barsoap

@barsoap@lemm.ee

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EXCLUSIVE: “You Have Been Warned”: Republican Senators Threaten the ICC Prosecutor over Possible Israel Arrest Warrants (zeteo.com)

A group of influential Republican senators has sent a letter to International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Karim Khan, warning him not to issue international arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, and threatening him with “severe sanctions” if he does so....

barsoap, (edited )

I’d say the US will definitely cease its aggression when the first French nuke hits an aircraft carrier, or similar target. The French do commit to warning shots in their first-strike doctrine.

…unlikely to come to that point, though, Europe can stalemate the US by conventional means with the current arms levels, they’d never get boots on the ground. It’s also not like we’d need nukes to sink those carriers. Washington is then welcome to seethe at an ocean’s distance.

barsoap, (edited )

No Israeli government has reduced or at least stopped settlements since Rabin was murdered.

Quoth the Haaretz: “Jigal Amir won”.

The possible silver lining is that Netanyahu also demonstrated that the right-wing’s idea of how to ensure security – namely, by antagonising Palestinians into submission – doesn’t work. But that kind of insight will take a while to actually sink in.

And another thing that needs to happen is Israelis not shying away from looking at what’s being done to Palestinians. The Israeli press is self-censoring, knowing that noone wants to watch or read about the crimes the IDF is committing. It’s wilful ignorance: People want to support the IDF because they at least at some level still believe in the antagonising Palestinians into submission approach, yet they can’t bear to acknowledge what that entails. Which is kinda actually a real silver lining: Imagine if the Israeli press glorified, instead of ignored, all those mass graves and whatnot, what that would say about their audience. In the end it’s still only the Kahanites who actually get a hard-on when seeing Arab corpses.

…the same, side note, btw also happened in the Third Reich: First Nazis were very overt, the pogroms were open, public, they were dragging people through streets and whatnot. They very quickly changed approach, made sure that people were able to ignore what was being done, were able to come up with lies such as “they’re only expelling the Jews” and actually believe in them. Precisely because not every German back then got a hard-on when seeing a Jewish corpse either.

So, please, Israeli people, get rid of those chucklefucks in government before they put you in camps for protesting.

barsoap,

Stop that “guilt” talk please that’s a literal Nazi narrative. Responsibility is the word you’re looking for.

And, no, Germany isn’t preventing anything from getting out DW is pretty much blasting Gazan plight 24/7. Then, you won’t hear them say it publicly to not risk damaging diplomatic relations but the government definitely thinks that there’s a genocide going on – otherwise they wouldn’t have stopped weapon exports.

barsoap, (edited )

So then why not talk about it if they know genocide is happening?

Because cutting off ties with Israel doesn’t change Israel’s mind, especially if you’re Germany, while with intact relations you can still work from the inside. Germany has deep ties to all aspects of Israeli society, not just the government. Or, differently put: Breaking ties won’t happen until the Kahanites outlaw the Haaretz.

On the flipside I don’t see any other possible explanation for the lack of issued weapons export permits than them being of the opinion that there’s at least a strong risk that those weapons would be used in a genocide. You might’ve heard that the ICJ didn’t enact any preliminary rulings against Germany to stop weapons exports, that is why: There’s no exports that could be reasonably used in the perpetration of a genocide.

Why prevent this guy from speaking in France?

Germany never decided that, Germany, or rather Berlin (as in the state government in its role as municipality, not the federal government) decided he should not speak in Germany on grounds of public order concerns. I suppose it has something to do with him glorifying war criminals, no matter how often he says that he disavows terrorism. The convention he was to speak at also showed videos of someone else already banned, there might be some degree of getting caught in the cross fire involved. He’s not a German citizen thus political activism within Germany is not a right but privilege.

Plenty of Palestinians are not getting banned from Germany like that because they’re way less iffy, and with that I don’t mean “Don’t criticise Israel”.

France is free to make arrangements that allow him to enter France without risking him entering Schengen states he’s banned from. Also this would’ve looked differently without Brexit as then he’d still be a EU citizen and the ban wouldn’t have automatically extended to Schengen so why aren’t you blaming the Tories instead of Germany.

barsoap,

There’s more intersex people, by magnitudes, than male children needing a circumcision for medical reasons. Least of all before puberty. Most of the time phymosis vanishes with mechanical stimulation alone, if it doesn’t then in all but a vanishingly small number of cases some testosterone salve does the rest.

You’d be much better advised advocating for masturbators (as in pocket pussy) over bare hands, they’re mechanically superior not just when it comes to the foreskin but also when it comes to bad habits such as edging rope. I thought they had sex ed in Canada but apparently it’s just as bad as in the US.

barsoap,

Cuba is overall liberalising, just have a look at the gazillion of reforms after Castro. OTOH authoritarian habits die hard especially in places such as courts backing up the “thin blue line”.

barsoap,

Its operating entirely on the credit from its western allies

Nope. It’s aid, not loans. At least by and large, that is, some small amount of loans might exist. You might be confused by the US passing lend+lease but that was more of a political signal to the Russians.

Certainly not when the MIC they’re relying on demands giant profit margins for every rocket launched and bullet fired.

Generals don’t give a fuck about the military-industrial complex they care about whatever resource they have getting used efficiently because you don’t win wars by being wasteful: You don’t suddenly start shooting ATACMS when artillery will do and is available for the simple reason that artillery shells are easier to get, more abundant.

Not when Ukraine is cannibalizing itself in the effort.

Have a look at Ukraine’s demographics. Have a look at which age range is exempt from the draft. The reason is quite simple: Ukraine is a democratic society, not run by a little man and his viceroys for their own personal benefit. The only country cannibalising itself here is Russia, Ukraine is surviving.

barsoap,

If they don’t want to die they’re free to march on the Kremlin, instead. Kremlin guards have fewer weapons than the Ukrainian army.

barsoap,

You don’t have a lot of options. Makes sense to take your chances against Ukraine than try to overthrow the Russian military/government.

Not in a strategic sense, no, because Kremlin guards are still less well armed than Ukraine. The trouble, of course, is that people are too scared to make that kind of cool-headed analysis but as soon as there’s a crack in the regime because, say, Omon can’t respond to lesser incidents because they’re lying in a ditch in Ukraine the dam would break. Which OTOH is rather unlikely to happen because regime security is Putin’s #1 concern, he’d let go of Ukraine before risking it, so he won’t kill off their response capability like that. He may be mad but he’s not crazy.

What really needs to happen is for war law to be changed to allow heads of state and government buildings to be targeted. Then they’d be a lot more careful about going to war.

Bad idea. If Putin loses, the Siloviki have a good justification for a coup. If Putin gets assassinated, they’d be forced to declare him a martyr and continue the fight.

And Ukraine thinks the same or the SBU would already have gotten to him. They’re also not touching the likes of Shoigu, they only target competent people: The more of a clown show the Russian regime is the easier the war becomes.

barsoap, (edited )

The question is not whether you like or don’t like Biden. The question is not about the morals of lesser evilism. The question is about is the left going to be able to organise in the future, or is it going to get crushed by force. Is that an end result you can get behind that might justify the means of checks notes spending five minutes to do the possible within the limits of the current material conditions, i.e. turn up to the fucking ballot booth.

Biden’s blown any chance he had. You’ve got a better chance of getting Maryanne Williamson into office.

Who? I mean sorry I’m European but if I haven’t heard of her no she doesn’t have a chance. Ballots aren’t decided by policy, first and foremost they’re a popularity contest and the first step in that is be known. Second step, make sure people believe you can win, appear to have enough support to actually be worth a shot. Then policy comes into play. Biden has the first two nailed down because institutional inertia, policy don’t matter if your other candidate doesn’t reach that bar.

barsoap,

I used to watch it just to see the spectacle

Heck one can watch just for the smoothness of organisation. Half a gazillion acts, one after the other with stage decoration changes, sometimes quite drastically, live, but it looks like a ultra-tight cut prerecording.

barsoap,

The actual question is: Which participant flags or combinations of those can be folded into a Palestinian flag?

Hungary and Italy have white and green adjacent that’s a good start, add Germany resp. Belgium for black, red for the triangle is quite abundant take your pick.

What are they going to do, kick people out during the livestream?

barsoap,

That’s why you combine it with a drinking game. Also the really bad acts are from countries who want to make sure they’re not going to win and have to spend money on hosting the next contest, that is, you can appreciate them for the creative ways in which they are deliberately bad.

barsoap,

A model that can only generate frontal to profile views of heads would be quite small, I can totally see that kind of thing running on current consumer GPUs, in real time. Near real time is already possible with SDXL-based models with some speedup tricks applied as long as you have a mid-range gaming GPU and those models are significantly more general. It’s not like the model would need to generate spaghetti and sports cars alongside with the head.

barsoap,

None of those concerns are new in principle: AI is the current thing that makes people worry about corporate and government BS but corporate and government BS isn’t new.

Then: The cat is out of the bag, you won’t be able to put it in again. If those things worry you the strategic move isn’t to hope that suddenly, out of pretty much nowhere, capitalism and authoritarianism will fall never to be seen again, but to a) try our best to get sensible regulations in place, the EU has done a good job IMO, and b) own the tech. As in: Develop and use tech and models that can be self-hosted, that enable people to have control over AI, instead of being beholden to what corporate or government actors deem we should be using. It’s FLOSS all over again.

Or, to be an edgelord to some of the artists out there: If you don’t want your creative process to end up being dependent on Adobe’s AI stuff then help training models that aren’t owned by big CGI. No tech knowledge necessary, this would be about providing a trained eye as well as data (i.e. pictures) that allow the model to understand what it did wrong, according to your eye.

barsoap,

Glass isn’t easy to recycle because just a little bit of the wrong stuff can mess up a batch.

It is reusable, though, and you can shatter it and get aggregate for concrete which is getting rare these days as all the obvious places to get sand from, such as deserts, have grains that are way too round. In that case it doesn’t matter if there’s the occasional mug or drinking glass or window pane in the recycling, concrete doesn’t care.

PET is actually excellent for recycling provided that you actually recycle it, i.e. have a deposit scheme that works. Like the German 25ct/bottle one. Provides a very clean recycling stream, the product is light and doesn’t use much volume at all when shipped to the bottling plant (they’re expanding the bottles on site), etc. Also, nature apparently is learning how to break up PET.

barsoap,

Banning straws (generally, single-use plastics) as well as non-attached bottlecaps is the most effective way to keep EU beaches clean. They had a look at what’s out there and those were the big offenders that could be addressed so they’re doing it.

…also the only bad thing about those silicone straws I bought is that they’re too short for bottles. It really is the ideal material for the application.

barsoap,

I’m sure that something could be done, but it surely isn’t going to help with beach littering. Even if some coal ends up on the beach that’s really not an issue.

barsoap,

For extra impact, have Seal Team 6 second the president’s lawyers/entourage whatever it’s called and deliver the question. In full gear.

barsoap,

Giving users access to PID1 running binaries, giving users access to the kernel running binaries as root, I don’t see much difference. SUID was notorious in the past for being leaky, it only ended when distros got serious about fencing use of it in, giving it only to programs actually needing it, making sure that they drop privilege properly, etc.

If anything I’m in the PID1 camp because it’s more microkernely. But in any case broader userspace shouldn’t really care about the mechanism, only have an API to do it and that API being a bit in the file permissions is soooo 1960s.

barsoap,
barsoap,

Yes of course spiders and snakes are only scary if they’re at least two metres high, noone would ever be worried about being bitten by a thing you didn’t see or hear coming.

barsoap,

Provoking, such as getting too close to them because you don’t see them?

barsoap,

My point is why bring up the US.

Hot take? Because Yanks have nothing to talk about but themselves on account of not having a firm mental image of anything existing outside of the US, consequently not acknowledging the material reality of anything outside of the US. Like “Iran” could as well be “Neighbour of Wakanda” to them, on some level they regard both places as fictional so they make Iran about them just as they make Wakanda about them. A movie in the cinema reporting about a fictional place, a news article reporting about a fictional place, where’s the difference when it comes to water-cooler talk. Utterly self-absorbed bunch over there.

barsoap, (edited )

Don’t forget bailing out hospitals etc. when people invariably default on their medical debt. On expensive ER bills that only exist because people couldn’t afford to visit a GP five years earlier and get some cheap off the shelf preventive medicine.

Also, and this really shouldn’t be underestimated: Laws concerning everything from food regulations over transportation polity to sports promotion that don’t take people’s health into account because health is a private matter. With socialised healthcare, suddenly all those new fancy bike paths have a tangible ROI in yet another public budget (not just the transportation agency’s one, that is).

barsoap,

it’s not actually valid to say “native” in the same sense as “native Americans”.

It actually is, it’s just that Swedes are just as native as Sami. Which is why usually we’re talking about autochthone minorities in Europe (or some similar term), and if you see a European unironically using terms like “BIPOC” you can be sure they haven’t used their brain in a while because the “I” in that abbreviation is literally the overwhelming majority of the population.

barsoap,

and said the right things in absolutely batshit ways during press junkets and campaign appearances.

I want Juncker back.

EU pulls its gun on China: The EU is accelerating its crackdown on what it sees as Beijing’s unfair support for companies that undermine European rivals (www.politico.eu)

Europe’s phoney war with China is at an end. After years of building up an improved arsenal for a trade war, Europe is now showing it is willing to get tough on Beijing....

barsoap,

Plastic doohickeys indeed have quality standards in the EU, e.g. plenty of phalates are limited to banned depending on product category (e.g. children’s toys). Without adherence to those standards no CE mark, without that no sales on the internal market.

barsoap,

And China trade is profitable for NATO countries. Is China not sanctioning Russia expensive enough, in terms of additionally needed support to Ukraine, to warrant the massive global fallout that such a move could have?

If you ask me such a move would be too principled for its own good. Everyone, literally everyone, is busy fucking Russia one way or the other right now for the simple reason that Russia now is a beggar, not a chooser. Are they sanctioning as hard no but in the end it still amounts to significant pressure and it’s the total impact, duration, and steadfastness that counts, not the symbolism.

Also China isn’t right-out helping Russia like NK does, if they did they’d be sending over tanks instead of literal golf carts.

barsoap,

Terminal multiplexers are terminal emulators.

barsoap,

L4. HURD never panned out, and L4 is where the microkernel research settled: Memory protection, scheduling, IPC in the kernel the rest outside and there’s also important insights as to the APIs to do that with. In particular the IPC mechanism is opaque, the kernel doesn’t actually read the messages which was the main innovation over Mach.

Literally billions of devices run OKL4, seL4 systems are also in mass production. Think broadband processors, automotive, that kind of stuff.

The kernel being watertight doesn’t mean that your system is, though, you generally don’t need kernel privileges to exfiltrate any data or generally mess around, root suffices.

If you want to see this happening – I guess port AMDGPU to an L4?

barsoap,

In Germany judgements by the constitutional court are immediately applicable law. They can and do just say “this law is not to be applied” and the wider executive will do it no matter what the parliament or chancellery thinks about it.

They indeed are the most powerful institution in the country which is balanced by them not being able to do anything if noone files a case, as well as them not having any enforcement powers of their own. Ushers is as far as it goes.

barsoap,

The constitutional order didn’t change with reunification: The east split up into states, which then simultaneously but individually joined the western federation. Pretty much the same thing as 1957, when Saarland joined the federation.

As to why we have better judges – part of it is cultural, but a lot institutional. They aren’t appointed for life but 12 year terms or until they’re 68, which ever comes first, they get elected with 2/3rd majorities, half by parliament, half by the Bundesrat (i.e. by the state governments). Oh: You actually need to be qualified: Either have passed the 2nd state examination in law (which qualifies you to be a regular judge), or be a professor of law. The net result is that the judges are first and foremost jurists, and very good ones at that, not party hacks. It also helps that the constitutional court is not an appellate court, they only do law review, not case review.

barsoap,

Nah if it was malice you’d see them openly defending the necessity of biological weapons research for the safety of the revolution and shit.

This is the usual Chinese game of “lose more face by trying to save face in the hope that the rest of the world is Chinese and lets you get away with it”.

barsoap,

Do we really want to save this shit system that empowers the worst of us?

Do you want the masses to have the material means to do anything other than bow to systemic pressure?

barsoap,

Depends on implementation but just paying it out to everyone is the easiest option. You can even make a progressive tax system that’s nothing but UBI + flat tax, ridiculously easy to administer. If the UBI was, say, 1k and the tax rate 50% (just to have easy numbers) if you earn 100 bucks a month you end up with 1050, if you earn 2000 you end up with 2k, and if you earn 1m you end up with 501000: Under 2k income the effective tax rate is negative, at 2k it’s exactly zero, at just over 2k it’s very low, over that it approaches 50% in the limit. Much cheaper and easier to just give it to everyone than means-test a gazillion low-income people just to spite Gates.

barsoap,

The EBU isn’t apolitical they suspended Russia over their war of aggression, but it would indeed be unprecedented to bar a country from the ESC without it being suspended and Israel has been occupying Palestine pretty much since it was founded.

I will definitely be watching it, the audience reaction could get interesting during Israel’s performance. The Haaretz had the good sense to call for a withdrawal from the ESC but the rightoids of course aren’t listening.

barsoap,

Back then and today workwear is where it’s at. Not reflective vest type of workwear, this kind of stuff. Comfy, durable, cut that prioritises function but doesn’t ignore style (maybe unsurprisingly companies like it when their employees have a bit of drip), and unless the company sold out to fashion you’re not paying extra for the brand (unless it’s Engelbert-Strauss which is construction site Gucci. I mean it’s still solid and functional it’s just not worth the premium). Also available without cargo pockets if you insist, look for companies catering more towards service jobs than the trades.

Pretty much only downside is the lack of colour options. Be careful when thinking about dying stuff many synthetics don’t dye well or at all, even when the fabric is pure cotton the thread is definitely polyester. Or even silica.

barsoap,

E2E for the fediverse is in the pipeline. I think that only applies to DMs but that would be sufficient, everyone knows that a publicly readable message is publicly readable and if they don’t there’s no technological solution to that, anyway.

barsoap,

Yes and no because when vegans get nutrient deficient it hits them hard. Lack of fibre is completely benign compared to deficiencies in essential micronutrients – fibre is not essential. You can have a maize and MSG diet if that also includes about two eggs a week your body is not going to be well off but it’s going to cope instead of collapse.

And lots of prospective vegans are hit by those deficiencies, and then drop out, at least out of strict veganism. Nothing like a gal’s period stopping to scare them off. Which, conversely, means that if vegans want to actually grow their numbers they should stop being all blase about nutrition. It definitely is possible to get enough iron, even as a gal, from a vegan diet but yes you gotta eat your lentils. There’s alternatives but how in the everloving does it happen that people turn vegan and don’t eat enough, of all things, lentils. I probably eat enough lentils and I’m not even vegan.

barsoap,

Most of the iron in spinach is not bioavailable. Veggies generally aren’t good at the iron being bioavailable but spinach is especially bad, and lentils are quite good and contain a ton. Apples have excellent bioavailability but comparatively low iron content OTOH you can just stick a nail into them. Or use an iron pan that also helps. And yes diced apples work quite well in lentil stew the lentils need acid anyway, add spices and aromatics, either noodles or a slice or two of good bread and you have yourself a meal.

barsoap, (edited )

Soup or stew is about the only traditional way to prepare lentils pretty much everywhere, traditionally eaten with bread. The lentil+wheat/rye combo is to Indo-European cooking what beans+maize is to American cooking, and rice+beans to Asia. Africa is also lentil territory the grain situation there is… complex.

In any case yes it’s going to be soup or stew in whatever viscosity and degree of mushiness you want but you’ll find a metric fuckton of different recipes.

If you want something ready-made there’s lentil crisps which actually are very good but also quite a bit more expensive than the usual potato or maize fare.

barsoap,

Chickpeas and pinto beans, legumes in general, are a decent source of iron. Lentils just happen to be the best legume, and pretty much best veggie overall.

It’s definitely possible to get all nutrition from an intuitive diet, preconditions are a) having been exposed to enough different foodstuffs, b) not being addicted to junk food and c) a habit of cooking from scratch and follow your gut when planning meals. B12 really is the critical thing for vegans as non-animal sources are indeed very rare. There’s a nutritional co-processor somewhere in us we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t have one. Also pregnant women couldn’t suddenly crave pickles with Nutella without one. The trick is actually using it.

barsoap,

NATO global partner, not member. Like Australia, Colombia, Iraq, Japan, Mongolia, New Zealand, Pakistan, and South Korea. Also Argentina is already a major Non-NATO ally. That’s a US designation but it’s not like the rest of us would have bad relationships with them… wait Myanmar is on there WTF are the Yanks thinking.

barsoap,

There is a portion of the English population that harbors endless hatred against Argentina for daring to try to reclaim territory that is rightly theirs.

Dude noone outside of Argentina ever considered your Falklands claim as anything but a bad joke.

barsoap,

Nah it’s the position of everyone who understands that the Falklands weren’t Spanish when Argentine declared independence, but British. Who, may I remind you, are not the people you declared independence from.

Not to mention that Falklanders don’t want to be Argentinian, they very much would like to stay British. Really, stuff that jingoism it makes you look silly.

barsoap,

True, it’s going to be intrapersonal conflicts and communication errors instead. Finally, the means of neurosis will be socialised.

barsoap,

That’s basically impossible because there’s also legitimate good coming out of short-term rentals if done correctly so courts won’t let a total ban stand.

I think Berlin does it right: You can rent out your apartment while you’re away for a maximum of 90 days a year, unlimited if you live there with the guest, otherwise you need a hotel license which you won’t get for a residential apartment if there’s a housing shortage (and there is). In either case you’ll need to register with the city and display that register number in your listing on airbnb or elsewhere so any offering that doesn’t include one can get roflstomped by the authorities.

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