Bay 12 Games Forum

Quote from: hector13 on November 21, 2023, 12:44:55 pm

The difference is that the current war in Gaza has gone on for 6 weeks. If we were to project that to a year you’ll get ~40k dead.

Still comparable to other modern wars. Still nothing "unprecedented". Still manipulation with statistics if not an outright lie.

It’s not manipulating statistics. It’s sensationalizing, at worst.

The war in Ukraine has been going on for a little over a year and a half, and we know Russia has actively targeted civilians. 10k civilians killed in that period, which is less than the total number killed in the six weeks of the Gaza war.

Are we going to account for population density as well?

Just means Israel has to be more careful. Or it makes it easier for their “damage, not accuracy” policy, depending on how cynical you want to be.

The difference is that the current war in Gaza has gone on for 6 weeks. If we were to project that to a year you’ll get ~40k dead.

Just finished that last night myself.

I personally enjoyed the nod to Pratchett with the bit about seamstresses.

I had a sociology lecturer who sent me to sleep.

Admittedly that could also be because it was the first class of the morning after a 90-minute bus journey.

George Santos has been found to have defrauded his campaign by the House Ethics Committee.

The panel found the Republican congressman from New York "blatantly stole from his campaign" and exploited "every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit".

In its report, the ethics committee, which is split evenly between Republicans and Democrats, found that Mr Santos reported fictitious loans to his political committees in order to induce donors to make further contributions to his campaign.

He then diverted campaign money to himself as "repayments" of those fictitious loans, it found.
According to the report Mr Santos also:

• Spent campaign money on Botox treatments, luxury fashion purchases, trips to Atlantic City and Las Vegas, vacations in the Hamptons, and even his own rent
• Recorded 37 expenses of exactly $199.99 - one cent below a threshold set by law that requires campaigns to keep receipts
• Was "frequently in debt, had an abysmal credit score, and relied on an ever-growing wallet of high-interest credit cards to fund his luxury spending habits"
• Hired one of his own companies to work for his campaign. The company, RedStone, paid Mr Santos at least $200,000, which he used to pay credit card debt and make purchases from companies including Hermes, OnlyFans and Sephora
• Claimed to own multiple properties and a luxury car. The report states: "At no point does Representative Santos appear to have owned a Maserati, despite telling campaign staff otherwise."

He won’t stand for re-election next year, but hopefully his colleagues decide to oust him long before then. Two Republicans and a Democrat have brought forward motions to expel him.

lol @ being lectured about nuance by you, smh

The Palestinian flag represents the Palestinian people.

Palestinians /=/ Hamas.

The same Palestinian people under the Israeli air strikes for ”damage, not accuracy, those under blockade who can’t get basic necessities, while Hamas’ smuggling links allow them to get them for themselves. If Hamas are not being punished by the blockade, who is? Palestinian civilians, that’s who. That’s what the protestors find unacceptable, not Israel’s victory or existence.

The foreign protests are addressed to their own government because they want their government to change their position on the war to discourage Israel from the indiscriminate bombing or starving the civilian populace of Gaza, not to reconsider viewing Hamas as a terrorist organization or allow them to continue their terrorism unmolested.

There you go making predictions again, and that’s a whole heck of a lot of assumptions being made about some complex geopolitics there. Given your failure to predict the direction of this conflict and politics in Europe and NA, I’m quite willing to believe you’ll be wrong about a lot of those predictions too.

You also complained about my use of a strawman - I didn’t but whatever - and that is a huge one there. How does a ceasefire in Gaza end in Israel’s destruction along the lines you set out? It doesn’t, is the answer.

Even if Hamas won this conflict it won’t result in the destruction of Israel. It’ll result in a hugely emboldened Hamas, and possibly result in more overt support from anti-Zionist nations, but it will also probably result in an increase of support for Israel from the West to balance that out. The conflict will certainly end Netanyahu’s policy of appeasement toward Hamas.

Your analogies had grey in them, while anti-Semitic has an established meaning, which is “hatred of Jews”.  Anti-Semitic elements doesn’t mean there’s hatred within a protest, particularly a large enough one that they can be ejected from one part, and re-enter it at another point.

Equally so, the police are able to arrest people shouting racist abuse and endorsing violence from within the protest. Bearing in mind the police can’t be everywhere, they can’t arrest everyone who shouts that shit, but they do try to identify them and arrest them later.

If there was any resistance to that I’d be willing to say there’s acceptance of those views within protests, but there isn’t. If the main protest broke away from their route and protested in front of the Israeli embassy, I’d agree with you, but they don’t.

Edit: also I forgot to mention I have never once argued “from the river to the sea…” doesn’t have an anti-Semitic meaning, just that’s not the only meaning, and the people marching for peace aren’t using it to mean the destruction of the Jews and Israel.

Huh? This prominent Iranian talks not about the West but about Iranian plans and goals regarding Israel and Zionism(read Jews) which includes supporting anti-Zionist protests in the Western World.

You may say that it is wrong for them to expect that protests will continue should Israel start losing but my statement is about what Iran expects, not what will actually happen.

I didn’t say anything beyond implying that Iranian talking points aren’t useful.

The protestors aren’t there because they want Israel to lose though, but considering you also think they’re demanding the extermination of Israel and the Jews, it’s not surprising you don’t understand what they want.

I do think that antisemitic crowds aren't going anywhere no matter how this current war will progress. When this kind of stuff starts and it is unopposed - it tends to grow larger. Composition may change but the core will stay the same. But it is merely my subjective prediction.

It is funny how what is happening in Israel goes far better(less badly) than my most optimistic predictions and how I failed to even assume what will happen in EU and NA.

It’s almost as though you’re not an expert and have little understanding of what you’re talking about, Nostradamus.