All posts tagged: small children

Greg Abbott’s Neo-Confederate Crusade – The Atlantic

Greg Abbott’s Neo-Confederate Crusade – The Atlantic

Published by skeptic

Ulysses S. Grant once said that the Confederate cause, the defense of chattel slavery, was “one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.” Texas’s embrace of neo-secessionist rhetoric in defense of letting children drown in the Rio Grande belongs somewhere on that same list. Texas Governor Greg Abbott is engaged in a number of legal battles with the Biden administration over immigration. One of them involves Abbott ordering the Texas National Guard to set up razor wire and floating barriers in an effort to deter migrants. The federal government argues that those barriers have also blocked Border Patrol from being able to arrest and process migrants in accordance with federal law. Earlier this month, a woman and two children drowned in the Rio Grande, the river that runs along the border with Mexico. A short time later, when Border Patrol was alerted to two other migrants in distress, national guardsmen reportedly prevented federal agents from reaching them. In 2023, the Houston Chronicle reported that …

Beware Noodle Soup – The Atlantic

Beware Noodle Soup – The Atlantic

Published by skeptic

When the weather turns frigid, there is only one thing to do: make a pot of chicken-noodle soup. On the first cold afternoon in early December, I simmered a whole rotisserie chicken with fennel, dill, and orzo, then ladled it into bowls for a cozy family meal. Just as I thought we’d reached peak hygge, my five-month-old son suddenly grabbed my steaming bowl and tipped the soup all over himself. Piercing screams and a frenzied taxi ride to the pediatric emergency room ensued. My husband and I waited in the ER with our pantsless, crying child, racked with guilt. But when we told doctors and nurses what had happened, they seemed unperturbed. As they bandaged my son’s blistering skin, they explained that children get burned by soup—especially noodle soup—all the time. “Welcome to parenthood,” a nurse said, as we boarded an ambulance that transferred us to a nearby burn unit. That children are frequently scalded by hot liquids makes perfect sense. But soup? Indeed, soup burns “are very common,” James Gallagher, the director of the …

Christopher Nolan on the Promise and Peril of Technology

Christopher Nolan on the Promise and Peril of Technology

Published by skeptic

By the time I sat down with Christopher Nolan in his posh hotel suite not far from the White House, I guessed that he was tired of Washington, D.C. The day before, he’d toured the Oval Office and had lunch on Capitol Hill. Later that night, I’d watched him receive an award from the Federation for American Scientists, an organization that counts Robert Oppenheimer, the subject of Nolan’s most recent film, among its founders. Onstage, he’d briefly jousted with Republican Senator Todd Young on the subject of AI regulation. He’d endured a joke, repeated too many times by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, about the subject of his next film—“It’s another biopic: Schumer.” The award was sitting on an end table next to Nolan, who was dressed in brown slacks, a gray vest, and a navy suit jacket—his Anglo-formality undimmed by decades spent living in Los Angeles. “It’s heavy, and glass, and good for self-defense,” he said of the award, while filling his teacup. I suggested that it may not be the last trophy he …

Why Did Hamas Choose Now to Attack Israel?

Why Did Hamas Choose Now to Attack Israel?

Published by skeptic

A U.S. intelligence officer once told me that his boss would often send back his reports about Iranian terror operations with one crucial question: Why now? Why were the Iranians hatching this particular plot now, instead of last year or five years in the future? This question is good, and the answer is the beginning of any good strategic analysis. But the analyst was frustrated. Even in intelligence, it is possible to overthink things. “Why now?” he said. “Because they are a fucking terrorist group. And all they do, every day, is think of ways to kill Americans and our allies. Sometimes that’s all there is to it.” Hours after Hamas broke through the Gaza barrier, I asked whether we were witnessing Step One of a plan that would perhaps involve Hezbollah and a front in the north—and even further moves that would threaten to break Israeli defenses altogether. Israel rapidly reinforced its northern border to prevent that, and according to reports, Hezbollah was warned that any shenanigans would be answered with the leveling of …

Images of the Mass Kidnapping of Israelis by Hamas

Images of the Mass Kidnapping of Israelis by Hamas

Published by skeptic

More accounts are emerging of kidnappings, rapes, and torture committed by Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians. So far, at least 150 Israelis, most of them apparently civilians, were kidnapped by Hamas gunmen and stolen across Israel’s border with Gaza. Among the kidnapped are elderly women and small children. Human rights groups are tracking these kidnappings as evidence of war crimes. Within hours of the attacks on Saturday, photos and videos began to circulate showing the mass murder of Israeli civilians—including people killed in their cars, and left dead on the ground in the streets and at a bus stop—as well as the kidnapping of children, young women, and the elderly. Two widely circulated videos have sparked outrage because of the  the apparent sexual assaults they depict, the Times of Israel reports. One video shows a woman who appears to have been beaten and who seems to be bleeding into her shorts being forced out of a Jeep in Gaza. The other video shows a woman, later identified by her family as 22-year-old Shani Louk, stripped …