@WuMargaret@Adam_Cadmon1@mcnado Ah, the endless "lesser of two evils" argument when you've got one of the evils actively supporting a genocide. Sorry, that argument about "less bad" loses all meaning with me when you have someone committing the most absolute evil mankind has conceived. You might not like "Genocide Joe," but it is completely on point and accurate. Biden is someone for whom committing atrocity is not a consideration in his calculus of action.
@QasimRashid Biden also ordered the Pentagon to share its intelligence on possible Russian war crimes with the ICC. The Pentagon normally objects to sharing intelligence with 3rd parties, but Biden publicly overruled them. It is almost like Biden thinks the ICC is a legitimate institution for the prosecution of war crimes.
He just doesn't like it when the "Rules based order" he so claims to cherish comes down in favor of something contrary to his administration's desires.
@QasimRashid He wants an international rules based order where the US is the only one setting the rules. That isn't a rules based order where all parties are equal before it, it is the appearance of law, but with unequal application. It is a tool of US hegemony or nothing.
You see the same thing at the UN, with the major security council players repeatedly vetoing widely desired attempts to establish some sort of international law with actual teeth.
@DrALJONES According to UNRWA, April averaged 183 trucks a day via land. May has averaged just 70 and almost all of that was before Israel seized the borders and halted almost all truck passage. Only 70 total trucks have been allowed through since then.
Basically, unless the pier averages 183 trucks a day, then it isn't even replacing what came through before. The US has also halted all airdrop efforts, which averaged less than 20 tons a day since March 02.
@DrALJONES There were simpler ways to bring aid in by water and WCK had their jetty operation more than two months ago. The new trident pier is right next to the jetty. The US could have used NGOs to ship in US aid from Cyprus at any point.
@dansup I really like this idea. I've been a longtime Flickr user and have invested a lot of time pushing my photos to there, but it hasn't kept up with the times and has gone through a whole series of corporate acquisitions and pricing changes such that I no long upload photos there. It's a dead archive for me.
I love the idea of small "sovereign" hosting where I'm not going to get jerked around by the whims of the corporate world.
It sounds like a lot of Icelandic people are deciding to personally boycott watching the fest and have gone to set up a televised Palestine solidarity concert with former Icelandic Eurovision participants, which will be broadcast right after Tuesday's qualifier in which Iceland's Eurovision entry is participating. We've got a sort of dueling banjo situation developing. Stay tuned!
Iceland's coverage has been interesting as a poll showed that the majority of the country wanted Iceland to boycott the competition because of Israel's inclusion. Ultimately, the broadcaster elected to go on. There were also some controversial voting hijinx in Iceland's selection process, with the final selected performer being one who wanted to perform regardless. Some of the other candidates telegraphed if they were selected as Iceland's entry that they'd personally boycott.
So, the Eurovision song contest kicked off today with opening ceremonies. This year's contest is particularly controversial due to the inclusion of Israel (notably not a European nation) and their attempts to submit a song which appeared to reference the October Hamas attacks. Political songs are not allowed in Eurovision.
I've been mostly watching news on the contest through following Icelandic papers as part of my fascination with the ongoing eruption there.
Rafah has twice the population density of the Warsaw Ghetto at its peak during WWII and Israel is telling people to evacuate or its not their fault if they die. Actually it is, Rafah is right up against the Egyptian border and there's nowhere left in Gaza that hasn't been substantially bombed by Israel.
55% of the buildings in the whole of Gaza are damaged or destroyed.
@br00t4c But I'm sure they've all been perfect angels since...
The notion that Israel is doing something other than committing wide scale war crimes in this conflict is a bad joke. This is right up there and pretending the emperor isn't naked and that his clothes are very fine indeed.
The degree of reality distortion that the US WH and State Department are having to apply to not acknowledge this plain reality and so admit that they're shipping arms to Israel in violation of US law is massive.
@hannu_ikonen Even if a 72c 15s hold type pasteurization inactivates the virus in milk 100% of the time, we've got a bunch of states which allow sales of raw milk to individuals and others which allow individuals to consume raw milk through fractional cow ownership (this is a real thing, you can buy a share in a cow and get a share of its milk and it doesn't count as "selling" raw milk).
Covid was the dress rehearsal and we failed it, miserably. I don't know what will come of H5N1, but everything we know is very concerning and we aren't seeing enough "urgency of now" from governmental sources in averting/mitigating what could be a very high consequence epidemic if it gets into humans and gains transmission fitness there.
Pasteurization likely inactivates the virus, but people also do stupid stuff like drink unpasteurized milk, and we've also got a ton of human beings working closely with these ~10 million animals. Seems very likely to me at this point that this virus jumps to humans. We should be doing everything possible to mass manufacture vaccine, not for avian/poultry use, but for the human population.
A veterinary epidemiologist named Andrew Bowman at Ohio State was impatient with the FDA and lack of data on the H5N1 outbreak, so he took a road trip and bought milk in 10 states. 58 of the 150 commercial milk products contained enough traces of viral RNA to light up a PCR test, which suggests the H5N1 outbreak is far more widespread than the US government is letting on.
@blogdiva There seems to be a very clear media communication strategy they're using in calling them "Pro-Palestine" and bringing up antisemitism as much as they possibly can. Not only have they already lost a lot of the youth vote for their support of genocide, but they stand to lose a lot more if they continue with this routine and crack down on non-violent student protestors occupying their own university space.
@thomasfuchs I wonder what sort of bullet / unarmed student ratio they're achieving? 50 to 1? Are they like the storm-troopers in Star Wars, fantastically bad at aiming?
Interests:-Castles and British history-Vintage computing-Gadgets-Photography -Horror films -Snorkeling I'm a Covid cautious person doing my best to avoid plague carriers. Splitting my plague era between Maui and the PNW.I've been a one man tech support guru for ages. I mostly do managed solutions / sysadmin type stuff for small businesses and remote tech support for end users, chiefly in the greater Seattle area. I like being exposed to a wide range of technical challenges.