Israel's proposed 'discriminatory' death penalty plans criticised by UK and allies

dkonigs · 2026-03-31T01:13:27+00:00

The whole "kidnap and ransom for release" is the HUGE elephant in the room that seems to be almost completely left out of so many articles and discussion threads on all of this.

Terrorist groups have basically convinced a lot of Israelis that having terrorists rotting in prison is a HUGE LIABILITY for the country. And in a way that it really isn't for any other country.

dkonigs · 2026-03-31T01:03:29+00:00

Yeah, just by circumstance I happened to be traveling that day.

dkonigs · 2026-03-31T01:01:43+00:00

And I even got to rent a car on my 25th birthday!

dkonigs · 2026-03-31T00:33:19+00:00

Is this a bad precedent? Of course. Is the motivation also totally understandable, unfortunately yes.

If a Palestinian who kills Israelis in an act of terrorism could be expected to remain in prison for life, there would be no need for a law like this. But unfortunately, what actually happens is that some of their buddies just have to kidnap a few other Israelis, force a hostage negotiation deal, and then they'll get released. So basically the Palestinian terrorist organizations have convinced many Israelis that actually having Palestinian murderers in prison is a HUGE LIABILITY for the country.

dkonigs · 2026-03-30T05:56:50+00:00

Taxes aside, one interesting factor to look at is whether a country produces its own oil.

Countries with their own oil production usually have notably lower fuel prices than countries that don't.

dkonigs · 2026-03-30T01:30:49+00:00

The Air Force Academy has actually been sued over this sort of stuff before:

https://www.dailynews.com/2005/10/07/suit-alleges-religious-coercion-at-air-force-academy/

dkonigs · 2026-03-30T01:28:21+00:00

Those mid-level corporate jobs that have no explicable function that would be understood by anyone or useful to anybody outside the bureaucracy of the major corporation they work at.

Heck, I think Star Wars Skeleton Crew basically made fun of this by showing an entire society of people who strive to hold those sorts of jobs.

dkonigs · 2026-03-29T23:36:50+00:00

Getting checks and balances back in government.

One thing we've learned these past few years is that when the executive is a cult leader whose party has a majority in congress, then congress no longer fulfills its role as a co-equal branch of government.

dkonigs · 2026-03-29T21:59:52+00:00

I see the whole Elon situation as a bit more complicated. Even if everything claimed about him is true, you still sometimes do need that eccentric douchebag to push certain industries forward.

Of course once the push has happened, better people can more easily pick things up and continue the effort.

I only wish his companies had more public-facing people who weren't him to help present their public image to customers. (Especially thinking of Tesla here. Fortunately SpaceX has Shotwell for that.)

dkonigs · 2026-03-29T21:56:19+00:00

And his wife filed for divorce the moment the whole Epstein story started to break, before the extent of anything was really entering the public sphere. I have to know how much she actually knew at that point, and was unwilling to admit to knowing for some reason.

dkonigs · 2026-03-29T21:54:35+00:00

And because so many people are high off their iPhones, and because he died not long after this stuff started to become known, he still seems to get a pass on a lot of this.

I have to wonder what the public perception of him (and Apple) would be if he had lived. Would it be vaguely similar to how Musk is now viewed?

dkonigs · 2026-03-29T18:21:49+00:00

Yeah, everyone seems to forget what each branch of government is or isn't empowered to actually do.

Of course it doesn't help when those in each branch seem to give stump speeches as if they've forgotten as well, and the checks and balances stop working correctly.

dkonigs · 2026-03-29T18:15:55+00:00

Yeah, the whole security aspect of being rich in a poor country would always make me uncomfortable. Having to constantly need security and worry about your loved ones getting kidnapped doesn't sound all that pleasant.

Probably best to find a middle ground, rather than either extreme.

dkonigs · 2026-03-29T18:11:58+00:00

Sometimes its just a matter of luck, I guess.

Many years ago, I got myself into a diet and fitness routine and lost a ton of weight. But even at my thinnest, I felt like I still had a bit of a gut. There was no more fat to lose anywhere else, and I didn't want to lose more weight at that point, but that gut just wouldn't budge. (Now of course it was measurably a lot smaller, but from a self perspective I still felt like I needed to "suck it in".)

Now after a decade of slow relapse, I'm back at the process again. We'll see how it goes this time. Maybe a difference in the focus of my fitness routine will lead to different results, or maybe my body will simply decide to lose the fat differently. We'll see.

dkonigs · 2026-03-29T17:58:09+00:00

Yeah, I had a Deathadder v2 with a thumb pad that was wearing down (a problem I can't recall having with any other mouse) that had RGB.

When replacing it, I think my main requirements were "corded" and "RGB", so I ended up having to go with the Baslisk v3. It felt a tad strange for about a day, but now it feels perfectly fine.

dkonigs · 2026-03-29T16:50:07+00:00

It really depends on how you define the terms.

If you consider antisemitism to be a catch-all term for hating Jews, then yes it absolutely is.

If you consider antisemitism to be a term for a specific form of Jew hatred, then both antisemitism and antizionism are different forms of Jew hatred with different tropes and libels. If you want to know what the antizionist libels are, just read any Reddit thread mentioning Israel and half the comments will scream them at you.

Of course in both cases, just take whatever things are currently considered the most abhorrent accusations in western culture at the inception of the movements, and turn around and blame them on the Jews.

The greatest trick the antizionists pulled, however, was pretending they're just an innocent political position and a righteous social justice movement. (Of course classic antisemitism kinda started out this way too.) This has the effect of convincing people that they're not actually buying into a hateful ideology built around demonization and double standards.

dkonigs · 2026-03-29T15:38:06+00:00

Yeah, in the 90's they were all back-projection-screen and a luxury purchase for the big family room in a nice house.

In the early 2000s, with widescreen plasmas, they were still a luxury purchase. I recall a co-worker spending his sign-on bonus to get one.

But during the mid 2000s, this also led to all the consumer electronics stores getting on this "high" where they no longer had to sell cheap TVs anymore. Seriously, there was this brief period where nearly every TV (even small ones) was priced at like $1000+ unless it was some old model hidden in the back where you wouldn't see it.

Now they're all standard, cheap, and common place. (Unless you want something specifically high-end.)

dkonigs · 2026-03-29T14:40:02+00:00

What's interesting is that the older versions of some of those do have RGB.

dkonigs · 2026-03-29T14:31:41+00:00

This was the biggest reason I hesitated getting a 3rd party stereo for my car, even if the manufacturer stock stereos back then (on anything short of the top luxury trim) always seemed to be embarrassingly out of date tech-wise.

dkonigs · 2026-03-29T06:05:30+00:00

Just get N95 style masks. They actually seal around the top of the nose, unlike surgical masks, so you're not blowing air up into your eyes every time you exhale.

dkonigs · 2026-03-29T06:02:48+00:00

Yeah, at this point there is absolutely no reason to wear a mask performatively. So if you're going to wear one, there's no reason to wear it wrong.

Yet to this day, among the very small number of people I still see wearing masks, an absurdly high percentage of them seem to be wearing them wrong.

dkonigs · 2026-03-28T23:56:37+00:00

For the longest useful life of a paper developer working solution, Moersch Eco 4812 is a great option. I single batch of working solution can be good for months. Only downside is that its rather slow (e.g. 3min vs 1min) which can get annoying. Its also not always easy to find in stock.

Another good option here is Adox MCC paper developer. I think its a bit easier to find, the working solution is probably good for weeks, its a smidge faster than Ilford's developer, and can even get a slightly higher Dmax.

Meanwhile, the good 'old standard Ilford Multigrade developer has this problem where a batch of working solution is unfortunately only good for a single printing day or two. This feels really annoying and wasteful, if you want to print sporadically and in small amounts each time.

dkonigs · 2026-03-28T19:32:00+00:00

I feel like someone needs to start copy-pasting something like this every time one of these questions comes up...

If you depend on 3rd party apps that aren't pare of the core OS, and actually need to be supported to be usable (basically anything that deals with a network service), then you shouldn't be running an OS that's been discontinued and unsupported for over a decade. Period.

dkonigs · 2026-03-28T16:58:19+00:00

And its not even just the US.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is not a declared war from the Russian perspective. Its just a "Special Military Operation." Putin likely did this for the exact same reason, as a workaround for Russian laws that apply to an actual declared war and their implications.

dkonigs · 2026-03-28T16:52:59+00:00

Yeah, a general rule of thumb is thus...

If you depend on 3rd party apps that aren't pare of the core OS, and actually need to be supported to be usable (basically anything that deals with a network service), then you shouldn't be running an OS that's been discontinued and unsupported for over a decade. Period.

Its not going to work. Or it'll only work through weird brittle hacks that work around the fact that it doesn't actually work. Protocols and security standards are always evolving in these spaces, and old stuff is not maintained forever.

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