Day of the Week –
Thursday. And now that we know RFK’s running mate, the two other parties are shaking in their boots. Or was that shaking from laughter? More later. And I just liked that photo of Nugget.
Joe Lieberman –
I was saddened by the sudden death of Joe Lieberman, former Senator from Connecticut. While I admired his career in the Senate, I was fortunate enough over the past fourteen years to have seen him in action as a co-chair of No Labels. His continuing efforts to bring back civility, compromise, and bipartisanship to the workings of Congress were relentless. Regardless of your affinity to his politics, his dedication to our country and its citizens, his belief in our ability to work together to solve our common problems and to continue towards the “more perfect union” that our founders envisioned, was admirable. He will certainly be missed.
Palestinian Authority’s Attempts to Reorganize –
The Palestinian Authority has been an ineffectual organization for a long time. One can trace that back to the late 1990s into the early 2000s under the leadership of Yasser Arafat who became a billionaire through the kleptocracy that he created. It is also true that under Arafat’s leadership, as well as his successor, Mahmoud Abbas, there was a careful balancing act between advocating for peaceful relations with Israel while not condemning too strongly the militant factions in their midst. The only success story in the PA’s history has been the US trained security forces that have effectively worked along their Israeli counterparts to tamp down terrorist and security threats in the West Bank. Of course, Netanyahu has done whatever he could to keep the PA weak and to avoid rewarding any successes in his successful attempt to prevent any unified Palestinian government from coming together. But that is a Nugget for another day.
So Now… -
The PA is a failure at this point. To a large degree of their own making but a condition that has been supported by Israeli policies over the past two decades. And the world community recognizes that the PA is, in its current form, incapable of playing any constructive role in Gaza on the day after. A complete reformation and replacement of the players involved would be needed. And many, including me, do not see that happening as long as Abbas is anywhere around. But there are some changes taking place that if they had begun ten years ago might have had an impact. There is a new prime minister who has outlined the creation of a new government that would consist of technocrats who actually know a bit about what a government is supposed to do. Elections are not in the offing any time soon, and I do not think that elections are all that important. We can talk about how voting without the institutions that support democracy are truly meaningless (Russia, Iran, for example), but a transition to an effective governing entity is what is needed. The question here is whether the PA is so tainted that regardless of intentions it will ever be trusted.
Hamas & Food Aid –
We all know, or should know, that for years Hamas has redirected to its members whatever resources it wanted. Building materials meant for improvements to Gazans in general were diverted to build tunnels, to create rockets and the factories to make them, and food which was stockpiled in the tunnels when planning for October 7. It has been an open secret, one that the UN and its agencies, as well as journalists, governments, and others have known, but would not admit lest their narratives fall apart. And so it is now that with the cries of humanitarian aid not getting through or not being sufficient (both of which are true), to some degree, it is Hamas that is interfering with the orderly distribution to the masses. I say this knowing that much more has to be done to alleviate the suffering of the ordinary Palestinian. Gaza is in need of much more than it is currently getting. But a recognition is necessary that the problems in distribution are at least partially due to the actions of their own in purposefully exacerbating the crisis.
Gaza Casualty Counts –
We have grown to rely on the almost daily casualty counts in Gaza which have grown to over thirty-one thousand. And whatever the number is, it is tragic. Regardless of whether you are prone to blame Israel or Hamas, as a human living in the West with our value of life, it is hard to see. Anyone who is not moved by the suffering of others is, well, I don’t know what to call them. But what are the real numbers? While the actual death count will probably never be certain, it must be recognized that the numbers being thrown around are, at this point at least, mere estimates. It is easy to dismiss the figures coming out of Hamas controlled organizations, but in the early days, it seems that those organizations did attempt to identify bodies when reporting. Of course, any Hamas terrorists who were found dead were listed merely as “men” or if teenagers as “children” regardless of whether they were killed with a gun in their hands. And in this article the estimate is that while the actual casualty count is probably higher than reported, the breakdown is almost certainly that of less women and children and more fighting age men and teenagers. The fog of war makes any accuracy in this endeavor questionable, but when the intent is to make your enemy look evil, and those to whom you feed this information repeat it without any real independent analysis, it becomes the weapon of war that it is.
Mifepristone –
Well it looks like that group of pro-life doctors who were trying to get the Supreme Court to stop the distribution of mifepristone (the abortion drug) will be thwarted in those efforts. If the tenor of the questions and comments during the hearing are any indication, they will fail on two grounds. First of all, in order to maintain a lawsuit you must have “standing.”
Standing –
That means, for my non-lawyer readers, that you must have been damaged in some way or that you will be damaged in some way. These doctors who believe that abortion is murder will never administer the drug, nor will they ever perform an abortion. Their argument was that as doctors who may be working in an emergency room, they may encounter someone who has some complication from the drug and they would be forced to perform…medicine?...on the patient. The Supremes were highly skeptical that these folk have standing and on that basis, without determining the merits of the case, could rule against them.
The Other Issue -
But the other issue is whether the drug is safe enough to distribute by mail rather than the original protocol that insisted on several in person doctor visits. This change was made some years ago based on the FDA’s research and database, as well as other studies, that showed that the drug was safe to use without such doctor oversight. From what I have read, there is little to dispute the fact that used properly mifepristone is safe, so the attack is on the process that the FDA used in making their determination. And, as stated by at least one of the Supremes, if the court is called upon to question the expert judgment of governing agencies, the floodgate of litigation to challenge any and all drugs would be opened. And I am reminded of something I read long ago to the effect that if aspirin was being evaluated today as a new drug it would fail. Causes ulcers? Can exacerbate brain bleeds? Can cause convulsions? And on and on…nope, dangerous and not to be used without a doctor’s supervision.
New Beetle –
I always find it interesting when someone finds a new species of anything. We live in a time where it seems that so much of the world has been traveled and studied that nothing new should be out there. But the truth is that there are many species of critters out there that we have yet to come across. Or I wonder how many of us more adventurous types actually do spot some new species of something but really have no clue what we were looking at. You need to be some specialist to realize what’s out there to notice something unusual. And so it was with Mr. Tweed, and yes, that was this academics real name. He was camping somewhere in Australia and at his campsite he saw what he thought was a spot of bird poop on a leaf. It looked all fuzzy and white, but when he took another look, he realized that it was some sort of beetle. So it was captured and it turns out to be a previously undiscovered species. Why it looks that way from an evolutionary viewpoint I do not know. Nor do I care. It was the fact that this one centimeter insect looked like poop that drew my attention. But that doesn’t surprise my long term readers.
Food for Thought –
So is it that certain foods make us think? Or that thinking makes us hungry? Or the euphemism of stimulating concepts feed our brain? You guys stew on that for a while and forget that I went out to dinner last night so no food photos today.
Conclusion –
Nothing to conclude right now. Too many unsettled areas around the world and here at home…not my home, all is fine here, I meant community home, LA, California, the US, that home. But while I ruminate on that, you all stay healthy and be good to each other.
Me.