It’s grading on a curve.
Biden/Harris were weak on Israel, barely managing to occasionally wag a finger at them for misbehavior, but continuing to provide some support to Israel. This was bad.
Trump’s admin has been all in on it and has been ride or die for everything Netanyahu wants. This is even worse.
I know you are kidding, but if a monthly toll dividend payment went out to taxpayers even for a pittance, lots of folks would probably cheer the conquest happily.
I don’t know what you are getting at, of the people who come over from China and Taiwan that I talk to, no one believes that the two are one “nation” with different opinions on who is the authority. They may believe there’s not a distinct cultural identity but none think the “no, there’s only one China and onlywe are the real China” is a thing in practice, just a political formality.
The ones from China do say they wouldn’t push their luck expressing that publicly, and one went so far as to borrow a computer to log into without any association with them because they were paranoid about using their laptop issued to them with the Chinese employer preload. He wanted to read some Wikipedia the way an American sees it while he was over on business.
Tangentially, another one from China was super excited to try to get someone to get him a gun to shoot. We did manage to hook him up with a gun range.
so far, really early days yet
Offtopic, but I just think the Dow is just the dumbest thing.
We judge the entire economy based on 30 hand picked companies. And that membership evolves basically to fit a positive narrative if possible. One of the companies does poorly and drags the index? Just swap in a better performing company!
Even as everyone has learned by now his words don’t mean anything “real”, there’s still something to be gleaned.
The fact that he’s even looking for an exit speaks to how far he is “committed” to this path. So sure, the “peace talks” don’t really exist, but the fact he says they do exist and keeps claiming they are going well means he wants to reverse course on the flimsiest excuse. So if the circumstances might give him an excuse, it might go away. Iran’s reactions seems they are disinclined to give him that excuse easily, so the chance isn’t huge, but his deadline extension based on nothing suggests he is open to other opportunities to let him back out while somehow saving face. He still cares about saving face enough to make the chances problematic, but at least he’s looking for an exit.
Conversely if he said that there’s no need to let up until the job is done, and his forces are going to imminently secure the strait, then that’s a lie that suggests to not expect relief anytime soon.
It’s about the direction the lie indicates he wants things to go and how that may play into outcomes.
I’m not saying whether or not an attack is justified or effective. Just saying that of the outcomes to expect, you can’t expect that popular opinion would turn as a result, except maybe to make any critics that may have had a voice suddenly not even be acceptable to speak.
Like whatever understanding one could have possibly have imagined from Iranians against the regime was pretty much gone when the US killed the kids in school.
How often is it that people demand reforms versus become galvanized in support of ‘their team’?
‘Rally behind the flag’ is the usual popular reaction, where any calls for reform that might have happened become completely unacceptable in popular culture.
Oh that was never in the cards.
They may not have wanted Iran attacked, but they didn’t like Iran either so they aren’t exactly wanting to defend them either.
capitalism
Think Epstein’s network crossed economic ideological boundaries. Noam Chomsky considered Epstein a good friend while simultaneously being a staunch critic of capitalism. There are signs of being connected to the USSR, China, North Korea, … If Epstein connected with fame or power, it didn’t matter what ‘system’ was in play.
Of course I also see that the go spawns python and does stuff with that…
And there’s lots of other dubious issues that look like an odd mismash of intro level programming stuff with unfortunate performance implications, and a very strong vibe code smell, though the commit interval is a bit larger than I would have presumed with vibe coding, but the volume of changes seem AI sloppy…
Well, broadly it looks like slop, probably AI slop, but either way I wouldn’t go anywhere near this project…
We’ve had quite a recent history of nations thinking they will have a quick, easy offensive and be done with it.
But Iran is a Russian supplier, so strategically, the more US can burn through Iran military capability, the less they have to give to Russia.
Also, the longer the strait is blocked, the better Russia can do in the fossil fuel export situation. So Iran suffering military losses and the strait being open as soon as possible are also strategic imperatives for Ukraine.
I have no doubt they happened as random hand gestures, but they were not rock paper scissoring. The only thing that looks exactly like an intentional rock-paper-scissor would be the left picture, but just indicating “two” could look like that.
Well, also, strategically any pain for Iran is good for Ukraine, since Iran supplies Russia.
The point is the endgame.
If it is to strike back to stop the aggression even taking out the leadership… That’s one thing that can end a conflict.
If you say it most go as far against the citizens of Israel as the IDF has gone against the citizens of Gaza, that degree of vengeance back and forth can never be reasonably resolved. Assuming the entire citizenry must be made to pay for the sins of the leadership is a road to ever escalating violence.
Eye for an eye and the world goes blind
At multiple government offices I have seen them bring out someone to match the language spoken when someone has no or poor English.
It is far easier to speak English because practically speaking English is most prevalent, but it’s not like inability to speak English is a crime (though with this administration…)
“Our gods are dead. Ancient Klingon warriors slew them a millennia ago. They were more trouble than they were worth.” -Worf
I think Israel didn’t bother to ‘talk’, they just Leeroy Jenkinsed it up and the military decided they had to ride or die with it…