❀°。Der Siebenschläfer *.゚✿ ⋆
@sababausa.bsky.social
5.4K followers 1K following 21K posts
30-something Jewish 🇺🇸 🇦🇹 dual-citizen biologist patent lawyer who grew up in South Jersey, Delaware, and Geneva 🇨🇭. Now in Northern Virginia Proud dad to twin daughters 👶👶
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sababausa.bsky.social
I think it’s generally fine to inspect and refer to some common sociocultural traditions that stretch back millennia without resorting to a sort of immutable and inherent patrimony or racial / ethnic dimension
sababausa.bsky.social
I don’t love that people do this “shorthand” (as I call it), but at this point I would call the term customary or convention, and doesn’t come with the *overtly* cultural or racial implications of when MAGA public thinkers use phrases like “Western Civilization“ which are fraught as hell
sababausa.bsky.social
I say “shorthand” to allow for that people and reporters will typically use “the West” in reference to a rough collective of the governments of USA, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, European Economic Area members (plus Switzerland), as well as supranational bodies like the EU and NATO
sababausa.bsky.social
The actual way SCOTUS would handle this is what they did the first time, namely say there is no standing to seek a declaratory judgment or injunction because a court cannot redress actions that happened in the past (and compensation is not available because Congress has not authorized it)
sababausa.bsky.social
That’s a good brief (I don’t have much to add lol)
sababausa.bsky.social
Robert Ballard searched the area in 2019 and found nothing, and now they’re trying to raise money for another search

These searches generate headlines but they’re borderline grift
sababausa.bsky.social
Even the TIGHAR proponents of the Marooned on Nikuromoro theory don’t really have an alternate “disappearance“ conspiracy theory, they just object to the parsimonious “ran out of fuel and crashed at sea” theory because TIGHAR desperately wants to locate & recover Earhart’s plane
sababausa.bsky.social
Earhart & Noonan were off course and desperately looking for Howland Island, but really in the nearer run were circling looking for radio contact with the USS Itasca. It is *possible* they spotted another island but pol really underestimate the vastness of the pacific ocean
sababausa.bsky.social
There are some motivated activist archeologists, in particular a group called TIGHAR, that is very committed to the hypothesis that Earhart & Noonan were marooned on Nikumaroro Island, ~300 south-southeast of their target refueling site of Howland Island
sababausa.bsky.social
We pretty much know what happened except for where they went down

The idea that Earhart and Noonan’s disappearance is a “mystery” is sort of just a meme

bsky.app/profile/saba...
sababausa.bsky.social
There is a ton of already public government records on Amelia Earhart & Fred Noonan’s disappearance, it was intensely investigated at the time and we know almost exactly what happened & why, it’s just they never found the wreck

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTDF...
sababausa.bsky.social
Of course, the National Archive has many many unclassified digitized documents relating the Amelia Earhart, and they substantially come from the US Navy which was on the scene, and not, you know, a domestic law enforcement agency

www.archives.gov/news/topics/...
sababausa.bsky.social
It’s unfortunately one of the catchiest and most memorable phrases SCOTUS has ever published
sababausa.bsky.social
An Anglo-Irish baron’s daughter was born while Napoleon still lived, and at the time of her death she could have booked a commercial trans-USA TWA flight

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katheri...
Katherine Plunket - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
sababausa.bsky.social
•”The West” is Christendom and its surviving direct descendants

-like Armenia?

•ok, let’s say directly descended from the west side of the Great Schism

-so Greece would not be the West

•sort of, see,,

-Mexico?

•well, not exactly

-Jamaica?

•I’m not sure you’re hearing. you see-,,,
sababausa.bsky.social
me to anyone extolling “the West”: “who, specifically, is the West?”

them: “oh, you know”
sababausa.bsky.social
I’m suspicious of any public thinner who takes “the West” (or any of Samuel Huntington’s “civilizations”) seriously as anything other than a convenient shorthand
dandrezner.bsky.social
There’s a lot in Bari Weiss’ 2023 FedSoc speech that merits scrutiny but I think the Times did a disservice by closing with this quote — given what she says immediately after. fedsoc.org/commentary/f...
sababausa.bsky.social
This is adjacent to “Lou Bega is German and does USO-style entertainment for the Polish army”
sababausa.bsky.social
Man, under Biden the Republicans and Republican-appointed judges had a damn fit that Joe Biden instructed the Department of Education to discretionarily cease collecting on debt from certain classes of student debt holders
sababausa.bsky.social
I think a lot of editors & producers expected a redux of 2017 where they enjoyed a Trump News bounce, but if 2025 subscription & TV viewership numbers are any indication, this hasn’t materialized and trust is sinking among left-of-center respondents in contrast with 2017–21
sababausa.bsky.social
I certainly doubt he’d ever win one, but the point is the coverage (once again) reflects very poorly on editors’ & producers’ judgment

It’s only becoming a punditry topic because Trump personally keeps raising it, and the punditry is outlandishly generous to Trump
sababausa.bsky.social
I’m on some cursèd LinkedIn mailing lists and just got an email promo for a Biotech Startup podcast—biotech is not a cursed subject, but startup culture is, and the first episode promises discussion of:

“Mayan negotiation tactics and how to apply them to startup life”

What the f ck?
sababausa.bsky.social
Demanding a Nobel Prize, especially the Peace Prize, is inherently a mark against a candidate

At its ideal, the essence of the Peace Prize is honor, character, moral integrity, and small-l liberalism, which are everything Donald Trump stands to destroy

It should never go to someone who covets it
sababausa.bsky.social
It is preposterous the degree to which Trump dictates the media agenda to the point that they entertain his every whim

We are talking about the “Dept. of War“ guy who wants to eliminate rules of engagement, and who is murdering Venezuelan civilians with unrestrained glee

You don’t have to pretend!
cnn.com
CNN @cnn.com · 1d
"President Donald Trump makes no secret of his aim to win a Nobel Peace Prize," writes Brett McGurk. "His supporters say he deserves the prize already, while his detractors mock the pursuit entirely – pointing to his controversial policies as disqualifying." | Analysis
Analysis: Can Trump really win a Nobel Peace Prize? Yes. Here’s how | CNN Politics
President Donald Trump makes no secret of his aim to win a Nobel Peace Prize. His supporters say he deserves the prize already, while his detractors mock the pursuit entirely – pointing to his controv...
www.cnn.com
sababausa.bsky.social
Also, it must be said, Merkel comes off as a committed small-l liberal

Most of the interview is about her relationship with Hungary & Viktor Orbán, and while she is very criticism of Orbán, several times she says there must be tolerance of different viewpoints & dialog as a matter of principle

/7