Got that in more conspiracy? If you have evidence then a lot of Israelis would want to see that. Hopefully after the elections there will be more fact finding.
5,580 karma · joined August 7, 2012
Hamas was more prepared than ISIS. Better equipped. More tunnels. And the population density in Rafah was higher.
Also the British, Canadian, Australians, Americans, etc. did not send any of their soldiers to go house to house. They sent the poor Iraqis. After demolishing the place, killing a ton of civilians in the process.
Easy for you to say that Israel should have sent its soldiers to be ambushed house to house, blown up by booby traps in houses (which happened a lot despite the tactics), blown up on the streets by mines etc. I mean that's how Hamas wanted it to play out and obviously not the way Israel was going to do it.
To be clear. There are cases where civilian property damage is a war crime. And we do need to evaluate that. But ethnic cleansing is something else. If there are good military reasons to destroy said property then it's also not a war crime.
That Israel kept looking for tunnels and destroying empty buildings for strategic reasons after the battle was over and Rafah was mostly abandoned is not relevant to evaluating the main battle.
That MSF statement is not specifically about Rafah in your link either. It's about the entire Gaza strip. And just like Rafah a lot of the destruction happened in evacuated areas for tactical reasons, searching for tunnels, preventing guerrilla attacks, dealing with booby traps etc. We can argue about the necessity and legality of those but they are a different kind of discussion vs. the main battle portion.
Mohammed Deif. The head of Hamas' military wing. Was killed in the humanitarian zone. Rafah Salameh. The head of the Khan Younis brigade. Was killed in the humanitarian zone.
These claims are repeated a lot. They are baseless. A critical mind and a bit of research will prove that to you.
It doesn't matter what Israel does. In Rafah Israel objectively and measurably did much better than western armies fighting against Mosul in terms of civilian casualties (and you can include those in the humanitarian zones, still better). But Israel is held to a higher standard.
EDIT: And more: Yassin Rabia, Khaled Nagar, Osama Tabesh, Ayman Mabhouh, Samer Ismail Khadr Aby Daqqa. Fact check me. Also Israel has documented rocket launching from humanitarian zones. Israel has also retrieved bodies of hostages (including Hersh Goldberg) from tunnels under humanitarian zones.
2) It is a requirement by international law.
3) If we compare this to the Battle of Mosul. Which is a pretty good comparison. They are very similar. That battle had a much larger civilian casualty count. The allies there decided to not evacuate the population and the result of that was a much larger number of civilian deaths. Are you proposing that Israel should have done the same? I.e. not evacuate the population and have a significantly higher number of civilian casualties? Do you feel that if Israel did that it would enjoy a similar support as the allies had when they went after ISIS in Mosul?
Basically Israel did the right thing here. Provably better (judging by the number of civilian casualties) than the western armies that allied against ISIS did in Mosul. The ethnic cleansing allegation is not supported by evidence and really can't be proven until the war is over.
Solar solar solar! The US is perfect for solar. Do more solar. And drive EVs.
The nation where people drive these ridiculously huge trucks that guzzle gas like no tomorrow is complaining about gas prices. In Europe gas costs twice as much!
Fun fact. Oil and gas prices aren't coupled as much as people think they are. I think these days about 50% of the cost is the oil. When oil goes up it's an excuse to raise prices. When oil price goes down nobody lowers gas prices. There's refining costs, distribution costs, taxes, and oh, let's not forget - PROFIT! (about 20%-30%, mostly for the oil companies, not the gas stations that have pretty low margins). Another thing to consider is that the oil refined into the gasoline you're buying at the pump was not bought at today's future contract prices. You can bet your *%# that the refineries are hedging and trying to keep their costs as low as possible while selling to you as high as possible. Their profit skyrockets when oil goes high. This also influences how much reserves and storage are available. The reserves, oil in transit, and other storage all act as buffers. Point is that's not as simple as it seems.
I'm so happy that I drive a Tesla. I haven't been in a gas station in years. Switch to EVs guys!
What's the cost of something like this? It's just the NUC and the USB Audio Interface? When I play through my Komplete Audio interface and my laptop I (think?) I notice a delay. How would that compare to an off-the-shelf multi-effect modeller? In cost and features/performance.
These have always interested me but not enough to actually do something ;)
In the earlier days SO was more of a community. I guess the life-cycle of the Internet. I answered a few question back in the day. Asked a few. All in all positive experience. I still look fondly at some of my better accepted answers...
You are still stuck and I can't help you. If your logic somehow explains things existing at the same time 1) Israel considers every military age male a target and attacks them 2) That such a relatively small percentage of military age males were killed in Gaza despite overwhelming military superiority of Israel 3) That there is endless footage showing the IDF soldiers in interactions where they don't just shoot every military age male. 4) the rules/commands/laws of Israel are what I say they are.
Your comment is again not relevant to our question. It is also, as seems to be a pattern, twisting the truth:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy0kpd97qqko
"Broadcast in August 2024 on an Israeli news channel, the footage shows reserve soldiers at the Sde Teiman military base in southern Israel taking aside a detainee, then surrounding him with riot shields to block visibility while he was allegedly beaten and stabbed in the rectum with a sharp object."
Gang raping -> you made this up. The video does not show that. There is no evidence.
This was being investigated. So that part of the system was working. There was a political pressure against the investigation but the investigative body is independent.
"Five reservists were charged with aggravated abuse and causing serious bodily harm to the detainee. They have denied the charges and have not been named."
This is the system doing what you claim it's not doing. It doesn't support your argument.
It's true that the end result of the prosecutor leaking the video, thus betraying trust, led to her dismissal, and compromised the case.
Personally I wouldn't rule out that Hamas captured during Oct 7th while murdering Israelis would face extreme violence in detention. It's possible. The evidence does not prove this conclusively.
I also agree Netanyahu has reasons to prolong the conflict and avoid justice. This is also not relevant to the validity of the original broad statement we're debating. It does not follow logically that because Netanyahu wants to remain PM that he is somehow instructing soldiers to shoot every military aged male in Gaza. He also doesn't actually have the power to do that. Part of every soldier's training in Israel is that they should not follow illegal orders. (another actual fact) And the PM doesn't have absolute authority over the chief of staff of the IDF. That position has a certain amount of independence in law. And sometimes they disagree - even publicly.
Is there anything that can be said or any piece of evidence that would convince you that the broad claim is false? If not then it's really up to you to ask yourself why.
This has nothing to do with the broader claim still being false and obviously so.
The world has complexity and has nuance. You insist in seeing it in black and white. And ofcourse in your world Israel is always in the black despite any evidence to the contrary.
Then why do you keep at it?
We are debating the original claim and you keep bringing up random things.
The original statement that the IDF views every military age male in Gaza as a combatant from a targeting perspective is still false. It's easily falsifiable and you don't care. I provided an actual credible reference (The ICRC), a pointer to video evidence where you can cleasrly see the IDF not targeting military aged males, and my personal experience. My job is easier because you need to prove this is the law/rules/regulations/commands/practice and I just need to provide counter-examples to show that those are not actually the law/rules/regulations/commands. As to the official Israeli law and commands they are very clear about this. You can argue that's not what soldiers are doing on the ground but this claim needs a lot more support than you're providing.
>> So the administration does not intentionally target civilians, they have just stopped caring about who a civilian is. > Well Israel has defined "combatant" as "male between 14 and 55", and the Western world more or less shrugged and moved on without missing a beat. I'm not optimistic.
It's false and you keep insisting it's true. So if you want to build your theory of the world on false things keep doing it.
None of your claims/evidence support your conclusion. The way for you to challenge your conclusion and the original statement is by looking for evidence that it's false. And there is plenty of evidence beyond my personal experience and that of people I know - which you're welcome to discount.
The incident of the killing of the Israeli hostages is indeed very troubling. And it does not prove your point. It does agree with my more nuanced take. Your point is easily disproven by the thousands of interactions between the IDF and civilians in Gaza where military aged men are not shot at. That's what matters. Not whether there have been any war crimes or incidents where civilians have been killed. It should be obvious that if the IDF wanted to kill all military aged males in Gaza that number would be higher than the 9,000 cited in your other response given there are probably around 700k military aged males in Gaza.
It should also be obvious that Hamas tactics of fighting as civilians increases the likelihood of civilians being mistaken for combatants. That's why there's the requirement to wear uniforms in the first place. If you can't acknowledge that this is wrong that's another piece of evidence that you have decided what's wrong and what's right regardless of the actual facts. And no, Hamas isn't fighting in civilian clothing because Israel doesn't let them import uniforms. That's ridiculous.
It's not true that if Hamas had a designated HQ that was clearly delineated from civilian areas, even if it was 300 feet away, "it would be deemed to be using civilians as human shields". Hamas' practices include getting children and civilians to converge on assets that were under evacuation warnings. These practices are not comparable in any shape or form. What is true is that many/most western nations end up having some military installations in proximity of civilians. That is very different than setting up camp inside a civilian building or underneath. There are many examples of these practices by Hamas.
There's plenty of true/real things to be critical of Israel about. I would even join in some of these. But a lot of the criticism levelled at Israel, like this one, are based on falsehoods. The conclusion is chosen first and then reality is formed to fit it. Even bringing up Israel in the context of this thread on Iran is odd. If anything this thread shows that bad things happens in wars. We should be critical of the US here for good reasons. But this example (or countless others from US wars) does not prove that the US targets civilians or doesn't care about civilians. It proves that despite having rules and processes (that are way beyond what non-western armies have) civilians still get killed in wars.
You'll be surprised how many little tricks and small innovations are in "extremely basic tools".
http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=10714
"In 1970 Adelaide, Australia engineer Harold Clisby patented a novel lathe design that made use of aluminum and other metal extrusions. Clever techniques provided surprisingly good accuracy for such a low-cost production method. He made a modest number of machines and accessories himself.
In 1972 Melbourne engineer Ron Sher began production of what he called the "Sherline" lathe in Australia, as Ronald Sher Pty. Ltd. In 1973 Joe Martin of Martin Enterprises in San Marcos, CA, began importing the Sherline lathe to the USA. In 1974 Martin began manufacturing the Sherline lathe in California USA. In about 1979 the lathe business was separated off as Sherline Products, Inc."
The 1970's patents are long expired but the point is to show there's actually innovation in there despite the obvious simplicity.
I'm sure China could independently come up with better designs. But they do often just copy. Because it's easier. So "needs to steal knowledge" for simple designs/products? No. Steals? I mean you can buy Chinese literal copies of anything.
The Chinese are obviously very capable and pretty much everything and anything other than some very specialized bits are made in China. They got there partly via copying and pretty lax to non-existent IP protection. The Japanese did that before them. There are other aspects of how they compete which are possibly questionable (like poorer working conditions, environmental laws, etc.) Can't say anything specific about Sherline here but it's very hard for a western company to compete with China. Here is what Gemini says on this topic:
"Yes, Chinese manufacturers do produce machines that are widely recognized as direct clones of Sherline's precision lathes, mills, and small CNC setups. The most prominent example is Xendoll (Xendoll Tools), which manufactures a line of desktop and micro machine tools. Their manual lathes, mills, and CNC kits visually and functionally mimic Sherline’s classic designs. Target Market: These Chinese copies are marketed heavily toward education, STEM programs, hobbyists, and DIY makers. Design & Features: They replicate the compact footprint and modular configurations that made Sherline a staple for micro-machining small metal and plastic parts. The influx of these lower-cost overseas clones and cheap desktop CNC imports has heavily impacted the American micro-machining market. Under severe financial pressure from these imports, rising domestic manufacturing costs, and shifting hobbyist trends like the widespread adoption of 3D printing, Sherline announced in mid-September 2026 that it is winding down all US manufacturing. After 52 years in business, the company is expected to close its doors entirely by the end of 2026. While the Chinese copies provide a cheaper entry point for beginners, the machining community frequently points out the intellectual property implications of directly copying a storied American brand's legacy designs."
- Raw lumber costs are about 1% of the price of a house in California.
- Lumber prices were much much higher during the pandemic and are actually not that high right now: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lumber (it's at 9 months low and cheaper than in 2018).
There was a lot of knowledge transferred and training as part of that. For what its worth we previously had trained our North American partners. China could definitely not make our equipment themselves at that point in time. We did retain some key technologies but most of it was moved over.
I don't see how anyone can deny that the Chinese got a lot of the know-how as part of the mass transfer of production to China. 90% of their manufacturing know-how is from the west.
If the point is that Sherline specifically today doesn't have any IP they might care about- sure. It's been copied/reverse engineered/"stolen" a long time ago. I don't know when the Chinese entered the hobbyist machining market but when they did I'm sure copying existing designs wasn't exactly a barrier, or stealing trade secrets, or ignoring patents.
I think your perspective is interesting and not wrong. The weakness of the US (and the west) is emboldening Putin. I do still think the order of events starts with Russia, China and Iran's challenge the post USSR collapse status quo. In a parallel universe if Russia was able to embrace democracy and become a free country, and if China kept opening up and didn't reverse course, then we wouldn't have the Iran war at all (likely the regime in Iran would have long fallen). The world seemed to be on a course to more freedom, democracy, and prosperity, and less wars, when the Berlin wall fell. And then at some point we went backwards.
As to Putin and Russia it doesn't seem like he has a path to anything that looks like a win. How long he's going to persist is a good question. What is Iran's path forward here is also far from clear. I wouldn't want their sort of "win" myself. It's like Afghanistan's win against Russia maybe. None of these wars have a conclusive win so hopefully a lesson there (to China?) is to think twice before going to another war. Though those lessons seem to be forgotten too quickly.
"Donald Trump’s comments about Canada becoming the 51st state began on November 29, 2024, during a three-hour dinner with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. During the Thanksgiving weekend meeting, Trump reportedly joked that if Canada couldn't handle the economic impact of his proposed 25% tariffs, the country should simply become the 51st state, with Trudeau acting as governor.
While Canadian officials present, such as Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, initially downplayed the remark as lighthearted teasing, Trump continued to lean into the rhetoric publicly. By February 2, 2025, Trump was referring to Canada as America's "Cherished 51st state".
The actions were generally tariffs with the initial excuse being Fentanyl and border security when Trump took office.
And yes, Trudeau has been gone for a while but this is how this started.
But yeah the quality of people in politics is terrible. I thought very highly of Obama in terms of intellect, honesty, pragmatism, etc. Postcard leader. but he seemingly still managed to mess lots of things up. Or maybe we over-estimate the impact this one person on the top actually has on anything.
I wouldn't write off the US quite yet but it's definitely more of a multi-polar world with the US and China the major powers vs. the brief single polar world that followed the fall of the USSR. Arguably the quietest and most prosperous period ever, the largest number of people worldwide rising up from poverty etc. We're gonna miss it.
There are plenty of online training program generators that are pretty good and will take you from zero to running 10k. I used an online program to run my first 10k somewhere circa 1990.
There a lot of more cutting edge science online (and I follow Nick as well) but if you're not a competitive athlete and are just trying to get in better shape then the answer is mostly just do it. Over some base of running you can throw in some interval training including HIIT.
It is also possible you were over-training in your "moderate" intensity or conversely not increasing the load/distance enough. Training over years should result in good improvement even without HIIT. You will need to put a lot more time in.
I also do hill sprints. I try to do one [HIIT] workout a week and also some longer runs.
Hill sprints tend to be safer then sprinting on flat surfaces. Last time I did my HIIT sprinting on level ground my knee didn't really like that at all. A stationary bike (like the "assault bike") is even safer. Or you can just do burpies. People who don't run and haven't sprinted in a long time shouldn't just jump into sprinting.
EDIT: This book is maybe a bit old but covers a lot of ground on high intensity interval training vs. traditional training. I guess this study adds to the body of evidence that HIIT is effective. My take as a random person interested in this stuff is that ideally you are mixing both high intensity and longer duration workouts for their different benefits. But if you are limited in time it seems high intensity is a winner.