Adamkhan.net
Wednesday, April 24th, 2024
Every paragraph with its little bombshell: Edward Luttwak is in full elegant force in “Iran is weaker than we think” in Unherd. The opening paragraph:
It is only now, almost 16 years since Obama first entered the White House with the private determination to end Iran’s “death to America” hostility at all costs, that his Iran policy has achieved the exact opposite of what he had wanted: direct warfare, with US fighters intercepting Iran’s bombardment drones. All along, it was a policy that had two different faces: one perfectly reasonable, and the other perfectly delusional.
Such casual rhythm before the zing at paragraph’s end! Later we get a Luttwakian paradox of strategy:
The [Iranian] Revolutionary Guards finally failed strategically because their Arab recruitment policy was so successful that it overshot the culminating point of success: seeing the historic Sunni capital of Damascus under Shia domination, and Baghdad the very seat of the Sunni Arab Caliphate ruled by Iran’s agents, Sunni Arab states from Morocco to Jordan and Saudi Arabia, which had repeatedly fought Israel from 1948, moved to abandon their hostility, openly or discreetly.
And we end with striking, real-world evidence that demonstrates the strategic theories posited within. I won’t quote this evidence so as not to spoil the end of this masterful op-ed.
Tuesday, April 23rd, 2024
Monday, April 22nd, 2024
In The Wall Street Journal, this geopolitical news article on Finland is the first one I can recall reading anywhere. Swimming into focus are renewed tensions with the new Russia. Th
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Finland has ramped up its military spending, boosting its defense budget to above 2% and snapping up U.S. rocket systems, as well as Israeli antitank and air-defense systems. The country is preparing to base F-35 jet fighters it will receive from the U.S. just over 100 miles from its border with Russia.
I wish for Finland and Israel to explore each other much more.
Sunday, April 21st, 2024
War and warming. What are the chances this bonkers piece is a hoax designed to embarrass its publisher The Nation. People took time and effort to ensure it is written in full sentences and well copy-edited.
Friday, April 19th, 2024
Great lengthy interview with Giora Eiland, always with cogent orthogonal ideas on important Israeli geopolitical realities.
The Israeli story was, Hamas is like ISIS, and ISIS is like Hamas. No! That’s not the case. ISIS was a bunch of crazies from Baghdad who, unopposed, gained control of western Iraq and those who lived there. But it didn’t represent the people, not in Mosul or elsewhere. Gaza more resembles 1930s Germany, where an extremist party won elections, with the support of most of the people, and quickly unified the military and civil government into one entity. What happened on October 7 is that the State of Gaza went to war against the State of Israel. State against state. Now, the state of Gaza does have vulnerabilities. It doesn’t have sufficient fuel, food and water of its own. You can impose a legitimate boycott on that state until the state returns all of your hostages. Humanitarian for humanitarian.
I’m not sure whether to be disappointed or relieved that Eiland is granted the levers of power.
Wednesday, April 17th, 2024
Cool, calm, collected, and with casually brilliant staging. IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi provides the official Israeli miltary speech in response to the massive Iranian missile attack.
Amidst all this it’s a happy thought that Germany sold Israel a doomsday device (Dolphin subs) and a couple of decades later Israel is selling Germany an anti-doomsday device. Ben-Gurion and Adenhauer.
Tuesday, April 16th, 2024
OK I need to stop reading the news, but one more, this diatribe in Arutz7:
To me, the word “State” has demeaning connotations in the English speaking world. What other country on this planet is referred to and refers to itself as the State of…….? To be referred to as a “State” implies a not quite equal status with other nations, implying some benevolent authority has graciously bestowed a degree of autonomy to Israel. It is time that Israelis and Diaspora Jews refer to Israel as Israel, period.
I see no need to take issue with the term “state”; we are in good company with the United States of America. Like them we explicitly acknowledge the legalistic framework within which the American and Israeli peoples live at liberty. There may even be some positive connotations; we live now in a state of Israel, as opposed to the previous state. At any rate, many nationstates have political prefixes that are ignored and shortened to their national names: République française is just France, for example, and the State of Israel is usually referred to as just Israel.
Giora Eiland’s commentary on Channel 12 last night warranted its own story this morning on Arutz7, with him arguing that the response to Iran’s attack should be to focus on Lebanon.
Israel does not need to attack in Iran. There is no reason for it, and it has the potential to become complicated militarily, as well as regionally and with all of our friends – and the achievement will not be significant, regardless. If you want to put Iranians in their place and maybe even test them – there are two other arenas: One is in Syria.
There is merit here, though I think his suggested mechanism, to announce Israel’s return to the North for the school year, is fatuous. Both the low- and the high-level attacks from Hamas and Iran respectively point to a response aginst the mid-level main threat from Lebanon. Even if it doesn’t happen visibly — Bibi’s response seems to be to keep things simple and retaliate against actual perpetrators — it does feel like the appropriate true focus.
Kudos to Britain’s Daily Mail for publishing the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ piece “Why Israel’s failure to strike back at Iran could lead to NUCLEAR WAR” by FDD’s chief exec Mark Dubowitz and senior fellow Jacob Nagel.
Israel was acting well within the rules of its dangerous neighborhood by taking out [Mohammad Reza Zahedi, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon]. But the Ayatollah responded with a potentially catastrophic barrage on Israeli civilians, military bases and government facilities. If Iran walks away from this moment without paying a severe price, Tehran may be emboldened to deploy its weapons again. And the next time, these drones and missiles may be armed with nuclear or chemical payloads.
Their conclusion is indisputable and anything else is either appeasement or overthinking.
Monday, April 15th, 2024
Wonderful piece in Commentary by Seth Cropsey (I jumped to the family name and he is indeed the son of University of Chicago scion Joseph Cropsey) ““American Strategy on the Brink” that really gets to the heart of the matter”: The United States is shirking its responsibilities on the world stage:
All three instances of ongoing violence [Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan] stem fundamentally from a crisis in American power. These theaters are afire because Washington refuses to recognize what it is—the center of a loosely democratic system that spans Eurasia and the Americas. Culturally and strategically, the Rimland is being punished for the blindness at its core.
From “Israel’s Splendid Isolation” by John Podhoretz in Commentary:
Jews literally did not have the means or the ability to defend themselves for more than two millennia. Now we do. And when we do, we become unnerving. The very phrase “Jewish army” was, since 70 C.E.., the definition of an oxymoron. Now it conjures up something powerful, and the fact that it’s powerful at all means for many that it’s far too powerful. When Israel acts in its own defense, it alienates these people and these nations. And thereby “isolates” itself.
I can say it with confidence: I love you jpod.
Writing brief essays now on X, Victor Davis Hanson lists Ten Ways to Guarantee a Theater-wide War:
Vapid “Don’t!” … Abruptly pull out of Afghanistan … Chinese spy balloon … [okay a] “minor” invasion [of Ukraine] … Seem eager to resume the Iran Deal …
Etc.
Monday, April 8th, 2024
This Dearborn crowd musters up a “Death to America” chant (though the speaker to his credit doesn’t say it). Stupid fucks.
Rice cultures around the world do tend to exhibit similar cultural characteristics, including less focus on self, more relational or holistic thinking and greater in-group favoritism than wheat cultures.
The last time I came across this sort of diet-based sociology was in Nietzsche, where it struck me as both significant and true while feeling outlandish and ridiculous when repeated. So it’s nice to see it treated academically. Here’s one bit in Nietzsche, Aphorism #134 in La Gaya Scienza (he probably mentions it elsewhere too):
Pessimists as Victims. When a profound dislike of existence gets the upper hand, the after-effect of a great error in diet of which a people has been long guilty comes to light. The spread of Buddhism (not its origin) is thus to a considerable extent dependent on the excessive and almost exclusive rice-fare of the Indians, and on the universal enervation that results therefrom.
I enjoyed this very nice primer on editing by Eva Parish. Of her 9 recommendations, the one I fall down on most in my own occasional scribblings is “Be aware of your tone”, which is actually quite an expansive, non-technical problem. I guess I try to mix up the high and low due to insecurity that I’m a bore and aim to jolt and amuse the reader awake — but Eva argues that the mix is confusing and distracting.
I think however she is wrong to restore commas after prefixing subordinate clauses. Her examples:
Example: If you’re looking for me I’ll be in my office.
Revision: If you’re looking for me, I’ll be in my office.
Example: Due to the fog our flight was delayed.
Revision: Due to the fog, our flight was delayed.
My take instead: if the sentence is unambiguous without the comma then lean towards omitting it. Especially with the second example, with the clause being only four syllables long, the comma slows down the reader so much that the music of the sentence is broken. “Fog our flight” cannot be misinterpreted — nobody thinks of fogging a flight. Indeed the lack of a comma foretells to the reader they can confidently plow ahead through a well-tended sentence.
Her admonition to avoid the vague “this” — is new to me or else I’d forgotten it from The Little Red Schoolhouse, even though it fits very much into the Schoolhouse’s insistence of chaining sentences together nicely, and I will keep it in mind.
Via Hacker News, this Chrome for Developers post dives into browser colors beyond RGB.
Saturday, April 6th, 2024
He’s very good, is Brendan O’Neill, and I’m glad The Spectator is publishing him. “The Truth About Friendly Fire”:
Across social media, the cry goes up: Israel did this on purpose. It seems Israel is the only state not allowed to make mistakes. Where us decent Westerners kill friends in error, Israel does it intentionally, with malice at its heart.
Who would have thought this would be published in such a well-known British magazine. There is hope.
It seems that some in the West are seeking to launder their reputations through attacking Israel. From Cameron to Biden, powerful men who have been involved in wars far more horrific and far less justified than Israel’s war on Hamas, are now pontificating against the Jewish State.
But their finger-wagging attempt at rehabilitating their own reputations by slighting others’ — and hang the risk even unto civilization itself — does burnish at least one aspect of their respective reputations, ie being a sleazeball.
Thursday, April 4th, 2024
How gratifying, the plethora of common-sense comments reacting to this rather less-than-sensible Telegraph story “How international law could force Britain to stop arms sales to Israel” which furthers the tradition of latching on to that weird and mealy-mouthed “plausible” ruling by the ICJ.
Was this the Court’s intent, to say something with plausible deniability so that the very many people who want it to have said a thing can act as if it did? I in turn am latching on to that possibility to accuse it all of being quite transparent, truly despicable, and dangerously corrosive.
Wednesday, April 3rd, 2024
In Mosaic Magazine, a sweeping history of Israel v. Lebanon by Raphael BenLevi.
Israel’s geography currently provides it with reasonably defensible borders on three sides: the Mediterranean to the west, the Sinai Desert to the south, and the Jordan Valley to the east. Israel’s northern border, however, is not defined by a sea, a vast desert, or even a major river. Rather it is a man-made line that cuts through mountains, valleys, farms, and forests. This has been the case since antiquity, making the northern border of ancient Israel the hardest to defend.
The article mirrors one that I linked to from exactly three months ago on Gaza by Jean-Pierre Filiu in Foreign Affairs.
We all know that if these tattooed trustafarians who think men can breastfeed went anywhere near Gaza their pronouns would be was / were quicker than you could say ‘Free Palestine!’.
Brendan O’Neill, “The unbearable sanctimony of the ‘pro-Palestine’ set”
Tuesday, April 2nd, 2024
In an interview with Israeli radio station 103fm, Yarden Pivko, daughter of Hamas hostage Itzik Gelertner, denounces the Kaplanistas hijacking the hostage crisis. Kudos to 103fm for airing this despite their and all media-luvvy institutional sympathy for Kaplanism.
Sunday, March 31st, 2024
Good ep of Mike Doran and Gadi Taub’s allcaps ISRAEL UPDATE podcast “Is the US Stabbing Israel in the Back?”
It’s in The Guardian so you know what’s coming in this restaurant review of Freddie’s, a New York-style non-kosher Jewish deli, plus they telegraph it in the title, so that in falling for the clickbait I skip the whole salt-beef bit to the predictable meat of the thing:
For all my lack of faith or observance these dishes, kept alive by a vestigial memory of the shtetl, root me. Then I hesitated. Could I really write about a Jewish restaurant given the current political turmoil? Would I get abuse for doing so? Surely better to keep shtum. At which point I knew I had no choice: I had to write about it. The horrendous campaign of the government and armed forces of Israel in Gaza cannot be allowed to make being Jewish a source of shame. When Hamas mounted their 7 October attack on Israel, they committed both an atrocity and a provocation. With so many hostages taken, there were no good options for the Israeli government. Nevertheless, they managed to choose the very worst one. They have killed thousands, starved many more, destroyed homes and turned their country into a pariah. As it happens, they have also made life for Jews who live outside Israel and have no responsibility for the decisions its government takes, so very much harder. I deplore what Israel is doing. But that doesn’t mean I can “refute” my Jewishness. That is a surrender to antisemitism. And so I sit here with my terrific salt beef sandwich and my chocolate mousse, indulging that bit of my Jewish identity which makes sense to me. It’s not much, but it’s all I have.
As a British Israeli my reaction to this sort of thing is always a multi-level “ugh”. But having returned recently to my native Glasgow for a Jewish funeral, I was reminded of what I would likely have been if my parents hadn’t made Aliyah to Israel when I was a child — and moreover since I have now lived in the UK again for a long time is arguably what I have reverted back to being. (Noooooo!)
Nonetheless it’s hard for me to feel anything but contempt for people who stroke the tiger in the hope it will eat them last.
And yet I must understand that as people who are primarily Britons their prism is the BBC, and as right-thinking people it’s likely The Guardian and its ilk, so this is what they may actually believe. But is the reviewer truly speaking in good faith? He says Israel chose the very worst course of action but does not articulate what other better ones might have been. Write a very stroppy letter?
Also, if a sandwich is the extent of his Jewish identity, he’d probably do better shucking it off altogether and embracing something else more all-encompassingly. I don’t mean that disparagingly, but men are meaning machines and if he’s not getting much out of Judaism then it is occupying a space in his soul that could perhaps otherwise be more fruitfully filled.
Levantine Israel is such a monumental and cosmic gift — especially for the rain-soaked British Jew who must otherwise seek any anthropological depth in Druidism and sun in other countries such as Spain (a pretty fabulous alternative it’s true). So I think it is folly for a British Jew to not embrace that mainline connection to Israel; Britons have a passion for the Middle East and now Jewish Britons have their own ancient piece of it again.
But that is all very well when it was done for you as a child or if you are wealthy enough to maintain an additional home and travel frequently. But for most of us, as I was reminded at the funeral, we grow up and get up and go to work, lifelong dalliances with distant exotic countries way beyond reach. And even for those who have the means to have additional homes, the center of gravity of their psyche and viewpoint is British. I need to understand that about British Jews who did not make Aliyah, which is most of them.
On one hand, I can see how the current war unites Jews in their fate, while on the other I can see how the cleavage in the West between appeasement and struggle runs right down the middle of Diaspora Jewry.
With this return to protests the Kaplanistas have chosen to learn nothing, to refuse to acknowledge their part in contributing to the machdal of Oct 7. They think they are melach ha-aretz, the salt of the earth, but in fact serve as perhaps-not-so-unwitting secular neturei karta [Update 2024 April 6: via Gadi Taub, they’ve been dubbed Neturei Kaplan!], prepared like their nihilistic sociological counterparts the BLM supporters to try to blow up their own societies just to see what happens next. As such they are the very opposite of the responsible and the educated that they fancy themselves to be, and undermine the mamlachtiut they ostensibly are out to promote. They give succor and encouragement to the enemy whom they presume, in their relapse back to provincial Orientalism, has no agency. And there is the minor issue of giving the gleeful foreign media an easy way to further bash Israel. As they air their internal grievances to Sky News I hope for the sake of their souls they each feel a sickly yet potentially redemptive wonder of: “What the hell am I doing”.
As reported by The Telegraph, a handbook by and for Palestine Action! Absolutely mental.
Saturday, March 30th, 2024
Eichler’s personal Eichler in Silicon Valley is on sale. It’s great, like mid-level Wright and perhaps a bit of Neutra combined.
Friday, March 29th, 2024
Good to see Amos Atza-El, Mr Middle Israel as he self-declares, still at it, this time on Russia and how Putin’s romance with the Jihadis echoes Stalin’s with the Nazis.
Thursday, March 28th, 2024
The most awesome new pic of Fallingwater I’ve perhaps ever seen beyond the standard 3/4 view. This is by Andrew Pielage, who was an official Artist-In-Residence at the time. The viewpoint and the lighting give us each step’s full floating horizontality and their cumulative effect. I can imagine Mr Wright commending the image.
Wednesday, March 27th, 2024
One of the principal functions of a modern university is to provide… masses of human material capable of exercising the responsibilities while accepting the limitations of a bureaucratic career.
Walter Russell Mead, Twilight of the Wonks
Friday, March 22nd, 2024
Culture is cultural appropriation is culture.
ASK
Tuesday, March 19th, 2024
Bibi to AIPAC and Bibi with John Spencer, urban warfare historian. What a high-octane human.
Sunday, March 17th, 2024
From what looks like his regular chair in his cluttered leafy office, Dan Schueftan — or should we call him Dr Dugri — provides a primer on Israel (dugri meaning something like English’s plainspokenness or brass tacks).
Reading up on Schueftan however, despite all the sagacity he seems the intellectual architect of much of the present misery, having advocating for unilateral withdrawals.
In retrospect one might be able to guess that this would be the general thrust of his advice, given his mercurial impatient demeanor; and that he gets the listener’s acquiescence — perhaps in Ariel Sharon’s case against their better judgment — with his many “ok?”s.
Saturday, March 16th, 2024
What a splendid piece by Charles Moore in The Telegraph on Israel.
Britain (with other powers) claims that Israel has been, in international law, the “occupying power” in Gaza even after it left the place in 2005. This is a strange idea, since the definition of occupation is “effective control”, which Israel even now does not have over the whole of Gaza.
If their subscription department was a bit less shady I’d totally resubscribe.
The official rejoinder to Chuck Schumer’s “Lost His Way” speech, given within days of Nathan Glazer’s statement at the Oscars:
We stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people.
comes not from the Israeli government but from the Likud Party, thereby demonstrating the very content of its statement: that Israel is indeed “an independent and proud democracy” complete with political parties proud of their heritage.
Benny Gantz made a commendable statement condemning the speech to which Arutz Sheva commendably dedicated a story. While the Likud’s statement is exquisitely-crafted English, Gantz’s is more Israeli — less catty, more direct: first unabashed fulsome praise, then: “but he made a mistake.” Blunt yet surgical. Lapid meanwhile chose to harness the speech to rail on Netanyahu.
We make such a fuss of all these bloviations even as the situation rages. I like the take by Danny Cohen, a producer on Glazer’s movie, who, as reported by The Hill, said on the Unholy podcast:
My support for Israel is unwavering. Listen, it’s his film. He can stand up there and choose his own words.”
Thursday, March 14th, 2024
The worst news I’ve seen in a while [Hebrew]: The head of a Gaza clan has been assassinated by Hamas for collaborating with Israel. We need to not be fuckups in this crucial endeavor: empowering, enabling and ensuring acceptable alternatives to Hamas is the capstone to victory; all the battlefield victories come to naught without it and we are back to square one alongside some demolished buildings and bereaved locals.
Wednesday, March 13th, 2024
Anti-Israel Jews are not a political but a clinical sub-category.
Edward Luttwak
Howard Jacobson, I didn’t know you had it in you. So there is such a thing as a well-known public intellectual British Jew with at least half a bollock.
Wednesday, March 6th, 2024
Campy? It’s bloody rocket fuel darling. Happy 50th, Queens White and Black.
Thank you, past and likely future Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, in particular for this Twitter post in memoriam for Dennis Yekimov, killed in action in Gaza. That big wide intelligent friendly face, and in the biographical notes:
He would hike dozens of kilometers in streams and in the hills of Jerusalem and the whole country.
Younger, betters versions of myself, that is how I see these heroic guys, who have so much to lose and are willing to lose it, and are doing so in the hundreds.
Monday, February 26th, 2024
My impression is that R2-D2 and C-3PO were the Laurel and Hardy, the comedy relief, with one being the superior intellect and dominant personality, pushing around a more innocent friend.
Mark Hamill
Monday, February 19th, 2024
Forget a 2-state solution: emulate the Emirates! In English, Mordechai Kedar explains a political horizon to Arutz Sheva. Update: In the wake of Bibi’s outline for post-war Gaza announced just a few days later, Kedar seems prescient, so much so that either he has the Cabinet’s ear or was tasked to float the notion.
As Rumsfeld say, if you can’t fix problem, make it bigger. So what we’re going for is not a 2-state nor even a 3-state but an 8+ statelets solution! I wonder if the Biden Administration will grudgingly go along with this. You know what, I’m guessing they will. Viva la chamulot!
Wednesday, February 14th, 2024
Gadi Taub at his best, in Tablet, saying “Sorry, but There Is No Two-State Solution”.
As a sidenote, it’s getting harder to differentiate among the various competent public intellectuals in terms of style these days; this could have been written by any number of people — Seth Mandel for one, who seems to be writing everything in Commentary these days.
Tuesday, February 13th, 2024
Jeremiah Rozman:
I want a homeland, not a 22,000 sq. km. Yad Vashem … Victory will ensure both Israel’s security and its image.
Monday, February 12th, 2024
Jason Fried again, with an insight into Apple’s new Vision Pro that one important value proposition is recording:
What I think is super interesting about the Apple Vision Pro is the potential to be able to literally see through someone else’s eyes. Not just see their field of vision — you can get at that with head or eyeglass mounted cameras — but to actually see where they’re looking. To know what they’re focused on. To lock in with them. To see how they see. To watch them look from their point of view. Standing in someone’s shoes is one thing, but even if you could do that, you’d still be looking through your own eyes. But to literally see as they’d see from someone else’s point-of-view perspective feels groundbreaking. If I was making an app for this, I’d call it “See With”.
For the past few months I’ve retreated from working on a software product to, well, for a month after October 7th I didn’t seem to get much work done, then I was working on software systems for clients. Now dipping my toe back into RSSDeck, the biggest edifice I’ve ever created, I’m inspired by this short piece by Jason Fried, “To Make”:
I’ve consulted. I’ve done client work. I’ve advised. I’ve served on boards. I’ve invested. I’ve written books. I’ve spoken on the circuit. I’ve blogged for years. I have to say, I’ve found no greater professional joy than working with a tight group of people to ship and support our own products.
Amazing that it took until 2024 for a Hacker News discussion on Deep Springs given the two bodies’ attitudinal overlap of intellectual arrogance.
The New York Post has published a post by Mordechai Nisan advocating that Gazans leave. After October 7th this position — “transfer” in Israeli parlance — went from the extremist fringe to being I think the unspoken mainstream preference among Israelis.
The world power with the strongest ideological opposition to transfer — apart from the Arabs still wanting to keep it as a bludgeon against Israel — is probably the USA, as it seems to go against the American grain of self-determination for peoples. But if the West Bankers manage to make a go of it — highly unlikely but still — then former Gazans could always migrate there again eventually if the call to return remains strong.
ANDROID...
UPDATE: DRUDGE APP IPHONE, IPAD...
Mike Johnson Taming Trump and His Party -- Against All Odds...
STUDY: 'Old Age' Begins At 75...
They stormed the US Capitol in 2021 -- now they want to serve there...
Silicon Valley and Hollywood worlds collide as David Ellison bids for PARAMOUNT...
FTC votes to ban noncompete agreements...
Pessimistic young Germans turning far-right...
The Don faces potential punishment for violating gag...
NATIONAL ENQUIRER made up story about Ted Cruz's father, Oswald!
Catch-and-kill scheme confirmed under oath...
DIRTY PECKER HAD TRUMP'S BACK...
NATIONAL GUARD TO PROTECT JEWS?
Elon's ugly battle with Australia continues...
Company may let go 20% staff...
This Is No 1960's Love-in During Anti-Israel Rallies
MAGA 2.0
Iran vs. Israel: Outline of a Different Future Is Visible
Biden Turned Whitewater, WI, Into a Border Town
What Trump Fears Most
How Ohio Became the Center of the Republican World
Colleges Must Revive Free Press on Their Campuses
The Real Reagan: Getting Beyond the Caricatures
Groupthink Chorus Emerges at Trump Trial
Can Down-Ballot Races Lift Biden to Victory in 2024?
Biden Should Step Aside, Only Kennedy Can Beat Trump
Speaker Johnson Got 'Swamped' Over Ukraine
How Ukraine Wins
Leadership Lied, Said Border Funding Before Ukraine Aid
I Was Stabbed in the Eye at Yale
Links for the intellectually curious, ranked by readers.
Android 15 may make it harder for sideloaded apps to get sensitive permissions
Piet
US Senate passes TikTok divestment-or-ban bill
Golang PGO builds using GitHub Actions
Maxtext: A simple, performant and scalable Jax LLM
AI Starts to Sift Through String Theory's Near-Endless Possibilities
BeeBase, a programmable relational database with graphical user interface
Simulating Jupiter
CoreNet: A library for training deep neural networks
American flag sort
ESPHome
Scooping the Loop Snooper (2000)
Shortbread (YC W23) is hiring a founding engineer in SF for AI comics creation
Digitized Continuous Magnetic Recordings for the 1859 Carrington Event
Network visualization of 50k blogs and links
Prepared for the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
Tehran's Menace Persists
Report: U.S. Has Developed Missiles that Could Destroy the Electronics of Iran's Nuclear Facilities
Female Brig.-Gen. Commands IDF's LOTEM Technology Division
Israel's Attack on Iran Took Out Russian-Made Air Defense System
True Advocacy for Palestinian Rights Means Condemning Iran's Unprovoked Aggression
U.S. Universities Must Stop Tolerating Antisemitism
Netanyahu: Absurd for U.S. to Sanction IDF Soldiers as They Fight Terror
The Iranian Regime Needs to Be Punished for Its War-Mongering, Not Mollified
Israeli Leaders Thank U.S. after House Approves New Military Aid
Entire IRGC Command Wing in Syria Was Eliminated
House Approved New Aid to Israel
U.S. Diplomatic Cable Details Opposition to Palestinian UN Membership
U.S. Vetoes Palestinian Bid for Full UN Membership
Iran Has Begun Preliminary Work on Building a Nuclear Warhead
U.S. NGO Behind Anti-IDF Lawfare Against Israel
First glowing animals lit up the oceans half a billion years ago
Breaking ice, and helicopter drops: winning photos of working scientists
Monkeypox virus: dangerous strain gains ability to spread through sex, new data suggest
Any plan to make smoking obsolete is the right step
More work is needed to take on the rural wastewater challenge
Chemistry lab destroyed by Taiwan earthquake has physical and mental impacts
Charles Darwin investigates: the curious case of primrose punishment
The Middle East’s largest hypersaline lake risks turning into an environmental disaster zone
India’s 50-year-old Chipko movement is a model for environmental activism
European ruling linking climate change to human rights could be a game changer — here’s how
Lethal AI weapons are here: how can we control them?
Publisher Correction: FOXO1 is a master regulator of memory programming in CAR T cells
How volcanoes shaped our planet — and why we need to be ready for the next big eruption
Daily briefing: Great Barrier Reef is experiencing its worst mass bleaching event on record
Your perception of time is skewed by what you see
Kuwait’s PM will serve as emir’s deputy if emir is abroad - KUNA
Israel pounds Gaza as West Bank violence surges
Iran’s Khamenei praises ‘success’ of military after Israel attack
Israeli PM Netanyahu says he will fight any sanctions on army battalions
Hamas says US military aid to Israel ‘green light’ for Gaza ‘aggression’
Emir of Qatar begins Asia tour with state visit to Philippines
Sudan’s horrific war is being fueled by weapons from foreign supporters of rival generals, UN says
Iran president to visit Pakistan, boost ties: Islamabad
Sultan of Oman to visit UAE on Monday - WAM
Gaza officials, Hamas say 50 bodies exhumed at hospital
A quarterly magazine of urban affairs, published by the Manhattan Institute, edited by Brian C. Anderson.
Abolish Anti-Semitic Student Groups
The government may prohibit even nonviolent “material support” for terrorist organizations, including legal support and other advice, without violating the First Amendment.Neglected Representation in Foster Care
Kids are being betrayed by derelict lawyers.Statecraft as Stagecraft
An international-relations scholar considers the relation between politics and theater—with Shakespeare as his guide.Stop the Mideast Money Fueling Campus Anti-Semitism
Multimillion-dollar donations to Middle East studies centers and departments have advanced Islamist ideology and fostered Jew-hatred at U.S. universities.John Silber, the Campuses Have Need of You
In the 1980s, the late Boston University president showed willingness both to engage with protesters’ arguments and to impose consequences on their actions.“A death by bureaucracy.” Why is Oxford University shuttering its <strong>Future of Humanity Institute</strong>?
Dwight Garner on <strong>Joseph Epstein</strong>: “His sentences read as if they were written by a sentient tasseled loafer and edited by a sentient bow tie”
In 1953 <strong>Margaret Macdonald</strong> advanced a bold theory: “Philosophical theories are much more like good stories than scientific explanations”
When did it become embarrassing to like <strong>classical music</strong>? When it became thought of as an elite art
A tidy lawn, a model home, good local schools — <strong>suburbia</strong> lured Americans by the millions. But it was a trap
Animals mock efforts to classify and master them. Our <strong>formidable opponents</strong> include coral, rattlesnakes, stingrays, and raccoons
<strong>Leonard Cohen</strong> was in a dark place: He hated poetry, and folk music, the hippie scene. Then the Yom Kippur War broke out
Russia detains deputy defence minister on bribery allegations
Ukraine gets US military aid boost, but faces long slog as Russians advance
As strikes pummel Gaza, Israel says US military aid sends ‘strong message’ to enemies
Venice to make day trippers buy entry tickets from Thursday, a world first
Canada police charge 2 former UN workers in plot to sell Chinese-made military equipment in Libya
Tech war: US is reviewing risks of China’s use of open-source RISC-V chip technology
Donald Trump meets with Japan’s former prime minister Taro Aso in New York
US Senate passes bill to force ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban of the app
Action on plastic pollution shows us that another world is possible
China is running a full-court press for global arbitration clients. What’s the verdict so far?
Brain candy for Happy Mutants
Truth Social's inflated $5 Billion valuation will leave MAGA minion investors broke, says finance expert
Taliban announces it will start stoning women to death in public
Deadly AM radio tower experiment: hot dog speaks on contact
Trump spokesperson proudly wears T-shirt with loud, "blonde" neo-Nazi message
Calling all students! You can snag this student-friendly HP Chromebook for less than $70
EV owners are shocked that tires wear out
NY Times continues forgiving Justice Thomas
Discover the explosive overlooked art of fireworks packaging
Georgia GOP official who cried "stolen election" voted illegally 9 times, and is a felony check forgery convict
Elon's most recent "significant" changes to "X" are not significant
"The short skirt that you chose to wear encourages fantasy" — 75-year-old professor's sick email to honors presentation student
Marjorie Taylor Greene confuses Biden with Obama, and it's more than just delusional — as in racist (video)
Cosplaying cowpoke Lauren Boebert failing out of her new district
Sam Bankman-Fried imprisoned for 25 years and ordered to pay $11.2bn
What can LLMs never do?
What is the proper policy toward tourists?
More Tuesday links
Four Thousand Years of Egyptian Women Pictured
Tuesday assorted links
Hiring discrimination sentences to ponder
Seasonality and the Invention of Agriculture
Monday assorted links
Deregulate our universities
Tying the Knot
Arguments that (almost) everyone hates
Guinea pig questions
Sunday assorted links
The game theory of the final round of the Candidates
What should I ask Alan Taylor?
Rumors and news on everything Apple since 1997
The long nightmare may be over -- iPad could finally get a Calculator app
More evidence surfaces that Beats Solo 4 are coming soon
Deals: save up to $450 on Microsoft 365, Office, Adobe Creative Cloud & more
Apple rolls out the third developer beta round for testing
Third visionOS 1.2 developer beta arrives, with few changes
Apple Vision Pro shipments reportedly cut as US demand for headset wanes
New iPad Air & iPad Pro models are coming soon - what to expect
Apple Silicon might get used for AI chips in server farms
Apple teases new iPad Pro & Air event with multiple animated logos
Apple Arcade is about fun, not profit, says exec in charge
New iPad Air & iPad Pro models are coming on May 7
Sonos overhauls iOS controller app to simplify smart speaker streaming
Opinions on corporate and brand identity work.
Announced: Brand New will Shift to Subscription Model
Spotted: New Logo for Blue Islands
Linked: Louis Vuitton Architecture
Noted: New Name and Logo for St. Louis City SC
Reviewed: Friday Likes 339: From Studio MPLS, Wade and Leta, and Unifikat Design Studio
Spotted: New Logo and Identity for Vitkus Clinic by Tandemo
Spotted: New Logo and Identity for Netgen by IDnaGroup
Linked: Biden &Harris &Decimal
Noted: New Logo and Identity for Correos de México by Carl Forsell
Reviewed: New Logo and Identity for BERA by How & How
Spotted: New Logo for Playtika
Spotted: New Logo and Identity for The 19th by Page 33 Studio
Linked: Objects may be Closer than they Ap-pear
Noted: New Logo and Identity for Zappos Adaptive by Eric&Todd
Reviewed: New Logo and Identity for Lot61 by Smörgåsbord
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Graph databases speaking the same language after ISO gives GQL the nod
If Britain is so bothered by China, why do these .gov.uk sites use Chinese ad brokers?
Japanese and Singaporean devs battle over gamified crowdsourced telco maintenance app
China's mega-telcos are spending billions on AI servers
Senate passes law forcing ByteDance to sell off TikTok – or face a US ban
US government reportedly ponders crimping China's use of RISC-V
White House tweaks HIPAA to shield medical files of those seeking reproductive care
Intel Foundry ticks another box in quest to fab mil-spec chips for US DoD
Using its own sums, AMD claims it's helping save Earth with Epyc server chiplets
Waymo robotaxi drives down wrong side of street after being alarmed by unicyclists
Banned Nvidia GPUs sneak into sanction-busting Chinese servers
Miles of optical fiber crafted aboard ISS marks manufacturing first
experiments in refactored perception
The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet
My essay The Extended Internet Universe, where I coined the term “cozyweb” (probably in my top 5 most successful memes) is featured in this cute little collectible book, The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet put together by Yancey Strickler (whom you may have heard of as the cofounder of Kickstarter). Yancey’s essay, The Dark Forest […]Stack Map of the World
I’ve been buried neck deep in work stuff this week, but I did find time to make this stack diagram of the world, inspired by the xkcd Dependency cartoon. Randall Munroe draws better than me, but in my favor, I use more colors. Did you know most of the high-purity quartz needed for the semiconductor […]Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities by Bettany Hughes
I started reading Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities by Bettany Hughes while I was in Istanbul last November and finally finished it last week. It’s a really solid and absorbing book, and far too dense and rich with detail to zip through, which is why I read it a dozen or so pages a […]