ABigGuy4U
3mo ago
Regarding your point about weapon design: that’s the easiest part of building a nuclear weapon. Far easier than refining the fissile material. And there’s good evidence that Iran already bought the necessary weapon schematics on the black market in the late 1980s. Overall I agree that their intention and ability to get a nuke might be overstated.
I think you may be overestimating the amount of people you would need. Even many of the loopier conspiracy theories about 9/11 could be executed with 100 people or less. JFK’s assassination could easily have been done with a working group of five people fully read-in and a few unwitting accomplices.
ABigGuy4U
3mo ago
Term limits set by Congress might not even be Constitutional. And it would be the Supreme Court’s job to determine if it is.
ABigGuy4U
3mo ago
In and of itself, it probably isn’t. But we are in the midst of a poly-crisis, and this is another unstable element in an already rickety Jenga tower.
ABigGuy4U
3mo ago
It’s also a problem in the event of any great power foreign conflict that requires a draft.
I find it pretty ironic that most of the people on Reddit that are telling the Palestinians to just give up and leave are the same ones telling the Ukrainians to fight to the last man woman child and dog.
ABigGuy4U
3mo ago
- There’s no way Israel is going to take credit for an attack that killed 10 children who are Israeli citizens in any context
- This is something Netanyahu has wanted to do for a full decade anyway
ABigGuy4U
3mo ago
I don’t think Bibi can ignore it, regardless of the demographics of who was killed. This attack will scare the hell out of anyone who lives north of Haifa. Many cities in northern Israel are already evacuated, and Israeli strategists are increasingly worried about the entire population of Israel gradually getting squeezed into just the Tel-Aviv metro area. That’s a long-term recipe for disaster, especially if Iran ever acquires nuclear weapons.
I don’t think the military wants to (they didn’t even want to invade Gaza), but the political leadership certainly does. Many such cases throughout history (ex. Tsarist Russia and WWI).
There was a Hezbollah rocket attack on the Golan heights about 45 minutes ago. I don’t think it was that large overall, but one of the rockets hit a school soccer practice. Mass casualties confirmed, including at least four dead children. Prime Minister Netanyahu has been pulled into an emergency security meeting due to the incident. My gut tells me the response will be severe and that this will trigger a war between Israel and Hezbollah, which has already been brewing for some time.
Edit (7:30 PM GMT) Israeli media is reporting that Prime Minister Netanyahu has received approval from the United States for a major operation against Hezbollah.
Edit 2 (8:00PM GMT) Israeli authorities are saying at least 10 dead.
Edit 3 (8:47PM GMT) Massive GPS jamming occurring throughout the Mediterranean
Edit 4: (10:23PM GMT) Prime Minister Netanyahu has expressed condolences to the Druze community, dates that the attack “will not pass on silence”
Edit 5 (4:43AM GMT) Unconfirmed reports in Lebanese media of Israeli air strikes in Lebanon.
Edit 6 (5:10 PM GMT) Confirmed IAF air strikes on Lebanon occurring now.
Edit 7 (7:32 PM GMT) Israeli drones are airborne over Beirut. Israel is calling up medical volunteers to surge staff to hospitals in northern Israel in anticipation of large volumes of casualties.
Edit 8 (8:02 PM GMT) Municipal officials in Western and Northern Galilee regions are ordering residents into shelters
Edit 9 (3:04PM GMT) The Israeli Cabinet has given Prime Minister Netanyahu authorization for a strike on Hezbollah forces in Lebanon.
ABigGuy4U
3mo ago
There’s just been a mass causality Hezbollah rocket attack in the Golan Heights. Multiple dead including children. I think the Israel/Hezbollah tinderbox has just been lit.
ABigGuy4U
3mo ago
Biden gets a lot of flack for trading Viktor Bout for Britney Griner, but I suspect it was actually for Britney Griner and several dozen American advisors that were captured in Mariupol.
ABigGuy4U
3mo ago
Unfortunately, people on the Motte tend to live in the same economic bubbles that most Silicon Valley liberals do. For the lower classes things are not ok. They are barely hanging on. For most of America, this “greatest economy ever” and “vibesecession” stuff is a load of obvious horse shit.
ABigGuy4U
3mo ago
I think these people are slowly picking up on the real fact that the US isn’t a democracy or a republic anymore, and they have started engaging in cargo-cult Kremlinology.
ABigGuy4U
3mo ago
They can’t do that. Saudi Arabia tried to do that, using all the hard handed tactics you described. Overt starvation warfare, massive airstrikes, including civilian infrastructure, using their actually pretty impressive air force. 185,000 Saudi and Saudi-allied troops on the ground. All the best gear, including M1 Abrams tanks. The CIA providing intel for airstrikes and ground operations. It didn’t work. The Saudis burned a lot of their goodwill with the umma, and the UN was up their ass for most of it. Israel doesn’t mind getting their hands dirty because their international reputation is in the toilet already. If the US tried that it would be a disaster. Iran and Russia would give the the Houthis massive support just to mess with the US. The supply lines would be difficult because there would be constant, intense missile attacks on US Navy assets in the region. There would be sympathy attacks on US bases and embassies all across the region. There’s a good chance there would be protests and rioting in the homeland. The UN would light the US up with toothless but embarrassing resolutions. There might be an oil embargo if things got bad enough. US troops would take casualties on par with the Iraq war. It’s a complete non-starter.
ABigGuy4U
3mo ago
Critics of the McDonalds judgment usually point to the fact that the lady spilled the coffee on herself. Which I understand, it’s like suing Black and Decker for someone bonking themselves on the head with a hammer. People who agree with the McDonalds judgment point to the fact that the coffee served at McDonalds back then was extremely hot: McD’s used to keep their coffee a few degrees short of boiling at time of service. This is far too hot to drink for an extended period of time. In fact if you tried to drink it at the time of service you would probably injure yourself. People generally expect hot coffee to be hot, and that you should be careful with it. But I don’t think they expect it to be so hot that it literally melts your genitals off your body (which is what happened in the case), and that you should exercise the same extreme caution you would use for handling molten iron slag at an industrial plant.
ABigGuy4U
3mo ago
She could tell that you had never undertaken the Hock. Women can smell non-Hockers from a mile away. You need to strap on your boots and get to Alaska post-haste.
ABigGuy4U
3mo ago
Watch out with that. THC can be habit forming, especially if you have an addictive personality. In my experience it’s very easy to go from a drag or two at night to basically being high all the time.
ABigGuy4U
3mo ago
He literally has a demonic sigil etched into his forearm. I don’t buy any of that “Norse good luck navigation charm” stuff. I’ve seen actual people from Scandinavia freak out when they see that thing. It’s designed to summon an entity.
ABigGuy4U
3mo ago
The Houthis claim they hit the USS Eisenhower with a missile while it was patrolling the Red Sea, and damaged it pretty badly. The US Navy denies it, but the ship did have to abruptly leave the Red Sea for “repairs” a day after the Houthis made the claim. And there’s some evidence it had to be towed, and wasn’t moving under its own power.
ABigGuy4U
3mo ago
Frankly I’m starting to believe the conspiracy theories about the attack on the USS Eisenhower. I don’t put much stock in Houthi press releases, but the behavior of the US and EU navies is much more consistent with that story being true than not true.
Citizen Kane is rated so highly for technical reasons. Orson Welles invented half the shot types that modern filmmakers use when he was making Citizen Kane. For example, deep focus, where the shot is arranged so that both the background and foreground are in focus during the shot. If you watch any modern movie today, you will see shot techniques that were created for Citizen Kane. The problem is that these techniques have been in use for 80 years now, so when you go back and watch Citizen Kane, it looks good, but you won’t notice how revolutionary it was. If you were watching it in 1941 it would look quite unlike anything that came before it.
There is a specific cause of action that individual states can bring which boils down to “we entered the Union under certain guarantees, and this legislation violates those guarantees.” So changing the Senate to proportional representation or something similar that would screw over small states, or changing the separation of powers might fall under that. That said, at a Constitutional convention you could theoretically do anything, even repeal the Constitution and dissolve the United States.
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