Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

[Icky Thump]

In other news, Icky’s firm had a department that does most of the legal writing. They won’t work for icky because they know icky writes his own and will brief and argue things that aren’t slam dunks.

They got faceplanted on a few Daubert-ish decisions. Icky went 4-0. Icky circulated the decisions because it’s good to resurrect favorable law.

Don’t you think they threw shade?

[LessinSF]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/11/busin...ts/index.html:

Separately, there has been a backlash against a statement released by the president of the NYU Student Bar Association saying Israel “bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life.”

That statement had immediate consequences, with law firm Winston & Strawn promptly pulling a job offer to the NYU student who previously served as a summer associate at the firm.

“These comments are profoundly in conflict with Winston & Strawn’s values as a firm. Accordingly, the Firm has rescinded the law student’s offer of employment,” the law firm said in a post on X. “Winston stands in solidarity with Israel’s right to exist in peace and condemns Hamas and the violence and destruction it has ignited in the strongest terms possible.”

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/11/busin...ts/index.html:

I side with Israel 100% here because what Hamas did is not war. It's ISIS level shit and cannot be argued to be anything close to accepted conduct of war under Geneva Conventions.

But... Maybe it's a bit extreme and counterproductive to "punish" people for wrong think. Maybe the better idea is to make the clueless little darlings debate their position against some actually well lettered experts on Israel and Palestine.

Sunlight remains the best disinfectant.

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I side with Israel 100% here because what Hamas did is not war. It's ISIS level shit and cannot be argued to be anything close to accepted conduct of war under Geneva Conventions.

But... Maybe it's a bit extreme and counterproductive to "punish" people for wrong think. Maybe the better idea is to make the clueless little darlings debate their position against some actually well lettered experts on Israel and Palestine.

Sunlight remains the best disinfectant.

I side with Israel 100% because they're an ally.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Icky Thump

I side with Israel 100% because they're an ally.

Can we at least be at least a little uncomfortable about bombing civilians who are essentially trapped in an open air prison?

There are victims of Hamas on both sides of the border.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

Can we at least be at least a little uncomfortable about bombing civilians who are essentially trapped in an open air prison?

There are victims of Hamas on both sides of the border.

Yes, and we should be. I also 100% side with the notion that the Palestinians in Gaza who are not Hamas or Hamas supporters do not deserve what they're getting.

Your second point is most important, and isn't being stated nearly as often as it should. The responsibility for the deaths of innocent Palestinians in the Israeli siege lies exclusively with Hamas, who decided to go ISIS on a much stronger neighbor and desired - sought exactly - the violent response that resulted. And then, cowards they are, slunk back into Gaza and used the Palestinians they pretend to care about as human shields.

Hamas might as well have saved gasoline and massacred the innocent Palestinians of Gaza itself. Because that's exactly what it did when it decided to go medeival on Israel. And why did it do it? To protect itself. If Israel and SA inked that peace deal, Hamas was permanently marginalized. Hamas might minimally care about Palestinians, but what it really cares about most, with everything else a very distant second, is its own power and survival. It'd rather keep the Palestinians in squalor and stay in power than improve their lives and concede its power.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Icky Thump

I side with Israel 100% because they're an ally.

I don't really understand what it means to side with Israel 100%. Obviously, Hamas is a bunch of terrorists and does heinous things. I don't side with Hamas at all. But Hamas is in power in Gaza not because it has widespread support among Palestinians or won free and fair elections, but in large part because Israel has weakened the Palestinian Authority over the years in a divide-and-conquer approach. This is hardly a secret. Netanyahu and Hamas have each used the other for their own ends. (And you should be fault things that Israel has done without having that construed as support for Hamas. It's really depressing how many people turn their outrage and grief into nonproductive attacks against others for not virtue-signaling in the right way.) Just as the US did with 9/11, the Hamas attacks likely will prompt an overreaction by Israel which will leave many non-combatants dead. I don't know if Hamas will survive as an organization, but there will continue to be some outlet for Palestinian nationalism, and the use of excessive force strengthens the most militant on the other side. It's great that Israel is moving towards normalized relations with a lot of Arab governments, but let's not pretend that those governments have democratic legitimacy or that their populations are invested in peace with Israel. Siding with Israel as an ally does not necessarily mean supporting the specific policies of the Israeli government.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I don't really understand what it means to side with Israel 100%. Obviously, Hamas is a bunch of terrorists and does heinous things. I don't side with Hamas at all. But Hamas is in power in Gaza not because it has widespread support among Palestinians or won free and fair elections, but in large part because Israel has weakened the Palestinian Authority over the years in a divide-and-conquer approach. This is hardly a secret. Netanyahu and Hamas have each used the other for their own ends. (And you should be fault things that Israel has done without having that construed as support for Hamas. It's really depressing how many people turn their outrage and grief into nonproductive attacks against others for not virtue-signaling in the right way.) Just as the US did with 9/11, the Hamas attacks likely will prompt an overreaction by Israel which will leave many non-combatants dead. I don't know if Hamas will survive as an organization, but there will continue to be some outlet for Palestinian nationalism, and the use of excessive force strengthens the most militant on the other side. It's great that Israel is moving towards normalized relations with a lot of Arab governments, but let's not pretend that those governments have democratic legitimacy or that their populations are invested in peace with Israel. Siding with Israel as an ally does not necessarily mean supporting the specific policies of the Israeli government.

When I said I side with Israel 100% it meant in regard to this current attack by Hamas. A significant number of people have asserted this attack was somehow Israel's fault, or justified.

This position appears to have merit superficially, but falls apart rather quickly under even a moderately rigorous assessment of the facts.

1. The Palestinians have objectively not been treated well by Israel. (This is significantly their own fault, but that's another argument we needn't reach here.)

2. This would naturally cause some form of resistance by Palestinians. Had Hamas sent missiles into Israel, or skirmished with settlers near its borders, it'd be a not unexpected form of warfare.

3. However, the behavior of Hamas, in raping, murdering, molesting corpses, and threatening to execute hostages and broadcast it online, is not warfare. It's so far outside the Geneva Convention one can't even liken it to accepted forms of warfare. It is identical to the actions of ISIS - a pathological death cult.

One cannot excuse Hamas because Hamas didn't just go too far. Hamas trampled the line so badly the atrocities of the IRA are distant specks in the rear view mirror. The question of who is at fault for attacking the other in Colonel-Kurtz-meets-the-SS manner isn't up for debate. Whatever Israel's sins are in regard to the Palestinians, what Hamas did was something so vile it renders the argument "Israel is at fault, too" inapplicable. It's not. No country could ever deserve what those Israeli people received.

And if you doubt that, watch some of the uncensored videos on Reddit.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I don't really understand what it means to side with Israel 100%. Obviously, Hamas is a bunch of terrorists and does heinous things. I don't side with Hamas at all. But Hamas is in power in Gaza not because it has widespread support among Palestinians or won free and fair elections, but in large part because Israel has weakened the Palestinian Authority over the years in a divide-and-conquer approach. This is hardly a secret. Netanyahu and Hamas have each used the other for their own ends. (And you should be fault things that Israel has done without having that construed as support for Hamas. It's really depressing how many people turn their outrage and grief into nonproductive attacks against others for not virtue-signaling in the right way.) Just as the US did with 9/11, the Hamas attacks likely will prompt an overreaction by Israel which will leave many non-combatants dead. I don't know if Hamas will survive as an organization, but there will continue to be some outlet for Palestinian nationalism, and the use of excessive force strengthens the most militant on the other side. It's great that Israel is moving towards normalized relations with a lot of Arab governments, but let's not pretend that those governments have democratic legitimacy or that their populations are invested in peace with Israel. Siding with Israel as an ally does not necessarily mean supporting the specific policies of the Israeli government.

So, it must be horrible to be an innocent in Gaza.

But, the whole spiral started with an attempt to eliminate the Jews in Israel, maybe you’ll say it started with displacing people to create Israel? Whatever, you cannot claim there is not a goal to eliminate the country and its people, or do you?

So these monsters hide behind the innocents and every so often go do things that are so horrible I can’t bring myself to look at the photos, and I objected to you deleting the Beslam photos. What would you suggest Israel do if not invade?

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/11/busin...ts/index.html:

Need to cleanse the colon at the end.

[LessinSF]

For Sebby - https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/fa...olarship/2229/

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by LessinSF

For Sebby - https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/fa...olarship/2229/

I'll never quibble with the notion that in politics, perception is more important than actual. Or that Trump was not as administratively effective as he claims.

However, when you have a pro-deregulation regime in place, business generally has more confidence. So merely saying you're going to go easy on regulation can free up investment.

And at the really really small business level, people aren't as concerned with enforcement. Saying you're going to fund 87k new treasury agents, OTOH, however immaterial that may actually be, isn't singing a song the restaurant owner, Uber driver, or hair salon owner want to hear.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Here's why.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/22/o...democrats.html

"The politics of selective fidelity to traditional norms. Liberals fear, with reason, the threat Trump poses to the institutional architecture of American government. Yet many of the same Democrats want to pack the Supreme Court, eliminate the Senate filibuster, get rid of the Electoral College, give federal agencies the right to impose eviction moratoriums and forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in student debt without the consent of Congress. They decry Trump’s assaults on the news media while cheering the Biden administration’s attempt to strong-arm media companies into censoring opinions it disliked. And they warn of Trump’s efforts to criminalize his political opponents, even as they celebrate criminalizing him. Hypocrisy of this sort doesn’t go unnoticed by people not fully in the tank for Harris.

It remains perfectly possible that Harris will win the election, in which case we will hear a great deal about the brightness of her appeal and the brilliance of her campaign. Wiser liberals might want to press two questions: How did Trump still get so very, very close? And how can we fashion a liberalism that doesn’t turn so many ordinary people off?"

Simple. Remember what it is to be a Liberal and kick the Progressives out of the tent.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Here's why.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/22/o...democrats.html

"The politics of selective fidelity to traditional norms. Liberals fear, with reason, the threat Trump poses to the institutional architecture of American government. Yet many of the same Democrats want to pack the Supreme Court, eliminate the Senate filibuster, get rid of the Electoral College, give federal agencies the right to impose eviction moratoriums and forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in student debt without the consent of Congress. They decry Trump’s assaults on the news media while cheering the Biden administration’s attempt to strong-arm media companies into censoring opinions it disliked. And they warn of Trump’s efforts to criminalize his political opponents, even as they celebrate criminalizing him. Hypocrisy of this sort doesn’t go unnoticed by people not fully in the tank for Harris.

It remains perfectly possible that Harris will win the election, in which case we will hear a great deal about the brightness of her appeal and the brilliance of her campaign. Wiser liberals might want to press two questions: How did Trump still get so very, very close? And how can we fashion a liberalism that doesn’t turn so many ordinary people off?"

It amazes me that the NYT publishes drivel like that from Bret Stephens as if it is contributing to the discourse. He just discovered liberal hypocrisy!

A wiser editor would have said to Bret Stephens, cut everything and start with the last two sentences, which are interesting questions on which many people are actually engaging. Do you have any ideas to add to that conversation? Maybe he didn't, so they just went with this to troll the libs.

P.S. It's not the hypocrisy. Bret Stephens has never, ever, ever written a column about how conservative hypocrisy costs them anything. The question is, why do the Bret Stephens of the world -- and I think you can count yourself among them, unless you disagree -- get bothered by liberal hypocrisy, but not by conservative hyprocrisy? What is really going on with that double standard?

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Here's why.
Simple. Remember what it is to be a Liberal and kick the Progressives out of the tent.

Who, specifically, are the Progressives in the tent, what, specifically, have they done that moves the needle? And how do Democrats win elections by alienating a non-trivial fraction of their coalition?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

It amazes me that the NYT publishes drivel like that from Bret Stephens as if it is contributing to the discourse. He just discovered liberal hypocrisy!

The critique is far more expansive than that, but you'll frame it as you like, as that's your favorite form of response.

A wiser editor would have said to Bret Stephens, cut everything and start with the last two sentences, which are interesting questions on which many people are actually engaging. Do you have any ideas to add to that conversation? Maybe he didn't, so they just went with this to troll the libs.

I agree those are the most important questions. How did Trump get so close? Well, a lot of it is what Stephens cites. People really, really dislike a lot of the preachiness and know-it-all-ism of Democrats, particularly given it's matched almost always with incompetent policies and is later discovered to have been based on bad data analyses. Democrats never leave anything alone. There's always an urge to tell everyone what their analysis of an issue is, and then insist on a policy prescription to react to it. Later, they admit they tackled a problem that didn't need to be tackled and in doing so caused another worse problem. From Clinton-era silliness about everyone needing to own a house (followed by the feckless W administration) to Covid over-reaction, they think they're the smart set, with the answers... and they fuck it up. Over and over and over. The law of unintended consequences bites Ds in the ass every time and their response? "Let's pass another law!"

On the second question, Liberalism doesn't turn off anyone. And I don't think liberals turn off anyone. Liberals are open minded. Classical liberals don't want to tell anyone what to do. They venerate tolerance and live and let live attitudes.

It's MAGA and Progressives that want to tell everyone what to do. Stephens' question should have been, "How do both parties rid themselves of extreme right wingers and progressives?"

We classical liberals and conservatives can get along just fine, horse trading our way to sane compromises. But these right wingers, these MAGA people? And these wingnut progressives? You can't deal with these groups. They're cancers - founts of dysfunction.

YMMV, but IMO, moderate Ds hate progressives. They think they're nuts. And moderate Rs hate MAGA and right-wingers. They think they're nuts and ruining the party. There's a whole lot of overlap for the sane of us in the middle to cut deals. We just have to eliminate the extremists from the conversations.

P.S. It's not the hypocrisy. Bret Stephens has never, ever, ever written a column about how conservative hypocrisy costs them anything. The question is, why do the Bret Stephens of the world -- and I think you can count yourself among them, unless you disagree -- get bothered by liberal hypocrisy, but not by conservative hyprocrisy? What is really going on with that double standard?

Conservative hypocrisy is so overt, there's nothing revelatory in a column calling it out. They're openly full of shit. It's like Trump. Try keeping a list of all his lies and contradictions. You'll run out of space in the spreadsheet by noon.

Who, specifically, are the Progressives in the tent, what, specifically, have they done that moves the needle? And how do Democrats win elections by alienating a non-trivial fraction of their coalition?

1. The Woke. They're political toxic waste. They're fading, but not fast enough.

2. The corporate classes that support woke narratives. These people aren't really woke. They use the woke as useful idiots, to divert the conversation from one about class, wealth inequality, and (gasp) anti-competitive monopolistic consolidation in numerous industries to one about race, gender, and trans issues.

3. The legacy media. Again, fading fast, but just irritating enough to alienate a ton of people.

How does getting rid of them help the Democrats? Well, because a whole lot of moderate ex-Republicans are now looking for a home. They have more money and power than progressives, they outnumber progressives 50 to 1, and they desperately want Normalcy. It's not naive to suggest the silent majority wants to go back to the days of Reagan and O'Neill cutting deals. Unless one has shit for brains, he realizes (unless he's MAGA or progressive) by age 27 that this country doesn't work without compromise. That no one wins in zero sum games.

The Democratic Party is, I think, on the verge of scooping up roughly 1/4 of the Republican party. Give them a space in the tent. Make MAGA and Progressivism Fringe Again and let the rest of us sail into a future of Sane Compromise.