July 27th, 2023
You’re never too young to be a terrorist!

‘[Bruno] Cua planned his attack weeks in advance, brought weapons to the Capitol, tried to terrorize congressional staffers and was repeatedly aggressive toward police, prosecutors said… “Cua played a unique and prominent role on January 6, opening the Senate Chamber to the rioters, escalating confrontations, and leading other rioters into and through the Capitol.”

… Cua and his parents drove from their home in Milton, Georgia, to Washington D.C…

Cua was armed with pepper spray and a metal baton — weapons given to him by his father — when rioters breached police lines on the west side of the Capitol, according to prosecutors. After climbing scaffolding, Cua entered the building through the Upper West Terrace doors and and walked down a hallway toward the Senate.

“As Cua walked down the hallway, he tried to open every single office door he passed by pulling on doorknobs, pounding on the doors with his fist, and kicking the doors,” prosecutors wrote.

They said Cua intended to intimidate staffers who were behind the doors as he yelled, “Hey! Where are the swamp rats hiding?”

Cua went to the third floor, where he shoved a Capitol police officer who was trying to lock doors to the Senate gallery. After the officer retreated, Cua entered the gallery, shouting “This is our house! This is our country!” Jumping onto the Senate floor, he sat in the chair for then-Vice President Mike Pence, leaned back and propped his feet up on a desk.

Then he opened a door, allowing dozens of other rioters onto the Senate floor. Before leaving, Cua rifled through desks belonging to Senators Charles Grassley, John Thune and Dianne Feinstein.’

All that, and only eighteen years old. Off you go to prison, lad! Maw and Paw must be so proud.

July 27th, 2023
Exodus.

Dr. Matan Bar Yishai, a family doctor from the Maccabi healthcare service who has decided to relocate to New Zealand, told the Walla news site: “I am very sorry to everyone for the decision I made. I really love the country and my patients, but in the end, it is a family decision.”

Look. Give the people driving out Israel’s doctors, and provoking impressive numbers of Israeli pilots to stop flying, what they want. The people about to take over Israel didn’t give a shit about whatever “covid” was and refused vaccination and thereby killed a bunch of their people. Germ theory of disease? Our rabbi calls bs on it. The old ways are the best ways! He alone (to use the words of one of the heroes of the world’s ultraorthodox) can save us. What we need and what Israel needs is prayer, which is why our people don’t fight to defend the country, but only pray to defend the country, the way we prayed to keep all those children and old people from dying of covid…

Not that the haredim recognize the country “Israel,” since the messiah isn’t here yet or something. Many make a point of ignoring the national moments of silence on Holocaust Remembrance Day, pointedly cavorting about while Israelis stand in mourning. These people do not want vaccines, doctors, or even a country. They don’t want an economy of workers. So let them have what they want. Large numbers of people with money and skills are leaving Israel; investors are leaving Israel. The economy’s tanking. The ultraorthodox are giddy with excitement. They have always gloried in poverty and ignorance, and now all the people bothering them about teaching basic literacy to their children or getting jobs instead of rioting are finally going to shut up. Gottze dank!

July 27th, 2023
A winning strategy.

An Iranian chess player who moved to Spain in January after she competed without a hijab and had an arrest warrant issued against her at home has been granted Spanish citizenship, Spain said on Wednesday.

July 26th, 2023
lolololol

 LEWIS tipped both O’CONNOR and WAUGH and encouraged them to trade based on material, non-public information.  In one instance, LEWIS gave O’CONNOR and WAUGH loans, each worth $500,000, so they could buy a company’s stock before the public release of favorable clinical results.  In connection with that loan, O’CONNOR texted a friend to buy the stock, told the friend the “Boss is helping us out and told us to get ASAP,” and assured the friend that “All conversations on app is encrypted so all good.  No one can ever see.” 

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Wow. You know you’ve made it when your bail is set at $300 million.

July 26th, 2023
At a protest yesterday in Jerusalem.

Witty protest signs abounded. “Bibi, haven’t the Jews suffered enough?”

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[One protester commented:] “It may not be a good idea to turn the Israeli army’s entire logistical command against you.”

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When fighter pilots rose to prominence among the opponents to Netanyahu’s plans, his minister of communications, Shlomo Karhi, suggested the pilots — who are lionized figures in Israeli society — “can go to hell.”

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Within half an hour of the bill passing, 64-0 amid an opposition boycott, hundreds of pilots posted pictures of themselves, many in tears, sending their unit commanders letters ending their decades of service. “We signed a contract to fight for the realm,” they wrote. “We will not fight for a king.” The Israel Defense Forces later revealed that more than half of the air force personnel that signed the original petition to Netanyahu, including pilots, had followed through and informed their units they would no longer report to reserve duty.

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I keep thinking of a phrase Harold Meyerson used to describe the people about to take over Israel: “theocratic-primitivist.” Yeah, theocratic; but the other thing is even more important. More devastating. I’ve written for years about the ultraorthodox in Israel and America, and it’s definitely their primitivism, rather than any particular form of spiritual adherence, that shocks. Several forms of theocracy exist in the world, after all; but the extreme archaism, the bitter super-regression of this massive cult, is the really distinctive and frightening thing. Pre-law, pre-science, pre-education, pre-reason, pre-individualism, pre-nation, pre-state, pre-equality, pre-humanity. Like their primitive precursors, the new owners of Israel grant humanity only to their own tribe, and consider violence – along with non-violent forms of criminal behavior – against extra-tribal forces justified under a wide array of circumstances.

They are a form of death. A death-cult. A burial society burying human life itself. They will certainly bury Israel.

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The reasonableness bill cannot be divorced from the entire package of legislation, which, taken together, will end Israeli democracy as we know it. 

… In a country that devotes more and more resources to maintain the occupation and the settlements; in a country with no separation of religion and state, where marriages are subject to religious law and allowed only for heterosexual couples; and in a country that allocates tremendous resources to religious institutions, where the ultra-Orthodox do not serve in the military and their participation in the labor market is extremely low, insisting that the very textural fabric of Israeli society is both Jewish and democratic is becoming less and less convincing. The battle in the streets is not just about the constitutional overhaul. It is whether Israel can have a future as a liberal democracy.

July 26th, 2023
‘And if O’Connor had suffered an actual Amy Winehouse death, as opposed to career death, she would have been canonised long ago.’

Well now she has, it seems, suffered an Amy Winehouse death. It was probably suicide.

Her last tweet describes her as inconsolable since the suicide of her son: “Been living as undead night creature… Lost in the bardo without him.”

Like Winehouse, her art was the art of the fully exposed nerve, the gift of the inability to be anything other than fully out there as damaged and confused beyond repair.

 “I’m not a pop star. I’m just a troubled soul who needs to scream into mikes now and then.”

July 26th, 2023
‘Although Fulton County and Georgia officials immediately debunked [his vote fraud] accusations, Mr. Giuliani kept promoting them, ultimately comparing [two targeted election workers] — both of whom are Black — to drug dealers and calling during a hearing with Georgia state legislators for their homes to be searched.’

When a lying shit-faced racist defames you and pretty much ruins your life, your options sorta whittle down to suing the motherfucker.

And damages-wise, things are looking good for Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, what with Rudy G. admitting today that yeah I made it all up but I thought, you know, women… And black to boot … Who’s gonna bother defending that?

July 25th, 2023
‘It is possible that [Florida’s] New College can replace the third of the faculty that it’s lost, but if it cannot, then that will mean a profound disruption of student learning and knowledge creation.’

[M]ost professors, even conservative ones, will avoid institutions they know are restricting academic freedom. They know that in such places, because of whom it might upset, they may not be able to engage in the research they wish to explore and cover topics relevant to their academic discipline.

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UD calls Florida Little Hungary: Like that country, it’s shutting down its best schools (Hungary hounded out Central European University) to make the world safe for professors like John Eastman.

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Texas is the other state you don’t want to be in if you’re a self-respecting academic. Look how the state’s lieutenant governor started blubbering when one of Texas A&M’s most impressive professors said something negative about him.

OTOH: Take a trip down memory lane here at UD about the filthy jockshop which is A&M, and recall that ganging up on professors while kissing the ass of characters like Johnny Manziel is Job One at that school.

July 24th, 2023
Whooooops.

Israel has never created a constitution separating church and state. As a result, among other things, the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate holds a monopoly on marriage, which forces many secular Israelis to get married in other countries, or even online. Israel has no formal public transportation on Saturdays, which strands the millions of residents who don’t own a car.

July 24th, 2023
‘An overwhelming majority of Ohio voters back a state constitutional amendment that would guarantee access to abortion in the state.’

Yup.

July 22nd, 2023
‘There is already unhinged talk in Israel of a new form of two-state solution. A liberal Israel with its capital in Tel Aviv and the ethno-nationalist state centered around Jerusalem and the settlements in the West Bank. Neither state would be viable but the despair of many Israelis at the extreme policies of the government and its supporters make many wish they could just cut themselves off from the impending theocracy. Many are starting to feel that it’s either that or migration.’

Things are beyond bad.

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Harold Meyerson, American Prospect:

I do not believe the Israeli nation can endure half modern-democratic and half theocratic-primitivist; a house divided against itself cannot stand. Unlike Lincoln, neither do I believe that it will become all one thing or all the other. Someone there should start thinking about how to break it up.

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The idea of dividing Israel into cantons, which for years has been received with mockery due to the country’s small size and security challenges, has been gaining more and more traction over the past few months, and liberals are angrily calling to separate “Israel” from “Judea.” For some, Judea means the occupied territories. For others, Judea represents all ultra-Orthodox and messianic Jews, whether they live in Bnei Brak (in Israel proper) or Hebron (in the West Bank).

Gitit Ginat, Foreign Policy

July 22nd, 2023
Science Alert reports the real story.

It’s right there in their headline:

18-Year-Old’s Science Reporting Leads Stanford President to Quit

It takes a child to point out to the world that the emperor has no standards.

Everyone else – especially at places like Stanford, which make scientific entrepreneurs like Stanford’s president billionaires – plays the games, the insider trading, irreproducible results, conflict of interest, ghost writing, pharmawhore games.

And everyone’s making so much money playing the games that no one’s going to make a peep.

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So making noise about it takes some snot-nosed self-righteous little person at the student newspaper who thinks exposing corruption is more important than being able to stash billions away in your tax haven.

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July 21st, 2023
La Kid and Tony Bennett…

… Kennedy Center Honors, 2005.

La Kid sang in the show’s chorus.

July 21st, 2023
‘UNITED AIRLINES 777-300ER TO TAIPEI DIVERTS AFTER ECONOMY CLASS PASSENGER WON’T STAY OUT OF BUSINESS CLASS’

Something of an overreaction?

July 21st, 2023
Fox News

Saul Fox, mad Trumpian, has now tried to explain (see this post for background) the movements of two ancient, priceless, Israel-owned ceramic oil lamps. So let’s see.

Fox used his pull as a major donor to the Israeli antiquities authority to get the Israelis to send said lamps to the States, for use in a Trump-era White House Hanukah party.

So far nothing seems amiss.

But then we’re told the State Department vetoed the use of the lamps in the party. Does that make sense to you? I mean does it make sense that the big ol’ American State Department busied itself with the question of whether these lamps would be an appropriate addition to a holiday party? Or that “paperwork” on the lamps took so long for State to process that they overshot the party’s date?

So that’s the first part of this fakakte story what listen I swear to God keeps getting more by the day fakakte.

When the lamps were [eventually] released from State Department custody, Fox [says he] sent a courier to retrieve them and bring them back to his California home, where he locked them up and “sort of forgot about it” right as the pandemic hit and travel slowed to a stop …

First of all, Israel made clear to Fox it wanted them back right away, which okay. Of course Israel wants its priceless antiquities back that they didn’t even get used in the party for God’s sake. But Saul here decides to take them home and then – since they were nothing important, just priceless antiquities that belonged to another country – forgot about them. Plus we all know air traffic entirely ended for the duration of covid.

Are you on board with Saul’s rendering of events?

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So couple years later he’s invited to a Mar-A-Lago party, Trump having been thrown out of the White House. Saul brings the lamps that what he forgot all about with him, to show his beloved in a little ceremony in his office at the resort. Look at these precious lamps, Don!

In place of the awe Saul must have expected from our most cultured president, there was RAGE!

Trump … responded with a passionate outcry, according to Fox, who said the former president slammed his hand on his desk.

“Well, how come I only got 25% of the Jewish vote?” Fox recalled Trump saying. 

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Trump holds onto boxes and boxes of state secrets; his loyal retainer holds onto precious Israeli artifacts. Is anal retentiveness a heretofore overlooked constituent of Trumpianism? Can this behavior help us understand the phenomenon?

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