When he’s being actively undermined by Republicans the whole way, just cleaning up Trump’s mess can be an accomplishment. The Inflation Reduction Act went against heavily entrenched interests to restart the US federal government’s response to climate change. It took real finesse to get that through Congress.

I can’t help but think that’s why Putin invaded Ukraine. He needed something to keep the masses distracted. He’s afraid that he’ll get assassinated if he ever leaves power, whether voluntarily or by violent overthrow.

Yeah, it’s just a bad headline.

Bingo. Letting people get strong armed into these sorts of “agreements” is a perversion of free markets.

It sounds like it was the bomber, Serhiy Batryn, that was reported as dead. Conflicting reports as to whether he has actually died. This was not related to Russia from what I could gather. He had a long standing feud with members of the local council.

I just upgraded to the Pixel 8 Pro when the Pixel 5 went out of official support. The screen fingerprint reader works fine. Where it is flawed is that it’s not as quick to unlock from the front. I’m looking forward to the greatly improved support period. Three years was ridiculously short. I know something like GrapheneOS is always an option, but I’m hesitant to do so when I don’t have a backup phone.

The Pixel 8 Pro has been treating me well. Great photos and video, snappy UI, good feature set. And it sounds like I’ll be getting feature drops for the next few years, so that’s nice. The battery life is good. I added on Peak Design’s case and mini tripod, so I can quickly set it up on a surface to take videos or make a video call.

That’s how I see it. Israel really hasn’t seen any public consequences from the US, its closest allies, for how it treats the Palestinians. This is kind of a shot across the bow that there is more to come. The Biden administration has indicated that they are not pleased with the scale of civilian casualties in Gaza.

I had some lucky timing with an inheritance. Also two software engineer’s salaries. Even then, it took a chunk out of our finances. We also got a bit lucky. The house was probably selling a little below its value and we got in right before the Fed really started pumping the brakes with interest rate increases.

More space dicks

Back when I was doing a weekly shopping trip on my bike with panniers, I tried self-checkout once when the cashiers were busy. Never again. The tall bags just screwed with the sensors too much. Now I’m maybe a bit more inclined to use it because I moved to a house just a quick walk to the store. It can make sense to just dump all of the items on the weighing platform and put them in my backpack and reusable bags later.

I get that, but I have had the opportunity to talk to several people from Israel. They’ve grown up surrounded by this conflict. Inflicting collective punishment on them doesn’t sit well with me. This is a more multi-dimensional situation than the apartheid of South Africa or the invasion by Russia. This is as much a string of failures of leadership in Israel and Palestine as anything else.

Definitely avoid companies that are profiting from activity in the West Bank, but not all of Israel. Israel includes many ethnic minorities that would be harmed all the same.

Kind of like no independent journalists can investigate in Gaza about Israeli-built tunnels under a hospital under IDF control, right?

Okay, so explain this: why would Israel lie about the tunnels? It makes perfect sense that Hamas would operate largely in tunnels including under vital infrastructure, tunnels are used for smuggling in other places around the world, and bringing the IDF into hospitals is a huge headache in terms of PR. So what’s in it for Israel?

My understanding is this lie was used by Hamas to isolate Israel from Arab nations where much of the public was frankly horrified by the brutal violence Hamas had aimed specifically at civilians. So no, it wasn’t just “the one relatively inconsequential thing,” it is a lie that has had serious consequences.

Especially anyone who believes that individuals are less free now than they were historically in the United States. Only the ignorant or biased make that claim.

I don’t see any problem with a system to detect drunk driving and bring the car to a stop. There is no right to drive a car while drunk or otherwise impaired. Inventing one by calling upon privacy also ignores that the cops can pull you over and give you a sobriety test if they have reason to anyway. In 2021, over 13,000 people in the US died from drunk drivers. They deserve protection.

So much this. The Palestinian side has been more or less in stasis politically for what, a decade? Meanwhile Israel moves further and further to the right, constantly indulging their worst right flank including continued land theft. The Republicans in the US indulge Israel without question, while the Democrats question Israel without teeth.

Hamas and Netanyahu need to go as the baseline outcome of this debacle. I’m not sure how Hamas gets removed, or more importantly what takes its place.

I just said I think IDF violence against kids throwing rocks is unjustifiable. DID I STUTTER?

That’s not what I’m saying. I hold the Israeli government and Hamas to both be responsible in this conflict. I don’t see judging who is more responsible as that productive of an exercise. More Palestinian civilians have died, but that’s because Hamas actively put them in harm’s way. What would you ask Israel to do, given that 1,400 of their citizens died on 10/7 and hundreds more remain hostages?

Israel’s position previous to 10/7 was that they would just leave Gaza as an open air prison with Hamas in charge, though they would never like it framed that way. After 10/7, that changed. Hamas is clearly more of a threat than they envisioned and has to be exterminated.

Given that this is the general air inside of Israel, what should happen? I’m not sure they can really even back off at this point, given how far Hamas went. Unfortunately, smarter people than me don’t have good answers. Part of the problem is a failure of leadership on both sides. Bibi apparently did his best back in the day to essentially legitimize Hamas while cutting the PLA out of the peace process, purposefully splitting the Palestinians. Meanwhile, Palestinian leadership is a mix of corrupt, weak, and uninspiring. Both Israelis and Palestinians deserve a new generation of better leaders, but I haven’t heard of any.

And I will stand aside and let you criticize them all you want.