Wednesday: Hili dialogue

July 17, 2024 • 6:45 am

Welcome to a Hump Day (“Yim Humpbe” in Kanuri): Wednesday, July 17, 2024, and National Hot Dog Day, which really celebrates Chicago, the City of Great Dogs, and fie on those who disdain them! Get a Vienna Beef dog with the works–“dragged through the garden”, as they say. Lookie!:

 

It’s also World Day for International Justice, National Peach Ice Cream Day, International Firgun Day, and World Emoji Day.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 17 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Democratic Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey has the honor of being the first U.S. Senator to be convicted for acting as a foreign agent. He’s facing a long time in stir:

Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey was convicted on all counts in a sweeping scheme to sell his office to foreign powers and crooked businessmen in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, a luxury car and bars of solid gold.

A jury of 12 New Yorkers convicted him of all 16 counts he faced, on charges including honest services wire fraud, bribery and extortion. Their verdict makes Mr. Menendez, a Democrat whose term expires at year’s end, only the seventh sitting U.S. senator to be convicted of a federal crime.

Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, called on Mr. Menendez to resign minutes after the verdict was read. New Jersey’s Democratic governor, Philip D. Murphy, also said Mr. Menendez should step down and said that he would make a temporary appointment to fill the seat should it become vacant.

. . . The jury, which spent about 12 hours deliberating, also returned guilty verdicts against two businessmen accused of bribing the senator, Fred Daibes and Wael Hana.

Sentencing in the case was set for Oct. 29. Several of the counts carry terms as long as 20 years in prison.

Here’s what to know [JAC: I hate this condescending phrase which is implicitly followed by “for those who can’t figure out what’s important.”]

  • The core of the charges: Prosecutors accused Mr. Menendez and his wife, Nadine Menendez, of orchestrating a bribery scheme while he was the Democratic leader of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The government contended that the senator acted as an agent of Egypt and interceded to quash criminal prosecutions in New Jersey in exchange for the payoffs and then sought to cover it up. . . . .

  • A historic prosecution: Mr. Menendez’s storied political career had absorbed a near-lethal blow thanks to the gravity of the charges. Mr. Menendez was the first senator to be charged with acting as a foreign agent, and the first in the Senate’s 235-year history to be indicted in separate bribery cases. (His first prosecution ended in a mistrial in 2017.

So it goes.  Menendez is 70 now, and given the gravity of the charges, he is very likely to die behind bars.

*As if the Secret Service didn’t screw up enough in its failure to protect Trump from getting shot, we now know that the Secret Service was in fact inside the building when the young and now-extinct sniper was shooting from its roof:

Local police who were assigned by the Secret Service to help spot threats in the crowd at Donald Trump’s rally Saturday were inside the building where a gunman positioned himself on the roof to shoot at the former president, according to a Secret Service official briefed on the incident.

From inside the Agr International building, they spotted a man acting furtively, walking back and forth around the building with some gear, and radioed a Secret Service command post to alert them, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.

The revelations add to the growing list of questions about the Secret Service’s plan for securing areas outside the perimeter and about the failure of law enforcement to act quickly enough on multiple early warnings of suspicious activity. The Washington Post reported in a video analysis Monday that bystanders at the Trump rally in Butler, Pa., warned local police that they had seen a man clambering onto the roof of the building. A video posted to social media shows one man shouting, “Officer! Officer!” as others point toward the building. “He’s on the roof!” a woman says.

Local police who were assigned by the Secret Service to help spot threats in the crowd at Donald Trump’s rally Saturday were inside the building where a gunman positioned himself on the roof to shoot at the former president, according to a Secret Service official briefed on the incident.

From inside the Agr International building, they spotted a man acting furtively, walking back and forth around the building with some gear, and radioed a Secret Service command post to alert them, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.

The revelations add to the growing list of questions about the Secret Service’s plan for securing areas outside the perimeter and about the failure of law enforcement to act quickly enough on multiple early warnings of suspicious activity. The Washington Post reported in a video analysis Monday that bystanders at the Trump rally in Butler, Pa., warned local police that they had seen a man clambering onto the roof of the building. A video posted to social media shows one man shouting, “Officer! Officer!” as others point toward the building. “He’s on the roof!” a woman says.

So now we know that even local police alerted the Secret Service, as did some private citizens nearby.  What happened? Nothing. These are major-league foul-ups, and there will be punishment affixed. What I want to know is how the sniper got onto the roof.  Don’t you need a ladder for that, and wouldn’t that attract attention?

*I don’t much follow Elon Musk, though there is a group of people seemingly obsessed with hating him. I think he’s wicked smart and a great innovator, but having watched him on video I also think he’s “on the spectrum”, which is really neither here nor there. I have no dog in the Musk Fight, as I don’t know enough about the man, but I have to say thatI’m distressed that he’s gone for Trump: big time. He’s giving big money to the Republican campaign.

Elon Musk has said he plans to commit around $45 million a month to a new super political-action committee backing former President Donald Trump’s presidential run, according to people familiar with the matter.

Other backers of the group, called America PAC, include Palantir Technologies co-founder Joe Lonsdale, the Winklevoss twins, former U.S. Ambassador to Canada Kelly Craft and her husband, Joe Craft, who is chief executive of coal producer Alliance Resource Partners.

Formed in June, America PAC is focused on registering voters and persuading constituents to vote early and request mail-in ballots in swing states, according to one of the people. The coalition assessed that the Democrats have historically had very robust “get out the vote” campaigns and took note of the amounts of money that the Biden camp has dedicated to what are called on-the-ground efforts in swing states. America PAC will try to counter that.

After this article published, Musk on X posted a humorous meme responding to it with the caption “FAKE GNUS.” Subsequently, he wrote “Yeah” in response to a post that said: “Elon Musk went from being an Obama voter to pledging $180 million to elect DJT. The woke left really f*cked up. Badly.”

Musk is currently the world’s richest person, with an estimated fortune exceeding $250 billion. The amount that he has said he plans to commit to America PAC is an extraordinary sum.

$45 million a month is $62,500 per hour—and that’s a lot of dosh.

*Belgium has refused to host a soccer match between its own country and Israel, citing concerns about “safety.”

Belgium will not host the Nations League match against Israel on September 6 over security fears, the Belgian Football Federation (RBFA) announces.

The city of Brussels said last month that the match would not be played at the King Baudouin stadium because it could spark demonstrations.

Authorities had deemed it “impossible to organize this very high-risk match” in the city due to tensions linked to the Israeli-Hamas war.

Other Belgian cities also refused to host the match.

The host city has not yet been designated, with Budapest being cited as an option.

Concerns were likely raised by the attack in Brussels in October in which an Islamist gunman killed two Swedish football fans before a Euro 2024 qualifier between Belgium and Sweden.

France and Italy are in the same Nations League Group A2 as Belgium and Israel.

My advice to the Belgians: GET MORE DAMN SECURITY!  They are punishing the Israeli soccer team because it’s Israeli, using security as an excuse. The Belgian’s responsibility is to provide ample security for a match like this. In effect, the “security” excuse constitutes the deplatforming of Israeli soccer in Belgium. But as I know from my friend the Maarten Boudry, a Belgian philosopher, hatred of Israel is widespread in that country.

*The NYT tells us “The best and worst habits for your teeth“, and you better pay attention! If you take care of your gums and choppers, they’ll take care of you.  First, the important information:

The secret to healthy teeth and gums isn’t much of a secret: Brush twice a day, floss once a day and visit a dentist regularly for cleanings.

“It’s not sexy or surprising, but this is what works if you want to avoid cavities and gum disease,” said Dr. Matthew Messina, a clinical director and assistant professor at Ohio State University College of Dentistry.

But dentists say there’s more we could be doing in the name of oral health. Here are some good and bad habits they suggest starting — or stopping.

The tooth roolz:

  1. Don’t use toothpaste that contains charcoal
  2. Brush gently with a SOFT toothbrush (using a hard brush is what wrecked my dad’s gums!)
  3. Don’t drink sports drinks, soda (even diet soda) or flavored coffee. It’s the sugar and acid, Jake, and there’s acid even in diet sodas. One diet soda a day is okay, BUT
  4. Rinse your mouth with water after eating and consuming the above, AND
  5. Wait 30 minutes after meals before brushing your teeth (I never knew that)
  6. Don’t use toothpicks
  7. And do NOT open packages with your teeth (this is one of my own bad habits).

I will add that after years of experimenting, I’ve discovered that Reach (formerly Listerine) Ultraclean mint floss is the very best. I originally got it from my hygienist, but she told me it was no longer made. That’s not the case, but the only place I can find it is on Amazon. Try it! $15 for a six-pack.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili must make a difficult decision:

Hili: It’s time to decide.
A: What about?
Hili: Hunting or the bed.
In Polish:
Hili: Pora podjąć decyzję.
Ja: W jakiej sprawie?
Hili: Polowanie czy łóżko.

And a picture of the loving Szaron:

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From Kitty Lovers:

From Science Humor via Hanif Khan. The Noah’s Ark Story:

From Strange, Stupid, or Silly Signs:

From Masih. Iranians are really getting fed up with the “morality police”.

J. K. Rowling’s views in a nutshell:

From my feed: Larry the Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office is getting used to the new Cabinet:

From Bryan; Ceiling Cat is pissed off because everybody is full of hate.

From Malcolm. Today I am cat #3.

From the Auschwitz Memorial; one that I posted

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. First, ANOTHER Ceiling Cat!!!!!

And more on Noah’s Ark:

Natasha Hausdorff on the legality of everything about the war

July 16, 2024 • 12:30 pm

One of the biggest lacunae on Wikipedia is its lack of an entry on Natasha Hausdorff, a London barrister and expert on international law who happens to work with the UK Lawyers for Israel. She has a sterling background:

She holds law degrees from Oxford and Tel Aviv Universities and was a Fellow in the National Security Law Programme at Columbia Law School. Natasha previously worked for Skadden Arps, in London and Brussels and clerked for the President of the Israeli Supreme Court, Chief Justice Miriam Naor, in Jerusalem. She regularly briefs politicians and international organisations and has spoken at Parliaments across Europe and at the United Nations.

Hausdorff is, along with Douglas Murray, one of the most eloquent and articulate spokespeople for Israel.  In this Triggernometry interview, highlighted by a reader today, and which I watched during lunch, Hausdorff debunks several of the Big Lies that propel opposition to Israel: Genocide, Apartheid, and Occupation—all at bottom expressions of antisemitism and, according to Hausdorff, expressions of modern “blood libel.”

I have watched so much Hausdorff that her arguments here aren’t that new to me, but I love to hear her speak. Like Pinker, she speaks in complete sentences and paragraphs. For those of you who don’t know how international law applies to Hamas vs. Israel, you could do worse than watch this one-hour interview of Hausdorff with hosts Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster . The hosts don’t ask softball questions, but they do allow the interviewee to express her views.  Don’t miss the Jew-hating Palestinian propaganda clips interpolated in the interview!

As for me, I’m sick to death today of the endless hatred and bickering about politics, hatred that doesn’t seem to be diminishing despite everybody’s calls for comity after the assassination attempt on Trump. Rather than express my own malaise and grumpiness, I’ll just ask readers to read and follow the posting Roolz if they haven’t. Please pay attention to the rules about civility towards other commenters and the host, as well as the rule about dominating threads.

And now, I give you someone who’s always civil. I’ll be back tomorrow with, I hope, a better disposition, as well as a science post and who knows what else.

Readers’ wildlife photos

July 16, 2024 • 8:15 am

James Blilie came through with a photo contribution, but of course we need more.  The captions for James’s photos for today (taken yesterday in Oregon) are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them:

These photos are from this morning (15-Jul-2024), taken on an easy hike to Wahclella Falls in the Columbia River Gorge, near our home.

Our son Jamie is home from WSU Pullman for the summer and is mostly working; but we hike at least once a week on his days off.

This is a pretty easy hike to a spectacular 60-foot high waterfall.  It’s close to Portland, Oregon, so it gets lots of traffic.  If you don’t like crowds, go any time other than Memorial Day through Labor Day!  I was able to exclude the large numbers of tourists by careful framing and waiting.

The creek that goes over the falls is Tanner Creek and it is known by local birders as a good spot to see American Dippers (Cinclus mexicanus; a.k.a. water ouzels). Today fully justified that reputation.  We found Dippers all along the stream, including a juvenile bird that was (successfully) begging food from its parent.  All the photos of the Dippers are taken by our my son, Jamie, the family wildlife photographer.  Dippers get their name from their odd behavior of “dipping” up and down on their legs, perhaps signaling to other birds.

First some stage-setting:  Photos of the hike that I took.  At the lower end of the trail.  A basic view of falls.

Next, some basic portraits of the Dippers.

Then photos of Dippers foraging on rocks in the fast moving water of the stream.  The insects or insect larvae they were feeding on seemed to be abundant.  In one photo, the bird seems to have shining necklace of water and it shakes the water off its feathers.  These birds swim very readily and they are fast under water.

Then photos of the juvenile Dipper begging from its parent.  One photo showing it calling for food.  The other shows the parent at upper left and the juvenile at lower right:

Finally my photo of the bird photographer (Homo sapiens) at work with the falls behind him.

 

Equipment:

Jamie:  Nikon D5600 (crop factor = 1.5), Sigma 150-600mm 5-6.3 DG OS HSM Lens (225mm-900mm equivalent; quite a sharp lens), Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-6.3G ED lens, Nikkor AF-S VR Micro-NIKKOR 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED Lens (an amazingly sharp lens that goes 1:1 macro and is a great portrait lens)

Me:  Olympus OM-D E-M5 (micro 4/3 camera, crop factor = 2.0), LUMIX G X Vario, 12-35mm, f/2.8 ASPH.  (24mm-70mm equivalent), LUMIX 35-100mm  f/2.8 G Vario  (70-200mm equivalent)

Tuesday: Hili dialogue

July 16, 2024 • 6:45 am

Welcome to The Cruelest Day: Tuesday July 16, 2024, and Corn Fritters Day, honoring another contribution of America to world culture. They’re best served with a lashing of maple syrup. Yum! These ones are sans syrup:

Missvain, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

It’s also National Fresh Spinach Day, National Cherry Day, World Snake Day, Holocaust Memorial Day in France and Guinea Pig Appreciation Day.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 16 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Trump won another one: the (Trump-appointed) judge in the case of his purloining classified documents case has dismissed the charges against him. Since this is a federal case, Trump would have been able to pardon himself (if that is legal) if he were elected in November. And I’m sure he would try in that situation. But oy! This man has incredible luck (or good lawyers):

A federal judge dismissed in its entirety the classified documents case against former President Donald J. Trump on Monday, ruling that the appointment of the special counsel, Jack Smith, had violated the Constitution.

In a stunning ruling delivered on the first day of the Republican National Convention, the judge, Aileen M. Cannon, found that Mr. Smith’s appointment as special counsel was improper because it was not based on a specific federal statute and because he had not been named to the post by the president or confirmed by the Senate.

The ruling by Judge Cannon, who was put on the bench by Mr. Trump, flew in the face of previous court decisions reaching back to the Watergate era. And in a single swoop, it removed a major legal threat against Mr. Trump just as he is set to formally become the Republican nominee for president.

Here’s what else to know:

  • Appeal expected: Mr. Smith’s team will almost certainly appeal the ruling by Judge Cannon throwing out the classified documents indictment, which charges Mr. Trump with illegally holding onto a trove of highly sensitive state secrets after he left office and then obstructing the government’s repeated efforts to retrieve them.

  • Possible election effects: Judge Cannon’s previous delays in this case had already all but ensured there could be no trial until after the 2024 election. If Mr. Trump wins, he could use his power over the Justice Department to have the case scuttled if it still exists.

  • Undoing precedent: The ruling rolls back nearly 30 years of how special counsels have gotten their jobs. Special counsels are governed by Justice Department regulations set through the statutory authority of the attorney general. That has been the case since the Clinton administration, when the previous law on independent prosecutors was allowed to lapse in the wake of the Whitewater investigations.

In a case that hinges on Constitutional law, this will surely be appealed, but, well, you know the composition of the Supreme Court. Things just get worse and worse.  . . .

*The Republican National Convention started yesterday in Milwaukee (as a sign of Ceiling Cat’s disapproval, we had a 3.4 earthquake west of the city early yesterday morning), and Trump will announce his choice for VP:

Former president Donald Trump indicated Monday that he would announce his selection of a running mate later in the day. More than 2,400 Republican delegates are gathering in Milwaukee for the four-day Republican National Convention at which they plan to formally nominate Trump to lead their presidential ticket for a third time and approve a party platform.

During the last 12 hours, multiple Donald Trump advisers have said they do not know whom he will pick as a running mate. Trump, ever the showman, likes dragging this out to the end — and building suspense. He has told multiple people that he does not want the news to leak, and he wants control over the announcement.

We will see the vice-presidential pick at 4:37 p.m. Eastern time, per a Trump adviser, when Trump makes the announcement.

This next bit surprises me:

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has been told that he will not be Trump’s vice-presidential pick, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Rubio was widely seen as one of the top contenders to be Trump’s running mate, after a bitter 2016 rivalry. The Florida Republican appeared with Trump last week at a Miami rally. His proponents argued that he could help attract non-White voters and touted his foreign policy experience.

I thought that with his name recognition and experience, Rubio would be a shoo-in, but I forgot that Trump doesn’t want a VP with any credibility or power, because they could butt heads and Trump always wants to be Top Dog.  I am now predicting that Trump will be elected, and no, I’m not at all happy about it. Out of 13 polls reported at FiveThirtyEight in which Trump comes up against Biden, Trump wins twelve of those. That’s significant by the sign test alone!

UPDATE: Trump has chosen, and his VP, and most likely the next VP of the country, is Senator J. D. Vance of Ohio:

Mr. Vance, 39, is a political newcomer who entered the Senate only last year, but he has spent that time methodically ascending the conservative firmament. Once an acerbic Trump critic — attacking Mr. Trump as “reprehensible” and calling him “cultural heroin” — he won Mr. Trump’s backing in his 2022 Senate race by wholly embracing his politics and his lies about a stolen election. The endorsement lifted him above a crowded field, and ultimately to the Senate.

Oy! Vance was a Never-Trumper, and then quickly changed his mind when he saw the breadth of Trump’s coattails. This is one example of what hypocrites politicians can be. Now he’s an Always Trumper!

*The Wall Street Journal reports on the big failure of the Secret Service embodied in Trump getting shot:

Donald Trump’s near assassination presents the biggest crisis for the Secret Service in decades. At the heart of what will be a torrent of investigations: How was a 20-year-old lone shooter able to take up an exposed firing position on an open rooftop not much more than a football field away from the former president?

Scrutiny is likely to focus heavily on the Secret Service’s advance work to secure buildings near the Butler, Pa., rally, including one belonging to American Glass Research where Thomas Matthew Crooks was perched when he shot at Trump.

“The reality is there’s just no excuse for the Secret Service to be unable to provide sufficient resources to cover an open rooftop 100 yards away from the site,” said Bill Pickle, a former deputy assistant Secret Service director. “And there’s no way he should’ve got those shots off.”

Robert Pugar, an Allegheny County resident and off-duty police officer who attended the rally, said he noticed the law-enforcement snipers looking through their binoculars shortly before the shooting happened. “I kept saying to myself, I wonder if they see something. It just caught my attention…or is that just how they pan the horizon?” Pugar recalled.

A day later, Pugar said he was still taking it all in. With all the top-notch security technology available today, “how did somebody get 130 yards away without being recognized?” he asked. “We couldn’t even park within a mile. So how does somebody get on the very first building away from the stage, on the rooftop?”

. . .One witness outside the event told BBC that he saw an armed man crawling on top of a building and pointed him out to law enforcement.

“I’m thinking to myself, ‘Why is Trump still speaking, why have they not pulled him off the stage?’…The next thing you know, five shots ring out,” the witness said.

This puzzles me, too, especially because of the guy who was interviewed by the BBC (see yesterday’s tweets), and who reported the potential shooter on the roof to both local law enforcement and the Secret Service. Apparently nobody paid any attention.

*How do the Palestinians now feel about Hamas after the misery the organization has wreaked on the Gaza strip?  A survey reported in the Jerusalem Post is NOT heartening:

More than nine months after the Israel-Hamas war began, many Palestinians are convinced that the “day after” in the Gaza Strip will be a return to the pre-Oct. 7 era, in which the Iran-backed terrorist group still has control of the coastal enclave. For them, the “day after” means going back to the day before the Hamas-led attack on Israel.

Today, Palestinians fall into two groups: those who hate Hamas but think that under the current circumstances it is impossible to remove it from power, and those who want Hamas to stay in power because they embrace it and its extremist ideology.

. .When asked who the public would prefer to control the Gaza Strip after the war, 61% (71% in the West Bank and 46% in the Gaza Strip) answered Hamas. Only 16% chose a new P.A. [Palestinian Authority] with an elected president, parliament and government, while another 6% chose the current P.A. but without its president, Mahmoud Abbas.

When asked to speculate about the party that will control the Gaza Strip after the war, a majority of respondents (56%) answered that it would be Hamas.

It is also interesting to see that an overwhelming majority of Palestinians (75%) oppose the deployment of an Arab security force in the Gaza Strip. In this regard, these Palestinians have actually endorsed Hamas’s stance, which opposes the deployment of non-Palestinian security forces in the Gaza Strip.

. . . . . Not hiding their dissatisfaction in private, some P.A. officials are disappointed that Hamas still controls the Gaza Strip more than nine months after the war began.

“We thought it would only take a few weeks to remove Hamas from power,” stated one official. “However, several months later, Hamas remains in place and continues to have complete authority over civilian affairs. In addition, Hamas still has many fighters.”

Another P.A. official said that he had anticipated a fall in Hamas’s popularity among Palestinians as the war drags on and more Palestinians lose their lives.

“We see that the opposite has happened,” the official stated. “According to polls conducted after Oct. 7, Hamas’s popularity is rising. This is due to the widespread belief that Hamas is winning the battle. If you watched [the Qatari-owned network] Al-Jazeera, you would also come to the same conclusion—that Israel has been defeated,” he said.

Why is the PA so disappointed at Hamas’s popularity in Gaza? Because they are mortal enemies: the PA wants to control Gaza, but lost in the elections in 2006 (but refused to give up power, causing Hamas to stage a coup). The PA and Hamas are mortal enemies, united only by their hatred of Jews. This brings up the question of a Palestinian state: how could it possibly be run if the two parties vying for power hate each other?

*Some good news for once: Gambia, which has banned female genital mutilation (FGM), has rejected a bill that would overturn the ban. That reversal would have been a first:

Lawmakers in the West African nation of Gambia on Monday rejected a bill that would have overturned a ban on female genital cutting. The attempt to become the first country in the world to reverse such a ban had been closely followed by activists abroad.

The vote followed months of heated debate in the largely Muslim nation of less than 3 million people. Lawmakers effectively killed the bill by rejecting all its clauses and preventing a final vote.

The procedure, also called female genital mutilation, includes the partial or full removal of girls’ external genitalia, often by traditional community practitioners with tools such as razor blades or at times by health workers. It can cause serious bleeding, death and childbirth complications but remains a widespread practice in parts of Africa.

Activists and human rights groups were worried that a reversal of the ban in Gambia would overturn years of work against the centuries-old practice that’s often performed on girls younger than 5 and rooted in the concepts of sexual purity and control.

Religious conservatives who led the campaign to reverse the ban argued the practice was “one of the virtues of Islam.”

So much for the assertion that FGM has nothing to do with Islam. And look how prevalent it is!:

In Gambia, more than half of women and girls ages 15 to 49 have undergone the procedure, according to United Nations estimates. Former leader Yahya Jammeh unexpectedly banned the practice in 2015 without further explanation. But activists say enforcement has been weak and women have continued to be cut.

The first prosecutions occurred last year, when three women were convicted for bringing their daughters to be cut and performing the practice. The cases sparked a public debate, and some said the prosecutions inspired the attempt to reverse the ban.

UNICEF earlier this year said some 30 million women globally have undergone female genital cutting in the past eight years, most of them in Africa but others in Asia and the Middle East.

More than 80 countries have laws prohibiting the procedure or allowing it to be prosecuted, according to a World Bank study cited earlier this year by the United Nations Population Fund. They include South Africa, Iran, India and Ethiopia.

It’s telling that although Gambia banned the practice in 2015, and more than half of the women still get mutilated, the first prosecutions occurred only in 2023. That means that the status quo is in force: the practice is banned but so widespread that it won’t be much enforced. It’s barbaric.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili gives good advice:

Hili: It’s the height of summer.
A: What about it?
Hili: We have to watch out for ticks.
In Polish:
Hili: To jest pełnia lata.
Ja: I co?
Hili: Trzeba uważać na kleszcze.

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From Stacy:

From Cat Memes:

From Science Humor:

From Masih; another woman blinded in one eye for protesting. Here’s the translation from Farsi:

21 months and 4 days have passed since the shot in my eye. But I still carry this wound on my life, as if this wound was placed on my life to prove my evolution. But not that I have reached absolute evolution, but on the path of evolution there is a deep wound of my soul calling: “Stay, don’t move, the world is passing, your sky will also see the splendor of justice.”

From Malcolm: The link doesn’t seem to work, but if you can find a video of this remarkable cat, put it in the comments.

From J. K. Rowling, snarky as usual:

Jumping spider fails the mirror test, displays to itself:

Sound up! I bet they were never again invited on the Sullivan show:

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I retweeted:

Two tweets from Matthew. First, lovely bioluminescence in the sea:

Chimp train, which Matthew said would “cheer you up” (he means me):

Dawkins extols the courage of atheists

July 15, 2024 • 9:30 am

Yesterday we had a video of Richard Dawkins and Kathleen Stock talking about gender activism, and today we have Dawkins writing about the intellectual and moral courage of atheists. This essay is needed because attacks on “New Atheism” continue, with many misguided people saying that New Atheism is dead because either its proponents were muddled or because they were sexual harassers.

Both claims are wrong. Yes, some New Atheists did engage in sexual harassment, but it certainly wasn’t characteristic of the “movement”, and none of the Four Horsemen who inspired Richard’s essay have been accused of it. But to reject New Atheism because of accusations against some of its proponents is fallacious: what’s important is the content of the movement.

And that content was not only unassailable, but based on evidence—or, in religion, the lack thereof. If there was one thing that distinguished the “New” Atheism from the “old” atheism of people like Bertrand Russell, Robert Ingersoll, and H. L. Mencken, was its scientific character. The arguments in the books of the “Four Horsemen”—Dan Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins—were infused with science, with repeated assertions that there was no evidence for religious claims, be they for the existence of gods or the ancillary tenets of faith.  For once, faith was seen as a vice rather than a virtue.  Dennett was largely a philosopher of science, Dawkins and Harris were trained as scientists, and Hitchens was science-friendly, constantly keeping up with science.

I would argue that New Atheism was a resounding success, and is no longer touted actively simply because it did its job and is no longer needed. (It is needed, though, about once per generation, just to acquaint the young with its arguments.) Religion is disappearing throughout the West—largely, I think, because it’s been displaced by science and rationality (see Steve Pinker’s book Enlightenment Now for supporting evidence).  And religion, as sociologists tell us, is largely embraced by those who are needy, poor, or sick, with nobody but a god to turn to. Yet as the well-being of the world increases, so its need for religion decreases accordingly.

The rise in America and Europe of the “nones”—those people who lack religious affiliation—attests to the decline of faith. Now comprising 28% of Americans, the percentage of “nones” has risen from 16% in 2007. Yes, some “nones” do believe in a god, a higher power, or are spiritual, but the rejection of organized religion tells us something about Americans’ decreasing need for both faith and for religion as a way to commune with others. Northern Europe, and particularly Scandinavia, are losing faith as well: one of my favorite figures is that exactly 0.0% of Icelandic people under 25 believe that God created the world, while 94% believe that the world came about via the Big Bang.

I attribute the rise in atheism not just to the increase of well-being of people in the West, but also to the efforts of the New Atheists, who broadcast the arguments against God widely (all their books were best sellers) and erased much of the shame for publicly admitting you were a nonbeliever. Back in the early days of New Atheism, when I’d lecture in places like the American South, people would often come up to me and thank me for publicly arguing against religion, saying that they experienced strong familial and vocational pressures to adhere to the local faith.  That is disappearing.

On September 30, 2007, the Four Horsemen sat down for a two-hour discussion, filmed by Josh Timonen, that you can watch in two parts on YouTube (here and here). This discussion was then turned into a 2019 book: The Four Horsemen: The Conversation that Sparked an Atheist Revolution. By that time Hitchens had died, but the three surviving Horsemen were asked to write an additional introductory essay for the book.  The one below is Richard’s essay, which he’s now rewritten to be a standalone piece, and which he’s just published on his website.  I hadn’t read it because I didn’t read the Horsemen book (I listened to the whole conversation), and so missed the essays.

If you did, too, you can see Richard’s piece for free by clicking on the link below:

The three best parts of the essay are its no-pulled-punches denigration of theology (a discipline that has no content, though “religious studies” does), its suggestion of ideas that weren’t part of the original New Atheism, and its theme: that atheists possess a kind of courage that believers don’t have. I’ll give a few quotes (indented) for each area.

The vacuity of theology vs the substance of science:

. . . it is characteristic of theologians that they just make stuff up. Make it up with liberal abandon and force it, with a presumed limitless authority, upon others, sometimes – at least in former times and still today in Islamic theocracies – on pain of torture and death.

. . In 1950, Pope Pius XII (unkindly known as ‘Hitler’s Pope’) promulgated the dogma that Jesus’ mother Mary, on her death, was bodily – i.e. not merely spiritually – lifted up into heaven. ‘Bodily’ means that if you’d looked in her grave, you’d have found it empty. The Pope’s reasoning had absolutely nothing to do with evidence. He cited 1 Corinthians 15:54: ‘then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory’. The saying makes no mention of Mary. There is not the smallest reason to suppose the author of the epistle had Mary in mind. We see again the typical theological trick of taking a text and ‘interpreting’ it in a way that just might have some vague, symbolic, hand-waving connection with something else. Presumably, too, like so many religious beliefs, Pius XII’s dogma was at least partly based on a feeling of what would be fitting for one so holy as Mary. But the Pope’s main motivation, according to Dr Kenneth Howell, director of the John Henry Cardinal Newman Institute of Catholic Thought, University of Illinois, came from a different meaning of what was fitting. The world of 1950 was recovering from the devastation of the Second World War and desperately needed the balm of a healing message. Howell quotes the Pope’s words, then gives his own interpretation:

Pius XII clearly expresses his hope that meditation on Mary’s assumption will lead the faithful to a greater awareness of our common dignity as the human family. . . . What would impel human beings to keep their eyes fixed on their supernatural end and to desire the salvation of their fellow human beings? Mary’s assumption was a reminder of, and impetus toward, greater respect for humanity because the Assumption cannot be separated from the rest of Mary’s earthly life.

It’s fascinating to see how the theological mind works: in particular, the lack of interest in – indeed, the contempt for – factual evidence.

. . . The biblical evidence for the existence of purgatory is, shall we say, ‘creative’, again employing the common theological trick of vague, hand-waving analogy. For example, the Encyclopedia notes that ‘God forgave the incredulity of Moses and Aaron, but as punishment kept them from the “land of promise”’. That banishment is viewed as a kind of metaphor for purgatory. More gruesomely, when David had Uriah the Hittite killed so that he could marry Uriah’s beautiful wife, the Lord forgave him – but didn’t let him off scot-free: God killed the child of the marriage (2 Samuel 12:13–14). Hard on the innocent child, you might think. But apparently a useful metaphor for the partial punishment that is purgatory, and one not overlooked by the Encyclopedia’s authors.

The section of the purgatory entry called ‘Proofs’ is interesting because it purports to use a form of logic. Here’s how the argument goes. If the dead went straight to heaven, there’d be no point in our praying for their souls. And we do pray for their souls, don’t we? Therefore it must follow that they don’t go straight to heaven. Therefore there must be purgatory. QED. Are professors of theology really paid to do this kind of thing?

Richard gives a long list of things that science knows, pretty much with certainty even though all scientific truth is considered provisional. This is in contrast with theology, which of course has told us NOTHING about what’s true in the real universe. (This is why theology has no meaningful content.) I’ll just give a paragraph of our scientific truths; note that he even quotes Gould, not Dawkins’s BFF. But that quote by Gould is quite eloquent:

Let us by all means pay lip service to that incantation, while muttering, in homage to Galileo’s muttered eppur si muove,the sensible words of Stephen Jay Gould:

In science, ‘fact’ can only mean ‘confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.’ I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

Facts in this sense include the following, and not one of them owes anything whatsoever to the many millions of hours devoted to theological ratiocination. The universe began between 13 billion and 14 billion years ago. The sun, and the planets orbiting it, including ours, condensed out of a rotating disk of gas, dust and debris about 4.5 billion years ago. The map of the world changes as the tens of millions of years go by. We know the approximate shape of the continents and where they were at any named time in geological history. And we can project ahead and draw the map of the world as it will change in the future. We know how different the constellations in the sky would have appeared to our ancestors and how they will appear to our descendants.

Matter in the universe is non-randomly distributed in discrete bodies, many of them rotating, each on its own axis, and many of them in elliptical orbit around other such bodies according to mathematical laws which enable us to predict, to the exact second, when notable events such as eclipses and transits will occur. These bodies – stars, planets, planetesimals, knobbly chunks of rock, etc. – are themselves clustered in galaxies, many billions of them, separated by distances orders of magnitude larger than the (already very large) spacing of (again, many billions of) stars within galaxies.

. . . Who does not feel a swelling of human pride when they hear about the LIGO instruments which, synchronously in Louisiana and Washington State, detected gravitation waves whose amplitude would be dwarfed by a single proton? This feat of measurement, with its profound significance for cosmology, is equivalent to measuring the distance from Earth to the star Proxima Centauri to an accuracy of one human hair’s breadth.

Novel additions to New Atheism (things that weren’t in the “Old” Atheism). I’ll give just one. Theologians and others argue about the claim below (some making the ridiculous argument that “God is simple”), but I think it’s a decisive blow against theistic and deistic religions:

But more important, even if we never understand all the steps, nothing can change the principle that, however improbable the entity you are trying to explain, postulating a creator god doesn’t help you, because the god would itself need exactly the same kind of explanation.’ However difficult it may be to explain the origin of simplicity, the spontaneous arising of complexity is, by definition, more improbable. And a creative intelligence capable of designing a universe would have to be supremely improbable and supremely in need of explanation in its own right. However improbable the naturalistic answer to the riddle of existence, the theistic alternative is even more so. But it needs a courageous leap of reason to accept the conclusion.

The courage of atheism

Why did I speak of intellectual courage? Because the human mind, including my own, rebels emotionally against the idea that something as complex as life, and the rest of the expanding universe, could have ‘just happened’. It takes intellectual courage to kick yourself out of your emotional incredulity and persuade yourself that there is no other rational choice. Emotion screams: ‘No, it’s too much to believe! You are trying to tell me the entire universe, including me and the trees and the Great Barrier Reef and the Andromeda Galaxy and a tardigrade’s finger, all came about by mindless atomic collisions, no supervisor, no architect? You cannot be serious. All this complexity and glory stemmed from Nothing and a random quantum fluctuation? Give me a break.’ Reason quietly and soberly replies: ‘Yes. Most of the steps in the chain are well understood, although until recently they weren’t. In the case of the biological steps, they’ve been understood since 1859.

And the moral courage:

[Atheism] requires moral courage, too. As an atheist, you abandon your imaginary friend, you forgo the comforting props of a celestial father figure to bail you out of trouble. You are going to die, and you’ll never see your dead loved ones again. There’s no holy book to tell you what to do, tell you what’s right or wrong. You are an intellectual adult. You must face up to life, to moral decisions. But there is dignity in that grown-up courage. You stand tall and face into the keen wind of reality. You have company: warm, human arms around you, and a legacy of culture which has built up not only scientific knowledge and the material comforts that applied science brings but also art, music, the rule of law, and civilized discourse on morals. Morality and standards for life can be built up by intelligent design – design by real, intelligent humans who actually exist. Atheists have the intellectual courage to accept reality for what it is: wonderfully and shockingly explicable. As an atheist, you have the moral courage to live to the full the only life you’re ever going to get: to fully inhabit reality, rejoice in it, and do your best finally to leave it better than you found it.

These are short excerpts from a longer essay, but it’s not all that long, and, for me at least, the essay bucked me up, reminding me of the personal and societal benefits of atheism. Yes, you can argue for “belief in belief”: Dan Dennett’s phrase denoting people who don’t need God but think that religion is necessary to hold society together as a kind of community Velcro.  But as we can see from the well-run, moral, but atheistic countries of Europe, that claim is false.  And as for the riposte that, well, Western humanism is a product of Christianity over the ages (viz. Ayaan Hirsi Ali), I find that Hail Mary argument insupportable.

Readers’ wildlife photos

July 15, 2024 • 8:15 am

Well, this is it: the very last batch of photos.  The Black Dog has arrived and scared the rest away.

But we do have some pictures by reader Kevin Elskin from Arkansas. His captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them:

Hope all is well with the readers and that you are having a pleasant summer. Northwest Arkansas has missed some of the most brutal heat so far, but it is early. I am sending along some random photos of plants and animals that hang out at my house.

The first picture shows some kitschy art I created for my garden – a farmhouse and barn. Note the critter in the window. The barn is an homage to all of these barns I used to drive by in Western Pennsylvania.  If one looks closely you will see an American Bumblebee, Bombus pensylvanicus, inspecting a coneflower, which I think is the Echinacea purpurea, eastern purple coneflower. You have  to appreciate Fibonacci when you study a coneflower.

The next photo shows my bumblebee friend of the flower of a mealy sage plant, Salvia farinacea. This plant is a gardener’s delight. I found the plant at random a few years back. It grows and presents beautiful blue and white flowers all year long, then is happy to come back again in the spring. I love perennials.

The next photo is an American Goldfinch, Spinus tristis. This photo makes me a little sad, for when I lived near Pittsburgh I could put out a feeder full of Nyger seed and I would get dozens of these beautiful birds every day. When I put that feeder out in Arkansas, the seeds just rot from neglect. Oh well, the finches do pay a visit to the sage, and they really hit the coneflower seeds in the fall.

One summer night a while back, I was wearing a lamp on my forehead, which has a regular white lamp that shines pretty brightly. I turned the light toward my lawn, and hundreds of little glimmering points of light showed up. At first I thought the dew had settle for the night, but after a moment I realized my truck was absolutely dry. Closer inspection of the “dew” revealed that each little point of light was actually a grass spider, genus Agelenopsis. I tried to photograph the “thousand points of light” in my yard, but I never could really capture how many freaking spiders are in my front yard! So you will have to settle with this one little picture of one little spider:

On to more birds. A common little bird in my neighborhood is the barn swallow, Hirundo rustica. These birds are beneficial insectivores.

I made the mistake of letting the swallows build a nest above my front door last year. They are extremely friendly and not at all afraid of humans, but my god do they make an absolute mess of things. First a photo of the brood:

There were five in the nest but sadly one was lost from the nest prior to learning flight. Here is a photo of the sad fledgling, note the parent watching over and also my cat Rocket considering an early lunch (a very sad story follows…). You can also appreciate the poop creation ability of a nest of swallows (I put down a box to try and catch some of it)

The last bird is the house wren. What a loud-mouthed little bird, but so cute.

They nested in a small ceramic nest box hanging from a shepherd’s crook in my garden. The parent enters with food:

And here is the easiest possible “spot the wren” photo, with the bird among the black-eyed susans and the salvia:

And now the sad story. A few years back, Jerry indulged me and allowed the story of Rocket and JB. Short version of story, when we moved back to Arkansas in 2017 we had just had our last cat put to sleep after he suffered what was probably a debilitating stroke. We just assumed our cat lives were over when in the summer of 2019 a little black and white kitten appeared in our lives. We named him Rocket, and after a couple visits at the vet he adopted a friend named JB. JB was a stray struck by a car, and saved by reconstructive surgery to his right legs. This was all paid for by a donation by JB Hunt Trucking to a local animal charity, hence the name JB. JB and Rocket became fast friends.

Early last April, we noticed Rocket was not interested in eating and was quite inactive. We took him to the vet the next morning, and he was diagnosed with pneumonia. Short story, he passed away before the sun rose the next day. He was weeks away from his 5th birthday.

We were devastated by the loss of our little charmer, but poor JB wandered the house crying inconsolably, looking in all of the little hidey holes where Rocket used to hand out. We were so sad.

Time moves on and we visited our local shelter and found these two sisters:

We gave them the names Misty and Sam (those big white whiskers reminded me of Yosemite Sam!). At first JB was not happy – he chuffed and he hissed and he would have nothing to do with the little usurpers. But time does move on and it heals many wounds. JB slowly came around, and just this week we captured this little scene:

Life is good.

Monday: Hili dialogue

July 15, 2024 • 6:45 am

Welcome to the new work week: it’s Monday, July 15, 2024, and National Tapioca Pudding Day.  I always think of Bill Cosby when I see this (I do like tapioca, but rarely eat it):

Tamar Hayardeni תמר הירדני, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

It’s also Global Hug Your Kids Day, Gummi Worm Day, Orange Chicken Day, I Love Horses Day, National Respect Canada Day (like Rodney Dangerfield, Canada don’t get no respect), Elderly Men Day in Kiribati, and Statehood Day in Ukraine.  There’s a two-pound gummy worm you can get on Amazon for $27:

 

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the July 15 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*We have more information on the guy who tried to kill Trump:

Former President Donald J. Trump vowed to remain “defiant in the face of wickedness” on Sunday as authorities discovered materials to build two explosive devices in a car belonging to a would-be assassin who shot at Mr. Trump at a Saturday rally, further roiling the 2024 presidential election.

President Biden was scheduled to make remarks to the nation at 1:30 p.m. Eastern time Sunday afternoon.

Federal law enforcement officials were working feverishly to understand how Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old from Bethel Park, Pa., was able to get within firing range of the presumptive Republican nominee, injuring Mr. Trump, killing one member of the audience and critically wounding two others. The spectator who was killed was Corey Comperatore, said Gov. Josh Shapiro. He was 50, according to a post on Facebook by Mr. Comperatore’s sister.

Law enforcement officials found explosive materials in Mr. Crooks’s car and believe they may have found more at his residence, according to a person with knowledge of the investigation. An AR-15-type semiautomatic rifle found next to Mr. Crooks’s body was purchased by a family member, possibly his father, according to an official briefed on the investigation.

Authorities have given no indication that they have a motive for the shooting. Early on Sunday morning, law enforcement officers closed down all roads leading toward the home of the suspect’s family in Bethel Park, about an hour’s drive from the site of the rally.

Mr. Crooks was killed by a Secret Service sniper, according to a spokesman for the agency, just before Mr. Trump was rushed off the stage with blood on his face and his fist raised in defiance. He later said on social media that a bullet had pierced his right ear. He was able to walk off his plane unaided when it landed in New Jersey hours later.

. . . The bureau confirmed that a second “suspicious device” was found during a search of the gunman’s house, in addition to the one found in his car. It was “rendered safe by bomb technicians” and is being evaluated by F.B.I. technicians at a laboratory in Quantico, Va., officials said.

From the Wall Street Journal:

President Biden said there is “no place in America for this sort of violence. It’s sick.” The two men spoke by phone and Biden will be delivering remarks at 1:30 p.m. ET today.

I find this attempted shooting reprehensible, and had I been (the nonexistent) god I would have stopped it.  But of course it also would seem to boost support for Trump in the form of a “sympathy vote”, and I sure don’t want this man as our next President.

*Speaking of the beneficial effects of this incident on the Trump campaign, the WaPo runs them down:

A shooting at former president Donald Trump’s campaign rally Saturday evening — which is being investigated as an assassination attempt — upended the already dark and tumultuous race for the White House.

Trump’s campaign said he still plans to attend the Republican National Convention, which is scheduled to begin in Milwaukee on Monday. But the shooting is sure to shift the messaging and tenor — not to mention the security — of the massive gathering where the former president is expected to announce his running mate and try to unify his party and the nation behind his vision of grievance and retribution.

. . . Trump is often most comfortable — and most effective — when playing both martyr and victim, and Saturday’s shooting naturally thrusts him back into that role. Trump immediately put out a statement thanking the Secret Service and law enforcement, expressing his condolences to the other victims and offering a dramatic recounting of the moment.

. . . Several images of the moment — including one with a blood-streaked Trump in the shadow of an American flag — are already ricocheting around social media, all but certain to prove iconic. Several Republican lawmakers simply posted the photos without any words.

. . .The images of Trump in the immediate aftermath of the shooting are likely to become iconic, said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University.

“There’s something in the American spirit that likes seeing fortitude and courage under pressure and the fact that Trump held his fist up high will become a new symbol,” Brinkley said. “By surviving an attempted assassination, you become a martyr, because you get a groundswell of public sympathy.”

. . . Steve Schmidt, a former Republican strategist and prominent Trump critic, agreed.

“The political consequences of this assassination attempt will be immense, and they will benefit Donald Trump, who just responded to being shot in the exact same way that Teddy Roosevelt did,” Schmidt wrote on social media.

But then there are morons who try to blame the Democrats or the media, like Representative Mike Collins (R) of Georgia, who wrote on social media, ““Joe Biden sent the orders.” That’s shameful.

*The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) is notorious for employing members of Hamas, and for its schools in Gaza teaching hatred of Jews.  Because of this, many countries pulled their funding from UNRWA, but slowly the funding has resumed, due largely to an anti-Israel campaign  bythe organization and by UN itself.  They’ve denied pervasive involvement with Hamas. Now, asThe Times of Israel reports, there’s a “little list” (not so little, really, of UNRWA members with evidence they helped Hamas:

The Foreign Ministry [of Israel] has sent a letter to UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini that lists 108 employees of the UN refugee agency for Palestinians who Israel says are Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists, demanding that they immediately be fired.

The letter, first reported Thursday by the German daily Bild and then also Fox News, warned that Israel has more names to come and that it will provide the information to international donors of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which serves Palestinian refugees and their descendants.

Israel has accused multiple UNRWA staffers of taking part in Hamas’s October 7 attack on the country, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage, mostly civilians. The IDF has found a Hamas data center located directly beneath UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City, in addition to numerous findings indicating the use of the agency’s assets for terror purposes.

The Foreign Ministry has sent a letter to UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini that lists 108 employees of the UN refugee agency for Palestinians who Israel says are Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists, demanding that they immediately be fired.

The letter, first reported Thursday by the German daily Bild and then also Fox News, warned that Israel has more names to come and that it will provide the information to international donors of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which serves Palestinian refugees and their descendants.

Israel has accused multiple UNRWA staffers of taking part in Hamas’s October 7 attack on the country, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage, mostly civilians. The IDF has found a Hamas data center located directly beneath UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City, in addition to numerous findings indicating the use of the agency’s assets for terror purposes.

Ambassador Amir Weissbrod, who serves as Deputy Director General for UN and International Organisations Division at the ministry, sent the letter to Lazzarini on July 4. It includes the names, passports, and “military ID numbers” of the suspected terrorists who, it says, are “currently employed by UNRWA-Gaza.

Weissbrod called on UNRWA to “immediately terminate” the employees, as their work “poses a security risk for Israel” and “represents a breach of the principle of neutrality.”

Indeed: UNRWA shouldn’t exist at all, as it’s the only relief and works agency to help refugees from one specific country. It still regards the descendants of those who left Israel in 1948 and 1967 as “refugees”, which isn’t the case. But beyond that, the organization is simply a platform for terror and hatred and needs to be reorganized and subsumed into the other organization that takes care every other refugee in the world: The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. But the UN is defending UNRWA to the teeth, mainly because it hates Israel. And so UNRWA will continue to teach future generations of Palestinians to hate Jews, and that their highest calling in life is to become a martyr.

*Actress Shannon Doherty of “Beverly Hills 90210” television fame, died at only 53 after a long bout with cancer.

Shannen Doherty, the raven-haired actress known for playing headstrong characters in the 1990s television dramas “Beverly Hills, 90210” and “Charmed,” and who had tried in recent years to shed her rebellious reputation, died on Saturday at her home in Malibu, Calif. She was 53.

The cause was cancer, her publicist, Leslie Sloane, said in an emailed statement.

Ms. Doherty learned she had breast cancer in February 2015 and had been open about her struggle with it in the years since. In the summer of 2016, she shaved her head as a group of friends stood by, and in 2017, she announced that the cancer was in remission. It returned in 2020, and in June 2023, Ms. Doherty announced that the cancer had spread to her brain. In November, she said it had spread to her bones.

But she continued to work, and started a podcast that month.

“I’m not done with living. I’m not done with loving. I’m not done with creating. I’m not done with hopefully changing things for the better,” she told People magazine. “I’m not done.”

That is very sad.  Here’s Doherty in 2008:

watchwithkristin, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

*And flamboyant exercise guru Richard Simmons also died; he was 76.

Richard Simmons, who for years was the face of home fitness through his wildly popular videos and his energetic personality, died on Saturday morning in Los Angeles. He was 76.

A representative for Mr. Simmons, Tom Estey, confirmed the death.

The Los Angeles Fire Department and the Los Angeles Police Department responded to an address linked to Mr. Simmons at 10 a.m. on Saturday. A Fire Department spokesman said that personnel at the scene determined he had died of natural causes.

At his Beverly Hills exercise studio, Slimmons, and in his videos and DVDs, Mr. Simmons exuded an enthusiastic can-do spirit to inspire people of all ages and fitness levels to get moving.

Mr. Simmons stretched and jumped in contrast to other fitness gurus of the 1980s, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, who exuded movie-star looks and charm. His approach was perhaps more noticeable, and relatable, than that of his counterparts, as he spoke directly to audiences in his aerobics videos.

One video features him clapping and singing in unison with students, as they enter his studio.

I used to watch him because he was bizarre, but he was also empathic, helped people, and many loved him (he once weighed about 270 pounds and got down to 150). Here’s a video:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn: Hili’s taking up biology:

A: What are you looking at so closely?
Hili: I’m studying photosynthesis.
In Polish:
Ja: Czemu się tak przyglądasz?
Hili: Badam fotosyntezę.

And Andrzej with the newish baby from the upstairs couple. Mother Paulina took the picture. He loves children!

The caption: “We are discussing growth rate.”

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

From Cat Memes:

From Ducks in Public:

From Science Memes via Cody Joe Blacklock (oil doesn’t come from dinosaurs, or at least hardly any of it):

 

From Masih, who gives a test. If you’re a male, are you uncontrollably aroused? (Her singing begins near the end of the video.)

Girl singing to her kitty; ineffably cute!:

From Malgorzata, one of UChicago’s professors.  I expect the trouble to begin again when school starts this fall:

From my feed. At least on social media, cows are the new cats:

From Pinkah; the recovery of a nearly-extinct wild felid:

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I retweeted:

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb.  The first one is a real song (sound up). Matthew calls the tweet “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” which was also a real song (Fats Waller):

I presume you will get this one: