Part of plausible deniability is that it has to be plausible. There has been no plausible argument presented that Israel did not do the pager and walkie talkie attack. For that matter, there hasn’t even been a denial about it.

Trump is an existential threat to Iran. Iran is in a regional cold[0] war with Israel. Israel’s ability to wage this war is largely dependent on US support; both in terms of raw military assistance, and in the US providing diplomatic and economic cover for Israel.

While the US had not applied nearly as much moderating pressure on Israel as I would have liked, it has still provided some. Israeli prime minister Netenyahu, in contrast, has been angling for a direct confrontation with Iran for decades now. Given the past 11 months, there are serious forces, both in Israeli politics, Iranian politics, and the inertia of war, pushing in that direction.

Trump is aligned with Netenyahu on this point, and would push him towards a direct confrontation with Iran. By all indications, Harris is not. This dynamic was made clear to Iran when the Democratic administration signed the Iran nuclear deal (against Israeli opposition), from which the US under Trump proceeded to unilaterally withdraw from.

[0] Cold might be a bit of an understatement after the last 11 months. However, apart from a brief tit-for-tat exchange, the fighting has stayed confined to Israel and Iranian proxies.

The 27th amendment was sent to the states by the first congress allong with the 10 that would become known as the bill of rights. This group also included a still unratified amendment that would increase the size of the house of representatives based on population (as of the 2020 census, today’s house would have about 6600 members).

The way the 27th amendment got ratified is a truly inspiring story of political activism. It was largely forgotten about until 1982, when Gregory Watson wrote a paper arguing that 18th century proposal could still be ratified. This paper received a C in Watson’s undergraduate political science class. This injustice led Watson to lead a 10 year campaign to ratify the amendment, which ultimately succeeded in 1992.

This scandal was so big, that Watson’s professor fled academia [0]. Eventually, Professor Waite was tracked down to her family’s farm, and in 2017 submitted a grade change revising the paper to an A. Later that year, the Texas legislature passed a resolution on the subject:

RESOLVED, That the 85th Legislature of the State of Texas hereby congratulate Gregory D. Watson on receiving a revised grade of A in his 1982 Government 310 class at The University of Texas at Austin

Thus finally closing the chapter on one of this nation’s most infamous grading disputes.

[0] Historians dispute the fact thar Proffesor Waite’s decision to leave Academia, which occured prior to the ratification of the 27th amendment, was in any way related to this.

I have very course facial hair and switching to women’s razors pretty much solved my post-shave irritation problem. In order of quality for my face it goes: men’s disposable razor << safty razor < women’s disposable razor.

Because tensions between Hezbollah and Israel have been steadily rising since October 7th because of Hzebollah’s objection to how Israel is acting in Gaza. To be clear, prior to October 7th, tensions were already high enough that they would regularly lob bombs at each other. Today’s “escalated” tensions include northern Israel being evacuated due to threats from Hezbolla’s rocket attacks.

At this point, it is clear that the options available to Israel are to either withdraw from Gaza and hope Hezbolla stands down, or end up in a full war with Hezbolla. Historians will say that the war with Hezbolla started months ago, and this was just one attack among many.

But they didn’t because materials that explode like that simply aren’t used as batteries.

Further, software is not magic. In consumer electronics basic power management is done entirely by hardware. A hack cannot short out the battery, because the circuit to do that simply doesn’t exist. Maybe the hack could cause enough of a sustained power draw to overheat the battery and trigger a failure eventually, but that would still look quite different from what we saw.

To be clear, the target of the shooting was an unidentified individual, and a scoped rifle was found in the vicinity.

Maybe something else happened, but it looks like the secret service doing their job and stoppingva shooter before he was ready to take the shot.

Its not symbolism.

The reason people view Dax as a trans is that they were at times male and at times female. That is not symbolic of being trans, it is just being trans.

However, despite exploring what it means to be a trill passing through generations of hosts, the changing gender aspect of it never comes up. If Kurzon was a women, I doubt we would be talking about Dax as a trans stand-in, but I can’t think of a single plot point or character development that would meaningfully change.

Normally I’m a believer in death of the author, so I won’t be offended if anyone wants to completly ignore thus section, but in the DS9 documentary, they have a section on LGBT representation, and their big example for it was Jadzia. However, that was not for being trans, it was for being in a gay relationship.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya8WTQc93yI&t=5467s

Don’t, Jadzia clearly appreciated it.

Trill’s relationships to their past hosts is complicated and never fully explored, but it is clearly established that the distance they create between their current host’s life and that of their past host is something that is enforced apon them by broader trill society.

Both Kurzon and Jadzia were, at least at times, clearly unhappy at the extent to which they had to distance themselves from their past life.

https://youtu.be/Qu-bP5367Yo?si=YNBFC_IUo7o7FpCd

The thing is, Trill are not trans. Dax didn’t go from being a man to a woman. Kurzon was always a man and Jadzia was always a women. And DS9 actually took this concept seriously on its own terms.

I can’t guarantee that none of those drivers were actually part of Hamas

We need to get passed the idea that the mere presence of a Hamas member justifies all military action. Assuming it is true, what were those Hamas members doing?

Throwing away the vaccines to use the marked car for transporting weapons and fighters? Valid military target (and a war crime)

Assisting in distributing polio vaccines? Not a valid target.

No good Sir, I’m on the level.

First, he wasn’t found “not guilty,” the charges were dismissed.

Doesn’t matter. Jeopardy attaches when the Jury is sworn in. And the jury has already been dismissed. At best, they can ask for a mistrial at this point. There are some cases where you can get a mistrial that allows for a new jury, but that is pretty much impossible if the mistrial was the prosecutor’s fault; even if, on review, a mistrial was not nessasary. Essentially, you do not want prosecutors to deliberately induce a mistrial in order to restart a trial that is not going well.

Further, there is simply no mechanism that allows the judge to even consider this motion, and the prosecutor in her brief did not provide a single theory for why it would be proper to consider the motion. This motion was written for the media, not the judge.

This us not out of character. In the hearing that led to the dismissal, there was a conversation with the judge during the lunch break. It subsequently came out that the judge was inclined to dismiss the case. Following that meating, the prosecutor’s co-council quit; and the prosecutor called herself as a witness. On its own, a prosecutor calling herself as a witness (subject to cross examination) is crazy enough. But the judge already told them he was dismissing the case. There was no legal reason for her to do so. The only justification for it was PR. In explaining her decision to call herself she said, on the record (but not under):

Court: It doesn’t matter to me weather you call yourself as a witness. It doesn’t matter to the defense weather you call yourself as a witness. So, if your calling yourself as a witness, there is no one here that is requiring you to be called as a witness.

Prosecutor: The information. Everything that happened in this regard, especially as it pertains to me, needs to come out in the public

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=03FPAS71YYs&t=24292

In the modern era, wars are rarely in the interest of either side. However, miscalculations happen, and the more you play at the edge of war, the more likely you are to fall over.

In April, Israel calculated that they could bomb an Iranian complex in Syria, targeting top Iranian officials without sparking a war. They were correct.

In response, Iran calculated that they could send 300 drones/missiles to Israel, and have enough be intercepted by air defense systems to avoid starting a war. They were correct.

Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging fire; each side calculating that each strike would not start a war. Thus far they have been correct.

For years, Hamas and Israel have been exchaning small attacks. Both sides correctly calculating that they could avoid a full war. Then, on October 7th, the IDF fucked up. A Hamas attack was far more successful than it had any bussiness being, and now both sides are 10 months into a war that hurts both of them.

A war with Hezbollah might not be inevitable, but the current level of conflict is not sustainable. Every day that it is not resolved is one more opportunity for miscalculation; and one more notch ticked on the escalatory ratchet.

The President’s role is largely ceremonial. The President consults party leaders to determine who they would support, then nominates that person. The nominee must then form a coalition that can get support from a majority of the Knesset.

That inherent right does not extend to using any means to achieve it; just like a state’s right to self defence does not grant it the right to use any means to achieve it.

How do you think intelligence agencies work? There is a reason why background investigations for security clearences focus so much on “is there anything you can be blackmailed with”

He is entitled to $80,000 per year imprisoned; payable as a lump sum of $2,720,000 or as a lifetime annuity at the same present value as the lump sum payment. I don’t know exactly what the state sponsored annuity would pay, but a quick estimate from schwab estimates it at $15,483/month.

That still doesn’t pay for 34 years in prison. However, it is a respectable retirement.

It was not compulsory for Ben Gvir, who was excused from compulsory service because the IDF at the tine thought he was too extreme. He has since been convicted of terrorism, and currently serves as Israel’s minister of defense.

Prior to the Holocaust, there was a significant part of the Zionist movement that was playing footsie with the actual Nazis. The Nazis didn’t want to kill the Jews, they wanted them out of Europe. Zionists thought that made them potential allies. Ultimately, that didn’t work out because the Nazi’s thought that moving them to where modern Israel is would be too destabilizing for the region. The Nazis still ended up supporting establishing a Jewish state, with Hitler approving a plan to do so in Madagascar. This plan was eventually abandoned in favor of their “final solution”.

But you are allowed to stage a murder; hire a film crew to record your staged murder; pay television stations and websites to show a preview of your staged murder, and sell a recording of your staged murder to anyone who wants to buy. Depending on how graphic it is, you might be required to put an age advisory on your work and not broadcast it on public airwaves; but that is about the extent of the regulation.

You can even stage murders of children and show that.

Even if the underlying murder is real, there is still no law outlawing having a recording of it. Even producing a recording of a murder isn’t technically illegal; although depending on the context you might still be implicated in a conspiracy to commit murder.

Sexual assult of children is the only crime for which the mere depiction of the crime is itself a crime.