Wednesday Night #2217

9/11 – the date that will live in infamy
Is there anyone who does not remember exactly where and when they heard the first devastating news?
“23 years ago, 246 people went to sleep, ready for their flights; 2,606 prepared for work; 343 firefighters, 60 police officers, and 8 paramedics rested before their morning shifts—all unaware they would never see past 10:00 a.m. on September 11, 2001. In a single moment, life can change forever. As you breathe today and prepare for tomorrow, hold your loved ones close, cherish every second, and never take life for granted.”
‘It’s Still Overwhelming’: Mourners Across New York City Remember 9/11
Commemorations for those killed in the attacks 23 years ago took place throughout the city, with politicians joining those assembled at ground zero.
Mourners gathered in Lower Manhattan and across New York City on Wednesday to commemorate the nearly 3,000 people who died in the Sept. 11 attacks 23 years ago and the many who have died from related illnesses since.

There will never be another voice like his! Plus, he had great acting range which was recognized with numerous awards.
James Earl Jones, acclaimed actor and voice of Darth Vader, dies at 93
James Earl Jones, who overcame racial prejudice and a severe stutter to become a celebrated icon of stage and screen — eventually lending his deep, commanding voice to CNN, “The Lion King” and Darth Vader — has died. He was 93.
The pioneering Jones, who in 1965 became one of the first African American actors in a continuing role on a daytime drama (“As the World Turns”) and worked deep into his 80s, won two Emmys, a Golden Globe, two Tony Awards, a Grammy, the National Medal of Arts and the Kennedy Center Honors. He was also given an honorary Oscar and a special Tony for lifetime achievement. In 2022, a Broadway theater was renamed in his honor.
George Lucas, Mark Hamill, Debbie Allen, Bob Iger, CNN and more mourn James Earl Jones

And so to the event of the week -so far- THE DEBATE.
About 67m people watched the debate, roughly 15m more than the Trump-Biden clash.
Not everyone was as ecstatic as Robert Reich  (To say that Kamala Harris nailed it tonight is an understatement. She knocked it out of the park. She combined civility with firmness. She made Trump look and sound like the blubbering idiot he is), but pretty much everyone believed that Kamala Harris had won the debate and succeeded in goading Donald Trump into a close-to meltdown. If you read nothing else, see Heather Cox Richardson
September 10, 2024
The question for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris in tonight’s presidential debate was not how to answer policy questions, but how to counter Trump’s dominance displays while also appealing to the American people.
She and her team figured it out, and today they played the former president brilliantly. He took the bait, and tonight he self-destructed. In a live debate, on national television.
We watched -and then we read
‘Trump charged into the trap’: 10 [WaPo]columnists on the debate
They offered live commentary on the presidential debate on Tuesday.
‘Trump Brought Darkness; Harris Brought Light’: 14 [NYT] Writers on Who Won the Presidential Debate

Although Canadian politics are no match for the convolutions and excitement of those in the U.S., Andrew Caddell manages to provoke with this week’s column Trudeau will know when to quit ( Hill Times paywall, or see Andrew on Facebook where there are some perceptive comments). Not much news from the Liberal caucus retreat in Nanaimo except for the app/anointment of Mark Carney as chair of a Liberal Party task force advising the party leader about economic growth. Note the careful clarification “not joining the Prime Minister’s Office, the Privy Council Office, or Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s office. Instead, the role is with the party itself.” And, yes, watch for the results of the LaSalle–Émard–Verdun by-election next Monday [16th], while holding your breath pending the outcome (prayed-for resolution?) of the threatened Air Canada pilots strike Business groups urge Ottawa to prevent Air Canada pilots strike.

Israel, Palestine, Gaza, West Bank, Hamas
While mediators continue their (vain) attempts to create an acceptable Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement, the IDF continues to generate more outrage
New video, witnesses challenge Israel’s account of U.S. activist’s killing
The IDF said Aysenur Eygi was shot “unintentionally” during a “violent riot.” A Post analysis shows clashes had subsided and protesters had retreated.
and
Israeli airstrikes hit UN school and homes in Gaza and kill at least 34 people, hospitals say
Meanwhile at TIFF,
‘I’ve never seen the depth of moral corruption’: controversial Netanyahu doc screens at Toronto
Despite a legal attempt to stop it, documentary The Bibi Files, which shows leaked interrogation footage of the Israeli prime minister, made its debut at the festival
The film, directed by Alexis Bloom and produced by Alex Gibney, builds a rigorous and damning case, posing an argument close observers may already be familiar with: Netanyahu is prolonging the devastating war in Gaza – which has amassed more than 40,000 casualties – to avoid possible prison time stemming from corruption charges. A humanitarian crisis flouting international law is all about his self-preservation.
Meanwhile, Hamas says ready to implement ceasefire without new conditions
(Reuters) – The Palestinian Hamas group said on Wednesday that its negotiators reiterated its readiness to implement an “immediate” ceasefire with Israel in Gaza based on a previous U.S. proposal without new conditions from any party.
The Palestinian group said in a statement that their negotiation team, led by senior official Khalil al-Hayya, met mediators on Wednesday including Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and Egypt’s intelligence chief Abbas Kamel in Doha to discuss the latest developments in Gaza.

The situation in Venezuela remains stalemated with the defeated president, Nicolás Maduro, hanging on to his seat while the opposition candidate, Edmundo González, widely recognized as the legitimate president, has fled to Spain.
It seems that, perhaps sensing a kindred soul, Donald Trump Says He Might Head to Venezuela If Harris Wins Presidential Election
Donald Trump has reportedly considered the possibility of losing the 2024 election—and if that happens, he has plans for a one-way ticket to Venezuela. According to Vanity Fair, speaking to Elon Musk on Monday, the former president said, “If something happens with this election, which would be a horror show, we’ll meet the next time in Venezuela, because it’ll be a far safer place to meet than our country. So you and I will go and we’ll have a meeting and dinner in Venezuela.”

That item highlights the Trump-Musk bromance, one of the strangest developments of the campaign thus far.
How Elon Musk Is Influencing Donald Trump
Their fast-evolving political friendship has become a potential minefield, as Mr. Musk’s sprawling businesses may present conflicts of interest if Mr. Trump is elected in November.
Trump tightens alliance with Musk, advocating broad role in U.S. policymaking
The GOP presidential nominee endorsed a commission that could give Musk responsibilities for auditing federal spending and regulations, marking another area of collaboration in the run-up to November’s election.

Every day, it seems, there is another terrible news story of a shooting in the U.S. and -so often- the shooters as well as victims, are young people (School Shooting Tracker: Counting school shootings since 2013).
Georgia officials have charged the father of the suspected Apalachee High School shooter with two counts of second-degree murder, four counts of involuntary manslaughter and eight counts of cruelty to children.
How do you feel about parental responsibility for their child’s crime?
Punishing a shooter’s parents delivers some justice. But not enough.
We can’t stop this scourge without making some obvious — and popular — changes to gun laws.

Congratulations to our good friend Luc Sirois on obtaining his PhD in Management, Innovation and Entrepreneurship from the University of Strasbourg. No easy feat when one devotes full-time effort, but for Quebec’s incredibly busy innovateur en chef du Québec, directeur général du Conseil de l’innovation du Québec et président fondateur du conseil d’administration d’Axelys, la société de valorisation de la recherche publique au Québec….
Des études doctorales réalisées par intérêt, par passion, comme un grand (interminable!) projet personnel dans mes temps libres, pendant mes vacances, depuis huit ans…

Air Canada could begin suspending flights next weekend as strike deadline nears
Air Canada pilots will be in legal strike position on Sept. 17
Air Canada also anticipates it would take seven to 10 days for normal operations to resume once the complete shutdown is in place. Flights across its system would be cancelled over three days, with a total shutdown as early as 12:01 a.m. E.T. on Sept. 18.

Unlike professor David Deming, you may not have worried about -or even considered- the concentration of economics prizes among a tiny number of elite institutions, but  “According to a new working paper, the recipients of major economics prizes, including the Nobel, have collectively spent half their career at just eight universities: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, the University of Chicago, Columbia, and Berkeley.” He believes it is time to Break Up Big Econ – The economics profession has become insular and status-obsessed, and not focused enough on making a positive impact on the world.

UN Week officially kicks off on Sunday, September 22, and Monday, September 23, with the Summit of the Future — a highly anticipated event for the United Nations.
… The address by the U.S. President always sets the tone for UNGA. Some other interesting and notable speeches to track include Zelenskyy on Wednesday morning, Palestine’s Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday, and Netanyahu on Thursday. Keir Starmer will make his UN debut on Friday. He’s not someone with much of a foreign policy profile, so it will be interesting to see how he frames some of the big issues of the day.
A WN friend and retired Canadian diplomat comments:I note that whoever will be speaking for Canada this year won’t get the prize position that we used to enjoy fairly routinely, after a lot of schmoozing with the Secretary General’s office. The second speaking slot on the second day of the so called “general debate” was seen as ideal- the day after the opening hoopla and a nice distance from the American speaker-and before those distinguished representatives filling the assembly seats were bored silly.
Looking at the line up for Friday, Sept.27, I expect the two-hour (or so) lunch break would start after the UK (Starmer?) delivers. Canada could later speak before the Assembly hall starts to vacate again for the weekend. Not so bad for anything newsworthy to emerge. Who will be speaking for Canada, the “HG” (Trudeau) as shown?- or another if there is an election starting to brew by then may be interesting.” Stay tuned.

Varia
Yet Another iPhone, Dear God
What do you mean, you don’t need four studio-quality microphones?
… Apple managers and senior vice presidents certainly rattled off a lot of features: a thin isolation split, a 16-core neural engine, the most advanced H2 chip. As usual, the numbers given to these updates are going up: This is the iPhone’s 16th generation, and the Apple Watch’s 10th. We’re up to A18 in Apple silicon, one better than the A17 chip that preceded it; the iPhone 16 Pro is made from grade-5 titanium, which must be at least a few times better than competitors’ shoddy eggshell casings of grade-2 titanium.

An Air Canada strike will be devastating. Blame Ottawa
Decades of protecting domestic airlines have given them far too much power
There’s not much that can, or should, be done at this point to mitigate the damage caused by a potential pilots strike. But if the federal government is serious about upholding labour rights and reducing the cost of living, it should stop protecting airlines that don’t seem to give a lick about their customers from foreign competition and set the skies free.

EVENT
17 September
Chris Neal alerts us to the Getting Smart in Old Age – Thriving and staying healthy in a stimulating learning environment panel discussion which he is chairing.
13:30 – 15:00
Elizabeth Wirth Music Building, Room A-832 (8th floor)

Long reads
Domesticating horses had a huge impact on human society − new science rewrites where and when it first happened
(The Conversation) Across human history, no single animal has had a deeper impact on human societies than the horse. But when and how people domesticated horses has been an ongoing scientific mystery.
Half a million years ago or more, early human ancestors hunted horses with wooden spears, the very first weapons, and used their bones for early tools. During the late Paleolithic era, as far back as 30,000 years ago or more, ancient artists chose wild horses as their muse: Horses are the most commonly depicted animal in Eurasian cave art.
Following their first domestication, horses became the foundation of herding life in the grasslands of Inner Asia, and key leaps forward in technology such as the chariot, saddle and stirrup helped make horses the primary means of locomotion for travel, communication, agriculture and warfare across much of the ancient world. With the aid of ocean voyages, these animals eventually reached the shores of every major landmass – even Antarctica, briefly.

Authoritarian Countries’ AI Advantage
Angela Huyue Zhang
Analysts often attribute the rapid development of AI technologies in countries like the United Arab Emirates and China to state support and cheap energy. But another important driver is their authoritarian governance model, which enables AI companies to train their models on vast amounts of personal data.

Has AI hacked the operating system of human civilisation? Yuval Noah Harari sounds a warning
Just as artificial intelligence (AI) models are trained on vast data sets to learn and predict, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow have trained us to expect disruptive ideas from bestselling historian Yuval Noah Harari.
His latest book, Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, is a sweeping exploration of the history and future of human networks. Harari draws on a wide range of historical and contemporary examples to illustrate how information has shaped, and continues to shape, human societies.

The unholy trinity – An engrossing account of how USSR joined hands with USA and Britain during WW-II
Our good friend and prolific writer, C Uday Bhaskar, sent along his review of The Stalin Affair: The Impossible Alliance That Won the War which sounds like a fascinating and delightful account by bestselling author Giles Milton of how Stalin was persuaded and enabled to join the Grand Alliance through the efforts of two ambassadors—Averell Harriman, a wealthy American businessman, and maverick British diplomat Archie Clark Kerr—. Should you need more encouragement, Uday adds “Milton writes with verve and the dexterity of a bestselling author—as opposed to the less dramatic and more rigorous style of the historian”

Robert Reich: Trump’s woman problem
Why he faces a gender chasm, and why women voters will be America’s salvation
If Kamala Harris wins in November, American women will deserve a lot of the credit. Polls suggest women will vote in record margins for Kamala Harris.
The ABC News/Ipsos poll released September 1 found Harris leading Trump by a whopping 54 percent to 41 percent among women.
Donald Trump has a yuge woman problem.
I first examine why; then discuss how women are likely to vote; and, finally, put Trumpism in the context of authoritarianism and fascism. …