aleph @ aleph @lemm.ee

Posts

4

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582

Joined

2 yr. ago

He was also, it seems, a scumbag

General is for work visas, whereas Academic is for applying to university courses. Generally speaking.

You should always double check with the institution/company you're applying to, though.

Exactly. For either of the main parties, it's barely a drop in the bucket. The claim that theoney is being withheld "in case they need it" is farcical.

Third parties, on the other hand, need all the help they can get.

The case for US electoral reform, exhibit #847...

It's hard enough for third parties to offer voters an alternative to the two main parties without the duopoly actively blocking what little financial support they have.

It's literally just boredom and dissatisfaction driving people to change from one side to another. Thanks to the two-party corporatocracy that the US pretends is a democracy, what other options do they have?

I'm a fan of atmospheric horror too, so I'll give Longlegs a watch.

Recently, I've also seen:

• Late Night With the Devil - really good retro horror flick. They got the feel of the late 70s just right, and i enjoyed the way the tension gradually builds to a crescendo.
• A Quiet Place: Day One - was a big fan of the first movie, but the sequels have been increasingly disappointing. This one was definitely the weakest, IMO, but still somewhat enjoyable if you still feel like seeing a little more of the same.
• Furiosa - it was never going to be quite as good as Fury Road, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. It leant a little too much towards the grotesque at times, but the central performances and the world building were still good.
• Immaculate - Sweeney is pretty good and it has some atmosphere but by the end it got a little too silly for me. A fairly passable religious genre horror, all round.
• Dune: Part Two - as a big fan of the books, I have to say it was a little disappointing. Villeneuve nailed the look and feel of Arrakis no doubt, but this part felt rushed and unsatisfying - It really needed another 30 or 40 minutes to allow some of the central plot points to land and to give the characters more room to develop. I enjoyed it, but it's not the masterpiece it could have been.

Your final paragraph is kind of the central point they're making, though. There seems to be a public mood of antipathy towards incumbent administration, which is bad news for Biden and the Democrats. People are fed up of the way things are and want a change, and Biden is deeply unpopular.

In order to convincingly beat Trump they need to do something bold: either offer a fresher, younger candidate or make big, daring bi-partisan policy plays on healthcare, education, more affordable housing, etc.

If they do nothing but stick to the old "vote for Biden and 'business as usual' because it's the only way to beat fascism", it looks like it may not be enough.

This is ironic because in the opinion piece by Rabbi Hain published in the Columbia student newspaper, he complains that

For years, Columbia’s Palestinian freedom movement has differentiated between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, affirming that one can be critical of Israel without being anti-Semitic. But by using the October 7 attacks as a rallying point for the movement, attendees of the campus rally can no longer argue that their activism differentiates between the two. They are now saying the quiet part out loud: Dead Jews don’t matter.

So here he's trying to accuse pro-Palestine students for conflating Anti-Zionism and antisemitism, when in fact groups like the Anti-Defamation League and American Israel Public Affairs Committee have been doing this exact same thing for years! And now even the US Congress is in on the action.

This is precisely why conflating to two is wrong: it dilutes the term "antisemitism" so much that people start to roll their eyes when they see it being weaponized to silence criticism of Israel, which then makes it harder to protect Jewish people from actual anti-semitic attacks.

To be fair, they call themselves The Satanic Temple. If they didn't want to court the "dark messenger" notoriety in the first place, they would just call themselves something serious like The Humanist Society.

Sure there's a lot of garbage out there, but YouTube and platforms like Substack allow former corporate journalists who want more freedom to do proper investigative stuff. You just have to be discerning with your sources.

I like Zeteo (Mehdi Hassan, formerly MSNBC), Drop Site News (Jeremy Scahill, formerly TheIntercept) and The Real News Network (Chris Hedges, formerly NYT) the best. Breaking Points also put out some good commentary occasionally.

You said "sure" but then went straight back to the Opensecrets rankings... You're glossing over the point.

AIPAC receives it's donations from inside the US, from pro-Israel Americans. Because the group is funded by private donors rather than the Israeli government or a foreign group, it does not need to be registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, so less oversight is given to where the money comes from and how it is spent.

What other foreign nation lobbying group donates $14M to the opponent of a congressman and pays for attack ads against him to hurt his chances in an upcoming election? It's unprecedented.

Also, it's worth noting that AIPAC takes money from anybody who is Pro-Israel, whether they be Jewish or not. There more Zionist Christians that Jews in America, in terms of pure numbers.

Would've preferred a Max win

I know. When will the poor lad start winning some races?

Again, while there are definitely some parallels between Putin's annexation of Crimea and Hitler's of the Sudetenland, there are also plenty of differences that make a direct comparison complicated and not altogether helpful. Hitler's goals were obviously more wide-ranging, proactive, and expansionist, whereas Putin's were much more localized and reactive to a perceived threat. A diplomatic solution didn't work with Hitler but it might have for Putin.

I understand and sympathize with Ukrainians who want to fight to the bitter end, but how much longer will that take? How many more lives will be lost? Is a military victory even likely?

With Ukraine recently being given access to long-range US missiles with which they have conducted strikes within Russian territory, the war seems to be gradually escalating with neither side willing to back down.

NO BUTS. That's IT. Russia is IN THE WRONG.

No argument from me. I wasn't condoning the Russian invasion so much as explaining what Russia's grievances were.

How do you ensure a tyrant doesn't regroup under a ceasefire and strike again after he gained a prize?

It was not Putin's intention to stay in Ukraine for long and the war has proven to be very costly. What he really wanted was to show the world that he would stand up to what he saw as the bullying of NATO, the EU, and the US.

A diplomatic solution that would have given Putin a chance to save face while also ensuring a ceasefire would have likely been enough for him, since he knew that Russia didn't have the military strength to beat NATO and Euro forces in an outright ground war. This, incidentally, is why I don't buy the direct comparison to Hitler, who actually had both the will and the military / economic might to take over Europe.

As to the very reasonable question of how: One suggestion I remember liking the sound of was the idea to establish a de-militarized zone along the Russian-Ukrainian border in the contested Donetsk-Luhansk region under the joint supervision of Kiyv, Moscow and the European Union.

Either way, I'm not saying it would have definitely worked out, but it seemed to me that not enough effort was given to trying to find a relatively peaceful alternative to a war that was always going to last years and costs tens of thousands of lives.

1. I explicitly said the Russian invasion was not justified
2. Propaganda is often a kernel of truth wrapped in a lie. That's true of US & EU propaganda as well.

I took the time to explain a nuanced alternative viewpoint and support it with reliable sources. It's pretty unfair to just dismiss it as a gish gallop or misinformation.

I don't have time to sit down and fully respond to your points now, but hopefully I'll have time later today.

See my comment here as a response.

See my comment here as a response.

The Russia/Ukraine conflict is a lot more complex than people in the West generally think.

You won't hear this often in mainstream media but NATO expansionism and the involvement of neo-nazi, far right paramilitary groups in the Maidan revolution in Ukraine, along with US State Department involvement, were legitimate grievances for Russia. (There's a great interview with a Ukrainian sociologist here that I think explains things in a fairly even handed way).

Russia was wrong to invade Ukraine, no question, but in the beginning there was a potential diplomatic resolution on the table if the US and NATO were willing to back off Ukraine. Support for joining NATO was always mixed in Ukraine anyway - Before the war, less than half of Ukrainians wanted it.

And who says the war will be endless? That's another Russian talking-point intending to sow defeatism.

Russia's resources are vast and they are supported by China. Ukraine is backed by the deep pockets of NATO. Over half a million troops on both sides have been killed (edit: or wounded). A recent UN report said:

Russia’s full-scale armed attack on Ukraine, which is about to enter its third year with no end in sight, continues to cause serious and widespread human rights violations, destroying lives and livelihoods

and stated that over 30,000 civilians have already died. A diplomatic solution three years ago could have possibly prevented all that.