Tough to argue with anything in Andy McCarthy’s closing analysis here:  Merchan and Trump Conceal the Holes in Bragg’s Case

It is highly likely that former president Trump will be convicted at his criminal trial in Manhattan. Here’s why.

The jury in Donald Trump’s NY trial received jury instructions this morning, began deliberations around 11:30am ET and were dismissed shortly after 4pm.

Jurors were told not to discuss the case with anyone and not to visit sites or read accounts of the case.

We are coming up on 33 years from the collapse of the Soviet Union on December 25th, 1991. That specific event merits an anniversary of sorts, even as it was the culmination of a long, drawn out denouement and thus the date would be entirely arbitrary as a landmark.  Decay and rot had accelerated through the decades leading to the 1990s, known in Russian parlance as the period of stagnation (zastoi).  Change thus occurred in the two ways well described by Mike Campbell in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises: both gradually and then suddenly.

Some two decades earlier the dissident Andrei Amalrik had pondered whether the Soviet Union could survive until 1984.  His answer became known as the Amalrik paradox: “In order for the Soviet Union to survive it will need to change; but if it changes, it will no longer survive.”

The political situation in Gaza has taken a not-unexpected turn for the worse. Israel is conducting operations in Rafah, where, contrary to widespread expectations, it has done much to overcome the logistical nightmare of evacuating and then feeding close to a million Palestinians in Gaza, supplying some 542,570 tons of aid and 28,255 aid trucks, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, Hamas does what it can to wreck that operation, and Egypt remains adamant in penning up the Palestinians in Rafah, which only increases the time, costs, and risks of military operations.

But conditions on the ground seem to have little effect on the political controversies that surround that action, coming from both the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and many Western governments, including—on and off—the Biden administration. In both cases, the basic message is the same. As to Hamas, the ICJ said in its order that it is “deeply troubling” that Hamas disregarded its call “for [the] immediate and unconditional release” of the hostages. Hamas will not do so at any time and is not under any diplomatic pressure to comply. So, it is the other half of the judgment that carries all the weight. The ICJ also ordered Israel to:

I keep seeing the media present the case that Trump only helped the 1% and did nothing to help regular Americans.  That assertion is demonstrably untrue.

Let’s look at real (inflation adjusted) median wages.   (Expressed in 1984 dollars.)

Why do sharks take bites out of people? Standard Answer: sharks don’t eat people, silly! They just confuse those legs for seals.

How do we know? Do we run post-chomping interviews, like in a reality TV show, and ask the shark, “Gee, what were you thinking when you decided to sample Jennifer’s legs?”

There are conservative podcasts and web sites I follow that have been sounding the alarm over the declining birth rate worldwide. For most of my life I’ve been hearing those sounding the alarm on overpopulation, and only recently have the alarmists turned the other direction.

The conservative sites that are sounding this alarm have a religious bent to them, often Catholic, like National Review and Daily Wire (their prominent podcasters include 2 Catholics, one Orthodox Jew, and one Christian who leans Catholic without being one).

The Torah tells us of the ancestral burial place of the founders of Judaism is in the cave of Machpelah, in Hebron.

Does this look like a cave to you?

Allow me to highlight the story of a WWII veteran from North Texas who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his fighter pilot exploits in the Pacific Theater.

Col. Neel Earnest Kearby was born in Wichita Falls in 1911, and graduated from Arlington High School in 1928. He began college at North Texas Agricultural College, now the University of Texas at Arlington, and finished his degree at the University of Texas at Austin before joining the Army Air Corps as a flying cadet. During World War II, he pioneered air combat tactics for the P-47 Thunderbolt, leading the 348th Fighter Squadron.

I’m on vacation with my family in The South of France.  I just love how that sounds.  In fact, when a local Frenchman asks where I live, I respond, “The South of Carolina.”  I think that sounds more sophisticated than South Carolina.  I’m not sure why.

Anyway, my wife and daughters are having a blast wandering around all these cute medieval French villages, shopping for, um, well, shopping for just all kinds of stuff.  Except shoes — apparently high-fashion French shoe stores do not carry size 14’s.  Which probably saved me some money.  But anyway, I’ll wander around with them for a while, marveling at the 1,000-year-old buildings which are still standing despite the absence of building codes 1,000 years ago.  But after a while, my wife will plant me in a café, pile some bags on the chair next to me, order me a glass of wine, and tell me to stay put.  Which I do.

Every so often one of them will swing by, drop off some more bags, pat me on the head like a loyal dog, and then disappear back into the chaos.  So I do my job.  I watch their bags, and I drink wine.  Which is fine with me.  The wine is yummy (although I know very little about it) and the people-watching here is outstanding — just top-notch.  Tourist season doesn’t start in earnest here for a few more weeks. I hear some English in the crowd, but it’s mostly French.  And I’ve had a great time trying to figure out who is who.  See if you think my stereotypes are accurate:

The origin of Memorial Day is contested. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, there are 25 cities that vie for credit as the first to celebrate the Americans who died in service of the United States Armed Forces.

In 1966, a Congressional resolution and proclamation by President Lyndon Johnson recognized Waterloo, New York, then holding its 100th celebration, crediting the town for starting the tradition.

Citizens of Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, claim their town to be earliest site to observe the holiday; pointing to Emma Hunter, Sophie Keller, and Elizabeth Meyers, who met in October 1864 and shared a bouquet of flowers to decorate the graves of their fallen family members and friends.

Think of how strange – and hilarious – it would be to read a recipe as if it were poetry, or a computer program as if it were a fairy tale. But it can also shed a different, and intriguing, light on the material.

I am aware of the language of engineering. In simplest strokes: Requirements are written, specifications are formed, something is created, and then inspected for conformity with the specifications and underlying requirements. If they check out, they are signed-off as complete.

Funny, sometimes, how the mind works.  Today’s Telegraph has an obituary for figure skater Sjoukje Dijkstra, who has died at the age of 82. It’s a name that–today–will likely trip lightly off the tongues only of those native to Holland, but I’m a geezer, and I know that it’s pronounced something on the order of “SHOU-kee DIKE-stra.”

Miss Dijkstra won the gold medal at the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, the same year she also won both the European and the World Championships, making her one of a select group of very few skaters, male or female, who’ve accomplished that feat.  I remember her.

But when I read the news a little earlier today, my first thought wasn’t of figure skating at all. It was of a family funeral which was held at a church I didn’t frequent, and of which I’d been told that the family nickname for the organist was, “The Thumper.”  I quickly discovered why, at the outset of the first hymn.