Saturday: Hili dialogue Why Evolution Is True – Why Evolution Is True

Welcome to SaturCaturday, December 30, 2023, and, being my birthday, its the LAST DAY OF COYNEZAA. On the Sabbath, too. Its also the worst of all food days: National Baking Soda (Bicarbonate of Soda) Day, presumably to ease your tummy from holiday eating.

Its also Bacon Day (much better, though not kosher), the fifth day of Kwanzaa, and the sixth of the Twelve Days of Christmas.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this by consulting the December 30 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

*I bet a lot of us, including me, have forgotten about the war in Ukraine. Sadly, it doesnt seem to be going well, and on Friday Russia inflicted severe damage on the small country with drone and missile attacks.

Russia fired more than 100 missiles at Ukraine on Friday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, striking multiple residential buildings, a shopping center and other civilian infrastructure in the biggest barrage so far in an otherwise quiet winter.

The scale of the attack confirmed what many in Ukraine have feared for months that Russia was conserving its missile stocks throughout the fall for massive strikes in the winter. Officials in Kyiv have also warned that stalled U.S. security assistance, which includes ammunition for U.S.-made air-defense systems, could embolden the Russians and place Ukrainian cities in peril.

Britains Defense Minister Grant Shapps said his country was sending hundreds of air-defense missiles to Ukraine to ensure it has what it needs to defend itself from Putins barbaric bombardment.

Putin is testing Ukraines defense and the Wests resolve, hoping he can clutch victory from the jaws of defeat. But he is wrong, Shappssaid in a statement.

The Russians used a mix of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones, Zelensky said. Unlike a year ago, Ukraines improved, Western-provided air-defense systems, which now include the Patriot system, contained the damage, shooting down most of the 110 missiles, the president added. Last year, millions of Ukrainians experienced outages when Russia repeatedly pounded the power grid.

. . . The attacks intended to exhaust Ukraines beefed-up air defense, according to officials hit sites across the country, from Lviv in western Ukraine to Odessa in the south to the capital of Kyiv to Kharkiv and Dnipro in the east. Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnattold Ukrainian mediathere had never been so many targets at one time.

One of the missiles was in Polish airspace for a few minutes, which of course entitled Poland to shoot it down. But they lack the capacity. It now looks very dire for Ukraine, and Im sure theyre upset that all the worlds attention is focused on Gaza. And now a lot of Republicans dont seem to want the U.S. to give aid to Ukraine. Im neither a Republican nor agree with that stand.

*Now another state has barred Trump from the Republican primary ballot. That makes two, and for sure its going to the Supreme Court. This was an executive rather than a judicial decision:

Maines top election official Thursday barredDonald Trumpfrom appearing on the states primary ballot, the second time a state knocked the Republican formerpresident off its ballotand escalating a national legal effort to disqualify him from office.

In a 34-pagewritten decision, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, said the Constitution bars a second Trump term because of his actions surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol following his loss in the 2020 presidential election.

Her decision, in which she found he is not qualified to hold the office of the President, comes afterColorados highest court ruled last weekthat Trump is ineligible for that states ballot. Both rulings invoked the same section of the post-Civil War 14th Amendment that disqualifies from public office those who swore to defend the Constitution and then engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the U.S.

The provision in the 14th Amendment, intended to keep Confederates from getting governmental power after the Civil War, says this:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Back to the article:

In Maine, eligibility challenges are first adjudicated administratively. The secretary of states ruling, which she issued after holdinga public hearing, marks the first time that a state election authority has excluded the 2024 Republican presidential front-runner from a primary ballot.

In her decision, Bellows said Trump used a false narrative of election fraud to inflame his supporters to prevent a peaceful transfer of power. She accused him of engaging in incendiary rhetoric and failing to take timely action to stop the assault on the Capitol.

The weight of the evidence makes clear that Mr. Trump was aware of the tinder laid by his multi-month effort to delegitimize a democratic election, and then chose to light a match, she wrote.

*And, in Ohio, the Republican (!) governor vetoed a bill that prevented gender-affirming care as well as trans women from participating in girls and womens sports.

Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine vetoeda measureFriday that would have banned gender-affirming care for minors, casting the action out of step with many in his own party as thoughtful, limited and pro-life.

He simultaneously announced plans to move to administratively ban transgender surgeries until a person is 18, and to position the state to better regulate and track gender-affirming treatments in both children and adults.

Thevetoed billalso would have banned transgender athletes participation in girls and womens sports.

At a news conference, DeWine said he is proposing a hybrid approach to gender-affirming care that he hopes can win the support of legislative Republicans who have the votes to override his veto, if they choose as well as serve as a national model to states, asgender-affirming care restrictionsenacted across the country in recent years face lawsuits.

Ultimately, these tough, tough decisions should not be made by the government. They should not be made by the state of Ohio, DeWine said. They should be made by the people who love these kids the most, and thats the parents. The parents who have raised that child, the parents who have seen that child go through agony, the parents who worry about that child every single day of their life.

I havent a firm position on gender-affirming care except that it should be done by an objective therapist, preferably verified by another, that doctors should not be able to begin medical treatment until the gender-dysphoric child is past puberty, and, no, it should not be solely the parents decision. Im not sure what kind of laws can assure that people can still transition knowing the risks, as some people are happy they made that decision, but there has to be some kind of laws given that until youre is of an appropriate age, youre not considered able to make this kind of decision.

As for trans girls and trans women participating in womens sports, thats a big NO to me on the grounds of fairness, and because of the athletic advantage that trans women have. Womens sports should be a womens space except in those sports where theres not a palpable sex difference in ability. Womens sports in Ohio are now doomed, and the governors veto her was very unwise. But you cant veto only part of a bill. They need new legislation that just bans trans women from participating in womens sports.

*Forgetting stuff in your dotage? I am, but its nothing serious, or so I think. If I have a useful thought, I write it down, as Ill often forget it later. Heres some help for the usual memory loss with age in a NYT article called A neurologists tips to protect your memory. Here they are (to see the details of what you have to do, see the article), coming from neurologist Richard Restak:

a.) Pay more attention. Some memory lapses are actually attention problems, not memory problems.

b.) Find regular everyday memory challenges. There are many memory exercises that you can integrate into everyday life. Dr. Restak suggested composing a grocery list and memorizing it. When you get to the store, dont automatically pull out your list (or your phone) instead, pick up everything according to your memory.

c.) Read more novels. [!] One early indicator of memory issues, according to Dr. Restak, is giving up on fiction. People, when they begin to have memory difficulties, tend to switch to reading nonfiction, he said.

I am! Im reading Anthony Doerrs latest novel,Cloud Cuckoo Land

d. ) Beware of technology. Among Dr. Restaks three new sins of memory, two are associated with technology. First is what he calls technological distortion. Storing everything on your phone means that you dontknow it, Dr. Restak said, which can erode our own mental abilities. . . . The second way our relationship with technology is detrimental for memory is because it often takes our focus away from the task at hand.

e.) Work with a mental health professional if you need to. Your mood plays a big role in what you do or do not remember. . . Depression, for instance,can greatly decrease memory. Among people who are referred to neurologists for memory issues, one of the biggest causes is depression, Dr. Restak said. . . . . Your emotional state affects the kind of memories you recall.

f.) Determine whether there is cause for concern. not all memory lapses are problematic. For instance, not remembering where you parked your car in a crowded lot is pretty normal. Forgetting how youarrivedat the parking lot in the first place, however, indicates potential memory issues.

To see if you have a concerning problem, there are doctors who can give you memory tests, and some kinds of dementia can be diagnosed with spinal taps.

*Barry points us to a new Smithsonian article which we all need to read: Thirteen discoveries made about human evolution in 2023. Its very useful to keep up with our genus, and Ill give just four of the 13 discoveries:

Cut marks on a 1.45-million-year-old leg bone are potential evidence for hominins butchering and eating each other. It seems Neanderthals may not have been the only ones with eclectic taste buds. While finding cut marks on animal bones is fairly common after the advent of stone tools in the archaeological record, findingcut marks on hominin bones is much more surprising.

Earliest use of wood for structural purposes is discovered in Zambia. Although stone tools get much of the attention in human evolution, ancient tools were sometimes made from other materials that do not preserve as well as stone. Astudypublished in September by Lawrence Barham and colleagues presentsevidence for the oldest structural use of woodlogs used to build a structure dating to 476,000 years ago.

Homo sapiens originate from two or more African paleo-populations. The researchers used computer modeling to suggest thatour species arose from at least two African populations that interacted and interbred with each other. Fossils from these populations would likely be physically and genetically similar. This study indicates that our species did not arise from a single geographically isolated origin population in Africa.

Homo sapiens were in southeast Asia thousands of years earlier than expected. While ancient DNA allows researchers to investigate our species African origins, new fossils and archaeological sites can shed light on when our ancestors migrated to new places outside of Africa. Apaperpublished in June by Sarah Freidline and colleagues describes new fossils and dates for members of our own species Homo sapiens and found thathumans reached Southeast Asia sometime between 68,000 and 86,000 years ago.

The last one is the most interesting to me because its widely accepted that all modern H. sapiens come from a single migration event out of Africa that occurred about 50,000 years ago. If thats the case, then a different form of Homo, represented by only two bones (part of a skull and tibia) found in a cave in Laos, left Africa a lot longer ago than we think, but then these far-traveling migrants went extinct without leaving descendants.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, all three cats wished me a happy birthday! (Im told that Hili is referring to my battles against creationism, wokeness, and antisemitism.)

Kulka: Today is Jerrys birthday.

Hili: You dont have to remind me.Happy birthday, Jerry. I wish you many victorious duels in the next year.

Szaron: Many happy returns of the day.

In Polish:

Kulka: Dzi urodziny Jerrego.

Hili: Nie musisz mi przypomina. Wszystkiego najlepszego, Jerry. ycz ci wielu zwyciskich pojedynkw w przyszym roku.

Szaron: Many happy returns of the day, Jerry.

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From Linda, a Mike Lukovich editorial cartoon. (I presume you get the reference.)

A DUCK cartoon on Rubes by Leigh Rubin from July 04, 2017:

From Kristen on Facebook:

From Masih, more brave unveiled Iranian women. They risk a lot taking off the hijab!

From Malcolm, spider cats:

From Jay. This crow appears to be helping the hedgehog across the road. But did the hedgehog get over the curb?

First tweet: I dont understand it. Second: is that some kind of condor? If so, which one?

Not a good move, careerwise. Shes been fired:

The profile:

From the Auschwitz Memorial, a Dutch girl, only a bit less than two years old, was gassed to death upon arrival.

Two tweets from Professor Cobb. First, one he calls La verit. (Come on, you know some French!)

This one is kot in basket. Be sure to watch the whole short video:

Follow this link:

Saturday: Hili dialogue Why Evolution Is True - Why Evolution Is True