Aug 4
2025
Gaza: The most dangerous place in the world for kids
A Washington Post story last week focused on children killed during the war. The current body count is 18,500, a number The Post found to be credible and perhaps an undercount.
A Palestinian child has been killed an average of one an hour since the onset of the war, prompting UNICEF to declare Gaza as the most dangerous place in the world to be a child.
Wrote The Post:
“Some were killed in their beds. Others while playing. Many were buried before they learned to walk.”
Elsewhere, the Guardian reports that Israel has done the math and calculated what it takes to produce a famine. The Guardian also names the corporations profiting off the war in Gaza. And The New Republic reports that 19 Democratic senators, including Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, joined their Republican colleagues in voting down a measure by Bernie Sanders to stop arming Israel.
Iran is really hurting. Forget about the 12-day war with Israel and the United States. The country is rapidly running out of water. Cities including Tehran are on the brink of running dry. Imagine 120-degree heat and no water.
Ken Kruly, in his Politics and Other Stuff, handicaps the 2026 race for governor. He doesn’t envision Congresswoman Elise Stefanik running on the Republican line. More likely, he says, it will be Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman. Incumbent Kathy Hochul leads both of them in polls by a 2-to-1 margin.
The Athletic has a good overview of what’s happening businesswise with the Buffalo Sabres and the soon-to-be lapsed lease on the downtown arena. The season ticket base has shrunk for the second consecutive season and attendance is near the bottom of the league. That’s what happens when you miss the playoffs for 14 consecutive seasons.
These are two projects that ought to be easy to say “no” to.
A developer wants $4 million in tax breaks from the Amherst IDA to build apartments and commercial space on Maple Road. Another developer is seeking $776,252 in tax breaks from the Clarence IDA for apartments and commercial space on Sheridan Drive, near Main Street.
Retail projects generally aren’t eligible for IDA tax breaks. Applicable laws involving housing are muddy, but most apartment projects produce very few permanent jobs.
The aforementioned stories do not mention how many permanent jobs would be created, but you can bet it’s not many.
Property owners in the high-tax towns of Amherst and Clarence should ask themselves whether it’s fair for them to shoulder the tax burden of these developments.
Clawbacks in federal funding will cost public media outlets in New York State, primarily PBS and NPR stations, at least $57 million over the next two years, New York Focus reports.
The cuts will be especially hard on rural communities in the state. Stations serving those areas tend to rely on federal funding more than stations that serve Albany and New York City.
Here in Western New York, Buffalo Toronto Public Media (formerly WNED and WBFO) is out about $2 million a year.
The Washington Post is in deep doo-doo. Losing money and staff, and its reputation is suffering. Pieces by the Bulwark and Talking Points Memo consider the causes and consequences.
A smart read: Does the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s show foretell the demise of late night talk shows? Probably not, at least in the short run. Programs featuring Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers all lose money, based on traditional calculations, but they all bring other value to their respective networks. And they’re not owned by Paramount-Skydance.
Speaking of which, Will Bunch, a terrific columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, tells us the deal Paramount cut with the Trump administration is even worse than advertised.
With all the talk of Trump’s imposition of tariffs, it’s important to keep in mind that power rests with Congress, not the president. The issue is before the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals.
Paul Krugman, the Nobel-winning economist formerly of The New York Times, dissected Trump’s trade deal with the European Union and found it a bunch of nothing.
We got a vague promise of higher European investment in the United States. When Japan made a similar promise last week, administration officials asserted that this would mean hundreds of billions flowing into rebuilding U.S. industry. Japanese officials, however, say that the money will consist almost entirely of loans and loan guarantees. This strongly suggests that Japan will, if it does anything at all, simply be sticking Trump’s name on money flows that would have happened anyway. There’s every reason to suspect that the same will be true of whatever the EU does.
And like the Japan deal, this deal seems to place lower tariffs on cars made in Europe, which have very little U.S. content, than on cars made in Canada, which contain many American parts. Add in the punishing tariffs on steel and aluminum, and Trump’s trade policy seems, if anything, to be tilting the playing field against U.S. manufacturing.
Here’s something encouraging: Noted environmentalist Bill McKibben says Trump’s efforts notwithstanding, there’s no derailing the march towards clean energy. However, his words come with a big “but.”
I believe it is inevitable that our country will eventually follow the rest of the world and that in 40 or so years, America will run mainly on sun and wind. The problem, though, is that if it takes us anything like 40 years, then the world that runs on sun and wind will be catastrophically hot.
A quote of note from Bob Geldof, organizer of Live Aid:
What is profoundly shocking is the cackling glee with which the Trump-Vance-Musk triumvirate went about declaring war on the weakest and most vulnerable people of our planet. America was always the most generous by far of all the countries.
Why would great America do that, while the richest man on the planet cackles that we’re going to feed U.S.A.I.D. into the wood chipper? It is grotesque, it is a disgrace to the country.
Book review: If you’re a baseball fan, I recommended Skipper: Why Baseball Managers Matter (and Always Will) by Scott Miller. It details just how much the job of a big-league manager has changed. They’re no longer solo generals, drawing primarily on their experience and instincts. These days, they’re the head of a team of advisers and expected to act on reams of data and manage the well-paid egos of today’s ballplayers, who make an average of $5 million per season. An insightful read that has me watching the game differently.
While we’re on the subject, here’s a baseball video you can sing along to.