it “pains me” to now invoke his constitutional right against self-incrimination. But he alleged that Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), a longtime adversary who convened Wednesday’s hearing, was wrongly seeking to trap him in a misstep that could lead to perjury charges.

“Under the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions,” Fauci said.

He subsequently declined to answer questions from Paul — who began the hearing by asking Fauci about the pandemic response and whether there was a folder in front of him on the table — and other lawmakers, invoking the Fifth dozens of times.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) peppered Fauci with basic questions, such as the day of the week and what color tie he was wearing. Fauci declined to answer those questions, too.

“This isn’t about the law. This is about contempt, contempt for this body and contempt for the American people,” Hawley said, repeatedly referring to Fauci as “Doc.”

The committee’s Republicans are planning to hold a vote next week on whether to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress, a Senate aide told The Washington Post, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

Democrats, meanwhile, praised Fauci as a hero and thanked him for his work fighting infectious diseases.

. . .Ahead of the hearing, Paul released more than 1,000 pages of Fauci’s personal records, including a diary that contained his unvarnished thoughts on President Donald Trump and other officials, saying that Fauci’s private comments conflicted with his public statements and testimony.

The 85-year-old Fauci, who last faced the Senate in September 2022 and retired from government later that year, has persistently denied Paul’s allegations and on Wednesday said that Paul’s decision to release his personal diary was “aimed at embarrassing and intimidating me” before the hearing. He also said that he has already spent days “answering questions about the very issues that are now the subject of this hearing,” referring to past appearances before Congress.

The full three hours of the hearing are here; and Fauci was treated abysmally. I was an absolute defender of Fauci until I found that he pressured scientists to not implicate the Wuhan Institute of Virology in a “lab leak” scandal, and pressuring someone that way is unconscionable, but he’s been pardoned for any laws he broke. About the origins of Covid, well, I go back and forth, moving from thinking the lab-leak theory has merit to the view that it has no merit. Most of my colleagues, though, seem to have made up their minds. The kind of roughhousing Facui got is not limited to Republican questioners, though, for we have a fractious and politically sundered country.  Here’s a shorter excerpt:

In the end, I’d be very surprised if anything happened to him as a result of this confrontation.

*Remember Punch the monkey with his plushie? Well, the Japanese macaque just turned one and is getting plenty of birthday wishes:

Punch, the orphaned monkey at a Japanese zoo that stole many people’s hearts by clinging to an orangutan plushie, is marking his first birthday with a flood of well-wishing messages from his fans around the world — even though he now has friends and is no longer holding on to the toy.

Punch was abandoned by his mother after his birth a year ago Sunday, presumably because of exhaustion. Zookeepers nursed him and gave him the toy to develop his gripping ability, something newborn macaques need to survive.

Punch is no longer a plump baby with the plushie and he’s hard to distinguish from other monkeys as he mingles and plays with them at an enclosure at the Ichikawa City Zoological and Botanical Garden.

He still attracts big crowds, and has received some 2,500 birthday cards from inside and outside Japan, said Takashi Yasunaga, head of the zoo. Many of the cards and other messages fill the walls at an indoor Punch birthday exhibit where visitors can also view video chronicling Punch from his earliest days.

It was not just the cuteness factor of seeing Punch with his toy, but also his lone struggle to be gradually accepted by others that struck a chord, fans say.

Here’s a video of Punch young and older. He even has a boo!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej joins the No Kings movement:

Hili: How many monarchies are there around the world?
Andrzej: No idea, but I haven’t seen any enlightened monarchies.

In Polish:

Hili: Ile jest na świecie monarchii?
Ja: Nie mam pojęcia, ale oświeconych monarchii nie zauważyłem.

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

From Kitty Litterposting:

From Stacy:

Another from Stacy:

From Masih; they’re going to execute the young man who didn’t understand that they were sentencing him to death:

From Luana; more oppression of women by the tenets of extremist Islam:

The Number Ten Cat says he likes to eat mice, but Larry has caught almost nine in his 15 years at Downing Street:

Two from my feed. First, feline love:

And another cheetah:

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

And two from Doctor Cobb. First, the coiner of two neologisms:

— I AM DAD (@iamdad.bsky.social) 2026-07-28T21:06:21.892Z

Matthew’s comment on this baby prehensile-tailed porcupine was “Awww!”:

Announcing the birth of this spike-tacular porcupette 🦔

— San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance (@sandiegozoo.bsky.social) 2026-07-28T16:50:20.738Z

Wednesday: Hili dialogue

July 29, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to a Hump Day (“የሃምፕ ቀን” in Amharic): Wednesday, July 29, 2026, and we’re moving quickly towards August (and the Big Nap). And it’s International Tiger Day, celebrating the world’s most beautiful large cat, Panthera tigris (there’s 0nly one species).  Here’s a year in the life of a rescued baby tiger:

It’s also National Chicken Wing Day (I prefer thighs: the best part of the pullet), and National Lasagna Day.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 1 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal prognosticates about “Lucky meeting number eight,” which is the number of times Trump has met with Netanyahu.

It’s Tuesday, July 28, and in a rare move for Donald Trump, his meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu will be held away from the cameras. That says a lot.

There was real anxiety in Netanyahu’s office about another episode of what Trump called “great television”—a Zelensky-style confrontation, a blowup staged for the cameras. I don’t detect much grief from the prime minister’s office over the absence of footage.

The truth is that this is not a gotcha meeting, nor is it a Bidenesque “come to Jesus” moment. Since Trump called Netanyahu “f***ing crazy” in early June, things have improved—partly, at least, thanks to Iranian attempts to strain the allies’ connection to the point of breaking the MoU. The negotiations confirmed what Netanyahu told Trump on the eve of the memorandum of understanding: he doubted it would work, but if Trump wanted to try, he was behind him. A strategy not everyone in his Cabinet was willing to back, but one that has clearly been validated.

Netanyahu wouldn’t dare say it to the president explicitly, but the message is quite simple: I told you so.

Which leaves the question of what comes next. The image some will undoubtedly sketch—Trump dragging his feet on a return to war while Netanyahu tugs at his sleeve to go back in—is likely wrong. That movie already played. Five months ago, Netanyahu sat in the White House Situation Room and hard-sold precisely this war: a slide deck and a video reel of the leaders who would inherit a fallen Tehran, the missile program gone in weeks, a popular uprising, the ayatollah decapitated, a secular successor cued up. It didn’t work out, but neither did Trump’s plan once Bibi’s was abandoned. However good a salesman, Netanyahu doesn’t think he can—or particularly wants to—pull Trump into another confrontation.

Worth noting here: the clip Yair Netanyahu’s aides published on Instagram, in which Sara tells her husband she wants Trump to strike Lebanon as well. Netanyahu talks her down, gently. [JAC: I have been unable to find this clip.]

The American position is that Iran is the priority. That is the mission. The question is how to pursue it. Israel will lay out two options. One: go back in, and this time strike Iran’s energy infrastructure and its remaining enriched uranium with full force. The other, if that road isn’t taken: hold the line—a blockade. No deal, and no war.

Assuming Trump has the patience for an inconclusive confrontation may be a mistake. He has had plenty of opportunities to slip into such a status quo, and at every one he has opted to twist the dial of escalation hard to one side or the other.

Netanyahu surely has his preferences. But I have no doubt he can work with either outcome.

*Thomas Friedman, who I barely read in the NYT any more, just had a clickbait (for me) column, “Mamdani’s Netanyahu stunt was a waste of his talent and our time” (archived here).

I don’t know what kind of New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani will turn out to be, but he’s already proved to be a real disappointment as a statesman. New York is the only city in the world in which at least 750,000 Jews and Muslims apiece live side by side. Rather than being a constructive bridge builder between them, Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, has chosen to be a bridge destroyer — using the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as his ax. It is such a waste of a truly charismatic political talent.

Consider Mamdani’s recent stunt: threatening to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel when he comes to New York City for the United Nations gathering in September. The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in 2024, alleging he committed crimes against humanity in Gaza. Though Mamdani eventually acknowledged that the city had no such legal authority — and instead called on the federal government to execute the warrant days before the Israeli leader’s visit to Washington — it was just the kind of thing Netanyahu will use in his campaign to get re-elected on Oct. 27. I can write Bibi’s campaign commercial myself: “The only safe place for Jews is Israel. Just look at what’s going on in New York. The only leader who can protect Israelis is me: Bibi.”

And this is why I stopped reading Friedman:

Mamdani does not call for a two-state solution, either. He argues that Jews are not entitled to self-determination in a state of their own — a Jewish state in their biblical homeland in that same region stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River. But more than seven million Jews also live in that space, and they, too, are not going away or relinquishing their right to a Jewish state — no matter what Mamdani and other democratic socialists say. So, they are also effectively promoting a forever war.

What if Mamdani actually wanted to be a bridge builder between Israelis and Palestinians, a role for which he has the unique capacity and talent? If he did, he would declare his intention that on the day Bibi arrives in New York City for the U.N. General Assembly, he would convene a seminar at his office and invite Israeli, Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and Jewish experts to discuss the only just and stable solution: how to forge two separate states for two peoples living in that area between the river and the sea.

. . .He would invite Saudi representatives to discuss the Arab Peace Initiative, which was launched in this column in 2002 by the Saudi crown prince, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud. He would invite Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and George W. Bush to each talk about their respective plans for two states for two peoples. He’d invite Palestinian leaders like Salam Fayyad, the former Palestinian Authority prime minister, who did so much in his tenure to build Palestinian institutions for a Palestinian state next to Israel, to discuss how they would revive that effort today.

Most important, he would invite representatives of Jewish-Arab organizations trying to forge two states for two peoples, like the Abraham Initiatives.

. . .Imagine if Mamdani, instead of engaging in a useless stunt of publicly mulling the arrest of Netanyahu, convened all these Israeli, Palestinian, Arab and American advocates of two states for two peoples and then invited Netanyahu to address them. Let Bibi be the one to say: “No, I don’t want to have anything to do with Israeli, Palestinian, Arab and American advocates of two states for two peoples.”

It would at least send the message to the Israeli center-right, center and left voters that the world doesn’t hate them, that the mayor of New York City isn’t out to get them and that all the international community wants is for Israelis and Palestinians to be constructive partners ready to explore the only realistic alternative to a forever war.

I have no idea if it would help. But I know for sure that what Mamdani is doing is just minting voters for Netanyahu among Israelis who think Bibi is their only protector, his hard-line stance their only salvation.

Yes, Mamdani could promote comity and peace, but Friedman has always been a sucker for an immediate two-state “solution,” something that apparently only he thinks is both possible and doable. It isn’t. That’s why I used to call him Thomas “I am Dumb” Friedman.  Oh, and he wants to invite Natalie Portman to address the gathering, too.

*In her NYT column about the new Homer, movie, “Nolan’s Zero-Eros ‘Odyssey’“, Mo Dowd gripes about the movie, especially its lack of eroticism.(Article is archived here.)

Nolan told Stephen Colbert that he used every trick in the book to achieve his stunning visual effects. (The Mediterranean was ready for its close-up!) Yet the director failed to capture the essence of the man of tricks and twists, Odysseus, who delighted in storytelling and feigned identities.

Much of the moral ambiguity has been drained to make Matt Damon’s protagonist more likable. Except for a few mournful appearances by Zendaya’s Athena, who seems more like Odysseus’s conscience than his shape-shifting partner in deception, Nolan doesn’t depict any of the major meddling gods from the story. Besides being rich, fascinating characters, the gods are the framework for everything that happened in the ancient world. If you take the gods out of the picture, you just have people struggling within themselves. You lose the depth and force of the epic.

Nolan’s nearly three-hour masterwork, the classicist Mary Beard noted, does not have Homer’s “elusive sexiness.” In keeping with Gen Z’s waning interest in sex, the poem’s famous sex scenes have been excised, sapping erotic power from the female characters. As a headline in New York magazine wondered, “Is No One Horny in ‘The Odyssey’?”

. . .Emily Wilson, whose popular modern translation of “The Odyssey” inspired Nolan, said the director turned Odysseus into an all-American hero weighed down by anxieties foreign to the ancient Greeks.

“He’s traumatized Jason Bourne,” she said of Damon’s portrayal on Derek Thompson’s podcast. “He’s an action hero who feels bad about being an action hero. He’s not that complicated. Unfortunately, he’s not ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ in this film. The Odysseus of the Greek poem is complicated.”

Nolan did not want his Odysseus betraying Penelope and enjoying his sojourns with other women. The director completely cut out the young princess Nausicaa, whom Homer’s Odysseus has a flirtation with, and neuters the text’s sexual encounters with Circe and Calypso.

. . . Nolan whitewashes Odysseus’s infidelity here by turning Calypso — played by Charlize Theron — into a fashionable beach therapist who gives him mood-altering lotus flowers to help with his PTSD. In Homer, Odysseus has no need to forget. He cries once over the human cost of the war when he hears a song about Troy’s fall, but mostly he’s proud of his war exploits. And the “scalawag,” as Calypso calls him, doesn’t partake in the lotus; his men become addicted lotus-eaters on a different island.

Homer did not portray a world turning against violence. He limned a profoundly martial universe — interspersed with lots of magic and sex and cavorting, conniving immortals. If you smooth it out and modernize it too much, you lose what made it so important to begin with. And you’re just left with a guy finding his way home.

So it goes. Not enough sex, and not enough realistic eroticism. I don’t think I’ll see this movie.

*A Democratic Socialist, Wisconsin state representative, and part-time bartender (shades of AOC!) is the favored Democratic candidates for governor, and has a lot of promises to change the state the way Mamdani promised to change New York.

Francesca Hong, a dues-paying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, has establishment Democrats rattled ahead of an Aug. 11 primary for governor that has showcased the party’s division and disarray.

Hong, a 37-year-old state representative and part-time bartender, leads in the most recent Marquette Law School primary poll. She is outpacing a former lieutenant governor, a former top state administrator and several other more-prominent Democrats.

The race is one of three heartland Democratic primaries in early August offering insights into the party’s direction. The other two are U.S. Senate contests in Michigan and Minnesota.

Hong’s bid will also test whether Democratic socialists, a rising faction within the party that has won in deeply blue cities and districts, can win statewide primaries in purple states.

Hong, Wisconsin’s first Asian-American state legislator, is solidly on the side calling for a vast expansion of government into virtually every corner of life, from free child care and mass transit to publicly run grocery stores and the elimination of all college debt.

Hong backers at Wisconsin Democrats’ 2026 convention in Madison last month. Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images for WisDems

She backs legalizing marijuana to fund high-speed broadband and supports a state-run development bank, Medicare-for-all, a 32-hour workweek with no pay cut, abolishing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, restoring voting rights to felons and the eventual elimination—or at least reduction—of prisons and police

. . .Asked how she would pay for the additional benefits she is suggesting, Hong said she would push for higher taxes on the wealthiest and the elimination of business tax credits.

“The money is there,” she said in an interview. “It’s how we’ve allocated it and also who is not required to pay.”

This sounds exactly like Mamdani, and good luck to Wisconsin if she becomes governor. Presumably the state legislature has a way to curb her excesses.

*Casey Babb at The Free Press reports that “Jews are leaving Canada in droves.”  It starts with Gad Saad’s announcment that he’s leaving Canada for several reason, but mainly because of the country’s increasing Jew hatred:

Saad said basically the same thing on Joe Rogan’s podcast in May. “I’m now leaving in large part because it became difficult for me, if not impossible, to be a high-profile Jewish professor who supports the right of Israel to exist.” Saad had already taken a leave of absence from Concordia University in Montreal and will continue working as a scholar at the Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom at the University of Mississippi.

. . .Saad’s decision made it even more painfully obvious that Canada has an antisemitism problem. As of mid-July, B’nai Brith had documented 27 violent antisemitic incidents so far this year, compared with 10 during all of 2025. As The Free Press’s Rupa Subramanya reported in June, Jews account for about one percent of Canada’s population of 41.6 million, but were the targets of more hate crimes reported by police in 2024 than all other religious groups combined.

Over the weekend, two locations of Jewish-owned Kiva’s Bagel Bakery in Toronto were attacked, including one with gunfire. Last week, police charged a pro-Palestinian demonstrator who encouraged terrorism and “harm against members of the Israeli and Jewish communities” at protests in Toronto in 2024, alleging that he was associated with Hamas.

. . . From renowned physicians and educators to entrepreneurs and community leaders, Canada is losing some of its most extraordinary citizens because they no longer feel welcome or safe in the place they called home. Jews from Canada and several other countries recently asked the U.S. State Department to allow them to immigrate as refugees or under another form of protected status, though no decision has been announced. Aaliyah from Canada rose 51 percent between 2023 and 2025, reaching a record high, according to the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem.

An average of more than 10,000 Canadians are leaving the country every month, the highest level of emigration in Canada’s recorded history, according to the federal government. Those numbers are not broken down by religion or other groups, but many of those who are leaving are well-paid and highly educated.

. . . And while most of the antisemitic incidents in Canada and elsewhere fall below the threshold of terrorism, there remains a deep sense of unease within the country’s Jewish community due to the quieter forms of hatred and bigotry that pervade daily life: shootings of Jewish institutions; vandalism of Jewish-owned businesses, homes, and synagogues; and assaults, acts of intimidation, and various other hate crimes.

Canada can’t afford to lose its Jews, and the government and people better bloody well do something to stop the antisemitism. They’re even moving to the U.S., which also has rising levels of antisemitism, but they haven’t yet approached Canada’s level.  O Canada!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili feels neglectedL

Hili: Am I still the editor-in-chief of Listy z naszego sadu?
Andrzej: Of course.
Hili: Then why are our conversations on Substack only in the Notes?
Andrzej: Because a good editor-in-chief stays in the background, making sure everything runs smoothly

In Polish:

Hili: Czy ja nadal jestem naczelną „Listów z naszego sadu”?
Ja: Oczywiście.
Hili: To dlaczego nasze rozmowy są na Substacku tylko w notatkach?
Ja: Ponieważ dobry naczelny pozostaje w cieniu pilnując, żeby wszystko działało sprawnie.

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

From Kitty Litterposting:

From The English Language Police:

From CinEmma:

From Masih; the cranes are used to hang people in public:

The Number Ten Cat had an encounter with a police dog:

From Colin Wright; you should read the article (pdf is here):

From Luana; some confused individuals.  English translation:

Pride Amsterdam; more Hamas flags than rainbow flags.

In Gaza, gays are tortured to death or hanged.

Speaking of the DSA, this is from Jeff Maurer, who should have more followers:

One from my feed; red pandas like it cold:

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial; a priest who made the ultimate sacrifice for another prisoner:

And one from Dr. Cobb, showing, a gorgeous skunk:

I've never seen a skunk with a pure white tail before. What a beauty! 🦨 🦊

— Wildmaven (@wildmaven.bsky.social) 2026-07-28T12:43:18.098Z

Tuesday: Hili dialogue

July 28, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to The Cruelest Day: Tuesday, July 28, 2026, and National Soccer Day. In honor of The Beautiful Game, here is a compendium of the best goals in modern World Cup soccer (if the video doesn’t display, just click “Watch on Youtube” or go here.  There are some beauts, so if you’re a soccer fan, watch these five minutes: It finishes with Maradona’s fabulous run and goal against England in 1986 (not the “hand of God” goal).

It’s also Buffalo Soldiers Day, National Hamburger Day, National Milk Chocolate Day, and World Nature Conservation Day.

“What are buffalo soldiers?”, you may ask. Wikipedia answers:

This Wikipedia photo is labeled “Buffalo Soldiers of the 25th Infantry Regiment in 1890.”

Buffalo Soldiers were United States Army regiments composed exclusively of Black American soldiers, formed during the 19th century to serve on the American frontier. On September 21, 1866, the 10th Cavalry Regiment was formed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. According to legend, during the exodus of the 1870s, more than 20,000 African Americans migrated to Kansas. They hoped their journey would take them far away from poverty from the South. Others escaped by being soldiers. They served in the segregated army units and fought in the Western Indian Wars from 1867 to 1896. According to legend, the men were called “buffalo soldiers” by the Apache and Cheyenne. The soldiers adopted the name as a sign of honor and respect. Units of Buffalo Soldiers answered the nation’s call to arms mainly in the West, however, also in Cuba, the Philippines, Hawaii, and Mexico. They had a huge impact on the Reconstruction era.

Although numerous Black Union Army regiments were raised during the Civil War (referred to collectively as the United States Colored Troops), “Buffalo Soldiers” were established by the U.S Congress as the first all-black Army regiments in peacetime.  The regiments were racially segregated, as the U.S. military would not desegregate until 1948. On November 15, 2024, Robert Dixon, the last surviving Buffalo Soldier, died aged 103.  The oldest Buffalo Soldier, Mark Matthews, died in 2005 at the age of 111 and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

From Wikimedia Commons and Library of Congress.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 28 Wikipedia page.

I have visitors and Hili dialogues may be thin or even absent this week.

Da Nooz:

*According to the NYT, yesterday 350,000 immigrants lost their “temporary protected status” per decision of the Supreme Court. Quotes below are from the summary in the paper’s morning newsletter.

In 1990, during George H.W. Bush’s presidency, Congress established a humanitarian immigration program called Temporary Protected Status. It was designed to shield from deportation people whose home countries were unsafe to return to because of extraordinary circumstances: an armed conflict, for example, or a natural disaster.

Last month, though, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to end the program. And today that is happening for some 350,000 immigrants, mainly from Haiti. They are losing their work permits and face the prospect of deportation by the Department of Homeland Security, with T.P.S. holders from a batch of other countries soon to follow.

“D.H.S. is upholding the rule of law and getting back to common sense,” a spokesman said.

Why is TPS ending?

Critics say T.P.S. is a problem because it’s not really temporary. Look at the Salvadorans, they say. They first became eligible for T.P.S. in 1990 because of the violent civil war in their country. Another wave came after two devastating earthquakes in 2001. Decades on, there are about 190,000 of them here, living and working legally. (At least for now — their protected status is slated to end in September.)

The Trump administration calls T.P.S. a loophole, a kind of amnesty program. It says that many people now in the program came to the United States unlawfully, or came as students or on tourist visas and transitioned to T.P.S., then stayed for years as previous presidents extended the protections again and again.

A very big hit

Miriam Jordan and Madeleine Ngo cover immigration and have been reporting on the economic impact of the curtailing of T.P.S. They spoke to the director of a nonpartisan research organization who said that “for particular places and particular industries,” having “tens of thousands of workers no longer able to legally work is going to be a very big hit.”

Miriam also spoke with the chief executive of Hebrew SeniorLife, a nonprofit in the Boston area that has hired many T.P.S. recipients. Since the start of Trump’s second term, he said, other policy changes have already cost him 60 immigrant workers.

Now, the organization is preparing to lose 40 Haitians who have — had — T.P.S. protection. They are housekeepers, cooks, dishwashers and nurses who are among the legions of Haitians who have come into the program since an earthquake devastated their country in 2010.

. . .The Haitian T.P.S. beneficiaries who lose their work permits today now have to decide whether to stay or to leave the United States.

Staying would not be easy. The government knows where they live

There are of course mass protests about the ending of TPS, and those are mainly by the left, especially “progressives” who believe, in their heart of hearts, that anybody who sets foot in America should be allowed to stay forever.  The Democrats or their candidates need to propose sensible immigration laws, but of course any restrictions are seen as a sign of ideological impurity.  Were I a reporter in the upcoming midterms, I’d ask candidates, “What revision of America’s immigration laws do you favor?”  This puts them in a bind, because while the party, moving towards “progressivism”, has no position, but regular Americans want to see some restrictions.

*The Times of Israel explains how NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani is repeatedly invoking “international law” to indict what he sees as war crimes. But he hasn’t been successful.

In late 2024, Zohran Mamdani, then a candidate for New York City mayor, pledged in an interview that, if he was elected, he would arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if the premier came to New York.

“As mayor, New York City would arrest Benjamin Netanyahu,” Mamdani told Zeteo. “This is a city that our values are in line with international law. It’s time that our actions are also.”

He dismissed the fact that the US is not a party to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which had issued the arrest warrant for Netanyahu.

“It’s time that we actually step up and make clear what we are willing to do to showcase the leadership that is sorely missing in the federal administration,” he said.

That pledge collapsed on Tuesday night, when Mamdani acknowledged that the city could not carry out an ICC arrest.

The statement marked an admission, more than a year and a half after his initial pledge to arrest Netanyahu, that Mamdani had been forced to reckon with the fact that international law does not have any bearing on the city government, despite Mamdani’s repeated description of New York as a “city of international law.”

. . . Legal scholars had said for more than a year, though, that a New York City mayor could not arrest a foreign head of state for a variety of reasons.

Neither the US nor Israel is party to the ICC, so the court does not have any jurisdiction in the US; foreign affairs are the exclusive purview of the federal government; federal law bars the imprisonment of a foreign head of state and bans any cooperation with the ICC; the NYPD cannot make illegal arrests or take acts that are prohibited by federal law; and New York City cannot extradite defendants to The Hague for trial.

. . .Mamdani’s Tuesday statement raised questions about what had taken so long to make the determination. Asked twice about the timing in a press conference on Wednesday, he declined to say when he knew that the city couldn’t make the arrest.

Netanyahu travels to New York for the UN General Assembly each September, so Mamdani needed to resolve the issue by then.

The ordeal highlighted how Mamdani has used “international law” as a cudgel against Israel.

Mamdani has almost exclusively deployed international legal arguments against Israel. He has said that he believes ICC warrants against other leaders, like Russian President Vladimir Putin, should also be honored, and has condemned Hamas for “war crimes,” but has only made those statements while talking about Israel.

. . .Mamdani has accused Israel of genocide more than three dozen times on X alone since the start of the Gaza war. He has also made the accusation in debates, TV interviews, radio appearances and during a meeting with Trump. The only time he invoked the accusation in another context appears to be a statement about Armenia.

In Wednesday’s press conference, he twice declined to say that Hamas had committed genocide, only stating that the October 7 attack was a “horrific war crime.”

Yes, ladies, and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, this is the bellwether of Democratic politics.  This performative behavior is embedded in the platform of the Democratic Socialists of America, of which Mamdani is a member. I’m no fan of Netanyahu, but have said that no prime minister of Israel could ever win approbation of “progressives.”  An Israeli leader is, by definition, a “Zionist.”  There will probably be something on Mamdani tomorrow, too, as I’m amazed that he got elected and that people don’t mind his turning NYC into Antizionist Central.

*From Eli Lake at the Free Press, “Mr. President, give up on a nuclear deal with Iran.” Lake explains why that won’t happen but suggests an alternative.

The problem is that Trump has been giving diplomacy a chance since April and he has little to show for it. That was when he first sent Vice President J.D. Vance to lead a U.S. delegation to Islamabad, Pakistan, to negotiate an end to the war. He made that decision 24 hours after threatening to bomb Iran’s power plants and bridges.

Ever since the war started, two separate negotiations have been conflated in Trump’s strategy. There is one set of talks aimed at reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and then there are negotiations over the future of Iran’s nuclear program.

Trump has used the prospects of negotiating to open the strait as a way to tame oil markets. And to his credit, it has worked for now. But as Trump learned last month, the price for a temporary opening of the strait is too high. Trump would not only have to commit to reviving the economy of a regime that struggles to pay its soldiers, but also concede that Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy in Lebanon, had a right to continue to hold that country hostage. The Hormuz negotiations were always destined to eventually fail. Perhaps Trump wanted them to fail slowly.

The other negotiation, though, to get the remaining hard-liners in Tehran to sign a nuclear pact, is folly. The main reason is that the nuclear program being negotiated has largely been destroyed. The only thing left to do is to secure what the president has called the “nuclear dust,” what remains of the highly enriched uranium buried deep beneath the remains of Iran’s underground facilities in Isfahan and Natanz.

. . .Now Trump risks looking like a paper tiger, a mad king lunging between war and capitulation. At this point, the Iranian regime has taken the measure of their adversary and called his bluff. They don’t care about the welfare of the Iranian people (the late Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ordered a massacre of peaceful protesters in January). So Trump’s threats are not going to force his enemy to fold.

To be sure, securing the “nuclear dust” would be an ideal solution. But at this point it’s hardly necessary. Iran’s regime, for now and in the near to medium term, cannot get to that material either. And even if they could, they no longer have the centrifuge cascades or the workshops to turn that uranium into a nuclear weapon. Even still, if U.S. sensors and satellites detect an effort to secure that material, our military has the capability to end those efforts as they begin.

Lake’s suggestion (yes, every pundit has a suggestion):

The right strategy now is to play a longer game. Stop trying to get the Iranians to admit defeat and surrender the remains of their nuclear program. For now, just keep the military and the blockade in place as they are. This will disabuse Iran’s leaders of the hope that Trump is desperate to cut a deal that will revive its war machine and economy.

Over the coming weeks and months Trump can allow America and its allies to replenish its stock of interceptors and precision-guided munitions. Meanwhile, Trump can continue U.S. efforts to help plot alternatives to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, turning Iran’s blackmail leverage into a depreciating asset. Finally, Trump can authorize more cooperation between the CIA and Israel’s Mossad to assist Iran’s battered opposition to be prepared to take on the regime when the right moment comes.

When Trump threatens war only to back away at the last minute, he is fooling no one. He only makes the battered and impoverished regime in Iran look stronger than they really are.

Of course that strategy raises the price of gas, and Americans don’t like that at all.

*I wasn’t aware that Pete Buttigieg, my #1 choice for Democratic Presidential candidate, had been separated from his two-year-old twins, or even that he had twins.  But the separation (apparently lasting just one day) appears to come from a mentally unstable individual and there is no specific accusation. (Article is archived here.)

Officials who separated former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg from his young twins last month relied on a vague and unsubstantiated allegation from an accuser authorities later deemed possibly “mentally unstable,” according to previously unreported police records.

The records, obtained by The Washington Post, and an interview with the apparent complainant offer the most detailed account yet of how a false tip led investigators to the home of one of the country’s most prominent Democrats, drawing bipartisan outrage.

Child welfare experts who reviewed the documents at The Post’s request said they illuminate a flawed process that was made worse by poor judgment by agencies and a lack of communication among investigators from two states.

Michigan State Police reports detail the chain of events from the allegation to its eventual determination it was unfounded and potentially politically motivated. Indiana child welfare authorities who received a tip on a hotline with “very limited information” about Buttigieg did not pass along the caller’s name or contact information when notifying officials in Michigan, where Buttigieg now lives, which the Indiana child welfare agency says is their policy.

Michigan police waited six days after approaching Buttigieg to attempt to identify the caller.

By then, Buttigieg, a former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and 2020 presidential candidate, had gone public with the ordeal in a June Substack post, describing it as “the ugliest thing that has happened to me since my career in service began.”

Michigan authorities had told Buttigieg he could not be alone with his 4-year-old children until they could be interviewed away from their parents the next day, Buttigieg recounted. The children stayed with their grandparents who lived nearby. Buttigieg, who is widely expected to run for president again, called that 24-hour separation “among the darkest hours of my life.”

Buttigieg said the authorities initially would not tell him what he was accused of. Vivek Sankaran, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School and child advocacy law expert, said he was troubled that Michigan State Police went to Buttigieg’s door with such a vague allegation that didn’t present any indication that children were imminently at risk.

Believe me, this allegation, which isn’t really an allegation since there is no accusation of wrongdoing, will be brought up by Republicans if Mayor Pete secures the nomination. But I’m told that there’s only a slim chance of his nabbing that nomination, for he’s openly gay. I find it hard to believe in this day and age that someone’s sexual orientation should bar them from the Presidency unless it impairs their ability. (It clearly has not for Buttigieg.) But, at least according to this 2024 Gallup poll, Americans would rather vote for a woman or a black person than for a gay or lesbian candidate. As for atheists, fuggedaboutit:

*On December 30 of last year (my birthday!), a large group of humpback whales gathered in the sea near Capetown, South Africa, and the video has just been released (below):

A South African couple found themselves in a rare situation when they witnessed a humpback whale “supergroup” consisting of nearly 300 of the giant marine mammals gathering together.

It’s an indication, scientists say, of how some whale species numbers have strongly rebounded in the southern hemisphere oceans decades after an international whale hunting ban came into effect in 1986.

Chris and Monique Fallows said they were used to seeing bigger and bigger groups of humpback whales off the west coast of South Africa but weren’t prepared for what they saw one morning last December. Plumes of whale breath and spray burst into the air one after the other from blowholes, and the husband and wife found their boat in the midst of what’s known as a supergroup.

“It was extraordinary,” said Chris Fallows, a renowned fine art wildlife photographer who has documented marine animals for 35 years. “Quite quickly we realized that there must be several hundred whales coming together in one particular area.”

He said what they saw can best be described as a “Manhattan skyline” of whale breath plumes.

Chris and Monique documented 299 humpback whales in the group, they said. They count whales by taking a photograph of their tail, which is called a fluke, said Monique Fallows, an author and naturalist.

Each whale’s tail is different and it’s a common tactic used by scientists to identify individuals.

It appears to be the biggest group of humpback whales sighted, according to Alex Vogel, the Africa coordinator for Happywhale. That organization has a global database of whales built off photos and information sent in largely by what it calls “citizen scientists” — ordinary people who capture images of whales that are then verified.

But all is not perfect:

Vermeulen [“Els Vermeulen, the chief scientist at the University of Pretoria’s Whale Unit in South Africa”] also raised a new threat for whales around South Africa: the conflict in the Middle East.

She said a recent preliminary assessment she co-authored showed that shipping around the southern point of Africa had quadrupled since December 2023 — after the Israel-Hamas war broke out and Yemen’s Houthi rebels began attacking ships in the Red Sea.

That is being made worse by the Iran war and the security crisis over the Strait of Hormuz, diverting more ships around Africa.

Because most whales killed by ships sink in the ocean there are no detailed statistics. But Gregg Oelofse, the coastal and environmental manager for the city of Cape Town, said more whales and more shipping clearly increase the risk.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, things are complex:

Hili: I’ve been wondering about the problem of complexity.
Andrzej: It’s quite complicated. We’ll talk about it over lunch.

In Polish:

Hili: Zastanawia mnie problem złożoności.
Ja: To dość skomplikowane, porozmawiamy o tym przy obiedzie.

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

From Meow Incorporated:

From The Grammar Police; two errors here:

From Things with Faces:

Masih refers to the car killing at Berlin’s Gay Pride Parade. The suspect was killed by cops.

From Luana, sex-related laws in Belgium:

An “electability” poll. This doesn’t mean much now, but it shows where the Demoratic candidates stand:

Larry wins! Cat 1, D*g 0:

Two from my feed. First, a polite but hungry Indian elephant:

Israel tracks down the October 7 killers (I believe the name is spelled “Shani Louk“):

And one I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

One from Dr. Cobb, showing a calculation of selection against the black variant of the peppered moth after its previous rise during times of pollution. It’s strong selection, nearly 0.2, which means for every offspring left by a white individual, only 0.8 offspring are left by a black one.

I once calculated the selection pressure in the decline from linear regression of the logit phenotype frequency

— jim mallet (@wtf-r-species.bsky.social) 2026-07-17T18:32:47.852Z

 

Monday: Hili dialogue

July 27, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to another damn week: it’s Monday, July 27, 2026, and National Scotch Day.  Although I’m not much of a Scotch drinker, when I do have one it’s the single-malt from Scotland highlighted below:

It’s also, appropriately, Bagpipe Appreciation Day, National Chicken Finger Day, and National Crème Brûlée Day.

Here again are my mother’s brothers Bernie and Mo, honoring Aunts and Uncles Day, which was yesterday. My sister sent me this and added, “As you can see, Morley’s zipper is down. In almost every picture of these two, one of them has an unzipped zipper. It was a family joke!” Moe is on the left (the unzipping in the photos was accidental):

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 26 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*In a NYT article called “Trump seems trapped by Iran War, even though he wields the world’s biggest hammer” (archived here), we learn about Trump’s frustration at being in a war that he can neither escalate nor back out of.

President Trump often celebrates his unpredictability, declaring that it keeps allies and adversaries alike off balance.

By his telling, his willingness to bomb Iranian nuclear sites 13 months ago, and send Delta Force commandos in to snatch President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela from his bed in early January, reflected his determination to execute military operations that would have made his predecessors blanch. He told The New York Times he was limited only by “my own morality,” as he wielded the world’s biggest hammer.

But in recent weeks, he has seemed trapped, his presidency gradually consumed by a war he cannot find his way out of.

He has discovered limits on his power that he could have scarcely imagined as he began full combat operations on Feb. 28, when he set out goals for a swift end to Iran’s nuclear program and the overthrow of the country’s government.

Five months later, those goals remain almost entirely unaccomplished. And Mr. Trump, once confident that overwhelming force would enable him to pursue in Iran what he proudly called the “Venezuela model” — a change of government to one amenable to U.S. control — is now hesitant to plunge back into major combat operations that his intelligence agencies assess are unlikely to work as well in Tehran.

He has been unable to control surging oil prices, or their effects on the stock market. The shipping that crawled to a stop in the Strait of Hormuz, then was opened for a few short weeks, is back to a trickle, with a second choke point, between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, now threatened. And while the president has threatened to take Kharg Island, where Iran ships oil, or to seize its underground stores of enriched uranium, he has said publicly that he knows there is no appetite for sending in ground troops.

Those limits have left him deeply frustrated, his aides say, and have made him more erratic, even by Trumpian standards. Last week alone, Mr. Trump’s energy secretary signed a historic pact with Saudi Arabia to provide civil nuclear power to the kingdom, before the president undercut the deal less than 24 hours later, stunning the Saudis by declaring that the agreement, negotiated over 18 months, was dead unless the country joined the Abraham Accords and recognized Israel.

Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. diplomat with long experience in the Mideast, said that Mr. Trump again “alienated the Saudis, delighted Benjamin Netanyahu and gave Iran strong talking points as to why cutting deals with U.S. is a fool’s errand, bound to be betrayed.”

. . .Not all of Mr. Trump’s frustrations, people close to the president say, are driven by the war, now so unpopular that only 29 percent of Americans polled by The Washington Post and Ipsos approved of his handling of the conflict. But much of it is. And the angst is clear as he promises to stop Iran’s nuclear program at any cost, while his allies at home want out.

“We got to wrap it up,” Speaker Mike Johnson said last week, voicing a sentiment heard increasingly from Mr. Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters.

But the president does not have a clear way to accomplish that goal. Having entered the conflict with little strategy for victory, he now is struggling for a face-saving way to exit.

This is a “news analysis” piece, which is why it sounds like an op-ed, and it’s clearly designed to show Trump’s ineptness at handling the war. But it’s not far off, either. Winning the war definitively would seem to require boots on the ground, and the American people won’t tolerate that.  I have no solution as I’m no strategist or pundit, but I wonder how many of the 71% who don’t approve of his handling the war would suggest that he do.  Presumably many Democrats, “progressive” or otherwise, would tell him just to get the hell out of Iran, and stop bombing.  But then, when Iran controls access to the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz, what would they suggest? (see the next item).

*The WSJ describes how the vast oil supplies of Saudi Arabia are beginning to depend on only a single exit route, through the Suez Canal. And the Canal itself is threatened by the Houthis, an arm of Iran.

Saudi Arabia’s vast oil exports increasingly depend on one last narrow exit.

Since the Iran war began, the kingdom has ramped up exports across the country to its Red Sea coast, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz, and shipped them through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait to Asian customers. Now, threats from Houthi militants—and several attacks against Saudi vessels in recent days—risk choking off that workaround, forcing more Saudi barrels onto a longer, costlier and technically challenging journey through Egypt’s Suez Canal and around Africa.

This week, at least four tankers carrying Saudi crude abruptly reversed course before reaching Bab al-Mandeb at the southern end of the Red Sea to head north toward Suez, while Saudi Arabia has begun offering more crude cargoes for loading from Egypt’s Mediterranean ports, according to ship-tracking firm Vortexa. In the first three weeks of July, seaborne oil transit via the Suez Canal ran at its highest volume in 2½ years, while imports to the Sumed pipeline—which runs parallel to the canal—were up 50% from the previous month, Vortexa data showed.

The diversions mark the latest redrawing of global oil flows after months of war have forced producers, traders and shipowners to abandon familiar routes for ever costlier detours. Gulf producers from the United Arab Emirates to Kuwait have been racing to build routes bypassing the Strait of Hormuz. On Saturday, Iraq said it would sign an agreement with Syria to build a pipeline project to carry Iraqi oil to the Mediterranean Sea.

The stakes for the global economy are high: Persistent risks to regional shipping could push oil well above $100 a barrel, analysts say, stoking inflation and straining an already fragile global economy.

Here’s the current route, which still goes through the narrow 2-mile-wide shipping channel of Bab al-Mandeb.  If the Houthis close that one off, presumably under Iranian orders, the alternative pathway to China (or anywhere, really), shown in orange, is a LOT longer. If Iran tries to block off both straits, or impose tolls for transit, somebody has to stop it. (Photo credits at bottom.)

(From WSJ): Fully loaded very large crude carriers sit too deep to pass through the Suez Canal and would have to carry partial loads. Source: Kpler

*Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal explains that the narrative of “settler violence” in the West Bank can be exaggerated or even completely erroneous.

The “settler violence” narrative has a template. Settlers instigate, IDF forces arrive to back them, and trigger-happy Israelis, now with military cover, are unleashed on defenseless Palestinians. But consider what happened near Havat Gilad on Friday morning.

By the end, two Israelis were dead. Benayahu Melet, 32, a father of two from the outpost’s emergency squad, was murdered rushing to defend a group of hikers; Maj. Yuval Ezra, 27, an artillery battery commander, later succumbed to his wounds. The group—some 60 in all, a number of them minors accompanied by armed adults—had set out from Har Bracha before dawn on what was meant to be a hike. But they walked into Area B, where Israelis are not meant to enter without prior coordination. The army later confirmed the entry had not been cleared.

The first attack came around 7:05 a.m. as they passed the village: Palestinians throwing stones and swinging clubs, with one hiker struck in the face. Rather than escalate, the group fired warning shots in the air and withdrew toward Havat Gilad.

An hour later, dozens more surrounded them from three directions. Here the template says the soldiers arrive and the shooting starts. Instead, by the hikers’ account, armed civilians fired in self-defense while the first soldier on the scene refused to fire; when more troops arrived, they too “did nothing.” The video shows the IDF hesitant and trying to deescalate. Only when one of the attackers wrested a rifle from a civilian guard and opened fire—killing two Israelis—did the soldiers finally return fire.

The group should not have been in the area without IDF coordination. But the punishment for trespass is not death. Yet the international framing treats the mere existence of Jews beyond the Green Line as an implicit acceptance of that consequence—as if presence itself is provocation and violence its inevitable answer. This is not a story of settler violence. It’s an example of Palestinians treating the presence of Jews itself as an act of aggression—and answering that “aggression” with violence.

The question is how often the “international framing” episode takes place. I haven’t written much about the West Bank situation because I haven’t followed it nearly as closely as I’ve followed the conflict in Gaza, and the West Bank is a complicated issue. Undoubtedly the “settlers” have behaved badly with dire consequences for Palestinian residents. But as we see the opposite as well. In 2013 I was driven to the border of the West Bank, to an area which theoretically allows Jews and even Israeli Jews to enter, but I didn’t enter because this sign scared me. “Dangerous”!

*In an article called “Hoot and shoot,“The Washington Times reports that the mass slaughter of barred owls, in a misguided government attempt to save spotted owls, has begun,

It may be hard to imagine the federal government paying hunters to shoot and kill owls, but that is exactly what has begun in the Pacific Northwest and California, where the destruction of up to 450,000 barred owls is underway in a desperate bid to save spotted owls.

After years of planning and despite public backlash, objections from Congress and animal rights organizations, and an ongoing lawsuit, the shooting of thousands of barred owls has started.

The Yakama Nation Tribe in Washington, using grant money provided by the federal government, is hunting and killing up to 1,500 barred owls on reservation land. The Hoopa Valley Tribe in Northern California, operating off a $4.5 million federal grant, has started removing barred owls from area forests.

A team from the University of Wisconsin has been participating in the shotgun culling of barred owls for several years.

The UW team has helped destroy 3,373 barred owls in California — about a third of the state’s population — as part of a key study that researchers say shows that removing the brown-and-white raptors slowed the decline of the threatened California spotted owl.

“Removals stabilized spotted owl populations and halted the establishment of barred owls,” researchers wrote in Conservation Letters. “Our work provides direct support for the federal strategy to address this pressing issue and highlights general strategies to maximize conservation while minimizing invader killing.”

Opponents, including animal welfare groups, biologists and environmentalists, have tried to stop government-sanctioned massacres, arguing that the removal will not increase the spotted owl population and is inhumane and a waste of taxpayer dollars.

“We’re going to be picking winners and losers in nature,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action, which seeks to prevent animal cruelty and is suing to stop the plan. “Natural movements of animals are going to be judged as trespassing, and we are going to try to kill off these other animals to put our thumb on the scales for northern spotted owls. And it’s not going to work.”

Yes, the higher population of barred owls reflects a “natural” movement, as they weren’t imported to the area. It may be due to human effects, like global warming, though I don’t know. But I don’t think the solution is killing the barred owls to save the spotted ones. Whatever caused the incursion of barred owls will continue, and, like Pacelle says, I doubt that this mass slaughter will work. STOP KILLING THE OWLS!

*Martha Lillard, as this WaPo story describes, spent 73 years in an iron lung after contracting polio at age 5. What a horrible fate! When I was young polio, and the iron lung to which many victims were doomed, were much more common, and we all had to avoid swimming pools during epidemics. But soon thereafter there were vaccinations (the first ones when I was six), and polio is no longer much of an issue. But Ashely Alker, identified as “an emergency medicine physician and the author of 99 Ways to Die: And How to Avoid Them, tells us “What could die with the last person using an iron lung” (archived here).

In 1955, just two years after Lillard contracted the virus, the first polio vaccine became available, and by 1979, the disease was eliminated in the United States.

But when it comes to vaccine-preventable diseases in the U.S., society can be a victim of its own successes. As public health efforts such as vaccines eliminate the suffering caused by a disease, collective memory of the illness fades. Contemporary health information is often gathered from personal networks, the internet and the media, none of which is compelled to cover seemingly obsolete vaccine-preventable diseases, such as rubella, diphtheria and polio. The paucity of accurate information leaves a gap for profiteers, who may sensationalize vaccine skepticism in the hopes of going viral. This has proven especially concerning when supported by the leader of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Polio, or poliomyelitis, was once a feared childhood viral infection in the U.S., with 58,000 reported cases in 1952. Common symptoms include fever, sore throat, nausea and vomiting. The virus may spread through the bloodstream to the brain stem and spinal cord, where it attacks motor nerves, causing paralysis known as paralytic polio and often called infantile paralysis in children. Polio is still present outside of the U.S., with 52 cases confirmed last year, and most commonly affects children under age 5. Among those paralyzed, up to 10 percent will die once paralysis affects the breathing muscles. The disease is highly contagious: Patients can spread the virus for several weeks, which is how it killed or paralyzed over half a million people a year globally before the vaccine.

. . .Over the past 50 years, global immunizations have saved the equivalent of six lives a minute, an estimated 154 million lives — most of them infants. There is no effective cure for polio, or for most other vaccine-preventable diseases. Without adequate vaccine coverage in the population, outcomes may resemble those of the pre-vaccine era.

And vaccines do more than save lives; they protect economies and safeguard future generations — and ensure military readiness. In April, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth rescinded the U.S. military’s influenza vaccine mandate. Late last month, an influenza outbreak occurred at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, with initial reports of more than 280 ill, four hospitalized and one young man dead. Shortly after — by coincidence, said one Pentagon official — the Defense Department’s influenza vaccine mandate was partially reinstated.

Science may offer the most up-to-date information on vaccine-preventable disease, but history is an indispensable public health tool, too. On March 11, 1918, one of the first reported cases of the flu pandemic occurred at Fort Riley, Kansas, where overcrowding and poor sanitation led the virus to spread to more than 500 men within a week. This strain of influenza was more devastating than World War I, infecting one-third of the world and killing an estimated 50 million people. In 1945, when the influenza vaccine was licensed, it was immediately mandated by the Defense Department for active-duty service members, a decision that was informed by the memory of violent illness.

Here’s the lesson, and it’s clearly directed at RFK, Jr., who seems bent on reducing vaccination as much as he can get away with.

Likewise, Lillard’s story is an essential piece of American history. Understanding the risk posed by a vaccine-preventable disease is essential to the success of future public health initiatives. If Americans forget what vaccines fight against, then neither will they understand the importance of maintaining defenses.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Andrzej are discussing biology. I would have said “maybe ants,” but termites evolved well before ants did.

Hili: Who invented an artificial environment first?
Andrzej: I would guess termites, but I’m probably wrong.

In Polish:

Hili: Kto pierwszy wymyślił sztuczne środowisko?
Ja: Podejrzewam termity, ale prawdopodobnie jestem w błędzie.

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

From Cats Doing Cat Stuff:

From Bad Spelling or Grammar on Signs and Notices:

From The English Language Police:

From Masih, who goes off on Mamdani; English translation below:

Masih Alinejad, the Iranian human rights activist, in a live television program directly addressed New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, saying, “I oppose your hypocrisy, Mr. Mayor.” She accused Mamdani of loudly taking stances on Netanyahu and Palestine, but remaining completely silent about the Islamic Republic’s crimes against the Iranian people—the same regime that executes protesters, tortures political prisoners, and exports terrorism across the region.

This is not just a political clash, but an exposure of a pattern among Western politicians who wear “human rights” like a theatrical costume, only when it suits their interests and never when they must confront Tehran head-on.

From Luana via Maarten Boudry, who notes that Cofnas is “problematic” because he’s considered a hereditarian (and has also behaved badly, which led to his demonization at Cambridge University).  But the story of this Cambridge professor, who appears to be both a fabulist and a plagiarist, is disturbing, for Cambridge seems to be covering up the facts (read the story here).

The Number Ten Cat makes a bad pun. In English: “An attack on you is an attack on all of us.”

Ricky Gervais has a cartoon called “Alley Cats” coming up:

One from my feed; Larry apparently battled a fox!

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

And two from Dr. Cobb. First, an amazing pitch (behind the back!)

Kerry Wood, Behind-The-Back Eephus 😮

— Codify Baseball (@codifybaseball.bsky.social) 2026-07-26T01:00:43.876Z

I wouldn’t mind having this, but it’s a lot of dosh!

This pretty perspex model of the double helix, from 1953, was just sold for $614,400. It was made at the Cavendish by Tony Broad, the ace technician who also ran the X-ray crystallography set-up. I think they cost around £50 each at the time (a lot, back then!). Watson’s copy is in the CSHL archive.

— Matthew Cobb (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2026-07-25T19:05:19.179Z

Sunday: Hili dialogue

July 26, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to the Sabbath for goyische cats: Sunday, July 26, 2026, and National Bagelfest Day. Below I put, as always, a genuine bagel rather than the large, airy bread toruses that pass for bagels in America. This was in Montreal ten years ago. No commentary is needed:

One with a schmear. Notice that the bagel is small and dense.

It’s also Aunts and Uncles Day, National Coffee Milkshake Day, and World Tofu Day. In honor of the first holiday, here are my late uncles Bernie (left) and Mo (right)—my mother’s brothers. They’re all decked out for a round of golf, at the Jewish country club, of course (Jews weren’t allowed to join the regular country club):

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 26 Wikipedia page.

I have visitors for much of this week, so posting will be light; perhaps even days without a Hili dialogue. Caturday posts are being eliminated because interest is low.

Da Nooz:

*Breaking news ripped from the headlines: The U.S., prompted by a lack of missiles and Trump’s equivocation, has not attacked Iran in two days.

The war between the United States and Iran remained on pause for a second straight day on Sunday, while the Iranian Foreign Ministry said that there had been some movement in talks between Tehran and mediators over the Strait of Hormuz.

No U.S. strikes on Iran have been reported since Friday, while Iran has similarly held off attacking American allies around the Middle East after about two weeks of skirmishes brought the two countries back to the brink of full-blown war.

President Trump decided last week to put off plans to escalate the U.S. assault on Iran, at least for now, according to U.S. officials. Mr. Trump and his aides were motivated in part by dwindling stockpiles of interceptors to shoot down Iranian missiles, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.

Mr. Trump has struggled to decisively end the war on Iran that the United States and Israel started jointly five months ago, even as the global economic toll and number of American casualties have mounted. A cease-fire signed last month effectively collapsed after Iran continued to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, the vital waterway for global oil and gas shipments.

Iran is and will continue to be the main exporter of terrorism in the Middle East—indeed, in the world.  If it’s allowed to retain the power it had to do that, America will have failed completely in our war aims.

*Trump is considering a big escalation in Iran (article archived here). Because of what I wrote about, this may be passé.

President Trump met on Friday with top advisers and senior members of his cabinet to decide whether to intensify the military assault against Iran, according to four people briefed on the discussion.

The meeting took place as Mr. Trump faces a potential inflection point in his approach to Iran, after the collapse of a fragile cease-fire and a memorandum of understanding that was intended to bring the United States and Iran back to the negotiating table for a longer-term denuclearization.

The White House did not divulge whether Mr. Trump determined how to proceed. But the president indicated that the military was ready to carry out heavier assaults if ordered to do so even while leaving open the door to a diplomatic solution.

“Look, we’re locked and loaded,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Friday afternoon. “We’re ready to go, but we’re talking to them, so maybe there will be, maybe there won’t be a tipping point.”

He added: “Maybe they will cry uncle, or maybe they’ll just give up, or maybe they’ll just go into a cave and hide.”

Mr. Trump previewed some of his discussions in an interview with Axios on Thursday, saying: “I am considering a massive attack. Bigger than ever before. I am close to making a decision. We are all set for it.”

He also indicated that the Israelis most likely would not be part of a new escalation, saying there could be “consequences” for them, apparently meaning from Iran. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is coming to the United States on Monday and plans to meet with Mr. Trump, Mr. Netanyahu’s office announced.

Mr. Trump has insisted that the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran would be a relatively short “excursion,” although it has lasted nearly five months, with no end in sight.

In my view, that last sentence is on the border of news and opinion. Nobody knows how long a war would last when it’s started, and nobody predicted that the Iranian regime would decide to tough it out while inflicting economic damage on the world by controlling the Strait of Hormuz. I have no idea whether Trump will escalate (I’m starting to think he will), nor what route he would take if he did.

*In his new NYT column, “Call the Veep, agent Mulder,” Bret Stephens eviscerates J. D. Vance (archived here).

Somewhere around the two-hour mark in JD Vance’s nearly three-hour podcast interview last week with Joe Rogan, the pair got into a serious conversation about supernatural and extraterrestrial phenomena. By serious, I mean it in the sense that Rogan seemed to take the subject seriously while Vance cynically, or cretinously, or cravenly, or credulously or conspiratorially — or perhaps it’s all of the above — played along with him.

It contained the following insights from the vice president of the United States:

“If we’re talking about an extraterrestrial being that is humanlike, but not human, that contains effectively infinite powers and is torturing human beings, you can call it an alien if you want, but I think there’s a lot of historical precedent to call that a demon.”

And:

“If you’re looking for me to concede the point that there is something different or could be something different between an angel, a demon, a space alien, a supernatural but non-any-of-those-other-things beings, yes, I concede that.”

And:

“I got two-and-a-half more years as V.P., and I swear to you, if there are little green men, like body remains, I’m not going to text you. I’m going to try to smuggle a camera in and get a photo of these things.”

Call the veep, Agent Mulder!

By this point, the two men had already propounded one conspiracy theory — that the Los Angeles mayoral election had been rigged (a claim previously debunked by a Trump-appointed federal prosecutor); followed by Vance’s accusation that Joe Biden’s staff got him to eat ice cream “in the most ridiculous, suggestive way imaginable” (a remarkable way of turning naked mendacity into adolescent prurience into another conspiracy theory); followed by an exchange about eating corn dogs in public (because, you know); followed by an argument about whether the Ten Commandments should be mandated in Texas public schools, in which neither man appeared to be aware that the commandments are not originally Christian.

The truth — that the most influential media figure in America today, with tens of millions of followers on social media, is a jocular bro with an Everyman affect who seems never to have encountered an idiotic or despicable conspiracy theory he isn’t willing to promote (moon-landing denial) or platform (Hitler revisionism). We are a nation that has moved at speed from the realm of fact colored by opinions to a kingdom of delusion infested with fear.

The truth — that the current vice president is by far the worst person ever to hold the office (move over, Aaron Burr, John C. Calhoun and Spiro T. Agnew); that he thinks, probably correctly, that there’s no political downside in today’s Republican Party to talking like a guy who thinks Dan Brown novels are works of nonfiction; and that it’s equally OK for a person who, by his own admission, has access to all U.S. intelligence to tease the possibility of deep-state conspiracies of the sort his political base is likely to believe. The prospect of this callow and sinister opportunist taking the place of the erratic buffoon now governing us may be the single scariest thought in world politics today.

The truth — that Vance’s interview with Rogan (as close as politics gives us to a national cancer diagnosis) was a blip in the news cycle, because crazy today is every day, and our capacity to feel shocked diminishes with every asinine utterance coming from the vice president’s mouth, to say nothing of that of his boss.

The truth is that the demons are here. We elected them.

Ouch!  Well, this is good for the Democrats: there’s plenty of dirt on Vance if he runs for President. But perhaps his acolytes don’t care.

*A WSJ editorial-board op-ed, “Globalizing the intifada in Mamdani’s New York,” rebukes Hizzoner for his “anti-Zionism”:

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani has been running a campaign to demonize Israel and its supporters for committing “genocide.” He should reconsider after Thursday’s double-stabbing in New York, which included a kippah-wearing Jew attacked after exiting a synagogue.

Police arrested Raul Morales in connection with the stabbings. The mayor said victim and witness statements allege that Mr. Morales yelled “Allahu akbar” while attacking a Jew, Moshe Grunhaus and an Asian, Chok Sung. The NYPD is evaluating if this was a hate crime.

A friend who visited Mr. Grunhaus at the hospital tells us the victim was in the process of moving to Florida, in part due to concerns about crime, antisemitism and Mr. Mamdani. He returned to New York to tie up loose ends and attended synagogue during the fast of Tisha B’Av, when Jews mourn the destruction of the ancient temple in Jerusalem.

Earlier this week Mr. Mamdani taped a video accusing Israel of genocide and deliberate child murder. The next day he wished New York’s Jews a “peaceful” fast, in which “mourners will pause and reflect on the history and resiliency of the Jewish people.” That history is in Jerusalem and the land of Israel, but the mayor calls the Jewish state a “settler-colonial” project.

Thursday’s stabbing would fit comfortably with the Palestinian intifadas that Mr. Mamdani and his allies have been keen to “globalize.” Only after repeatedly excusing that phrase did he say that he would “discourage” it. He now sticks to “genocide,” “apartheid,” child-killing and other accusations to render Israel an enemy of mankind, along with the “Zionists” whose crime is to support its existence.

Before his mayoral run, Mr. Mamdani used “Zionist” as a casual slur. He also told comrades: “We have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF,” Israel’s military.

Mr. Mamdani reacted to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Jews by bashing Israel, not Hamas, and mourning victims on both sides. His wife liked Instagram posts cheering on the Hamas attack. His party, NYC’s Democratic Socialists of America, endorsed a rally by pro-Hamas groups on Oct. 8 in “solidarity with the Palestinian people and their right to resist,” as the DSA put it.

. . .Mr. Mamdani isn’t responsible for Thursday’s stabbing. But he is responsible for promoting a culture of denigration that is all too easy for a fevered mind to hear and conclude that violence against Jews is acceptable. The mayor and his ideological groupies are playing with antisemitic fire.

“When I was growing up,” Rabbi Yosie Levine said Friday, after the attack on a congregant, “the only time we saw security outside my synagogue or my Jewish day school was when the mayor came to speak. The police were there to protect him. Today, every time the mayor speaks, we need the police to protect us.”

What can I say? Mamdani seems far more concerned with denigrating Israel and accusing it of apartheid and genocide than running his city. And the MSM, save for the conservative Wall Street Journal, won’t mention it at all. (That’s of course because they agree with the Mayor.)

*I am opposed to government-run lotteries and to sports betting, which is rapidly taking over the U.S.  Lotteries are simply regressive taxes, and sports betting is a way to get people addicted to gambling, as well as for the government to collect taxes on a profitable enterprise (the government taxes the companies as well as the winnings of successful betters)—companies that are guaranteed to do better than the sports fans. In an essay in The Free Press, “The case against sports betting,” Coleman Hughes gives us his take.

Infamous as these offenses are, they became so because they were rare. For most of American history, it has been difficult and risky for a professional athlete to place a major bet on his own games.

But with the legalization of sports betting in most U.S. states—touched off by the Supreme Court’s overturning of a federal ban in 2018—we are now entering a darker era. With online betting legal and frictionless, athletes need only a few seconds on their smartphones in order to place a bet (or better yet, get a friend or family member to do the same). And they need not do anything as noticeable as throw a game. A professional basketball player, for instance, can simply bet on individual elements of their personal statistics line (called a “player prop” bet), and then subtly alter their play without drawing unwanted attention.

The scandals are now coming so frequently that it is hard to keep track of them. Just last Friday, the NFL suspended Arizona Cardinals executive Ryan Gold for allegedly betting on his team’s games. A few weeks prior, former NBA player Malik Beasley was indicted for allegedly manipulating his play in at least four 2024 NBA games in coordination with a group of bettors.

In the age of frictionless online betting on player props, all it really takes to cheat is to coordinate with one trusted friend or family member, tell them that you’re not feeling your best before a game, subtly underperform throughout the game, and then accept in-kind gifts from that person. Sure, the authorities will catch those who do this sloppily. But how exactly will they catch a duo who carries out such a scheme in an intelligent and patient manner?

But Hughes has an argument beyond the cheating argument given above—a view more similar to mine:

But the problem with sports betting is not just its effect on the integrity (both real and perceived) of sports. It’s also the unhealthy temptation it creates for sports fans. For psychologically well-adjusted bettors, it’s an innocent hobby. But for a significant minority, it’s a dangerous vice. One scholarly paper found that the introduction of online sports betting to a U.S. state caused a 12-point decline in average credit scores as well as an increase in “indicators of excessive debt, including bankruptcy filings, debt sent to collections, credit card delinquencies, and auto loan delinquencies.”

. . . And where is that money coming from? It’s what people would normally be saving in retirement accounts or for purchasing a home, worthwhile investments that can better their lives. A new study concludes that “risky bets crowd out positive expected value investments,” and instead drive up household debt, even as betting companies soak up billions in revenue.

What to do? As Hughes recognizes, once the government gets a taste of the money, and fans are used to betting, the cat is out of the bad for good. He proposes a more moderate solution:

So what should be done? Returning to something like the pre-2018 status quo—where sports betting was illegal in every U.S. state (except for Nevada, Oregon, Delaware, and Montana)—would be ideal. But it’s not going to happen. Now that states have a taste for the tax revenue that comes from the $167 billion industry, they are not going to bite the hand that feeds them. In principle Congress could ban it federally, but that is unlikely for much the same reason.

There are, however, more moderate alternatives. The SAFE Bet Act, introduced by Connecticut senator Richard Blumenthal and New York Rep. Paul Tonko, both Democrats, would keep sports betting legal while curbing its excesses. The bill would, among other things, ban in-game betting, advertising that targets minors, and player prop bets. Its main flaw is that it would require bettors to prove that they can afford bets before making them, which would require invasive financial disclosures. But on the whole, it is a decent first draft of the kind of legislation that we need.

I’d still favor a ban on betting, but it ain’t gonna happen.

*The FDA is considering whether to make peptides available to the public by allowing “compounding pharmacies” to make them. (A “compounding pharmacy” makes medicines on site.) The NYT tells us what peptides people want (archived here).  I was interested because I heard on the news yesterday that there’s a peptide for insomnia, but I lost interest after I read about it.

An advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration convened Thursday to evaluate whether compounding pharmacies should be allowed to produce seven peptides that were previously banned over safety concerns.

Despite being prohibited, some of these peptides have become increasingly popular among consumers who purchase them from longevity clinics, alternative health providers, biohacking influencers and even TikTok. The peptides may be produced in unregulated labs, often in China, and sold as “research grade” compounds.

The F.D.A. is evaluating the peptides for specific uses, like treating ulcerative colitis, insomnia and osteoporosis. But they are marketed and used for many other purposes, which could be permitted if the drugs were cleared.

F.D.A. staff scientists reviewed the research on the peptides and have recommended against clearing the peptides, citing a lack of safety and efficacy data in humans. Here’s what they found.

I’ll give just two:

BPC-157

BPC-157, sometimes referred to as Body Protection Compound or bepecin, is one of the most popular “gray market” peptides.

The F.D.A. is evaluating it to treat ulcerative colitis, and it is also marketed as helping to reduce gastrointestinal inflammation and prevent ulcers. Another common use is to support muscle and joint healing — it is sometimes referred to as the “Wolverine compound,” after the Marvel superhero, especially when taken in combination with another peptide, TB-500.

A few small studies in humans have suggested BPC-157 might have benefits for knee pain, bladder-related pain or ulcerative colitis symptoms. But these had notable limitations: Two lacked a placebo group, and another was not published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Emideltide

Emideltide, also known as the delta sleep-inducing peptide, is naturally produced in the brain. Levels fluctuate throughout the day, which suggests it is connected to circadian rhythms, and it has been shown to increase deep sleep in animals.

The F.D.A. is considering an emideltide injections for insomnia, narcolepsy and opioid withdrawal. (Scientists think it acts through the opioid system.) It’s also marketed for stress, pain, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

There are several human studies of emideltide, most from the 1980s involving intravenous infusions. The research has generally suggested that emideltide helps people with insomnia fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer compared with a placebo. But the studies were very small and had limitations and did not all show a clear benefit.

The human data was even more limited for narcolepsy — just a single case report in one patient.

There are others, but with just as pessimistic a take.  The upshot for all the peptides discussed is that the evidence is very thin, that there are some with side effects that may be serious, and tjat although some of these may eventually be useful, none are yet ready for prime time.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Andrzej have a high-level discussion:

Hili: How would you characterize the consciousness of artificial intelligence?
Andrzej: The determinism of algorithms. Though you shouldn’t take me seriously.

In Polish:

Hili: Jak byś określił świadomość sztucznej inteligencji?
Ja: Determinizm algorytmów. Ale nie traktuj mnie poważnie.

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

From Bad Spelling or Grammar on Signs and Notices:

From Stacy:

From Bored Panda, Larry with his mouse. He’s so proud!

From Masih; an Iranian rapper sentenced to death for what would be free speech in America:

From FIRE via Luana; this doesn’t seem to rise to the level of “fighting words,” though the speech was hateful and odious. Click to read full tweet and get link:

Good news! Larry won’t have to put up with a d*g!

From Jeff Maurer. Very clever prof!

One from my feed, a lovely fawn. I’d like to see the adult:

One I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

Two from Dr. Cobb. The first one came with the email note “Truth”:

— hard-bo̾il̾e̾d̾Gardner (@kgardner.bsky.social) 2026-07-25T09:53:26.313Z

A hare—and one who takes off very fast when it sees the human:

I’ve been standing stock still in this wood for about 10 minutes while I mess about with a photo on my phone. I look up, notice the shape, and slowly crouch down to filmThis has made me so happy I feel I could cry. It’s as close to magic as I hope to get.

— Toby Miller (@tobytram.bsky.social) 2026-07-24T18:37:53.777Z

Saturday: Hili dialogue

July 25, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to shabbos for Jewish cats: it’s CaturSaturday, July 25, 2025, and also National Day of the Cowboy.  Here’s a photo I took on a fly-collecting trip to Death Valley:  a rare Jewish cowboy once on display at the Eastern California Museum in Independence, CA. The last time I went, the photo was gone and nobody knew about it or even remembered it. I’d kill to have it. He looks more like a yeshiva bochur than a cowboy.

And there’s a feature-length documentary on the subject, which I haven’t seen:

It’s also Culinarians Day, National Hot Fudge Sundae Day, and National Wine and Cheese Day.

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

I will have visitors for much of next week so posting will be light. Bear with me; I do my best.

Da Nooz:

*Over at It’s Noon in Israel, Amit Segal describes “Three options for escalation” of the war with Iran. Segal thinks that the higher alert levels of the Israeli military, the new involvement of the Houthis, and Trump’s own words bespeak a coming escalation of the war.  Segal gives three possibilities for how the escalation will take place—three target strategies:

The first is Iran’s energy infrastructure—the operation that was on the table before Trump declared a ceasefire. Israel had begun pursuing it during Operation Roaring Lion until Trump reportedly pulled the brakes, under pressure from Gulf states with a well-founded fear for their own energy industries. The target set is narrow and thoroughly understood. Kharg Island handles the overwhelming majority of Iranian crude exports; a few missiles in the right place and Tehran has no way to sell its oil. Choose this option and the Iranians are left cash-strapped and reeling—and overwhelmingly likely to retaliate against regional energy infrastructure, and perhaps against the desalination plants the Gulf depends on for its water.

The second is direct action against the nuclear program itself. That could mean targeting senior figures, seizing the enriched uranium, or some other step aimed at the core of the program. Pickaxe Mountain would likely be the primary target. The site is buried deep enough that it is widely assessed to lie beyond the reach of bunker busters, which is why “seizing” rather than “destroying” keeps surfacing in the discussion. The Iranian response to an attack on their nuclear facilities would be severe as well, though significantly less severe than an oil crisis.

The third is the Strait of Hormuz: a major offensive against the Iranian capabilities surrounding it—anti-ship missile batteries, the IRGC Navy’s fast-attack craft and mine stocks, and coastal radar and drone sites. Throughout the war, it was barely on Israel’s radar. It is now perhaps the single most important question in the global economy. But even such an operation still won’t open the strait. All it takes is one IRGC operator left alive with a drone or two to send war-risk premiums through the roof and shipping companies in the opposite direction. Regardless, Trump may simply declare the strait open and call it a day, with the best-case scen

What’s interesting is that some of these operations don’t require Israel’s involvement at all. Trump said so explicitly: “We don’t need anybody.” He also teased the opposite possibility, saying Israel “would join in two minutes if I ask them to,” and that there would be consequences if it did. Could the conflict intensify dramatically elsewhere while Israel largely stays out of it? At first glance, that seems unlikely. Israel is, after all, only the Little Satan. But even the Little Satan is still Satan.

On the other hand, the past few weeks have produced some confusion among the Israeli population. There are missiles and drones flying across the region, and they aren’t the target? While Kuwaiti vacation plans have been entirely put on hold, Israelis are still flying back and forth on a daily basis. It defies the historical pattern entirely. Israel has become a place of quiet in the middle of a hurricane sweeping across the Middle East.

Still, whether it remains so depends entirely on Trump. He has a ticking clock in the form of the midterm elections. As this war continues to plunge in popularity, Trump appears desperate to wrap it up, though I would caution the president that the only thing less popular than continuing an unpopular war is losing an unpopular war.

I’m not sure that if Trump “loses” the war he’d get more unpopular, as much of the American populace just wants gas prices to go down. And if Iran and Yemen keep blocking transit of oil, that won’t happen. Based on Trump’s verbiate, the second option seems the most likely, followed by the third. Infrastructure destruction would be less popular because the American people don’t like it, and some of it is a war crime. I am not a pundit, but one thing seems likely to me: Trump will escalate the war before he ratchets back.

*I can’t help but think that this NYT article, called “‘We’re trapped in hell’: Iranians say that life is put on hold by months of war” (article archived here), is meant not just as news, but also as part of the NYT’s regular criticism of our war with Iran. (The subtitle is “Devastated by cycles of violence and economic crisis, many are giving up on work and their futures as the United States batters Iran again.”)

Planning for the future seems an absurd luxury when impoverished friends can afford to buy rice only by the cup and when the United States and Iran are trading strikes on military sites, ports and water desalination plants around the region.

For more than a year, Iranians have been trapped in a constant cycle of airstrikes, domestic security crackdowns and economic devastation. A short-lived cease-fire reached last month with the United States brought some respite from falling bombs, though not from the plummeting economy.

The unraveling of the agreement in recent weeks tipped the country back into war. Many Iranians have been left feeling that their lives are on hold or are no longer their own.

. . .This cycle of crisis has plagued Iranians since the 12-day U.S.-Israeli war that battered the country in June last year. In its wake, the government placed the country under a monthslong internet blackout, citing national security concerns. That sent the already foundering economy into a nosedive.

Then, a currency crisis in December set off antigovernment protests that grew into a nationwide movement. Those were crushed in January in a crackdown fiercer than any Iran had experienced in decades, leaving thousands dead and the country bitterly divided.

Weeks later, Mr. Trump and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced their war against Iran, describing it as a once-in-a-generation chance to topple the country’s authoritarian rulers. American and Israeli warplanes pummeled Iran, destroying infrastructure and killing the supreme leader and thousands of civilians. But the country’s theocratic rule remained intact, emboldened by its survival.

Asal, a 20-year-old shopkeeper in a town near Tehran, was among the thousands who took part in the protests in January. Breaking into tears as she described the arrest and torture she said she and her friends experienced, Asal said she had once hoped the U.S.-Israeli intervention would help bring down the regime.

“Trump told us he wanted to save us, but that wasn’t true,” she said. “Whatever happens in the future doesn’t matter to me anymore.”

. . .Loyalists to the Islamic republic camp out nightly on the streets of most cities, demanding that the government pursue war instead of peace and fraying the nerves of those Iranians desperate for the crisis to end.

“Things have become so bad that everyone has completely lost it,” said Mohsen, a business owner in the central city of Isfahan. “We’re trapped in hell, and there’s no saving us.”

“I have no control over my life anymore,” Behnam said. “Our fate is in the hands of those who don’t think about ordinary people.”

The NYT clearly wants this war over, and it wants it over with Trump looking like the loser (i.e., no nuclear deal, which means “worse than Obama”, and with Israel, which the NYT detests, also looking like a loser.  In fact, it also seems that the NYT is siding with supporters of the Iranian regime, though at least it mentions that the regime is oppressing many and has killed thousands (more than 30,000, it’s reported).  The NYT has been captured by progressives, amply represented among their young employees.

*Yesterday the Fields Medal—considered the “Nobel Prize” for mathematics, but given only every four years—was awarded to four people.

Two U.S.-based mathematicians from China have won the Fields Medal, considered math’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize, becoming the first Chinese nationals to earn the honor.

The International Mathematical Union awarded its Fields Medal on Thursday at a ceremony in Philadelphia to four people, including Yu Deng and Hong Wang, who both attended Peking University before earning doctorates in the U.S.

Deng, a professor at the University of Chicago, was honored for his work on one of a famous set of 23 problems proposed by German mathematician David Hilbert in 1900, which are considered benchmarks of progress in the study of mathematics, the university said.

Deng and his collaborators solved a problem within broader attempts to mathematically connect equations governing the motion of gases from the smallest to the largest scales, according to the university. An avid player of the ancient board game Go, the 37-year-old was also honored for research that laid the foundations for this breakthrough.

Wang, a professor at New York University and France’s Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques, was recognized for resolving the Kakeya conjecture in three dimensions, a decades-old geometric problem that addresses the shape left behind by a needle moving in multiple directions, NYU said.

The 35-year-old Wang, who briefly pursued architecture during postgraduate studies in France before renewing her focus on math, is the third woman among the 68 people to receive the Fields Medal since it was first awarded in 1936.

The Fields Medal is conferred every four years upon up to four outstanding mathematicians under the age of 40. The other medalists this year were John Pardon of Stony Brook University and Jacob Tsimerman of the University of Toronto.

. . .Pardon was honored for his work in determining “how to count curves on specific shapes in the field of symplectic geometry,” proving a two-decades-old conjecture that posited that two different ways of counting curves were in fact the same, according to Stony Brook.

The award for Tsimerman recognized his work, among other achievements, in helping to prove the André-Oort conjecture, a longstanding problem in geometry, the University of Toronto said. Tsimerman said Thursday he would be starting a role at OpenAI in its safety division.

I’m not sure what, if any, the practical consequences of these discoveries are, but that’s not as important to me as understanding what was actually done. Which I don’t. So be it. The Fields Medal is somewhat endangered in that AI is now solving these longstanding mathematical conundrums faster than humans can—if the humans can even solve them. It’s ironic that Tsimerman is going to work for an AI company.

*As usual, I’ll steal a few items from Nellie Bowles’s news-and-snark column in The Free Press, called this week, “TGIF: Kids doing fireworks.”

→ Mao did nothing wrong: To deliver his special College Democrats of America 2026 Convention speech, progressive celebrity influencer Hasan Piker wore a frustratingly well-tailored Mao Zedong–style suit, buttoned to the top to show he means business

Soon after, a clip of Piker on Twitch praising Mao resurfaced. Referencing his trip to China in November 2025, Piker said, “I got stopped by a cop who thought I was, like, making fun of Mao Zedong, which I never would and never will. Mao Zedong is one of the great leaders of this world, okay? A man who changed the entire universe, the entire planet. Okay? For real, for real. . . . There was a lot of fucking excesses, let’s be real, but the People’s Republic of China would not exist without Mao Zedong.” Anyway, this week Piker called the Great Chinese Famine—which killed tens of millions of people—“a famine due to mismanagement.” Mao’s only crime was basically an accounting error.

The news broke this week about Democratic politicians—including California Rep. Ro Khanna, Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, former Missouri congresswoman and current candidate Cori Bush, and New York congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier—joining a livestream this past March where podcaster Kyle Kulinski compared the U.S. and Israeli governments to Hitler and Mussolini while defending Iran’s funding of groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis. I think at this point we gotta believe these people. When someone wears a Mao suit, you pay attention. On the topic of Mao suits:

→ DSA releases their new platform: The Democratic Socialists of America, fresh off several big wins, have released their platform. And it’s extremely reasonable, normal, and achievable. All it calls for is expanding the House, abolishing the Senate, and giving felons and noncitizens full voting rights. It paints a beautiful vision of the future: “Your retirement is publicly funded. Food, education, energy, medicine, and transportation aren’t for-profit businesses; they are common goods and utilities.” I’m gonna say it: The socialists have become full commies. All food, energy, medicine, and transportation is state-run, full communism.

The New York City DSA co-chair went on TV last week. When he was asked about bodega owners who might be upset over having to compete with new government grocery stores (which won’t have to pay property taxes or rent), here’s what he said: “Maybe they shouldn’t have been in that business in the first place.” Oh, baby, they are heating up! The ponytails are tight for these DSA leaders, and they will tell the bodega owner to consider an alternative career in union-building. Let me cut to the chase: All private industry is evil. All private property is evil. Your bodega? Evil. Personally, I would love to be a communist, but I have access to the internet and have read 30 seconds of Wikipedia about all past communist efforts, including literal lesbian communes. It don’t work, kids. It never does.

→ Everything is Israel vs. Palestine, apparently: “Was Spain vs. Argentina a proxy for Palestine vs. Israel?” asks the interview description for the World Cup postgame live chat between Mehdi Hasan and Javier Bardem on Hasan’s far-left news site Zeteo. You’ll be shocked to hear Mehdi’s position: It was indeed! Spain is Palestine, by the way. Spain, the most ruthless colonizing power. When you’re so obsessed with Jews that it becomes your entire animating life force, you can only see any conflict—even a soccer game—through the prism of who’s the Jew.

In other news: Sixty percent of registered voters aged 18–24 support Hamas over Israel, according to the July Harvard CAPS-Harris poll. Just 40 percent selected Israel. And just to document where we are, for posterity, here’s a new viral video: “How Israelis Are Colonizing the World,” about how Israelis are colonists no matter where they go, even if they’re traveling to leave Israel because they think it’s a bad, irredeemable place. Quotes: “Israelis aren’t just settlers in Israel. They’re moving and colonizing the world,” the narrator opens, attempting a dramatic Attenborough-inspired nature documentary voice. “From backpacking trails in South and Southeast Asia to quiet European mountain towns, you’ll find Israelis. We’ve mostly seen them take two forms: the war criminals fresh from service, and the liberals fleeing what they claim is a failing democracy.” You’ll find them and We’ve mostly seen them—this is literally how safari guides describe the habits of wild orangutans. “On the surface, they couldn’t seem more different. But watch how they move through the world, and you can see how Zionism produces a particular relationship to land and other people—one that is exploitative and violent and that is not limited to Palestine.” Watch how they move through the world? Are we analyzing their gait? Curiously, because Jews are now described as colonizers in Israel and colonizers if they leave Israel, there is only one correct thing for them to do in this logic. One solution, if you will.

*The Seattle Times reports a new bipartisan federal proposal to kill seals to save salmon (h/t Wayne). Yes, that’s right. Native Americans need their lox, so the seals have to go.

Federal lawmakers are considering whether to expand the government’s authority to kill more sea lions and seals to bolster salmon recovery efforts in the Pacific Northwest.

The region’s critical salmon runs are on life support: Fourteen species and populations of salmon and steelhead trout in Washington are deemed at risk of extinction under the Endangered Species Act. The hurdles to their livelihood are numerous, spanning a worsening climate crisis, habitat loss, pollution and — as Congress members debated this week — proliferating predators.

The House Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries on Tuesday probed bipartisan legislation co-sponsored by Reps. Michael Baumgartner, R-Spokane, and Emily Randall, D-Bremerton, that would ease restrictions in the Marine Mammal Protection Act for killing sea lions and seals, renewing a decades-old conversation over whether humans should intervene to curb pinniped predation. It’s the second attempt this month by a Washington lawmaker to expand culling of the marine mammals.

The debate comes as marine wildlife officials investigate the shooting of a baby harbor seal found near Bellingham this month with a gunshot wound to its face. The pup, euthanized last week by medical professionals, is the third seal treated for a gunshot injury by SR3, a nonprofit sea life response, rehabilitation and research facility in Des Moines, in the past year, underscoring the tensions surrounding the animals even as Congress weighs broader lethal management.

Baumgartner in a statement before the hearing said his bill is a “common-sense” update that would allow Washington state and federally recognized tribes in Western Washington to explore new ways to responsibly manage booming pinniped populations. Randall told the committee that declining salmon runs also threaten tribal treaty-reserved fishing rights. “We have to find ecosystem balance,” she said. “Nonlethal methods of controlling the pinniped population haven’t worked for us.”

Both first-term members of Washington’s congressional delegation emphasized the bipartisan nature of the effort. Still, lawmakers representing the Pacific Northwest clashed on whether greater allowances to kill sea lions and seals is an effective — or prudent — solution.

Salmon recovery is widely viewed as vital to Washington state and the broader Pacific Northwest because salmon are a cornerstone of the region’s ecosystems and economy. They provide food for numerous species, including endangered southern resident orca whales, and are essential to sustaining Northwest commercial and recreational fisheries, as well as tribal treaty-protected fishing traditions.

Baumgartner and Randall’s Northwest Endangered Salmon Predation Prevention Act of 2026 would broaden where, and how, Washington state and Western Washington tribes with protected fishing rights can manage the growing sea lion and seal populations. In 2018, Congress authorized Washington state to expand a program to capture and euthanize sea lions in the Columbia River Basin due to concerns for salmon survival.

Their bill goes further, expanding the law from “sea lions” to all pinnipeds, including harbor seals, California sea lions and Steller’s sea lions. It would remove geographical restrictions limiting killings to portions of the Columbia River and eliminates the requirement that chemical euthanasia be the only approved killing method. It would take the effort beyond the Columbia River, too, establishing permits for tribes and state officials to kill pinnipeds in “each river and stream in the State of Washington that flows into the marine waters of the State.” The bill would also direct the development of nonlethal methods that prevent pinnipeds from traveling upstream into salmon habitats.

There are five species of pinnipeds that frequent Oregon and Washington (Pacific Harbor Seal, Northern Elephant Seal, California Sea Lion, Steller Sea Lion, and the Northern Fur Seal). As for regulating these populations, it seems that a major impetus is the need of indigenous people to harvest salmon.  Unless we are somehow responsible for the growing pinniped populations (and I haven’t seen any data supporting that), I’d like to know how this happened. You don’t go killing seals and sea lions so you can support a salmon-based economy.  It looks as if in fact humans are responsible for the decline of salmon, and we have no right to kill pinnipeds to rectify something that’s the fault of humanity. THERE WILL BE NO EUTHANIZING OF PINNIPEDS—not if I had any say in the matter.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili’s bossing Andrzej around:

Hili: It’s a good thing you swept the floor. It was getting pretty dirty.
Andrzej: Keep your comments to yourself.

In Polish:

Hili: Dobrze, że pozamiatałeś, bo było już bardzo brudno.
Ja: Zachowaj swoje uwagi dla siebie.

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

From Meow Incorporated:

From The Grammar Police (strictly speaking, this is not ungrammatical):

From Things with Faces, a happy loaf:

From Masih:

From Barry: Evolution wins!

A bio-inspired robot crosses paths with a real insect , 400 million years of evolution face to face with human engineering.

— Digital Brain (@yourdigitalbrain.bsky.social) 2026-07-18T16:11:42.000Z

Carole Hooven vs. Agustín “Spectrum” Fuentes (click to go to original tweets):

The Number Ten Cat is looking for an assistant, but not one to turn the spotlight away from the Boss:

One from my feed; live and learn!

And one I reposted from The Auschwitz Memorial:

And two from Matthew. He said the first one will leave you weeping (sound up):

From the brink of death,not a moment too soon.👍💙😍

— omgisme (@omgisme.bsky.social) 2026-07-23T18:59:35.494Z

And of this one he says “lovely molluscs!”. Yep, squid are molluscs:

👽🦑🛸👽🦑🛸 #squidsquad #caribbeanreefsquid #cephalopodsofcoralcity #squid #coralcitycamera

— Coral City Camera (@coralcitycamera.bsky.social) 2026-07-19T16:06:10.532Z

Friday: Hili dialogue

July 24, 2026 • 6:45 am

Welcome to the end of another week, for it’s Friday, July 24, 2026.  All four ducklings are still here and thriving. It is also National Amelia Earhart Day, her birthday. As Wikipedia notes:

Amelia Mary Earhart (/ˈɛərhɑːrt/ AIR-hart; born July 24, 1897; disappeared July 2, 1937; declared dead January 5, 1939) was an American aviator and aviation pioneer who became one of the most celebrated figures of early flight.

In 1928, she was the first female passenger to cross the Atlantic by airplane. In 1932, she became the first woman to make a nonstop solo transatlantic flight, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for her achievement.  She was one of the first aviators to promote commercial air travel, wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences, and helped found the Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots.

On July 2, 1937, she disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to become the first female pilot to circumnavigate the world. Since her disappearance, Earhart has become a global cultural figure and numerous films, documentaries, and books have recounted her life.

Here’s a short video biography of Earhart:

And here’s a photo of Earhart from Wikipedia with the caption, “Amelia Earhart standing in front of the Lockheed Electra in which she disappeared in July 1937.”

Smithsonian Institution, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Every couple of years I hear news that Earhart’s plane or crash site has finally been found, but it always comes to nothing. I no longer pay attention to those stories. When they come up with the wreckage of her plane, I’ll pay attention.

It’s also National Tequila Day and National Tell an Old Joke Day. Here’s one from Rodney Dangerfield:

“My psychiatrist told me I was crazy and I said I want a second opinion. He said, “Okay, you’re ugly too’.”

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 24 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Breaking news ripped from the headlines.  The U.S. struck Iran yet again this morning (Friday) as Iran rejected a cease-fire proposal. From the NYT:

The United States and Iran traded more attacks across the Middle East after Tehran was said to have rejected a U.S. cease-fire proposal delivered by the leader of Iraq.

American forces targeted Iranian military assets and facilities, including drone storage sites, to reduce the threat to commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, U.S. Central Command said. The attacks began at 2:15 a.m. local time and ended just over two hours later, according to the command, which oversees operations in the Middle East.

The Iranian military said it had launched drone attacks on Friday morning against U.S. military targets at bases in Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.

Iranian and Iraqi officials said on Thursday that Iran had rejected a cease-fire proposal from President Trump that was presented by Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi of Iraq. Iran’s top negotiator, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, told local news outlets that there was no need for another mediator and that “the problem is America’s outlook.”

*Three angry people write letters to the NYT about Mamdani’s explanation that he was unable to arrest Israeli PM Netanyahu, who will be visiting the UN headquarter in NYT chis fall.  Link is archives so you can read it.

*The U.S. strike on Iran yesterday came after the Houthis in Yemen attacked Saudi tankers in the Red Sea (note: not the Strait of Hormuz):

The steady escalation of the conflict over the past two weeks provided the backdrop for a vote in the House of Representatives on Thursday that for a second time asked Mr. Trump to seek Congress’ authorization to keep U.S. troops engaged in the war. Mr. Trump effectively ignored a similar rebuke last month, and later on Thursday Republicans in the Senate blocked the measure from passing.

Neither the United States nor Iran has signaled much appetite for a return to negotiations. In recent days, Iranian and American officials have promised to respond to each other’s attacks with fresh ones of their own, with each trying to outlast the other.

U.S. Central Command, which coordinates military operations in the Middle East, said it had launched a wave of strikes overnight to degrade Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping, targeting Iranian drone and missile storage sites and air defenses.

That language, which the U.S. military has employed on a daily basis, does not explicitly acknowledge U.S. strikes on infrastructure that can be used for civilian purposes, like roads and ports. Such attacks could be considered war crimes under international law.

Mr. Trump has threatened to attack a bridge or power plant “any time the Islamic republic of Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz.”

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said overnight that it had launched attacks on U.S. military targets in Jordan and Kuwait, including a communications tower, accusing U.S. forces of attacking equivalent infrastructure in Iran.

As for the Senate vote:

Senators voted against taking up another war powers resolution seeking to challenge the president’s authority to continue the conflict in Iran. Senators voted 49 to 47 to block the measure from coming to the floor for a final vote, with one Republican, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, voting in favor, and one Democrat, Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, voting against.

Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, who had supported past resolutions, changed his vote, saying he had received adequate information from senior administration officials to oppose the measure. Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, two Republicans who had backed similar efforts, did not vote.

Just for once I’d like to read a story in the MSM about the war that doesn’t begin by mentioning the price of oil (this one did, too, but I left that out). Yes, it is a consideration, but to many not the consideration. What about the 30,000+ people killed by the theocracy, its oppression of women, its never-ending attempt to make nuclear weapons, and its sponsorship of terrorism throughout the Middle East—and elsewhere (viz., Alinejad, Maish).

*Yesterday we learned that Trump decided to help Saudi Arabia get nuclear weapons, and Amit Segal opined that this was largely due to Trump’s trying to get business for American defense companies.  Well, that may be true (I was doubtful), but the Washington Post says there’s a big condition for that nuclear aid: the Saudis must join the 2020 Abraham Accords, designed to normalize relations between Israel and Arab countries.

Saudi Arabia would need to normalize relations with Israel to receive the U.S. nuclear technology it has long sought, President Donald Trump said Thursday, adding a new condition to an agreement signed a day earlier and throwing the future of that deal into confusion.

The nuclear deal is “totally subject” to Saudi Arabia’s joining the Abraham Accords, Trump said in a social media post, referring to the effort from his first term to normalize relations between Israel and Muslim-majority countries from which it had long been estranged. The Saudis have thus far refused to join the accord.

The deal to allow the Saudis to build nuclear power plants using U.S. technology, creating a pathway to a Saudi nuclear enrichment program, has set off debate in Congress. Many lawmakers fear that allowing more countries to develop enrichment programs could eventually lead to more possessing nuclear weapons.

Israel hotly opposes Saudi Arabia’s developing a nuclear enrichment program, fearful it could lead to a regional arms race. Israeli leaders welcomed Trump’s new statement.

The Saudis have long sought to build nuclear power plants on their territory — and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of the country, has declared that they would work to develop nuclear weapons if Iran develops its own.

The Biden administration also explored a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, but it ultimately foundered because normalizing relations with Israel was the main condition the United States placed on the agreement. The deal the Trump administration signed Wednesday would have imposed no such requirement.

Trump’s new condition on Thursday would appear to attach a major string to the deal. Saudi leaders were nearing a normalization agreement with Israel in 2023, just before the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7 of that year. Since then, however, talks have been paused. Saudi leaders have said they would want guarantees of an eventual Palestinian state, and Saudi public opinion has soured toward Israel because of its handling of Gaza. Any nuclear deal tied to Saudi-Israel diplomatic breakthroughs has seemed remote.

This is somewhat of a mess because Trump, trying to normalize relations between Israel and the Saudis, is asking for Israel to accept something they violently oppose: a nuclear-armed Saudi Arabia.  Saudi Arabia might accept it (that’s doubtful), but Israel never would. At least the motive for the nuke deal is better than simply enriching the American military-industrial complex.

*Douglas Murray has a new column in the Free Press, “Why Mamdani is targeting Netanyahu.”  The bolding is mine.

Sometimes you wonder why a person went into politics. Other times, you know exactly why they did. For Zohran Mamdani, yesterday was a case of the latter.

On Tuesday evening he released a two-minute video of himself, seated behind a desk, flanked by the flags of the United States and New York. He had arranged this posture—for posture it was—to announce a development in the case of Zohran Mamdani vs. Benjamin Netanyahu, otherwise known as Mamdani vs. the State of Israel. Attacks on Israel have been central to Mamdani’s political rise. He has spent his life marinating in postcolonial politics, Third Worldism, and anti-Zionism, and brings agitation, certainty, and ignorance to debates about the Middle East.

On the campaign trail, Mamdani repeatedly promised that if he were elected mayor, he would have Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrested if he ever set foot in the city.

Several things were obvious to any casual observer. The first is that the United Nations General Assembly occurs each September in New York. Therefore, there was always going to be an opportunity for a showdown. The second is that the mayor of New York does not have any right to run U.S. foreign policy out of Gracie Mansion.

The third obvious fact was that Mamdani was going to justify his call for the arrest of Netanyahu on the basis of the existing warrant against the Israeli leader from the International Criminal Court (ICC). Of course, the U.S. is not a signatory to the ICC, nor in any way bound to its decisions. In fact, consecutive Democratic and Republican administrations refused to sign the Rome Statute on which the ICC is based because it would give foreign powers a say over American law and let them stand in judgment over American soldiers and statesmen.

. . .Mamdani’s statement was a tightly packed set of casuistry and lies. He started by saying: “Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal. The architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people. He is responsible for the killing of more than 73,000 people. For the maiming of tens of thousands of children, as those who survive undergo amputation without anesthesia. For the targeting of neonatal hospitals and maternity care centers, denying newborns even the chance to live. For the countless people he starved as he blocked food and humanitarian aid from reaching them. For the gunning down of hundreds of aid workers and journalists.”

There are many things to note here. But the first is the opening line, that Netanyahu is a war criminal. Mamdani did not say that Netanyahu has been accused of war crimes. He did not say that a prosecutor at the ICC, Karim Khan, issued a hastily written arrest warrant for Netanyahu and others in November 2024, which was quite possibly meant to deflect from his own imminent exposure for his alleged sexual harassment of a colleague at the court. Rather, Mamdani said that Netanyahu is a war criminal. That does not make it sound as though the mayor is willing to let justice play its course.

Mamdani presents his claims as fact, which they are very far from being. He cites the famous number of 73,000 deaths in Gaza, which was produced by Hamas. Even if this figure is accurate, who are these casualties? Are any of them Hamas fighters? Did Israel manage to kill any Hamas soldiers during the conflict, or must every death be regarded as a civilian death?

. .Mamdani is very clearly unbothered by facts. What he wants is the ability to make an accusation. So it is with the accusation of “genocide.” There is nothing more preposterous than the idea that what the Israel Defense Forces have done since October 7 has been a “genocide” of the Palestinians. If Netanyahu had wanted to eradicate every Palestinian from Gaza he could have done so on October 8. But obviously he didn’t. If the IDF had sought to kill as many Palestinians as possible, they would have not gone to such extraordinary lengths—lengths I have seen with my own eyes—to separate civilians from combatants, even when the line between the two has been deliberately blurred by Hamas.

Mamdani knows what he is doing here. He is not a stupid man. He is not an ignorant man. He is simply a highly ideological man who is pursuing a political and sectarian campaign against the world’s only Jewish state. Aside from personal advancement it is obvious what his real motivation is. Like other democratic socialists, Mamdani would like to shift the Overton window on Israel policy and vet candidates for future primaries over whether or not they condemn the “genocide” in Gaza. By presenting as fact the farcical claim that there has been such a thing, Mamdani and co. can then make anyone who refuses to condemn it look like an utter monster. After all, who can’t bring himself to condemn a genocide?

The push to arrest Netanyahu in New York was always going to fail. Its only purpose was to be another stepping stone in Mamdani’s and his fellow travelers’ efforts to destroy the moral legitimacy of the world’s one Jewish state, in the hope of eventually destroying the ability of that state to exist. Why they wish so fervently to achieve this goal is, of course, impossible to comprehend.

I repeat that Mamdani’s election baffles me, particularly because many of those who voted for him were Jews.  Murray, who is not Jewish, sees what NYC’s Jews (or Democrats) don’t see, or do see and don’t want to admit: Mamdani is both an antisemite and a liar. Good luck, New York, New York!

*Portland’s Reed College, also known as Che Guevara University (no kidding: I have a Reed College tee-shirt with the college logo surrounded by the words “atheism,” “communism”, and “free love”), has settled a federal complaint about pervasive antisemitism on campus.  (You can read the formal agreement here.)

Reed College has agreed to a host of far-reaching institutional changes, including asserting that targeting Jewish Zionists will be considered discriminatory, in order to settle multiple US federal antisemitism investigations, parties to the complaint announced Wednesday.

The settlement was announced by the Anti-Defamation League and the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which jointly filed the complaint, under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination at any institution receiving federal funds. It comes as campuses across the country, facing threats of losing federal funding under the Trump administration, have demonstrated willingness to negotiate new antisemitism protections.

As part of the agreement, the private Portland, Oregon, liberal arts school says it will insert language into its discrimination policy asserting that “for many Jewish people, Zionism is integral to their religious, ancestral and/or ethnic Jewish identity,” and that “targeting Jews on the basis of their Zionist identity” will be considered discriminatory.

The school will also contract a third-party consultant to monitor and report on its effectiveness in adhering to antisemitism protections, role that is unusual in similar Title VI agreements. The agreement says Reed will “consider” the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s working definition of antisemitism, which includes some criticisms of Israel, and implement antisemitism training for faculty and staff.

. . . The resolution stems from two anonymous Title VI antisemitism complaints from Jewish former Reed students, both filed in 2024 under the Biden administration. One of those cases related to a student whose dorm-room mezuzah was vandalized, and who herself was later pelted with rocks, during a pro-Palestinian demonstration in spring 2024. The student later left the school out of concern for her safety.

The Free Press has a little more information:

On November 9, 2023, protesters on the Reed campus marched behind a banner that said “INTIFADA EVERYWHERE” and chanted an anti-Israel slogan. The protest was led by Reed’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and occurred on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the 1938 pogrom against Jews by the Nazi regime. The SJP chapter claimed that it did not schedule the protest to coincide with the anniversary, according to The Reed College Quest, Reed’s student newspaper. Four students were arrested after the protest spread to downtown Portland.

Reed president Audrey Bilger and other senior administrators had vowed that the college would “not tolerate” antisemitism or anti-Muslim sentiment and would stay in close contact with law enforcement about potential threats. But the complaints accused Reed of failing to intervene after being notified about antisemitic incidents. The failure allegedly allowed the harassment to worsen.

For example, the Jewish student who was struck in the head in May 2024 said she was also the target of an attempted break-in at her dorm room less than 48 hours earlier. The incidents were part of a monthslong campaign of harassment tied to her Jewish identity, according to a complaint filed with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in September 2024. The day after the rock-throwing attack, Reed emailed the campus, thanking the pro-Palestinian student group for the “peaceful nature” of its protests that week, according to the complaint. The second complaint was filed in May 2024 by a graduate student who was pursuing a master of arts degree in liberal studies.

I don’t favor governmental threats to withhold grant money if schools don’t adhere to civil rights laws, but they can be punished if they fail to adhere. Given that Reed asserts that it doesn’t tolerate antisemitism, that’s a bit unbelievable given that they thanked the SJP for a peaceful demonstration after a student was attacked (perhaps they didn’t know, but no group I know of here has been thanked for being peaceful—it’s expected. Violence is contrary to any school’s rules.

*Finally, in conservation news, Japan has released eight individuals of a species previously extinct in that country and endangered everywhere, the crested ibis (Nipponia nippon; extinct countrywide since 2003). First, Wikipedia says this:

In the 1980s, the birds were decimated by overhunting, the use of pesticides, ongoing habitat loss, their already small population size, their limited range, winter starvation and persecution, which together brought the endangered species to the brink of extinction.  The crested ibis has been listed in Appendix I of the conservation treaty CITES.

Here’s a photo:

belvedere04, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

From the Associated Press:

Eight crested ibises were released into the wild in a north-central Japanese town, decades after the birds went extinct in the country.

The endangered birds took off from each of their wooden cages at a ceremony Sunday in Hakui city in the Noto region, where they were last seen in the wild.

Residents cheered when the birds soared into the sky the moment Crown Prince Akishino, his wife Kiko and other officials cut a ribbon around the cages.

The eight birds have been raised at a conservation center on Sado Island in the neighboring prefecture of Niigata following a successful captive-breeding program. Ten more birds are waiting to be released.

The white birds, called Toki in Japan, are native to East Asia and admired for their orange-pink hues under their wings and bright red marks around their eyes.

The birds went extinct on the Honshu main island in the 1970s, threatened by overhunting and environmental degradation. The last remaining Japanese native ibis died in 2003 on Sado Island.

But the birds came back to life thanks to China’s support for breeding. In 1999, artificial breeding by a pair donated from China successfully led to the first Japanese crested ibis chick born in captivity, according to the Environment Ministry.

The breeding and conservation efforts have since helped the recovery of the birds’ population. In 2008, 10 of the birds raised at the Sado conservation center were released into the wild on the island, where their population has increased to around 500, the ministry says.

Here’s a video of the release; this being Japan, it was ceremonial in nature.  I’m glad they celebrated what they were doing, though perhaps it would have been better to release them more gently, and in a more wild area.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej clarifies matters for Hili.

Hili: I read that God is mathematics.
Andrzej: It’s an elegant expression, but it doesn’t tell us anything.

In Polish:

Hili: Czytałam, że Bóg jest matematyką.
Ja: Zgrabne powiedzenie, z którego nic nie wynika.

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

From TherionArms:

From Kitty Litterposting; this is a real woman named Sara Jane Ibister, and, indeed, a petty criminal, but I don’t find the “crimes” below described in the Irish Sun article describing the “mugshot beauty”.

From Terrible Maps:

From Masih, making common cause for both Right and Left. English translation of tweet:

This is my response to Trump’s extremist fans.

Unfortunately, both Trump is a red line for some Iranians abroad, where he can never be criticized, and Mamdani, the mayor of New York!

The moment I make the slightest criticism—whether of Trump or Mamdani—I come under attack from extremist Iranians close to two completely opposing camps.

We are here to fight for the people of Iran, to negotiate and demand accountability, not to become cheerleaders and fans of right-wing and left-wing currents, especially in their most extreme forms.

From Luana; a longish list of tweets giving examples of professors fired for having conservative views:

From Jesse Singal via Jeff Maurer. It’s not even close to what you think:

Two from my feed. First, a tool-using but polite elephant:

Sound up for this one:

One I retweeted from The Auschwitz Memorial

And two from Doctor Cobb. First, moggies!

New neighbors#Cat #Caturday

— Free Cats 😻 (@seelyfree.bsky.social) 2026-07-22T17:17:24.186Z

Predation in the deep sea:

They were looking at a hole on the Schmidt dive and it reminded me of this moment from years ago during a #OkeanosExplorer dive when a fish ambushed prey from a hole in the seafloor youtu.be/faeLyGD7A2M?…

— Lisa (@tuexplorer1.bsky.social) 2026-07-21T05:51:38.126Z