Kalbear

Hey now, we already figured that out - one side wants to just put them in jail forever, the other side wants to kill them. That's downright progressive

Sorry, Bosnia? There's been a lot of US aid delivered to places. My point is that it does make the US look weak that we have to ask - they can be idiots or not, but the US humbly suggesting that we can drop things and be treated the same way as, say, Jordan's system is not a position of strength. That we're doing it 5 months in is another example of this. This isn't exactly my opinion solely, either - here's a head of humanitarian aid talking about it: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/01/us-airdrops-in-gaza-expose-limit-to-bidens-israel-policy-00144528 Basically this shows how limited the US power is here, both in ability to drive change and the requirement to get support for it.

A couple of years ago, but not in, say, 2010. Serbia springs to mind. Iraq as well, especially when dealing with the Kurds. Ain't like those cargo jets are stealthy. The complaint is that it makes the US look weak. That we have to beg Israel for the ability to give people aid, and only if Israel allows it will it happen. I wouldn't characterize it as them supporting it, either; they're just allowing it. They aren't providing any material aid or value for either of these things.

We often don't do this, especially if we really want to do something. We don't ask for permission, we do it and we occasionally say 'don't shoot us down or else'. This is what we do in places like Pakistan, for instance. This is what we've done in other places when delivering aid. But nope, not Israel.

This and the airdropping thing are in my mind a remarkable condemnation of US power. In order to provide non-military aid to people we need to ask Israel, a supposed ally, permission for our planes to fly over and not get shot down. Same with the Navy.

I don't exactly think it's lazy, but it is shallow. It apes the events and the characters of the cartoon without understanding what made them special or interesting or enjoyable, and the result is a weird combination of nostalgia and uncanny valley. There are some times that, say, Sokka being clever or funny or self-deprecating show up, and then it goes to something else. You get people literally burned alive and in the next scene you get joyous silliness about Sokka being a mute. It reminds me a lot of Rise of Skywalker in that they clearly are trying to trigger the knowledge of a previous series and get you into it that way, but miss out on all the other things that make it work.

Can you tell me what Noam Chomsky is in the US political system or how Pol Pot is relevant to current US Politics? If not, can you take it to some other topic?

Given that WV is almost certainly going to R I don't see what pickups Dems are going to get in 2024 to allow that; the best they can hope is -1, basically, and that includes Sinema's seat, and I don't see a 50-50 split giving them enough political power to kill the filibuster even if Harris is the tiebreaking vote.

I think you're both right. It acts as a ferry and can warp things between those two places.

Last I checked the British didn't colonize the Greeks. I don't see why recognizing the roots of said homophobia in the actual colonization that took place, seeing historically how those things changed and caused those changes, and attributing that as the proximate cause is racist or patronizing. That's just history and how it works. I also don't understand giving them a pass here; this doesn't excuse the behavior or accept it, it just points out that it isn't particularly a deep-seated viewpoint of historical Africa to be heavily homophobic. What a weird take - that somehow recognizing the actual cause of something means that you're now accepting the current behavior. Understanding how a disease takes root and spreads doesn't mean you're not wanting to fight the disease.

I mean you can, but per that article I linked that you almost assuredly didn't read African societies pre-colonization were significantly less homophobic than most modern European societies are today.

He also mentions that the Jihad would happen no matter what, even if he dies. That said, there's some references to this being, well, another interesting storyline that would be VERY different than the books. Some speculation here.

I don't, and it's kind of silly to do so. Maybe a lower percentage for dems - after all, the candidate is basically decided, so it's pretty close to something like 1996 or 2012 - but so far turnout has been pretty decent. For example, NH broke records for turnout in a primary. Looking at Nevada their turnout was almost exactly the same % for the primary as it was for 2012. In any case predicting that it's going to be a low percentage is probably not the most insane thing, but then thinking that it's because everyone hates the candidates is just a fantasy. When both parties do not have competitive races in a primary turnout tends to be down, especially since spending is largely down. Biden has made a whole lot of money recently and has spent almost none of it because...why would he? There isn't a big GOTV effort right now for most states, unless there is some other major issue or race on the ballot. If you DID want to express your dissatisfaction with the candidates the best thing to do is to show up and vote uncommitted or coordinate a specific candidate that associates with that displeasure. Otherwise it will largely be dismissed, both by the parties and the media.

Nah. Both in the movie and the book he knows that his ascendancy will be anything but peaceful. He is threatening the use of the nukes (in the movie) knowing that the response will be what it is, because he can entirely see the future here. He knows exactly what will happen with this course of action. Presumably if he didn't threaten with the nukes something else would happen; probably an invasion of Arrakis itself. I'm more and more inclined to agree. An interesting parallel from the first and the second movie - in the first movie there's a sequence where we see Paul going full-on ninja against Sardukar stabbing all sorts of people and wearing these really cool-ass modern stillsuits. In Dune 2 we see Chani do the exact same sequence of moves and poses against the Sardukar in her battle. Chani starts the story of Dune by asking as the Harkonnen leave who will oppress the Fremen next, with a great jumpshot of Paul in the very next shot. There are a bunch of differences between the book and the movie that make me think this may be going...well, into a very different place than the books. Spoilers for the next books follow.

But a whole lot of people do want at least one of those shitty candidates. Because some people are kinda shitty, too. I guess if that's the kind of fantasy you want to have go for it. Some people like getting choked, some people fantasize about West Wing characters berating them as they jerk off to a Dune popcorn bucket. To each their own.

It's not; it's something that is more easily blamed on the British.

Not exactly shocking, but also I don't understand her strategy at all - Sinema announces her retirement from the senate: https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/05/politics/kyrsten-sinema-announces-retirement/index.html I can only assume she desperately believed in some third way and grouping of people that didn't exist that would come to support her, or she's just that much into lobbyists.

Seahawks released Jamal Adams, and that would be a much bigger news item in terms of worst trades ever if it wasn't for the Wilson trade.

Thanks! And that second link has sort of some of the things that I was really thinking about. This is a good example: It does note that Ukraine's tank losses are negative overall, however - that Ukraine is gaining more tanks than it loses. But yeah, it's that sort of thing that interests me. Clearly Russia can and will spend more to win than the West is choosing to do, so looking at the overall cost isn't all you need - but you also need to make sure that every piece of equipment that the West is donating or giving to Ukraine is taking out significantly more pieces of Russian kit, especially when you factor in how so much of Russian's weaponry is effectively sunk costs now - things that have been in mothballs for decades - and costs them nothing other than some ammunition and lives. And the lives, as far as I can tell, are either not an issue for Russia or are a net positive.

Which is a bit odd, because that's basically exactly what he did with Blade Runner - having multiple small in-continuity shorts that fleshed out things that weren't mentioned in the movie but affected the movie. I don't know that he'd be willing to do that because this was his baby in a way that Blade Runner was not, and he would have to have a lot more creative control. Maybe he feels like he doesn't need to because the books do exist - but that's also a bit tougher because the books and the movies do diverge reasonably too.

The first movie mentions that the harkoonnen thought the south was uninhabitable and there were maybe 50k fremen in total. Another key thing left out that bugs me is why there aren't satellites over the south and why not ships land there - it is because the fremen bribe the spacing guild to explicitly disallow both things. I wish they had put something small like that in.

Would love to see some kind of analysis of the cost per kill or cost of destroying pieces of equipment that each side is doing. I suspect that the Russian side is doing a much better job in that respect, especially now, and while Ukraine has better stuff the cost of using it relative to its effectiveness is way too high for them to sustain without major help from anyone else. The western way of warfare continues to not at all be designed for attitive or longer term fighting.

You're arguing something no one is arguing for. The problem is specifying that congress must pass a law banning someone or someones. That is far more restrictive and specific, and among other things also removes any legal representation potentially - there is nothing saying that congress can't pass a law banning one specific person, for instance. But it also means that, say, the justice department cannot be used as a way to determine this either. It means it can't be decided by a jury unless congress says so. Mostly, it has nothing to do with the actual case in front of scotus - do you really want scotus to routinely decide how congress should do their business based on cases that aren't relevant to that?

New England? Now that'd be super funny. I was kind of surprised how decent Wilson ended up being last year; he wasn't nearly as horrifyingly bad as I thought he would have been.

There's some horribly masochistic part of me that really wants the Bears to go after him, but knows it'd be a bad idea.