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bolverk

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Posts posted by bolverk

  1. 3 minutes ago, BurntEyes said:

    I sadly agree, and of course this being 'Murica the various sides are lining up the usual rhetoric and the social media propaganda machines are cranking up on both sides. Meanwhile, an issue that truly deserves national attention is being basically ignored. 

    At this point, I really just hope it doesn't spin up into another national tragedy, but my hope is diminishing daily.

    I also don't think this is the last of its kind this year. It's become the political world we live in, and for that I'm greatly saddened. 

    I still would like to know who's really driving this ship on the protests. Not many are asking that question.

    I've seen some speculation, with no proof I should add, that funding and direction could be coming from foreign sources who'd like to see American discord during an election year.

  2. 12 minutes ago, BurntEyes said:

    I agree that the subject is nuanced. I also fund it interesting that if one is against the broad methodology of the protests they must therefore be Pro-Israel in the discussions here and elsewhere. Most here don't seem capable of having a nuanced discussion or admitting things that are counter to whichever side they are on.

    So, to be clear, I think protests to bring attention to what I feel was an overreaction by the Israeli Government is merited and fair. 

    As a person who grew up with a Jewish stepfather and Jewish siblings I think that ang such protests need to be extremely clear in both their intent and attendees. Yes, you can manage the attendance of your own protest if you chose to do so. I've seen it done in the past.

    I think the place and organizing of these protest and the criminal activities also involved are all counter productive the means of the protest. 

    It shouldn't be on universities, it should be better organized, the attendees should be better informed, it should be better self policed and that would create an environment that is more productive to the cause rather than drawing attention away from it. 

    Yeah, I can't remember where I posted my views (maybe in the national thread). At this point, the protests have largely become a distraction from their original purpose, with all sides—protest leaders, college presidents, and politicians alike—now mostly seeking clout among their various supporters, peers, and constituencies. The protests have become more about the protests themselves.

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  3. 30 minutes ago, Frank Drebin said:

    Bullshit.  And stop being a giant pussy.  

    Is this not you saying that all the Palestinians should leave?

    Israel occupies land gained in a war started by the Palestinians. Palestinians lost and should move elsewhere.

     

    Also, I never paid her, and she wasn't a prostitute. She and I had gone on a couple of dates before she told me she was a cam model. You can take that silver spoon you were born with and shove it up your trust-funded, bigoted fake Christian ass.

    Edit: By the way, why'd you change your handle? Was it because you'd become so ashamed of your reputation for spewing racist bullshit all over this site that you thought you were going to start a new leaf after you stopped drinking? Well, I'm here to tell you that you're still that same piece of hypocritical shit.

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  4. I just learned of yet another attack on a Muslim UT student that happened last month, in addition to the stabbing that happened in February. Of course, there was also the incident of people not affiliated with UT going onto campus and disrupting/harassing students at a pro-Palestine meeting last fall.

    Where's the outcry from Hartzell on protecting those students?

      

    CAIR-Austin calls for APD to investigate alleged attack of Muslim UT student as hate crime

    The Council on American-Islamic Relations is calling on the Austin Police Department to investigate an alleged attack against a Muslim University of Texas student as a hate crime.

    Austin police confirmed to the American-Statesman on Tuesday that it became aware of a bias-motivated incident near UT's campus through its online reporting system, and the Police Department said officers are investigating the reported incident and will forward any relevant information to the department's Hate Crime Committee.

    "If a crime has been committed and the Hate Crime Committee determined that they believe the crime was committed due to bias or prejudice, then they will inform the FBI of the incident," the department said. "If charges are pressed or an arrest is made, the Hate Crime Committee also informs the prosecutor’s office."
    The alleged attack happened Friday night when a student dressed in a kurta shalwar — traditional attire associated with the South Asian Muslim community — was approached by three men as the student walked back to campus from a local mosque, according to CAIR-Austin, the local branch of the largest national Muslim rights and advocacy organization.

    CAIR-Austin in a news conference Tuesday said the men began yelling in mock Arabic and blocked the student and his friend's path. The aggression then escalated to violence, when the men allegedly punched the student, and one assailant told them he had a weapon.

    "No human being should feel unsafe wearing their traditional clothes in public," said Shaimaa Zayan, the operations manager of CAIR-Austin. "And when this happens in Austin, a city that cherishes cultural diversity, it's even more traumatizing."

    Zayan said the student suffered a busted lip and cuts on his jaw, but the emotional wounds to the student and the Muslim community are much deeper.

    "The mental hurts will be bigger and longer term than the physical hurt of this incident," Zayan said. "Not only on the student, the victim student, but also for all the Muslims and Arabs and all the diverse students who go to Austin. It just creates an unsafe environment for everyone."

    A spokesperson for Mayor Kirk Watson's office told the Statesman that the case will be discussed at the Hate Crimes Task Force's monthly meeting Thursday and potentially at its next one, too, as officials investigate the incident. The Police Department did not provide the police report to the Statesman by Tuesday afternoon.

    CAIR-Austin representatives at the news conference said the Friday attack brought up memories of the February stabbing of Zacharia Doar, a 23-year-old Palestinian American coming back from a Sunday protest and evening prayer, which the Austin police Hate Crime Review Committee determined was a hate crime. The case is currently awaiting trial.

    At UT, students were also harassed at a Palestine Solidarity Committee hearing in October by men claiming to be Israeli Defense Forces soldiers. Both Jewish and Muslim students have said they've felt unsafe showing their identity on campus because of tensions related to the Israel-Hamas war.

    According to its 2024 civil rights report released April 2, CAIR in 2023 recorded the highest number of anti-Muslim complaints in its 30-year history. In 2023, the organization received more than 8,000 complaints, nearly half of which were reported in the last three months of the year.

    The Austin for Palestine Coalition emailed city and university officials, including both Watson and UT President Jay Hartzell, on Monday demanding that they attend its news conference Tuesday to publicly condemn the violence against Muslim Americans.

    Neither attended, but in a statement to the Statesman on Tuesday morning, UT said it is aware of the allegations and has contacted Muslim organizations and community members as well as the individuals involved to "offer support and any necessary services."

    "We are aware from outside sources of an allegation of a hate-filled verbal conflict escalating to physical contact with two of our students. Austin Police Department is investigating whether a crime occurred," the university said in its statement. "UT remains committed to the safety and well-being of every member of our University community and has no tolerance for violence or other hateful actions against any of our community members, including those in our Muslim, Palestinian, and Arab communities."

    Austin city spokesperson Alicia Dean said in an emailed statement Tuesday that the city has no tolerance for hate, and she pointed to an initiative the city launched in July called "We All Belong," a resource hub where people can find support and file nonemergency incident and police reports.

    "Acts of hate are unacceptable in our City," Dean said. "We started the Citywide We All Belong anti-hate initiative as part of our commitment to keep Austin a safe and welcoming place."

    Hanna Barakat, a speaker from the Austin for Palestine Coalition, said Senate Bill 17, a state law banning diversity, equity and inclusion offices at public universities and colleges, and Gov. Greg Abbott's executive order calling for colleges to fight antisemitism by revising free speech policies and enforcing them against pro-Palestinian groups and students, "fuel anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia putting these populations at risk while openly favoring other groups."

    "Every student and every person in Texas deserves equal protection and safety, and it is the duty of local and state government to ensure it," Barakat said.

    Abbott's office did not respond to a Statesman request for comment Tuesday.

    Barakat said the alleged attack was particularly scary because it was during Ramadan, a holy month celebrated this year from March 10 to sundown Tuesday night. She added that she feels her "community's voice is ignored."

    "I identify because I'm Lebanese American, and I'm proud of that. But it also puts me as a target, and I fear that position," she said.

    "I'm angered that we are responding to yet another incident of violence and discrimination toward a member of the AAPI community," said Akeela Kongdara, a UT alum and the youth engagement and volunteer senior associate for Asian Texans for Justice, at the news conference, referring to the Asian American and Pacific islander community. "It is more evident than ever that our city and leaders are failing to ensure the safety of all individuals and are failing on their commitment to keep our students safe."

    Jake Holtzman, founder of Austin's chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society and a 2023 UT alumnus, said he hopes the university engages with student leaders in discussion about steps UT can take to better ensure Muslim students' safety.

    "The mental health toll is huge on all of these students, because the reality is that there are many students who maybe would have come out to this today, but they didn't feel safe doing so," Holtzman said. "People should have every right to walk around campus wearing what they would like to wear, saying what they truly want to say and not feel at risk of being harmed or attacked."

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  5. 3 minutes ago, blacklab said:

    I think it's a joke, unlike Taco who was for the destruction of Israel (but wasn't anti-semite)

    Johnny has also called for the ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip in the war thread more than once, so you'll have to excuse me for not taking it as a joke.

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  6. 1 minute ago, blacklab said:

    he's gone

    Thanks for that.

    What are your thoughts on Johnny/Frank's "let's cook pork" comment next to Muslim protesters (which is ironic, given that's not kosher either)? Are we opposed to Islamophobic speech, as well as anti-Semitic shit?

  7. 2 minutes ago, Blotto said:

    I did hear one "river to the sea" chant at the UT Austin protest on Monday(?? I think??), but it was short-lived and limited to probably a dozen people. Its certainly inflammatory rhetoric, but lets not pretend there aren't elements within the Pro-Israel movement openly advocating for the removal of all Palestinians from Gaza.  In any case, I hope I can get down to campus on Sunday for a first hand appreciation of what's going down. 

    An interesting article I stumbled across today. From what I read, Haaretz represents the more liberal Israeli viewpoint, and i dont know much about the Jewish Federations of North America. But I agree with the bolded part, we don't do nuance very well in today's political climate in the US. Everything is black and white, Israel (or the Palestinians) are 100% right (or 100% wrong). But if that is the sentiment within the Jewish American community, the notion that any criticism of Israel or Netanyahu's government is antisemitic by default is ridiculous. 

     https://archive.ph/dFT7z (from Haaretz.com - Majority of U.S. Jews Uncomfortable With Actions Taken by Israeli Gov't Survey Finds)

     

    Thanks for letting me know that it did happen -- I'm happy to hear that it was short-lived, given that it's such a divisive chant. Based on what I know from my Jewish friends, the poll results don't surprise me in the slightest. The bolded, of course, often gets lost among the simple-minded and the hateful. You only have to visit the national protest thread to see the evidence of that in abundance.

  8. I

    1 minute ago, Blotto said:

    I actually don't have an objection to protestors being labeled as "anti-Israeli" as  long as its understood the objection is to the actions of the Israeli government.  The notion that the Israeli government can never be criticized for their behavior is as absurd as the notion that a US president can never be charged with a crime, regardless of his actions in office. All countries are capable of poor policy decisions. 9/11 was a horrific episode. Invading Iraq as a response was equally horrific. And yet those who criticized our decision to invade Iraq were often labeled as anti-american at the time. That was a bullshit argument as well. 

    One additional comment is that I did not attend the protests on campus first hand. My exposure was limited to what I watched online, and what I heard was calls for and end to Israeli aggression in Gaza, calls for an end to US assistance in that aggression, as well as calls for a free Palestine. Those are not antisemitic positions in my mind. If everyone was screaming death to Jews, I missed it.  If its not pissing down rain  on Sunday I may ride down to observe the shitshow, and see if the rhetoric is significantly different than what I have understood  it to be to this point. 

    Same. I watched 3-4 hours of the protest and never heard the "river to the sea" chant coming from protesters at UT-Austin. Elsewhere? Yes, including UT-Dallas yesterday.

    One absurdity in all this, though, is that the current Israeli government absolutely does NOT recognize the right of Palestine to exist. In fact, the Israeli government is actively expanding settlements on Palestinian land and just annexed more of the West Bank, like, last fucking month. 

    Consider Bezalel Smotrich, who is currently the Minister of Defense and of Finance for Israel:

    https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-03-12/ty-article/.premium/the-plan-to-subjugate-the-palestinians-goes-ahead/0000018e-32ae-d606-a5ff-7fbf31c80000

    https://archive.is/Snrvf

    Quote

     

    Seven years ago, in the spring of 2017, Smotrich – then still a lawmaker in the Habayit Hayehudi party – presented in closed religious Zionist circles his plan for one state from the sea to the river, for one people. The Jewish people. There were those who concluded that the mass killing of Palestinian children and women was included in his third option: all-out war on Palestinians who refuse to emigrate or to remain and accept the non-realization of their national rights in this country.

    In a response to critics of his plan in Haaretz, he refuted entirely the extreme interpretation given to his words, and presumably to the fact that he relied on letters sent by Joshua bin Nun, according to a midrash, to the inhabitants of the land he was about to conquer, according to the Bible ("Haaretz, I didn't call for the wholesale killing of all Palestinians," June 4, 2017).

    Already in a candid interview he gave to Ravit Hecht over seven years ago (Haaretz, December 3, 2016), Smotrich mentioned Joshua and his letters. "[W]e are deciding the conflict: I am destroying their hopes of establishing a state," he told Hecht, and when she asked "how," he replied: "When Joshua entered the land, he sent three letters to its inhabitants: Those who want to accept [our rule] will accept; those who want to leave, will leave; those who want to fight, will fight. ... Those who want to leave, and there will be those who leave, I will help them. When they have no hope and no outlook, they will leave, just as they left in 1948."

    It is no coincidence that from the beginning of the war, Smotrich has been among the cabinet members and politicians who has pointed enthusiastically at the "humane" solution for noncombatants in Gaza: voluntary population transfer. The airstrikes help. Indeed, every day even the greatest patriots in Gaza leave the territory, fleeing from the horrors of destruction and death, if they have the money or the right connections.

    Then, back in 2016, Smotrich told Hecht: "Those who do not go will either accept the rule of the Jewish state, in which case they can remain, and as for those who do not, we will fight them and defeat them." At the time, the young Knesset member focused on the West Bank, and presented its annexation and the expansion of the settlement enterprise and rise in the number of settlers as the main weapon in the subjugation process. Today, defeat and subjugation are the name of the game in all of the regions.

     


    Why isn't that shit ever fucking acknowledged? 

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  9. From a month ago and not included in figures posted above.

    Quote

     

    France to provide new missiles, used armored vehicles to Ukraine, defense minister says
    Paris would send ‘hundreds’ of vehicles over the next year, Sébastien Lecornu tells La Tribune Dimanche.

    France will send new surface-to-air missiles and old armored vehicles to Ukraine, the country’s defense minister said on Sunday. 

    Sébastien Lecornu told La Tribune Dimanche that President Emmanuel Macron had asked him to design a “new aid package” to help Kyiv defend against Russia's invasion.

    This will “notably include old equipment from our armies, which is still functional,” he said. “To hold such a long frontline, the Ukrainian army needs, for example, our armored vehicles — this is absolutely key for troop mobility and is part of Ukraine’s requests.”

    Asked how many vehicles France would provide, Lecornu said: “We're talking in the hundreds for 2024 and early 2025.” 

    He said France would also provide a “new batch of Aster 30 missiles” to Ukraine.“We are also developing remotely operated munitions in a very short timeframe, for delivery to the Ukrainians as early as this summer,” he said.

     

     

    Good interview with the new Latvian foreign defense minister.

    She is the first official to have publicly acknowledged, in this interview, that Ukraine has received Western weapons with permission to hit Russia. She insists that strikes on Russia are legitimate. And that ultimately, the Russian army "must stop in Russia".

    Snippet from interview:

    Quote

     

    Is time on Ukraine’s side or Russia’s?

    I don't think time plays for Russia.

    Ukraine is getting military support, and also political, legal, sanction support. All of these certainly play for Ukraine's victory.

    But the road for this is very painful. It costs lives. It costs health, and environmental damage. It costs Ukraine more than anything else. It's horrible.

    I'm afraid that our partners might think that if time is on Ukraine’s side, then everything can be kept as it is. My vision is that something has to change. Maybe we can get support for striking Russian territory?

    I fully agree. Ukraine needs not only air defence or munitions, Ukraine needs the deep precision strikes capability…

    On Russian territory?

    Also on the Russian territory from where Russia is attacking Ukraine. Because that's covered by international law: you can strike not only Ukraine's sovereign territory, but also those places from where Russia is attacking.

    Ukraine needs long-range weapons.

    Ukraine needs integrated air missile defence that involves air-to-air capabilities.

    That is what is being provided not only by the US package, but also by other partners, like F-16s, pilots’ training, long-range drones, ATACMS, and so on and so forth.

    That sort of capability is coming to Ukraine. Some of it has arrived already.

    And again: Ukraine is allowed to use it all under international law. If Russia is attacking Ukraine, Ukraine has a right to strike them back.

    At the moment, our partners tend to lay down the condition that Western weapons are not to be used outside Ukrainian territory. Do you see that changing?

    It could change.

    And there are already countries that have provided those weapons without conditions to Ukraine.

    Not everything is said aloud, and better that it's not said aloud in certain times, but that there is effect on the battlefield.

    So indeed there are various choices, whether saying things aloud or just doing the right thing.

     

     

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  10. 39 minutes ago, Bevo said:

    It isn't that I single them out. It is that Macron makes tough statements that the facts don't support. It is just words. So the way it flows is that someone posts Macron tweets and everyone gets fired up and then I post chill the enthusiasm. The last time I posted on the subject was when Macron was shitting on Germany for not giving enough when the facts show that they have given a lot more total and a lot more by percentage GDP than France. If you want to cheer, cheer for:

     

    You think I don't cheer for the support provided by other countries? What Macron just stated was part of a much larger point about the need to clearly state what actions should be taken to deter Russian aggression. In fact, he freely admits that France and the rest of the EU have not done enough. He's got domestic battles to fight, too, with opposition from a political party that supports Putin and has received funding from the Kremlin.

    Read the relevant portion of the interview yourself. It's rather long and in-depth so I'm only going to post a portion of it and am bolding the specific question and the answer he gave. To be honest, you're taking one small quote from a single tweet and commenting on it without the necessary context.

    I do hope you read the whole thing though, because he's not being critical of anyone other than Russia.

    https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/05/02/emmanuel-macron-in-his-own-words-english

    https://archive.is/l05rh

    Interview segment in spoiler:

    Spoiler

    The Economist: Let’s go back to each of these risks, starting with the geopolitical threat to our continent: Russia. How would you characterise the risk? Is it of a new aggression by Russia? And how should we respond in that case?

    Emmanuel Macron: Russia is a threat that we know, that we have always seen. I’m speaking for all Europeans and particularly for Germany and France, because we were responsible for saving the Minsk agreements and the Normandy process. We were right to take the diplomatic route. I have no regrets about what was done during all those years. These steps undoubtedly slowed things down and also enabled us to build joint European demands with regard to Putin. A power of peace, power of balance. The change that has taken place is that Russia has changed, and we have had to adapt to it. Russia has made choices. It made a choice in 2014, but it was a limited event. But above all, it made a radical choice on a completely different scale in February 2022, that of completely changing the logic, in other words, of abandoning respect for international law and participation in international forums. Since 2022, Vladimir Putin has not himself set foot in a G20 summit, and he was excluded from the G8, which became the G7 in 2014. It has decided to break international law by violating the internationally recognised borders of a permanent member of the Security Council. To this extent, and with such consistency, it’s unprecedented. It has also committed war crimes, again with unprecedented force. It is the one that launched this war of aggression against a sovereign country on European soil.

    The shift should not be underestimated either. On the question of the oblasts, Russia tried to construct a kind of legal screen, which was then abandoned. Many people have underestimated the shift that took place between February and April 2022. In February, Russia was still trying to formulate a narrative that would be compatible with international law, with this idea of a “special operation”. Now Russia itself uses the word “war” and acknowledges it. It has broken all the frameworks and has basically returned to a logic of total war.

    Since 2022, Russia has increasingly added an explicit, sometimes uninhibited, nuclear threat, as voiced by President Putin himself, and has done so systematically. It has added hybridity, provoking and fuelling conflicts that were sometimes latent in other zones. It has added aggressions and threats in space and at sea, and it has added cyber and information threats and attacks on an unprecedented scale, which we have decided, together with our European partners, to reveal for the first time. Today, Russia has become an over-equipped power that continues to invest massively in weapons of all kinds and that has adopted a posture of non-compliance with international law, of territorial aggression and of aggression in all known domains of conflict. Today it is also a power of regional destabilisation wherever it can be. And so yes, Russia, through its behaviour and its choices, has become a threat to Europeans’ security. Despite all the efforts made by France, but also by Germany and the United States.

    The Economist: What is the time frame? What happens if Russia tries to attack another country that is not a member of nato? Will we Europeans, nato members, react?

    Emmanuel Macron: Each time we have to do so according to the circumstances.The case arose in Ukraine, a country that is not a member of nato, but is on European soil, 1,500 kilometres from our borders. In another unprecedented move, the Europeans reacted within 24 hours, meeting on the very day of the invasion. France held the presidency [of the eu Council] at the time. We immediately imposed sanctions and decided on the principle of supporting Ukraine. Then, in the space of a few months, we took increasingly tough decisions. First, we delivered tanks, then medium and long-range missiles to protect and target Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory, we also delivered air-defence equipment. And we decided to open up a path for Ukraine towards nato and the European Union. So we’ve already made massive progress, providing unprecedented assistance to a country that is not a member of nato, because it is under attack and because our security is at stake.

    Added to this is what we decided on February 26th with all the heads of state and government, the 20 or so who were here, Europeans and non-Europeans, here in Paris, and which has been followed by action. I welcome today the very strong commitment, in particular of the Canadians and the Americans, alongside the British and the members of the eu. Together, we have decided to go even further, in other words, to manufacture in Ukraine, to train in Ukraine, to better protect the borders of Belarus and Moldova, and also to have maintenance carried out on Ukrainian soil. We have also created new coalitions, such as the one on medium-range missiles, which has already produced initial results with superior capabilities, and the deliveries that we will be making by the summer. What I also wanted to reopen on February 26th was this famous strategic ambiguity, which should convince Putin that we are determined and that he will have to count on our determination.

    The Economist: Do you stand by what you said about possibly sending ground troops to Ukraine?

    Emmanuel Macron: Absolutely. As I said, I’m not ruling anything out, because we are facing someone who is not ruling anything out. We have undoubtedly been too hesitant by defining the limits of our action to someone who no longer has any and who is the aggressor! Our capacity is to be credible, to continue to help, to give Ukraine the means to resist. But our credibility also depends on a capacity to deter by not giving full visibility as to what we will or will not do. Otherwise we weaken ourselves, which is the framework within which we have been operating until now. In fact, many countries said that in the weeks that followed that they understood our approach, that they agreed with our position and that this position was a good thing. I have a clear strategic objective: Russia cannot win in Ukraine. If Russia wins in Ukraine, there will be no security in Europe. Who can pretend that Russia will stop there? What security will there be for the other neighbouring countries, Moldova, Romania, Poland, Lithuania and the others? And behind that, what credibility for Europeans who would have spent billions, said that the survival of the continent was at stake and not have given themselves the means to stop Russia? So yes, we mustn’t rule anything out because our objective is that Russia must never be able to win in Ukraine.

    The Economist: Do you think that other leaders will end up having to share your position on this if Russia is finally to be deterred?

    Emmanuel Macron: You should never engage in political fiction. But I am convinced of one thing, and that is that this is the basic condition for European security and military credibility. So if Russia decided to go further, we will in any case all have to ask ourselves this question. That’s why I wanted this strategic wake-up call for my counterparts, but also for our nations. France is a country that has carried out military interventions, including in recent times. We deployed several thousand troops in the Sahel to fight terrorism, which could have posed a threat to us. We did so at the request of sovereign states. If the Russians were to break through the front lines, if there were a Ukrainian request—which is not the case today—we would legitimately have to ask ourselves this question. So I think to rule it out a priori is not to learn the lessons of the past two years. At the nato summit in the summer of 2022, we all ruled out the delivery of tanks, deep-strike missiles, aircraft. We are now all in the process of doing this, so it would be wrong to rule out the rest. But above all, it would be wrong in terms of credibility and deterrence vis-à-vis the Russians to rule it out. I note, by the way, that the aggressiveness of the Russian response to what I said showed that this was having the desired effect, which was to say: Don’t think that we will stop here if you don’t stop.

    The Economist: Other European leaders seem to have lost their understanding of the importance of hard power in the world. Is that due to infantilisation? Because they outsourced their security to the Americans?

    Emmanuel Macron: Listen, I think you always have to remember where you come from. I’m not lecturing anyone. France was liberated [during world war two] with its allies and thanks to its internal resistance. It emerged with the same fortitude and international generosity as our allies, who could have left us on the sidelines. We were very weakened. The war put us at the heart of the international system and helped us to build a strong army. And France has equipped itself with a strategic grammar and military capabilities that are the product of this history. We acquired nuclear weapons very early on, which gave us a form of strategic maturity. Our British friends also have it, with a closer relationship with the United States of America.

    And as for the rest of Europe, who can judge? In a world that moves so quickly, we think that everything is fast. You have a reunited Europe that is the product of the last 35 years, but some of whose members lived under the Soviet yoke from 1947 to 1990 and feel that they were abandoned by the West. And since 1990, this Europe has thought of its security essentially in terms of the American shield and nato. I said as much in your columns in the interview in 2019 [the “brain death” of nato], and I take full responsibility for what I said. This does not allow Europe to have a common security framework, a common concept, because it puts us in the position of thinking about our security only by way of an ally who is being asked to think about it, to carry far too much of the burden, the United States of America. Above all, it puts Europe back to back with Russia, of course, even if we are in fact back to back with Russia today because of the war in Ukraine.

    So there is indeed a strategic awakening in Europe as a result of Russian aggression. This awakening is taking place in several ways. We are seeing it today with the capability proposal put forward by the Germans, the European missile-defence shield. Or with Poland, which says it is ready to host nato nuclear weapons. I think that we Europeans need to get round the table and build a coherent framework. That’s what I’ve been saying since 2017. As Europeans, we need to work out how we can credibly defend our space and how, in a credible and sustainable way, we can build a guarantee of security for each of the member states—as I said in Bratislava—including for the countries on Europe’s eastern flank. nato provides one of these answers, and there is no question of brushing nato aside. But this framework is much broader than what is currently being done within nato. What I would like to see is a discussion within the framework of the European Political Community. You have around the table all the countries of Europe in the broadest sense of the term, and we have a basis for discussion with the cooperation arrangements that exist among member states of the eu, but also bilateral cooperation. The most structural for us in this respect is undoubtedly the one we have with the United Kingdom, and the Lancaster House treaties.

    Now, let's not get sidetracked and muddy up this thread with unnecessary bullshit, because we can easily slide into criticizing all sorts of individuals and groups that would like to see Ukraine, NATO, and the EU fail.

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  11. 3 minutes ago, Bevo said:

    Did they give more through the EU than other EU countries? They are near the very bottom of EU countries. Estonia for example is in the EU and has given 5000% more.

    Here's the chart that shows both. I didn't say they were leaders, but as a share of their GDP, they've given more than the UK and the US as of the end of February. Yes, they can do more, but I don't understand why you always like to single out France to shit on.

    image.png.d059b04d50bdae4774cff28eee051d72.png

    https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/

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  12. 5 hours ago, Bevo said:

     

    Is there a reason that he makes tough speeches yet France has only given 0.07% of its GDP to the war effort? That is 400% less than the US, 5000% less than Estonia as a percentage of GDP.

    Your chart only shows "bilateral aid," meaning direct aid from France to Ukraine. The majority of their financial support has come through the EU.

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  13. 29 minutes ago, Larry T. Spider said:

    The antics of these protestors with their “send humanitarian aid” bullshit are sucking up all the oxygen in the room. Fewer people are talking about dead Palestinians now than before they started.

    I agree, in large part, that the protests themselves have become the main spectacle. Some of it is just plain silly, and I think that's by design to raise awareness about their grievances. The problem is that they've drawn attention to themselves, which could also be part of individual/organizational strategies to build social legitimacy among their peers.

    From the other side, of course, there's also the over-the-top response by the cops and colleges in some cases, which could also be a specific strategy on their part to divert attention away from Gaza. So now the public focus has become the protests themselves, testing the boundaries of freedom of speech and assembly from two angles: activists vs. authorities.

    Edit: What I mean by the bolded is that the organizations and their leaders want to build clout and reputation. This, obviously, also applies to politicians and police chiefs, so the dynamic becomes a test of wills about what's allowable in conveying a particular message and/or how to discredit that message.

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  14. 10 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

    There's telepathy among certain age groups.

    It's like those of us 80s kids all knew that "NASA" means "Needs Another Seven Astronauts" even though we all lived in different parts of the country, and there was no internet or other means of mass communication (and BBSes weren't quite big enough yet).  Or we know what brand shampoo Challenger 7 used, etc.

     

     

    Answer: CHILDLORE

    A few months ago, I read this kinda interesting article about it. I love the graphic they used.

    image.png.07f4b5d1fc3084ca82cd907d40c91e83.png

    (spoilering because almost completely tangential) 

    Spoiler

    Why Did We All Have the Same Childhood?
    Children have a folklore all their own, and the games, rhymes, trends, and legends that catch on spread to many kids across time and space.

    You might not think of typing “BOOBS” on a calculator as cultural heritage, but it is. The custom has been shared, preserved, and passed down through generations of children sniggering in math class. This sacred communal knowledge, along with other ephemera of youth—the blueprints for a cootie catcher, the words to a jump-rope rhyme, the rhythm of a clapping game—is central to the experience of being a kid.

    When children are together, they develop their own rituals, traditions, games, and legends—essentially, their own folklore, or, as researchers call it, “childlore.” That lore can be widespread and long-lasting—the mind boggles to think how many generations of children have played tag, for instance. Even seemingly more modern inventions, such as the “cool S”—a blocky, graffiti-ish S that has been etched into countless spiral-bound notebooks—are a shared touchstone for many people who grew up in different times and places in the U.S. How is it that so many children across time and space come to know the exact same things?

    Children themselves probably couldn’t tell you where their lore began. If you ask a kid where a particular game or rhyme came from, they’ll likely tell you they invented it, Rebekah Willett, a professor at the Information School at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who has studied childlore, told me: “They cannot trace it, and they have no investment in tracing it.” Indeed, thinking back to the lore of my own youth, I have no idea how my friends and I thought to give each other “cootie shots” with the lead of a mechanical pencil, or why everyone in my elementary-school art class would smear their hands with Elmer’s glue, wait for it to dry, and then methodically peel it off (other than the fact that it was super fun and I would do it again right now if I had some glue nearby). These things were almost like analog memes, micro-bits of culture that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere.

    Also like memes, where childlore comes from is arguably less important than how it spreads and why it gains traction in the first place. The main way childlore spreads is, perhaps obviously, by children teaching it to one another. Older kids mentor younger ones both at school and at home, where siblings play a vital role in passing jokes and games down through generations. As for how childlore spreads geographically, there are a couple of key players. One is the new kid, who shows up at school with a pocketful of lore from elsewhere. The other is cousins, who are many kids’ closest peers who don’t attend their school.

    Adults have a role to play in perpetuating childlore as well, albeit a supporting one. Parents and teachers share nursery rhymes, folk songs, and games with kids, and adults create the movies, books, and TV shows that kids consume. Our nostalgia for our own childhood shapes what kids get exposed to. But Steve Roud, a British folklorist and the author of The Lore of the Playground, emphasized to me that folklore is by its nature not handed down by an authority. It is of the people, by the people—even if those people are children. So although kids may crib from pop culture and adopt things they learn from adults, making something their own and using it for their own purposes is what transmutes it into childlore. PAW Patrol is not childlore; a game that kids invent on the playground using PAW Patrol characters is.

    As Iona and Peter Opie, two pioneers in the childlore field, wrote in their 1959 book, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren, “The scraps of lore which children learn from each other are at once more real, more immediately serviceable, and more vastly entertaining to them than anything which they learn from grown-ups.” And some information—such as how to summon Bloody Mary in a mirror or guarantee a snow day by wearing your pajamas inside out—you simply cannot rely on grown-ups to impart anyway.

    As for what kinds of things become popular, Alex Mesoudi, who studies cultural evolution at the University of Exeter, in the U.K., pointed me toward two main forces that influence whether a particular chunk of culture will spread. One, which you could call “catchiness,” is whether the content of the lore itself is likely to be “remembered, passed on and adopted by others,” he told me in an email: For instance, a pithy song that rhymes and repeats is probably more memorable than a long, winding one. The other is the context in which you learn about a thing, and how high-status that context is—it could be the hot pop-culture trend of the moment or just associated with the popular kids at school. I’ll call this “coolness.” (And, of course, the allure of naughtiness cannot be overstated. Anything adults have deemed taboo is a hot commodity in kid society.)

    When kids latch on to something, boy, do they latch on. Talking with Roud and reading his book, I was amazed at how many shared references we had despite being from different generations and different countries. We reminisced about the classic “Jingle bells, Batman smells” parody, which he called “perfect.” “That’s the power of folklore,” he told me. “It’s known all over the English-speaking world, because it works. That’s all it boils down to.”

    Where we diverged, however, was on the second line of the song. For me, it’s “Robin laid an egg.” But Roud grew up singing, “Robin flew away.” That, he told me, demonstrates a central tension of folklore—between similarity and variation, tradition and invention.

    Although some elements of childlore last and last, others come and go with the culture of the moment. But even then, Willett told me, kids often build on what came before, whether they realize it or not. For instance, COVID-19 has shown up in many kids’ games, including coronavirus tag— which is, of course, built on one of the most classic kids’ games there is. (Roud suspects that in Victorian times, European children played cholera tag or something similar.)

    Another example Willett gave, from one of her studies, was a game based on the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who—monsters that can move only when you’re not looking at them. Even though the game was inspired by pop culture, Willett noted that a game where you creep up on someone while they’re not looking is a very old structure. One such game, Grandmother’s Footsteps, dates back to at least the 1900s, she writes.

    This brings me to an issue that apparently really cheeses people who study childlore: Adults, it seems, are in a perpetual state of worry that Kids These Days just don’t play like they used to, probably because of whatever technology was most recently introduced. Roud and Willett both independently brought this up to me and insisted that it’s not true. As Willett’s research shows, technology and media do influence kids’ play—but that doesn’t mean play itself is in jeopardy.

    Willett thinks grown-ups can be overly focused on “children as becoming,” worrying about their development and preparing them for the adult life they will one day lead. And in the process, she thinks, we can miss “children as being”—the complex society and culture they inhabit right now. Childlore is a shared language among children, and although adults may remember it fondly, we aren’t fluent in it anymore. We don’t always know it when we see it, because it isn’t for us. “All you see is kids running around screaming,” Roud said. “You don’t realize that they are playing a game.”

    And so, as we come of age, we may lose an understanding of something we once knew in our very bones: that typing 8-0-0-8-5 on a calculator is not just naughty and fun, but important. The rebellious thrill, the intense comradery, the urge to pass the knowledge along (and pretend you came up with it yourself)—all of these things fade with time. But that’s okay. The kids will keep the tradition alive.

     

  15. 🎶 A message to you, Rudy! 🎶

    Spoiler

    tenor.gif

    Giuliani’s Spending: $43,000 a Month and a Lot of Credit Card Bills
    Rudy Giuliani promised a bankruptcy court that he would limit his spending, but it didn’t take long before he broke that pledge, and by a lot.

    Besieged by creditors and with his income drying up, Rudolph W. Giuliani laid out an austerity program of sorts in January for a federal bankruptcy court.

    He would stick to a $43,000-a-month budget, he said in court filings, roughly in line with the income he drew from his retirement accounts and Social Security. That amount would cover, among other expenses, $5,000 in alimony payments to his ex-wife Judith Giuliani, $1,050 for food and housekeeping supplies and $425 for “personal care products and services.” He was also obliged to cover $13,500 in monthly nursing-home expenses for his former mother-in-law; she died in March.

    Suggesting that he was mindful of the $153 million he owes to creditors, including two Georgia election workers he defamed in the aftermath of the 2020 election, he budgeted nothing for entertainment, clubs and subscriptions.

    It did not take him long to blow his budget. In another bankruptcy filing, he said he actually spent nearly $120,000 in January. The accounting of his spending that he provided to the court was spotty and incomplete. He later provided more information to the creditors’ lawyers, listing 60 transactions on Amazon, multiple entertainment subscriptions, various Apple services and products, Uber rides and payment of some of his business partner’s personal credit card bill.

    It is not clear whether he has pared back his spending to within his budget in the months since January, because he has failed to submit required disclosures to the bankruptcy court. But his spending, and his inability or unwillingness to give the bankruptcy court a fuller look at his financial status, have left his creditors suspicious and angry.

    “These superfluous court filings are simply part of a larger effort to bully and intimidate the mayor through lawfare and a public smear campaign,” Mr. Giuliani’s spokesman, Ted Goodman, said.

    Spoiler

    Once the mayor of New York City and later the personal lawyer to former President Donald J. Trump, Mr. Giuliani filed for bankruptcy in December after a federal judge ordered him to pay $148 million to the two Georgia election workers for falsely accusing them of rigging the outcome in President Biden’s favor. (Mr. Giuliani plans to appeal that judgment.)

    His filing listed $11 million in assets, including his Upper East Side apartment, which he put on the market last year for $6.5 million, took off the market this winter and plans to re-list, and his condo in Palm Beach, Fla., which he valued at $3.5 million.

    Months into the bankruptcy proceedings, Mr. Giuliani’s financial disclosures have been incomplete, inaccurate and in some cases completely absent. His creditors have asked for more details and clarifications, hired a forensic accounting firm and made a broad request for information to see if he is hiding money and assets.

    The creditors’ lawyers recently issued a slew of subpoenas for documents, communications and information to Mr. Giuliani, people who work or have worked for him and even his son.

    Every additional penny that can be found in Mr. Giuliani’s pocket means a larger payout for his creditors, even if it is far less than what he actually owes them.

    That is why they also want him to collect $2 million that Mr. Giuliani claims he is owed in legal fees from Mr. Trump for the work he did leading the effort to overturn the 2020 election results.

    Mr. Giuliani lived a fairly frugal life during his mob-busting prosecutor and mayoral days.

    “Giuliani and money is a story in and of itself,” said Andrew Kirtzman, who wrote two books on the former mayor. “It begins with him leading a very unpretentious life.”

    But after leaving office, Mr. Giuliani began living a very different life, flying on private Gulfstream jets during the lucrative years of his private consulting and investment advisory businesses.

    In 2007, when he was running for the Republican presidential nomination, he disclosed that his net worth was more than $30 million. A decade later, he and Judith Giuliani were spending $230,000 a month on their lavish lifestyle, including $7,000 on fountain pens and $12,000 on cigars.

    These days, Mr. Giuliani brings in about $550,000 a year through disbursements from his dwindling retirement accounts and Social Security. His creditors want him to sell his properties in New York and Florida. But Mr. Giuliani recently told the bankruptcy court he would like to keep the Florida condo and live in it, suggesting that his creditors would not want him to be homeless.

    His creditors are skeptical.

    “It seems hardly worth pointing out that there is a vast gulf of housing options available between residing in an approximately $3.5 million Palm Beach condominium and homelessness,” lawyers for the creditors wrote in a court filing.

    His creditors also do not trust that he is being honest about the assets he does disclose.

    For example, Mr. Giuliani lists among his assets an undisclosed number of shares in Uber, the ride-share service. He declared that he has $30,000 worth of jewelry, but that includes three World Series rings from the New York Yankees that creditors estimate are worth about $15,000 each.

    He also failed to disclose a publishing contract for his upcoming book, “The Biden Crime Family.”

    “As my mother would say, they don’t trust Giuliani as far as they could throw him,” Bruce A. Markell, a bankruptcy law professor at Northwestern’s Pritzker law school, said of the creditors, based on the actions they have taken in bankruptcy court so far.

    His spending report for January was incomplete, with a list of two dozen charges to his American Express card, but no details. Lawyers for the creditors say he provided them a more detailed account, but it was not filed publicly in the court, as missing details typically are. And as of April 26, Mr. Giuliani had not provided details for his Discover card charges in January. The U.S. trustee assigned to his case did not respond to a question about why the additional details were not filed publicly in the court.

    One of the two Georgia election workers he defamed, Shaye Moss, was selected by Mr. Giuliani’s creditors to serve on a three-person committee to represent their interests throughout the bankruptcy case.

    The other committee members are Noelle Dunphy, a former employee who claims that Mr. Giuliani harassed and assaulted her beginning in 2019; and Lindsey Kurtz, the general counsel at Dominion Voting Systems, one of the largest voting machine vendors in the country, which has accused Mr. Giuliani of peddling falsehoods about it after the 2020 election.

    “The committee has no intention of letting the debtor drive his case and the creditors off a cliff,” the lawyers wrote in a recent motion.

    Mr. Giuliani entered his bankruptcy proceedings with a poor track record responding to discovery requests. Last year, a federal judge told jurors he intentionally hid information about his finances to shield his assets and make his net worth seem smaller.

    In bankruptcy, the debtor has an obligation to disclose all of his assets in such a way that his creditors can understand what he has and the transactions he is making, Professor Markell said. Incomplete filings and failing to file requested material could end with the case being dismissed, which would open a debtor to foreclosures and collections.

    “The more there is a pushback and an ignorance of the ability to comply — especially from someone like Giuliani, who is a lawyer — the more concern there is that there is actually something being hidden,” the professor said.

    Mr. Giuliani has missed the filing deadlines for his February and March spending reports. Weeks ago, one of Mr. Giuliani’s lawyers, Gary C. Fischoff, said some filings have been delayed because “the accountant got upset at one point and wanted out.”

    “He’s calmed down,” the lawyer added, “and we persuaded him to stick with the case.” Mr. Giuliani’s accountants did not respond to a request for comment.

    Mr. Giuliani’s unresponsiveness, the creditors said, “leads one to question what he is hiding.”

    Bankruptcy law allows creditors to get even older information from the debtor as well as from his associates. Mr. Giuliani’s creditors have asked the court to use this broad discovery request to obtain details about his finances going back to 2019, as well as information from his associates.

    This request could unearth details about Mr. Giuliani’s foreign work, which has previously drawn scrutiny from the F.B.I. The forensic accounting team hired by the creditors comprises former intelligence officials with experience in countries where Mr. Giuliani did business, such as Ukraine, Turkey, Venezuela and Qatar.

    Mr. Giuliani’s age presents its own challenge to creditors getting paid.

    His circumstance differs from that of Alex Jones, 50, the bankrupt Infowars conspiracy broadcaster. Depending on the outcome of upcoming bankruptcy talks, Mr. Jones could work for decades to pay hefty damages to families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims for spreading lies about them. Mr. Giuliani turns 80 in May, and his future potential income is hampered by suspended law licenses in New York and Washington, D.C.

    The financial statements he filed in the court show he is losing money on his revenue-making businesses, such as his WABC radio show in New York.

    Mr. Giuliani continues to need lawyers in and out of bankruptcy court where he faces additional lawsuits, including a criminal indictment in Georgia for his and others’ efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state. And he was recently indicted in Arizona, where he and others are also accused of trying to change the 2020 results.

    Friends have set up two legal defense funds. One is a political action committee, and donors include Elizabeth Ailes, the wife of the late media mogul Roger E. Ailes; Arnold Gumowitz, a New York real estate developer; and James Liautaud, the founder of the sandwich chain Jimmy John’s. Another donor is Matthew Martorano, a Puerto Rico-based businessman who is a defendant in a federal fraud case.

    The other fund, the Rudy Giuliani Freedom Fund, does not disclose the donors or the amount raised.

    According to a court filing, as of the end of January, Mr. Giuliani had drawn more than $1.2 million from the two funds to pay his lawyers. The total amount raised from both funds has not been publicly disclosed.

    His creditors’ lawyers have issued subpoenas for the names of the donors to his defense funds and receipts.

     

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  16. @MagicSoccerSpray

    Not a lot of news out of Gaza right now. Here's a couple of quick stories on the obstacles of getting aid to people on the brink of starvation.

     

    Quote

     

    Jordan says Israeli settlers attacked Jordanian aid convoys on way to Gaza

    DUBAI, May 1 (Reuters) - Jordan's foreign ministry said some Israeli settlers attacked two of its humanitarian aid convoys as they made their way toward the Gaza Strip on Wednesday.

    Both convoys managed to continue on their journey and reach their destination in war-devastated Gaza, the ministry added in a statement. Such a route to the Gaza Strip would have taken them through the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Israel.

    "Two Jordanian aid convoys carrying food, flour and other humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip were attacked by settlers," the ministry said, without giving details of what happened.

    Honenu, an Israeli legal aid agency, said four men who had "blocked aid trucks going to Gaza" as they were passing near the West Bank settlement of Ma'ale Adumim were arrested by Israeli police.

    The Jordanian government condemned the incident and said it held Israeli authorities fully responsible for ensuring the protection of aid convoys and international organisations.

    Jordan has been air-dropping aid and sending convoys westward overland to Palestinians in Gaza throughout the war between Israel and Gaza's ruling Palestinian Islamist group Hamas that erupted on Oct. 7.

    The U.S. has been pushing Israel to take steps to improve the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza, where Israeli bombardments and invasion have left a wasteland with most of the 2.3 million population displaced and at risk of famine and disease.

    One of Wednesday's Jordanian convoys, consisting of 31 trucks, was bound for the Erez crossing into north Gaza and the other, with 48 trucks, was headed for the Kerem Shalom crossing into southern Gaza, the Jordanian foreign ministry said.


     


     

    Quote

     

    Israel allows trucks from newly reopened Erez crossing into Gaza after U.S. pressure

    EREZ CROSSING, Israel May 1 (Reuters) - Israel reopened the sole crossing on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, allowing aid trucks to pass through the Erez checkpoint following U.S. demands to do more to address the growing humanitarian crisis.
    Reopening the Erez crossing has been one of the main pleas of international aid agencies for months, to alleviate hunger which is believed to be most severe among the hundreds of thousands of civilians in the enclave's northern sector.

    The Israeli government opened the crossing point on the day of a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and called for more humanitarian aid deliveries into the territory.

    The Erez crossing, primarily used for foot traffic, had remained closed since it was destroyed during the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 that precipitated the war.
    Communities on Gaza's northern edge were the first to be stormed by Israeli forces at the start of the war last year, and have been largely reduced to ruins. Aid agencies say they have faced difficulty reaching the area with food and medicine transported from other parts of Gaza across the war zone.

    Israel announced it would reopen Erez last month, a few days after its forces killed a group of humanitarian workers delivering food aid in Gaza in air strikes that brought international condemnation. Israel apologised for those air strikes; Washington, its closest ally, said further support for the war would depend on improving aid access.

    Colonel Moshe Tetro, head of Israel's Coordination and Liaison Administration for Gaza, said he hoped the crossing would be open every day, and help reach a target of 500 aid trucks entering Gaza daily. That would be in line with pre-war supplies entering the enclave and far more than it has received during the last seven months.

    "This is only one step of the measures that we took in the last few weeks," he told reporters.

    A convoy of Jordanian aid trucks heading for the Erez crossing was attacked by Israeli settlers, but managed to continue on, Jordan's foreign ministry said on Wednesday.

    The U.S. special envoy for humanitarian issues warned last month the risk of famine throughout war-devastated Gaza was very high and called for more to be done to get aid into the northern part of the tiny, densely populated territory.

     

     

    image.thumb.png.720a0c900495805e1c0ab838c4a14597.png

     

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