December 4, 2023

Is criticism of Israel antisemitic?

https://www.annefrank.org/en/topics/antisemitism/all-criticism-israel-antisemitic/

Criticism of the policies of Israeli governments is not necessarily antisemitic. For instance, anyone is free to reject or criticise the political decisions of Israeli governments concerning the Palestinian territories – this is not uncommon in Israel itself. However, denying the State of Israel’s right to exist does constitute antisemitism.

So... looks like saying Nuttyahoo is a murderous cretin who is intent on flattening GAZA for political gain and vengeance in his heart IS NOT antisemitic.

Accusing the IDF of war crimes thus is not antisemitism.

Blaming Israel (gov't) for locking millions of people in an open air prison is NOT antisemitism.

Playing the ANTISEMITISM card is soooo common right now. It's the kneejerk response to ALL criticism of Israel by some folks... the same folks who equate pro-Palestine with Pro-Hamas

November 30, 2023

Hate on Elon and the CT all you want... watch it beat a 911 in a drag race. While TOWING another 911...

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1730331223992472029?s=20

Car guy all my life... heavily into drag racing for decades...

And holy shit.

0-60 in 2.6s and sub 11 second quarter mile

November 29, 2023

Meet the hottest new recording "artist"... Anna Indiana.

Complete AI. Video, AI. Voice, AI. Song writing, AI...

Not particularly good... but not as bad as about half of what I hear on "the Voice"

Remember, this is the dawn of AI. This music video is like Pong compared to Call of Duty video games...

November 21, 2023

Germany freezes new spending commitments as budget woes deepen.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/germany-freezes-new-spending-commitments-budget-woes-deepen-2023-11-21/#:~:text=BERLIN%2C%20Nov%2021%20(Reuters),of%20a%20deepening%20budget%20crisis.

BERLIN, Nov 21 (Reuters) - The German government has imposed a freeze on most new spending commitments in what officials on Tuesday said was a necessary step as Chancellor Olaf Scholz's coalition struggled to find a way out of a deepening budget crisis.

The government's spending plans were thrown into disarray by a court ruling last week that blocked the government from transferring 60 billion euros ($65 billion) in unused funds from the pandemic towards green initiatives, potentially starving some German industry of support to keep it competitive.

The verdict has compounded tensions in the loveless three-way coalition between Scholz's ruling Social Democrats Party (SPD), the pro-spending Greens and fiscally conservative Free Democrats (FDP) over whether to suspend self-imposed limits on raising new debt.

November 18, 2023

Why the US didn't kill 12,000 civilians in 6 weeks of combat in Iraq

https://www.justsecurity.org/74619/avoiding-collateral-damage-on-the-battlefield/

I'm far from an apologist for US military adventurism but what we're seeing in Gaza is simply medieval.

Importantly, it is the expected collateral damage and the anticipated military advantage that drive proportionality analysis. Thus, proportionality determinations are made ex ante, not post factum. The determinative factors are what the attacker knew, or should have known, regarding collateral damage and what military advantage the attacker reasonably expected to achieve; proportionality is not assessed based on the collateral damage or military advantage that eventuated, except as they bear on the reasonableness of the attacker’s analysis at the time the attack was planned, approved or executed. In practice, this is a highly subjective determination because it compares dissimilar values – collateral damage and military advantage – that are themselves hard to measure. As a result, while still important, the more protective rule on the battlefield is that requiring precautions.

Compliance with these rules by those conducting attacks is operationalized through guidance imposed by higher echelons of command, processes designed to assess the likelihood of collateral damage and identify ways to avoid causing it, and technologies that offer the attacker precision, greater clarity in the battlespace, and redundant capabilities. We turn to these next.

U.S. and coalition forces use rules of engagement (ROE) to restrict the application of force during armed conflict, in part to limit civilian casualties to the extent feasible (Operational Law Handbook, ch. 5). ROE are more restrictive than LOAC, for they also incorporate policy and operational constraints and are usually tailored to the specific battlefield environment in which they apply. The rules can restrict such matters as acceptable targets, the geographic range of operations, time of operations, and the use of particular munitions. ROE also sometimes reinforce LOAC provisions that might be of particular significance in certain combat environments, such as the prohibitions on the destruction of religious and cultural property when being applied in situations of internecine conflict. In many circumstances, they tighten them, as in the case of restricting operations against religious facilities being illegitimately used by the adversary to self-defense scenarios only.

November 18, 2023

Sacha Baron Cohen Slams TikTok: "Creating Biggest Antisemitic Movement Since the Nazis"

Everyone seems fixated on Twitter/X...

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/sacha-baron-cohen-amy-schumer-jewish-celebrities-tiktok-antisemitism-1235657209/

A score of Jewish celebrities are criticizing TikTok following a surge of antisemitic rhetoric going viral on the social media app following Hamas‘ Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel, which has culminated in some young people supporting 9/11 terror leader Osama bin Laden.

According to The New York Times, more than 30 influential people — including Sacha Baron Cohen, Debra Messing and Amy Schumer — had an impassioned 90-minute video call with TikTok executives earlier in the week.

“What is happening at TikTok is it is creating the biggest antisemitic movement since the Nazis,” Cohen declared on the call, according to a video of the exchange. “Shame on you.” The Borat creator added that the service could “flip a switch” to silence such videos, and noted, “If you think back to Oct. 7, the reason why Hamas were able to behead young people and rape women was they were fed images from when they were small kids that led them to hate.”

November 17, 2023

Marquette: Haley leads Biden by 10 points, Trump and DeSantis lead by single digits

https://www.marquette.edu/news-center/2023/marquette-law-school-national-survey-finds-biden-trailing-three-gop-opponents.php

MILWAUKEE – A new Marquette Law School Poll national survey of registered voters finds President Joe Biden trailing against each of the top three potential Republican candidates, with former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley leading Biden 55% to 45% among registered voters. Former President Trump leads Biden 52% to 48% in the same category, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis holds a 51% to 49% advantage.

Among likely voters, Haley sees her advantage rise to 12 percentage points at 56-44. The Biden-DeSantis hypothetical does not change with likely voters, while Trump’s support decreases to 51% against Biden’s 49%.

November 14, 2023

Donald Trump isn't even the most interesting Trump.

And he's certainly the least accomplished.

Dr. John G. Trump was an electrical engineer with the National Defense Research Committee of the Office of Scientific Research and Development in WW2. That's serious TOP SECRET type shit there...

Summary, after the death of Nikolai Tesla in 1943, the US Gov't had a KEEN interest in the papers and records of Tesla who was believed to be working on advanced weaponry... Donald Trump's Uncle was the last person to inspect all of Tesla's papers.

One of the more controversial topics involving Nikola Tesla is what became of many of his technical and scientific papers after he died in 1943. Just before his death at the height of World War II, he claimed that he had perfected his so-called "death beam." So it was natural that the FBI and other U.S. Government agencies would be interested in any scientific ideas involving weaponry. Some were concerned that Tesla's papers might fall into the hands of the Axis powers or the Soviets.

The morning after the inventor's death, his nephew Sava Kosanovic´ hurried to his uncle's room at the Hotel New Yorker. He was an up-and-coming Yugoslav official with suspected connections to the communist party in his country. By the time he arrived, Tesla's body had already been removed, and Kosanovic´ suspected that someone had already gone through his uncle's effects. Technical papers were missing as well as a black notebook he knew Tesla kept—a notebook with several hundred pages, some of which were marked "Government."

P. E. Foxworth, assistant director of the New York FBI office, was called in to investigate. According to Foxworth, the government was "vitally interested" in preserving Tesla's papers. Two days after Tesla's death, representatives of the Office of Alien Property went to his room at the New Yorker Hotel and seized all his possessions

https://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_mispapers.html

November 11, 2023

TWO really interesting NATSEC articles re: Middle East Wars.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/hamas-antitank-strikes-show-depth-of-powerful-arsenal-facing-israel/ar-AA1jKg8y

Hamas antitank strikes show depth of ‘powerful’ arsenal facing Israel

Where years ago Israeli forces faced stones and molotov cocktails thrown by Palestinians, they now confront weapons such as laser-guided missiles and antitank munitions in Gaza. Hamas has been “arming itself to the teeth,” one military analyst said.

The Israel Defense Forces, or IDF, is now inside Gaza City, fighting Hamas above and below ground — among civilians, around hospitals, schools and mosques — in areas the IDF says are honeycombed with tunnels.Inside Gaza's tunnel network: Places for Hamas to attack, escape and regroup
This is still asymmetrical warfare. Israel fields one of the best-armed, most technologically sophisticated forces in the world. Hamas brigades today may have advanced weapons, but they are clearly outmatched.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/iran-isn-t-impressed-by-u-s-airstrikes/ar-AA1jJO64?cvid=f96b1e287671409884c731b6de56c21c&ei=77

Iran Isn’t Impressed by U.S. Airstrikes

The Pentagon said this week that Iranian proxies have attacked U.S. forces in the Middle East with drones or rockets 46 times since Oct. 17—some 24 times in Iraq and 22 more in Syria. Some 56 U.S. service members have been injured. The Pentagon is quick to stress that all have returned to duty, including those sent to Landstuhl in Germany for further evaluation. That’s good to hear, but troops have suffered traumatic brain injuries, in addition to more minor injuries such as shrapnel or perforated ear drums. These troops didn’t sign up to be repeated targets of enemy fire without the ability to respond in kind.
The surgical U.S. military strikes in response aren’t making Tehran think twice about hitting American troops. The U.S. on Wednesday dispatched two F-15s to destroy an Iranian weapons locker in eastern Syria. But why would Tehran blink now if it didn’t after similar strikes on weapons depots on Oct. 26? The Houthi rebels in Yemen this week took down a U.S. drone over the Red Sea. They don’t appear to be worried about the U.S. vow to respond “swiftly and decisively,” to quote Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month, if U.S. forces or facilities were attacked again.

November 10, 2023

A Batshit Number of Young Swing State Voters Think RFK Jr. Should Be President

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/11/robert-f-kennedy-jr-2024-poll

Not exactly what some people have been saying lately...

Swing State under 45's favor RFK over Biden and Trump.

Based on the Sienna poll... which might be trash of course.

As you’ve probably heard by now, a very scary poll released on Sunday shows Joe Biden losing the 2024 election to the four-time indicted insurrection enthusiast Donald Trump in five out of six major battleground states. That’s obviously a wildly disturbing prospect; it would be like asking someone if they’d like to catch a movie after work or have a rusty crowbar shoved up their ass, and then seeing them choosing the latter. But possibly even more surprising? How popular anti-vaxxer candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is among voters.

Yes, according to the results of the New York Times/Siena College poll, one quarter of 3,662 registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin said they’d go for RFK Jr. in a hypothetical matchup between him, Biden, and Trump. And among voters under 45? He beats both the 45th and 46th presidents. The results are similar to a recently conducted national poll by Quinnipiac University, which saw the nephew of John F. Kennedy winning 38% of registered voters ages 18-34, compared to Biden’s 32% and Trump’s 27%.