You're a Better Man Than I

Remembering The Yardbirds. They are famous for having three great guitarists in the band at one time or another ... Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page. But 13 year old me thought the singer, Keith Relf, was the most cool :)

Michael Cohen

Michael Cohen, former lawyer for Trump, was on MSNBC tonight. One will recall that he ended up going to prison for helping Trump pay off Stormy Daniels. It was very interesting to hear him talk about the trial and the verdict.

Over the years I've seen him on MSNBC many times, and though I don't know him, I have come to like him, and, yes, respect him. He has been pooped on a lot, most recently by Trump's lawyer, Todd Blanche. I'm glad the jury saw him as trustworthy.

Guilty

Wow! Trump found guilty on all counts! I've got to admit, I didn't think this would actually happen. It's good to know that the justice system can work against such odds.

Of course, Trump gave his usual pathetic and lie-filled diareibe afterwards. The thing is, he had his chance to set the record straight under oath, to get up and tell the jury and the world his "truth". But the professional liar didn't dare.

I wish I could say this will make a difference to Republican voters, but I don't think it will.

Wars

In The New York Times, an opinion piece by Bret Stephens ...

Do We Still Understand How Wars Are Won?

In the past 50 years, the United States has gotten good at losing wars .... But what about wars that are existential? ...

Today, Israel and Ukraine are engaged in the same kind of wars. We know that not because they say so but because their enemies do. Vladimir Putin believes that the Ukrainian state is a fiction. Hamas, Hezbollah and their patrons in Iran openly call for Israel to be wiped off the map. In response, both countries want to fight aggressively, with the view that they can achieve security only by destroying their enemies’ capability and will to wage war ....

Right now, the Biden administration is trying to restrain Israel and aid Ukraine .... In the long run, it’s a recipe for compelling our allies to lose ....

Antarctica

Wish I could visit there in real life.

John Kirby

Watching the White House press briefing today. Retired admiral John Kirby was answering reporters' questions.

As you can imagine, most of the questions were about the fire in the tent camp in Rafah a couple of days ago. The reporters were all very critical of Israel, many (most) seeming to assume that the Israelis had actually called in an airstrike on the camp. They were unconvinced that the Israelis were really doing an investigation into the incident.

About halfway through the briefing, Admiral Kirby lost patience with a reporter who wanted to know why we don't condemn Israel, why the US is givng them weapons when civilians have died (in the above video, it starts around 26: 07).

Admiral Kirby said aloud what I had been thinking during the whole press conference ...

I know what you want me to say. I get it. There should be no civilians killed. I'm not going to stand up here and make an excuse for any single individual civilian being killed. There is no excuse for it. It should not happen.

Now, it does happen in war. It happens sometimes deliberately, sometimes it happens by tragic mistake. We will find out soon what was the case here on Sunday, and then we'll go from there. But no civilian casualty should be acceptable .....

We'll see what the investigation says. Let's see what the investigation comes up with. If we had done this, I think we would want the benefit of having the opportunity to investigate it and to figure out what happened.

(reporter: but we're giving them billions of dollars in weapoms)

We're giving them the kind of capabilities they need to defend themselves. Maybe some people have forgotten what happened on the 7th of October, but we haven't. 1200 Israelis, innocent Israelis, slaughtered, mutilated, raped, tortured. And they're living right next to that kind of threat, still a viable threat in Rafah, by the way. You think Hamas is just gone? It's not gone from Rafah or from Gaza. You think they've abandoned their genocidal intent towards the nation of Israerl? Think again. They haven't. So Israel has every right to not want to live next to that kind of threat. And yes, we're going to continue to provide them the capabilities to go after them.

The tent camp fire

The IDF has released a video with info on the investigation into what caused the fire in a tent camp of civilians in Rafah.

Here's the video, with IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari, who takes qustions from the press near the end ...



I wish I could believe that most people would pay attention to this. But both the press and the international community seem wedded to their baseless belief that Israel's goal is genocide against Gazan civilians instead of a justified war with the terrorists of Hamas who attacked them on Oct 7.

Matterhorn

Ascend and descend the Matterhorn via drone. Wheeeee! :)

Memorial Day

At rhe dawn of time, when I was but a child, my extended family would spend Memorial Day at the park, having a picnic.

Above is nine year old me and my sister (and friends) in Fairytale Town at the park ... I'm sitting on the turtle's head and my sister is behind me with her legs stretched out.

Here's a bit about the park ...



Happy times :)

Two views

In the news, the world is outraged over an airstrike last night by the IDF in Rafah. And as usual, there are two different views of what happened.

The view most of the world's press has adopted is the one pushed by the terrorists: that Israel launched an airstrike against a tent camp of displaced civilians. Here's the press release from Hamas ...

“In light of the horrific Zionist massacre this evening committed by the criminal occupation army against the tents of the displaced…we call on the masses of our people in the West Bank, Jerusalem, the occupied territories and abroad to rise up and march angrily against the ongoing Zionist massacre against our people in the sector.”

The other view, from Israel, is that the IDF did not target the tent camp of civilians. They launched an airstrike against Hamas officials nearby, killing some of them, and that the fire at the tent camp was accidental. An ivestigation is underway (Shrapnel from Israeli strike may have ignited fuel tank near Rafah tents — report).

Trump booed

Heh :) The Libertarians pooped on Trump when he made them a visit ...



I doubt Trump has a clue about libertarianism. Philosopher John Locke is often thought of as the father of libertarianism. Let's eee why ...

This is why ...

Hamas fired missles at the Tel Aviv area of Israel, launching them from Rafah. This is an example of why Israel cannot stop its offensive in that city.

The ICJ

On three different news programs today I heard commentators say that the ICJ has ordered Israel to leave Rafah.

That is not accurate. The ruling actually stated ... "Israel must immediately halt its military offense and any other action in the Rafah governate which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part".

From Reuters ...

World Court's order on Rafah does not rule out entire offensive, Israel says

Israel considers that an order by the World Court to halt its military offensive on Rafah in southern Gaza allows room for some military action there, Israeli officials said ....

"What they are asking us, is not to commit genocide in Rafah. We did not commit genocide and we will not commit genocide," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, told Israel's N12 TV on Saturday.

Asked whether the Rafah offensive would continue, Hanegbi said: "According to international law, we have the right to defend ourselves and the evidence is that the court is not preventing us from continuing to defend ourselves." ...

David Horovitz of The Times of Israel spoke aboit this on today's daily briefing ...



I fear, though, that the world will hear what it wants to hear in the ICJ ruling, as it has done with all the other information that's been reported about Israel since Oct 7 ... Hamas has won the information war.

Blue death-feigning beetles

If Mondays make you want to feign death, you’re not alone. Meet the blue death-feigning beetle (Asbolus verrucosus)! When threatened by predators like spiders, this insect rolls over and plays dead for minutes to hours. It can be spotted in the deserts of the U.S. Southwest to… pic.twitter.com/0BSk8no6rh

— American Museum of Natural History (@AMNH) May 20, 2024

So cute :)

And ...

On The Times of Israel daily briefing today, military correspondent Emmanuel Fabian explains in much more detail the recently released and redacted video of five female Israeli soldiers being captured by Palestinian/Hamas fighters during the October 7 attack ...

More on the female IDF hostages

The redacted video of the female IDF soldiers being taken hostage on Oct 7 by Palestinians/Hamas - from a Twitter post by Emmanuel Fabian, military correspondent for The Times of Israel. Read that for more information.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum has released footage obtained by the IDF, showing the abduction of five female soldiers from the Nahal Oz base on October 7 by Hamas terrorists.

The clip shows Liri Albag, Karina Ariev, Agam Berger, Daniella Gilboa and Naama Levy.

It has… pic.twitter.com/xcls0UGq3F

— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) May 22, 2024

The women

Sickening new video shows Hamas line up female Israeli soldiers on Oct. 7: ‘Here are the girls who can get pregnant’

Harrowing video released Wednesday shows the moment five female Israeli soldiers, covered in blood and surrounded by the bodies of their massacred comrades, were threatened with rape and kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7.

Bodycam footage from the Hamas gunmen shows the moment the young women, operating at the Nahal Oz base outside the Gaza Strip, were handcuffed and pressed against a wall.

In the sickening video, the terrorists could be heard gloating and announcing their apparent plans to sexually assault the soldiers ...

More from Reuters ... Israel releases film of female conscripts held by Hamas

Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian protesters wave their red-dyed hands and pop up like keffiyeh-clad jack-in-the-boxes behind Secretary Blinken, screaming about his crimes against humanity ...



I think the US should go into Gaza and rescue the hostages, irregardless of what the pro-Palestinian electorate thinks. We have spent untold amounts of time, energy, and money trying to jelp the Palestinians, but what are we doing to save our own hostages?

New Caledonia

France backs ICC after it seeks arrest warrants for Israel's Netanyahu, Hamas leaders

This stuck out to me from the news, given what's happening in New Caledonia ... New Caledonia riots: Tourists evacuated, French President Macron to visit

Yep, France thinks Israel isn't treating the Palestinians fairly but somehow manages to overlook the almost 200 years of its colonization of New Caledonia, the indigenous inhabitants of which are now (again) trying to get out from under French rule.

France took over New Caledonia in 1853. Some French traders settled there and it was used as a penal colony for French criminals and political prisoners. In 1864, nickel was discovered there, and France began mining, as the natives, the Kanak people, were mostly put on reservations.

The Kanak people gained French citizenship by the early 1950s. But in the late 70s and early 80s, a Kanak independence movement really took off ... violence, riots, kidnappings (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front).

Since then there have been a series of elections to determine if France should keep New Caledonia. These recent riots are about an upcoming election on independence from France, specifically about who should be allowed to vote in that election ... 2024 New Caledonia unrest.

The countries of Europe, now so very liberal in their political views and so against Israel, should maybe take a look in their mirrors.

The numbers

For many months now, it seems the whole world, including the press, has just decided to accept the death toll numbers of Gazans given out by Hamas. As I have written before, that number is questionable ... for one thing, it doesn't differentiate between civilians and combatants. But about a week ago, something changed.

The UN lowered its estimate of the death toll in Gaza. They've come to the conclusion that there are actually about 10,000 fewer deaths in Gaza than they have been telling us ... more like 24,000 than 35,000. Those extra 10,000 dead are hypothetical .... there are no bodies, no identities.

You can read about it in TIME magazine ... What We Know About the Death Toll in Gaza

Here's what Haviv Rettig Gur of The Times of Israel posted on Twitter/X here on May 15 ...

The long and short of the UN's lower Gazan death toll figure is that on May 8 the UN finally stopped relying on made-up Gaza Media Office numbers and started to rely on Gaza Health Ministry figures, which have been dramatically lower for months.

And no, the 10,000 "unidentified" are not existing bodies that have not yet been identified, they're media reports of casualty numbers that no one can actually connect to any bodies or reports of missing persons.

The UN is admitting that the 35,000 figure was pure Hamas propaganda, and that no one at any point in the international institutional pipeline thought that was a problem.

I don't know how much we can trust the Hamas-run Ministry of Health numbers either. But I'm actually surprised at the basic incompetence of UN officials thinking it was a good idea to prefer "media office" numbers to those of health officials.

And those totals include combatants. How many? Is it 6,000, as Hamas once claimed, or 14,000 as Israeli battlefield commanders estimated? Who knows. Certainly not the UN.

And all this comes with the vital and important caveat: We're still talking about many thousands of dead civilians. This isn't a "gotcha" moment that we just get to walk away from. That UN officials, international organizations and western media outlets have been lying, whether willfully or out of raw incompetence, does not exonerate us of responsibility - and a vital strategic necessity - to fight with as little civilian harm as possible.

Nooooo!

My most hated chore is mowing the lawn. The yard is pretty big and it's been getting harder and harder to mow it since my knees have been hurting. I tend to put it off until it's like it is today ... a forest of knee-high dandelions. At least they're pretty.

Dead hostages

srael recovers bodies of three hostages taken by Hamas, including Shani Louk

Their bodies were found in Gaza by the IDF, and it was ascertained that all three had been murdered on October 7 at the music festival by Hamas fighters. And then their dead bodies were stolen by Hamas and taken to Gaza.

You will remember the videos showing Hamas fighters displaying Shani Louk's half naked body in the back of a pickup truck as the terrorists drove through Gaza amid crowds of screaming people. Monsters.

Trump's flying monkeys

Pathetic. You can cut the self-loathing of these obsequious toadies with a knife. Kind of sad to see Mike Johnson among them. I was beginning to believe he was a sincere person.

Get out?

Apparently, the US now believes Israel should "get out of Gaza".

This, after the US has done everything possible, it seems, to make sure Israel will fail in its war against Hamas ... the constant harping on humanitarian aid, the constant criticisms of Netanyahu, the constant investigations of IDF conduct, the nagging about what will come after the war, and now pausing the sale of weapons.

It seems the Biden administration cares more about the Palestinians than about the US citizens killed or taken hostage by Hamas. And now we're telling Israel they have to end the war?

Never has there been a war in which a country has been so scrutinized in its conduct while the war is ongoing. Certainly none of the wars the US has conducted has ever been. The US thinks the Israel/Hamas war has gone on too long? How long was/is our "war on terror"? And we think Israel has racked up too many dead? What about us? ....

The U.S. post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, and Pakistan have taken a tremendous human toll on those countries. As of September 2021, an estimated 432,093 civilians in these countries have died violent deaths as a result of the wars. As of May 2023, an estimated 3.6-3.8 million people have died indirectly in post-9/11 war zones. The total death toll in these war zones could be at least 4.5-4.7 million and counting, though the precise mortality figure remains unknown. Civilian deaths have also resulted from U.S. post-9/11 military operations in Somalia and other countries ... - Civilians Killed & Wounded

We can tell Israel to leave Gaza, but we sure as hell can't make them do that. The Biden administration knows this, but hey, doesn't this stance make Biden more electable? Huh? Is it working?

Condescension and hypocrisy and self-dealing on the part of the US.

The animals of Ukraine

I remember when the war started in Ukraine. Many Ukrainians fled and had to leave their pets behind. I heard a report of how horrible it was in the cities, where starving pets roamed the streets. This from the PBS NewsHour cheered me up a bit ...

Field hospital

On Meet the Press today, Kristen Welker and Tony Blinken perpetuated the idea that Israel is unable to rpovide services to Gazans who evacuate from Rafah to go to the designated humanitarian zone of Al Mawasi. But there are services there.

One such service is a field hosptal provided and run by the International Medical Corps. At their websire, you can read more, but here's a bit about their field hospital in the designated humanitarian zone of Al Mawasi ...

International Medical Corps has deployed two field hospitals in Gaza to help provide civilians with the healthcare they need.

The larger field hospital—initially deployed to Rafah in early January, but moved to Al Mawasi in early April—currently has 140 beds for patients with a wide range of needs, with beds to support the emergency room, beds in a Level 1 intensive-care unit, operating theaters, a fully stocked pharmacy, X-ray and ultrasound machines, a laboratory and blood-transfusion services. It provides care 24/7 and is capable of serving more than 1,000 patients every day ...

And this is not the only field hospital in the designated humanitarian zone. There are several more, run by different internationa groups, including the UK. Listen to the Daily Briefing to hear more about this ...

Happy Mother's Day

Fom left to right, my mom, my grandma, and me. Honolulu, 1981.

Wars kill civilians

Watching Meet the Press Now. They are talking about President Biden pausing weapons to Israel, and at about 13 minutes in, Kristen Welker says "The fact that President Biden acknowledged that US weapons have killed civilians ... that is a stark acknowledgement". She seems astounded.

Yes, the weapons we give other countries when they are at war do sometimes kill civilians. In fact, the weapons we use ourselves in our wars and lesser conflicts also kill civilians. Did she somehow miss the innocent civilians, including kids, who were killed by the US military as we pulled out of Afghanistan? How does she not know this stuff? Perhaps she can check out the Wikipedia page on Collateral damage to catch up.

But meanwhile, yes, let's hold Israel to a higher standard than anyone else in the history of warfare, including ourselves. That seems fair :(

I'm not saying that civilian casualties in war sre ok or acceptable. It's a bad thing. But to pretend that only Israel kills civilians in war is dishonest.

And about those dead Gazan civilians: we should be skeptical about the numbers. 1) the only source we have for the number of dead Gazans is Hamas. 2) that number does not differentiate between non-combatants and Hamas fighters. 3) that number does not discriminate between civilians killed by Israel and those killed through friendly (or unfriendly) fire from Hamas.

Biden's blunder

Bret Stephens in The New York Times ...

President Biden Just Made His Biggest Blunder

In announcing that the United States will pause delivery of 3,500 bombs to Israel, President Biden has the laudable motive of wanting to spare innocent Palestinians from the military consequences of Hamas using Rafah as its last stronghold in Gaza. Less laudably, but no less understandably, he also needs to shore up support among progressive voters who think that Israel’s use of American weapons implicates us in war crimes.

But motives are not results. And the consequences of Biden’s decision, if not soon reversed, will be the opposite of what he intends. How so? Let me count the ways ...

I wish I could put all the essay here for those who can't read the Times, but here are a few of the "ways' he mentions ... The munitions cutoff helps Hamas ... It doesn’t end the war. It prolongs it ... It diminishes Israel’s deterrent power and is a recipe for a wider war.

I agree!

Shroud of Turin

From The Hill

House GOP chairs lash out at Biden over pause in Israeli arms shipment

The top House Republicans with oversight of U.S. foreign and military affairs slammed the Biden administration Wednesday for pausing a shipment to Israel of an estimated 3,000 heavy bombs.

Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said the administration was weakening Israel’s position in the face of threats from Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon ...

Once again, on the subject of Israel, I find myself agreeing with the Republicans instead of the Biden administration. Must check to see if hell has frozen over.

This decision to stop an arms shipment to Israel ... one with the kind of heavy bombs needed to reach Hamas' deep underground tunnels .... seems like blackmail.

The Biden administration wants the Rafah offensive to just not happen. Why? They say it's because a lot of civilians might get killed.

But Israel does have a plan for the civilians ... they can move to a humanitarian zone only about 5 miles away to be safe. And there has never been any sign from Israel but that they need to go into Rafah to get Hamas and hopefully save the hostages.

That isn't some evil plot by Netanyahu to stay in power, it's the universal thinking of the Israeli war cabinet. And Israel will do that, whether we give them weapons or not. It may take longer, more civilians nay die, but I guess the Biden administration can then say, 'not our fault' (please still vote for us).

The patronizing attitude that we know better than they do how to run their country in a war. The gobsmacking hypocrisy of portraying ourselves as superior to them in the civilian casualty domain. Yep, we're all about saving those innocents. This from a country that dropped 2 atom bombs on civilian cities in Japan (129,000 - 226,000 people killed). Or more recently, an administration that abandoned countless civilians, some clinging to the outside of our planes, as we tore out of Afghanistan. How do they keep a straight face?

Stormy

I remember when the Stormy Daniels story came out years ago and had read excerpts from her book (I'll never look at toadstools the same way again - ugh!).

I'm glad this has been made public in this way. God knows how many other women Trump has taken advantage of ... I think this encounter was basically date rape. What is depressing is that the public has been aware of this for years, and still about half the country would vote for this creep again.

Differences

What to Know About the Gaps Between Israel and Hamas on the Cease-Fire Proposal

For those who are interested, there is indeed a difference between the deal the Israelu's submitted and the one Hamas says it accepted for a ceasefire and return of hostages, this despite the fact that US officials said there were just "minor wording changes".

Holy shit! Don't you think the average person would care if their loved one taken hostage was returned dead instead of alive? Don't you think a country that has gone to war to avenge its murdered civilians would care if they had to just end the war rather than only pause it? There are other differences as well.

Sometimes I wonder which side the US is really on. Oh right - our side.

Ceasefire

So what's up with a possible ceadefire? There's a detailed article at The Times of Israel ... Hamas claims to accept ceasefire, hostage deal; Israel: This isn’t what we agreed to

It doesn't look like the original deal that was offered by Israel has been accepted by Hamas. Instead Hamas has changed the terms, including a bit that says the ceasefire will be a permanent end to the war. That is a non-starter for Israel, and the war cabinet decided unanimously against accepting that idea.

Meanwhile, Israel has asked Gazans in the eastern part of Rafah to evacuate to a designated humanitarian zone in Al-Mawasi, about 5 miles away near the coast, where field hospitals and aid tents have been set up.

Things keep changing, but it doesn't seem likely that a ceasefure will be arranged as long as Hamas demands a total end to the war, allowing the terror group to stay in power in Gaza

At the store

I seem to hear all the best music at the grocery store. :) Today it was this - Bee Gees, Nights on Broadway

Bill Maher

On the pro-Palestinian protests ...

Protests

The pro-Palestinian protests are spreading around the country and the world. The whole thing seems so dishonest and contrived to me, for a number of reasons ...

1) The protesters say Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Neither the US not the ICJ agrees with that accusation. But "gemocide" has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

2) The protesters say they want a permanent ceasefire in the war, but they have nothing to say about the fate of the hostages nor about the continued existence of Hamas. They ignore the fact that there was a ceasefire on Oct 6, and that Hamas is responsible for breaking that, not Israel. They do not call on Hamas to end the war.

3) And speaking of Hamas, how did these politically liberal protesters end up supporting a rigid religious autocracy that poops on women, gay people, and religious minorities? Do they know how badly they and their protests would go over if they were actually living in Gaza?

4) The protesters say they want Gaza to be free, and they want Israel to stop occupying Gaza. Surely they know that Gaza has been free since 2005, when Israel left Gaza. It was then that the Gazan people voted for the terroist group of Hamas to be their leaders in an election in 2006.

5) The protesters say they want peace, but their slogans and signs are anything but peaceful - they call for an end to Israel as a state and for an intifada. Just for reference, the Second Intifada is an exampe of what that would mean.

Given all this, it seems to me that the protesters are either terminally stupid or willfully ignorant of facts. It also occurs to me that the protesters hate the idea of Jewish people having a homeland, and have used this war as a plausibly deniable excuse to call for an end to Israel.

But of course, the facts don't matter. What really matters is being part of the groupthink ...

Isn't it awesome and noble and relevant to be a protester, like the anti-war protesters of the 60s?

And isn't it emotionally satidfying to righteously hate a group of people that everyone else around the world has hated for all time?

And, you know, summer is coming ... boring ... and there's the need to remind Biden to forgive more student loans before the election.

Kittens

I just spent some time at my local animal shelter website for lost cats ... still looking for Mouse, my cat who disappeared a couple of months ago.

It is incredibly depressing to look there because now it is kitten season, and while normally there are about 3 pages of lost cat pictures to go through, now there are like 12. Tiny kittens, dozens and dozens of them, and you know that most of them will end up being killed. I pray for them but I know most of them will still die, alone and scared.

The Jesuits call in the cops

NYPD raids short-lived anti-Israel encampment at Fordham University’s Lincoln Center campus

[...] A letter from Fordham University officials released by police shows the university deemed the encampment “a clear and present danger to persons, property” and requested police “help clear all individuals from the encampment.” The school additionally requested a police presence on campus through May 22, when commencement ceremonies have been completed.

Meanwhile, The New York Times discovers the professional activist training the pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia how to "create a crisis" ... The 63-Year-Old Career Activist Among the Protesters at Columbia/

I found it somehow creepy to learn that these protests are not spontaneous and sincere, but contrived dispassionately to get a certain result. Ugh.

"Without love ...

Where would you be now?"

This song in my head tonight. Doobie Brothers, 1982, Greek Theater at UC Berkeley, Long Train Runnin' ...