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I'm not a military expert, but Israel has money and allies. They could use their resources to try and find a solution that doesn't involve war crimes. I'm a Canadian citizen. If Canada faces complex issues in the future, the Canadian government is required to approach them and solve them without committing war crimes. I apply the same standard to every other country.

This is an eye-rolling comment.  You think nobody has ever tried to find a solution to simplify urban warfare?  And you and your peace activist buddies are the first to have this brilliant and original idea?  This is literally a top military priority.  West Point has an entire sub-school singularly focused on urban warfare that every single future officer goes through, where they are conducting research constantly on how to improve urban warfare tactics.  Israel also does tons of research on this area and also serves as a sort of testing ground for cutting edge ideas in this space.

Maybe Israel - or Israel and a multinational anti-terrorism group including USA - should increase the boots on the ground and find a way to fight Hamas that doesn't conflict with the Geneva Convention. "Not committing war crimes" (or as you would characterize it, "not killing oodles of civilians") should be first priority and "arresting or killing Hamas" should be second priority. It's been reported that up to 90% or even higher than that of all casualties have been civilians. That isn't an acceptable or legal way to conduct a war.

Lol the recalled 2020 vote in Washington is 15 points off. Utter trash.

I’m just gonna point out that saying Palestinians/Germans/Iraqis are the bad guys isnt some harmless semantics.

There’s a famous picture from WWII of a Chinese woman at the beach with a massive Chinese flag so she isn’t mistaken for Japanese for her own safety.

Yes people have always generalized wars to the entire populous, but you shouldn’t unless you just want to or don’t care if you perpetuate hate against that group. And lord knows there’s plenty of hate flying around this war.

This is arguing against a different thing than what I said above.  I am not in favor of generalizing the war to the entire populace.  However I do think you need to extend the war to the entire country.  Every war in history that has been country-vs-country has had innocent civilians in both countries who did not deserve to die and were not in any way valid military targets.  But we still consider those wars to be country-vs-country and do not think of the armies as being distinct and independent things from the countries on whose behalf they fought.

To put it more simply -- when you are part of a country, that country is entitled to fight wars on your behalf, and whether you agree with the war or not, it was fought on your behalf and you are on one "side" of it by being a member of that country.  That does not mean you deserve to die, or that you should be harmed at all.  But it does mean that you are currently at war, and someone else is at war with you.

This matters because people keep trying to say that "going to war with Hamas" and "going to war with Palestine" are two totally separate things, and that by doing the latter Israel has committed some grave crime.  My contention is that the attempt to delineate between the two is a way to try and condemn Israel for every single consequence of the war suffered by Palestine, by saying Israel should not be at war with Palestine.  My further contention is that "going to war with Hamas" and "going to war with Palestine" are in fact the exact same thing and that Israel should be at war with Palestine, for the exact same reasons that they should be at war with Hamas, since they are both the same war.

yeah i saw life on mars

[when there are specialized masks made specifically to confuse facial recognition software]

Idk man when you have people like this group of incompetent imbeciles putting out stuff like this, it makes some sense does it not?

Covered above:

Remember that there is more than one reason for someone to wear a mask - in this case, the main reason appears to be that these individuals do not wish to have their faces easily recognizable on camera (and back in November/December 2022, many people around the world who protested against China's covid policies also wore masks to shield their faces from identification).

The fact that at least at UCLA, the protest camp is specifically requiring N-95s when there are specialized masks made specifically to confuse facial recognition software* and they're apparently not requiring sunglasses, strongly suggests that this is about COVID neuroticism much more than counter-surveillance.

*You may point out that students are unlikely to have these, and you would be correct, but these are relatively easy to make on your own

The solution to avoid the war we're seeing now was for the UK and Britain, both of whom suffered serious losses at Hamas' hands in the 10/7 genocide, to get involved in the war directly and lead the invasion into Gaza. It would have had high risks, yes, but it would have both added new resources to the hunt and reined in Netanyahu. I don't recall anyone arguing for that.

Once the Global Methodist Church formed and the schism was not quite as disastrous as expected, this action was inevitable. I'm happy for our Methodist brothers and sisters.

I'm personally very interested in seeing the outcome of the proposed full communion between the United Methodists and the Episcopal Church (similar to the current communion between the Lutherans and Episcoplians). I think as the mainline continues to profound shake up (I won't call it a terminal decline just yet), I think the more liturgical churches that are also LGBT affirming need to band together.

Don't disagree per se; but don't Methodists and Episcopalians have.... differing understandings of the Eucharist ?

I believe they both officially teach a vague and somewhat ambiguous notion of the Real Presence. I know some Episcopalians are concerned about apostolic succession, but that was resolved with the Lutherans vía co-consecration of bishops.

Yes, this is basically correct - they both teach that *somehow* the presence of Christ is really in the Eucharist. How exactly depends on who you're asking, which is fine.

I'm a very high church/Anglo Catholic type and I'm completely fine with Methodists and lower-church people having a different view of the Eucharist, as long as they care about the importance of that sacrament, which I know Methodists do.

While everyone is focused on the protests and extremism of the progressive wing, has it occurred to anyone how electorally inefficient progressives' coalition is already. Biden won 25 states and 31 of 50 states were more Republican than the nation as a whole. If the GOP wins the popular vote by 5%, it would win 34 states under 2020 lines--> that is 68 Senators!

Of course individual Senate candidates (as we learned in 2022) matter and the GOP is unlikely to get this high but Dems are already at a considerable structural disadvantage. Becoming an AOC party is likely going to lead to additional defections among Jews, Asians, 1/2 of Hispanics and even 20% of blacks.

Even a 5% GOP popular majority can lead to catastrophic outcome for Dems and that doesn't include problems in NY/NJ/CT due to losses among Jewish voters and moderates. The party can not win with just blacks and angry white atheists. Look at the Bernie/Warren 2020 primary vote, that coalition is so damn inefficient even compared to Biden's general election coalition.

Likely/Safe D --> Lean R due to complications replacing Cuellar on the ballot.

Can dems replace him?

Probably not, especially since it's Texas.