Category: Hili Dialogue

Saturday: Hili dialogue

February 15, 2025 • 6:45 am

Welcome to CaturSaturday, the Cat Sabbath until sundown on February 15, 2025, and National Gumdrop Day.  Here’s how they’re made (did you know they were “cured” to remove excess water?):

@how_it_madez

Gumdrops #howitsmade #gumdrop #fyp #foryou

♬ original sound – HOW IT’S MADE

It’s also National I Want Butterscotch Day, National Clementine Day (the name of Winston Churchill’s wife, too), Susan B. Anthony Day (she was born on this day in 1820), National Hippo Day, World Whale Day, and World Pangolin Day.  Here’s a post from Matthew on Hippo Day:

It’s #WorldHippoDay! 🦛 ❤️To celebrate and spread some hippo happiness here are some Ancient Egyptian blue hippos made by artisans some 4,000 years ago! Which is your favourite? 😍Photos my own.#Archaeology

— Alison Fisk (@alisonfisk.bsky.social) 2025-02-15T11:10:16.292Z

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

Da Nooz:

*This story reminds me of the Saturday Night Massacre in 1973, when two Attorneys General resigned rather than obey Richard Nixon’s order to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox.  Now, fifty years later, Justice Department employees are resigning rather than sign off on the demand of Emil Bove III (Trump’s former attorney, now #2 at the Justice Dept.) that they dismiss corruption charges against NYC Mayor Eric Adams. These are people with integrity. (See also here.)

In less than a month in power, President Trump’s political appointees have embarked on an unapologetic, strong-arm effort to impose their will on the Justice Department, seeking to justify their actions as the simple reversal of the “politicization” of federal law enforcement under their Biden-era predecessors.

The ferocious campaign, executed by Emil Bove III — Mr. Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer who is now the department’s acting No. 2 official — is playing out in public, in real time, through a series of moves that underscore Mr. Trump’s intention to bend the traditionally nonpartisan career staff in federal law enforcement to suit his ends.

That strategy has quickly precipitated a crisis that is an early test of how resilient the norms of the criminal justice system will prove to be against the pressures brought by a retribution-minded president and his appointees.

On Thursday, the interim U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Danielle R. Sassoon, resigned rather than sign off on Mr. Bove’s command to dismiss the corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams of New York. Ms. Sassoon is no member of the liberal resistance: She clerked for the conservative Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, and had been appointed to her post by Mr. Trump’s team.

Dropping the charges, “for reasons having nothing to do with the strength of the case” went against the “duty to prosecute federal crimes without fear or favor,” she wrote in a letter to Mr. Bove explaining her decision.

Mr. Bove, rebuffed by Ms. Sassoon, tried a procedural end-around, asking officials in the department’s Washington headquarters to take over the case, then have someone on their staff sign the dismissal.

Instead, five prosecutors in the criminal division and public integrity unit also quit, leaving their colleagues to furtively discuss their options, expressing their hope that they would not be called upon to take actions that would end with their resignation or termination.

The motion to dismiss charges against Adams has still not been filed! I’m sure that they, like Nixon, will eventually find a useful idiot to sign off on the dismissal. The lead prosecutor, Hagen Scotten, who also resigned, wrote:

Hagan Scotten, the lead prosecutor on the federal corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams of New York City, resigned after Justice Department officials ordered the dismissal of charges he had helped bring, suggesting that only a “fool” or a “coward” would obey.

In an undated, scathing resignation letter, Mr. Scotten wrote that any federal prosecutor “would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials.”

He added: “If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.”

*As usual, I’m stealing a few items from Nellie Bowles’s weekly news summary at The Free Press, called this week “TGIF: Be (my limestone) mine.”

→ And what of the Jews: It hasn’t exactly been a good week for my tribe, and it’s probably the moment to admit I’ve started seeing a therapist. Let’s begin our session:

Georgetown Law planned to host a terrorist, Ribhi Karajah, to speak about “Palestinian Prisoners.” A member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a designated terror group, Ribhi was jailed for knowing about plans for a 2019 West Bank bombing and not stopping it (i.e., basically for being a member of PFLP). Now he’ll be feted on campus. Big Ribhi on campus! The bombing managed only to kill one Jewish teenager, though, so the honorary diploma is magna cum laude, not summa. It’s different.

The BBC has been covering the hostage releases in a curious way. Seeing the three starved Israeli hostages trotted across stage by Hamas, the BBC chyron read simply: “Concerns over appearance of hostages on both sides.” Or there’s this presenter on BBC Arabic speaking as the hostages were handed over to the Red Cross: “Of course, they are very precious to the Hamas fighters.” So very precious. Like little treasures who need to be chained to the furniture.

→ Being anti-cocaine is racist: The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, said last week that cocaine gets a bad rap only because it originates in Latin America. “Scientists have analyzed this,” he said. “Cocaine is no worse than whiskey.” Even the president of Colombia has adopted the follow the science mantra.

“If you want peace, you have to dismantle the business (of drug trafficking). It could easily be dismantled if they legalize cocaine in the world. It would be sold like wine.”

Cocaine sold like wine. I love it. I’ve never done cocaine myself—I already talk over people and think I’m the smartest person I’ve ever met. But the idea of a cocaine store next to the weed store next to the wine store is compelling. Each will have its own unique vibe. The wine store will have lots of oak barrels and a shop attendant slurring his words, the weed store will feature flashing neon schizophrenia-inducing lights, and the cocaine store will be full of items that make finance bros feel safe (stacks of Patagonia quarter-zips, Top-Siders). Imagine taking cocaine and having to pretend you can tell the difference, “Is this a 2024? I can really sense the terroir in the back of my throat. Is this from the University of Arizona region?” As AI takes all our jobs, people will need little activities. Coke’s a hobby. . . .

→ Chicken nuggets are essential: I swear to god these are true stories I’m about to tell you from one single week in the UK, both reported in The Telegraph.

An Albanian criminal’s deportation was halted after an immigration tribunal found that it would be “unduly harsh” in part because it would force his 10-year-old child to eat foreign chicken nuggets. The kid has a distaste for the “type of chicken nuggets that are available abroad,” a distaste that a judge decided should allow his father to remain in the UK. That is real. It is that easy not to be deported. You can just say you’ve gotten used to the fast food where you are (which, to be fair, was an argument I tried to use to remain in California).

Also real: A Pakistani man jailed on charges of sex offenses against children avoided deportation after a judge found it would be “unduly harsh” for his children “to be without their father.” The children need to be. . . near their dad. . . a pedophile.

At this point, UK policy is just that no one is ever deported. It’s a little island, and you can do what you want with it. These chicken nugget justifications are beneath us all.

→ U.S. pays for all sides of the war: Now that USAID has been laid bare by the boys of DOGE, more strange facts about its spending are coming to light. In Gaza, USAID seems to have been basically a group committed to fighting against Israel, so we were essentially funding both sides of the war. Exciting!

USAID sent money to organizations whose leaders promoted or were tied to various terrorist groups. Like: Six days before October 7, USAID awarded $900,000 to a Gaza charity that the son of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was involved with. USAID also funded a Gazan “educational and community center” controlled by an association whose leader once said that Jerusalem needed to be cleansed “from the impurity of the Jews.” (This is all from a great Free Beacon story.)

These sound like little numbers, but it adds up. In the aftermath of the war, USAID provided more than $2 billion for aid in Gaza, which was and is completely controlled by Hamas (the war’s gone great, why do you ask?). Samantha Power, who led USAID under Biden, reportedly tried to rewrite Biden adm

*Here’s a satirical sketch about the hostage release presented by an Israeli comedy show. Only Jews can make fun of their own suffering! (h/t: Malgorzata)

*Although Hamas is still formally the ruler of Gaza, I didn’t know that the land in Gaza is privately owned and can be sold to anyone. The WSJ asks,  “Trump want the U.S. to control Gaza. So, who owns it anyway.”  A few questions and their answers.

Who controls Gaza now?

Gaza is effectively run by Hamas militants, but the United Nations says it is unlawfully occupied by Israel. Most countries consider the war-torn Strip part of Palestine, which itself isn’t recognized as a state by the U.S., among others. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel doesn’t want to occupy Gaza at the end of the war, and he has praised Trump for what he said was creative thinking in proposing to relocate Palestinians from the Strip, something the U.N. has warned could contravene international law.

How would Trump take over?

Trump has offered few concrete details about his plans for Gaza, beyond saying the U.S. would invoke “United States authority” to control it. He has said that the U.S. wouldn’t buy Gaza or use American troops to take it, but that the U.S. should have long-term control to turn the Philadelphia-size territory into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

The nearly two million Palestinians living in Gaza would relocate to Jordan and Egypt in Trump’s vision. He has threatened to withhold aid from those countries if they refuse to take the displaced people, though he has since said such freezes wouldn’t be necessary.

Who owns the land in Gaza?

Because Gaza has changed hands so often, the legal framework governing individual ownership of the land is a knot of British, Egyptian and Palestinian laws. Some rules even date to when the area was under the control of the Ottoman Empire during the 400 years leading up to World War I.

Private individuals own as much as half of the land in Gaza, which can be freely bought or sold, according to a 2015 study of land ownership in the enclave by the Norwegian Refugee Council.

But more than one-third of that land is estimated to be unregistered because of difficulties, including establishing what is called a chain of ownership, and complex land laws and registration procedures, according to the study. Some owners in the past didn’t register land to avoid paying tax, it said.

Isn’t most of Gaza under rubble now?

Estimates vary, but the U.N. says about 70% of the structures in Gaza are either destroyed or damaged, including more than 245,000 housing units. Entire city blocks are flattened and Palestinians say their neighborhoods are unrecognizable, making working out who owns what and where even more challenging.

About 50 million tons of debris created during months of bombing are expected to take more than a decade to remove, and experts say it will take tens of billions of dollars to rebuild Gaza. The rubble also sits on top of hundreds of miles of Hamas-built tunnels that the Israeli military has tried to destroy, leaving a fragile demolition site both above and below ground.

What do international treaties say?

The U.N. says international law generally prohibits the forced displacement of people from land, but exceptions can be made for national security or public-order reasons, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. In those instances, the U.N. says, the people affected should be given the opportunity to challenge the decision and provide their consent. “Displacement should never be carried out in a manner that violates the rights to life, dignity, liberty and security of those affected,” according to the UNHCR.

I don’t know if the last bit applies to Israel, which forcibly moved all of its own people out of Gaza in 2005 before handing the territory over to the Palestinians. But I do know one thing: it would be unwise for any Jew or Israeli to buy Palestinian land. That is a capital crime in both Gaza and the West bank, so the seller would be executed.

*And, as they say at the end of each evening’s NBC News, “There’s good news tonight.” Here’s some from the AP’s “oddities” section:

A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters, ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring arrives.

Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart and rewards shoppers who could see higher prices, or possibly lose stores, if thefts continue. The car washes will be free.

“I don’t think everybody that steals is a bad person. Sometimes people are just down on their luck,” said Clothier, who was recently elected to Genesee County District Court. “But there’s going to be consequences when you break the law.”

Clothier told The Associated Press that he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for misdemeanor shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township, 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Detroit. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars at weekend events at that location in March and April.

The judge said Walmart is “on board” and will provide water and supplies. The company’s Arkansas headquarters didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment Friday.

Clothier said he was shocked to see the breadth of retail thefts when he joined the bench in January, adding that offenders were from all over Michigan and outside the state.

“It’s just crazy,” he said, noting he had 48 such cases on his docket one day.

“I think it will be humiliating to be out there washing cars if you see someone you know,” the judge said.

And shoplifters won’t be the only people up to their elbows in suds.

“I will be there washing cars with them,” Clothier said.

MORE SENTENCES LIKE THIS ARE NEEDED!

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is full of half-baked ideas:

Hili: We have to change the paradigm.
A: Which paradigm and change it to which one?
Hili: That remains to be discussed.
In Polish:
Hili: Trzeba zmienić paradygmat.
Ja: Który paradygmat i na jaki paradygmat?
Hili: To jest jeszcze do dyskusji.
And in Berlin, Stupsi is cold and sleepy: “Stupsi hat eine aufregende Nacht im Berliner Schnee verbracht. Den gibt es hier nicht so oft. Stupsi sagt: “Der Schnee ist magisch. Aber die Kälte macht mich müde.”

Translation: “Stupsi spent an exciting night in the Berlin snow. It doesn’t happen that often here. Stupsi says, ‘The snow is magical, but the cold makes me tired.”

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

From Things with Faces:

An owl-like cat from Meow:

From Cat Memes (look for the photobomb):

Masih’s appeal to Germany’s foreign minister Baerbock (shown to the left).  Jamshid Sharmahd was an Iranian-German engineer abducted from Dubai by Iran and subsequently executed.

From JKR. Sometimes biological sex is useful to know.

From Malcolm; a cat charger filled to capacity:

From my feed:

From my BlueSky feed, a lovely frog:

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:

A well known Polish athlete was shot in the camp, apparently for trying to smuggle a letter out. He was only 33. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3…

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-02-15T11:29:20.602Z

Two from Matthew. Paul Noth is the cartoonist in the first one.

Paul Noth said it.

— (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2025-02-14T18:34:48.562Z

And an “absolute unit”.  Wait for it, as the Brits say.

Absolute unit

— Soxic (@soxic.bsky.social) 2025-02-12T20:49:29.143Z

Friday: Hili dialogue

February 14, 2025 • 6:45 am

Welcome to the tail end of the week and, at sundown, the beginning of Cat Sabbath. It’s Friday, February 14, and VALENTINE’S DAY. Be sure to smooch and give gifts to your special someone.  Here’s Simon’s Cat trying to get a valentine (we haven’t had Simon’s Cat on in a while):

And there’s a Google Doodle (click to see where it goes):

Finally a Valentine sent to Francis Crick by Odile Crick, his wife. This is courtesy of Matthew, who’s writing a Crick biography:

A Valentine’s Day card from Odile Crick to Francis.

— (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2025-02-14T10:10:09.402Z

And a Valentine’s section of today’s Tablet. Read how Eric Segal modeled the heroine of Love Story (Jenny, played by Ali MacGraw) on a Jewish girl (Janet Sussman) who did NOT die:

It’s also Frederick Douglass Day (it’s thought he was born on this day in 1818), International Book Giving Day, Library Lovers Day, Race Relations Day, and National Cream-Filled Chocolates Day.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the February 14 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Oy! The Senate has confirmed RFK Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services. McConnell was the sole Republican to dissent:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the vaccine skeptic and former presidential candidate who fled his family’s party and threw his “medical freedom” movement behind President Trump, has been confirmed by the Senate as the nation’s next health secretary.

The vote, 52 to 48, capped a remarkable rise for Mr. Kennedy and a curious twist in American politics. He was confirmed by a Republican Senate, without a single Democratic vote, in a chamber where his father, Robert F. Kennedy, and his uncles, John F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy, all held office as Democrats.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a polio survivor and the former Republican leader, voted no, the lone Republican to oppose Mr. Kennedy. Mr. McConnell issued a searing statement explaining his vote.

“Individuals, parents and families have a right to push for a healthier nation and demand the best possible scientific guidance on preventing and treating illness,” it read in part. “But a record of trafficking in dangerous conspiracy theories and eroding trust in public health institutions does not entitle Mr. Kennedy to lead these important efforts.”

I still think RFK Jr. is the worst of all the execrable choices Trump made to fill out his administration. We’re all gonna die of measles and polio!

*A WSJ news article says that Trump wants to be seen as a peacemaker, regardless of the cost:

President Trump is rewriting the accepted playbook for solving the world’s intractable conflicts—offering talks to settle the Ukraine war with concessions to Russia and crushing hopes for a Palestinian state with his plan to resettle Gaza’s entire population.

His blueprints for both places are rejections of U.S. policy going back decades, a stark assertion that Washington’s conventional answers to these seemingly interminable clashes have been tried and have failed.

To Trump, Gaza and Ukraine look much the same. Thousands die needlessly. Cities lie in ruins. Ancient hatreds fuel endless fighting.

His solutions for Gaza and Ukraine look alike in some ways as well.

They stem from his belief in his powers of persuasion, a stated yearning to be seen as a deal-cutting peacemaker of historic significance, and a penchant for imposing decisions on weaker countries, including allies, said analysts who have studied both conflicts.

“What he wants in both situations is quiet, peace, a deal,” said William Wechsler, the senior director of the Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council, a think tank. “Less American engagement and less American risk.”

A question is whether Trump might now try his game plan elsewhere, such as in Taiwan, where fears are growing that the president’s desire for a quick trade deal with Beijing might inspire him to use the democratic island as a bargaining chip.

In all of these cases Trump is in fact making things worse with his precipitous pronouncements.  Will “cleaning out Gaza” really bring peace? No, though deposing Hamas is essential for that.  The problem right now seems intractable, but he’s proposed no viable solution (the Palestinian Authority ruling Gaza is not one.)  If he gives part of Ukraine (on top of Crimea, that is) to Russia, he’s caved in to a dictator who simply has invaded the country of one of our allies. Here, too, the situation looks grim, as Ukrainians will see still of their land being handed over to Putin. And as for Taiwan, well, this is a staunch U.S. ally, and I would be upset if mainland China tries to take over Taiwan (they’ve hinted darkly that this will happen in two years) and turn a democracy into a Chinese-controlled moiety with many freedoms curbed.

*Over at the Free Press, Nellie Bowles (her TGIF is tomorrow) writes on “The triumph of the plastic straw,” with the subtitle, “They took our straws and made us drink from mushy paper. “And it was all based on a 9-year-old’s bad math.” Now I’m not an expert on the dangers that plastic straws pose to the environment, but Nellie thinks it’s minimal:

The biggest environmentalist craze of my generation started in 2011 with Vermont 9-year-old Milo Cress cooking up an arbitrary number for how many plastic straws Americans used daily. This 9-year-old figured it was so many. He says he called up straw manufacturers and calculated 500 million a day. Boom, big number, good number. The mainstream media was off to the races. That 500 million a day number was cited in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. Suddenly the most important thing we could do for the environment—for our children!—was ban plastic straws.

States and cities passed laws against them. California banned them from restaurants outright in 2018. New York, in 2021, changed the law so the only straws on display were paper (you were allowed to ask for plastic). Official fact sheets from Ron DeSantis’s state of Florida instruct Floridians to “Skip the Straw,” citing the 500 million figure. Did anyone question the basis of this?

Get them out of coffee shops! No plastic straw in your Diet Coke. If we could all suffer a little bit by, instead, holding a piece of paper in our mouths for 20 minutes each day, then maybe we could redeem the environment. The paper straw could do something. The paper straw said “I’m willing to be uncomfortable and sacrifice for a bigger purpose.” It said: We Believe the Science.

But a few small issues: No one ever liked the paper straws. They don’t work. The 500 million number was fake. And banning straws doesn’t really do much of anything for the environment at all.

Well, plastic straws are back, baby, an easy win for Trump, who this week signed an executive order declaring: “Plastic straws are often replaced by paper straws, which are nonfunctional, use chemicals that may carry risks to human health, are more expensive to produce than plastic straws, and often force users to use multiple straws. Additionally, paper straws sometimes come individually wrapped in plastic, undermining the environmental argument for their use.”

Nellie engages in a bit of whataboutery, saying that the plastic-straw issue is “a great distraction from the chart below—which is the thing actually worth tackling:

She adds:

There’s an article this week in New York magazine taking down moderate liberals, and it’s very beautifully written (the writer won a Pulitzer Prize for her prose). The argument is that by rejecting progressive rage but also conservative rage, the centrist is nothing but a scold, with no real politics of her own beyond wanting America to “go back to bed.” Basically: There is no middle ground. You’re either banning straws or you’re in total climate change denial and hate turtles. Those are your options, and to dither somewhere between is to lack a spine.

Passion is what matters, the progressive activist says. Paper straws do everything that we need politics to do, which is a lot socially and technically nothing politically, but that’s okay! Fight back! At least we stand for something, the movement says. At least we’re not quibbling. At least we have real opinions!

But quibblers can have opinions. My opinion is that mandating paper straws was dumb. And the movement that thinks paper straws are progress while refusing to talk about global pollution is dumb. The movement that ties something as important as environmentalism to something as annoying as a paper straw is dumb. That the environmentalists gave Trump such an easy and popular win? You guessed it, that’s a pretty dumb move.

But can’t we do both things as once?

*In a WSJ op-ed, physicist Lawrence Krauss reports that DEI does indeed seem to be waning, at least in science.

I thought the academic DEI juggernaut was unstoppable. Then, a week after President Trump’s inauguration, I got an email with an announcement from the Department of Energy: “The Office of Science is immediately ending the requirement for Promoting Inclusive and Equitable Research (PIER) Plans in any proposal submitted. . . . Reviewers will not be asked to read or comment on PIER Plans. Selection decisions will not take into consideration the content of PIER Plans or any reviewer comments on PIER Plans.”

PIER plans, which the Biden administration instituted in 2022, required every grant application to “describe the activities and strategies of the applicant to promote equity and inclusion as an intrinsic element to advancing scientific excellence.” In the words of the announcement, “The complexity and detail of a PIER Plan is expected to increase with the size of the research team and the number of personnel to be supported.”

The end of the PIER Plan and other DEI-related requirements is seismic. The major source of physical science research support in the country has sent a message to universities: Stick to science. It may be the death knell of what appeared to be an invulnerable academic bureaucracy that has been impeding the progress of higher education and research for at least a decade.

The massive, expensive and overwhelming DEI infrastructure at universities is motivated in large part by the need to respond to and comply with regulations associated with federal support of research and education. The DOE’s Office of Science is the single biggest funder of physical sciences in the U.S. It provides support for university programs and oversees the 10 U.S. National Laboratories, which provide facilities used by university faculty across many disciplines.

Last year a colleague of mine and I used ChatGPT to examine all 12,065 awards made by the National Science Foundation and classified more than 1,000 of them, accounting for more than $675 million, as focused on DEI rather than science. And under Biden decrees, even science-focused grants were evaluated on DEI grounds.

Given the reach of the Office of Science, it is inevitable that the National Science Foundation will feel pressure to dismantle its massive DEI programming infrastructure, including its initiative, Includes—an acronym for Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoveries in Engineering and Science.

One could hope.  And the NIH, the largest funder of biomedical research in the world, should do so as well. I’m not sure what kind of DEI program they have, but I’m betting they have something not called DEI that aims to elevate identity above merit.

*And another Free Press article by Frannie Block, a more serious one, is on the illiteracy of graduating students, “A high schooler graduated with a 3.4 GPA.  He couldn’t even read.” It’s frightening:

When William graduated high school in 2024 in Clarksville, Tennessee, he couldn’t read the words on his diploma. Despite ending the school year with a 3.4 GPA, he couldn’t even spell his own name.

That’s why William sued his school district, claiming it had left him “illiterate” and that he was denied the “free appropriate public education” guaranteed to all students by federal law.

On February 3, a federal appeals court sided with William, concluding that he was “capable of learning to read,” and agreeing with his claim that his lack of education had caused him “broad irreparable harm.”

William, whose last name is listed only as A. in the suit, first enrolled in the Clarksville-Montgomery County school district in 2016 when he was in the fifth grade. For the next seven years, he scored mostly in the bottom first, second, or third percentiles of his reading fluency assessment tests compared to national standards. In 2019 and 2020, he scored in the bottom ninth and sixth percentiles, respectively. But, a year before he graduated, his reading had regressed so much he was scoring below the first percentile.

That same year, William took a simple writing test asking him to spell 31 words in three minutes. According to his suit, he couldn’t spell half of them, including the word school, which he wrote as shcool.

Here’s the exhibit: the writing test. And remember, this is when he was a junior in high school:

More:

. . . . when William was at home with his schoolwork, he relied on AI programs like ChatGPT and Grammarly to complete his assignments for him, according to the judge who ruled on his suit last week. As a result, William continued to achieve high marks on his classwork throughout his entire four years of high school, even though teachers knew he was illiterate. [he was later diagnosed with dyslexia].

Part of the cause of this is pervasive grade inflation, which accounts for why William had a 3.4 grade average (that’s a B+ or A-).  But, in the end, William won a 2023 lawsuit, with the judge ruling that he was entitled to 883 hours of “compensatory education.” But his parents filed yet another suit:

Meanwhile, William’s family has launched a second suit in federal court, arguing that his school district violated the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The suit also claims the school’s practice of “inflating grades and the graduation track artificially” served to boost the district’s “graduation statistics with the state,” at the expense of students like William.

Grade inflation is pervasive everywhere in America, from grade school through college. Even three years ago, the average GPA at Harvard was 3.8. When it hits 4.0 (all A’s), everybody becomes pretty much the same as grades become useless for assessing merit.

*As I predicted (or so I recall), Hamas backed down on its claim that it wouldn’t release three hostages on Saturday, as was agreed, and Israel threatened to resume the war if they didn’t, moving IDF troops south to the border. Hamas gave in (sort of):

Hamas on Thursday signaled that a crisis threatening to unravel the Gaza truce deal could be avoided, despite uncertainty over the number of hostages due to be released by the terror group on Saturday and conflicting reports over aid supplies entering the Strip.

Hamas said it was committed to implementing the deal, “including the exchange of prisoners according to the specified timeline,” but did not specify how many hostages would go free on Saturday, when three are scheduled to be released. President Donald Trump has demanded that “all” hostages be released by noon on Saturday.

Egypt’s state-aligned Extra News reported that Cairo and Doha had successfully “overcome obstacles,” citing an official source as saying that Israel and Hamas were now committed to implementing the deal.

Hamas on Thursday signaled that a crisis threatening to unravel the Gaza truce deal could be avoided, despite uncertainty over the number of hostages due to be released by the terror group on Saturday and conflicting reports over aid supplies entering the Strip.

Hamas said it was committed to implementing the deal, “including the exchange of prisoners according to the specified timeline,” but did not specify how many hostages would go free on Saturday, when three are scheduled to be released. President Donald Trump has demanded that “all” hostages be released by noon on Saturday.

Egypt’s state-aligned Extra News reported that Cairo and Doha had successfully “overcome obstacles,” citing an official source as saying that Israel and Hamas were now committed to implementing the deal.

The terror group said that mediators had promised to resolve issues preventing the continued flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, though a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied a Qatari report that mobile homes and heavy equipment were entering the Strip.

The Prime Minister’s Office called the Al Jazeera report, which claimed the mobile homes and earth-moving equipment would be allowed into the Strip on Thursday, “fake news.”

. . .Hamas said it did not want the deal to collapse, though it rejected what it called the “language of threats and intimidation” from Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump, who have said the ceasefire should end if the hostages are not released.

“Accordingly, Hamas reaffirms its commitment to implementing the agreement as signed, including the exchange of prisoners according to the specified timeline,” the terror group said in a statement, adding that both Egyptian and Qatari mediators would press on with efforts “to remove obstacles and close gaps.”

“There is no basis for it,” the statement said, with Netanyahu spokesman Omer Dostri following up a short while later with a clarification that “there is no entry of mobile homes or heavy equipment into Gaza, and there is no coordination for it.”

Egyptian security sources told Reuters they expected heavy construction equipment to enter on Thursday and if that happened then Hamas would release hostages on Saturday as scheduled.

This morning’s Jerusalem Post says the hostages to be released are Sasha Trufanov (29), Sagui Dekel-Chen (36) and Yair Horn (46).  This probably means that the remaining female and infant hostages are dead.

You can read more at the Wall Street Journal, which says that “Israel and Hamas have agreed to resolve a dispute that threatened to derail their fragile cease-fire after humanitarian equipment began entering Gaza on Thursday and Hamas backed off on a threat that it wouldn’t release any more Israeli hostages.”

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili demonstrates that she is sentient:

Hili: I’m just thinking.
A: What about?
Hili: Whatever comes to my mind.
In Polish:
Hili: Tak sobie myślę.
Ja: O czym?
Hili: Co mi do głowy przychodzi.

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

From Things With Faces, a sky demon:

From My Cat is an Asshole:

From America’s Cultural Decline into Idiocy, rapper and actor Jaden Smith:

From Masih:

Imane Khelif appears to be a biological male, almost certainly with XY chromosomes and male gonads, who won the gold medal in women’s welterweight boxing in the Olympics. He’s fighting back against the International Boxing Association’s worries about men fighting women, which it expressed in a statement that mentions Khelif:

Imane Khelif, who won Paris Olympics boxing gold amid a gender-eligibility row, has accused the International Boxing Association of making “false and offensive” accusations after it launched legal action against the IOC for allowing her to compete. The IBA announced in a statement on Monday it was filing a complaint with Swiss Attorney General Stefan Blatter against the International Olympic Committee, citing safety concerns over gender eligibility. Similar complaints are to be filed in France and the U.S..

From Luana. This book was okay, then banned by Amazon, and then reinstated. Here’s what Wikipedia says about it:

When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment is a book critical of modern transgender rights and certain treatments for gender dysphoria, written by the socially conservative political philosopher Ryan T. Anderson and published by Encounter Books in 2018. The book focuses on the cultural and political debates surrounding transgender identity, with a particular focus on criticizing what the author describes as “transgender ideology“.

From the author:

From Malcolm; Oh, this poor kitty!

Two from my feed:

There’s a thread of revealed magic here. Here’s one:

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I retweeted:

A 16-year-old Czech girl died in the camp. Nobody will ever know how her life would have turned out had the Nazis not killed her.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-02-14T11:08:30.278Z

Two posts by Dr. Cobb. A good question, and some people tried to answer. But yes, we’re the only primate with a chin:

Why do humans, uniquely, have chins? No one knows.

— (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2025-02-13T13:56:10.714Z

I won’t even try to explain this one:

Popularity of the first name Coral correlates with The number of biological technicians in Missouri (r=0.776)

— Daily Spurious Correlation 🤖 (@dailycorrelation.bsky.social) 2025-02-13T13:32:54.584Z

Thursday: Hili dialogue

February 13, 2025 • 7:00 am

Welcome to Thursday, February 13, 2025, and National Cheddar Day. May I recommend Montgomery Farmouse Cheddar, aged 24 months and sold at Neal’s Yard Dairy in London? It would make an awesome ploughman’s lunch along with a pint of Timothy Taylor Landlord. Le fromage:

It’s also National Tortellini Day (cultural appropriation, but a good pasta), International Self Love Day (!; otherwise known as Trump Day), National Crab Rangoon Day, Kiss Day, and National Italian Food Day (more cultural appropriation).

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the February 13 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to predict that the war between Hamas and Israel may start up again if Hamas doesn’t return more hostages on Saturday. From the WSJ:

Just over three weeks into a cease-fire that has brought the Gaza Strip relative peace, Israel and Hamas are already moving toward a return to war.

The combatants have backed each other into a corner, with Hamas saying it won’t release hostages until it gets more humanitarian supplies, and Israel saying it will hit pause on the agreement and start fighting again if the militant group doesn’t let the hostages go free.

President Trump, who helped close the deal before taking office, added a volatile new variable by laying down an ultimatum of his own, demanding that Hamas release all the hostages it holds, not just the ones due to be freed this week under the deal’s prescribed stages. The comments have emboldened Israel and alarmed Hamas.

This three-way game of chicken will come to a head on Saturday when the next round of releases is scheduled. Israel’s military has ordered more troops to Gaza and told them to prepare to fight. After Trump’s ultimatum, Hamas gave orders to its fighters in Gaza to go into hiding, revert to safer communication and prepare for combat, people familiar with the matter said.

Whatever the result, the road ahead will be difficult. The escalating dispute foreshadows a much more serious crisis that mediators expect to build over the next three weeks before the first phase of the truce ends.

Mediators believe the current crisis can be resolved and Saturday’s exchange of hostages for prisoners can be salvaged. They said the fact Hamas threatened not to release the hostages well in advance of the scheduled exchange indicates that the militant group was hoping to work it out and not spark a crisis.

. . . . David Meidan, a former senior Israeli official in the Mossad intelligence agency, said that he believed Hamas wants to maintain the agreement and proceed to phase two. Meidan secured the 2011 deal with Hamas that freed Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit from captivity in Gaza. He said the militant group may have miscalculated how its ultimatum would escalate.

“I think Hamas understands it doesn’t have much to gain from the continuation of the war, and what it wants most is to end the war,” Meidan said. “It has few alternatives.”

Indeed it doesn’t. But there will come a point when all the hostages will be released, and then Hamas has nothing to gain and everything to lose by staying in power, for they’ll be destroyed. Somehow they should be “persuaded” to surrender unconditionally, but then who will run Gaza. Right now that problem seems intractable, but Hamas will only lose more face when they start returning coffins instead of living hostages. There will be no ceremonies or “graduation certificates” then.

*It looks like Trump has finally gotten around to his campaign promise to end the war in Ukraine and, as I suspected, he probably wants Ukraine to give away part of its territory to Russia (Trump appears to love Putin!).  The two just had a phone call:

President Trump said on Wednesday that he had a “lengthy and highly productive phone call” with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, characterizing it as the beginning of a negotiation to end the war in Ukraine.

It was the first confirmed conversation between the two men during Mr. Trump’s second term, coming as Mr. Trump has made clear to advisers that finding a U.S.-backed end to war that Russia began is a priority for his administration.

“We discussed Ukraine, the Middle East, Energy, Artificial Intelligence, the power of the Dollar, and various other subjects,” Mr. Trump wrote in a social media post.

And defense secretary Pete Hegseth implied that Ukraine will have to resign itself to giving up even more of its land (remember, they lost Crimea):

A return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is “an unrealistic objective” and an “illusionary goal” in the peace settlement between Ukraine and Russia that President Trump wants to accomplish, Pete Hegseth, the U.S. defense secretary, said on Wednesday at a meeting of countries supporting Ukraine.

In his first meeting that included NATO and Ukrainian defense ministers, Mr. Hegseth told them that Mr. Trump “intends to end this war by diplomacy and bringing both Russia and Ukraine to the table.” But for Ukraine to try to regain all of the territory Russia has seized since 2014, as it insists it must do, “will only prolong the war and cause more suffering,” he said.

“We will only end this devastating war and establish a durable peace by coupling allied strength with a realistic assessment of the battlefield,” he said.

And from the WaPo:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday called Ukraine’s desire to recover all of the territory it has lost to Russia since 2014 an “unrealistic objective,” pledging that the Trump administration will pursue peace negotiations to end the two nations’ war while pointedly shaping them at the outset.

And that, to me, means that Ukraine will have to give up some of its land in the eastern part of the country to Russia. I don’t know if Trump can broker some kind of peace, but I also wonder if the Ukrainian people want anybody to broker a pece agreement!

*This is from a video I saw when I woke up, but I didn’t believe it. But it appears that the verbal claims were indeed made, though whether these nurses actually killed Israelis has yet to be determined (click headline to read the NY Post article, whose claims have been verified on other sites; h/t Williams):

Two Sydney nurses have been stood down after disturbing footage emerged of the pair saying they would “kill” and refuse to treat Israeli patients.

It’s understood the clip, which showed two workers from Bankstown Hospital wearing New South Wales Health uniforms, was filmed during a live stream on Tuesday night.

The video shows the pair speaking to a popular Jewish influencer in Israel.

During the conversation, the man who claims to be a doctor tells the influencer: “I’m gonna be really honest with you … you actually got really, really beautiful eyes, but I’m so upset that you’re Israeli, like eventually you’re going to get killed.”

“Why do you think I’m going to get killed?” the influencer asks, before the female nurse interjects.

“It’s Palestine’s country, not your country you piece of s–t,” she says.

“One day your time will come and you will die the most,” she continues before the video cuts out.

“Listen to me when your time comes, I want you to remember my face so you can understand that you will die the most disgusting death.”

Wanting to ask a question, the influencer begins to say: “Let’s say an Israeli, God forbid …”

“I won’t treat them, I’ll kill them,” she interrupted. “Not God forbid, I hope to God.”

“You have no idea how many Israeli … dog came to this hospital and … ,” the man added, gesturing a knife through his neck.

“I literally sent them to Jahannam.”

Jahannam is the Arabic word for “hell”.

NSW police confirmed they are investigating the video, announcing Strike Force Pearl, which investigates anti-Semitic attacks, has taken carriage of the investigation.

“NSW Health, believe they have identified the individuals involved and are currently assisting detectives with their investigation,” a NSW police spokesperson said in a statement.

Here’s the video contained within a news report:

One thing is for sure, neither of these nurses will ever get another medical job again. Still, the degree of antisemitism in Australia surprises me, but whether these people broke the law by endangering Israeli patients needs to be investigated. If they did, it’s murder or manslaughter (I don’t know Australian law.)

*Tulsi Gabbard has squeaked through the Senate as National Intelligence Director on a straight party-line vote:

The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman turned Trump supporter, to serve as President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence.

The Republican-led Senate confirmed Gabbard by a party-line vote of 52 to 48 after a handful of GOP skeptics said she had assuaged their earlier concerns about her views on the acquisition and protection of classified intelligence, and about her past conciliatory approach to U.S. adversaries. Only one Republican, the former Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (Kentucky) — one of the last sitting GOP lawmakers who has exhibited a willingness to buck Trump — voted against Gabbard’s confirmation.

Gabbard, 43, who represented Hawaii for eight years in Congress, has committed to implementing Trump’s desire for cuts at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) as part of his administration’s larger quest to slash government bureaucracy and spending.Republicans have argued in recent weeks that Congress designed the ODNI to be a “lean” organization when it was created in the aftermath of 9/11 to be a conduit and coordinator for the United States’ myriad intelligence collection services. Since then, they say, it has become bloated.

Gabbard has pledged to provide Trump with honest, unvarnished intelligence assessments, as her job mandates. But the former Democrat and Iraq War veteran also has a long track record of controversial views that have put her at odds with the U.S. intelligence community and sets up a test for how well she will be received by career intelligence agents.

She drew tough questions from members of both parties during a tense confirmation hearing last month. Several Republicans interrogated her support for Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor indicted on espionage charges after he leaked classified information; her sympathetic comments about hostile regimes in Russia and Syria; and her opposition to a government surveillance program, known as Section 702, that intelligence officials say is critical to national security.

“Entrusting the coordination of the intelligence community to someone who struggles to acknowledge” the severity of threats posed by Russia and China and by intelligence leaks like Snowden’s “is an unnecessary risk,” McConnell said in a statement following the vote. “So is empowering a DNI who only acknowledged the value of critical intelligence collection authorities when her nomination appeared to be in jeopardy,” he added, referring to Gabbard’s recently reversed stance on Section 702.

Shoot me if you must, but though I think there are better candidates, I’m not as worried about her as, say, RFK Jr. She’s a surfer, used to be a Democrat, is a Hindu (the first one in Congress), and is a Lt. Col. in the Army Reserve, having served in both Iraq and Kuwait. All of this makes me like her more. Now you can go after me because I don’t condemn her absolutely!

*The Free Press was there when Salman Rushdie, who lost one eye and the use of one hand during a knife attack, testified at the trial of his attacker: “Salman Rushdie faces his alleged attacker.” (Read Rushdie’s book, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, about the attack and his recovery; it’s very good.)

In meticulous detail, the Booker Prize–winning author testified about the maniacal knife assault he endured while onstage at an arts festival on August 12, 2022. The attack—and he was stabbed 15 times before Good Samaritans in the audience subdued his assailant—left Rushdie’s then–75-year-old body punctured from his throat to his liver.

“It occurred to me, quite clearly, that I was dying,” the British American novelist methodically told the 16-person jury made up of rural New Yorkers. His alleged attacker, Lebanese American boxing enthusiast Hadi Matar, 27, sat impassively across from him, clad in a baggy, light blue dress shirt and oversized trousers. “And that was my predominant thought,” Rushdie added.

The stabbing cost Rushdie partial use of his left hand, along with his right eye. He wears a special pair of glasses, with a darkened lens covering the missing eye. At a dramatic high point of his testimony, Rushdie removed the spectacles to show the jury members exactly “what’s left.”

“It was a stab wound in my eye, intensely painful, after that I was screaming,” the Indian-born writer said. “A lake of blood, that was clearly my own blood. . . was spreading outwards.”

. . . .Rushdie’s alleged would-be assassin fascinates me, but he reveals little of himself through body language; he spends the proceedings sitting stoically at the defense table, occasionally taking notes on a yellow legal pad or appearing to nod off.

The exceptions—and they were significant—came as he entered court each day.

“Free Palestine. Free Palestine,” he told a phalanx of reporters in a soft voice as he came in on Monday. On Tuesday, the slogan was: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

. . . . U.S. officials have told The Free Press that the Iranian government, at the very least, appeared to incite Matar’s actions. While Tehran denied being behind Matar’s attack, circumstantial evidence points to a role for Tehran: The State Department sanctioned an Iranian organization, the 15 Khordad Foundation, shortly after the attack for repeatedly offering a payment to anyone who’d murder Rushdie. The bounty’s grown to $3.3 million, though no link to Matar was alleged.

Author Jay Solomon says that he’s been able to find out little about Matar, who is a cipher even to Rushdie, whose book tries to figure out what motivated the man to try to kill him.  He even has a long imaginary conversation (a quite good one!) with Matar near the end of Knife. 

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Andrzej are joking around:

Hili: What did Hannibal need the elephants for?
Andrzej: He wanted to ensure his place in Wikipedia.
In Polish:
Hili: Po co Hannibalowi były słonie?
Ja: Chciał sobie zapewnić miejsce w Wikipedii.

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

From Things With Faces: a cooking-oil elephant!

From My Cat is an Asshole; surely photoshopped but still good:

From The 2025 Darwin Awards!!!/Epic Fails!!!:

Masih and friends call out dictators:

From Cate; one that I retweeted:

From Simon, a screenshot (did the original disappear?)

From Luana:

Two tweets from my feed:

Sound up!

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I retweeted:

A 31-year-old Danish woman living in Norway was gassed upon arriving at Auschwitz, and so was her 4-year-old son.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-02-13T11:07:10.084Z

Two posts from Professor Cobb. First, Larry the Cat gets behind the Downing Street barriers:

Mornin Boss. Tracking went off piste a bit as I was trying to pet him when he stopped 😆

— Justin Ng (@justin-ng.bsky.social) 2025-02-11T12:57:29.156Z

I can’t vouch for this, but if it’s true it just verifies the status of the First Bullgoose Looney:

I had to check for myself to make sure this was real, and holy shit it is. How scarily unhinged American politics have become.www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c…

— Daniel Sohege (@danielsohege.bsky.social) 2025-02-11T17:27:51.605Z

 

Tuesday: Hili dialogue

February 11, 2025 • 6:45 am

Welcome to The Cruelest Day: Tuesday February 11, 2025, and National Peppermint Patty Day.  I can’t show a picture (copyright issues!) but here’s some information from Wikipedia, where you can find a drawing from the Peanuts strip:

Peppermint Patty is a fictional character featured in Charles M. Schulz‘s comic strip Peanuts. Her full name, very rarely used in the strip, is Patricia Reichardt. She is one of a small group in the strip who live across town from Charlie Brown and his school friends (although in The Peanuts Movie, Snoopy in Space, and The Snoopy Show she, Marcie, and Franklin live in the same neighborhood and attend the same school). She has freckles and “mousy-blah” hair, and generally displays the characteristics of a tomboy.

Charles M. Schulz modeled Peppermint Patty after a favorite cousin, Patricia Swanson, who served as a regular inspiration for Peanuts. Schulz had also named his earlier character Patty after Swanson, and he coined his well-known phrase “Happiness is a Warm Puppy” during a conversation with her in 1959. Swanson’s roommate Elise Gallaway served as the model for Peppermint Patty’s best friend Marcie. In later years, especially after lesbian groups began identifying with Peppermint Patty, Schulz downplayed the fact that the character was based on Swanson to protect her privacy.

In one interview, Schulz stated that he coined Peppermint Patty’s name after noticing a dish of peppermint patties in his house and deciding the name was so good that he should use it before another artist thought of the same joke. He created the character design to fit the name. Peppermint Patty debuted in the strip of August 22, 1966.  In 1972, Schulz introduced the character’s last name, Reichardt, which he borrowed from the last name of his secretary, Sue Reichardt, whose favorite character was Peppermint Patty.

It’s also Get out Your Guitar Day (I have a Martin that I no longer play), International Day of Woman and Girls in Science,  and National Latte Day. Here’s mine from yesterday (Puerto Rican coffee courtesy of Divy):

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the February 11 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Trump is about to intensify his trade war by levying tariffs on steel and aluminum from every country, including Canada and Mexico (article archived here):

President Trump is poised to move forward with sweeping tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum on Monday, re-upping a policy from his first term that pleased domestic metal makers, but hurt other American industries and ignited trade wars with allies on multiple fronts.

The 25 percent tariffs that the president said he would impose on foreign steel and aluminum will be welcomed by domestic steelmakers, who argue they are struggling to compete against cheap foreign metals. As they did during Mr. Trump’s first term, U.S. metal makers have been lobbying the administration for protection, and Trump officials agree that a strong domestic metal sector is essential for U.S. national security.

But the tariffs will invite plenty of controversy. They are likely to rankle America’s allies, like Canada and Mexico, who supply the bulk of U.S. metal imports. And they could incite retaliation on U.S. exports, as well as pushback from American industries that use metals to make cars, food packaging and other products. Those sectors will face significantly higher prices after the tariffs go into effect.

That’s what happened in Mr. Trump’s first term, when he slapped 25 percent tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum. While he and President Biden eventually ended up rolling back those tariffs on most major metal suppliers, they were often replaced with other trade barriers, like quotas. Studies have shown that while the measures helped U.S. metal makers, they ended up hurting the broader economy, because they raised prices for so many other industries.

And of course that’s what’s expected. Tariffs are no good for anybody, and ultimately the consumer pays the price. Further, among his other unconstitutional acts, the NYT reports that Trump is contemplating running for a third term!:

Just eight days after he won a second term, Mr. Trump — whose supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to prevent Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory from being certified — mused about whether he could have a third presidential term, which is barred by the Constitution.

Since then, he has floated the idea frequently. In public, he couches the notion of staying in office beyond two terms as a humorous aside. In private, Mr. Trump has told advisers that it is just one of his myriad diversions to grab attention and aggravate Democrats, according to people familiar with his comments. And he has made clear that he is happy to be past a grueling campaign in which he faced two assassination attempts and followed an aggressive schedule in the final weeks.

The third-term gambit could also serve another purpose, political observers noted: keeping congressional Republicans in line as Mr. Trump pushes a maximalist version of executive authority with the clock ticking on his time in office.

The man is insane! (But we knew that already.) This, like the prohibition of birthrights, is destined to sink like a lead balloon. The Supreme Court wouldn’t allow anything like this, for it’s a clear violation of the Consitution.

*The WSJ reports that, in violation of international law, Ukrainian prisoners of war are now subject to unlimited violence  and torture in Russian prisons, with no restrictions on what can be done to them.

In the weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, the head of St. Petersburg’s prisons delivered a direct message to an elite unit of guards tasked with overseeing the influx of prisoners from the war: “Be cruel, don’t pity them.”

. . . Those meetings set in motion nearly three years of relentless and brutal torture of Ukrainian prisoners of war. Guards applied electric shocks to prisoners’ genitals until batteries ran out. They beat the prisoners to inflict maximum damage, experimenting to see what type of material would be most painful. They withheld medical treatment to allow gangrene to set in, forcing amputations.

Three former prison officials told The Wall Street Journal how Russia planned and executed what United Nations investigators have described as widespread and systematic torture. Their accounts were supported by official documents, interviews with Ukrainian prisoners and a person who has helped the Russian prison officials defect.

. . . . Pavel Afisov, who was taken prisoner in the city of Mariupol in the initial months of the war, was among the first Ukrainian prisoners detained in Russia. For 2½ years, the 25-year-old was moved from prison to prison in Russia before being released in October of last year.

He said beatings were the worst when he was transferred into new prisons. After arriving at a penitentiary in Russia’s Tver region, north of Moscow, he was led by guards into a medical examination room and ordered to strip naked. They shocked him repeatedly with a stun gun while shaving his head and beard.

When it was over, he was told to yell “glory to Russia, glory to the special forces” and then ordered to walk to the front of the room—still naked—to sing the Russian and Soviet national anthems. When he said he didn’t know the words, the guards beat him again with their fists and batons.

The violence served a purpose for the Russian authorities, according to the former guards and human-rights advocates: making them more malleable for interrogations and breaking their will to fight. Prison interrogations were sometimes aimed at extracting confessions of war crimes or gaining operational intelligence from prisoners who had little will to resist after they suffered extreme brutality.

The former guards described a staggering level of violence directed at Ukrainian prisoners. Electric shockers were used so often, especially in showers, that officers complained about them running out of battery life too fast.

One former penitentiary system employee, who worked with a team of medics in Voronezh region in southwestern Russia, said prison guards beat Ukrainians until their police batons broke. He said a boiler room was littered with broken batons and the officers tested other materials, including insulated hot-water pipes, for their ability to cause pain and damage.

The guards, he said, intentionally beat prisoners on the same spot day after day, preventing bruises from healing and causing infection inside the accumulated hematoma. The treatment led to blood poisoning and muscle tissue would rot. At least one person died from sepsis, the officer said.

Many of the guards enjoyed the brutality and often bragged about how much pain they had caused prisoners, he said.

Well, this is close to how the Nazis treated Soviet prisoners of war, though it’s not quite as bad (the Germans often shot them or starved them to death). But it’s a war crime, and I doubt that Ukraine is doing anything like this.  Remember when Trump said he’d stop the war in Ukraine on “day 1” of his administration?

*Two piece of news from the Hamas/Israel war.  First, Hamas has suspended both the release of hostages and the cease-fire, blaming Israel for violating their agreement:

Hamas announced on its Telegram account on Monday that it is canceling the release of hostages on February 15 until further notice due to an Israeli violation.

Egyptian mediators fear that the statements will lead to a breakdown of negotiations. At the same time, Hamas told US mediators that the ceasefire was no longer in place due to Trump’s comments about displacing Palestinians.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said, following the announcement, that it has reached out to all countries mediating the agreement, demanding “swift assistance in finding an immediate and effective solution to restore the implementation of the deal.”

“We call on the Israeli government to refrain from actions that endanger the execution of the signed agreement and to ensure its continuation, securing the return of our 76 brothers and sisters,” the statement continued.

“The hostages are out of time, and they all must be rescued from this nightmare urgently,” the forum added.

They said they have officially contacted the government and the intelligence coordination unit to “clarify the situation and provide updates to all concerned families who fear for their loved ones’ fates.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is consulting with top security officials in light of Hamas’s announcement and intends to move the security cabinet meeting on Tuesday to the early morning hours.

One Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post that, in his view, Hamas did not attempt to sabotage the deal in its latest statement.

What is going on here? Hamas is complaining that Israel is not delivering enough goods to Gaza and not allowing Gazans to return to their homes in northern Gaza.  Neither claim is true: Gazas who go north and find their homes in ruins are simply heading south again.  Malgorzata suspects that this is a tactic that Hamas is using to try to wheedle more out of Israel than was agreed.  We will know on Saturday, if more hostages are not handed back to Israel, if Hamas is really  breaking the agreement. If so, then all hell may break loose.

*Also, the Palestinian Authority has stopped its “pay for slay” program (see Wikipedia article on the Palestinian “Martyr’s Fund”) which gives Palestinian prisoners in Israel (or Palestinians killed or injured while enacting terrorism money based on how many Jews they have killed or tried to kill (not a lot of people know about this).

Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas issued an order to cancel laws and regulations related to paying financial allocations to the families of Palestinians linked with terrorist activity, known as “pay for slay,” on Monday, according to Palestinian Authority state media WAFA.

Additionally, the computerized cash assistance program, along with its database and financial allocations, will be transferred from the Ministry of Social Development to the Palestinian National Institution for Economic Empowerment, WAFA stated.

The amendments will allow all families previously benefiting from the former laws, regulations, and legislations to be subject to the same eligibility criteria as other families enrolled in social protection and welfare programs, according to WAFA.

The Palestinian Institution for Economic Empowerment will now assume full authority over all social protection and welfare programs in Palestine. It will be responsible for providing assistance to all Palestinian families in need, without discrimination, WAFA added.

Why are they eliminating this odious fund? Because Trump cut of all money to the Palestinian Authority, and Israel is withholding the pay-for-slay money from the prisoners. And, on top of that, there’s this:

This comes amid news that, on February, US courts will impose heavy fines – of about $200-300 million – on the Palestinian Authority – following lawsuits filed by families of terror victims. The PA is reportedly worried that this will lead to a financial crisis.

The Palestinian Authority arranged payment for families of dead Hamas terrorists amounting to a combined total of around $2.8 million, following the October 7 attacks, according to a report by the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), a nongovernmental organization and media watchdog group.

With U.S. aid cut off, and fines in the offing, Abbas is in danger of losing his Presidency for life (that would be a good thing.) To try to avoid bankrupting the West Bank, Abbas seems to have decided that he can sacrifice the pay-for-slay program.

*From The Free Press‘s daily newsletter (yesterday) about the Super Bowl. You’ll want to click on some of the links, but I’ve also put two of the videos below (one is in a tweet).

The Super Bowl isn’t just a game, it’s a cultural barometer—and sometimes, a crystal ball. In 2016, Beyoncé danced on the Super Bowl stage to her new song “Formation,” flanked by backup dancers dressed like Black Panthers. Controversy ensued, foreshadowing the great war over woke that would dominate for years to come.

This year, another vibe shift. The NFL changed the message stenciled into the end zone from “End Racism” to “Choose Love.” Trump showed up—the first sitting president to do so—and his favorite patriotic walk-on song, “God Bless the USA,” was heard playing in the stadium. Kendrick Lamar’s halftime performance featured a nagging Uncle Sam character (played by Samuel L. Jackson) who told the rapper not to be “too ghetto,” but when backup dancers dressed in red, white, and blue formed the American flag, it felt more patriotic than political, even though his song “Alright” is perhaps best known as BLM’s unofficial anthem. And in another patriotic move, Kendrick performed “Not Like Us,” his Grammy Award–winning diss track against one of America’s new trade war enemies—Canadian rapper Drake.

Speaking of Canada, even the ads couldn’t escape the vibe shift. In the wake of Trump’s proposed, but currently delayed, 25 percent tariffs against Canadian goods, the province of Ontario ran an ad reminding Americans that Canucks are important trade partners and good neighbors, eh bud?

Speaking of “bud,” Bud Light launched a new ad to convince America they aren’t woke anymore. Still reeling from its disastrous 2023 campaign with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, which spurred an effective conservative boycott, the beer’s new commercial featured Peyton Manning, Post Malone, and Shane Gillis—a comic who was infamously fired from Saturday Night Live in 2019 for affecting a Chinese accent on a podcast. (Read Anson Frericks’ great essay on the Bud Light saga.)

Bud Light wasn’t the only company with a subtle rebrand. After a backlash last year over their support for trans women participating in female sports, Nike launched a new ad putting female athletes front and center. The tagline: You can’t win, so win. Well, maybe they can’t win because they’re competing against biological males, Nike. Still, the ad is about female sports and features only female athletes, which is radical conservatism by Nike’s standards.

The Nike ad (note the FP’s comment) is among the tweets below, along with a counter-ad by women objecting to trans-identified males competing in women’s sports.  Here’s the Bud Light commercial:

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Szaron are in the kitchen, closely watching Andrzej:

Szaron: What is he doing?
Hili: I don’t know, but it’s not what we are waiting for.
In Polish:
Szaron: Co on robi?
Hili: Nie wiem, ale nie to, na co czekamy.

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

From Things With Faces. This spud is saying, “Don’t chop me up!”:

From Cat Memes:

From @secretsoftheoccult:

Masih posted this 2½-minute video Twitter post about Iranian women defying the hijab ban. Do watch it. I can’t embed it, but if you click on the screenshot you’ll go there.

I saw this ad, which apparently was meant to counter the Nike ad below. This is a good ad; I guess it was the Nike ad that “sucked”:

Here’s the ad (featuring famous women athletes urging other women to accomplish what they’re told they can’t):

From Luana. I can’t believe that encamping students (actually in buildings) at Bowdoin actually got punished!

From Brian, showing the speed of light going around different planets. Jupiter is BIG!

From Malcolm; revenge cat:

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:

Gassed upon arrival at the camp, this Italian Jewish girl was five.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-02-11T11:07:42.250Z

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. The first on reports a finding that flies PLAY! I must read the paper!

Our story about flies on carousels is out in @currentbiology.bsky.social! After formally engaging the fantastic @clarahowcroft.bsky.social and integrating helpful reviewer feedback, we present a more concise story with detailed behavioural quantification and cooler videos! doi.org/10.1016/j.cu…

— Wolf Huetteroth (@wolfhuette.bsky.social) 2025-02-10T16:03:38.157Z

A lovely duck photo taken by one of Matthew’s friends:

Teal on the River Otter estuary this morning

— Andrew Luck-Baker (@andrewl-b.bsky.social) 2025-02-09T16:04:52.872Z

Sunday: Hili dialogue

February 9, 2025 • 6:45 am

This is post 29,998!

Welcome to the Sabbath for goyische cats: it’s Sunday, February 9, 2025, and National Pizza Day.  Chicago the Mecca of American Pizzas, and the only pizza I deliberately seek out is the famous stuffed pizza, which cannot be duplicated in other cities—though they try. Here’s a video of one from Chicago, which still to me seems a bit understuffed:

It’s also Chocolate Day and National Toothache Day (does anybody get them any more?)

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the February 9 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*From the NYT’s editorial-board op ed, “Now is not the time to tune out” (archived here)

Don’t get distracted. Don’t get overwhelmed. Don’t get paralyzed and pulled into the chaos that President Trump and his allies are purposely creating with the volume and speed of executive orders; the effort to dismantle the federal government; the performative attacks on immigrants, transgender people and the very concept of diversity itself; the demands that other countries accept Americans as their new overlords; and the dizzying sense that the White House could do or say anything at any moment. All of this is intended to keep the country on its back heel so President Trump can blaze ahead in his drive for maximum executive power, so no one can stop the audacious, ill-conceived and frequently illegal agenda being advanced by his administration. For goodness sake, don’t tune out.

The actions of this presidency need to be tracked, and when they cross moral or legal lines, they need to be challenged, boldly and thoughtfully, with the confidence that the nation’s system of checks and balances will prove up to the task. There are reasons for concern on that front, of course. The Republican-led Congress has so far abdicated its role as a coequal branch of government, from allowing its laws and spending directives to be systematically cast aside to fearfully assenting to the president stocking his cabinet with erratic, unqualified loyalists. Much of civil society — from the business community, to higher education, to parts of the corporate media — has been disturbingly quiet, even acquiescent.

But there are encouraging signs as well. The courts, the most important check on a president who aims to expand his legally authorized powers and remove any guardrails, so far have held, blocking a number of Mr. Trump’s initiatives. States have also taken action, with several Democratic attorneys general suing over Mr. Trump’s attempts to freeze federal grant funding and end birthright citizenship and vowing to fight Elon Musk’s team’s access to federal payment systems containing personal information. State or local officials are also defending their laws in the face of federal immigration raids and fighting Mr. Trump’s executive order barring gender-affirming medical care for transgender children. And independent-minded journalism organizations have continued excellent reporting on the fire hose of excesses of these early days, bringing essential information to the public.

None of this is to say that Mr. Trump shouldn’t have the opportunity to govern. Seventy-seven million Americans cast ballots to put Mr. Trump back in the White House, and the Republican Party, now fully remade in service of the MAGA movement, holds majorities in both houses of Congress. Elections, it is often noted, have consequences. But is this unconstitutional overhaul of the American government — far more sweeping, haphazard and cruel than anything he campaigned on — really what those voters signed up for? To put America’s system of checks and balances, its alliances and its national security at risk? Because, beyond the bluster, that is what Mr. Trump, Mr. Musk and their supporters are doing.

They then mention areas to watch (see also the Sullivan excerpt below), including Musk’s takeover of the government, Trump’s bloviating about Greenland, Canada, and other allies, and the endangering of public health via staff reducation and bad appointments like RFK Jr. As I’ve always said, if you want to change things, there is always the ballot box, but not for two years. Right now there’s the legal system, and it’s operating as it should.

*One of the bad moves that Trump made (and yes, there were some good ones) is his apparent desire to dismantle U.S.A.I.D. (called “AID”) nearly completely.  Some people think that’s good, cherry-picking cases of misuse of foreign aid to justifying deep-sicing the whole agancy. But, unlike UNRWA, AID does a lot of good stuff, and dismantling it, unlike dismantling UNRWA, will endanger lives.  From the NYT:

For decades, sub-Saharan Africa was a singular focus of American foreign aid. The continent received over $8 billion a year, money that was used to feed starving children, supply lifesaving drugs and provide wartime humanitarian assistance.

In a few short weeks, President Trump and the South African-born billionaire Elon Musk have burned much of that work to the ground, vowing to completely gut the U.S. Agency for International Development.

“CLOSE IT DOWN!” Mr. Trump wrote on social media on Friday, accusing the agency of unspecified corruption and fraud.

A federal judge on Friday halted, for now, some elements of Mr. Trump’s attempt to shutter the agency. But the speed and shock of the administration’s actions have already led to confusion, fear and even paranoia at U.S.A.I.D. offices across Africa, a top recipient of agency funding. Workers were being fired or furloughed en masse.

As the true scale of the fallout comes into view, African governments are wondering how to fill gaping holes left in vital services, like health care and education, that until recent weeks were funded by the United States. Aid groups and United Nations bodies that feed the starving or house refugees have seen their budgets slashed in half, or worse.

By far the greatest price is being paid by ordinary Africans, millions of whom rely on American aid for their survival. But the consequences are also reverberating across an aid sector that, for better or worse, has been a pillar of Western engagement with Africa for over six decades. With the collapse of U.S.A.I.D., that entire model is badly shaken.

*The Times of Israel reports that three male hostages were released, but were not in good condition. One or two of them, however, did not know that members of their family had been killed. Moreover, Hamas once again stages a big show of the release, forcing each hostage to make a speech.

Three hostages abducted during the October 7, 2023, attack were released by Hamas on Saturday, with the men looking gaunt and unsteady on their feet as they were released by the terror group, 16 months after they were kidnapped from Kibbutz Be’eri and the Nova music festival.

Eli Sharabi, 52, Or Levy, 34, and Ohad Ben Ami, 56, all appeared extremely thin and frail, and while they were able to walk, seemed to be unsteady on their feet.

Sharabi and Levy were coming home to a tragic new reality — Sharabi’s wife and two teenage daughters were murdered on October 7, and Levy’s wife was also killed that day.

According to reports, Sharabi did not know that his wife and daughters had been killed. His mother and sister, who reunited with him on his arrival back in Israel, told him the terrible news, having prepared ahead of time for how to break it to him, the report says.

It was unclear if Levy had known about his wife.

Michal Cohen, the mother of Ben Ami, said she was devastated to see her son look so thin and unwell.

“He looks terrible. He is 57, but he looks ten years older. It is so sad for me to see him like this,” she said. “He looked like a skeleton.”

The three men were made to speak while on stage, carrying the now ubiquitous certificates of their release before they were handed over to the Red Cross. None of the hostages has been visited by the humanitarian organization while held captive.

Considered to be propaganda by the Hamas terror group, Israeli outlets have not reported what the men were made to say.

The Red Cross transported the freed hostages to IDF and Shin Bet forces inside Gaza, after which they were escorted out of the Strip to a military facility near the border to reunite with family members and undergo initial assessments by doctors and mental health officers.

In return for these three ill-treated hostages, Israel released a bunch of terrorists, some of them murderers:

Israel on Saturday freed 183 Palestinian prisoners, including some serving life sentences for terrorism, following the release of three hostages from Hamas captivity as part of the ongoing Gaza ceasefire deal.

Of the prisoners released, 18 were serving life sentences for deadly attacks on Israelis.

Those released included 111 Palestinians captured by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip throughout the war, while the remaining 72 prisoners were arrested before the Hamas invasion and slaughter in Israel on October 7, 2023.

70% of Israelis want to proceed with these exchanges, but I suspect that most of the remaining hostages are dead. I won’t second-guess the Israelis, but it does bother me that many of these released Palestinians will try to kill again, like Yahya Sinwar, a prisoner released years ago in a swap of a thousand Palestinians for a single Israeli soldier. Sinwary, serving a life sentence for murder, was released, went back to Gaza, and later engineered the October 7 massacre. And it’s now clear that the Israeli woman Shiri Bibas and her two small children, kidnapped along with the father Yarden, are dead. Yarden has since been released, but Hamas will not reveal the status of the remaining hostages. Since women and children were supposed to be released first, it looks as if Shiri, Yariel, and Kfir are no more. I don’t know why Israel could not force Hamas, as part of the deal, to release the status of all the hostages. But Israel probably asked, Hamas surely would refuse, and that’s that.

*Over at The Weekly Dish, Andrew Sullivan’s column is in two parts, called “Dick Cheney’s wet dream”, and “The Trans Lash and Backlash”. I’ll give a few paragraphs from each section. In the first, he denigrates Trump and Musk for preempting Congressional powers:

Unlike Bill Kristol, and like George Will, I have long held, in fact, that Article 1 is first for a reason. The branch of government with the most democratic legitimacy is the Congress, representing all of us, in our varied, complicated ways. The role of the president is merely to enforce the laws made by Congress in institutions created and funded by the legislature. If Congress has funded a government agency for certain reasons, for example, only the Congress can defund it. So a huge amount of Elon Musk’s manic destruction of the administrative state is thereby illegal on its face. Which means it almost certainly cannot last.

This is not to say that Musk hasn’t exposed predictable waste. Why are we surprised that our enlightened elites would use USAID for their pet ideological projects: $3.9 million to promote critical gender and queer theory in — checks notes — the western Balkans; $2.1 million to help the BBC “value the diversity of Libyan society” (is the British government funding insufficient?); $8.3 million for “USAID Education: Equity and Inclusion,” and $7.9 million to teach Sri Lankan journalists how to avoid “binary-gendered language.” Exposing this is fantastic — and could lead to real reform; but instantly shutting down whole agencies, freezing funding for others, laying off thousands and thousands, without any congressional approval, is the path to nowhere.

Part of me attributes this to the usual Trump shit-show. But part is also quite obviously an attempt to get these issues before the courts. The goal is to dramatically enhance even further the executive branch’s power, and to cede to it effective control of the federal purse. This would fundamentally alter the shape of American governance — and turn us into a fully illiberal democracy. Richard Hanania suggests an interesting analogy between what conservatives are currently trying to do with the executive branch and what liberals, beginning with the Warren court, tried to do with the judiciary: take one branch of government to overrule the rest on key policy matters, like abortion.

Donald Trump has always viewed his office as an elected monarch, and he has a mass movement that has explicitly declared and supported him as such. Musk sees himself as the monarch’s aide, and has no understanding of the Constitution at all, as far as I can tell. The role of the legislature, in this worldview, is to do whatever the president wants; and the role of the Court is to buttress presidential power. This has, alas, been the trend now for decades, with Democratic and Republican presidents, facilitated by the Congress’s sad abdication of so many of its inherent powers. But Trump and his Claremonsters want to take this to a whole new level of an elected dictatorship. There is nothing that would make Trump and Vance happier.

Until, of course, a Democrat is elected president.

And when things go politically bad, as they so often do these days, remember that in four years there will be a new President. We can only hope that it’s a smart Democrat, someone like Mayor Pete.

As for trans issues, Sullivan applauds some of them, like the sports issues, but says that the language is crude and some of it bespeaks a simply dislike of gender-nonconforming people:

Much worse is how the commander-in-chief described some trans people who have served their country with distinction. He says their gender identity

conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life. A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.

What an ugly, deplorable, and untrue thing to say. People who have come to terms with their gender identity — and I don’t mean the gender woo-woo babies and po-mo nutters who have done so much to muddy the waters, but actual grownup trans men and women — are telling the truth of their lives. How dare anyone — let alone a president — call that selfish or dishonorable?

This needless sneer is a reminder, if we needed one, that there has never been anyone as depraved or dishonorable as Donald Trump in the White House. I may agree with him on a few issues, and I’m not afraid to say so. That doesn’t mean he isn’t still every bit the monster he always has been.

Agreed!  Them’s strong words from a conservative, but Sullivan’s right. The words in Trump’s order are cruel and untrue.

*The National Review has an article with a title that many of us have thought about: “DEI in higher ed hasn’t been defeated. It’s just going underground” (article archived here). Although you’d think that Trump had largely killed DEI in higher education, it’s bouncing back like those inflatable rubber clowns I hit when I was a child. A lot of the evasion of DEI-elimination comes through simply changing names. North Carolina State University can stand for just about every major university these days:

With President Trump’s executive order banning diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the federal government, coupled with laws passed by several state legislatures targeting DEI in higher education, conservatives are celebrating significant victories. We appear to be at a turning point in the fight against DEI. However, as examples from my university illustrate, DEI has not been defeated — it has merely shifted tactics. Supporters of DEI have adapted to these new restrictions, ensuring that the influence of DEI is as pervasive as ever.

. . . . North Carolina State University [state elimination of DEI as a compelled-speech entity] responded to these policies by making surface-level changes designed to appear compliant while retaining its DEI infrastructure. Rather than abolishing the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity, the university renamed it the “Office of Institutional Equity and Equal Opportunity.” When it became clear that the term “equity” remained problematic, the office was renamed yet again, just two weeks later, to the “Office of Equal Opportunity.” Despite these changes, not a single staff position was eliminated, and the staff pages showing two different teams focusing on inclusion and equity just had the team titles removed. This pattern extended throughout the university. For instance, the main DEI employee in the College of Sciences, the “assistant dean for inclusive excellence,” simply had her title changed to “associate dean for college success and well-being.”

All of these staff members were originally hired to promote DEI, and their professional backgrounds are focused on DEI. It is highly unlikely that these individuals will now shift their focus to champion equal opportunity, given their previous commitment to promoting the opposite of equal opportunity — equity, or equality of outcomes, a central tenet of DEI ideology. This minimal restructuring is intentional: The chancellor, a vocal advocate for DEI, has ensured that all DEI personnel at the university remain in place. By simply renaming positions and offices rather than eliminating them, the university has enabled these staff to continue advancing DEI initiatives discreetly, despite the new board policy.

The College of Sciences Strategic Plan outlines four priorities for faculty and staff, with “Advance Equity” prominently listed as the third priority. Similarly, the Culture Charter explicitly calls on faculty and staff to demonstrate fealty to DEI, including:

  • “Invest in and demonstrate your own awareness of systemic inequalities.”
  • “Demonstrate leadership on justice, equity, diversity and inclusion.”
  • “Demonstrate your commitment to justice, equity, diversity and inclusion.”

Faculty job candidates are highly perceptive; they understand the implications of being directed to review a strategic plan. They recognize that this request signals an expectation to be familiar with the content and prepared to discuss how they can contribute to the plan. By referencing these documents in job postings, faculty and administrators create opportunities to ask candidates indirect questions, such as “How will you contribute to Goal 4 of the University’s Strategic Plan?” or “What positive action will you take to support the Culture Charter?” These questions avoid directly asking, “Do you support diversity, equity, and inclusion?” But they still serve to assess a candidate’s alignment with DEI ideology. Their goal is to circumvent North Carolina’s law prohibiting compelled speech.

This is happening everywhere, though in different ways, and I hear about it from my colleagues all over America. Nearly all of these colleagues are opposed to DEI (my academic friends are of course not a random sample), but seriously, schools have to obey the law and I don’t like them being sneaky. Remember, if you love DEI, it will be back with the next Democratic President and Congress.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn,

Hili: You’ve decided something again.
A; Yes, but this time…
Hili: Yes, yes, I know.
In Polish:
Hili: Znowu coś postanowiłeś.
Ja: Tak, ale tym razem…
Hili: Tak, tak, wiem.

And in cold Berlin, Stupsi, spent the morning outside. “Stupsi sagt: „Die Sonne scheint, aber die Welt ist kalt. Lass mich zu Dir hineinkommen.“  (“Stupsi says, ‘The sun shines but the world is cold. Please let me come in to you’.”):

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

From reader Pliny the in Between’s site Far Corner Cafe. Probably only biologists will get this right off the bat, but you can look up the terms:

From Cat Memes:

 

From Annie on FB. Is this real?

And from Stephen on FB:

Masih impugns the “hospitality” of Hamas towards the hostages (see above):

It might be worth having a look at this book:

Two from Simon. First, our governor, J. B. Pritzker, shows a sense of humor as he mocks Trump:

🚨 BREAKING: Illinois Governor JB Pritzker says he’s going to rename Lake Michigan to “Lake Illinois.”EPIC TRUMP TROLL!!! 🤣

— CALL TO ACTIVISM (@calltoactivism.bsky.social) 2025-02-07T20:02:38.336Z

And the new cover of Time: Musk sitting at the President’s desk in the Oval Office. Trump, I hear, isn’t pleased with this cover; is a parting of ways in the offing? As for the ketchup, Simon says, “Trump is known for throwing ketchup bottles when annoyed.”

From CNN:

Trump was asked about the cover at the White House on Friday.

“Is Time magazine still in business?” Trump jokingly asked. “I didn’t even know that.”

Ketchup On Walls Alert: HIGH

— Mark Hamill (@markhamillofficial.bsky.social) 2025-02-07T19:50:56.088Z

A skillful cat rescue sent by Malcolm:

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:

A 52-year-old German woman and her sister were gassed upon arrival at Auschwitz.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-02-09T11:28:07.588Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. I commented on his first selection:

Much as I love flies, I think the spider is cuter. The fly is a chonk.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-02-08T17:22:01.525Z

Matthew dug up this unpublished graph by Crick showing that A/T and G/C ratios were close to 1 in DNA, giving strong evidence that A pairs with T and G pairs with C:

One of my favourite pieces of trivia found while writing CRICK is this unpublished graph Crick drew in May 1953 for a talk in Edinburgh. He and Watson calculated all the A:T and G:C ratios in the literature then did the same for A:G. Convincing evidence that the ratios really were 1:1.

— (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2025-02-06T18:04:55.479Z

 

Saturday: Hili dialogue

February 8, 2025 • 6:45 am

Welcome to the Sabbath for moggies; it’s Saturday, February 8, 2025 and National Potato Lover’s Day, apparently honoring only a single person who loves potatoes. Who is that person? (This is a lesson in apostrophe use.) At any rate, here is where one can supposedly get the best French fries (aka Liberty Fries) in Chicago. I have never been here, but must go now. Give me the Buried Alive Fries!

It’s also Boy Scouts Day (it was founded on this day in 1909), National Molasses Bar Day, Propose Day (mainly in India), and Opera Day.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the February 8 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Trump’s latest stunt is to call for (he hasn’t yet done it) the closure of the Agency for International Development, the source of half of all U.S. foreign aid, and with a $50 billion annual budget (a judge has temporarily halted part of the closure):

President Trump on Friday directly called for the closure of the U.S. Agency for International Development just hours before most of its staff were expected to be suspended with pay or laid off, the latest sign that his administration will dissolve the government’s main provider of global humanitarian and development aid.

“CLOSE IT DOWN!” Mr. Trump wrote of U.S.A.I.D. on Truth Social, accusing the agency of unspecified rampant corruption and fraud. He had previously asserted that the agency was “run by radical lunatics.”

Mr. Trump’s demand to end the agency came as the vast majority of the agency’s direct hires were expecting to be placed on indefinite administrative leave, while contractors were to be let go. The notice announcing that change, which was posted to the U.S.A.I.D. website on Tuesday, also informed foreign service officers that the agency would pay for them to return home within 30 days, with extensions offered on a case-by-case basis.

That guidance was amended overnight to inform workers that they had the option of staying abroad longer at their own expense.

A new frequently asked questions section, with just one entry, was appended to the original notice on U.S.A.I.D.’s website, explaining that foreign service officers could remain overseas if they were willing to cover the cost of travel themselves. It did not specify whether workers who stayed overseas while on administrative leave would continue to have their cost of living subsidized.

Only a small subset of U.S.A.I.D. officials received notice this week that they had been deemed “essential” personnel.

“This your formal notification that you are expected to keep working, effective immediately, and until notified otherwise,” the emailed notification sent to those personnel said, according to a copy reviewed by The New York Times.

It was not immediately clear how many employees fell into this group.

The obvious question is this: what happens to all those people who really needed foreign aid from the U.S.? Stuff like food, medical care, and so on.  Nobody is going to step in and replace that $50 billion, which is the largest amount of foreign aid given by any country in the world,

*The WSJ reports that the mood of the American consumer is going downhill. That, of course, is expected when the news is telling them that they’ll likely pay more for stuff and that the price of eggs will keep rising (even if it is due to bird flu).

The Trump bump in consumer confidence is already over.

Tariff threats, stock market swings and rapidly reversing executive orders are causing Americans across the political spectrum to feel considerably more pessimistic about the economy than they did before President Trump took office.

Consumer sentiment fell about 5% in the University of Michigan’s preliminary February survey of consumers to its lowest reading since July 2024. Expectations of inflation in the year ahead jumped from 3.3% in January to 4.3%, the second month in a row of large increases and highest reading since November 2023.

“It’s very rare to see a full percentage point jump in inflation expectations,” said Joanne Hsu, who oversees the survey. Republicans have come off a postelection surge in confidence, she said, and Democrats and Independents also seem to believe that economic conditions have deteriorated since last month.

Morning Consult’s recent index of consumer confidence, too, fell between Jan. 25 and Feb. 3, driven primarily by concern over the country’s economic future.

“I don’t like the turbulence. I don’t like the chaos in the market,” said Paul Bisson, a 58-year-old, who writes proposals for a flight safety company and co-owns a dog daycare in San Antonio. Bisson voted for Trump, but feels “his policies have led to that chaos.”

Bisson is hoping to retire in the not-too-distant future, and is worried that won’t be possible if Trump follows through with his tariff threats rather than just using them as a negotiating tactic.

“That will make the economy worse, and that’s not what we signed up for,” Bisson said. “We’ve already cut back. There’s no more cutting back to do.”

I learned at my economist father’s knee that tariffs are never a good thing, and I’m hoping Trump doesn’t follow through with his bluster about China, Canada, and Mexico (he’s already delayed tariffs with the latter two countries). But if the economy doesn’t pick up, and it doesn’t look like it will, the Republicans will lose big time in the midterm elections. They could even lose both houses of Congress.

*The U.K. is acting badly again, demanding that it be able to access ANY content that any Apple user has uploaded to the Cloud, even encrypted content!  It’s one giant Pecksniffian demand!

Security officials in the United Kingdom have demanded that Apple create a back door allowing them to retrieve all the content any Apple user worldwide has uploaded to the cloud, people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post.

The British government’s undisclosed order, issued last month, requires blanket capability to view fully encrypted material, not merely assistance in cracking a specific account, and has no known precedent in major democracies. Its application would mark a significant defeat for tech companies in their decades-long battle to avoid being wielded as government tools against their users, the people said, speaking under the condition of anonymity to discuss legally and politically sensitive issues.

Rather than break the security promises it made to its users everywhere, Apple is likely to stop offering encrypted storage in the U.K., the people said. Yet that concession would not fulfill the U.K. demand for backdoor access to the service in other countries, including the United States.

The office of the Home Secretary has served Apple with a document called a technical capability notice, ordering it to provide access under the sweeping U.K. Investigatory Powers Act of 2016, which authorizes law enforcement to compel assistance from companies when needed to collect evidence, the people said.

The law, known by critics as the Snoopers’ Charter, makes it a criminal offense to reveal that the government has even made such a demand. An Apple spokesman declined to comment.

Apple can appeal the U.K. capability notice to a secret technical panel, which would consider arguments about the expense of the requirement, and to a judge who would weigh whether the request was in proportion to the government’s needs. But the law does not permit Apple to delay complying during an appeal.

This is unconscionable, and it begins with the British government’s order not being disclosed.  It continues with the demand that Apple disclose not just encrypted material, but do so for anybody in the entire world.  Nothing you’ve stored in the cloud is safe from the Pecksniffs, and a further egregious provision is that even if Apple appeals, the UK can get busy sticking its nose in people’s business during an appeal, which could take a lot of time,

*As always, I’ll steal a few items from Nellie Bowles’s hilarious and snarky weekly news summary at The Free Press, called this week, “TGIF: Mar-a-Gaza“. A lot of the items are too long to post here, so subscribe!

→ The Jews should have hid in the attic, says Cooper Union: A lawsuit filed by a group of Jewish students against Cooper Union can continue, says a district court judge, which dismissed the college’s attempt at getting the suit thrown out. You may remember this, but: After October 7, a group of pro-Hamas protesters held one of their many days of solidarity with Hamas’s war effort. Pro-Israel counterprotesters came to do their counterprotest thing. Later, a handful of those Jewish, pro-Israel students were in the school library, and the protesters got wind of it. They got past security and began pounding and shaking the locked library door, screaming “Palestine will be free.” Cooper Union security suggested the Jewish kids hide in the attic, which Cooper Union put in their legal defense. Like, surely that makes us look good? Where else are you supposed to keep Jews? It would take too long to get them under the floorboards since we installed the wall to wall last year!

Here’s the judge: “The court is dismayed by Cooper Union’s suggestion that the Jewish students should have hidden upstairs or left the building, or that locking the library doors was enough to discharge its obligations under Title VI.”

Cooper Union, I’m as baffled as you are.

→ Pronouns are dropping everywhere, every day: London mayor Sadiq Khan. Pete, former transportation secretary and mayor. AOC. What do these people have in common? We have no idea what their pronouns are now. We have no idea how to address them. Because pronouns have been dropped from their bios. Quietly, one by one. Is it Mx. Buttigieg? Sir Sadiq? How will we ever guess?

→ Stop making such a big deal out of the hostage babies: Zeteo, the media start-up founded by Mehdi Hasan, published a piece last week titled:“Is Israel Weaponizing the Tragic Deaths of the Bibas Children?”

An excerpt: “Israel’s government has apparently known their tragic fate for 14 months but has chosen to deliberately pretend they were still alive to capitalize on the narrative of Palestinian ‘monsters’ holding a baby hostage.”

It’s besmirching the beautiful name of Hamas to suggest they would hold living babies hostages, per Zeteo. Because sweet, noble Hamas would only kidnap babies and then kill them by bringing them into a war zone and then hold their dead bodies for barter. Which is much better! They would not keep living babies hostage. You ghoul, how could you suggest that! Israel is “weaponizing” these children by talking about them so much when they’re totally dead, Zeteo writes. You gotta admire this: Hamas kidnapped two babies into Gaza and may now be holding their dead bodies, and still Israel is somehow the aggressor.

→ Thank god for James Carville: While the entire Dem establishment seems committed to losing at every opportunity they have, one James Carville is screaming into the void. “We ran a presidential election. If we were playing the Super Bowl, we started our seventh-string quarterback. . . . You can’t address a problem unless you’re honest about a problem.”

When the glowing orb of Carville pops up on the TV, you know you’re about to be yelled at. You know there’ll be spit on that table. Carville said people would be shocked to know that there are Dem candidates that “can actually complete a sentence, that actually know how to frame a message, that actually have a sense of accomplishment, of doing something.” Where are they hiding? Maybe in Governor Phil Murphy’s attic. Maybe somewhere in South Bend. But it’s time, guys: We need a complete-your-sentence–level politician, and we need one ba

I love Carville. When you look in the dictionary under “curmudgeon,” you’ll see his picture.

*Finally, from the reliable Associate Press’s “oddities” section, we learn something that was absolutely predictable: there was a huge egg heist. To be specific, around 100,000 eggs were stolen, and that’s a lot of omelets!

The heist of 100,000 eggs from the back of a trailer in Pennsylvania has become a whodunit that police have yet to crack.

Four days after the theft that law enforcement say could be tied to the sky-high cost of eggs, no leads have come in, Trooper First Class Megan Frazer, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania State Police, said Wednesday.

“We’re relying on leads from people from the community. So we’re hoping that somebody knows something, and they’ll call us and give us some tips,” she said.

Police are also following up with any possible witnesses and looking into surveillance footage that could help them identify the perpetrator as they race to solve the mystery.

“In my career, I’ve never heard of a hundred thousand eggs being stolen. This is definitely unique,” said Frazer, who has a dozen years on the job.

Bird flu is forcing farmers to slaughter millions of chickens a month, pushing U.S. egg prices to more than double their cost in the summer of 2023. And it appears there may be no relief in sight with Easter approaching.

The average price per dozen eggs nationwide hit $4.15 in December. That is not quite as high as the $4.82 record set two years ago, but the Agriculture Department predicts egg prices are going to soar another 20% this year.

The 100,000 eggs were snatched from the back of Pete & Gerry’s Organics’ distribution trailer on Saturday about 8:40 p.m. in Antrim Township, according to police.

Let’s see: if 12 eggs are 4.15, then $100,000 eggs represent a theft of $34,583.  And that is grand larceny. in every state in the Union.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn,  Hili, a centrist, despairs:

Hili: I’m losing hope.
A: For what?
Hili: for the victory of moderates.
In Polish:
Hili: Tracę nadzieję.
Ja: Na co?
Hili: Na zwycięstwo umiarkowanych.

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

From Facebook:

From Things With Faces, a bunch of sad bananas:

From I Love Cats:

Masih on Pakhshan Azizi, a Kurdiah-Iranian activist sentenced to death for “armed rebellion against the state” (nobody believes that), and who has suffered physical and psychological torture already during a long stint in prison.

A long but very good tweet by Rowling:

From Simon, who says, “It’s a good question, though.”

This poor man. No one deserves that.

— George Conway (@gtconway.bsky.social) 2025-02-07T03:06:05.540Z

From Malcolm; spot the cat!

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I reposted:

An 11-year-old Dutch boy who either died in transit or was gassed on arrival at Auschwitz.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-02-08T10:57:56.289Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. The first he labels “a good man”, Read the Forbes article here.  An excerpt:

But Feeney has come in from the cold. The man who amassed a fortune selling luxury goods to tourists, and later launched private equity powerhouse General Atlantic, lives in an apartment in San Francisco that has the austerity of a freshman dorm room. When I visited a few years ago, inkjet-printed photos of friends and family hung from the walls over a plain, wooden table. On the table sat a small Lucite plaque that read: “Congratulations to Chuck Feeney for $8 billion of philanthropic giving.”

Chuck Feeney here who died in 2023.A man who made an estimated €8 billion out of Duty Free and then gave it all away to make the world a better place.A modest man too. Which is why you may never have heard of him.www.forbes.com/sites/steven…

— Otto English (@ottoenglish.bsky.social) 2025-02-07T07:49:10.925Z

Look at this gorgeous butterfly!

Hamadryas have a mix of grays, blacks & hints of blue & white. Hamadryas are particularly attracted to tree sap.They use their proboscis to sip the liquid from wounds/damaged areas on trees. The sap provides the sodium needed for their diet. #butterfly #biology #nature #photo #insects #wildlife

— D. C. Fitzgerald (@dcfitzgerald.bsky.social) 2025-02-07T08:10:07.785Z

Friday: Hili dialogue

February 7, 2025 • 6:45 am

Can the week be over already? Indeed it is, at least what they call the “work week”, for it’s Friday, February 7, 2025, and it’s National Fettuccine Alfredo Day, one of my favorite pastas, though I make it with hollow bucatini noodles instead of fettuccine.  I add peas to mine to pump up the vegetable content. It’s good!

Meliciousm, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

It’s also “e” Day, since the first two digits of that nunber are 2 and 7, Ballet Day, Rose Day, National Patty Melt Day (it’s just a cheeseburger on rye), and Bubble Gum Day.

Reader Rick submitted a quote of the day:

“I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this.” -Emo Phillips, comedian, actor (b. 7 Feb 1956)

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the February 7 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*Trump’s EOs, as predicted, are getting stalled right and left by lawsuits, which is the proper way to oppose them. The latest one is his plan, implemented via Musk, to get rid of federal workers:

A federal judge in Massachusetts barred the government on Thursday from imposing a midnight deadline on federal workers who were offered a deferred resignation plan, freezing the government from implementing the deadline until a hearing on Monday afternoon.

The offer, which had been set to expire at 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, is part of President Trump’s campaign to drastically cut the size of the federal government.

U.S. District Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. enjoined the Office of Personnel Management from carrying out the buyout offers that have been emailed to federal workers until a hearing scheduled for Monday afternoon.

The administration has said tens of thousands of workers have already accepted offers to stop working and resign effective in September, but still collect pay until then.

More than 40,000 federal workers have accepted the deferred resignation program, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Thursday. She said the number was expected to increase.

“We encourage federal workers in this city to accept the very generous offer,” she said, adding: “We’ll find highly competent individuals who want to fill these roles.”

What??? I thought the program was meant to reduce the size of the government, not simply to replace people with more competent people (the implication is that those who resign are not so competent).

*As for Trump’s madness on Gaza (he apparently didn’t consult anybody before offering this plan), he now foresees Israel handing the Strip over to the U.S.!

US President Donald Trump on Thursday expanded on his plan to push out Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, pledging that the Strip “would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” and rejecting American boots on the ground as a precondition for the reconstruction of the devastated enclave.

Given that there is currently a ceasefire, his use of the phrase “at the conclusion of the fighting,” appeared to at least leave the door open for the possibility that the war will resume, per the demand of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing flank.

Writing on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump specified: “The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting.”

Gazans “would have already been resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region,” he continued, apparently repeating his suggestion that the Strip’s population would be permanently displaced, despite a statement to the contrary by the top US diplomat on Wednesday. “They would actually have a chance to be happy, safe and free.”

“The US, working with great development teams from all over the world, would slowly and carefully begin the construction of what would become one of the greatest and most spectacular developments of its kind on Earth,” Trump continued, adding that “no soldiers by the US would be needed.” Trump’s Mideast envoy was said to have offered similar assurances to Republican lawmakers amid their concerns about foreign entanglements.

. . . Trump reportedly did not hold consultations on his new plan, and his announcement Tuesday was said to have even caught Netanyahu by surprise. The premier later applauded Trump’s “totally different” thinking, and Defense Minister Israel Katz on Thursday ordered the IDF to prepare for Gazans to voluntarily emigrate.

Posing with Senate leaders on Thursday, Netanyahu was asked whether “US troops are needed in Gaza to make Trump’s plan feasible?”

Notice that Netanyahu did not answer. Of course they would need U.S. troops–if anybody is left in Gaza. And the world isn’t buying the idea of resettling Gazans in other countries like Jordan and Egypt (the latter country said that such an attempt would scupper Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel). I wish the UAE could run Gaza, but that ain’t gonna happen, either. The fact is that Trump is a loose cannon and you can’t trust his musings like this one.

*The WaPo lists all the Oscar nominations, and I’ll just give them for the top eight categories (one includes a cat movie!) Sadly, I’ve seen only one of the ten “Best Film” pictures.

The only movie I’ve seen of these was “Anora,” which was very good but not a classic, or even great:

Emilia Pérez gets a 73% critics’ rating and a dismal 17% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I don’t think I’ll see it. . .

I want to see the Dylan movie but–I kid you not–what puts me off is that the star is named Timothée (pronounced “Timothy”), apparently his French birth name since he’s French-American.. UPDATE: I watched half of “A complete unknown yesterday, just to check, and though the plot is good, I simply could not suspend my disbelief that Timothée was Dylan and Monica Barbaro was Joan Baez. Rarely have I had this problem, but I suppose the figures and behaviors of Dylan and Baez are embedded so deeply in my being that nobody could convincingly play them in a movie.  I have to hand it to Chalamet, though: who spent years learning to play guitar and sing like Dylan, starting from nothing.  Here’s an interview of Timothée on the Late Show:

And I’ve put a box around the animated feature I want to win, which I WILL see!


If you want to tout or criticize any of these movies or nominees, or let us know which ones you’ve seen and recommend, please do so in the comments.

*The best actress nominee, the trans-identified man Karla Sofia Gascón, suddenly turned from a heroine to. . . well, not a villain, but almost an apostate, when they uncovered some of his/her tweets, which once again puts progressives in a battle among themselves.

. . . . until last Thursday this year’s front-runner for the awards was “Emilia Pérez,” the operatic tale of a Mexican drug lord who becomes a better person by undergoing “transition” surgery. The Spanish transgender actor Karla Sofía Gascón (born Juan Carlos Gascón), who plays the title role, was nominated for best actress, and the French-made film led all others with 13 nominations. The opportunity to celebrate transgenderism at this cultural moment, with the winners invited to say or imply “Take that, Donald Trump!” from the stage, appeared to be too tempting to pass up.

That was last week. This week, however, all Hollywood can talk about is the shocking past remarks of the nominee—who, far from being embraced as a spokesperson for tolerance, is being denounced as “racist,” “hateful” and even “misogynistic.” The contretemps began when a black Muslim journalist, Sarah Hagi, began to suspect that Ms. Gascón, who before “Emilia Pérez” was little-known in the U.S., had a less than welcoming attitude toward Islam.

A search on X.com (formerly Twitter) turned up such eyebrow-raising comments as this one, from 2020, originally written in Spanish: “I’m sorry, is it just my impression or are there more Muslims in Spain? Every time I go to pick up my daughter from school there are more women with their hair covered and their skirts down to their heels. Next year instead of English we’ll have to teach Arabic.” Shortly after the death of George Floyd, Ms. Gascón wrote, “I really think that very few people ever cared about George Floyd, a drug addict swindler, but his death has served to once again demonstrate that there are people who still consider black people to be monkeys Without rights and consider policemen to be assassins. They’re all wrong.”

Ms. Gascón was even accused of liking Hitler, based on this (seemingly ironic) comment from 2019: “This is the same old story, ‘black slaves and women in the kitchen.’ But it is my opinion and it must be respected. I do not understand so much world war against Hitler, he simply had his opinion of the Jews. Well, that’s how the world goes.”

Perhaps most ill-advisedly, Ms. Gascón made fun of the Oscars ceremony itself, writing of the notoriously dull 2021 broadcast, “More and more the #Oscars are looking like a ceremony for independent and protest films, I didn’t know if I was watching an Afro-Korean festival, a Black Lives Matter demonstration or the 8M. Apart from that, an ugly, ugly gala.” (“The 8M” refers to March 8, International Women’s Day.)

Overnight, a walking symbol of Hollywood’s love, tolerance, empathy and inclusivity was rebranded as the opposite of all these things. Hollywood was skipping merrily toward rewarding the wokest movie of the year when it stepped on an antiwoke land mine.

Nellie Bowles reprises some of Gascón’s tweets in today’s TGIF:

→ ¡Oh no, Karla Sofía Gascón! Karla Sofía is the trans actress who starred in the critically acclaimed film Emilia Pérez, and now she’s in trouble for the bad tweets of her past. Like: “More and more the #Oscars are looking like a ceremony for independent and protest films, I didn’t know if I was watching an Afro-Korean festival, a Black Lives Matter demonstration or the 8M [a Spanish way of referring to International Women’s Day]. Apart from that, an ugly, ugly gala.”

Or this one about Covid: “The Chinese vaccine, apart from the mandatory chip, comes with two spring rolls, a cat that moves its hand, 2 plastic flowers, a pop-up lantern, 3 telephone lines and one euro for your first controlled purchase.”

What to do? If we can’t trust the divinity of a trans woman, what can we ever trust? Solution: Ignore the things celebrities say. I don’t want to know if the action star in the movie is homophobic. Or if he hates America. I’m going to just assume one or the other. Don’t ask, don’t tell. If you stumble on a celebrity’s opinion accidentally, try to ignore it. If a celebrity is spouting their political opinions, gently encourage them to stop. Remind them they are there to look pretty and talk nice. Which is all to say: Justice for Karla.

Gascón says that no withdrawal is in the offing, which is okay because it’s free speech, which shouldn’t affect an acting job (though the acting category is debatable).

*Here’s a 12½-minute clip from the Glenn Show in which Loury and McWhorter discuss Ibram Kendi’s move from Boston University (BU) to Howard University. (The discussion starts at 26 seconds in.)  McWhorter wonders, as I do, why Howard hired Kendi to do the same managerial job he did at BU. He guesses that “Howard is trying to assemble a lineup of superstars” (they also have Ta-Nehisi Coates and Nikole Hannah-Jones), though none of these people are academics; though why a university wants non-academic superstars baffles him.

Loury guesses that black academic superstars wouldn’t go to Howard, having outside options like Harvard or Princeton. McWhorter takes issue with Kendi’s (and perhaps Howard’s) obsession with racism as opposed to all the other problems that plague this world.  Loury does have some praise for Coates and Hannah-Jones, but not so much for Kendi, but insists that any “center” like Kendi must engage with the rest of a university, “integrated into the larger intellectual life of the institution”. That wasn’t the case for Kendi’s center at BU.

 

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Andrzej is engaged in an Internet squabble:

Hili: You’ve answered somebody again.
Andrzej: And again I don’t know whether I did the right thing.
In Polish:
Hili: Znowu komuś odpowiedziałeś.
Ja: Znowu nie wiem, czy zrobiłem słusznie.

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

From the 2025 Darwin Awards!!!/Epic Fails!!:

From Cat’s Diary:

From America’s Cultural Decline into Idiocy:

Masih calls for action against iran:

From Luana; Trump gets a victory that really belongs to Democrats:

From Jez, a rescue story involving both horrible perps and wonderful humans:

From Malcolm: a cat who sounds like a d*g (sound up)

Baby goats are the best!

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I posted:

Gassed upon arrival at Auschwitz, this French Jewish girl was four years old.

— Jerry Coyne (@evolutionistrue.bsky.social) 2025-02-07T11:11:43.552Z

Two posts from Dr. Cobb. First, lovely and very old sculpture:

Around 4,300 years ago, an Egyptian artisan carved a little frog, a grasshopper, and a dragonfly.Lovely details from nature depicted on a wall relief in the Tomb of Kagemni at Saqqara, Egypt. Old Kingdom, Dynasty 6, c. 2345-2323 BC. Photo by me#ReliefWednesday#Archaeology

— Alison Fisk (@alisonfisk.bsky.social) 2025-02-05T11:24:36.025Z

And a glum-looking bee:

Plus the upper part of the labrum makes it look glum. Mind you, it probably is if it’s been paying any attention.

— (@matthewcobb.bsky.social) 2025-02-05T21:23:13.150Z