Altherion

It's undoubtedly only one of several causes, but it's almost certainly a significant one (there are studies). The supply shocks also play a part and profit-seekers will undoubtedly exploit opportunities to raise prices, but the money being spent must come from somewhere and in this case that was certainly the government. I would not call it ideological -- there is no real ideology behind it beyond pragmatism. The central banks are not quite as dysfunctional and politicized as most other institutions and they are (for now) still capable of some measure of long term thought. Thus, they are the only ones who can address this kind of crisis. If the politicians tried to raise taxes and cut spending to a sufficient degree to deal with inflation, there would be riots in the streets and they'd be voted out at the next possible opportunity.

I don't think this is so clear cut. Much of the world tried fairly extensive government spending during and immediately after the pandemic. The result of this was a temporary reduction in poverty... but it only lasted for a year or two before the advent of the highest inflation in decades led to the end of the spending as well as the tightening of monetary policy. By today, it's not at all clear that most people are better off due to the pandemic spending.

I'm not Indian either so I don't know exactly how this works. Maybe somebody who does can explain? From what I can tell, there were both priests and secular leaders at the inauguration (as well as all sorts of celebrities) and the celebration was extremely wide spread. From the article in the link: And yes, the ruling party of India is definitely milking this for political purposes -- pretty much every article I've seen agrees on that.

The Indian government has inaugurated a Hindu temple built on the land formerly occupied by a Muslim mosque which, various Hindu groups claimed and the Supreme Court of India affirmed, was itself built on the ruins of an earlier temple. From the BBC article:

The S&P 500 index has closed at a new all-time high for the first time in more than 2 years. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like the positive sentiments of investors are shared by the vast majority of the population.

But people are not asking for a perfect candidate. They're just asking for somebody who is at least mildly inspiring and closer to the median age than to the median life expectancy age. Think about Obama's 2008 campaign; he was far from perfect and there were plenty of people who disliked him, but it was way more exciting than anything since.

He has said plenty of things in the past, but people react more strongly to things that are more recent. His most fervent supporters either don't care or outright agree with him, but he needs many more people than that to win the general election. The economy is a strange issue: according to the numbers the government is releasing, the behavior of the market and the statements of most economists, it's doing fine... but of course most people don't feel this is the case. It's not clear what it would take to turn that around.

The most likely way this happens is that he starts talking to a wider audience again. Right now, everyone knows what Biden is doing and a non-trivial fraction of the Democratic party is upset about some aspect of it or another as are some independents and most Republicans. On the other hand, Trump has not said anything for a long time -- at least not in a way that people who are not already very committed to his cause can hear. If he becomes the Republican nominee again, he will almost certainly say outlandish things, but now they will be heard by everyone and suddenly Biden won't look so bad anymore.

They're pretty random: On 26 November 2023, the Liberian-flagged MV Central Park, an oil tanker managed by Zodiac Maritime, was seized off the coast of Yemen On 12 December 2023, the Houthis launched an anti-ship cruise missile attack against the Norwegian commercial ship Strinda, an oil and chemical tanker operated by the J. Ludwig Mowinckels Rederi company On 13 December 2023, Houthi rebels attempted to board the Ardmore Encounter, a Marshall Islands-flagged commercial tanker coming from Mangaluru, India On 15 December, it was reported that the Liberian-flagged Al-Jasrah, which is owned by Hapag Lloyd, caught fire after being hit by a Houthi-launched projectile while sailing through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait There's not much to connect these beyond the fact that they were in the general area. The terrorist supporters claim that they're targeting Israeli interests, but really they're hitting all international shipping. Eventually, the US and others put warships in the area to intercept the attacks and the Houthis started targeting these at least part of the time, but they were still attacking commercial ships too.

I'm not sure which thread this should go in, but it looks like the US and the UK have finally had enough of the Houthis attacking random ships in international waters: To be honest, it's a bit surprising that it took so long. I understand the desire not to escalate, but all it accomplished was making the Houthis bolder and bolder -- why stop attacks if there is no response?

Apparently, the Secretary of Defense was hospitalized for three days without notifying either the White House or Congress: I can understand not telling the media, but it's very strange the Pentagon chose not to notify the White House.

Harvard President Claudine Gay has resigned. It appears that her Congressional testimony on calls for genocide was not enough to get her fired on its own, but it led to investigations for plagiarism and criticism from wealthy donors many of whom suspended their donations. I am slightly surprised she stepped down. Unlike her colleague at Penn, Gay has only been the subject of a campaign since those unfortunate comments and it did not look like a very successful campaign... except apparently it was. A bit of trivia: apparently her tenure of 6 months and 2 days will be the shortest presidency in Harvard history.

Such a distribution implies a massive number of voters going for somebody not in the two dominant parties. The last time this happened was Ross Perot in 1992 so it's possible, but it would be really, really surprising. That said, there is not that much time left: the election is November 5th so today we are 10 months and 3 days away. The campaigning is about to go into full swing so it'll be interesting to see if Biden can turn things around by the summer.

I am not sure if that is all, but it's probably enough. Armenia is currently a huge mess -- they are in a state of constant low-grade warfare with Azerbaijan (it's not reported in the press, but from speaking to people I know there, I can tell you that they are calling up reservists to guard the border). Also, it's suffering from inflation and the government is widely believed to be corrupt (as was the one before that and so on). I know quite a few people there and I cannot think of a single one who would not take an offer to come to the US. In fact, pretty much everyone would come even without the money; if there's a billionaire willing to pay you for doing what you're already good at, literally everyone would go.

But if you look at that wiki page, then surely you realize why the civilian casualties were so low. The wiki article puts as "Tens of thousands of civilians displaced", but what it means is that practically everyone ran away so that even though 80% of the structures in the city were hit, relatively few people died. This is not possible in Gaza because the civilians have nowhere to go -- it's a tiny piece of land bordered by Israel (which obviously will not allow anyone in), Egypt (which also refuses to allow any refugees) and the Mediterranean Sea. The situation is not comparable at all.

Err... we don't actually have any universal moral principles beyond some very generic ones which are not at all useful in dealing with the complicated systems that we've constructed. Likewise, cooperation by itself is not going to deal with global warming. In fact, international cooperation has dramatically increased our consumption of fossil fuels as well as the amount of waste that we produce. What we need is cooperation of a large fraction of humanity in the direction of a specific goal which is much harder to get. I read that book and I find it wildly optimistic in multiple respects. I don't think it will work that way.

I think it is not so much about changing leaders in wartime and more about how to kick him out in the context of the Israeli parliamentary system. I think I saw a poll at some point where he was getting single digit support (something like 4% in general and 8% from people who voted for his party in the past) so almost everyone wants him gone, but it would require a new election which is rather difficult to do during a war with a large part of the country evacuated. Thus, he will be kicked out shortly after the war ends... but not before.

I assume you are being rhetorical because dropping a nuke a few kilometers from one's own cities is a very bad idea independently of what it is being dropped on (nuclear fallout does not distinguish between friend and foe). If the question you are asking is would being less discriminate in Gaza hasten the end of Hamas, then the answer is yes... but of course it comes with its own costs and Israel is not willing to pay them right now. The goal is to destroy Hamas, but the constraints are (in no particular order): to preserve the lives of the hostages, to avoid violating international law to an extent where the US gets angry enough to do something, to keep enough connections with the Palestinians to have input into the government of the territory later, to maintain relations with the various Arab states and keep them out of the war, etc. etc. Of course, pretty much all of these are in direct conflict with launching attacks on Hamas and hitting the human shields so Israel is playing a balancing game. There might be some individuals who are still amenable, but for the most part, you are right -- I don't think they can stop until the hostages are rescued and Hamas is out of power. You are speaking as though the population of Gaza was kindly disposed towards Israel before and attacking it is changing peoples' minds. This is very obviously not the case -- if anything, the harsher the attacks, the more the people who might be radicals will think next time before doing something. I think this is true at least some some extent, but I think the goal of destroying Hamas is primary and this is an unofficial secondary.

The point of what Israel is doing is not retaliation. It's to destroy Hamas once and for all so that there would be no further attacks on Israel. I would have a lot more respect for the people calling for the fighting to stop if they also called for Hamas to return all remaining hostages and surrender. The people who are calling for a ceasefire are not doing that because they're either interested in keeping Hamas around or they're naive (but useful) tools of the people and nations interested in keeping Hamas around.

Following up on the discussion about college presidents and the Congressional hearing, the president of Penn has resigned and so has the chairman of Penn's board of trustees. The president of Harvard has apologized, but it's looks like neither she nor her MIT counterpart will be as impacted as the Penn one.

There are also lots of states who have been taking action with regards to Gaza -- even during the fighting, there is constant negotiation and trucks of aid are on standby for a lull. The risk of the war spreading is there, but so far the US has kept it under control. I just don't see this as a conflict that invites the use of bureaucratic tools last seen in 1989. I'm not claiming anything -- I'm guessing -- and I very much doubt it was something that simple. It's more likely that they promised him diplomatic support for something else. That is exactly what it is though. There is already a diplomatic set assembled to deal with this situation with the US being by far the largest and most powerful and the others being Israel, Egypt and Qatar (with the latter serving as an intermediary for Hamas). They're negotiating among themselves all the time and the interference of the UN is not helping.

I wonder why Guterres chose to invoke Article 99 at this time. He had to know the US would not tolerate his attempt at meddling, so it's a purely symbolic gesture. There were definitely events earlier in his tenure where this article would have made a whole lot more sense (the most obvious being the Russian invasion of Ukraine), but he only chose to make this gesture now. Maybe he has something against Israel or for the Palestinians in particular... or maybe some of the Muslim countries have promised him something in return.

This is not even remotely plausible. You do realize that roughly half a million Israelis are displaced from the areas near Gaza to somewhere else in Israel, right? Also, any given Israeli almost certainly personally knows a reservist who has been called up to fight in this war and Hamas keeps firing rockets at Israeli cities. The Israelis know they are at war and they're not living particularly comfortably. What is probably true is that the Israeli media generally does not report the Hamas-sourced stories found in media around the world, but anyone who has studied anything about modern warfare at all knows that the situation in Gaza cannot possibly be good.

You are conflating two completely different issues. The issue you are talking about is whether certain speech is outright illegal; it has nothing to do with universities. The issue discussed in the congressional hearing is whether certain speech is against the code of conduct for a given college. All outright illegal speech is (one hopes) against the code of conduct of any reasonable institution, but the codes of conduct of specific institutions exclude additional speech. For example, it is not illegal to refer to individual of certain races or ethnicities using certain racial or ethnic slurs, but it is against the code of conduct of practically every university. Similarly, one would hope that calls for genocide of a given people are against the code of conduct... but this appears not to be the case at Harvard, MIT or Penn.

Well, with that phrasing, it would be... except that of course in this case (1) there have not been 15000 civilians killed (remember, the numbers reported by Hamas are always the sum of terrorist casualties and civilian ones) and (2) the 1200 were deliberately killed in order to start a war whereas the 10000 or so were killed because they were being used as human shields by the people who started the war.