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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • merc@sh.itjust.workstoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldContext
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    4 hours ago

    Biden’s policy on facilitating the Israeli genocide of Palestinians is incredibly unpopular with voters, it isn’t even close.

    ‘42 [percent] of Democratic voters […] said his approach was “just right.”’

    https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/14/democrats-sympathetic-palestinians-israelis-poll-00152117

    is an unmitigated catastrophe for his electability

    No, unlike you, he actually knows what the polls say, and largely they say that people support what he’s doing. If you think otherwise it’s because you’re in an echo chamber. But, what’s sad about you is that you’re so deep in that echo chamber that you think you’re not.

    if anything Israel has just become equivalent to a North Korea on the world stage

    Suuuure… wow, those echoes in your chamber are deafening you.

    Either is enough to be a red line for me in terms of voting for Biden

    So, instead you allow Trump to win, because somehow you think that’s the result that’s better for Palestinians? That’s idiotic.


  • merc@sh.itjust.workstoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldContext
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    1 day ago

    If you think this is how the actual world works you are incredibly misguided.

    If you think this isn’t how the world works, here’s an example: Israel.

    Israel knows having a cushy relationship with the US military industrial complex is literally existential to its existence

    It may once have been, but now the free weapons from the US are just a nice to have thing, rather than a necessity. Israel is relatively rich and doesn’t need the free stuff from the US anymore. But, it’s certainly nice to have.


  • merc@sh.itjust.workstoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldContext
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    2 days ago

    If you don’t think it’s an idiotic thing to say, you’re an idiot.

    “If something extremely complex and time consuming isn’t already 100% done to my satisfaction, nothing has been done.”

    Do you know that some things take time? Do you know that progress isn’t instantaneous? What are you, a literal baby who has no concept of the passage of time?


  • merc@sh.itjust.workstoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldContext
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    2 days ago

    Those are Israeli jets dropping Israeli bombs being piloted by Israeli pilots. When you sell someone something it becomes theirs, they are free to use it as they see fit, especially in the case of another country with its own military following its own laws.

    The US definitely shouldn’t have been selling Israel weapons for decades, let alone giving Israel money it can use to buy weapons (although it’s more of a gift to US defense contractors than it is a gift to Israel). But, once the weapons are in Israel’s hands, they’re Israel’s weapons.

    Of course Biden could do more, but he’s part of a political class that deeply believes in helping Israel. Mitt Romney would have been the same, same with Hillary Clinton and her husband, same with Obama, same with both Bushes, junior and senior. Trump isn’t part of that political class… but his stance would be “nuke Palestine” and/or “what’s in it for me, personally?”

    if Biden wanted to he could call up Netanyahu and end the genocide almost immediately

    He could call him up and tell him the US was cutting off support, but that wouldn’t end it immediately. It would also be a major cost to him politically, because a lot of democratic donors are rich jews who believe in the Zionist project. But, he’s probably not even making that kind of a political calculation, he’s probably just doing it because he strongly believes in helping Israel.

    It sucks, but there are 2 dominant political parties in the US, and one wants to help Israel because it thinks Israel is the only real democracy in the middle east, so no matter what it does, it’s not as bad as the nearby arab states. The other party thinks that the rapture is about to happen and that there needs to be a holy war in the middle east before all the non-evangelicals get wiped out and Jesus comes back to take the righteous to heaven – oh, and it’s a good place to sell weapons and generate big profits.


  • merc@sh.itjust.workstoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldContext
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    3 days ago

    You say the problem is being worked on in these things take time for multiple things. In other words, Biden has not done anything on these fronts

    What an idiotic thing to say.

    Biden is milk toast at best

    You should look up that expression because you’re misusing it.


  • merc@sh.itjust.workstoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldContext
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    3 days ago

    Student loans have not been canceled

    Some have.

    Non-Competes are still in effect

    https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/04/ftc-announces-rule-banning-noncompetes

    Landlords are still price fixing and rent is still out of control

    The problem is being worked on, the solution wasn’t instantaneous.

    Amazon, Google and apple nor any other large companies have been broken up with antitrust

    Not yet, these things take time. The final antitrust case against AT&T lasted 8 years, and it was only one of many. The antitrust case against IBM lasted almost 13 years.

    Despite giving the IRS funding, the rich are still not paying taxes

    Again, these things take time.

    I don’t know if you’ve been to America or met most Americans, but most of us are really struggling.

    So… something that has been happening since at least the Reagan years wasn’t turned around in 4, so Biden’s doing a bad job?


  • merc@sh.itjust.workstoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldContext
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    3 days ago

    Because:

    1. That’s something Israel is doing, not something the US is doing. As usual, the US is helping / shielding Israel, and that’s a problem, but that’s not the same as being directly responsible for it.
    2. If Trump were in charge, it would only be worse. He’d be encouraging Israel to nuke Gaza.

  • merc@sh.itjust.workstoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.worldContext
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    4 days ago
    • $35 cap on Insulin
    • Student loan cancellations
    • Restoring net neutrality
    • Banning non-compete agreements
    • Pardoned people convicted for simple marijuana possession convictions
    • Funding important infrastructure projects
    • Banning abusive and junky bank fees
    • Going after landlords who are price fixing
    • Minimum 15% tax on corporations, who otherwise use every trick in the book to hide their profits in tax shelters overseas
    • Rejoined the Paris Accord
    • Antitrust actions against Amazon, Google, Apple, various airlines, book publishers, even meat packers
    • Blocking mergers that would reduce competition, like Krogers acquiring Albertsons
    • Reducing fees real estate agents collect for home sales
    • Requiring airlines to refund passengers for delayed or canceled flights
    • Automatically recognizing a union when a corporation interferes with a union vote
    • Massive climate wins in the Inflation Reduction act
    • Giving IRS funding so it can go after the rich tax cheats, instead of just the poor people who make small errors
    • Allowing Medicare to actually negotiate drug prices, instead of being forced to accept whatever the drug companies decide

    And, this is despite a senate where Sinema and Manchin supposely give democrats a razor slim majority, but in reality they block almost everything. And, despite a congress that is currently republican controlled and block even the things their constituents want because they don’t want to let Biden have a win.

    In what way (other than Gaza) is he not doing a good job?




  • The full scene if anyone’s interested.

    Carl Weathers is an interesting contrast to Arnold. Arnold got his muscles by focusing on how he looked, on bodybuilding. Weathers developed his physique training for professional gridiron football. He played college football, then in the NFL (coached by John Madden) and CFL. Arnold used his unique physique as a way to get into movies without ever training as an actor. Weathers was studying theatre arts while playing college football, and finally finished the degree in 1974 just after retiring from pro football. He went on to get a master of theatre arts later.

    Both of them pivoted extremely successfully to comedy later in their careers, with Weathers doing Happy Gilmore and Arrested Development, and Arnold doing his whole variety of comedy movies.

    Also, good to know that Weathers loved this scene:

    “Predator, the handshake. That’s iconic,” says Weathers, grinning from ear to ear. “The director shot that scene beautifully. And it’s a great movie. You put that movie in the theater today and it works just as well as it did back in 1987.”

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/baby-carl-weathers-has-a-stew-going


  • On one hand, Assange is a shitty person. One woman woke up to him sticking his dick in her without her consent and without a condom. On the same trip he’d had sex with a different woman who had also insisted on his using a condom, which he reluctantly did… but then the condom mysteriously broke. While a guest of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he was hiding out to duck the Swedish charges, he smeared shit on the walls and refused to bathe. He also helped the Russian GRU interfere in the 2016 Presidential Election, either as a useful idiot or a willing collaborator.

    On the other hand, as shitty as he is, he was effectively a journalist. With Wikileaks he released leaked footage of a US helicopter firing on civilians in Iraq. He released reports on corruption by Kenyan leaders. He released internal scientology documents. The world needs journalists who will publish stories about things that powerful people, governments and churches don’t want people to know.

    On the other, other hand, at times he hung his sources out to dry, like he did with Bradley / Chelsea Manning.

    The plea deal he agreed to is bullshit. The charge of “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion” was basically encouraging a source to leak information to him. That’s journalism. “Conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information” was again, journalism. He was encouraging whistleblowers to report on wrongdoing by the government.

    Even the plea deal is bullshit. He pled to violating the espionage act for… what? He didn’t break into anything himself. He wasn’t given a security clearance which he then violated. He wasn’t even American, in America, or working for the government. He was acting as a journalist receiving information from a whistleblower.

    So, IMO, there’s nothing much to celebrate here. A shitty person pled to a bullshit charge, setting a bad precedent for journalism, and is now free. Lose, lose.


  • Another similar “shortcut” I’ve heard about was that a system that analyzed job performance determined that the two key factors were being named “Jared” and playing lacrosse in high school.

    And, these are the easy-to-figure-out ones we know about.

    If the bias is more complicated, it might never be spotted.