chasfh

Disagree. Closers are not openers. Not interchangeable.

All fixed! 😉

Happy birthday! Twenty?

There is no doubt that Hamas has an agenda and the Gaza Health Ministry works under the auspices of Hamas, so they would have an incentive to cook the numbers to make the death toll seem high, and to ignore the difference in deaths between Hamas fighters and ordinary civilians. But Israel also has an incentive to cook the numbers to make the death toll seem low, and to characterize the percent of deaths being Hamas fighters as being as close to 100% as possible. So whom to believe? Most people will believe the numbers of the side they are squarely on. Me, I'm not on any side, except on the side of the people who want nothing more than to live ordinary, everyday lives minding their own business, so I would want to know the number closest to the truth, versus the number that best supports the purpose of breathing fire into a political forum. Why do I tend to out more stock in the Hamas numbers than I do the IDF numbers? According to this, the World Health Organization characterizes the Health Ministry numbers as, if not "perfectly accurate on a minute-to-minute basis", then at least as being "largely reflect[ive of] the level of death and injury" during the siege. Also, Israel sealed Gaza’s borders and barred foreign journalists and humanitarian workers from even entering the area from the very beginning. That's the action of a party that has an interest in shielding what's happening in the area from the outside world. I wouldn't take the numbers of either side as being ... ahem ... the gospel truth, but I do believe that one side's numbers are probably more accurate than the other's. In the end, though, we won't know anything that's closer to the truth than either side's for years, if at all, and even then, it will be at the behest of the party that gets to write it all up as history.

I could definitely see the possibility of manufacturing groups lobbying Republicans for favorable legislation that reduces or eliminates regulations.

It is a problem when two sources with divergent agendas are combined to create one data point that’s convenient for one of the sides.

Actually, to be clear, it is not FDD that is conflating the Hams and IDF numbers, but the Persian Jewess Twitter feed itself. But the agenda of the FDD also seems clear in its implication of the US media acting irresponsibly when they say, “On October 16, the health ministry told global media that an Israeli airstrike was responsible for an explosion that killed 500 Palestinians at the Al Ahli Arab Hospital in northern Gaza. U.S. media quickly reported the story even though it became clear within hours there was no evidence to support claims of an airstrike or a death toll close to 500”, when in the link to CNN in the sentence you can see the lead line is, “More than 500 dead following strike on hospital in Gaza, Hamas says” (emphasis mine). So they are imputing a pro-Palestinian agenda among the US media even as they follow standard established journalism ethics, and they are using the Bari Weiss Free Press, a pro-Israeli opinion site, to dispute the claims.

It’s actually from an organization called Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which is combining estimates from two different sources—Hamas on totals, IDF on combatants—to arrive at a conveniently-low figure for civilians deaths with the apparent aim of minimizing the civilians number. Why might FDD minimize the civilians number? This might offer a clue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_for_Defense_of_Democracies On its website, FDD describes itself as "a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy" that "conducts in-depth research, produces accurate and timely analyses, identifies illicit activities, and provides policy options – all with the aim of strengthening U.S. national security and reducing or eliminating threats posed by adversaries and enemies of the United States and other free nations."[6] John Mearsheimer in 2007, Muhammad Idrees Ahmad in 2014, and Ofira Sekiktar in 2018 have described FDD as part of the Israel lobby in the United States.[9][10][11] Sima Vaknin-Gil, director general of Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs, had stated that the FDD works in conjunction with the Israeli government including the ministry.[12] Later documents described the mission as "to conduct research and provide education on international terrorism and related issues".[13] On 15 November 2019, FDD officially registered as a lobby under Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995.[3]

How dare you question the Persian Jewess.

Except that they are seriously carrying water for as industry seeking to eliminate as much regulation as they can manage.

And the bill is just as ****ty as you would imagine it is: To amend the Energy Policy and Conservation Act to prohibit the Secretary of Energy from prescribing any new or amended energy conservation standard for a product that is not technologically feasible and economically justified, and for other purposes. Emphasis on the ****tiest part is mine.

She was in high school during Trump, probably in an area where people love Trump, so she probably wasn't even paying attention and maybe thought he wasn't really a bad guy because that's not what she was hearing.

Speaking of SNL, I think Jost and Che are in the conversation for best Weekend Update hosts ever, and this from this past Christmas was arguably their best-ever joke swap segment.

We haven’t talked about this for exactly one year now, but it occurred to me recently that SNL has transformed itself from a performer’s show back to a writer’s show, in that the scripts are the main thing (writers) and not the recurring characters (performers) which, really, I don’t think this cast has any at all, and I much prefer that.

You misspelled “minutes”.

But also, to Kapur’s point, Trump has revealed that his whole strategy of any-election-I-lose-must-be-fraud to be completely full of ****.

Not saying it's untrue, necessarily, but this is pretty much what we could expect a story about a national DCCC-commissioned poll that doesn't provide any link to the questions to report. There is a chance it's just an endorphin story.

I understand it's not the point you are making, but if Jackson Jobe were elevated to the majors today, it would not be the four youngest players all named Jackson, since Evan Carter is younger than he.

This was probably my favorite:

I was just gonna say that Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown are probably stabbing him over and over right now.

Looks like we are quickly closing in on the "and they lived happily ever after" conclusion to the story.

And honestly, two games in one day feels like too much. It's not because I don't have six hours I can devote to it, but rather, there are other things I like to do with my day as well.

Ah, got it. Makes sense.

I tried!