It's two different questions - building a port will do nothing to end the violence in Gaza, but it will do quite a lot to help Gazan civilians.
Fair point. I was mushing together several things, but my underlying question is "what's the full menu of options to alleviate the suffering?"
It just seems insane that we're simultaneously providing weapons to one side and aid to the other.
And everybody has a share.
I'm pretty sure Israel's plan was to starve out everyone in Gaza that wasn't killed. I think this will prevent that, though that's not the same thing as "alleviate the suffering".
This also is a war crime https://x.com/vinayrkrishnan/status/1765428498573771235?s=46&t=nbIfRG4OrIZbaPkDOwkgxQ
3: well, weapons to one side and aid to the civilians caught in the middle. The aid isn't going to Hamas.
Un-defunding UNRWA would be a good thing to do.
My thought was whether Biden is daring Netanyahu to fire on US armed forces.
I don't think the fear driving the refusal to use military aid as leverage is about whether Israel will get invaded in the near term -- imo that's about as relevant as the made up impending Soviet invasion was in 1980. I wouldn't be surprised if having Israel buy stuff from other suppliers rather than from us loomed a lot larger. That and Biden doesn't want to be called anti-Semitic, or, more correctly, doesn't want reasonable people to think the accusations of being anti-Semitic might have some validity.
6: well, weapons to one side and aid to the civilians caught in the middle
And Egyptian cotton for everyone!
What do people think Netanyahu would do if Biden announced tomorrow that either Netanyahu accepted an immediate ceasefire or the US would stop any military aid and stop vetoing Security Council resolutions? I was intending to give my standard "I don't know " response, but honestly I feel confident that Netanyahu would condemn Biden in the harshest terms and declare that he would continue the fight to destroy Hamas, and this would boost his popularity in Israel. I mean there's all the people that have hated him all along, They would still hate him. But it might bring back some his supporters who became disgusted after he allowed October 7
I think he'd accept, wait for the inevitable rocket attack on a civilian target by Hamas the next day, announce that the ceasefire had been broken, and carry on.
Is this where someone purchases the Yglesias tweet about solving the crisis for 7 cents in Malta, and sells it for 3 cents in Pianosa at a profit?
11: Refusing to back down to US demands is an important part of Netanyahu's brand.
I know it's hard for Americans to accept, but sometimes things aren't about the US. If the governments of Israel and Gaza both want to be fighting a war with each other it's going to be awful hard for the US or anyone else to stop them from doing so.
We should try to force Netanyahu out because he's a piece of shit, but there would still be a war going on if Benny Grantz were prime minister because Hamas doesn't want any kind of ceasefire or peace.
He's clearly trying to hurt Biden's reëlection.
The only third party with actual influence here is Egypt, and they're continuing they're 70 year "fuck Gaza" campaign as always.
I know it's hard for Americans to accept, but sometimes things aren't about the US. If the governments of Israel and Gaza both want to be fighting a war with each other it's going to be awful hard for the US or anyone else to stop them from doing so.
This is easier to believe when we're not supplying weapons, though! I think Americans accept this about Ukraine, generally.
19 exactly.
I dread this stupid port plan since it will no doubt result in dead US Marines. Israel could easily open its land crossings and have UNRWA deliver aid but that wouldn't fit Bibi's agenda (genocide and staying out of prison for those not paying attention).
Egypt could also open their land crossing.
I'm entirely supportive of ending military aid to Israel, but I don't think we should kid ourselves into thinking it'd do anything (except maybe get Trump elected). Israel is way richer than Gaza and can easily outgun them with no help from us.
(genocide and staying out of prison for those not paying attention)
I have no idea if it's possible to discuss this without people getting angry, but I'm curious about the case for genocide. I'm probably being annoyingly literal, but I'm confused by the claim. (I'm not at all confused about what I understand to be Netanyahu's principal goals: staying in power and out of prison.)
I'm curious about the case for genocide
You mean you're not sure why the genocidaires want that? Is the standard national glory / lebensraum / cruelty-as-point not sufficient?
The fact that settler leaders are now actually saying "from the Nile to the Euphrates" (that Chotiner interview) suggests it to be an ever-expanding goalpost of cruelty.
I believe VW is asking about the case for defining Israel's actions in the current conflict as genocide.
At the risk of inflaming everyone reading, I think that historians who study blood feuds have the most to say about likely outcomes at this point. I look at Haaretz english occasionally-- apparently Israel has stratified left vs religious right as the US has, Haaretz is the responsible lefty paper as far as I know.
Except for money spent in Iraq, Israel has been the #1 recipient of of US foreign aid, total, not per capita, since the seventies. Changing that means going against the wishes of the most effective US lobbying organization, AIPAC, who funds opponents of US legislative candidates who express any such sentiments or vote that way. Sheldon Adelson passed away in 2021, IMO change will require the relaitively small number of generous unconditionally Israel-supporting americans who effectively set US policy to change their minds or be replaced. Bill Ackman isn't making me optimistic. Freezing assets of any american squatter in the West Bank would be an effective step IMO. So would refunding the UN agency that helps, UNRWA
Marwan Barghouti is the Palestinian name bandied about as a possible leader when open fighting ends, in Israeli custody on some pretty feeble charges. Israeli prisons filled with Palestinians including plenty of very young ones are truly enormous, Bukele scale. Are there publicly available figures on the number incarcrerated?
Hamas' political leader, Haniyeh, gave a speech in Doha in January in which he asked for more weapons rather than hospitals or food. It's not like there's a good side interested in making life better for Palestinians in Gaza available to side with or talk to in this conflict.
Long term, economic growth in the Arab world is the only way forward, maybe Qatar and the Emirates will be succesful enough to make a change-- steps toward economically sane and effective rapprochement IMO helped push the appaling Hamas attack that set this off, they're afraid of becoming irrelevant in a sane world. Egypt doesn't want Palestinians IMO because the government sees Egyptians as an unfortunate burden, doesn't want more mouths to feed even without poltical considerations. Changing that economic landscape won't be fast, but may be possible.
Israeli prisons filled with Palestinians including plenty of very young ones are truly enormous, Bukele scale. Are there publicly available figures on the number incarcerated?
According to Human Rights Watch, Israel had "almost 7,000" Palestinians in prison as of November last year, including 160 minors
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/29/why-does-israel-have-so-many-palestinians-detention-and-available-swap
The Bukele crackdown on Salvadorean gangs has imprisoned 75,163 people as of January this year, out of a population roughly the same as that of Palestine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvadoran_gang_crackdown
The latest pre-October 6 figure for Palestinian prisoners, incidentally, is 4,764 https://www.btselem.org/statistics/detainees_and_prisoners
they're afraid of becoming irrelevant in a sane world
The lead-crime hypothesis people say that the Middle East is supposed to become a sane world in the next decade or so.
So I think the objection to calling Israeli actions towards Palestinians "genocide" is that they don't want the Palestinians wiped off the face of the earth, but instead want them out of Palestine by any means necessary. If they're all in exile and not posing a threat to Israel (in theory), even many of the extremists will let them live. My personal view is that once you pass a certain point of murdering families en masse, I don't give a shit about the theoretical limits to your murderous ambitions, and Israel passed that point some time ago. I don't think we need a special rarefied category of extermination with global, unconditional scope into which we're reluctant to place atrocities like the Gaza siege/massacre. It's already well over the line where any human being with a shred of sensitivity can't visit Israel/Palestine without seeing a vast fabric of empty spaces where people should be. I am getting angry, sorry (but not at you, vw -- I think I understand your point even if the semantics drive me crazy. You're not wrong that these are specific words with specific meanings).
Recently read someone summarizing that the Al-Ahli hospital that was the first big controversy over who was doing what, IDF likely did not actually bomb it, but they didn't themselves know that, so their PR leapt into action on the assumption they had. (And they have bombed many since.) Specifically, IDF has an operational setup so they are wreaking destruction with a great deal of ignorance of who is on the other end, which ignorance they are happy to perpetuate. Genocide, ethnic cleansing, we're somewhere in the borderlands.
The #1 thing Biden can do to end the war is offer Netanyahu asylum in the US.
30 is where I am, I think, but, because of professional obligations, I trip on the semantics, which is what I meant above about being annoying literal. Anyway, this probably isn't a worthwhile issue for discussion. I just thought maybe I could ask a dumb question about Gaza.
32 conflicts with everyone's preferred narratives so I've never seen anyone else suggest it. (I posted it on Twitter at one point but got no response.) I think it is correct though.
And I've gone with "ethnic cleansing" since about October 9, but I know that's a very fraught--and maybe meaningless--rhetorical move.
Thanks for 26. I had seen a satellite image of a prison, I think Ktziot, didn't check anywhere before typing. Good to know that it's better than I had thought.
Arizona is 7M people, their prisons hold 40k.
Was worried for a second that 32 would lead to him being the Republican nominee in 2028, but turns out he was born in Tel Aviv not Philly.
If you're starving people and denying them clean water and bombing them and it's a large group I think that qualifies as genocide. Even if some of them make it into Egypt and are no longer getting bombed the Egyptian authorities would have to work hard and be pretty well organized to save a lot of those lives once they are starving dehydrated and have diarrhea. It seems pretty clear that a modern military machine uses up stocks of ammunition very quickly and if the US stopped supplying the Israelis with bombs they would have to stop bombing pretty soon.
At least before the current war, Israel exported more weapons than it imported. That may still be true overall. I don't know.
I think I'm wrong. I think in 2023 it was very close.
This isn't current, but it looks relatively trustworthy. It has an image of guns and the Tel Aviv beachfront.
https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/weapons/reporter/isr
I'm settler-colonizing the latest comments bar.
Given my extremely nuanced and extremely irrelevant views on genocide -- since I'm against nationalism I don't accept the idea that genocide is necessarily worse than any any other mass murder. mass torture, mass starvation etc. Perhaps, theIsraeli propaganda that most disgusts me, argues that it can't be genocide, because the Palestinians aren't "really" a nation. So if you're not a part of a nation, you're fair game. Wonderful!
You've interrupted my latest-comments nakba. The blood feud between our peoples shall last millennia.
Sorry, vw! Must be the weakness brought on by my mysterious illness that is prompting these silly and vain comments. If the doctors ever ever figure out the nature of my ailment, perhaps I will let you all know.
Probably covid. Have you been washing your hands?
The #1 thing Biden can do to end the war is offer Netanyahu asylum in the US.
Wait. I have a lot of dumb questions. Why would he want asylum in the US?
We don't put people in prison just because they tried to become dictator or used their political office for personal enrichment.
If he leaves office but remains in Israel he's almost certainly going to prison for a long time.
His father broke 100 years old, so Bibi has to worry.
52: No. He wants to kill everyone in Gaza.
I'm glad this is a safe place for someone to point out that what's happening in Gaza isn't what would be called genocide anywhere else. War crimes & ethnic cleansing, 100%. And there's no real percentage in making the point anywhere but here, but I'm not certain why everyone has acquiesced to misusing the term like this.
I think people aren't worried about getting out ahead of the facts when the bloodlust is so extreme and violence in the West Bank continues. "Well, sure, it isn't technically genocide *yet*" is not a hill most concerned people want to die on, especially when the whole point of noticing extermination in real time is to shut it down hard. And yeah, I absolutely think there is a risk of "proper" genocide and this is a very credible prelude. I don't think people are overreacting here. I also think the terminology is ill-suited to this situation if a debate like this can arise, but that's life.
Per Masha Gessen's writings, it's quite a thing that some groups have adopted the slogan "Never again is now" which without context you would assume to mean "Holocaust-level genocides can absolutely happen again, imminently even, and it's our duty to do everything we can to prevent them", but in fact these same groups are the ones censuring BDS supporters etc.
It's not clear if he would want to leave office if he weren't facing his legal issues. It's not something that's ever really been on the table. I think he would because self-preservation is his main priority and it's become very precarious. If the war ends he'll definitely get forced out one way or another, which is why he's so focused on continuing it.
The context here is that Netanyahu is extremely unpopular in Israel right now, but there's no way to force him out of office unless the government collapses, and the government is being propped up by the war.
57 seems pretty much textbook genocide to me
61. The State Department is totally out of practice with running a coup.
I'm cheered to remember that he's dead.
61: This made me recall that crazed old Georgia senator (nominally a Democrat) who made a deranged speech at the 2004 RNC about the disloyalty of Dems trying to replace the Commander-in-Chief in the middle of a war. Zell Miller I think--yes, after looking it up.
I thought ethnic cleansing was just a rebranding of genocide? Like calling them recessions instead of depressions.
I thought ethnic cleansing was trying to remove/eliminate an ethnicity from a particular region. Maybe I first heard the term when Yugoslavia fell apart? Whereas genocide is trying to destroy everywhere including methods like sterilization.
67: yes, at least by most definitions.
The ICJ, which is the body charged with deciding what the terms in international conventions mean, is determining whether what Israel is doing is genocide. They declined to rule summarily in Israel's favor on the question some weeks ago -- I presume that means there will be a ruling later in the year.
Under the convention, genocide is one of five things towards a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, with intent to destroy: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; or (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
If one calls Gazans a national group, and I think (with no expertise on how this term is interpreted) this is colorable, then maybe the current ethnic cleansing campaign meets (c).
It seems to me that while Israel evidently doesn't care if it kills a lot of Gazans, it would be fine with Israel if they would just go away. Forever.
I left out -- 'with intent to destroy in whole or in part'
I think that's a little different from 67, and may be enough to sweep Israel's ethnic cleansing campaign in..
32 is smart but I think wrong. Removing Netanyahu wouldn't end the war*: AIUI Gantz is no less bellicose than Netanyahu, and is supported in that by the great majority of Israelis. Equally, Hamas gets a vote. Further, Israel is in significant ways not winning the war. I don't see an end in sight, regardless of who is PM.
*It would reset Israel's rolling constitutional crisis; but after that the crisis would revolve around the huge bloc of fascist assholes in the Knesset instead of the one corrupt asshole in the cabinet. Shrug emoji.
The persecution of the Rohingya has killed ~25,000 and is commonly called a genocide. That's fewer than the number killed in Gaza.
72 is a fair counterpoint but I still stand by 32. It's definitely true that the entire political class and most of the populace would want to continue the war even without Netanyahu in charge, but I think the political instability caused by his departure and the resulting collapse of the government would force an operational pause and it would be hard for them to restart operations, precisely because they don't know what they're doing or have a plan.
Relatedly, another Hot Take that everyone will hate: The IDF's manifest incompetence in this war demonstrates that Israel is now truly a Middle Eastern country.
"Ethnic cleansing" is a Serbian term, ""rascisti teren", thought up by the Serbs to make the genocide they were committing in Bosnia sound less bad. Like "racial hygiene". It is beyond disturbing for those of us old enough to remember what they did that the term has now become commonplace, and that the Serbs are being embraced by the Left as victims of NATO imperialism rather than unrepentant racist murderers.
Yeah, it seems like Serbia was welcomed back into the club of regular countries with remarkable ease, considering what they did.
Being bombed by the US is a baptism of fire. It washes away all your previous sins.
collapse of the government would force an operational pause
Or the politician's syllogism keeps things stumbling on.
I didn't get very far with The Sleepwalkers, but far enough to draw the lesson "Fuck Serbia".
I mean, there are certainly countries where the military would just keep carrying on the war regardless of what happens with the civilian political system. But Israel has not historically been like that. And I don't think there's enough political consensus to fill the void if there's no actual civilian leadership.
In absence of political leadership perhaps IDF would curb the indiscriminate bombardment, if only to husband munitions; but would it take any positive actions? I see no reason it would withdraw from Gaza, certainly, and that alone would continue the war.
I could also see IDF leadership seeing opportunity in vacuum: AIUI they have drilled into their strategic culture that their wars are fought on a clock, requiring rapid results before international pressure forces a halt. The might see a chance to push on Rafah, do what they can in the tunnels, tell Austin sorry, we have our marching orders.
They don't have their marching orders, though. Israel is a highly militarized society, with all the dysfunction that implies, but it isn't a praetorian one. The military, even now, is very much subordinate to civilian leadership (which is inordinately dominated by former, but not current, military brass). in recent years that civilian leadership has been increasingly insane and dominated by people who, for political reasons, don't have military experience, but that doesn't change the overall context.
The general trend of Israeli politics in the past 20+ years has been that policy-making is increasingly dominated by religious extremists with no military experience while the professional military provides the figurehead leaders with decreasing influence.
80: yes indeed. Sorry, but your irredentist terror group whose membership included your secret police chief assassinated the heir to the neighbouring empire? Better believe that is, in geopolitical terms, a paddling. To think that my grandfather still talked about "plucky little Serbia" and his aunt went over there and risked her life as a volunteer in 1914. "Maniac little Serbia" more like.
Most Israelis do not actually want to be part of a country stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates, and the military leadership especially doesn't want that. The current government is, however, dominated by people who do want that, even if they aren't willing to say it out loud. Netanyahu himself probably doesn't really care.
"they have drilled into their strategic culture that their wars are fought on a clock, requiring rapid results before international pressure forces a halt"
I think this has been hugely harmful for both sides. For Israel it prioritises highly aggressive hair trigger operations over resile/recover/counterattack which would be a much less strategically destabilising posture. For the Arabs it allows them to preserve the comforting illusion that they could have won that one if outsiders hadn't intervened.
77% of Palestinians in November, iirc believed that Hamas could defeat Israel! This is not a helpful thing to believe.
do not actually want to be part of a country stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates, and the military leadership especially doesn't want that
They don't have to, to want to kill as much of Hamas as they can, or not to give much of a shit about Gazan civilians.
I also wonder how experiencing significant casualties for the first time since 1948 will change politicial culture on the Palestinian side. According to wiki their total losses in the last 80 years have been around 30,000, combatants and civilians, which is really abnormally low for a country that has (or at least sees itself as having) lost six or seven wars and 75% of its territory.
83: sure. But there I think 79 and 82.1 also apply.
Milosevic died in prison. Mladic is serving a life sentence in The Hague. Karadzic is 78 years old and has 32 more years to serve for his crimes against humanity. Serbian governments handed them all over to international tribunals. Actions like that have earned the Serbian state a certain degree of credit. There's also the idea that tighter integration with European institutions will work changes in Serbia, a well-tested if slow process in my view. As to Serbian society, I've never been and know little, but let me say a word or two about Germany...
More on topic, I was also dismayed to see how eager people who crossed my twitter and bluesky timelines were to accuse Israel of genocide. My impression was of folks who were letting out long-held hostility. I had the impression not least because in the (admittedly few) cases where I looked back through their postings, I didn't ever find that they had been upset about other genocidal campaigns, not even other campaigns against Muslim peoples (e.g. Rohingya, Uighurs).
I have to say that I like the port idea, not least because of the scale and audacity. The US is the original new-and-improved giant economy-sized economy, and I'm glad to see us put that to use. It also reminds Israeli forces Don't Kill Americans. The USS Liberty showed that sometimes they dgaf, but at least then (1) they tried to hide it and (2) they tried to lie about it; this will be right out in the open. Anyway, I hope it works.
Forced Russification in occupied Ukraine is affecting at least five times the total population of Gaza, speaking of pretending a culture doesn't exist and working hard to eradicate what you say doesn't exist.
92 prompted mostly by 77, y'all are talkative for a Saturday.
87: This is a good point, a bit like the cult of the offensive before 1914 - putting a premium on hitting first - and also implicitly suggesting the downside is limited.
(On a more general point, it is true that US aid to Israel is more than it is to other countries but it's also still $3bn* in an economy with a $522bn GDP. One of the biggest things that has changed since, what, 1991 and that western opinion won't hoist in is that Israel is rich, which it wasn't at the time of Madrid. US aid was 4.5% of GDP in 1991, it's now more like 0.5%, no wonder old man Bush could tell Shamir off like a naughty schoolboy.)
*weirdly the number is always roughly 3 year in year out no matter what happens to prices or anything else.
Doug - I am watching announcements here: https://www.maritime.dot.gov/newsroom with bated breath as MARAD owns all those weird looking ships up a creek in tidewater Virginia that Obama brought out for Haiti after the big earthquake*.
*and did people post some stuff about that. remember Oxfam cheering for that French pol who tied up the only working runway with his fucking preening bizjet-load of self congratulation for six hours. what times we've seen.
94.last: Hot take, Biden has done more to cut aid to Israel than any recent president by having high inflation.
That was the engagement where it later came out that an Oxfam staffer from Russia had been running a brothel?
I didn't ever find that they had been upset about other genocidal campaigns, not even other campaigns against Muslim peoples (e.g. Rohingya, Uighurs).
The difference is that Western governments were at least opposed to those genocides, even if there was very little that could be done about them. The West wasn't blocking UN Security Council resolutions about Myanmar.
Israel, on the other hand, has been committing genocide with the full support of the United States government and perhaps even a majority of the American people. Many of the settlers responsible for instigating the current violence were born and raised in America. Many of the bombs dropping on Palestinian homes were literally manufactured in the state where I live, and paid for with American taxpayer dollars.
When Israel commits, genocide, America is also committing genocide. That blood is also on our hands, and I don't fucking appreciate it.
94.1: yes, good comparison. And "limiting the downside" is a good point too.
98: "The United States is the largest bilateral donor in Ethiopia. Since 2020, the United States has provided an estimated $3.16 billion in humanitarian assistance in response to the conflict as well as an ongoing drought. The United States spent approximately $1.93 billion in FY 2022."
https://www.state.gov/the-united-states-and-ethiopia-a-long-term-partnership/
"Since 1991, USAID has invested $431 million in programs to support Azerbaijanis, including humanitarian relief, the health sector, and economic and governance reform."
https://www.usaid.gov/azerbaijan
Granted, recent aid was small, especially compared to Azerbaijan's oil revenue. And the USG did cut off security aid for two years. After all of the Armenians had been driven from Karabakh.
Anyway, my sense is that UN institutions have been so specifically anti-Israel for so long that there's little point in a dialog there. (Wiki notes "Since the UNHRC's creation in 2006, it has resolved almost as many resolutions condemning Israel alone than on issues for the rest of the world combined.")
the Serbs are being embraced by the Left
Wow, really? I admittedly haven't been keeping up, but that's wild if it's moved beyond the traditional tankie/consumers of Russian-influenced media demographics. I opportunistically followed some Bosnian commentators on Twitter after the war in Ukraine began, so I think my last round with social media tended not to contain a lot of pro-Serbia takes.
I'd love a counterpoint to this depressing article.
I haven't heard a pro-Serbia take since 1996 or so. And that was from a Serbian. The Russian emigrants in my neighborhood tend to be Trumpy and the one was a big asshole about parking, so I don't like them.
Before this whole genocide started, I was already kind of anti-Israeli because of two assholes. Which isn't a high percentage of the assholes I encounter, but is a high percentage of the Israelis I have encountered.
The port is also a signal that the Biden administration recognizes that Israel is deliberately using famine as a weapon against the people of Gaza.
101: Corbyn led the way on that one. He thinks the genocide was a fake pretext for Nato aggression.
I've never seen a Labour Party leader either park like an asshole or yell at me for parking in a completely legal way he did not like. So, at least there's that.
There must be hundreds of kilos down there.
I could probably do the Grand Banks basket thing.
But they're probably here for the sewerage.
Aged foreign autocrat urges Ukraine to give up https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/10/ukraine-war-briefing-pope-urges-ukraine-to-have-courage-of-white-flag-and-negotiate-end-to-war
Maybe that's why the heron-thing isn't eating them? It's just standing there.
Three carp-things just swam right past it.
The carp-things seem to be swimming in convoys.
The heron-thing is big. It has to eat sometime.
One of the biggest things that has changed since, what, 1991 and that western opinion won't hoist in is that Israel is rich, which it wasn't at the time of Madrid. US aid was 4.5% of GDP in 1991, it's now more like 0.5%, no wonder old man Bush could tell Shamir off like a naughty schoolboy.
Yes but... the Economist had a big piece today about the economic strain that Israel's under - Q4 last year saw the economy shrink 20% annualised (so I guess 5% quarter on quarter presumably) and Netanyahu's new budget does not look very sustainable.https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/03/05/can-israel-afford-to-wage-war
He's making very sure that the ultra-orthodox don't get touched by the war in any way - their benefits are safe and their children are exempt from conscription - and he's making up for it by cutting welfare on everyone else.
Well that's not clever. This war well handled might just bring the Ukrainian churches to Rome.
I see the first sailing order for the port thing has dropped; some sort of biggish landing craft belonging to the US Army. 12-knot ship, so there's quite a while to talk about the details until she rocks up.
121: Constantinople seems relaxed about autocephaly.
If Francis persists, I could see groupings trading a pope for a patriarch.
There is a new boy in my daughter's class who is Russian, and of course we've talked a lot with the kids about how we can think Russia's war is wrong without hating anyone from Russia (other than Putin, the Calabat helpfully interjects), but our careful building of tolerance etc has led Pebbles to observe sweetly, when the new kid is rambunctious, that "maybe in Russia children don't have to behave.". Folkways!
I have question that I thought was too dumb for this thread, but now I know it isn't. There are shoes that look like Crocs and regular running shoes had a baby. What are they?
I think I figured it out. They are Kanye's shoes. Or look like them.
Now I'm wondering if the guy buying pizza ahead of me was antisemitic.
He just said the name for the order and the like. I just figure who else buys Kanye's shoes?
For sale: Kanye's shoes, never worn.
They were worn. By the guy getting pizza.
People can like Kanye and buy his shoes without being antisemitic. Kanye himself is of course super-antisemitic these days but I don't think that necessarily reflects onto his fans.
The bad faith backlash against Jonathan Glazer's Oscar acceptance speech for Zone of Interest is certainly something to behold.
My thought is not questions of cephaly but of symbolic westernness.
136: I'll let this trigger another angry old man min-rant about the bellends in our political media.
So far during the whole House Rs are super concerned about anti-Semitism charade, I've seen no one ask them or write about how the House Judiciary had tweeted "Kanye, Elon, Trump" and left it up through "defcon 3 on the jews, " the Fuentes, Kanye, Trump dinner. They did take finally it down when Kanye went all the way in during an Alex Jones interview.
Well OK, I guess they don't need to bring up that specific thing, but holy shit, maybe have a bit of credulousness about the sincerity of Elise Stefanik's (or House Rs in general) concern about the issue of anti-Semitism.
133: I think I've told this story but I was on a conference panel with Foot Locker's AI guy in December 2022, just after Ye went full calipers, and they were watching sales of Yeezys crash in close to real time. Adidas ended up sitting on $700m of inventory.
Ironic that it was the less Nazi of the two most famous German trainer companies that made the deal with Kanye.
140: But there's no need to bow to Rome to get westernness. Except for Russia and Belarus, pretty much all of your Eastern Orthodox churches are at home in countries that are EU members -- Greece, Cyprus, Romania, Bulgaria -- or would-be members in varying degrees -- Montenegro, North Macedonia, Georgia, Moldova, Serbia.
All roads may lead to Rome, but all regulations issue from Brussels. Berlaymont is no St. Peter's, but maybe give it a few centuries before drawing conclusions.
Not needed, no, but but it could be a useful extra.
Those other countries aren't in existential wars with the self-proclaimed Third Rome. Though their distribution hints at another possibility, the throwing out of Moscow by the Orthodox. Which would be a thing to see.
Notebook on Cities and Clothes?