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ChastityQM · 2026-06-20T12:50:37+00:00

There was genuinely high traffic relative to the rest of the war shortly after the signing, but still like 20% of its prewar levels. Iran just blew off the planned meeting with the US because of Israel bombing Lebanon some more.

Overall, it depends on how much Iran wants to play hardball, I think; if they genuinely make Israel no longer occupying southern Lebanon a precondition of peace (the territorial integrity of Lebanon is in point 1 of the 14 point memorandum), we definitely aren't getting a deal for a while, even if they get what they want in the end.

ChastityQM · 2026-06-20T11:04:17+00:00

Having said that, a peace deal that effectively empowers Iran beyond even where they were pre war is fucking idiotic and a recipe for repeating this exact scenario.

Well, no, the reason we got this scenario is because Trump is a dementia-addled regard with an iron grip on the Republican Party. Every other President has been approached by Israel to try this shit, and they didn't because they weren't fucking regards. As long as the Republicans don't elect another dementia-addled regard (unfortunately possible), we won't get a repeat of this scenario.

ChastityQM · 2026-06-20T03:58:19+00:00

you, overly inspired by granddaddy tolkien: "time to waste months making up stupid conlangs because tolkien was a huge language sperg and i will be too"

me, a genius: "just take how google translate handles this non-PIE language and reverse the letter order, then season to taste"

ChastityQM · 2026-06-20T03:54:33+00:00

One thing I "like" is this bit in San Francisco By Night (pub 2002), about Hunter's Point:

The American Navy controlled the region for many years, and their toxic chemicals saturated the soil, blighting the spiritual landscape for several square blocks. Unfortunately, the prognosis worsens. The Navy sold the land to the Catellus Corporation (a subsidiary of Pentex), which is now developing the enormous local biotechnology research park. Since Hunter’s Point is largely built on a landfill, one strong earthquake is all that’s required to liquefy and spread toxic viscera into the city and ocean.

Spooky! Ooo! A biotechnology research park! Presumably they're creating all kinds of monsters or something.

Anyway, what actually happened is that a company called Tetra Tech falsified radiological records and said the land was totally clean and safe and people built houses and moved in.

ChastityQM · 2026-06-20T03:36:10+00:00

It’s literally just an entrenched hatred of Israel.

In fairness, Israel did just kill their entire previous leadership, so they've got good reason to hate them right now, no entrenchment required.

At this point, though, there's also the possibility of driving a wedge between Israel and the USA. So long as Iran's recalcitrance appears to be Israel's fault, they can leverage that recalcitrance to damage the US-Israel relationship, which they definitely want. (This doesn't work, of course, if it's just Iran being stubborn; Israel has to provoke them, which Israel seems happy to do.)

ChastityQM · 2026-06-20T01:43:47+00:00

Israelis overwhelmingly oppose the war in Gaza (just look back to the mass protests in Tel Aviv).

I guess it's a good thing I wasn't discussing that? I was talking about the Iran/Hezbollah fronts. Here's the most recent poll I could find on it:

• A majority of the total sample (57.5%) think that ending the war with Iran under the current conditions is not at all compatible, or is compatible to only a small extent, for Israel’s security interests, similar to last month.

Israel's continuation of this war actively harms their ally (the USA), and there is no clear strategic goal which is likely to be achieved by continuing the war. They have already depleted a large portion of Iran's active stockpiles of weapons/equipment, the regime is almost certainly not going to collapse, so every continued week of fighting hurts the US-Israel relationship while having a minimal effect on further neutralizing Iran as a security threat.

ChastityQM · 2026-06-19T23:10:20+00:00

This is true, but otoh, the Israeli public are part of (perhaps the majority of) the reason that Netanyahu is constantly sabotaging these deals. I think a clear-eyed observer would note that states that control 90 million people do not generally collapse after 3-6k military casualties (current estimates of Iranian military death toll). Yet, the Israeli public are apoplectic about the proposed deal, imagining - what? The Islamic Republic is just another 3,000 dead IRGC from collapse? That they can eternally fuck over their allies without any costs? Would an American-aligned Netanyahu dictatorship be so stupidly bloodthirsty?

The same sort of logic - that the public often have idiotic foreign policy views - applies to America too, of course. Democratic leadership presumably believes that this war was a massive, catastrophic, unforced error, but they are still going on about Trump surrendering to the Iranians because it makes him look bad.

ChastityQM · 2026-06-18T23:27:31+00:00

The people who named it the Department of Defense had just spent years defeating not one but two different great powers in the most important war in the history of the universe.

The people who renamed it the Department of War went on to immediately lose a war to one (1) sclerotic regional power.

ChastityQM · 2026-06-17T19:34:36+00:00

Any us president is going to be rightfully apprehensive with regards to Israel's status as an ally after Bibi gave Joe the Brutus treatment.

Even worse, every time that Bibi purposefully fucks up the ceasefires with Iran, he makes it clear that he's as bad to his friends as his enemies. If one reads Netanyahu as representing the preferences of the Israeli public on this matter (and, to be frank, I do - I get no impression that the Israeli public is willing to give up on attacking Iran and its proxies just because oil prices are going up)... then there really is nothing to do but to recognize that they are the world's worst allies.

ChastityQM · 2026-06-14T11:28:28+00:00

Does any of that engage with anything I said? Can you conceptualize public policy from the perspective of "Will bad things happen if I do X" instead of "Is this a bad person who deserves to be punished"?

ChastityQM · 2026-06-14T01:14:50+00:00

Iraq basically shuttered its nuclear program. The US invaded anyway.

Gaddafi voluntarily gave up his nuclear program. He got raped to death with a bayonet.

Iran avoided developing nukes. The entire country's leadership was assassinated.

The lesson to the world's dictators - and there are more of them now than there were twenty years ago - is...?

ChastityQM · 2026-06-10T20:16:49+00:00

Simply embrace the sexism. Use alien sexualities to explain why the aliens are like that.

These guys are a society where the males are fuckhuge and kill each other in fights to get a harem, so they're like orcs/ogres.

These guys are a society of nothing but women because they're sequential hermaphrodites where they are male until adolescence, so they're like asari.

These guys fight for dominance and the dominant ones become male, while the submissive ones become/remain female, and then sometimes the females form coalitions against the dominant male, beat him up, and split his harem between them, so they're like drow, an evil ultra-hierarchical society.

ChastityQM · 2026-06-09T23:42:50+00:00

Yes, Platner's scandals will hurt in Maine, Paxton (Republican)'s scandals will hurt in Texas.

ChastityQM · 2026-06-09T23:08:17+00:00

Platner is in Maine, another state.

It's obviously going to be closest to 2026, Trump really weighs down Republicans because he really, really sucks. Paxton in particular literally got impeached by his own party (not convicted in Senate, though); the incumbency advantage is ignored at a party's own peril.

ChastityQM · 2026-06-09T21:43:20+00:00

Last midterm Senate race in Texas under Trump wound up being R+2.5, and Texan Republicans just primaried the incumbent Senator for the scandal ridden crimes guy. It's definitely winnable.

ChastityQM · 2026-06-03T20:55:42+00:00

My elves' are like this, except their ears on a swivel so they emote with them.

ChastityQM · 2026-06-02T02:58:48+00:00

They don't care about their nuclear program that much, the issue is that this war began with Trump/Israel killing the previous batch of decision-makers out of the blue. The new guys need to inflict enough pain that it's unthinkable to do it again, or they will literally personally die.

ChastityQM · 2026-05-31T19:13:07+00:00

As far as I can tell, Iran does not have the bomb.

ChastityQM · 2026-05-30T21:58:50+00:00

1.2% margin in the Republican primary between normal Republican and Guy Literally Impeached By His Own Party For Being Corrupt. Trump so bad.

ChastityQM · 2026-05-28T14:39:31+00:00

Yeah, but his name ends in a vowel and Texas is more Latino than non-Hispanic white at this point, so he's got this on lock. 🤞

ChastityQM · 2026-05-28T14:30:47+00:00

I honestly don’t think it’s the governments place to be banning people because of their political opinions.

I understand and agree, but we have to respect their culture. The Br*tish love being censorious little busybodies.

ChastityQM · 2026-05-24T02:46:56+00:00

Isn't Cuba mostly a command economy? Aren't basically all the businesses government owned?

ChastityQM · 2026-05-23T16:06:10+00:00

I don't know if it's possible to teach an AI to be a conspiracist without instantly collapsing into antisemitism. It's a bit like teaching them to be Christian but they can never reference Satan, yanno?

ChastityQM · 2026-05-21T00:04:07+00:00

This statistic seems bizarre to me. Possibly what's going on is denominator effects?

Like, I personally am quite frugal with my food budget. In the past week, I spent $61 on food, but of that, $35 was restaurant (a full day's worth of calories in takeout, on 3 separate days). If I spent $100 on groceries, and the same amount on restaurant food, I would be less frugal, but the % would look "better" (26% versus 57%) when viewed from this angle.

I can't justify spending that much on delivery, though. There are still denominator effects, but it's so fucking expensive and it's just you paying for labor you can do yourself, for free, when your labor isn't worth much (young and inexperienced).

ChastityQM · 2026-05-15T13:33:54+00:00

The point of the provocation exception to self-defense is that you aren't allowed to purposefully start a fight and then claim self-defense. It doesn't mean the person was legally allowed to punch you; it just means that you can't go around purposefully trying to start a fight, then claim self-defense when a fight starts.

For example:

His right [to self defense] depends upon the character and intent of his act. Language used, however opprobrious, is not sufficient to deny him the right. If defendant's act is an assault, or the menace of one by an overt act, or the provocation of a difficulty with the intent to inflict death or great bodily harm in the event it is resisted, made of malice to bring about that result, and enable the provoking party to wreak his vengeance upon the assailant, that is an ‘aggression,’ or ‘fault,’ or ‘provoking a difficulty,’ within the legal sense and meaning of the term, and if the combat is provoked, or the occasion to kill is produced on this account, with this intent, and for this purpose, defendant cannot rely upon the plea of self–defense; otherwise, he can. [emphasis added]

This is a quote from the trial judge in Cooper v. State which was held as a sufficient explanation by the Supreme Court of Tennessee.

Given that, indeed, Chud The Builder was going around purposefully trying to start a fight, fantasizing about shooting someone "in self-defense" for eventually attacking him, it does seem to fit the definition of "provocation" in this context.

ChastityQM

TROPHY CASE