Welcome to, June 28, 2024, and National Tapioca Day. I liked the pudding with its “fish eyes”, and now tapioca pearls, made from starch extracted from the cassava plant, have been used to make the wildly popular bubble tea, which I also love. At least have some bubble tea today: it’s everywhere now:

Howief, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

It’s also National Ceviche Day, National Cream Tea Day (with scones, strawberry preserves, and clotted cream!), International Body Piercing Day, National Food Truck Day, and INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY. 

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

Da Nooz:

*I haven’t watched the debate yet, as I went to bed early with a terrible stomach ache (I think I ate something bad). But I’ll watch it this monrong. I’m better now, but the NYT suggests the debate was a total debacle, with Trump blustering and Biden, sadly, losing it.  It’s SO bad that Democrats (including the mushbrain Nick Kristof) is calling for Biden to be replaced as a candate. Here are all 12 NYT op-ed columnists weighing in, and all think that Trump won or, for two of the clueless, that it was a draw (click to read):
SAVE YOUR COMMENTS FOR THE UPCOMING POST (AFTER READERS’ WILDLIFE).

I’ll watch it this morning, but we’ll have a reactions post for readers this morning. Posting may also be light today, as we have a department party at noon to celebrate the departure of our beloved departmental administrator, who’s been here for several decades.

Here’s the whole debate:

and MSNBC’s 3-minute summary:

*Over at his Substack Site The Silver Bulletin, statistician Nate Silver, founder of the site FiveThirtyEight, announces, to my dismay, that “The Presidential election isn’t a toss-up.”  (h/t Rosemary) Oy vey, because he’s putting the odds in Trump’s favor. He’s just published a new model for predicting outcomes.  It’s a long post, but here’s the upshot:

It’s not my job to tell you how to vote, and I hope that we have some Trump (and RFK Jr., etc.) voters among the Silver Bulletin readership. Republicans buy sneakers — and sign up for Substack newsletters. But I think it’s important to be up front, because I’ve been rather lucky in one sense in my election forecasting career. I began making election forecasts in 2008, and in literally every presidential year since then, I haven’t really had to deal with a conflict between what I personally wanted to see happen and what my forecast said. This year, I do have that conflict. The candidate who I honest-to-God think has a better chance (Trump) isn’t the candidate I’d rather have win (Biden).
. . .And what I’d noticed over time is that the reasons that Trump would win have gradually become somewhat more compelling than the reasons for Biden. Emphasis on gradually and somewhat. Biden clearly could win in November. He won the same matchup four years ago. Not only would he be within a normal-sized polling error of Trump if the election were held today, but there are still four-and-a-half-months to go.
Still, the items on the “reasons to think Trump might win” checklist have proven to be more robust. There’s Biden’s age, which voters have extremely persistent concerns about. There’s the very high inflation of mid-2021 through mid-2023 — which has considerably abated, but still is reflected in much higher prices than when Biden took office. There’s the fact that the global mood is pessimistic and that incumbents have been getting crushed everywhere around the world. Plus, some of the factors I thought would be an advantage for Biden haven’t proven to be. There’s less of a fundraising gap than I expected, for instance, and I’m not sure that Biden has run the smarter tactical campaign.
. . . . When the model was finally done on Sunday night, it turned out that Trump was favored by a slightly larger degree than I’d anticipated at Manifest — although Biden retains highly viable paths to victory.
, , , It would be easy to overstate the case, however. Trump does still lead in our national average — however narrowly. But the bigger problem for Biden though is that elections in the United States aren’t determined by the popular vote. His current popular-vote disadvantage is modest — modest enough that a couple more polls like the recent Fox News national poll could be enough to put him ahead. And the fundamentals part of our model — which in the case of the Silver Bulletin, just means the economy and incumbency — slightly helps Biden, as I’ll cover in the next section.
. . . . Of course, you could also argue for subjective adjustments that go the other way, like for Trump’s criminal convictions. I just don’t think it’s so obvious that there are strong gravitational forces pulling in Biden’s direction. In a time of extremely high polarization, elections tend toward being 50/50 affairs, and it’s a challenge to win the 50/50 races when you’re at a disadvantage in the Electoral College.

It’s a long article but a good one, and we Democrats are right to worry A LOT about Biden’s chances in this election.

*NYT columnist Pamela Paul, in her latest piece called “Who you calling conservative?“, has the same beef I do: not agreeing 100% with “progressive Leftists” automatically turns you into a right-winger, or even a “fascist.”

You know you’ve touched a nerve with progressive activists when they tell you not just that you’re wrong but that you’re on the other side.
Such is the fate of any old-school liberal or mainstream Democrat who deviates from progressive dogma. Having personally been slapped with every label from “conservative” to “Republican” and even, in one loopy rant, “fascist,” I can attest to how disorienting it is given my actual politics, which are pure blue American only when they aren’t center French.
But it’s not just me. New York magazine’s liberal political columnist Jonathan Chait was accused of lending “legitimacy to a reactionary moral panic” for critiquing political correctness. When Nellie Bowles described the excesses of social justice movements in her book “Morning After the Revolution,” a reviewer labeled it a “conservative memoir.” Meghan Daum, a lifelong Democrat, was accused of having fallen into a “right-wing trap” for questioning the progressive doctrine of intersectional oppression.
If this was just about our feelings, these denunciations could be easily brushed aside. But the goal and the effect is to narrow the focus of acceptable discourse by Democrats and their allies. If liberals are denounced for “punching left” when they express a reasonable difference of opinion, potentially winning ideas are banished.
. . .In the run-up to a tight election with a weak Democratic candidate and a terrifying Republican opponent, pushing liberals and centrists out of the conversation not only exacerbates polarization, it’s also spectacularly counterproductive.
Take President Biden’s recent executive order severely limiting asylum. The Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Pramila Jayapal accused him of trying to “out-Republican the Republicans.” Mother Jones called the action “Trump-like.”
Meanwhile, according to a recent Axios poll, even 42 percent of Democrats support mass deportations of illegal immigrants. It’s no secret this election will be fought in the swing states and won in the middle, which makes another poll’s finding that 46 percent of independents in support even more concerning for the party’s electoral prospects.
Consider other liberal political positions that have been denounced by the progressive left: Criminal offenders — even those not named Donald Trump — should go to prison and a well-trained and respected police force provides community safety.
The goal of progressives may be solidarity, but their means of achieving it are by shutting alternative ideas down rather than modeling tolerance. Leah Hunt-Hendrix, a co-author of a recent book called “Solidarity,” said those liberals who critique illiberalism on the left are “falling into the right’s divide-and-conquer strategy.”
But liberal people can disagree without being called traitors. Liberals can even agree with conservatives on certain issues because those positions aren’t inherently conservative. Shouldn’t the goal be to decrease polarization rather than egg it on? Shouldn’t Democrats aim for a big tent, especially at a time when registered party members are declining and the number of independents is on the rise?’

It may sound a bit defensive (and I probably do at time, too), but the more progressive Democrats, who are increasingly insinuating their policies into Biden’s agenda, may help cost Biden the election in November. It certainly cost Jamaal Bowman the election this week.

*The Sackler family, infamous for making and sneakily pushing opioids on the American public (read the fantastic book about them, Empire of Pain), have lost one in the Supreme Court.  The judges ruled that the family could not be exempt from civil lawsuits, which could bankrupt the gazillionaire family easily, under the bankruptcy plan they confected.

The Supreme Court rejected a bankruptcy plan for OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma that would have allocated billions of dollars from members of the wealthy Sackler family to combat opioid addiction in exchange for shielding them from civil lawsuits over their alleged role in fueling the drug epidemic.
The 5-4 decision marks a victory for the minority of opioid victims who voted to reject the settlement plan because they want to continue pressing lawsuits against the Sackler family members who own Purdue, and a loss for the majority of opioid victims and state and local governments who voted to accept it.

*Doctors Without Borders (“MSF”) has been beefing because one of their staff in Gaza City was killed in an IDF strike. At any rate, the staffer proved to be a terrorist who made rockets for Islamic Jihad. turning rockets into precision-guided rockets, and thus he was an enemy combatant whose death likely saved the lives of many Israelis.  I am not sure whether MSF knew of this terrorist connection. Although I dislike the organization, I wouldn’t accuse them of knowingly hiring terrorists.

(The organization has long denigrated Israel, and it kills me that I gave them over ten thousand bucks as the proceeds from a multiply-illustrated and Kelly-Houle illuminated copy of Why Evolution Is True that I auctioned off on eBay. Had I known the extent of their Jew-denigration then, I would have found some other charity.)

A Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket expert, named by Doctors Without Borders as a staffer, was killed in an Israeli drone strike in Gaza City on Tuesday, the military said.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, reported on Tuesday morning that Fadi al-Wadiya was one of its staffers.
The organization said in a post on X that al-Wadiya was killed along with five other people, among them three children, while riding his bicycle to the MSF clinic where he worked.
A Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket expert, named by Doctors Without Borders as a staffer, was killed in an Israeli drone strike in Gaza City on Tuesday, the military said.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders, reported on Tuesday morning that Fadi al-Wadiya was one of its staffers.
“Killing a healthcare worker while on his way to provide vital medical care to wounded victims of the endless massacres across Gaza is beyond shocking; it’s cynical and abhorrent,” Caroline Seguin, the organization’s local operations manager, was quoted saying in a statement.
The Israel Defense Forces later in the day confirmed that it had killed al-Wadiya, saying that he was an Islamic Jihad operative involved in developing the terror group’s missiles.
. . . Al-Wadiya was involved in “the development and advancement of the organization’s missile array,” the military said in a statement.
The IDF said he was also a “source of knowledge” within the Islamic Jihad, in the fields of electronics and chemistry.

According to ther IDF, Hamas fired at an aid convoy:

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Hamas launched mortar shells at Israeli troops escorting a United Nations humanitarian aid convoy in the central Gaza Strip, the military said, publishing footage of the incident.
The IDF and COGAT had been coordinating a UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) convoy, part of a mission to reunite children from northern Gaza with their families in the south, according to the military.

Here’s the IDF’s picture of al-Wadiya in his two roles, MSF on the left and wearing a Palestinian Islamic Jihad uniform on the right:

It’s sad if any civilians were killed, but if you look at the video (below), you don’t see anybody around al-Wadiya, so I would take that claim with a grain of salt.

Here’s the outrage from MSF:

We are outraged and strongly condemn the killing of our colleague, Fadi Al-Wadiya, in an attack this morning in Gaza City.
The attack killed Fadi, along with 5 other people including 3 children, while he was cycling to work, near the MSF clinic where he was providing care. pic.twitter.com/Lmd8E5AkC1
— MSF International () June 25, 2024

And a response:

Medicins San Frontier may have engaged in material support of terrorism under federal and state law depending on what they knew about their Islamic Jihad employee. Their full defense of him even after evidence of his Islamic Jihad role come out will make it hard to argue this was… https://t.co/ulFsoIMNPm
— Eugene Kontorovich () June 26, 2024

The IDF’s video of the drone strike in Gaza City. Google translation:

An Air Force aircraft, under the direction of the Southern Command and AMN, attacked earlier today in the Gaza City area and killed the terrorist Fadi Jihad Muhammad Alwadia, who served as an operative in the GAP terrorist organization and was involved in the development and promotion of the organization’s missile system. Also, the terrorist was a unique center of knowledge in the organization in the fields of electronics and chemistry.

And yes, there could have been bystanders; it’s hard to tell.

כלי-טיס של חיל-האוויר, בהכוונת פיקוד הדרום ואמ”ן, תקף מוקדם יותר היום במרחב העיר עזה וחיסל את המחבל פאדי ג׳האד מחמד אלואדיה, אשר שימש כפעיל בארגון הטרור גא״פ ועסק בפיתוח וקידום מערך הטילים של הארגון.
כמו כן, המחבל היווה מוקד ידע ייחודי בארגון בתחומי האלקטרוניקה והכימיה. pic.twitter.com/kidkxFRNVQ
— Israeli Air Force () June 25, 2024

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili feels depressed about the world and also unloved:

Hili: I’m going to you with a specific goal.
A: What goal?
Hili: I need closeness.

In Polish:

Hili: Idę do ciebie w określonym celu.
Ja: Jakim?
Hili: Potrzebuję bliskości.

Shhh. . . Szaron is sleeping:

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

From reader Smith Powell, and oldie but a goodie:

From Science Humor, a joke for chemistry nerds:

A bumper sticker from Linkiest:

Retweeted by Masih; I did a Google translation (if you don’t know the principals, look at the links).

On the right side of Massoud Al-Madikian, on the grave of Qassem Soleimani, and on the left side of Laili Mahdavi, the mother of Siavash Mahmoudi.

سمت راست مسعود پزشکیان بر قبر قاسم سلیمانی و سمت چپ لیلی مهدوی مادر سیاوش محمودی pic.twitter.com/UjEYAtnGZV
— Arash Sigarchi () June 25, 2024

Anas Saleh, the guy who told the Zionists to raise their hands and then exit has been caught and charged with coercion in the third degree.

ON A NYC SUBWAY CAR: “Raise your hands if you’re a Zionist. This is your chance to get out.”
Change the word “Zionist” to “trans, “gay”, “black”,” or “Muslim,” and see what happens.
It’s open season on the Jews. pic.twitter.com/1OFd2QaKYk
— NYScanner () June 11, 2024

From Luana,  The Biden Administration is not doing a good job with this stuff! See the NYT article here.

I’ve been reporting on the political corruption of advocates for transitioning minors, absence of robust scientific evidence, for over 2 years now! Now readers are finally learning that pediatric sex-trait modification has always been guided by activism, not science. pic.twitter.com/Qz3SE8T6rD
— Christina Buttons () June 26, 2024

From Malcolm. “Laugh, kookaburra, laugh kookaburra; gay your life must be.”  What a call! It must be the weirdest of all bird songs (it’s a territorial call):

From Barry. This is EXACTLY what it’s like in Istanbul!

Catstanbul pic.twitter.com/u9EJOoUnlS
— Why you should have a cat () June 23, 2024

My friend Anna Krylov is in Istanbul and sent me this photo (I’m not sure what this is; it may be a mosque; but the cats are certainly tame ferals).

From the Auschwitz Memorial; one I posted:

A two-year-old French girl, put in the gas chamber upon arrival at Auschwitz. https://t.co/5OwiCCJGXS
— Jerry Coyne () June 28, 2024

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb, who is back in Manchester. The first one is his own tweet:

When UFOs are revealed to be bats or large moths. https://t.co/Ui21w4zrNv
— Matthew Cobb () June 27, 2024

Look at these beautiful mammals:

YOINK!
It’s currently breeding season at the National Black-footed Ferret Conservation Center and BFFs are pairing up. The science being done at the center to help preserve the black-footed ferret species, is incredible. pic.twitter.com/T0JAYXJlC8
— U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service () June 25, 2024