Carrolade
@Carrolade@lemmy.world
- Comment on USA President term limits 4 days ago:
Assuming he abides by constitutional law, this will be his final term.
- Comment on Why do I fart all the time when I'm trying to sleep?! 1 week ago:
That last line was the funniest thing I’ve read in the past few days, so thank you for that.
- Comment on What are the next steps for Americans to help prevent the worsening of genocide in Palestine? 1 week ago:
On the arms shipments, we may try lawsuits via the Leahy Law if the ethnic cleansing ramps up. The way the law is written, it actually looks at arms shipments all the way down to the granular level of individual military units. It does not say arms cannot be exported to countries engaging in war crimes, it specifically says individual military units that commit war crimes cannot receive arms. If they choose to engage in a broader campaign of organized displacement out of Gaza or starvation in places where combat has largely died down, a larger number of military units could potentially become implicated, which could maybe make a lawsuit more feasible. We’ll have to see.
Regarding AIPAC, since Citizen’s United determined that monetary donations are a form of speech, this requires either an amendment or recapture of the Supreme Court. Otherwise Americans are allowed to lobby the government for whatever they wish, even if they are doing so at the behest of a foreign government. They have to disclose that, but so long as they do, they are simply exercising their Constitutional rights as perceived by the current Supreme Court. This isn’t going away any time soon, the current law is very clear and pretty much ironclad, rooted in the Constitution itself via the Bill of Rights.
- Comment on Are there opposing institutions to things like the Heritage Foundation? Are there liberal policy think-tanks? 1 week ago:
Some good answers already. To add, in the media sphere Pod Save America and their related branches is a liberal progressive media organization that tries to run counter to the conservative media ecosystem, trying to ride the line between policy wonkery and approachability.
- Comment on Trump’s Strange Bedfellows: Arab Americans and Right-Leaning Jews 1 week ago:
“Nothing is worse than what is happening right now,” she said.
Foolish. Currently a small number of aid trucks are admitted each day. The proposed General’s Plan is to cut this down to zero. That would be worse. There is a difference between barely anything to eat and genuinely nothing to eat without resorting to cannibalism.
- Comment on Is this what every election is like? 1 week ago:
I kind of understand Bush vs Kerry. Bush had a vision. It was a crazy neocon vision, but it was a vision and he used it to communicate effectively enough that we still occasionally meme about bombing people into freedom.
Obama had a clear vision, and communicated it well. Hope, prosperity for the middle class, international leadership. Biden had a vision, a less divisive America where we came together and worked on overdue problems. Hilary didn’t really, nor did Kerry or Gore. They were more policy administrator types who focused on specific policies and administration, and the idea of incremental improvement just didn’t resonate with people.
Trump, for all his failings, does have a vision he is capable of communicating to the American people. Harris did too, better than Hilary anyway, but it didn’t really come online until fairly late into the campaign and stayed a little too nebulous. I do think she was hurt in this regard by getting such a short campaign with no real prep time, she was evolving in the right direction.
I think we need a Bernie or AOC, someone with a powerful vision and ability to clearly communicate it, to the point of literally cudgeling people over the head with it. And we need to vote them in during the primary, over any competent administrator types, despite the fact that we are fully aware of how effective and necessary those policy administrators can be. Our valuing of them is a place where we’re out of touch with the broader American electorate though.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 week ago:
I think you were really lucky, a pocket knife is a lot riskier than a can of mace or taser or something. Easy to take away. But if it’s what you got, then it’s what you got. Also should’ve aimed a little lower.
- Comment on Is this what every election is like? 1 week ago:
Yes, he took all our guns, too. Look, there’s none to be found anywhere.
- Comment on Is this what every election is like? 1 week ago:
No, they’ve been getting progressively crazier since 2016.
2000 was fairly divisive, it went to the Supreme Court after all. But it wasn’t even a fraction this dramatic, people mostly shrugged and figured GWB would be like his father, which was unfortunate, but sane at any rate. Nobody was really predicting 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq.
2004 was pretty dull. John Kerry challenged GWB but felt sort of like an empty suit.
2008 was nice, Obama was a strong and exciting candidate vs the very known quantity of McCain, who was a moderate repub known for bipartisanship. Sarah Palin provided for hours of entertaining impersonations by people like Tina Fey, but since she was the VP candidate nobody really cared.
2012 was dull. Romney was a strong candidate, another moderate repub. But Obama was fine, he hadn’t broken the country or anything. Brought us out of a recession, even if people were upset about bank bailouts and stuff. Lot of people got health insurance.
Then it starts getting spicy.
- Comment on Serious statement: I don't understand the argument that not voting for Harris was the morally correct thing to do, because of Gaza. Why does anyone believe this? 1 week ago:
Honestly for a portion of the ones here online, I don’t think they actually care that much about Gaza except as a convenient tool to attack Americans. It’s academic to them. I don’t expect it’ll stop once Trump is in, they’ll just switch to criticizing Americans overall. They’re mostly leftist agitators, and I honestly think they hate moderate progressives the most, since we’re trying to improve capitalism which makes it harder to undermine and destroy.
For people that actually do care, it’s a personal, emotional argument about not being able to feel good about it, which I understand. It’s a sort of trolley problem. If they don’t vote, they kinda just walk away and the trolley runs over a bunch of people, but they don’t have to watch and bear a sense of personal responsibility at that emotional level for being a part of it. It doesn’t actually benefit Gaza, but there’s only so much they could really do anyway.
- Comment on Whould everyone doing nothing be a viable option? 1 week ago:
Yes, that’s called a general strike. Fairly common tactic for independence movements and workers rights movements, you still see them in South America sometimes. They’re not easy to organize, you need a lot of pissed off people.
- Comment on The 1900s 4 weeks ago:
I mean, tbf that was admittedly last millennium.
- Comment on Why is selling fake medicine legal in the USA? 4 weeks ago:
The internet creates a bit of a whack-a-mole problem with this one. Reminds me of certain bracelets and other consumer products sold as emitting some sort of “negative ion energy” for health benefits. Testing found they had Thorium, and were significantly radioactive.
If I recall correctly the Dept of Energy got involved with that one. Since the products came from overseas, though, there’s only so much that can be done.
Yeah, here we go: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34769689/
- Comment on Patient gamer philosophy 1 month ago:
Personally I am very willing to pay full price and even occasionally buy pointless extras I don’t care about if it helps reward their passion for a project I see as a valuable contribution. I’ll even pre-order or provide them some free advertising in some cases. Especially if its the sort of dev where it seems like their long-term survival might be in question.
I feel like you can usually tell when the dev needs money or doesn’t.
- Comment on Gaza Death Toll Denial Debunked 1 month ago:
Yeah, that’s just the ratios of age and sex for the casualties. He wasn’t denying the 35k (at the time) death toll.
- Comment on Gaza Death Toll Denial Debunked 1 month ago:
Official source? I haven’t checked in a long time, but it’s been awhile since I’ve seen any official source call the Health Ministry numbers into question.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 month ago:
Convenient scapegoat. What is easier to admit, that we are causing our own problems by not addressing new challenges appropriately, or pointing a finger at an outside group and going “their fault!”.
- Comment on Gaza Death Toll Denial Debunked 1 month ago:
To debunk denialism of the Gaza death toll, all you need to do is point out that when we get them, the IDF casualty estimates very closely track with Gaza Health Ministry estimates. Since both of the opposing parties roughly agree on the death toll, it is likely a fairly accurate figure.
- Comment on Let me at 'em!! 1 month ago:
Don’t eat fissile cucumbers.
- Comment on You probably shouldn't trust the info anyway. 1 month ago:
Stupid people are easily impressed.
- Comment on Since cats don't pant like dogs how do they release trapped heat? 1 month ago:
I too have seen cats pant on hot days.
If I remember right though, they’re originally descended from desert animals, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they have a higher tolerance for temperature extremes than dogs do.
- Comment on What does "blackpilled" mean? 1 month ago:
Yeah, not particularly fun, either. Would be very convenient if you were looking for an excuse to never bother with anything though.
- Comment on When and why did democrats begin supporting fracking? 2 months ago:
I agree, but I’m leery of any argument saying those are mostly progressives. Anecdotally, progressives are usually more activist than the rest of the population, not less.
- Comment on When and why did democrats begin supporting fracking? 2 months ago:
How big is that mass, really? Here on lemmy, a few hundreds or maybe thousands, globally? In 2016, Bernie running against a weak candidate in the more progressive party got 43% of the vote.
It does no good to falsely believe we have some critical mass of progressives when the data shows we don’t. Instead we need to continue grassroots work to keep expanding the progressive base, so someday your fantasy actually becomes true. It is not yet true though.
We gain nothing from denying reality.
- Comment on How come Israel don't use Mossad to take out all of the Hamas leadership similar to what they did after Munich? Would this not be better than bombing stuff into oblivion? 2 months ago:
Even according to Netanyahu’s own statements, the Israeli war aims are the complete destruction of hamas. That’s more than leaders. Before this began, estimates put the al-Qassam Brigades at 30-40k strong. So if we take Netanyahu at his word (which I don’t recommend) then that would be the minimum for killed/captured before he could declare victory.
- Comment on What to do with glassware that is impossible to clean 2 months ago:
Container glass is usually fine. Sometimes dyed glass won’t be accepted or will need to be sorted though.
- Comment on What to do with glassware that is impossible to clean 2 months ago:
Glassware is frequently not recyclable, due to additives during the manufacturing process.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
She was the UN investigative envoy. Unless you can find me an official statement talking about a more recent one that was blocked? I haven’t seen anything about one yet.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
This evidence, from the press release I linked below:
Following allegations of brutal sexual violence committed during and in the aftermath of the Hamas-led terror attacks, Pramila Patten, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, led an official visit to Israel from 29 January to 14 February to gather, analyse and verify reports of sexual violence related to the 7 October attack. Due to ongoing hostilities, the Special Representative did not request to visit Gaza, where other UN entities that monitor sexual violence are operational.
“What I witnessed in Israel were scenes of unspeakable violence perpetrated with shocking brutality,” Ms. Patten recalled. Detailing her methodology, she said that her team met with families of hostages and members of communities displaced from several kibbutzim. It conducted confidential interviews with 34 individuals, including survivors and witnesses of the 7 October attacks, released hostages, first responders and health and service providers. It visited four attack sites — as well as the morgue to which the bodies of victims were transferred — and reviewed over 5,000 photographic images and some 50 hours of footage of the attacks.
“It was a catalogue of the most extreme and inhumane forms of killing, torture and other horrors,” including sexual violence, she stated. The team also found convincing information that sexual violence was committed against hostages, and has reasonable grounds to believe that such violence may still be ongoing against those in captivity. While there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred in the Nova music festival site, Route 232, and kibbutz Re’im, reported incidents of rape could not be verified in other locations. Concurrently, the team determined that at least two allegations of sexual violence in kibbutz Be’eri — widely reported in the media — were unfounded.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
Your own image does not even say no evidence, the only one saying that is you.
You are correct, Trump does have some evidence, he has supposedly seen people saying it online. Whether the evidence is any good or not requires independent verification.
We look at specific pieces of evidence, not who is saying it.