Anastasis

Interesting discussion. This is the crux of it. Natural rights underlie the essential notion of fundamental human rights, and the intrinsic value of human life. Start chipping away and that and see where we end up.

If only the good ole days when Israel was just bulldozing a rando house every once in awhile, settlers stealing orchards, IDF boot prints in the shape of the star of david literally on the face of palestinians, killing journalists and then deploying police to beat people up at their funerals, incarcerating the random juvenile and shoving a broom stick up their ass during interrogation. Simpler times. Back when it was easy for people to deflect and they could act like they weren't paying attention.

American taxpayer dollars funding ethnic cleansing right in front of our eyes. Fun stuff.

page going hard to quite hard.

Transfer the big winners to charity. Take the full value deduction. Do good, minimize taxes. Everyone wins.

Up 5% today, we're back baby!

Are asking me to define in biological terms or psychological terms?

Primary sex determination is chromosomal in mammals. The genetic makeup does not change. The presence of a Y chromosome results in phenotypic differentiation as early as 6-8 weeks. Before differentiation it is not really accurate to call the embryo phenotypically female. The phenotypic hallmarks of sex expression (e.g., estrogen producing ovaries or testosterone producing testes) develop later, whether the chromosomes are XX or XY.

Witness the decency on display.

That poll asks the respondents how important the wars between Israel and Hamas, Russia and Ukraine, and the tensions between China and Taiwan are to the US national interests. There is also a question that gets to personal relevance of each conflict. There is no question about American policy actions or direction. That is a logical leap that is uninformed by that poll. Note that, as an example, Israel-Gaza was the highest rated in terms of respondents assessment of importance to US national interests; however, that speaks nothing to respondents perspective on what is happening in Gaza and their preferences on how America should engage. Here is another recent poll that gets more to policy. https://quincyinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Quincy-Institute_rev-tabs.pdf https://responsiblestatecraft.org/ukraine-peace-talks-poll/ Full data at first link, excerpts from the summary article: The Harris/Quincy Institute poll involved an online survey of 2,090 American adults from Feb. 8 to 12. The results are weighted to ensure a representative sample of the U.S. population. The margin of error is 2.5% using a 95% confidence level. ... Roughly 70% of Americans want the Biden administration to push Ukraine toward a negotiated peace with Russia as soon as possible, according to a new survey from the Harris Poll and the Quincy Institute, which publishes Responsible Statecraft. Support for negotiations remained high when respondents were told such a move would include compromises by all parties, with two out of three respondents saying the U.S. should still pursue talks despite potential downsides. The survey shows a nine-point jump from a poll in late 2022 that surveyed likely voters. In that poll, 57% of respondents said they backed talks that would involve compromises. ... As the House weighs whether to approve new aid for Ukraine, 48% of respondents said they support new funding as long as it is conditioned on progress toward a diplomatic solution to the war. Others disagreed over whether the U.S. should halt all aid (30%) or continue funding without specific conditions (22%). This question revealed a sharp partisan divide on whether to continue Ukraine funding in any form. Fully 46% of Republicans favor an immediate shutoff of the aid spigot, as compared to 17% of Democrats. Meanwhile, 54% of Democrats and 40% of Republicans favored conditioning aid on diplomatic talks.

This that NeuVid.

No internal reality checks at all.

Imagine how stupid you have to be to cite state specific tax revenues and juxtapose them against national subsidy data that includes all states.

From your own links, 250MM into washington state and local taxes in 2017 vs. 55.9MM in tax subsidies in WA in 2017. I think that WA and Seattle probably did ok given there are also some odd 60k employees they get to tax.

You didn’t answer the question.

How much has Amazon paid into Washington state directly over its run? No idea myself, but I am sure that they have more than acknowledged the states infrastructure via their tax payments.

Holy shit. Tito is a billionaire?

Right. It’s just back of the envelope math. Federal long term cap gains on this would be basically 20%. The tax bill has three commas.

If he’s “saving” 600mm, how much is he paying in taxes over that same timeframe?

David Frum AND Anne Applebaum. JFC.

Don't disagree. I've certainly changed and moderated some positions over the decades worth of exchanges. Of course the quality of the discourse has fallen off a cliff over that same timeframe, at least from my perspective. But that is a complex topic and I am trying to keep it [serious].

I know that we butt up over and over again, but I can appreciate this. I honestly can't imagine how hard that is. I get accused of having split loyalties, but have none. I can only imagine how hard these kinda of things are to weigh in on for those that actually do. None of our opinions change anything. The posters on this board are insignificant to history. In this little small section of the world, an internet bulletin board (but the largest political forum in the great state of Texas!)., our posts are worth and accomplish nothing. Doesn't mean you can't chime in with a perspective on our country enabling ethnic cleansing.

Slavs were considered untermenschen (subhumans) by the Nazis. And relatedly, the soviets as jewish-bolshevik subhumans.

The geographic context that you have provided previously (dont remember if it was this one or the DT version) is very useful and helps people to understand the lay of the land, and contextualize the carving up of the WB. This is something that people familiar with central Texas can relate to.

Anything we should do about it? Are you comfortable with continuing to fund and supply the exercise? Do you think that we are complicit in the collective punishment/ethnic cleansing/genocide (pick whichever one you are comfortable with)? Have you any thoughts on the ICJ proceedings? Any thoughts on what it means under international law to enable genocide? Anything at all substantive?