Just to list a few things, no it’s not a war crime to attack hospitals, if they are being used for military purposes. Same with schools, kindergartens, residential buildings, etc. The Geneva Conventions explicitly permit this in order to discourage the use of human shields, which they define as a war crime, because if one side does this all the time - and Hamas have openly celebrated the use of human shields - then this might motivate the enemy to assume that behind every group of civilians, there might be fighters. When North Korean soldiers fired at US soldiers out of crowds of refugees during the Korean War, this led to US soldiers driving refugees away with their guns and even killing a number of them, fearing to be ambushed. Fighters not wearing uniforms puts every fighting age male in the combat area at a risk - and guess what, Hamas only wears uniforms during parades, not in combat. Hamas have used human shields successfully to prevent Israel from performing attacks on weapons depots, rocket launch sites, command centers, etc. They were under the impression that they could attack from these positions, from behind civilians with impunity. If the other side doesn’t attack, that’s a win, the terrorists get to live for another day and can continue what they are doing. If Israel does attack and civilians die, this particular cell might lose a few fighters and equipment, but they can use the innocent civilians they put into the crossfire for propaganda against Israel, both domestically in order to recruit new fighters and internationally to put pressure on Israel. What should Israel do in this situation? Just eat the rockets? The Iron Dome is far from perfect and every alert means people only have seconds to interrupt whatever they are doing and rush to shelter. That’s no way to live. Meanwhile, in Gaza, there are no civilian bomb shelters, not even air raid sirens. Gaza is the only place since WW2 that attacked an enemy they know have air power, but provides no shelters nor warnings for civilians. Kind of odd, if you think about it.

Until reading your post and then doing more research, I fell for the “higher civilian casualty rate” headlines. I was aware that it is legal to strike a normally civilian location if it is being used for military purposes, but felt that the IDF was being unusually imprecise during this conflict.

It turns out that the headlines are very misleading. You can’t compare a single conflict in a densely-populated urban area to the average of all 20th century conflicts (especially not when the government of said urban area uses human shields). The only really fair comparison points are previous Israeli conflicts in Gaza and a handful of battles against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The civilian casualty rate is about half of what we saw against ISIS.

Statistics on civilian casualties here

Seems like there are a number of issues with this.

1. Not defining “reliability challenge” in a meaningful way. (How many of these are problems that are expensive or time-consuming to repair? How expensive and how time-consuming? Are these problems that prevent the car from driving safely, or are they inconveniences that can be put off?)

2. Not controlling for manufacturer. (Toyota has long-been regarded as a reliable manufacturer, but they make 2 plug-in hybrids and 1 EV, all of which are new this year. Meanwhile, they offer about a dozen different traditional hybrids. I can believe that the Tesla Model 3 is less reliable than the Toyota Camry, but is a full-electric Hyundai Ioniq less reliable than a Hyundai Sonata?)

3. Including plug-in hybrids and full electric vehicles as one category. (Plug-in hybrids combine the old breakable parts such as transmissions with the new breakable parts such as lithium batteries. This is the trade-off that buyers make to get the efficiency of an electric vehicle at short ranges and the convenience of an ICE at long ranges.)

Important to note that this is a workaround. Solidarity strikes (which normally include general strikes) are illegal, but there’s no law that prevents every union from happening to strike on their own behalf at the same time.

American unions are kneecapped by the government. The 1947 Taft-Hartley Act made solidarity strikes (and several other forms of labor protest) illegal. It also opened the door for states to enact “right-to-work” laws.

This law is still standing in part because US courts have been anti-labor for their entire existence, aside from a brief period during FDR’s administration.

Subtract the “defense” costs that are paid for by other means in most of the world (healthcare, education, medical research), adjust the rest for purchasing power parity, and get back to me on that.

“Your hands don’t look right!”

• AI models in 2023

Pikmin 4 is built on Unreal Engine, so it’s already something of a unicorn in Nintendo’s library.

I don’t think the drive actually failed. The article said that the files disappeared from the drive one-by-one, which sounds like a firmware bug to me.

You could theoretically have the same problem due to a buggy RAID controller or driver.

Jack Smith lured Trump into committing crimes 3+ years ago, in what legal experts are calling “1D checkers.”

I seriously doubt that Congress can create a law that infringes on the First Amendment and simultaneously strip all federal courts of their jurisdiction to review that law.

If that were the case, then simple majorities in Congress and a Presidential signature would be enough to effectively override the Constitution. That’s far easier than an amendment.

For context:

Judicial review exists because it makes sense. The framers decided to bind the government with a Constitution, but never explicitly wrote up an enforcement mechanism. The judiciary already interprets laws, so they get to be the enforcement mechanism by default.

The framers also decided to write “during good behavior” in Article III, but never defined what that means. Congress writes laws, so it’s logical to me that Congress gets to define what “good behavior” entails.

Judicial review isn’t in the Constitution either.

Wouldn’t she be replaced quickly, resulting in a Democratic majority and new Democrats on those committees

My understanding was that she’s being kept there because Pelosi doesn’t want Newsom to appoint her replacement, since that replacement would have a slight advantage in the 2024 election cycle.

“States’ rights” and hypocrisy have gone hand-in-hand for a very long time.

The idea has definitely come up that there’s an association between the “globalist” pejorative and anti-Semitism (globalism -> conspiracy that secretly controls the world -> Jewish conspiracy), but it’s not as cut and dry as I thought.

Relevant Wikipedia entry about new anti-Semitism

Not sure how I forgot Stardew. I also have two copies.

Nintendo’s exclusives are where the Switch really shines. Unfortunately, they’re expensive. I’ll echo the DekuDeals recommendation for finding sales.

Other Nintendo titles that are worthwhile, aside from the obvious Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom and depending on your tastes:

• Super Mario Odyssey
• Mario Kart 8
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
• Animal Crossing New Horizons
• Splatoon 3 (2 is good too, but 3 is an improvement and more active)
• Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze
• Pikmin (the whole series)
• Metroid Dread
• Metroid Prime Remastered
• Fire Emblem Three Houses
• Pokemon Legends Arceus

There are also tons of great indie games that play well on Switch (especially handheld):

• Hades
• Dead Cells
• Hollow Knight
• Slay the Spire
• Into the Breach
• Shovel Knight

Firstly, the term “globalists” is an anti-Semitic dogwhistle. Beyond that usage, it’s meaningless.

Secondly, YouTube is riddled with disinformation. This is primarily due to the algorithm which drives receptive users to extremist videos (and skeptical users who might refute those videos away from them). It’s also because it’s a lot more difficult to fact-check spoken language than written language.

To my knowledge, Reddit is owned by private companies and investors. Blackrock and Vanguard have no ownership stake, or a very small and very indirect ownership stake.

For what it’s worth, a significant percentage of every (reasonably liquid) public company on Earth is owned by Vanguard and Blackrock, because those companies manage trillions of dollars in assets (many of which are middle-class people’s retirement investments). They aren’t a conspiracy. They’re asset managers, and mostly passive managers at that.

Into the Breach’s soundtrack is also outstanding, by the same composer for the same developer.