there was a car in front that swerved out of the way.
and with shitty visiblity, and blockers like bends and hills... i've been surprised by a love seat in the middle lane of 3 lane before. going 65mph, that shit will make your heart go. just barely swerved, and i imagine if there was a car behind me even at a nominally safe distance, there would have been a collision.
when i got to my destination 10 minutes later, i called that shit in.
because stationary objects in the middle of a highway, are a fucking accident waiting to happen.
What qualification? I don't see anything being corrected, I see you repeating what I had said myself. Either way, you haven't clarified what this even has to do with the subject being discussed.
the may or may not part of your original quote, having a vote lapse almost certainly means they no longer have a mandate. "may or may not" is a qualifying statement.
Hamas is calling for an end to Israel (the political state), not Israel (the geographical area).
israel is a political state, not a political entity. hamas is a political entity. that's what i was trying to point out. i also think there's a qualitative difference between getting rid of a democratically elected political entity and getting rid of a tyrannical one. Israel's government is the one that the majority of people living in israel ostensibly want. Getting rid of it would be trying to override their will with your own. hamas was the democratically elected will of the people at one point, probably not any longer. And Israel was never about getting rid of it, just no longer engaging with them as a political entity. I think if israel's goal was to get rid of hamas, conquering gaza would not pose much of a challenge.
the second part was just indicating that israel has a duty to its people, hamas wouldn't exist as a political movement if israel weren't around. it's their sole thing.
While you're certainly entitled to your opinion, I don't understand why you're presenting it here as fact. It's certainly not impossible for a state to intentionally commit war crimes relatively infrequently while simultaneously being competent (whatever that means in this context) at killing civilians. I cite the United States as a counterexample to your claim.
fine, fact, israel has nuclear weapons, israel has more advanced weaponry than hamas, israel has conquered gaza before. if their express purpose was to kill civilians they have the means to do so, in much greater number than what we've seen. They have the means to figuratively erase gaza from the map, if it were their desire.
This too is not based on a rational argument, and as such, is yet another opinion.
fine, it was not a war crime when committed, in the fashion that white-phosphorous was used. and the point is moot in the current conflict because the IDF has stopped using white-phosphorous altogether in the most recent conflict.
Furthermore, I'd like to correct you and say that war crimes are not "a legal definition", they're actions carried out during the conduct of a war that violate accepted international rules of war.
i'm lazy, i was using "legal definition" as a shorthand way of saying, yeah there are actual international guidelines on what constitutes a warcrime or not. Typically if your a signatory of various statutes, and sometimes even if you're not. the set of actions defined as "war crime" is delineated somewhere in some way.
the "double standard" exists because hamas has committed thousands of war crimes, as defined by the international community, and israel may have committed a dozen. because asymmetric war looks like this, massive losses on one side and small losses on the other. because urban warfare is messy and often-times civilians get caught up in the mess.
the problem for me is where does freedom of speech end and freedom of association begin.
we've got digital lynch mobs effectively punishing individuals for political views. brendan eich.
it's troubling, i don't want anyone to suffer for sharing their political views, in any context. That way lies madness. but again, freedom of association means that they're all well within their rights as individuals to force the man out of his job.
so their current reign may or may not have any sort of mandate from the population at large,
that qualification is why i corrected you.
Israel is calling for the end of Hamas, Hamas is calling for the end of Israel.
yes, now, gaza is not the same thing as hamas. if you were to say, hamas called for the destruction of the conservative movement. or called for a coup d'etat in israel by the arabic minority. you'd have something. If hamas weren't a thing, israel would keep chugging along, if israel didn't exist neither would hamas.
It's this willingness to overlook Israel's transgressions that encourages accusations of bias. So, since they only commit war crimes occasionally, they're beyond criticizing?
no, since they're only accused of committing war crimes relatively infrequently, it can't be their intent. unless they're incompetent at killing civilians.
So, they took a break from committing this particular war crime, and now they're beyond reproach?
for that particular accusation yes.
i'm almost done because this seems pointless.
regardless, if you're going to compare the two, actually compare the two. war-crimes are a legal definition that the international community has agreed to, with the actual realities of war at the back of their minds. They also reflect the moral stance that the global community takes on the ubiquity of collateral damage in a war.
summary execution of dissidents and accused peoples without trial is also indicative that it's no longer really holds to "democratically elected" any more. that term falls away i believe once expected elections are not being held.
Indeed. Of course, Israel also openly calls for the destruction of Hamas and openly supports the installation of a regime friendly to Western interests. Isn't that also called conquering? Or, is this yet another example of the double standard at work?
yeah, if by that you mean that they unilaterally withdrew all physical presence from gaza. at most israel is calling for establishing a puppet state. more realistically, just a government that can treat its own population however it wants, and isn't actively trying to kill israeli civilians. i don't think they conquered jordan or egypt and they're pretty happy with those neighbors.
By legitimate international scrutiny, you mean global outrage (legitimate or not) that is only blunted by the US's vetoes on the UN's Security Council? But, appeals to authority really aren't relevant in a discussion that's intended to stay rational. There's really no way to argue that use of white phosphorous stands up to legitimate international scrutiny any more than Hamas' rockets do.
sometimes appealing to the authority of others is all we can do, i'm nowhere near able to collect my own information after all. i'm appealing to the fact that the worst the UN has to complain about, not vote on so the security council doesn't really come into play, is a handful of instances. unrwa is unique, the UN bitches non-stop about israel, and the UN human rights council is stocked with countries that delight at pointing at israel to distract from their own human rights violations.
and we're still talking only a handful of "maybes" out of thousands of bombs dropped. or do you think UNRWA and the UN human rights council are covering for israel too?
white phosphorous is legal under international law in many situations. just never against civilian targets, or from the air onto military targets in civilian zones apparently. and the IDF decided the ass-ache wasn't worth it so forewent using it this time round.
If by literally you mean figuratively, then sure. It's quite likely that Hamas themselves are saying that their own rockets aren't war crimes, regardless of whether they say this earnestly or not. Either way, again, nobody is denying that what Hamas is doing is wrong. The issue that I'm talking about assumes this as an axiom, even. My point is that there is a double standard that is applied when comparing Hamas' actions against Israel's, and your own statements demonstrate that better than I could myself.
as literally as literally can be, as long as you exclude those directly involved. fine, with that caveat:)
by your stance, there's very little difference between the stances of north korea and south. just two sides with a disagreement.
gravity assists only work if you leave the gravity well.
you can't just orbit a thing bleeding off speed... unless you've got an aerobrake going on.
unless you mean you're circularizing the orbit using the laser, which might work i guess.
we can aerocapture or aerobrake to mars already... i think it's just a pain because the atmosphere is so damn thin you either need airbags or a powered descent stage.
1. hrm, wasn't sure of the particulars, but I'm going to make a judgement call. I would say the destruction of a marginally democratic state is less preferable than the destruction of a largely tyrannical one.
the last election in gaza was the one that put hamas into power after all.
also, i would say that the hamas charter is slightly more ambitious, it also calls for setting up an explicitly islamic state after the destruction of israel. i think that's called conquering.
2. yes, because for the large part the bombs dropped by israel have stood to international scrutiny. Like legitimate international scrutiny. The civilian to militant casualty ratios are in keeping with or better than any other urban conflict.
Literally nobody is saying the hamas rockets aren't war crimes, every single one of them is; recognized by the UN when they deem to mention them at all. People debate whether a dozen out of a thousand bombs dropped by israel are beyond the pale, and when they do they are not asking whether they targetted the civilian population rather than a military one for the most part, they are asking whether or not the military target warranted the number of civilian casualties.
it's frankly astonishing the cognitive dissonance. does anyone actually believe, that if israel's intent was to kill gazans... they wouldn't all be dead?
it's an open secret that Hamas has a control center operating in one of the largest hospitals in gaza. the IDF know it, the journalists know it, but it's a fucking hospital, so israel decided that the civilian casualties would probably outweigh the tactical benefit.
keep in mind that in operation cast lead, everybody was saying OMG the civilians, so many civilians dead, so few militants dead... and the idf was saying, no our numbers are right. and later, when hamas had to appease the gazans, and basically say "we didn't abandon you when israel came knocking" they released casualty figures in keeping with those that the idf claimed throughout. hamas lied, and the idf didn't... what makes you think this time is any different?
well... if you aim it right you'll stop one way or the other.
it's really about who decides what the deceleration looks like... and over what time-frame. either you handle it yourself... or physics is certainly up to the task of decelerating your craft for you.
you know how much of a pita gradual atmospheric breaking would be on mars too? you don't have to worry about your components melting... but you've also barely got an atmosphere to work with.
don't think a parachute would do much unless it were impractically large either.
1. yes, the blockade, after the election of hamas. Though that wasn't an instigation, that was more of a... 'well you just elected an organization that literally calls for our deaths.' you forget that gaza shares a border with egypt... which is currently pissed off that hamas has been smuggling things under their border too. and wants to build a big-ass wall.
why hasn't hamas shot rockets into egypt? same instigation after all.
2.... guided is different than aimed is different than random. if you're toward a city, that's a choice and it doesn't matter if it's guided or aimed, it's targeting civilians.
you've got a direction, and you've got range. Any munitions that are aimed outside gaza are basically a war crime. and they've been trying to kill civilians for the better part of a decade over in gaza. just not terribly successful.
well the news says there be stabbings and rammings etc. etc. in jerusalem. better than bus bombs and suicide vests, but... you know, maybe after it quiets down might be better.
the ottomans owned that shit, they fell and the brits took over, and they left it up to the UN. the UN decided to make jordan, israel and "palestine" out of it, with a international zone in jerusalem. the jews were like, "hell yeah, finally a place where people don't want to kill the fuck out of us"
then the arab world decided to kill the fuck out of them. 2-3 more defensive wars against basically The Middle East, and we get to where we are.
the jews haven't been an ethnic majority anywhere since the romans fucked them, and the arabs have only been an ethnic majority in the region since they killed everyone else there.
there has been continuous jewish presence in the region for all these 2000 years. they've just been, you know, dominated by others. how long do you need to be conquered for before a region is no longer your homeland? and if you kill everyone there, it's now yours? is that what you're saying?
it is retaliatory. There were no rockets, israel pulled out of gaza, there was a period where people weren't dying, the gazans elected hamas into power, blockade went up, rockets started firing. meanwhile egypt is also blockading gaza... because hamas is a dick.
hey if hamas rockets were shooting back at israeli forces, nobody would say shit. even during operation protective edge, when you've got israeli ground forces in gaza, i believe the qassams were still fucking pointed into israel. also, these party favors hamas was shooting into israel were ongoing for a period of years before any retaliatory strike from israel.
you should probably read what AI and HRW have to say about the qassams at least. they are rabidly anti-Israel for the most part, and even they admit that every qassam fired constitutes a warcrime twice over. where they're fired from, and who their intended target is.
Slashdot Mirror
... of all the things to object to... it's the disease angle you go for. wow.
we're talking a drop in the bucket vs pet ownership in general.
can't you just change your name legally?
no blinkers on. no brake lights either. parked was parked.
there was a car in front that swerved out of the way.
and with shitty visiblity, and blockers like bends and hills... i've been surprised by a love seat in the middle lane of 3 lane before. going 65mph, that shit will make your heart go. just barely swerved, and i imagine if there was a car behind me even at a nominally safe distance, there would have been a collision.
when i got to my destination 10 minutes later, i called that shit in.
because stationary objects in the middle of a highway, are a fucking accident waiting to happen.
What qualification? I don't see anything being corrected, I see you repeating what I had said myself. Either way, you haven't clarified what this even has to do with the subject being discussed.
the may or may not part of your original quote, having a vote lapse almost certainly means they no longer have a mandate. "may or may not" is a qualifying statement.
Hamas is calling for an end to Israel (the political state), not Israel (the geographical area).
israel is a political state, not a political entity. hamas is a political entity. that's what i was trying to point out. i also think there's a qualitative difference between getting rid of a democratically elected political entity and getting rid of a tyrannical one. Israel's government is the one that the majority of people living in israel ostensibly want. Getting rid of it would be trying to override their will with your own. hamas was the democratically elected will of the people at one point, probably not any longer. And Israel was never about getting rid of it, just no longer engaging with them as a political entity. I think if israel's goal was to get rid of hamas, conquering gaza would not pose much of a challenge.
the second part was just indicating that israel has a duty to its people, hamas wouldn't exist as a political movement if israel weren't around. it's their sole thing.
While you're certainly entitled to your opinion, I don't understand why you're presenting it here as fact. It's certainly not impossible for a state to intentionally commit war crimes relatively infrequently while simultaneously being competent (whatever that means in this context) at killing civilians. I cite the United States as a counterexample to your claim.
fine, fact, israel has nuclear weapons, israel has more advanced weaponry than hamas, israel has conquered gaza before. if their express purpose was to kill civilians they have the means to do so, in much greater number than what we've seen. They have the means to figuratively erase gaza from the map, if it were their desire.
This too is not based on a rational argument, and as such, is yet another opinion.
fine, it was not a war crime when committed, in the fashion that white-phosphorous was used. and the point is moot in the current conflict because the IDF has stopped using white-phosphorous altogether in the most recent conflict.
Furthermore, I'd like to correct you and say that war crimes are not "a legal definition", they're actions carried out during the conduct of a war that violate accepted international rules of war.
i'm lazy, i was using "legal definition" as a shorthand way of saying, yeah there are actual international guidelines on what constitutes a warcrime or not. Typically if your a signatory of various statutes, and sometimes even if you're not. the set of actions defined as "war crime" is delineated somewhere in some way.
the "double standard" exists because hamas has committed thousands of war crimes, as defined by the international community, and israel may have committed a dozen.
because asymmetric war looks like this, massive losses on one side and small losses on the other.
because urban warfare is messy and often-times civilians get caught up in the mess.
as the much-missed hitchens pointed out,
the fire ruling was made to silence the speech of socialist jews that were trying to keep america out of WWI.
it was not a good ruling.
the problem for me is where does freedom of speech end and freedom of association begin.
we've got digital lynch mobs effectively punishing individuals for political views. brendan eich.
it's troubling, i don't want anyone to suffer for sharing their political views, in any context. That way lies madness. but again, freedom of association means that they're all well within their rights as individuals to force the man out of his job.
so their current reign may or may not have any sort of mandate from the population at large,
that qualification is why i corrected you.
Israel is calling for the end of Hamas, Hamas is calling for the end of Israel.
yes, now, gaza is not the same thing as hamas. if you were to say, hamas called for the destruction of the conservative movement. or called for a coup d'etat in israel by the arabic minority. you'd have something. If hamas weren't a thing, israel would keep chugging along, if israel didn't exist neither would hamas.
It's this willingness to overlook Israel's transgressions that encourages accusations of bias. So, since they only commit war crimes occasionally, they're beyond criticizing?
no, since they're only accused of committing war crimes relatively infrequently, it can't be their intent. unless they're incompetent at killing civilians.
So, they took a break from committing this particular war crime, and now they're beyond reproach?
for that particular accusation yes.
i'm almost done because this seems pointless.
regardless, if you're going to compare the two, actually compare the two. war-crimes are a legal definition that the international community has agreed to, with the actual realities of war at the back of their minds. They also reflect the moral stance that the global community takes on the ubiquity of collateral damage in a war.
probably because enforcing the outcome would... you know... take a war.
summary execution of dissidents and accused peoples without trial is also indicative that it's no longer really holds to "democratically elected" any more. that term falls away i believe once expected elections are not being held.
Indeed. Of course, Israel also openly calls for the destruction of Hamas and openly supports the installation of a regime friendly to Western interests. Isn't that also called conquering? Or, is this yet another example of the double standard at work?
yeah, if by that you mean that they unilaterally withdrew all physical presence from gaza. at most israel is calling for establishing a puppet state. more realistically, just a government that can treat its own population however it wants, and isn't actively trying to kill israeli civilians. i don't think they conquered jordan or egypt and they're pretty happy with those neighbors.
By legitimate international scrutiny, you mean global outrage (legitimate or not) that is only blunted by the US's vetoes on the UN's Security Council? But, appeals to authority really aren't relevant in a discussion that's intended to stay rational. There's really no way to argue that use of white phosphorous stands up to legitimate international scrutiny any more than Hamas' rockets do.
sometimes appealing to the authority of others is all we can do, i'm nowhere near able to collect my own information after all. i'm appealing to the fact that the worst the UN has to complain about, not vote on so the security council doesn't really come into play, is a handful of instances. unrwa is unique, the UN bitches non-stop about israel, and the UN human rights council is stocked with countries that delight at pointing at israel to distract from their own human rights violations.
and we're still talking only a handful of "maybes" out of thousands of bombs dropped. or do you think UNRWA and the UN human rights council are covering for israel too?
white phosphorous is legal under international law in many situations. just never against civilian targets, or from the air onto military targets in civilian zones apparently. and the IDF decided the ass-ache wasn't worth it so forewent using it this time round.
If by literally you mean figuratively, then sure. It's quite likely that Hamas themselves are saying that their own rockets aren't war crimes, regardless of whether they say this earnestly or not. Either way, again, nobody is denying that what Hamas is doing is wrong. The issue that I'm talking about assumes this as an axiom, even. My point is that there is a double standard that is applied when comparing Hamas' actions against Israel's, and your own statements demonstrate that better than I could myself.
as literally as literally can be, as long as you exclude those directly involved. fine, with that caveat :)
by your stance, there's very little difference between the stances of north korea and south. just two sides with a disagreement.
you aren't either...
you forgot -by attaching a giant solar sail to the earth.
it was deemed at the shark convention that "shark overlord" was too threatening, and sent the wrong message.
the preferred term now is "benevolent aquatic shepherd of dying-of-old-age-and-not-delicious-at-all humans"
they aren't very subtle.
gravity assists only work if you leave the gravity well.
you can't just orbit a thing bleeding off speed... unless you've got an aerobrake going on.
unless you mean you're circularizing the orbit using the laser, which might work i guess.
we can aerocapture or aerobrake to mars already... i think it's just a pain because the atmosphere is so damn thin you either need airbags or a powered descent stage.
all i know is i must try this in KSP now... thanks asshole.
1. hrm, wasn't sure of the particulars, but I'm going to make a judgement call. I would say the destruction of a marginally democratic state is less preferable than the destruction of a largely tyrannical one.
the last election in gaza was the one that put hamas into power after all.
also, i would say that the hamas charter is slightly more ambitious, it also calls for setting up an explicitly islamic state after the destruction of israel. i think that's called conquering.
2. yes, because for the large part the bombs dropped by israel have stood to international scrutiny. Like legitimate international scrutiny. The civilian to militant casualty ratios are in keeping with or better than any other urban conflict.
Literally nobody is saying the hamas rockets aren't war crimes, every single one of them is; recognized by the UN when they deem to mention them at all. People debate whether a dozen out of a thousand bombs dropped by israel are beyond the pale, and when they do they are not asking whether they targetted the civilian population rather than a military one for the most part, they are asking whether or not the military target warranted the number of civilian casualties.
it's frankly astonishing the cognitive dissonance. does anyone actually believe, that if israel's intent was to kill gazans... they wouldn't all be dead?
it's an open secret that Hamas has a control center operating in one of the largest hospitals in gaza. the IDF know it, the journalists know it, but it's a fucking hospital, so israel decided that the civilian casualties would probably outweigh the tactical benefit.
keep in mind that in operation cast lead, everybody was saying OMG the civilians, so many civilians dead, so few militants dead... and the idf was saying, no our numbers are right.
and later, when hamas had to appease the gazans, and basically say "we didn't abandon you when israel came knocking" they released casualty figures in keeping with those that the idf claimed throughout. hamas lied, and the idf didn't... what makes you think this time is any different?
war crime actually means something
gotta sky crane it, apparently aerobraking, and parachute won't do too well... though airbags might work good.
but powered descent is probably still necessary with a sizable payload.
yay
well... if you aim it right you'll stop one way or the other.
it's really about who decides what the deceleration looks like... and over what time-frame. either you handle it yourself... or physics is certainly up to the task of decelerating your craft for you.
do you even Kerbal?
you know how much of a pita gradual atmospheric breaking would be on mars too? you don't have to worry about your components melting... but you've also barely got an atmosphere to work with.
don't think a parachute would do much unless it were impractically large either.
1. yes, the blockade, after the election of hamas. Though that wasn't an instigation, that was more of a... 'well you just elected an organization that literally calls for our deaths.'
you forget that gaza shares a border with egypt...
which is currently pissed off that hamas has been smuggling things under their border too. and wants to build a big-ass wall.
why hasn't hamas shot rockets into egypt? same instigation after all.
2. ... guided is different than aimed is different than random. if you're toward a city, that's a choice and it doesn't matter if it's guided or aimed, it's targeting civilians.
you've got a direction, and you've got range. Any munitions that are aimed outside gaza are basically a war crime. and they've been trying to kill civilians for the better part of a decade over in gaza. just not terribly successful.
hah... that's probably true actually. i'd imagine petty crime doesn't get very far when you've got military posted everywhere... hrm.
well the news says there be stabbings and rammings etc. etc. in jerusalem. better than bus bombs and suicide vests, but... you know, maybe after it quiets down might be better.
the ottomans owned that shit, they fell and the brits took over, and they left it up to the UN. the UN decided to make jordan, israel and "palestine" out of it, with a international zone in jerusalem. the jews were like, "hell yeah, finally a place where people don't want to kill the fuck out of us"
then the arab world decided to kill the fuck out of them. 2-3 more defensive wars against basically The Middle East, and we get to where we are.
the jews haven't been an ethnic majority anywhere since the romans fucked them, and the arabs have only been an ethnic majority in the region since they killed everyone else there.
there has been continuous jewish presence in the region for all these 2000 years. they've just been, you know, dominated by others. how long do you need to be conquered for before a region is no longer your homeland? and if you kill everyone there, it's now yours? is that what you're saying?
quick question, how much weight do you think you could shave off if you removed the landing gear and a lot of that casing?
i mean, a fifth stick of dynamite and 20 nails would weigh in the vicinity of 80 grams.
i'd like to someday... as an atheist. maybe not you know, when i have the risk of getting stabbed.
it is retaliatory. There were no rockets, israel pulled out of gaza, there was a period where people weren't dying, the gazans elected hamas into power, blockade went up, rockets started firing. meanwhile egypt is also blockading gaza... because hamas is a dick.
hey if hamas rockets were shooting back at israeli forces, nobody would say shit. even during operation protective edge, when you've got israeli ground forces in gaza, i believe the qassams were still fucking pointed into israel. also, these party favors hamas was shooting into israel were ongoing for a period of years before any retaliatory strike from israel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
you should probably read what AI and HRW have to say about the qassams at least. they are rabidly anti-Israel for the most part, and even they admit that every qassam fired constitutes a warcrime twice over. where they're fired from, and who their intended target is.