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Furthermore, the word "genocide" has sort of become a byword in our discourse for the ultimate evil. This isn't true at all. There's no hierarchy here with war crimes and then crimes against humanity and then genocide at the top. Genocide is a specific legal term defined in the Genocide Convention, it's not meant to define the absolute evil. Just because Israel isn't committing a genocide doesn't mean we shouldn't be outraged. I do not believe Israel is committing a genocide, yet still I am outraged! No more bombing of Gaza, no more invasion of Rafah, cease-fire immediately!

The problem is that Hamas refuses to release the hostages alive. Should Israel just give up on them?

I don’t necessarily buy that Hamas has to be removed from power militarily- after all, only a suicidal Ukraine  would support military action to remove the Russian government because of their invasion of Ukraine- but at the same time, anything less than a full defeat of the Nazis was considered the only acceptable outcome during WW2.

I continue to believe that negotiation is the only way to free the hostages, it may require concessions but it's the only way that doesn't result in the death of the hostages and thousands more of Gazan civilians. I believe that ideally, Hamas would be removed from power, it is, after all, the only way to resurrect a two-state solution, but the current Israeli government has no intention to pursue this solution. My perspective is that Israel has no idea how to, or no intention to, construct a lasting peace in the region, so the overwhelming majority of the present violence (which is caused by the IDF) must be brought to an end via a humanitarian cease-fire. I'll put it like this, we need a total and complete shutdown on the war until we can figure out what the hell is going on.

I don’t think you can have an end to this round of fighting until Hamas is crushed and completely out of power in Gaza permanently and Deif as well as both of the Sinwar brothers are dead.  You can certainly do a temporary humanitarian ceasefire, but certainly not a long-term or permanent shutdown of the war.  Also, I disagree that the present violence is being caused primarily by the IDF.  At the end of the day, this is ultimately a defensive war caused by Hamas’ unprovoked campaign of rape, murder, and kidnapping against Israeli civilians on 10/7.  There is no equivalency there.

What a weirdly lighthearted story, the way this paper treats it. He became a homeless alcoholic at 18 after his mother died, and the only thing anyone ever thought to do about it was put him in jail over and over again until 2017? And the article treats him he was some sort of local folk hero? I think when someone becomes the local beloved homeless alcoholic, you should probably try to do something for them besides continually incarcerate them so they spend decades bouncing in and out of jail. Couldn’t Jimmy Kimmel have done something besides just invite him on his show?

Unfunny hacks like Kimmel are about as limolib as it gets, so of course not.

The NDP aren't even trying in St. Paul's? Ugh.

I should be clear, I don't actually know that they're "not trying" in St. Paul's, so I'm not suggesting that. But I think it's a very safe guess that the NDP aren't serious contenders in this byelection, and the NDP's byelection strategy this parliament seems to be to only contest seats they have a realistic shot of winning. So I feel very confident in saying the NDP probably aren't going to be serious contenders here.

If they decide to really fight it though (maybe try to piggyback off of Jill Andrew's provincial incumbency), that would make things interesting, and probably help the CPC by not allowing the Liberals to be the ABC vote bank.

It's not enough to just report posts here.  The mods need to take a stand on this kind of bigotry when multiple posters engage in it, one after the other.

People are allowed to have opinions about missionaries that you don't agree with. They are not a religion, race or gender, they are more of a profession. It isn't bigotry to talk s__t about lawyers or salespeople or stock brokers, therefore it isn't bigotry to talk s__t about missionaries.

If you decide that you want to be a snowflake about it, that isn't the mods' problem or anybody else's problem.

The deleted posts here specifically referred to Christian ministries.  Being a Missionary is not a "profession"; it is a specific religious calling.  It is individual Christians obeying Christ's command to go into all the World and preach His Gospel. 

Similar comments made about Muslim Imams would be subjected to the same scrutiny as well.

Is it a bigoted post to suggest to Evangelical Christians that their work is ridiculous?  That it does more harm than good?  That it fosters "cultural genocide"?  These statements are bigoted not only toward the missionaries; they are bigoted toward the Christians who support them.

I refuse to let people have it both ways.  When people say things about Evangelical Christians that others would be infracted for if they said the same thing about other religious groups, I'm going to hold these people to the same standards on "Bigotry/Hatefulness" that I have to adhere to.  And I'm not going to let the likes of people like Joe Republic (one of the offenders here) who lecture others on bigotry to make bigoted posts and still enjoy Virtue Signaling Privileges.

The snowflakes are those who perpetuate anti-Christian bigotry on this site, then get whiny when they receive deserved pushback.

224D-211R



Nothing really that bold on here, but I would say I have most of the rated as "tossup" by pundits going D - still threw Rs some races that I thought could go either way though (CA-13, CA-22, VA-02).

I generally think people are underestimating Dems in the House in a similar way to which Rs were underestimated in 2020. In 2020, you had a ton of Dem wave babies in these Trump +5 to Trump +15 seats that most people thought were in tossup races (SC-01, OK-05, NM-02, NY-22) but in the end nearly all ended up losing and the exceptions were districts where Biden saw large gains at the top of the ticket (i.e. VA-07 which was Trump-->Biden).

CA-13, CA-22, CA-27, CA-45, CA47, NE-02, NM-02, NY-04, NY-17, NY-19, and OR-05 are all districts that voted for Biden by at least 5 but are rated as tossup or better for Republicans, despite most of these Rs winning in squeakers in 2022 or some cases seats Dem won in 2022 (CA-47, NM-02).

Like seriously what's the justification for left-shifting Biden+11 CA-47 being a tossup - is Dave Min really that bad? Is Scott Baugh some sort of electoral juggernaut?

Is it very weird that this confessed to a literal murder just because police told him too. On top of compensation, he may need to spend some time in a mental hospital to address whatever caused him to act this way.

Utterly reprehensible.

It’s not common in the US except in certain, very crime ridden areas and even then not common. Shows where BRTD spends his time though.

Minneapolis and Chicago? Truly terrible cities and places to be indeed.

If he's acquitted I think what he should say is that the issue is over now, let's talk about the issues. But that should be a brief statement in a campaign speech or video, not in an address from the White House.

What exactly should Biden even say in the case of an acquittal or hung jury? That part confuses me unless he tries to pull a Harris post-Rittenhouse trial and attack the justice system.

Tory vs Labour frontbench in rugby, who wins?

Private school advantage might come into play here:


Angela Rayner's definitely going to break some Etonian ribs before the end of the match though.

As the frontbench gives a broader pool to choose from than merely the Cabinet/Shadow Cabinet, Labour do have Toby Perkins, which negates a lot of the deficit alone...