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bolverk

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Everything posted by bolverk

  1. Interesting website: https://www.whoismakingnews.com/#WHO-ARE-THE-REAL-PREDATORS
  2. Wordle 1,586 4/6 πŸŸ©β¬›β¬›πŸŸ¨β¬› πŸŸ©β¬›β¬›β¬›πŸŸ© πŸŸ©β¬›β¬›β¬›πŸŸ© 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #864 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟦🟦🟦🟦 πŸŸͺπŸŸͺπŸŸͺπŸŸͺ πŸ™‚ Daily Quordle 1367 8️⃣9️⃣ 7️⃣4️⃣ m-w.com/games/quordle/ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨 ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜🟨🟨⬜🟩 🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜⬜🟩🟩🟩 ⬜🟨🟨🟩⬜ ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟨⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜🟨🟩⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
  3. This is me not saying what I’d like to say.
  4. https://apnews.com/article/israel-settlers-west-bank-attack-annexation-1e9cbd6af6ea502fbfca5d9ffe949b0b RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) β€” Israeli settlers descended on Palestinian olive harvesters and activists this week in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, beating them with clubs in an attack Palestinian health officials said sent at least one woman to the hospital with serious injuries. The attack Sunday in the town of Turmus Ayya, which was captured in videos obtained by The Associated Press, came as Palestinians say settler violence in the region is worsening. The United Nations and rights groups have raised the alarm as harvest season begins and Palestinian farmers are at growing risk while gathering olives. β€œSettler violence has skyrocketed in scale and frequency,” Ajith Sunghay, the head of the U.N. Human Rights Office in the Palestinian territory, said in a statement released Tuesday. β€œTwo weeks into the start of the 2025 harvest, we have already seen severe attacks by armed settlers against Palestinian men, women, children and foreign solidarity activists.” In one of the videos obtained by the AP, a masked man was seen running through an olive grove and beating at least two people with a club, including a woman as she lay motionless on the ground. The masked man appeared to be wearing tzitzit, a ritual fringed garment for Jews. The woman was hospitalized with serious injures, the Ramallah-based Palestinian Health Ministry said. In a separate video, more than a dozen masked men were seen running down a village road alongside an olive grove, pursuing a car. One settler clubbed the car and opened the door. A passenger managed to escape and run away with the group of men running after him. A third video showed flames and smoke rising from several torched cars. Israel’s Channel 12 reported that the head of the West Bank police force said in an internal police WhatsApp group that the footage of the masked settler beating the woman β€œkept him up at night” and instructed officers to bring the settler to justice. Israel’s military and police did not respond to an AP request for comment on the attack. Turmus Ayya, whose population is predominantly Palestinian American, has long been a target of settler attacks, but villagers say the violence worsened during the Israel-Hamas war. It’s nestled in a valley surrounded by hilltops crowned with Israeli settlements and outposts. Since the killing of a 14-year old Palestinian-American, Amer Rabee, by Israeli forces in the town in April protests against settler violence and the military’s perceived failure to curb it have provoked regular clashes with settlers. More broadly, settler violence is surging across the West Bank. The U.N. says the first half of 2025 has seen 757 settler attacks causing casualties or property damage β€” a 13% increase compared with the same period last year. The first week of olive harvest season has seen more than 150 settler attacks and over 700 olive trees uprooted, broken or poisoned, according to Muayyad Shaaban, who heads an office in the Palestinian Authority that is tracking the violence. Israel captured the West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those territories for a future independent state. Settler advocates hold key Israeli Cabinet positions that grant them and the settlers an important say over the West Bank.
  5. My concern goes far beyond the University of Texas at Austin. It’s the flagship, and not just for the system. It’s the gold standard for public higher education in Texas. Hell, this whole region of the country. Sure, the whimsical wishes of the regime change day-to-day, and UT could get tired of trying to placate our moronic monarch. In the meantime, schools across the state see UT receive that cash and start trying not just to emulate the University, but to outdo it, showing they’re even more deserving by becoming full-on reich-wing indoctrination centers.
  6. Are you ever going to respond to all these posters who took the time out of their day to give you thoughtful answers?
  7. https://apnews.com/article/lebanon-israel-gaza-ceasefire-new-normal-hezbollah-190eb8c2ec2d9fedc94c3fadfc1f41e2 BEIRUT (AP) β€” As a tenuous ceasefire took hold in Gaza this month, Israel launched more airstrikes on southern Lebanon β€” 11 months into a ceasefire there. The bombardment of a construction equipment business killed a Syrian passerby, wounded seven people including two women, and destroyed millions of dollars worth of bulldozers and excavators. The Oct. 11 strikes would be an anomaly in most countries not at war. But near-daily Israeli attacks have become the new normal in Lebanon, nearly a year after a U.S.-brokered truce halted the latest conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. Some see a likely blueprint for the Gaza ceasefire, with ongoing but lower-intensity conflicts. On Sunday, Israel struck Gaza after it said Hamas fired at its troops, in the first major test of the U.S.-brokered truce. Mona Yacoubian, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, described the Lebanon scenario as a β€œlessfire” rather than a ceasefire. Lebanon β€œcould well serve as the model for Gaza, essentially giving leeway to Israeli forces to strike whenever they deem a threat without a full resumption of conflict,” she said. A ceasefire with no clear enforcement The latest Israel-Hezbollah conflict began the day after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel triggered the war in Gaza. The militant group Hezbollah, largely based in southern Lebanon, began firing rockets into Israel in support of Hamas and the Palestinians. Israel responded with airstrikes and shelling. The low-level conflict escalated into full-scale war in September 2024. The ceasefire on Nov. 27, 2024, required Lebanon to stop armed groups from attacking Israel and Israel to halt β€œoffensive” military actions in Lebanon. It said Israel and Lebanon can act in β€œself-defense,” without elaborating. Both sides can report alleged violations to a monitoring committee of the U.S., France, Israel, Lebanon and the U.N. peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL, but the deal is vague on enforcement. In practice, Israel has largely taken enforcement into its own hands, asserting that its strikes in Lebanon target Hezbollah militants, facilities and weapons. Israel says it aims to stop the badly weakened group from rebuilding. Lebanese officials say the attacks obstruct its efforts to get Hezbollah to disarm by giving the group a pretext to hold onto its weapons. Lebanon also says Israel’s strikes, including the Oct. 11 one, often harm civilians and destroy infrastructure unrelated to Hezbollah. Lebanon’s health ministry has reported more than 270 people killed and around 850 wounded by Israeli military actions since the ceasefire. As of Oct. 9, the U.N. human rights office had verified that 107 of those killed were civilians or noncombatants, said spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan. No Israelis have been killed by fire from Lebanon since the ceasefire. From Nov. 27, 2024, to mid-October, UNIFIL detected around 950 projectiles fired from Israel into Lebanon and 100 Israeli airstrikes, spokesperson Kandice Ardiel said. During the same period, it reported 21 projectiles fired from Lebanon toward Israel. Hezbollah has claimed one attack since the ceasefire. Conflicting narratives After the Oct. 11 strikes in Msayleh, Israel’s army said it hit β€œengineering equipment intended for the reconstruction of terrorist infrastructure in southern Lebanon.” Lebanese authorities, Hezbollah and the equipment’s owner disputed that. β€œEveryone in Lebanon, from all different sects, comes to buy from us,” owner Ahmad Tabaja told journalists. β€œWhat have we done wrong?” Lebanese President Joseph Aoun called the strikes β€œblatant aggression against civilian facilities.” Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri accused Israel of seeking to prevent communities’ reconstruction. Lebanon complained to the U.N. Security Council. A few days later, Israel struck a cement factory and a quarry, claiming Hezbollah planned to use it to rebuild its infrastructure. Last month, an Israeli strike hit a motorcycle and a car carrying a family in Bint Jbeil. It killed Shadi Charara, a car salesman, three of his children β€” including 18-month-old twins β€” and the motorcyclist, and badly wounded Charara’s wife and oldest daughter. It was among the highest death tolls since the ceasefire, sparking particular outrage because of the children. β€œMy brother was a civilian and his children and wife are civilians, and they have nothing to do with politics,” said sister Amina Charara. Israel’s military said it was targeting a Hezbollah militant, whom it did not name, but acknowledged that civilians were killed. Even when the target is a known Hezbollah member, the military necessity can be disputed. Earlier this month, an Israeli drone strike killed a Hezbollah member who was blinded last year in Israel’s exploding pagers attack, along with his wife. Israel’s army said Hassan Atwi was a key official in Hezbollah’s Aerial Defense Unit. Hezbollah officials said he had played no military role since losing his eyesight. The end of β€˜mutual deterrence’ Hezbollah was formed in 1982, with Iranian backing, to fight Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon at the time. Israeli forces withdrew in 2000, and Hezbollah grew into one of the region’s most powerful non-state armed groups. In 2006, Hezbollah and Israel fought a month-long war that ended in a draw. For the next 17 years, β€œthere was a tense calm ... that was largely due to mutual deterrence,” said Nicholas Blanford, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East program. Strikes in Lebanon were generally understood to be off limits. Both sides wanted to avoid another damaging war. Now that equation has changed. Though Blanford said Hezbollah could still deliver blows to Israel, the group’s β€œdeterrence has been shattered by the recent war,” he said. In an interview with The Associated Press last month, Hezbollah political official Mohammad Fneish said the prospect of coexisting with daily Israeli attacks is β€œnot acceptable.” But the group has largely limited itself to calling on Lebanon’s government to pressure Israel with what Fneish called β€œits political, diplomatic or other capabilities.” He added: β€œIf things develop further, then the resistance leadership is studying matters, and all options are open.” Yacoubian, the analyst, said she didn’t see the situation in Lebanon changing any time soon, β€œbarring a breakthrough in behind-the-scenes negotiations brokered by the U.S.” With the Gaza ceasefire, she said, the difference could be the β€œsignificant role” of fellow mediators Qatar, Egypt and Turkey.
  8. Amazon Plans to Replace More Than Half a Million Jobs With Robots Internal documents show the company that changed how people shop has a far-reaching plan to automate 75 percent of its operations. Over the past two decades, no company has done more to shape the American workplace than Amazon. In its ascent to become the nation’s second-largest employer, it has hired hundreds of thousands of warehouse workers, built an army of contract drivers and pioneered using technology to hire, monitor and manage employees. Now, interviews and a cache of internal strategy documents viewed by The New York Times reveal that Amazon executives believe the company is on the cusp of its next big workplace shift: replacing more than half a million jobs with robots. Amazon’s U.S. work force has more than tripled since 2018 to almost 1.2 million. But Amazon’s automation team expects the company can avoid hiring more than 160,000 people in the United States it would otherwise need by 2027. That would save about 30 cents on each item that Amazon picks, packs and delivers to customers. Executives told Amazon’s board last year that they hoped robotic automation would allow the company to continue to avoid adding to its U.S. work force in the coming years, even though they expect to sell twice as many products by 2033. That would translate to more than 600,000 people whom Amazon didn’t need to hire. At facilities designed for superfast deliveries, Amazon is trying to create warehouses that employ few humans at all. And documents show that Amazon’s robotics team has an ultimate goal to automate 75 percent of its operations. Amazon is so convinced this automated future is around the corner that it has started developing plans to mitigate the fallout in communities that may lose jobs. Documents show the company has considered building an image as a β€œgood corporate citizen” through greater participation in community events such as parades and Toys for Tots. The documents contemplate avoiding using terms like β€œautomation” and β€œA.I.” when discussing robotics, and instead use terms like β€œadvanced technology” or replace the word β€œrobot” with β€œcobot,” which implies collaboration with humans. Amazon said in a statement that the documents viewed by The Times were incomplete and did not represent the company’s overall hiring strategy. Kelly Nantel, a spokeswoman for Amazon, said the documents reflected the viewpoint of one group inside the company and noted that Amazon planned to hire 250,000 people for the coming holiday season, though the company declined to say how many of those roles would be permanent. Amazon also said that it’s not insisting executives avoid certain terms, and that community involvement is unrelated to automation. Amazon’s plans could have profound impact on blue-collar jobs throughout the country and serve as a model for other companies like Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, and UPS. The company transformed the U.S. work force as it created a booming demand for warehousing and delivery jobs. But now, as it leads the way for automation, those roles could become more technical, higher paid and more scarce. Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/21/technology/inside-amazons-plans-to-replace-workers-with-robots.html?unlocked_article_code=1.vE8.UxIh.b0QqhmR8pUfz&smid=url-share
  9. Portion of an interview with Adam Driver, discussing a SW film that never was about Kylo Ren that he and Soderbergh pitched to Disney: A β€˜Star Wars’ near-miss β€œI always was interested in doing another β€˜Star Wars,’” says Driver, who starred as Kylo Ren in the trilogy kicked off by β€œThe Force Awakens.” β€œI had been talking about doing another one since 2021. Kathleen (Kennedy) had reached out. I always said: With a great director and a great story, I’d be there in a second. I loved that character and loved playing him.” Driver says he took a concept to Soderbergh for a film that would take place after 2019’s β€œThe Rise of Skywalker.” That movie culminated in Ren’s redemption and apparent death. Driver had undertaken the trilogy with an arc in mind for Ren that inverted the journey of Darth Vader. As the trilogy evolved, it didn’t play out that way. Driver felt there was unfinished business for Kylo Ren, or as he was known before turning to the Dark Side, Ben Solo. Soderbergh and Rebecca Blunt outlined a story that the group then pitched to Kennedy, Lucasfilm vice president Cary Beck and Lucasfilm chief creative officer Dave Filoni. They were interested, so the filmmakers then pulled in Scott Z. Burns to write a script. Driver calls the result β€œone of the coolest (expletive) scripts I had ever been a part of.” β€œWe presented the script to Lucasfilm. They loved the idea. They totally understood our angle and why we were doing it,” Driver says. β€œWe took it to Bob Iger and Alan Bergman and they said no. They didn’t see how Ben Solo was alive. And that was that.” β€œIt was called β€˜The Hunt for Ben Solo’ and it was really cool,” adds Driver. β€œBut it is no more, so I can finally talk about it.” Soderbergh, in a statement, said: β€œI really enjoyed making the movie in my head. I’m just sorry the fans won’t get to see it.” Representatives for Disney and Lucasfilm declined comment. It’s been a period of transition for the feature-film operations of β€œStar Wars.” Kennedy, the longtime Lucasfilm president, is expected to step down by the end of the year. After a feature-film lull, numerous projects are in various stages of development or production including Jon Favreau’s β€œThe Mandalorian and Grogu,” Shawn Levy’s β€œStarfighter” with Ryan Gosling, a film directed by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy featuring Daisy Ridley returning as Rey, a James Mangold-directed movie and a new saga helmed by Simon Kinberg. For Driver, who starred in Soderbergh’s 2017 heist comedy β€œLogan Lucky,” the decision was mystifying. Who wouldn’t want to see a Soderbergh-directed β€œStar Wars” film? β€œWe wanted to be judicial about how to spend money and be economical with it, and do it for less than most but in the same spirit of what those movies are, which is handmade and character-driven,” Driver says. β€œβ€˜Empire Strikes Back’ being, in my opinion, the standard of what those movies were. But he is, to me, one of my favorite directors of all time. He lives his code, lives his ethics, doesn’t compromise.”
  10. With this regime? Good fuckin' luck with that. They'll force Ring (really, Amazon) to share anything and everything, or Bezos will just go along with it.
  11. I think we're approaching about 50 accounts now.
  12. Bear in mind that: Johnson continues to refuse to allow a duly elected Democrat from Arizona to take her seat and Abbott refuses to hold an election for another one. Republican legislatures across the country are: Redistricting mid-decade to gerrymander to make their state delegations to Congress less representative of the will of the people and Enacting (or have enacted) multiple additional schemes to disenfranchise marginalized communities. The only morally, ethically, or politically correct response to their anti-democratic moves is to oppose and obstruct on all fronts.
  13. Correct. Force the Republicans' hand to go nuclear. Make them the sole owners of the pain that is coming.
  14. Stand firm and oppose this fascist regime on all fronts. You should be old enough to recall that when Obama was first elected, Mitch McConnell said, "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president." While I strongly disagree with McConnell on just about everything he stands for politically, he understands the nature of opposition. Obstruction on all fronts. That is a lesson the Democratic Party needs to learn. At this point, anything less would be a display of complicity, like Vichy France-type collaboration.
  15. Fascists have the majority. Voting to bail out fascists is collaboration. He's advocating for the Democrats to be a complicit, controlled opposition. Fuck that.
  16. Yep. Personally, I view access to healthcare as an inalienable right, not a privilege, as this phony seems to think. Advocating for a vote that takes away a right that helps the disadvantaged is reich-wing shit.
  17. Almost 5 million Texans voted against Trump. I am absolutely positive a good chunk of that (well over a million) is on ACA. Go fuck yourself.
  18. Because, dumbass, there are millions of citizens in both fascist-controlled and democracy-loving states who are on it, and access to healthcare is literally a matter of life and death. Would you vote for something, knowing that the deaths of an untold number could be directly tied to that decision?
  19. Interesting point. Hungary and every country it borders have both signed and ratified the Rome Statute, making them legally obligated to cooperate with the International Criminal Court, which has issued an arrest warrant for Putin. I understand that Hungary has signaled it plans to withdraw from the ICC, but hasn't done so yet. Still, every country that Putin would have to fly over is legally bound by the Statute's obligations. Someone show me a viable flightpath to get to Hungary if all of them had the balls to enforce the warrant. (Green countries have both signed and ratified the Rome Statute.)
  20. I don't consider punching down as "comedy;" it’s really just bullying.
  21. Wordle 1,584 4/6 β¬›πŸŸ¨β¬›β¬›β¬› β¬›β¬›πŸŸ¨β¬›πŸŸ¨ β¬›πŸŸ¨πŸŸ¨β¬›β¬› 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #862 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩 πŸŸͺπŸŸͺπŸŸͺπŸŸͺ 🟦🟦🟦🟦 πŸ™‚ Daily Quordle 1365 7️⃣4️⃣ 6️⃣5️⃣ m-w.com/games/quordle/ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨 ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜ ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜ 🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟩🟨⬜🟩 ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
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