If the Ukraine conflict has taught us anything, it should be that holding on to unrealistic maximalist aims over the possibility of a negotiated settlement is very dangerous and possibly self-destructive.
Since most factions in Palestinian government are at least nominally on board with a Two-State Solution of some kind, I don't think it's my place to call for more maximalist goals than the Palestinian people are willing to accept. In other words, I don't want to be the left version of those blood thirsty NAFO dogs egging Ukraine on from the sidelines.
I saw something like that on Twitter but it was from a suspicious account with no official (i.e government or media) standing. Just a pic of boxes at an airport that were purportedly full of body armor. Could have been literally anything.
I propose giving the Baltic States to Israel instead. Modern Germany is at least mostly repentent about its Nazi past, but the Baltic States had enthusiastic pogroms before the Nazis rolled in in WW2 and have built their post-Soviet identities on defending their involvement with the SS.
If anyone deserves to lose land, it's the Baltics.
Zhang Junshe, a Chinese naval expert, told the Global Times on Sunday that while Australia claimed the incident happened in Japan's exclusive economic zone, it did not give the exact location.
If the incident took place in waters to the west of Japan, China and Japan have not carried out maritime delimitation in relevant waters, so Japan's self-proclaimed exclusive economic zone could be well within waters administered by China, Zhang said.
Another Chinese military expert who requested anonymity told the Global Times on Sunday that Australia likely intentionally chose not to disclose the exact location because it has a guilty conscience.
"Did the incident take place near China's Diaoyu Islands or the island of Taiwan? Or was it close to a PLA training exercise? If that is the case, it was obvious that the Australian warship provoked China in the first place," the expert said.
Analysts pointed out that the Australian press release is one-sided as it failed to mention the Chinese input during the communications between the two countries' ships.
Since the Australian side admitted that it had established communications with the Chinese side, it is very likely that the Chinese ship issued verbal warnings which the Australian ship had ignored, and the Chinese ship was forced to take the ensuing step which was to send a warning through sonar, the abovementioned anonymous expert said.
I kind of believe Chris Roberts himself is just an overambitious perfectionist. He pulled the same kind of bullshit with Freelancer, which only released because Microsoft put its foot down.
I can also believe that a lot of the top people around him are grifters feeding his ambition and perfectionism to keep the gravy train running.
Either way, they got my Kickstarter money so the only entertainment I'll ever get from that game is opining about it like I know anything.
Actually I'll do one better. While you were deflecting, I found the court filings.
Not shockingly, one of the main causes of action against the defendant is that they are dressing up a credit contract as a lease agreement to avoid interest rate caps (Section 3.2) and disclosure requirements (Section 3.3) which you'll notice is exactly what I was talking about from the get go.
Damingly:
Let's see you use that calculator in your pocket to determine if you're getting a reasonable deal without being told the original price of the goods, the interest rate, and how the interest was calculated.
And you know that no information was deliberately obfuscated or hidden by the vendor? The vendor currently being sued by regulators for operating a business model "designed to avoid consumer protections for financially vulnerable consumers."?
Curious as to how you know this information. Do you have a copy of the court filings? Please feel free to share if you do.
It's amazing how many hexbears can't have a simple discussion without getting personal.
Not really much of a discussion to be had. You just keep alleging facts without evidence. I don't think many people consider "Uh huh!" and "Nuh uh!" to be a form of discussion.
Sure, poor people are poor because there's one specific piece of magical knowledge that they were never taught. Nothing to do with structural socioeconomic forces that keep people poor so that their labor can be more cheaply exploited.
You have been consistently been alleging that the woman in question could have easily checked the total cost of her payments, which you have just declined to provide proof for. I will take this as a concession from you on this point and move on.
Doubt. They'll find some other money trap to fall into in a week unless they're taught to actually be smarter about their finances.
This is an unfalsifiable counterfactual and I will dismiss it without further comment.
The government could very much keep them solvent by, for example, mandating that consumer credit contracts must show tables of total payments including all fees and interest over time. Does the credit contract in question display such information? Onus is on you to provide proof if you're alleging that it does.
Things that are more nebulous and harder or impossible to check.
Then please demonstrate how easy it is for the consumer to check their total payments by posting a screenshot from that website that alerts the consumer to the possibility of paying 4x the cost of the device as the total cost of transaction.
Except obviously it is because nothing on that website alerts the buyer to the possibility of paying 4x the price of the good as the total cost of transaction. 33% to 38% interest pa is already egregious enough as it is but 4x the base cost of the good is absurd and usurus.
Sounds like you just have an ideological bias against consumer regulation and are trying to fit the facts into your framework.
"$1.18 with tax" for maximum inconvenience.