#this just is manifestly not the case

[unimportant-ramblings]

I'm so sorry guys I know that everyone knows this here but the rhetoric of "alw is closing Phantom Broadway for Bad Cinderella" will in fact kill me

[neil-gaiman]

These are impressive, by author Steve Erickson. A small sample, but please go and read the whole:

WE DO NOT HAVE THE LUXURY OF CONFUSING AN IMPERFECT CHOICE FOR AN UNCLEAR ONE Any dispassionate observer can reasonably conclude Biden should drop out of the campaign. It’s not ageist to suggest that though he’s not too old for the job at the moment, he will be sometime in the next four years, and from a political standpoint his age now so permeates the collective perception of him that nobody can see him straight; his poll numbers are almost perversely at odds with everything about his job performance. But presently every indication is that Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee, and sometime soon it will be time for the rest of us to just shut up about it. Whatever one thinks of his age or Israel policy or Afghanistan withdrawal or anything else, he’s still the only one of the two prospective nominees who will defend your right to call him unfit for the job. Now and then a choice can be at once profoundly imperfect and manifestly clear anyway. WE DO NOT HAVE THE LUXURY OF DEUS EX MACHINA While wishing Trump to be accountable before the law, we must accept that any trial or decision by a higher court is unlikely to spare the country what it karmically doesn’t deserve to be spared: a national political referendum on who we are as a people. Otherwise Trump will evermore in the eyes of history — not to mention his supporters, who will find a way to believe it in any case — be martyr to a systemic technicality. Trump needs to be rejected electorally by every single patriot who can drag her- or himself to the polls to do so. Which brings us to the final resolution....

[zvaigzdelasas]

[The Economist is Private UK Media]

Making someone do porridge (or “eat rice and beans”, to use the Korean expression) for expressing their political views is [...] not generally associated with [South Korea]. Yet Lee Yoon-seop, a South Korean poet, is currently languishing in prison for just this. The 68-year-old was sentenced to 14 months in November for threatening South Korea’s “existence and security”. His crime? Writing a poem in praise of the North.

The law used to prosecute Mr Lee, the National Security Act (nsa), is designed to protect South Korea from spies and traitors. But it also bans South Koreans from visiting or making contact with the North, reading or watching North Korean media or saying anything good about Kim Jong Un’s [...] regime. Though South Korea replaced its former military dictatorship with a democracy in 1987, such restrictions on free speech show that some of the generals’ autocratic tendencies endure.[...]

The NSA was modelled on a law designed to quash pro-independence activities during Japan’s occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945. Since 2003 there have on average been more than 60 NSA prosecutions a year, often for pretty clear espionage cases. A businessman and an army officer were arrested for allegedly selling military secrets to North Korea. Soldiers in the South have been prosecuted under the act for endangering morale by distributing pro-North propaganda.

But the NSA is too often used to prosecute satirists and raid the homes and offices of leftists. Some cases have been ridiculous. Kim Myeong-soo, a PhD student, received six months in prison and a two-year suspended sentence for selling books on North Korea that were widely available in public libraries. A South Korean woman was given a two-year sentence, suspended for four years, for owning recordings of 14 North Korean songs.

This is not Mr Lee’s first offence. But the claim that the sexagenarian posed a threat to South Korea is absurd. His ode was published on a North Korean website. Access to such sites is banned by the NSA and forbidden from a South Korean IP address. [...] It consists of a list of South Korean problems that Mr Kim, in the poet’s view, would instantly solve given the chance.

Mr Lee’s real offence appears to have been believing his own nonsense. By contrast, police decided not to investigate a man under the draconian law for selling shirts with a smiling Mr Kim and the slogan “Walk a flowery path, comrade”. That was OK, officials said, because he was selling them to make a buck.

Worse, the issue points to a broader authoritarian tendency in the South. Its president, Yoon Suk-yeol, often demonises his political opponents by calling them “anti-state forces��, a phrase lifted directly from the NSA. Unfavourable press coverage is routinely labelled “fake news” and the offices of offending outlets have been raided. The administration and its allies have sued more press outfits for defamation—which in South Korea can be a crime even when the offending words are manifestly true—in Mr Yoon’s first 18 months in office than any of its three predecessors did in total.

Yet even a more liberal government would be unlikely to remove the NSA’s illiberal clauses. No administration has made a serious attempt to address it in 20 years. There is no significant political support for scrapping the law [...]. The current administration at least flirted with allowing South Koreans access to North Korean media, but recently abandoned the idea. [...]

Mr Yoon talks often about South Korea’s democratic values. They are at the heart of his pitch for the country to be a strategic link between East and West, developed and developing countries. For that reason alone he should take them more seriously. South Korea is undoubtedly a democracy, but not a terribly liberal one so long as it locks up old men for their dotty opinions. Reforming the NSA would be a better rebuttal to the sentiment Mr Lee expressed than banning it.

22 Jan 24

[whetstonefires]

oh hang on so Oliver Twist as a book is largely about child labor, right.

like the commonality between the workhouse, the abusive apprenticeship, and the pickpocket gang is that Oliver is being exploited. for his labor. and Fagin's gang while crossing the line into illegality and therefore in some ways the most dangerous is also the most pleasant of the three.

and ofc which i have underconsidered until now, child labor was fully legal at the time and a major political issue--the 1833 Factory Act had only just recently outlawed employing under-nines on the factory floor, or working 9-13 year olds more than 9 hours a day, and 13-18 year olds more than 12.

it was a struggle to enforce and it was controversial.

so. Fagin's gang replicates that factory owner-child laborer relationship on a tiny, illicit scale, where the kids are taking all the risks and doing all the work and he's getting most of the profit, and it's not fair, but oh he's giving them food and a place to sleep and wouldn't they be worse off without him? (they would is the thing. but does that make it okay?)

with the goal of this being that next time Dickens' milquetoast middle-class readers encountered an argument for the benevolence of a guy employing child labor to maximize his profits they might go, hey! that's not true, he's just like that crook Fagin!

but of course this kind of political messaging works best when it can't be too readily clocked as such--if Fagin was obviously a stand-in for a respectable capitalist, a lot more of the readers would be comfortable excusing him.

which is why he's Jewish, and why the text belabors that point so obsessively--antisemitism is being used as a lever to discourage the public from identifying with Child Labor Exploiting Guy and to characterize his desire to accumulate wealth at the expense of others as greedy, selfish, and illegitimate.

i could never quite figure what the point of using that stock character in that context and so emphatically was. especially after learning that, having had it extensively explained that it was harmful to actual Jewish people to go so hard on this in such a popular novel, Dickens was like 'oh my bad' and walked it back a bit.

because in that case the antisemitism obviously wasn't an end in itself? but if it was incidental flavor, why so much?

but as a screen for his political agenda, it makes sense. using judaism to code an antagonist's profit motive as illegitimate had a long literary history already, but in this case Fagin was already manifestly a criminal so it was like. why.

anyway this isn't about justifying charles dickens' artistic choices that even he somewhat regretted. it's a bit about how easy it can be to fail to put together context even when you have all the pieces, especially at a remove from our own lived experience.

and a bit more about how the tools we use for political ends should be carefully inspected. no matter how ordinary and unremarkable they seem when we pick them up. because we might be missing different historical context due to being embedded in it.

[celticcrossanon]

Hello Celta,

You and Mad World Tarot are the only two tarot readers that describe and pick up on Haz brattish energy. She did a reading on January 24th, that looked at the political fallout from the Jamaica pop up visit. Right away she picked up Haz energy, RX KOW, the ruckus fire starter. It was the last stand, the BRF and Haz, 9 of Wands. Granny PROMISED me I’ll be King of the Commonwealth. As an aside, is this why Charles asked his mom specifically if she can declare him head of the commonwealth?

Anyway in answer to the question, Will Haz face any consequences, he emerges as the Prince of Wands, facing away from the situation and leaving the tarot spread. So he faces some loss, and is reduced in rank since he enters as the RX King of Wands and leaves as the Prince of Wands.

I think the Foreign Office and the British government are spitting bullets, particularly Rishi Sunak. They cannot be happy with this. When William was sounding the alarm during and after the Caribbean tour, the other BRF family members were mocking of him. Now they know the malicious Sussex squad is a reality, and were behind those attacks. I honestly hope the government does take action, even if Charles doesn’t. And what a time to do this, when the king and the POW are out of commission on medical leave.

Hi Anonymous Retired,

I think that Jamacia stunt has quite a few political implications. I hope the government does take some sort of action on it. As to what they do, I will leave that up to them.

I think the timing was deliberate. I think it was a clumsy PR attempt to show how loved the Harkles are by the Commonwealth Realms and therefore they should immediately be back in the BRF, especially in the current time of need. Too 'pushy' for me, and manifestly untrue, as if the Harkles were that loved and that important they wouldn't be in the 6th row in the movie theatre. The photo with the Prime Minister is another case of PR spin, I think, although it has been somewhat effective imo.

The Head of the Commonwealth of Nations is a symbolic position that is voted on by all the Commonwealth Nations. It is not something like a patronage that King Charles can hand over to Harry.

"Head of the Commonwealth

His Majesty King Charles III is Head of the Commonwealth.

The role:

is an important symbolic one

has no maximum fixed term

is not hereditary, and future Heads will be chosen by Commonwealth leaders."

from https://thecommonwealth.org/about-us

As for 'King of the Commonwealth', no such position exists or will ever exist. The King of the UK is the Head of State of the Commonwealth Realms, but that position goes with being the monarch of the UK. It is not something that The King can peel off and give to whoever he likes. That is like saying that The King could make Harry the Defender of the Faith or any other position that is tied to being the monarch of the UK.

If the other members of the BRF are just now waking up to the Harkle malice and their use of their extreme fans to manipulate the media, then all I can say is that it has taken them a while. I was appalled by the lack of support from the BRF for Prince William and Princess Catherine during their Caribbean Tour, and I hope it comes back to bite them hard in the future.

[meimi-haneoka]

heya cinzia! hope you're having a lovely day. i'm sorry i'm always bothering you with questions 😅 but do you know if there are any forums or communities for ccs fans other than tumblr? i've been a fan for so long but always too intimidated to make ccs friends ;;

Hiiii Doublechocolate!!

I'm quite fine, I'm recovering from a nasty cold! 😅I hope you're having a lovely day too!

You're not bothering me at all 😁 Truth to be told, I probably am not the best person to answer to this question because I've quitted several CCS communities long time ago. They were all becoming full of bullshit, so to speak, and you perfectly know what I'm talking about. I became tired to waste my words and effort in places where there are so many people, each one with their biased ideas and prejudices and in many cases completely unwilling to spare a bit more effort to understand a story, so quick to label it as "boring" or "not making sense".

The only community I still am present in (but I rarely write in anymore) is the Tomoeda server on Discord: the admin is a dear friend and she and her collaborators are managing the community in a healthy way, so I still feel comfortable being there. I've been able to talk about Kaito and Akiho (up to a certain extent....) without any problem and for me this became basically a decisive factor in choosing any place/community where I can talk about CCS with other people. Truth to be told, the community is a bit "dead" now that the manga is over and there isn't a monthly chapter keeping things exciting every month, but we're all expecting the 2nd season of the anime to hopefully revive things. The link to join is here: https://discord.gg/CFgHGFS .

Nowadays I prefer staying on my personal accounts on Twitter/Tumblr/Bluesky. If people are interested in what I say and find some worth in my posts, they will come to me and start an interaction on their own. I'm frankly at this point very very very wary about seeking interaction first, in this fandom. It happens only with people I can see are manifestly Kaito/Akiho fans. I can't even trust my fellow SyaoSaku shippers anymore, because despite the characters, that's not a guarantee that they'll be accepting of my own views and favorite parts of the story at all. I've learned the hard way that just because someone loves a series or their characters doesn't give a shred of guarantee that person will be sharing the series' same wholesome views and messages.

[nicnacsnonsense]

At the end of “Selfless” Anya says that her whole life she’s just clung to the first thing that came along, but that’s just… manifestly not true?

You could make the case that’s what happened the first time she became a vengeance demon, that she had just broken up with her boyfriend (by turning him into a troll) and immediately hopped on the vengeance demon gig when it was offered and turned it into her whole personality. But that’s not what happened with her relationship with Xander. He wasn’t just an opportunity that came along, she picked him to go to prom with because she found him the most appealing of the guys in the school. And rather than clinging to him, she left town for a while when she heard about the mayor, and then came back later to try to pursue a relationship again. And then while she was still in the relationship with Xander she started working at the Magic Box and ended up making that just as large a part of her identity as her relationship with Xander, so which one are we claiming she was clinging to? And even when she became a vengeance demon a second time I wouldn’t call that clinging to the first thing that came along, that was her regressing to old habits looking for comfort while she was heartbroken. And she definitely didn’t cling to it.

It makes sense to me that she might be having an identity crisis in that moment, and it makes sense that she wouldn’t want Xander specifically to be the one to comfort her right now given where their relationship is currently at, but the rest of it just isn’t true.

[jessicalprice]

Gus

So to understand Gus’s role in my household, you have to understand my other cats. 

This is Lucy:

She was a tiny little shelter kitty when I adopted her, and it very quickly became apparent (this was in the before times, when I went to an office every day) that she could not be an only cat, because she was deeply sad and anxious being left home alone all day.

So I adopted a kitty she had been fostered with, who’d been kind of the big sister to the other foster kitties. Molly was very maternal, and helped my small orange fluffhead with navigating life.

Molly died from cancer when Lucy was 9. 

Lucy was pretty distraught. She stopped eating and spent her time wandering the apartment, searching and calling for Molly.

So I decided she needed a little brother (I wasn’t going to try to replace her big sister). A big, sweet, silly teddy bear of a little brother who’d keep her busy. Up until that point, I’d assumed all my kitties for the rest of my life would be shelter cats, but in this case I needed a pretty specific temperament, so I went to a Maine Coon breeder who focused primarily on temperament rather than size or coat patterns. 

And that was how I got Max. 

Lucy was very “thanks, I hate it,” at first, but she was annoyed, and annoyed is better than grieving yourself to death. And she comforted him when he would get scared the same way Molly had comforted her, and heaved a lot of big resigned sighs, and let him cuddle with her as long as he bathed first. 

So just as we were going into pandemic lockdown, I moved in with a dear friend, into her tiny rental house with a beautiful fenced in backyard and her two dogs and her cat. 

Lucy pretended to hate it (although she adored my friend), but Max was the happiest he had ever been, and probably the happiest he will ever be. He had a giant dog bro-friend, and my friend’s kitty was the cool older girl he had a little-boy crush on, and her elderly chihuahua was the matriarch of the household whose approval he desperately wanted but whose food he felt compelled to steal. He had a safe little Eden to explore with his friends. And he had two moms!

It was a pretty great year and a half for both of us, but I think I can safely say that it was absolute bliss for Max. 

And then I bought a house and we moved out. 

And Max spent several weeks in my closet, with his face to the wall, all day. He’d come down at night and eat, but he was obviously, manifestly depressed and grieving the loss of all his friends.

And then my housemates moved in, with their 18-month old boy kitty, and Max came out of his closet and was pretty happy again. They weren’t intending to stay long, though.

I knew Lucy and I weren’t enough for him. His ideal world is probably a commune with like at least 5 or 6 other people and 20 dogs and a whole bunch of cats (he LOVED fostering kittens when we were living with my friend) and probably some chickens and goats and maybe a pony. He has a lot of love in him and it’s more than Lucy, who’s a senior kitty, and I can satisfy.

When he’s lonely, he starts bothering Lucy a lot to play with him or cuddle him when she wants to sleep.

So I adopted Gus, Max’s cousin, who was about 18 months younger than Max. 

The thing I didn’t know when I arranged to adopt him was that during the pandemic, the breeder sold a lot fewer cats than usual, so she ended up with a house full of Maine Coons. She admitted to me that she didn’t have time to pay as much attention to the older kittens because she was focusing on the younger ones.

Gus’s siblings had all been adopted, so he was the only one left from his litter.

And it became apparent that he had been DESPERATE to be adopted, or at least to have SOMEONE pay attention to him.

Picture the little boy at the orphanage carefully making sure he is perfectly dressed every day and talking to himself in the mirror all gosh darnit, you are smart and you are handsome and you are HIGHLY ADOPTABLE and today is going to be the day. 

He had the most profound Polite Little Chap energy you’ve ever seen.

He was perfectly behaved for the entire five-hour drive back from the breeder’s, and then I put him in the guest room and gave him an hour to get used to the room and decompress, then went in there. 

Video here.

He was not sure if this was for real, or forever, but he was determined to make a good impression and not put a foot wrong and prove he was HIGHLY ADOPTABLE gosh darnit. 

Is this string for me? Do you want to play? Let me show you how good I am at playing! I can play very dramatically but will never, ever claw you! May I touch you? May I rest my head on your knee? Is this okay? May I headbutt you? 

He was so desperate to prove he was a Good Boy and I kept trying to communicate to him that he didn’t have to prove anything, I had already adopted him. 

If I looked at him, like at all, he would start treading the floor and purring.

I had planned to give him 3-5 days of adjustment time in the guest room, and in the house when Lucy and Max were locked up, before introducing him to Max, but Max was being all MAX WILL LITERALLY DIE IF HE DOESN’T GET TO MEET THE BABY and Gus was purring and headbutting the door, so I let them meet on Day 2. 

There were maybe 20 seconds of hissing and then they were best friends.

Growing up with like 30 other Maine Coons had given Gus pretty exquisite cat social skills, so he won cranky, suspicious Lucy over with shocking quickness.

He decided his goal in life was to be everyone and everything’s support animal, including machines like the dishwasher. Sometimes it makes a squeaking noise when it changes cycles and he always goes running over and puts a paw on it and makes encouraging chirps, like you’ve got this, friend, you can do it!

Anyway, the moral of this story is that every other cat I have acquired has, in some way, been for the benefit of Lucy and I hope she appreciates that. 

[hedonistbyheart]

I have a lot of feelings about the contrast in Hobie’s expressions here:

He looks manifestly worried once Miles has gone on ahead. 

There’s definitely a level of just keeping an eye on Miguel in the way Hobie stays in the back while Gwen and Miles talk to Miguel as well, he’s demonstrative enough that Miguel gets annoyed too, even though he says nothing and is greyed out the whole time. He’s expecting things to blow up and he’s watching in case they need him. Miles does, as it turns out. 

[schraubd]

Bruen's Goose Continues To Not Apply to the Gander

The thing about the Fifth Circuit's recent ruling that the Second Amendment gives men under domestic abuse restraining orders an inalienable right to bear arms is that it is (a) insane and (b) absolutely defensible under the Supreme Court's Bruen decision. This is because the Bruen decision will regularly and predictably lead to insane results.

That said, I did want to flag something in the opinion that I've picked up on before -- namely, the inconsistent commitment to Bruen's supposed prohibition on weighing or considering "social policy" considerations. Judge Wilson, writing for the panel, expressly cites to this portion of Bruen, saying that while the prohibition on gun possession by domestic abusers "embodies salutary policy goals meant to protect vulnerable people in our society ... Bruen forecloses any such analysis in favor of a historical analogical inquiry into the scope of the allowable burden on the Second Amendment right." This principle is, perhaps above all else, the crux of Bruen's standard -- no matter how ridiculous, or absurd, or unfair, or chaotic the policy outcomes are, courts are not permitted to "weigh" them against the historical limitations that bounded the Second Amendment. The latter begins and ends the conversation.

Again, that principle is absurd. But it's Bruen's principle, and the Fifth Circuit gleefully cites it to explain why the prospect of terrified and murdered women can play no role in its legal analysis. But what happens if the historical arguments seem to counsel permitting more sweeping gun regulations than conservative jurists might like? All of the sudden, those social policy considerations come roaring back into view.

Addressing the historical precedents which did clearly envision government's authority to disarm "dangerous" persons, Judge Wilson explains that such exceptions must be narrowly construed so as not to apply to the case of domestic abusers. Why? Because, he asserts,

the Government’s proffered interpretation lacks any true limiting principle. Under the Government’s reading, Congress could remove “unordinary” or “irresponsible” or “nonlaw abiding” people—however expediently defined—from the scope of the Second Amendment. Could speeders be stripped of their right to keep and bear arms? Political nonconformists? People who do not recycle or drive an electric vehicle?

I take no position on whether the government's interpretation is so expansive. But note that this line of argument is expressly an analysis of the proper policy sweep of government regulation. We should tailor our interpretation of the Second Amendment's scope so as to avoid a policy outcome whereby too few people are guaranteed the right to keep and bear arms; to avoid an outcome where the government is permitted to disarm people who these judges think it would be manifestly unfair to have their gun rights taken away.

This is exactly the sort of policy analysis Bruen purports to forbid, only here the "policy" concerns are ones counseling in favor of greater freedom to bear arms rather than reduced freedom to bear arms. Perhaps it seems absurd to permit the government to take away arms from people just for getting a speeding ticket. But so what?  Bruen was emphatic that this sort of social policy assessment has no role in Second Amendment adjudication. If the historical analogues give the state that sort of latitude, then that is supposed to end the conversation. Again, it is baked in the Bruen cake that it will lead to results that may appear to modern eyes ridiculous, because Bruen expressly instructs courts that they aren't allowed to care about those consequences no matter how absurd they might seem to be.

But as the Fifth Circuit's ruling makes clear, the Bruen prohibition on weighing policy consequences is, unsurprisingly, a one-way ratchet. Conservative courts will portentously declare that Bruen forbids them from considering the disastrous consequences of countless terrified or murdered women if it means taking away domestic abusers' guns -- but if history and tradition start to point towards enabling gun restrictions that the right finds too onerous, then all of the sudden we get a screeching parade of contemporary policy horribles that are treated as legally dispositive. This is what generates such well-deserved cynicism about the state of the judiciary today -- it's not just that the legal rules the governing class of jurists announce are absurd, it's that these jurists do not even pretend to be bound by them the second they prove inconvenient to their underlying politics.

The other thing to note about this case is that, if the Supreme Court reverses it -- and they might -- their reasoning will almost certainly purport to be based on some alternate assessment and reading of the historical sources. But this will be a naked smokescreen, and everyone will know it. If the Court reverses the Fifth Circuit here, it will be entirely and solely because the Court finds it too unreasonable and intolerable to permit domestic abusers free reign to carry arms -- a contemporary policy judgment anyway you look at it, no matter how much effort is or isn't expended to cloak it in some faux-historical garb. None of these judges abide by the rules they purport to lay out.

via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/2icluJG

[nicklloydnow]

“In any serious strategic calculus, the “Samson Option” refers not just to a last-resort spasm of pure national vengeance, but to a purposeful set of specific operational threats. When examined together with Israel’s still intentionally ambiguous nuclear strategy (a doctrine most commonly referred to as Israel’s “bomb in the basement”), it becomes evident that these carefully fashioned threat postures are designed to enhance Israeli nuclear deterrence. Indeed, any such enhancement would represent this unique doctrine’s most obvious raison d’être. But are there further steps that would enhance the Samson Option’s effectiveness in this context?

There is more. Because strategic crises in other parts of the world could sometime “spill over” into the ever-unpredictable Middle East, dedicated strategic planners in Tel Aviv should already begin their preparations to “think Samson.” This is especially the case wherever the possible “spill” could concern the threat or actual use of nuclear weapons.

(…)

Among other things, this means meticulously conceptualizing—or perhaps re-conceptualizing—the prospective role of any calculated Samson Option.

Whatever this option’s more precisely nuanced goals, its key objective must always remain exactly the same. That objective is to help keep Israel “alive.” In this duly considered objective, Israeli policy must very conspicuously deviate from the otherwise useful biblical metaphor—Samson, after all, lost his own life when he tore down the temple on his Philistine captors—drawn illustratively here from the book of Judges.

Ultimately, in relevant military nuclear matters, “Samson” must be about how to best manage certain urgent processes of strategic dissuasion. Here, the primary point of Israel’s nuclear forces must always be deterrence ex ante, not revenge ex post. For now, at least, Israel’s presumed nuclear strategy, while not yet articulated in any precise or publicly ascertainable fashion, is likely oriented toward nuclear war avoidance, not nuclear war fighting. From all potentially concerning standpoints, including even the well-being of Israel’s pertinent national adversaries, this is the indisputably correct orientation.

At its conceptual analytic core, the Samson Option references a deterrence doctrine based upon certain implicit threats of overwhelming nuclear retaliation or counter-retaliation—responses for more-or-less expected enemy aggressions. Any such doctrine could reasonably enter into force only where the responsible aggressions had first credibly threatened Israel’s physical existence. In other words, considered as a potentially optimal element of dissuasion, it would do Israel little good to proffer “Samson-based threats” in response to “ordinary” or manifestly less than massive forms of anticipated enemy aggression.

(…)

The bottom-line reasoning here is as follows: Exercising a Samson Option is not likely to deter any aggressions short of nuclear and/or massively large-scale conventional or biological first strikes.

All things considered, Samson’s overriding rationale must be to bring the following clear message to all identifiably potential attackers: “Israel may sometime have to accept mega-destructive attacks, but it surely won’t allow itself to ‘die with the Philistines’ or become the combatant country to suffer more dire consequences.” By emphasizing some overtly symmetrical exposure prospects to existential harms—”Israel won’t die alone”—the Samson Option could continuously serve Israel as a distinctly meaningful adjunct to nuclear deterrence and also to certain more-or-less corollary preemption options.

Significantly, the Samson Option could never protect Israel as a fully comprehensive nuclear strategy unto itself. This option must also never be confused with Israel’s more generalized, or “broad spectrum,” nuclear strategy, one which must always seek to maximize national deterrence at recognizably less apocalyptic levels of possible military engagement.

(…)

Concerning long-term Israeli nuclear deterrence, recognizable preparations for a Samson Option could help to best convince certain designated enemy states that massive aggressions against Israel would never be gainful. This stance could prove especially compelling if Israeli “Samson” weapons were (1) coupled with some level of nuclear disclosure (thereby effectively ending Israel’s longstanding posture of nuclear ambiguity); (2) to appear sufficiently invulnerable to enemy first strikes; and (3) plainly counter-city/counter-value in their declared mission function. Furthermore, in view of what nuclear strategists sometimes refer to as the “rationality of pretended irrationality,” Samson could more generally enhance Israeli nuclear deterrence by demonstrating an apparently tangible Israeli willingness to take various existential risks.

To a manifestly variable and possibly even bewildering extent, the nuclear deterrence benefits of “pretended irrationality” could sometime depend upon a prior enemy state awareness of Israel’s counter-city or counter-value targeting posture. Worth noting here is that such a posture had been expressly recommended more than fifteen years ago by the private “Project Daniel Group,” in its then confidential report to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. At present, it would appear plausible that this posture is also actual policy.

(…)

In those cases concerning Samson and Israeli nuclear deterrence, any recognizable last-resort nuclear preparations could enhance Israel’s preemption options by underscoring a singularly bold national willingness to take presumptively existential risks.

(…)

If left to themselves, neither deterred nor preempted, certain enemies of Israel (especially after any nuclear strike or exchange elsewhere on the planet) could convincingly threaten to bring the Jewish state face-to-face with the familiar torments of Dante’s Inferno, “Into the eternal darkness, into fire, into ice.” Such a portentous scenario has been made even more probable by the latest geostrategic strengthening of Iran in certain parts of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen. This strengthening is taking place despite the US president’s withdrawal from the July 2015 JCPOA, or perhaps even because of this unilateral American abrogation.

At some point, various ominous intersections between a US-North Korean war and an expanding Iran-Hezbollah offensive could create wholly unprecedented perils for Israel. All such intersections, moreover, would be taking place within the broadly uncertain context of a second Cold War.

In extremis atomicum, these synergistic hazards could sometime become so unique and formidable that employing a Samson Option would seemingly represent the best available strategic option for Israel. In a more carefully structured world order, Israel would have no need to augment or even maintain its arsenal of deterrent threat options—especially the most perilous nuclear components—but this more ideal reconfiguration of world politics is still a long way off. Nonetheless, at some point, Israel, together with other future-oriented states, will somehow have to collaborate toward the incremental replacement of Realpolitik (power-politics) or “Westphalian” dynamics of international interaction, an intellectual collaboration that would largely be based upon a too long-delayed awareness that our earth is best conceptualized as an organic whole.”

“Iranian security officials helped plan Hamas’s Saturday surprise attack on Israel and gave the green light for the assault at a meeting in Beirut last Monday, according to senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah, another Iran-backed militant group.

Officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had worked with Hamas since August to devise the air, land and sea incursions—the most significant breach of Israel’s borders since the 1973 Yom Kippur War—those people said.

Details of the operation were refined during several meetings in Beirut attended by IRGC officers and representatives of four Iran-backed militant groups, including Hamas, which holds power in Gaza, and Hezbollah, a Shiite militant group and political faction in Lebanon, they said.

(…)

A direct Iranian role would take Tehran’s long-running conflict with Israel out of the shadows, raising the risk of broader conflict in the Middle East. Senior Israeli security officials have pledged to strike at Iran’s leadership if Tehran is found responsible for killing Israelis.

The IRGC’s broader plan is to create a multi-front threat that can strangle Israel from all sides—Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the north and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, according to the senior Hamas and Hezbollah members and an Iranian official.

At least 700 Israelis are confirmed dead, and Saturday’s assault has punctured the country’s aura of invincibility and left Israelis questioning how their vaunted security forces could let this happen.

(…)

Iran has been setting aside other regional conflicts, such as its open feud with Saudi Arabia in Yemen, to devote the IRGC’s foreign resources toward coordinating, financing and arming militias antagonistic to Israel, including Hamas and Hezbollah, the senior Hamas and Hezbollah members said.

(…)

The strike was intended to hit Israel while it appeared distracted by internal political divisions over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. It was also aimed at disrupting accelerating U.S.-brokered talks to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel that Iran saw as threatening, the senior Hamas and Hezbollah members said.

Building on peace deals with Egypt and Jordan, expanding Israeli ties with Gulf Arab states could create a chain of American allies linking three key choke points of global trade—the Suez Canal, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Bab Al Mandeb connecting the Red Sea to the Arabian Sea, said Hussein Ibish, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.

(…)

Iran has long backed Hamas but, as a Sunni Muslim group, it had been an outsider among Tehran’s Shia proxies until recent months, when cooperation among the groups accelerated.

Representatives of these groups have met with Quds Force leaders at least biweekly in Lebanon since August to discuss this weekend’s attack on Israel and what happens next, they said. Qaani has attended some of those meetings along with Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, Islamic Jihad leader al-Nakhalah, and Saleh al-Arouri, Hamas’s military chief, the militant-group members said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian attended at least two of the meetings, they said.

(…)

Egypt, which is trying to mediate in the conflict, has warned Israeli officials that a ground invasion into Gaza would trigger a military response from Hezbollah, opening up a second battlefront, people familiar with the matter said. Israel and Hezbollah exchanged fire briefly on Sunday.

(…)

The Iranian official said that if Iran were attacked, it would respond with missile strikes on Israel from Lebanon, Yemen and Iran, and send Iranian fighters into Israel from Syria to attack cities in the north and east of Israel.

Iran’s backing of a coordinated group of Arab militias is ominous for Israel. In previous conflicts, the Soviet Union was the ultimate patron of Israel’s Arab enemies and was always able to pressure them to reach some type of accommodation or recognize a red line, said Bernard Hudson, a former counterterrorism chief for the Central Intelligence Agency.

“The Soviets never considered Israel a permanent foe,” he said. “Iran’s leadership clearly does.””

“US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Sunday he has ordered the Ford carrier strike group to sail to the Eastern Mediterranean to be ready to assist Israel after the attack by the Hamas terror group that has left more than 700 dead. Americans were reported to be among those killed and missing.

The USS Gerald R. Ford, the Navy’s newest and most advanced aircraft carrier, and its approximately 5,000 sailors and deck of warplanes will be accompanied by cruisers and destroyers in a show of force that is meant to be ready to respond to anything, including possibly interdicting additional weapons from reaching Hamas and conducting surveillance.

The large deployment, which also includes a host of other ships and warplanes, underscores the concern that the United States has in trying to deter the conflict from growing. Israel’s government formally declared war Sunday and gave the green light for “significant military steps” to retaliate against Hamas, a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said US President Joe Biden and other Western leaders had backed Israeli freedom of action to retaliate.

(…)

Along with the Ford, the US is sending the cruiser USS Normandy, destroyers USS Thomas Hudner, USS Ramage, USS Carney, and USS Roosevelt and the US is augmenting Air Force F-35, F-15, F-16, and A-10 fighter aircraft squadrons in the region.

(…)

In addition, the Biden administration “will be rapidly providing the Israel Defense Forces with additional equipment and resources, including munitions. The first security assistance will begin moving today and arriving in the coming days,” Austin said.

Congressional support for aid to Israel is up in the air amid chaos in the House of Representatives after speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted last week.”

[lolottes]

Amity Park / Central City

Well, idea from a dream, it's a bit stupid but also a bit funny? at least the first part. I haven't really seen anything like it yet in the gonna share.

So we have a lot of history where Amity Park is native to the DC universe. But the circumstances' the fact that no ligeur ever comes, often because they are praying for prank alerts and are neglected by Flash or in rarer cases Green lanthern, other times, they arrive at some time after the events after the facts and the battle of the day has not made a trace and updates the computer to respond automatically to the distress call. It also doesn't help that we agree to place Amity Park in Illinois and... There's a (significant) DC character in Illinois??? I don't feel like it ^^' (if I'm wrong don't hesitate to tell me)

But what if ...

But what if Amity Park is small part of a DC city? Well given the title you would have understood, and if Amity Park was a piece of Central City.

I mean the potential joke that flash is always occupied by a more classic attack during or just ignores the more everyday cases like boxy, because let's be honest, who would take a description of boxy seriously, especially if you really don't believe to the ghost and that the first 2-3 times you arrive after the fact...

Now let's imagine about Impuse. He knows Dan's future, making him live connected to a virtual world was a way to protect him from it. Then the future / his present is modified. Nobody but people able to play with the timeline remembers. Which is very very few people. He travels into the past / our present and then hears one of the allerts. He's totally freaked out, especially since his flash mentor doesn't react to it at all. The first time he thinks it's just a coincidence... Come another alert. He goes there alone and finds Danny on a roof. Danny tired to the bone at the edge of a mental crack, alone in the night with a termos in his hand, several fresh wounds and even more old ones.

Danny's logo is very recognizable and when he straightens making it visible, Impulse makes the connection with Dan, Dan the fuching plague that razed the world after playing overshadowing the JL and their villain!

But he's also a teenager like him...alone...ignored by his own mentor, his grandfather...holding back tears in the middle of the night. Then once enough to calm down take off and go home. Impulse follows him, changes his path (this explains something in addition to confirming the age). Still stunned, Impulse sees him pull out a first aid kit and bandage himself. In the dark, without a sound, the gestures manifestly semi-automatic at this stage. Impulse leaves not being sure what to think about it yet.

And one thing is clear. He needs to talk about it or at least at least confront his mentor. Whatever prevented or delayed Dan, it could still happen. It would be be their fault. They would be have deserved it.

[collymore]

A power hungry, desperate to be King William! What next saddo; bumping off your daddy, assisted by Waity Katie?

By Stanley Collymore Oh the sweet irony of that, taking into consideration the rather untimely, and dubiously explained death of your mother Diana! However if you Bill: the very hypocritical twit that you effectively are crucially believe in the undoubted values of equality, equal opportunities and similarly non-discrimination, as you claim and say that you actually do and   genuinely believe in; you'd surely very obviously, and also without prompting from anyone, literally and distinctively realize that the top publicity funded post, in the UK– the monarchy - should and must be something which aptly all British children should really essentially be able to aspire to; but is undeniably, not the case! Nor will it ever be achieved until the glass ceiling of privilege which you’re an integral part of William is rather forcibly and clearly permanently smashed. Just for once, honestly ask yourself this William, who else gets an elevated position and a job for life in Britain other than those members of your rather useless, obscenely affluent through actually inheritance hand me down wealth while manifestly quite self-evidently so, never ever derived through actual hard graft. A consolidated family status quo situation, that’s then significantly reinforced on laughable fallacies that are themselves very lavishly enforced, on fairy-tale nonsense. Or the weird concept that your birth, for instance, Bill and all those prior and subsequent to yourself and were themselves or are in direct line to the monarchy; were, or are, basically and exclusively there by divine approbation which undeniably naturally also meant the appropriate biological father aptly officially, also and literally approvingly ejaculating his basically quite distinctly valued spunk into the particularized fanny of this similarly officially approved willingly Stepford wife broodmare. Even when she herself, in her own perceived right, as was irrefutably so with Liz Windsor was crucially the acknowledged heiress, to the British realm. Unquestionably so, to officially absolutely guarantee that all of these surely, fatuously and suitably laughably, firstborn shenanigans continuance, shall odiously carry on, with the likes distinctively of yourself William and specifically, your offspring! (C) Stanley V. Collymore 16 May 2023. Author's Remarks: William can fittingly assist in the evolution of the British monarchy by stepping down himself when his turn comes and similarly ensuring that George does the same. But he won’t; because this specific gravy train is far too precious to him and his sort to be discarded. My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that Charles should be the last British monarch, as William is nothing more than a self-centred, self-entitled and overtly privileged bully that additionally sees himself as a pinup boy for the right-wing and white supremacist element in Britain and its white kin still tenaciously holding on to those genocidally acquired overseas countries; yet asininely wanting an all-white Britain. As for poor George, he always looks like he’s a bundle of anxiety each time that his publicity parents put him on public display. It's quite obvious to anyone with a functunal brain in their head and who's adept at using it objectively that Waity Katie, alias Duchess Doolittle, is quite obsessed with becoming Queen of our British Realm; and how blissfully ironic it would be if like her predecessor Camilla she did a Diana on father-in-law Charlie!

[ukrfeminism]

3 minute read

The former Metropolitan Police officer who kidnapped, raped and murdered Sarah Everard will never be freed from prison after losing an appeal against his whole-life sentence.

Wayne Couzens’ bid to reduce his term was thrown out on Friday, as three of his former colleagues stood trial for sending “racist and misogynist” WhatsApp messages including comments about rape.

His lawyers had told the Court of Appeal that the rare whole-life order should be reduced to a regular life sentence with the prospect of release on licence.

Jim Sturman QC said Couzens, now 49, had shown remorse and “accepts his crimes are abhorrent”, adding: “It’s all too easy to imagine a worse case.”

But Tom Little QC, representing the prosecution, said a whole life order was “neither wrong in principle nor manifestly excessive”, and that the murder of Ms Everard was a “wholly exceptional case”.

He highlighted how Couzens had hunted the streets of London for a victim and lured Ms Everard into his car using his warrant card.

“This was offending of the utmost seriousness - a serving police officer using all of his knowhow, equipment and the like to act as the perpetrator,” Mr Little told the court. “His criminality was a fundamental attack on our way of life.”

In a judgment agreed by five judges, the Lord Chief Justice threw out the appeal and said Couzens had made “chilling and methodical attempts” to cover up his “cold-blooded and calculated” crimes.

Lord Burnett of Maldon added: “This was warped, selfish and brutal offending, which was both sexual and homicidal. 

“It was a case with unique and extreme aggravating features. Chief amongst these was the grotesque misuse by Couzens of his position as a police officer, with all that connoted, to facilitate Ms Everard’s kidnap, rape and murder.

“We agree with the observations of the [original sentencing] judge about the unique position of the police, the critical importance of their role and the critical trust that the public repose in them.”

He said the Court of Appeal was “in no doubt that its seriousness is so exceptionally high” that a whole life order should be imposed, calling it a “just result”.

Jailing Couzens in September last year, Lord Justice Fulford said Couzens had not pleaded guilty to murdering Ms Everard until there was no “no credible innocent explanation for the evidence gathered against him”, and that he had “sought to minimise his true responsibility”.

In an initial police interview, Couzens claimed a Balkan human trafficking gang had paid him to kidnap Ms Everard and he had handed her over alive. He dropped the absurd story but refused to give any other account of his actions and did not give evidence in court.

The appeal was decided by a special court of five judges, who also considered a bid to increase the sentences handed to the killers of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes.

The sentence given to Arthur’s stepmother Emma Tustin was not changed but the 21-year term given to his father Thomas Hughes was found to be “unduly lenient” and increased to 24 years.

The minimum 40-year term handed to Jordan Monaghan after he murdered two of his children and his new partner was also reviewed by the judges, who raised the minimum term of his life sentence to 48 years.

Double killer Stewart, who murdered his first wife six years before he went on to murder his fiancee, successfully appealed against his whole-life order.

He killed 51-year-old children’s author Helen Bailey in 2016 and was found guilty of her murder in 2017.

After this conviction, police investigated the 2010 death of Stewart’s wife, Diane Stewart, 47, and in February he was found guilty of her murder.

The Lord Chief Justice and the four other judges said Stewart was “not one of the rare cases” where a whole life order should be imposed, reducing his sentence to life with a 35-year minimum term.

[baeddel]

You ask me, Publius Silvinus, and I have no hesitation in informing you at once, why in the preceding book I immediately at the start rejected the long-standing opinion of almost all who have discoursed on the subject of agriculture, and repudiated as mistaken the views of those who hold that the soil, wearied and exhausted by age-long wasting away and by cultivation now extending over a long period of time, has become barren. And I am not unaware that you hold in reverence, not only the authority of other renowned writers, but particularly that of Tremelius, who, in handing down to posterity a very great number of agricultural precepts set forth with refinement as well as learning, being obviously misled through too great deference to the ancients who treat of a like subject, held the mistaken belief that the earth, the mother of all things, like womankind now worn out with old age, is incapable of bearing offspring. This fact I too should admit if no fruits whatever were being produced; for the old age of a human being also is pronounced barren, not when a woman no longer gives birth to triplets and twins, but only when she is able to conceive and bring forth no offspring at all. Thus, after the period of youth is past, even though a long life still remains, still parturition is denied to years and is not restored. But on the contrary, when the soil, whether abandoned deliberately or by chance, is cultivated anew, it repays the farmer with heavy interest for its periods of idleness.​ The antiquity of the earth, therefore, is not the reason for the scantiness of her fruits — if, I mean, when once old age sets in, it takes no backward step and has no power to grow vigorous and young again — but not even the weariness of the soil lessens its fruits for the farmer. For it is not like a man of intelligence to be persuaded that, as in the case of human beings exhaustion follows immoderate physical exertion or the bearing of some heavy burden, just so does it follow cultivation and activity on the part of the land. What then, you say, does Tremelius mean by his assertion that virginal and wooded areas, when they are first cultivated, yield abundantly, but soon thereafter are not so responsive to the toil of those who work them? He observes, undoubtedly, what occurs, but does not understand thoroughly why it happens. For ground that is new and but recently taken out of its wooded state and brought under cultivation should not be regarded as more fruitful on this account, because it has lain fallow longer and is younger; but because, in the leaves and herbage of many years, which it has kept producing naturally, fattened, so to speak, with more plentiful nourishment, it more readily satisfies the requirements for bringing forth crops and supporting them.But when the roots of the plants, broken by mattocks and ploughs, and when the trees, cut down by the axe, cease to nourish their mother with their foliage; when the leaves which fell from bushes and trees in the autumn season and which were spread over her are presently turned under by the ploughshare and mixed with the subsoil, which is usually thinner, and are used up, the result is that the soil, being deprived of its old-time nourishment, grows lean. It is not, therefore, because of weariness, as very many have believed, nor because of old age, but manifestly because of our own lack of energy that our cultivated lands yield us a less generous return. For we may reap greater harvests if the earth is quickened again by frequent, timely, and moderate manuring.

De Re Rustica of Columella, Book 2 (click)

[frankensteinical]

Forty Days of Frankenstein, Day 11:  Sometimes following the Frankenstein leaves you with more questions than answers.  Case in point, this record album, from 1978.  It’s from Kid Stuff Records and it purports to tell the story of the novel *Frankenstein* in two 11-minute sides.  And, how?  How are they going to do that?  And more importantly, why?  Why would anyone do this?  I just have my doubts that that is in any way a good idea.  I’m pretty sure that 22 minutes after starting, what you have is some traumatized kids.  What I will say is that, based on their repertoire as listed on the back cover, Frankenstein is very definitely not their usual, which runs more to things like *Alice in Wonderland*, *Pinocchio*, and various Grimm’s Fairy Tales.  So, also, who?  Who chose this?  I may never know.  And, well, nevertheless, here we are.  And I have to say, whatever else, that I do love this artwork.  While the monster’s image is hewing closely to the standard set by the 1931 Karloff/Pierce makeup, including neck-electrodes, flat head, and greenface, we get the interesting detail of two different color eyes, which isn’t something you usually see, even though it seems like a pretty obvious idea.  I also like that the artist has made the decision for the Pretty Good Sport Coat™ (that is, as we all know, de rigueur monsterwear) to be in this case, manifestly a fashion-forward green corduroy.  All in all, including the background of standard Mad Science Castle™ and dead tree, I give this portrayal a hearty green thumbs up!