osan
Member

Simplified definitions for Law and Crime: Definition of LawLaw (Capitalized): A system of rules that govern behavior within a society. The components of this system are referred to as "Laws." A Law must satisfy the following conditions: Singular Focus: It addresses a single crime or violation. Mala in Se: The crime addressed must be inherently wrong or evil (mala in se), meaning it is wrong by its very nature, independent of legal statutes.

Are you fucking kidding? Either your reading habits suck Michelle Obama's 10" penis, or you're just intentionally being a dick. But to answer your quesiton, HERE Seriously pal, what in hell is wrong with you. I've been civil and accommodating. Now I'm done.

Firstly, you seem to be mixing two issues. That aside, is it your contention that hamas didn't rape women, take hostages, commit murders, burn infants alive, and so on? If that is your claim, upon what evidence do you base it? And what has the warning to do with anything? Let us take a step back and get a broader view of this situation. Assuming that the reports are fact and that they are true, which I will concede for argument's sake and only for that sake, your apparent and implied premise is that Israel neglected to act, apparently with intent, and that they would have known where the attack would occur, when it would occur, or absent that, that they could have marshalled sufficient forces to cover their entire national border for an indefinite period. This fails on several levels. For one thing, time was on hamas' side. They have eyes in Israel and any such mobilization would signal hamas to stop and wait-see. Keeping troops active for a year based on intelligence, regardless of how good, is costly in several ways. Firstly, there are finances. There is the disruption of business due to the absence of people for conducting same. Thereby does the economy falter and things become difficult. Then there is the physical and psychological detriments suffered by those who live in a state of red-alert for protracted periods. People suffer ill effects in mere weeks. In a year or more, they get toasted. It cannot be maintained. Anyone doubting this need only consult the histories of the two big wars. PTSD is real and it is debilitating. So if we assume no false flags for the nonce, that Israel is playing with both hands on the table, then it becomes clear that they could not respond in any ideal way that would have guaranteed sufficient defensive coverage in a circumstance where hamas is able to pick both time and location of an attack. So unless you have conclusive proof that Israel acted in criminally bad faith here, there really isn't anything to discuss that is of meritorious value. Until it is proven that they acted badly, the only evidence we have and on which we can proceed is that they were attacked. Or is it your contention that no such thing occurred and this is all a great three ring bullshit circus? I ask because you seem to have some issue with the facts of the matter as currently claimed.

Don't be obtuse; it doesn't help you. I specifically stated that I support what they are doing from their POV and under the very clearly stated conditions that all is sufficiently as it appears. I also very explicitly stated that if it turned out that the Israeli "government" was directly and intentionally responsible for the 10/7 attack that my views on the matter would alter fundamentally. Do yourself a favor and read what I wrote and stop making shit up. It becomes tiresome and if I wish for disingenuous and/or careless tedium, I can go hang out at facebook. I come here to have adult discussions and not this sort of thing.

So far as I know, Israel created hamas... for what purpose I don't precisely recall, but my vague recollection is that it was to establish a "government" that Israel would control and that it got away from them. Plausible, but still not sure I buy that last bit. As to whether Bennie funded them, it would not surprise me. I think looking into all that makes normative sense, but given how tight-lipped the Israeli "government" can be, I suspect that practically speaking it would be a waste of time. Now you see, THAT makes no sense at all. If Bennie is that stupid, then perhaps he indeed needs to see the inside of a Saudi prison. Those people are cause-oriented and are either immune to such bribery due in large part to the nature of the cause to which they are subscribed, or they take the money on the promise and then turn right around and break their word, so much the wealthier. After all, Allah condones lying to the kaffir if it furthers the causes of Islam. I find it difficult at best to accept that Bennis is that stupid. Not impossible, but methinks unlikely.

Before you get your undies in a twist, let's get a few things straight. My support is based on a set of "all else equal" conditions, which may not prove out. Perhaps I should have specified this, but rewriting War and Peace isn't always so attractive. But if all else is in fact equal, then I'd ask what you would do in their shoes? If an army of sand fleas crossed my border and murdered 1200 of my own, I would be dead set on getting my pound of flesh. The Palestinians are receiving condign punishment, save that the children should be exempted. But this is war and shit happens and is happening. Now, I believe that I have posted some time in the past year that a possibility that cannot be dismissed was that Israel covertly taunted and tempted hamas into mounting this attack, qualifying it as functionally being a false flag. After all, Israel CREATED hamas long ago, I suppose thinking they were being clever or something, and as the story goes it got away from them. Assuming this is so and that Israel does not retain ultimate control over hamas, and the attack was not the work of them crafty Jooz working at something, then I ask once again what would you do were you in their position? Wish all you want. Israel has been a nuisance since forever, but again I bid you look it things from their perspective. Who can say what the actual truth of it all might be. Did they steal that land? My understanding, which has yet to be refuted by anyone, is that Jews had purchased land in so-called "Palestine" since the 19th century at least. The Arabs decided at some point, "fuck that shit" and denied those property owners their rights. There SEEMS to have been all manner of hanky panky going on there after the war when they were trying to establish the Israeli state. I don't know enough about the legal realities, as well as those political, to say whether all the machinations were just acts or those of a raft of sneaky little felons. But if we assume the acquisition and establishment was valid, or as valid as that sort of thing can ever by in any case, and that the Jews were working within proper moral limits, even with the occasional excursions therefrom, then the Jews of Europe had and retain every right to be there and most of this bullshit falls at the feet of the Arabs. If we assume otherwise, then we are still reduced to a pragmatic circumstance: the state of Israel is a fact.

Your guess is better than mine, I assume. Who can say what the intelligence reveals? Where else would they go? Annex Lebanon? Attack Syria? Jordan? What are we driving at here?

. I feel sadly compelled to agree with you on this. I'm not confident that the Israeli decisions concerning Hezbollah were wise, but I don't live there, so I could be mistaken. I do, however, fully support their campaign to eradicate hamas. I feel terribly for the children of Gaza, but the adults have left the Israelis with a very unfortunate choice. Were I in Israel's shoes, I would be doing the same, mostly. However, one thing I might do differently would be to allow all female Gazans to leave, whether it be to go to Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Syrian, what have you. I would imprison all Gazan males in Gaza, then proceed to reduce the entire area to rubble, after which I would send in troops to cleanse and finish that nonsense once and for all. I would thereafter annex Gaza as a spoil of war. Hamas started it, Israel should finish it. War is hell, and it ought to be. Fuck all Geneva Conventions and the rot of "civil" warfare. You go to war, you should risk extinction at the hands of your enemy, just as they risk the same. I believe in one rule of engagement: slaughter your enemies until they cry uncle and not a second before. If you have to murder all their children, that is on THEM, not. you. It is shitty and ugly and evil, but it seems to me that human beings understand nothing better than this. I question God's design.

Oh, and Zelensky is an insufferable putz.

I deplore Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but what were they to do? In '89, Gorbachev dissolved the Soviet Onion on the condition and consequent promise that NATO accept no further members. Since then, what is it, eighteen new members have been added? Pardon me, but on this point FUCK THE WEST, including America, for going to blatantly against their word to Russia. I have no love for Russia, given how they destroyed most of my family, but I do have a love of honorable behavior, and "we" have behaved most dishonorably on this point. How would we feel were Canada and MX to enter into a military alliance with China, possibly placing a couple million fully ready and regulated troops at our northern and southern borders? We shit a nuke is what we'd do and we'd carry on like raving lunatics, and rightly so. What's good for the goose... All Russia could see was yet another invasion by its western neighbors. Hitler did quite the job on the Soviet Onion, which gives me no cause for tears. But to be fair, it gives Russia all rational and just cause to be alarmed by NATO expansion, especially given that we live in the post-coldwar era. We have arms limitations agreements with Russia that to my knowledge still hold. And Russia seems to be in no position to be rolling ten thousand tanks across the plains of Hungary in claims of expanded territories. Seriously now, the Russian economy remains positively nineteenth-century. Other than gas, oil, and gold, what do they produce? Nearly nothing. Their military hardware is largely shit, with the exception of their artillery, which is fair to middling. Their tanks have no chance against A10s and antitank missiles. Their aircraft are second-rate, as are most of their pilots. Their navy... fuck's sake the Ukrainians sank one of their flagships... how good could they be? All they really have are their nukes and if they broke those out, we would turn Russia into a glow-in-the-dark parking lot. Putin may be pining for the old Soviet days (or not), but I doubt he is anywhere nearly so stupid as to think he could have it once more. He's a very clever guy and I do not for a moment believe he's so abominably stupid as to roll his armies into Europe. Russia would be reduced to ash by NATO with one hand tied behind its back.

Bennie was unequivocal at the UN. He was clever, methinks in taking a stick and carrot approach. No idea whether he was sincere, though he put on a good display. He drew a clear line in the sand and basically threatened somewhere on the order of 600+ million Arabs. It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out.

Afford yourself as many options as possible. Warren Buffet once quipped that diversification is for chumps. Easy to say when you're sitting atop billions and almost certainly have insider information. I cut my teeth on Wall Street. I know what goes on there.

Firstly, I take all your points quite well and will not make large responses, but would like to respond to a tiong or two. Technically, you are correct, but it is no longer currency and currencies no longer represent gold, so for all practical purposes. Perhaps I should have been more explicit.

c'est la guerre...

So how'd it go?

PS: What is meant by the question of whether 9/11 is still important? Three thousand people were murdered. There is no statute of limitations applicable. I recently learned that my thought that nobody I knew was in the towers was wrong. I saw some documentary on the event and lo and behold there was Rich Eichen, one of my old associates, who'd survived the day. It was very strange seeing him like that. Now I wonder whether there was anyone else. I think the film was titled "Surviving 9/11" or something like that. Actually it may have been a series. Anyhow, it was strange in any event.

Trump's only real error laid in his failure to keep asking pointed questions of Harris. Harris was dead meat at her own hands. Let's recap just broadly. Firstly the moderators sucked the big gay tuna. Their work was so artlessly transparent, I was torn between pitying them and wanting to be on their firing squads. If ABC has any epsilon of credibility before the "debate", they sure as hell had none of it left at the end. They tossed creampuffs at Harris and failed to follow up in the wake of her utter bullshit responses and outright failures to answer what had been asked. They took a markedly different tone and approach with Trump, their hostility thinly masked. Harris spoke in nothing but vagaries clearly intended to have an emotional effect. Trump's other mistake was rising to Harris' bait. Bad move, but now water under the bridge.

Perhaps, but look where we ended up anyway.

This is as nonsequitur as "The anti-Black imagination has created a horrific version of Black people, therefore kitchen sink."

Two allies will make zero difference. I'd casually estimate that no less than thirty like-minded and morally intact senators would be needed to have a palpable effect. Fifty would be better, but I have precious little hope for the thirty, so... What we need is my Amendment 28. Given the horrific state in which we find ourselves, politically speaking, I feel that my Amendment is the only way forward toward actual liberty that does not perforce necessitate large amounts of bloodshed.

The "misinformation" cancer has got to be nipped in the bud because the trajectory lands us in the middle of 1984.

Elecrtric vehicles are cancer and have no future unless and until human energy storage tech for electrics undergoes a quantum advance. Our understanding of motors is fair to middling now, and apparently improving every day. Our understanding of electricity is pretty good. But our understanding of high-density energy storage sucks the big tuna. At this time, the highest energy densities are found in explosives. Sadly, those materials are not as yet suitable for the production of electrical outputs. The next best is gasoline and similar aromatics whose density is quite high, but much of which blows out the ass end of the vehicle. See the Second Law for more information. By comparison, battery technology is just sad. Constructing them is an environmental nightmare. Costs are astonishingly high, performance is atrocious, as is the safety factor. If you've never seen lithium, an alkali metal, burn, you've never had quite the thrill. I've seen metals burn including lithium, sodium, iron oxide, and titanium. They are all very violent and a car whose battery goes up tends to burn away to very little. Until energy densities at least as high as that of gasoline are achieved, I see no way that electrics will take the place of conventionally powered vehicles... unless Theye mandate it and use the force of arms to materially enforce the declarations, which would not surprise me in the least. Oh, and energy density is not the only concern. Performance at very low temperatures is an equal concern. At ten degrees F, electrics don't want to go so well, if at all. Once again, the battery puts you over the wood.