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Cake day: June 21st, 2023

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  • Because tensions between Hezbollah and Israel have been steadily rising since October 7th because of Hzebollah’s objection to how Israel is acting in Gaza. To be clear, prior to October 7th, tensions were already high enough that they would regularly lob bombs at each other. Today’s “escalated” tensions include northern Israel being evacuated due to threats from Hezbolla’s rocket attacks.

    At this point, it is clear that the options available to Israel are to either withdraw from Gaza and hope Hezbolla stands down, or end up in a full war with Hezbolla. Historians will say that the war with Hezbolla started months ago, and this was just one attack among many.




  • Its not symbolism.

    The reason people view Dax as a trans is that they were at times male and at times female. That is not symbolic of being trans, it is just being trans.

    However, despite exploring what it means to be a trill passing through generations of hosts, the changing gender aspect of it never comes up. If Kurzon was a women, I doubt we would be talking about Dax as a trans stand-in, but I can’t think of a single plot point or character development that would meaningfully change.

    Normally I’m a believer in death of the author, so I won’t be offended if anyone wants to completly ignore thus section, but in the DS9 documentary, they have a section on LGBT representation, and their big example for it was Jadzia. However, that was not for being trans, it was for being in a gay relationship.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya8WTQc93yI&t=5467s





  • First, he wasn’t found “not guilty,” the charges were dismissed.

    Doesn’t matter. Jeopardy attaches when the Jury is sworn in. And the jury has already been dismissed. At best, they can ask for a mistrial at this point. There are some cases where you can get a mistrial that allows for a new jury, but that is pretty much impossible if the mistrial was the prosecutor’s fault; even if, on review, a mistrial was not nessasary. Essentially, you do not want prosecutors to deliberately induce a mistrial in order to restart a trial that is not going well.

    Further, there is simply no mechanism that allows the judge to even consider this motion, and the prosecutor in her brief did not provide a single theory for why it would be proper to consider the motion. This motion was written for the media, not the judge.

    This us not out of character. In the hearing that led to the dismissal, there was a conversation with the judge during the lunch break. It subsequently came out that the judge was inclined to dismiss the case. Following that meating, the prosecutor’s co-council quit; and the prosecutor called herself as a witness. On its own, a prosecutor calling herself as a witness (subject to cross examination) is crazy enough. But the judge already told them he was dismissing the case. There was no legal reason for her to do so. The only justification for it was PR. In explaining her decision to call herself she said, on the record (but not under):

    Court: It doesn’t matter to me weather you call yourself as a witness. It doesn’t matter to the defense weather you call yourself as a witness. So, if your calling yourself as a witness, there is no one here that is requiring you to be called as a witness.

    Prosecutor: The information. Everything that happened in this regard, especially as it pertains to me, needs to come out in the public

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=03FPAS71YYs&t=24292


  • In the modern era, wars are rarely in the interest of either side. However, miscalculations happen, and the more you play at the edge of war, the more likely you are to fall over.

    In April, Israel calculated that they could bomb an Iranian complex in Syria, targeting top Iranian officials without sparking a war. They were correct.

    In response, Iran calculated that they could send 300 drones/missiles to Israel, and have enough be intercepted by air defense systems to avoid starting a war. They were correct.

    Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging fire; each side calculating that each strike would not start a war. Thus far they have been correct.

    For years, Hamas and Israel have been exchaning small attacks. Both sides correctly calculating that they could avoid a full war. Then, on October 7th, the IDF fucked up. A Hamas attack was far more successful than it had any bussiness being, and now both sides are 10 months into a war that hurts both of them.

    A war with Hezbollah might not be inevitable, but the current level of conflict is not sustainable. Every day that it is not resolved is one more opportunity for miscalculation; and one more notch ticked on the escalatory ratchet.







  • Prior to the Holocaust, there was a significant part of the Zionist movement that was playing footsie with the actual Nazis. The Nazis didn’t want to kill the Jews, they wanted them out of Europe. Zionists thought that made them potential allies. Ultimately, that didn’t work out because the Nazi’s thought that moving them to where modern Israel is would be too destabilizing for the region. The Nazis still ended up supporting establishing a Jewish state, with Hitler approving a plan to do so in Madagascar. This plan was eventually abandoned in favor of their “final solution”.


  • But you are allowed to stage a murder; hire a film crew to record your staged murder; pay television stations and websites to show a preview of your staged murder, and sell a recording of your staged murder to anyone who wants to buy. Depending on how graphic it is, you might be required to put an age advisory on your work and not broadcast it on public airwaves; but that is about the extent of the regulation.

    You can even stage murders of children and show that.

    Even if the underlying murder is real, there is still no law outlawing having a recording of it. Even producing a recording of a murder isn’t technically illegal; although depending on the context you might still be implicated in a conspiracy to commit murder.

    Sexual assult of children is the only crime for which the mere depiction of the crime is itself a crime.



  • The problem with Israel is that its leader was a bit too vile. About half of the elected knesset refused to form a coalition government with Netenyahu, resulting in years of failing to form a governing coalition.

    Eventually, the path out of the stalemate ended up being forming a coalition with far right members of the knesset that had previously been political pariahs; including appointing a convicted terrorist to the role of minister of national security.

    Prior to October 7, this was an extremely tenous political position. The coalition was hanging on by a thread. The attempted judicial coup reform was stopped by massive public backlash. And the politian whose divisiveness was central to the political crises that enabled the far right to join the coalition was in the middle of defending himself in a criminal trial. However, when a crisis like October 7 happens, you are stuck with the leaders you have. And Israeli leadership at the time was possibly the worst in the history of the country for handling it (unless you agree with their manifest destiny version of Zionism, in which case I think they are doing quite well).