And yet Biden continues to send the weapons and money.
It's both malicious and incompetent. No matter how much foreign blood Biden promises spill, republicans will double it. By trying to appeal to "moderate" fascists, they're just demotivating their base, while fascists will vote for the real thing over diet fascism.
Is this maybe a situation where Bibi knows he's politically toxic and is (at least partially) running some cover for allies? I don't think he's that smart but it kinda works out that way, since I haven't heard of delayed shipments recently otherwise
“During World War II, Churchill told the United States, ‘give us the tools, we'll do the job.’ And I say, give us the tools and we'll finish the job a lot faster,” Netanyahu said in the video.
Yeah, that's what we're afraid of, and exactly why we don't want to give you the weapons.
Comparing himself to Churchill defending the UK from the Nazis has got to be the shittiest analogy I've heard in a long time. You aren't Churchill in this situation, Netanyahu. You're the invader hell-bent on wiping out a population.
There's already a strong emotional connection between Irish and Palestinian people (as shown by Ireland being one of the first European countries to officially recognize Palestine recently). Now there's another association - Churchill and Netanyahu's loathing for their respective people.
Hey! Where's the Russian Agents, I mean MAGA Patriots, I mean Genocide Joe crowd at rn? You know the ones that constantly complain that Biden should have personally airdropped over Gaza and personally saved the children? You know, the ones that demand Biden to destroy any and all ties to an ally that may or may not have long lasting repercussions with our existing allies? You know, the ones that actually think geopolitics are easy?
I don't know who you're talking about that believes anything you've claimed, but the people who don't want Biden to send Israel the weapons they're using to carry out a genocide are still angry that Biden is sending Israel weapons, which they're using to carry out a genocide.
If your understanding of geopolitics somehow has you justifying helping Israel blowing up kids in Palestine or Saudi Arabia blowing up school buses in Yemen or american occupiers cause famine in Syria, you've completely lost the plot.
Not blowing up children is more important than American hegemony in the middle east.
I mean, we literally know that Russia and China is antivax conspiracies, and anti-demoracy, pro-fascism rhetoric that people absolutely just eating up. Anything they can do to help push the nation to be more right-leaning is better for them.
Yeah, and more importantly, Biden needs to learn the public component of diplomacy.
I read his interview in Time, and it's weird, because it at least gave me some aspect into what he's thinking.
He's old as fuck. He has learned decades of procedures and standard practice in diplomacy, and he does NOT understand that a lot of it happens in the open now. Biden thinks he's playing chess with all the diplomatic messages he sends along backchannels, and he has no idea that this is just an arm wrestling match now. People judge you by what you say and do transparently.
Biden legit thinks he and Bibi are like cousins who grew up together who are having a tough fight, and Bibi is all fucking politics. He'd slit any throat he has to get what he wants, and he will bury Biden in a heartbeat.
Biden should go to Israel, and in a public address announce that the country is turning a corner: it will be safer than ever, and America is going to assist with a long term peace process, which they won't lead but will provide security guarantees for. And don't tell Bibi any of this in advance. And when Bibi reacts, say that Bibi has lost his trust and that of the elected public, and they need to hold new elections before getting any new weapons. Get some 'nads, man!
I wouldn't mind a complete cut-off in weapons, but I also wouldn't mind if they continue to supply rocket defenses or something if its part of a pressure campaign to send Netanyahu packing. I want Israeli prosecutors and the Hague to argue over who gets to lock his ass up first.
This isn't just Netanyahu or his administration, this is most non-arab Israelis. Every time you translate an Israeli twitter post or media, it's like you found a lost page from Mein Kampf
That is very true. Joey Ayoub of The Fire These Times coined a phrase months ago for describing the mainstreaming of genocidal ideation among the public, which I keep returning to: "The Smotrich-ization of the Israeli public". It's real, and it's terrifying.
Still, my impression is that Israelis are in a weird, weird, weird place:
They are largely supportive of the war, but most want a ceasefire deal that would bring home the hostages.
They are largely furious at Netanyahu, though his support has recently started to go back up.
There has been enormous pro-democracy anti-government protests before the war, then there were demonstrations demanding negotiations for a hostage release that were supposed to be explicitly distinct from anti-government demonstrators, and there are also pro-ceasefire, pro-hostage demonstrations that are explicitly NOT distinct from the pro-democracy anti-government demonstrations.
Most Israelis don't believe the war has "gone too far", but also many Israelis feel that the war has been mishandled (largely due to the cost on Israeli troops, the economy, and international standing).
There is support for the IDF, but also fury and blame at the IDF for failing so catastrophically during Oct. 7.
There is also widespread anger at the far right for insisting on exempting the ultraorthodox from conscription, while troop shortages force middle-age reservists back into service, but there's no clear indication that anyone has any leverage to impose on the far and ULTRA FAR right, who have been essentially governing Israel with smug impunity for months now.
And, overall, Israelis seem to like Biden a lot.
I apologize that i don't have sources for each of these, these are just a collection of insights I recall reading in the last few months.
Ultimately, I think they're largely out of answers AND being herded aggressively by a well-tuned state propaganda machine, which means that I think their attitudes are in flux. I think they could be led in many directions, and many futures are possible. Right now though, the most successful shepherds are Smotrich and Ben-Givir.
Lastly, there are a few very small Palestinian-Jewish unity groups. These may look irrelevant considering their numbers are so few, but when people ask where we could find leaders capable of negotiating peace (considering most of the Palestinian ones have been killed to prevent any peace process), I think this would be where we'd find them. Despite their numbers, they terrify the far right. They face extreme threats of violence, and I think that reaction belies the threat they pose to Jewish Supremacy.
Damn, it's a shame that you - who are clearly so much smarter and more knowledgeable than everyone involved - aren't running things. Surely no armchair general would ever second guess your approach to handling complex international diplomacy.
I'm glad at least someone has it all figured out, if only Biden would reach out to you personally.
I think we have an obligation to provide Iron Dome defensive munitions as long as there is threat of attack on Israel. Despite common opinion, there are plenty of innocent Israelis that are not behind Netanyahu or Zionism that deserve to live without being bombed, just like Palestinians.
Edit: Those of you that paint all Israelis with one brush are no better than Netanyahu labeling all Palestinians as Hamas. Just sayin.
That's complicated. Would you have said we needed to continue supporting Apartheid South Africa's military because there were innocent Boers?
When the Israeli national project is ended, then sure we'll have a responsibility to ensure Palestine respects the rights of all people living in its territory.
Ask yourself. Were you an American citizen when when Trump enabled the sexual abuse of tens of thousands of immigrant children, or currently while Biden supports the Israeli genocide? Has your nation’s government ever acted in hostility against your interests? Are you complicit? Do you deserve protection from bombings?
No, but also kinda? It's complicated. If someone had the power to help those immigrant children escape, it would be silly to pretend they must endure the continuing injustice for fear they might hurt an "innocent" escaping the concentration camp.
What power do Israelis have in uninstalling Netanyahu? They’re protesting in the tens of thousands to remove him. It’s doing nothing. He was elected prior to Oct. 7 and the subsequent genocidal response. My point is, the actions of a government do not represent the entirety of its people.
I mean, distanced emotionally? Should we be judged and judgement meted out differently than we and our dubious allies judged and delivered judgement? I prefer peace, but we are a warmongering nation. I don't want it to happen, but where I'm from, the saying goes, "if you keep picking, you'll eventually get what you're picking for."
Looking back at history, it would lead to more propaganda and more support for going to war.
A population getting attacked only leads to that population wanting to an us vs them mentality and emotional knee-jerk reactions over rational responses.
I completely agree that the US should defend Palestinians, as well as assist in their reconstruction needs. I was talking about amending munitions agreements. In that respect, I think the US should exclusively provide Iron Dome defensive munitions to Israel. They deserve no support in attacking other nations.
Maybe it's for the best. Furisoa was alright, but it did have the distinct feeling of an attempt to start a cinematic universe. It was the first Mad Max movie to be so directly tied with the continuity and canon of the preceding movie. That is a very different feeling than the loosely connected, sort of folk tale feeling the other movies had in relation to each other.
This new Wasteland movie sounds, just by the short description, like it would have been like Furisoa with a tight connection to the other movies. I don't think Mad Max needs to become that.
I would hope no one gets this idea. Mad Max is at its best with bold impressions and hints and implications of worldbuilding, without entirely giving away its hand. I appreciate glimpses that make me wonder, I don't need a light shined in every crevice.
Similarly, I like Max himself as a semi-mythical figure. He's Robin Hood or something. The stories around him usually agree on major aspects, but the details and timelines can get muddled between stories.
I think a detailed TV show would just strip all that mystique away. You might say "then don't make it centered on Max", and I would say- then it shouldn't be explicitly in the Mad Max setting. Make a post apocalyptic TV that pulls from Mad Max but isn't constrained by it, and doesn't affect it.
I would hope no one gets this idea. Mad Max is at its best with bold impressions and hints and implications of worldbuilding, without entirely giving away its hand. I appreciate glimpses that make me wonder, I don't need a light shined in every crevice.
I totally agree. I feel like this is why Mad Max works. And why Fury Road was possible.
That's was a game I loved so much, I played through it twice! Shame it never got any "pro" enhancements as the canyon levels hit the FPS levels causing stutters.
The game was well put together (if a little repetitive), but my point is that the more content gets made that is specifically trying to make a cohesive canon, the more Mad Max loses the folk tale flavor while gaining a "cinematic universe" feel. One game on it's own tying into Fury Road won't do it completely, but if the game was part of a successful franchising of the Mad Max Fury Road (because Fury Road represents the nexus of a reboot here) brand, then it would contribute.
It is nice to have things in media that just exist without being stretched out and milked dry.
Yeah, I finally played it recently. As much of a world as they built it still manages to feel mysterious. And the gameplay is brutal on the ground and in the car.
I thought Furiosa was excellent, but it filled in enough details of this version of the Wasteland that I don't want to see it revisited. Would be excited if Miller has another self-contained story he wants to make in a different time and place of the Mad Max mythology with all new characters, but I suspect WB is not willing to take that risk. If MM doesn't draw in audience for a Wasteland-verse of connected stories, they'll just axe it.
The Russians rallied. The equivalent of at least two battalions with hundreds of infantry stormed the PJSC Volchansky chemical plant, on the Vovcha River’s right bank. Factories and other industrial facilities are often the locus of the fighting in Ukraine, as their big sturdy buildings can shelter troops and protect them from artillery and drones.
On the one hand, okay, I can buy that the building provides some level of protection.
On the other hand, this isn't a steel mill. It's a chemical plant. Assuming that it's been in operation recently, it's probably got, well, significant amounts of chemicals stored there. A lot of chemicals aren't really the sort of things that you want to be right next to if you expect to have explosions going off nearby. Might not be great to breathe, or might be flammable or explosive.
Probably because it rarely worked in real life! It was especially harder if your party was travelling in the spring. River currents are strong as shit and there's no way even oxen could stand strong enough to keep it from running away during strong spring snowmelt flows.
I'm glad people are studying this, and I do agree there is a lot of unwarranted fears mixed up in this topic. But full acceptance of this science will not answer the whole issue, as in this study
All transgender participants had undergone hormone therapy for over a year
Which is not the definition of transgender used by teams and organizations in most of these controversies, if athletes even want to disclose their health history.
This is incredible work. I have one question that confused me, the article says that trans and cisgender women have the same bone density, which is linked to muscle strength. Then it says that bone density "is not indicative of athletic prowess".
If bone density and muscle strength are positively correlated, then it should be an indication of athleticism, no? Do I have a misunderstanding of what they consider "athletic prowess"?
I believe the diference between the two claims may be due to controlling for height in one of the findings that they don't correlate to athleticism and not in the other
Reading some more scientific literature, I think they probably read that it was associated with muscle mass (due being associated with height which wasn't controled for). Controling for height makes the association go away
They are basing it off of different reports between those claims
Thank you. Certainly sounds like more research needs to take place, but this is awesome and will hopefully encourage more studies.
I also thought it was interesting that discrepancies between trans and cisgender women in strength could be attributed to trans women being forced to use men's training facilities, equipment and resources, which get more funding and are better equipped. It's amazing what you learn when you control certain variables.
I feel like not enough people know why we're even hearing about this issue. In 2019, a conservative think tank did focus groups and figured out that trans women and girls competing in sports against cis women and girls would be the most upsetting social issue for middle class suburban women and conservative democrats. It did better at swaying votes than any economic issue, and tested well in local elections, so they took it to the national scale. It was never about the athletes.
When Schilling considered the range of issues making centrist voters and suburban parents uncomfortable, the one that stood out to him was transgender rights: an issue that had largely been absorbed into the Democratic platform, but which he suspected many Americans were still processing themselves. But what was the right angle to take? Earlier that summer, American Principles Project had partnered with a behavioral science firm to assess whether focusing on transgender issues could turn educated suburbanites into Republican voters.
APP and its data partner, Evolving Strategies, analyzed how thousands of registered Kentucky voters reacted to different messages about what they described as Beshear’s “extreme” support for transgender rights. Should men be allowed to participate in sports events for women and girls? Andy Beshear thinks so. Should men be permitted to use women’s restrooms because they identify as transgender women? Andy Beshear thinks so.
“What we found was the sports issue got the most powerful response from people, specifically conservative Democrats and independents,” Schilling would explain to me later.
“We wanted Bevin to win, but more than anything, we wanted to test this out before trying it at a much larger scale. Now, donors understand that although we came up a few votes short in Kentucky, this can still work. This is persuasive,” Schilling said.
"Should men be allowed to participate in sports events for women and girls?"
Really the most appropriate response to this framing is that men aren't participating in women's sports.
We all have both sets of the genes that control whether our bodies express male or female secondary sex characteristics. We're born with both male and female genetic code and it never goes away, it's simply a matter of which are being expressed and which are not.
The reason HRT works is because tipping the hormone balance from majority male to majority female or vice versa is telling the trans persons body "express female/male genes now" which results in real biological change, the same changes that cis people experience, the same genes that would be active were the person born as their target sex. After transition, trans people are biologically closer to their target sex than their birth sex, the literal tissue of their body has changed.
The language they use there would be hilarious if it wasn't, you know, horrible. Men against girls. Like there's a bunch of surly 35 year old men, absolutely dunking on a team of 5 year old girls just doing their best!
Fascinating. It doesn't look like they controlled for height/weight so it's not surprising that the grip strength of TW was so much higher than for CW. Agree with their conclusion that a larger cohort is needed for a longitudinal study rather than a cross-sectional one.
It sucks that everything these days get politically and ideologically bent out of shape. I just want to enjoy sports without all the hoopla and co-opting.
Just too excited waiting for the Paris 2024 to start, hopefully there will be less controversy and more human moments in sports.
Keep Being a Good Human and Calmly Carry On Being Excellent to One Another !
hopefully there will be less controversy and more human moments in sports.
Just no trans moments, since they're all being excluded, but sure, what's important is that there is no "hoopla" to distract you from your entertainment.. 🙄
So you're advocating generic testing for anyone who wants to play sports? What about people who are neither XX nor XY? Do you expect trans women to share locker rooms with men?
Any sports that is competitive requires testing to ensure that no one cheats or has an unfair advantage. If you are against testing in sports, then sports is not what you are looking for.
An Open participant category would solve almost every problem. Only the best of the best will win.
Traditionally, "Women" ( biological XX-chromosome Homo-sapiens ) had their own category due to their inherent physical weakness compared to "Men" ( biological XY-chromosome Homo-sapiens ) in almost every physical category. This allowed "Women" to compete on their own "safe" "fair" "even" "fair" playing field separate from "Men".
If you want a sports category "Trans-Woman" or "Trans-Man" or "Trans-any / Non-Binary" PLEASE GO FOR IT ! I am not saying anyone should be excluded from sports. But there are reasons that categories exist in sporting events. Be constructive or don't it is your choice.
Worth highlighting this part of the article since I've seen a number of people falsely claiming the opposite on lemmy.world lately:
Transgender women’s bone density was found to be equivalent to that of cisgender women, which is linked to muscle strength.
And this is not the first study showing this same trend
Similar findings have been echoed in previous reporting. According to a recent report that generated an in-depth review of all English-language scientific literature (published between 2011-2021) about transgender (trans) women athlete participation in elite sport, several key conclusions coincide with findings from the IOC funded study
forbes.com
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