dtornabene

not really man, not really. But then thats the joy of interacting with you

Unfortunately for you I don't happen to like Ken Klippenstein, he is not a regular part of my information diet, at all, and I regularly criticize him on other sites under my handle linked to my name. and *you* are *relying* on analysis that assumes that the administration is "operating in good faith" in your post that the person above me replied to. That was the point of the "conversation". Whatever weird projective logic trap you're trying to do, predicting my reply, bad news stranger, I think the law and its enforcement is in a very strange and differentiated state across the country and across federal, state, and municipal boundaries. The California ballot seizure case against Sheriff Bianco is a perfect example.

amazing how his responses stopped immediately after posting this very obvious and overwhelming rebuttal.

Why did you feel the need to post this same comment multiple times? Seems a bit suspect itself!

The docs are a bit sparing but if you read the source its pretty cool to see how they did this.

yeah this is absurd and a brand new account pushing it too.

He does not in fact call what Shirley did "bad and stupid". He calls him a journalist!

That Sunni in Homs that you want to ventriloquize (do...do you actually know any Sunnis from Homs? Seriously dude. Do you get why its extremely gross to use their suffering for point scoring?) wasn't under Hezbollahs boot in 1982, when it was formed to resist an Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon. This is what I mean when I say your definition of "occupation" is doing an incredible amount of ideological lifting, and why it is, in fact, a resistance movement. You haven't responded to the link I provided nor provided any of your own to buttress an part of your own argument, which is pretty telling I think. Do you actually know anything, literally anything at all about the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon? Thats a serious question and if you want to respond to me I'd ask you to respond, in detail, to that. Because the idea that the Lebanese were just peachy keen over their country being invaded and brutalized, for years and years, until the Iranians planted an occupation force in their midst is... its kind of gross man! The idea that the Lebanese right now were just fine with the slaughter in Gaza and its only the evil Persians and their scheming who are whipping up antizionist sentiment...that kind of argument has a history. You can point to the horror show of the Syrian Civil War all you want, that came literally two plus decades after Hezbollah was formed. I'm not sure if its intentional or not, but I see you have now tightened your argument to say "Hezbollah under Nasrallah". Kind of looks like a shifting goalpost to me. Do you believe it was a resistance movement and then degenerated under Nasrallah? Seems germane!

1) There hasn't been an official census in Lebanon in nearly a century[1], precisely because such statistics would upset a fragile balance of power between competing minority groups. So I'm not sure where you are getting the 8% public support outside the Shia minority line but if you have access to census data that literally the entire rest of the world, including and most prominently the Lebanese, do not have, perhaps you should share it! Not that that matters because even if you were correct about the support levels, given that Hezbollah is a genuine Lebanese political movement, made up entirely of Lebanese people, it cannot, ipso facto be an "occupying power". There are a number of different words to describe when an indigenous minority rules over an indigenous majority but "occupier" is not one of them, and the political function that that word performs in your argument is the reason I think maybe your doubling down on it, substance free.

2) I did not at any point say that the actions of Hezbollah in Syria are "a small deal". The actions of Hezbollah in Syria however, while truly heinous, have zero to do with whether or not it is accurate to call Hezbollah an "occupying power". You often try to draw in extraneous aspects to a particular point in these threads which are salacious or horrifying and seem to believe that these buttress your argument without ever actually illuminating the link, I feel like this is a perfect example of that. Maybe we're talking past one another, I don't know, but as I said, nothing that Hezbollah did in Syria in anyway makes it an occupying power in Lebanon.

3) I have never, here or at any time in any of these threads, held to some kind of childlike mentality that simply by virtue of "oppos[ing] Israel...makes you justifiable."

4) Plenty of resistance groups engage in ugly tactics or are either authoritarian from the beginning or become so over time. None of that makes those groups somehow an "occupier", or negates that they are resisting a real oppressor. Which, again, is my entire reason for jumping in this thread.

5) If your only reason to jump in these threads is to perform some kind of intellectual policing action, scolding and sneering at your interlocutors, presuming that their motivation is a kind of shallow reflexive opposition to Israel, I think maybe you lose the ability to claim that you are attempting to preserve an environment for "curiosity". I have tangled with you probably half a dozen times or more over this last year, not once have I felt you are in anyway "curious" or seeking to understand. Just the opposite. Do you think I support any and all opposition to Israel, simply because....it is opposition to Israel? You would be quite wrong stranger! I have prayed at more synagogues, just in Chicago, then you have probably, probably, set foot in in your entire life. I was a zionist for many years. None of this really needs to be said, and given you are unwilling to defend your own statements, commenting that you are "not going to litigate your politics" and that you "blame message boards" for other people "misunderstanding" your statements, I kind of feel like its a charity and gesture you are unwilling to extend yourself and do not deserve! But again, its worth putting out there, so at least other people can see it.

EDIT: Just to respond directly to a point you raised in your initial reply which I missed on first read, the amount of casualties that Hezbollah sustained in Syria, again, does not make it an occupying power of Lebanon, I can't think of a single reason why that would somehow make them occupiers. As to why they did that, I would assume for the guns! The guns and other military support that they receive from Iran overwhelmingly passes through Syria and had the Assad regime fallen that would have been a pretty bad day for Hezbollah! Seems like a powerful reason. The idea that the relationship to Iran can be reduced to one of puppet and puppeteer by gesturing at the number of Iranians killed or wounded in the pager attack is a strange one.

[1] https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/lebanon-census/

Are you going to respond to my point about the "occupy" "fact" or...not? Plenty of resistance groups are trained by other state (and non-state) powers who have an interest in their success? Vietnam comes to mind! I don't know, maybe you would, but I'd be pretty shocked if you described the North Vietnamese army as "occupying" ....North Vietnam. Similar dynamics apply across pretty much any ideological axis you could name. The level of support that a resistance group gets for a militia which I haven't seen you deny (yet!) is made up entirely of Lebanese people does not somehow negate that that force is indigenous to its location/state/region/etc and is operating from a motivation to repel a state that had already actually occupied Lebanon for 20 years during a previous invasion. None of what Hezbollah did in Syria negates its origins or in anyway makes it an "occupier" of its own land. This is the point I made in my reply, nothing that I'm seeing in yours in anyway addresses that, if you think it does, please, feel free to explain it to me.

In no way does Hezbollah "occupy" Lebanon. It is drawn entirely from Lebanese society. Truly a bizarre thing to keep repeating so stridently! Its also absurd to deny the literal origins of the group, as a militia that was attempting to defend southern Lebanon from an actual occupation? This isn't hidden, there are shelves of books in english on the origins of Hezbollah? The first sentence of the second paragraph of the wikipedia article on them, just to show what level of consensus there is, states the fact of its origins as a response to an Israeli invasion, and its source for this is....wait for it....the BBC.

Brother, I can link you to your own comments. For example here's your "blood libel" comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40067633 I'm actually working, and just logged in to see if I have actually been banned, but I can absolutely go through your own comment history in the last 11 months and pull out each and every example I mentioned. I used to respect you man, and if you read my responses to you, over these last 11 months, they start off annoyed but charitable, attempting to push you to examine your own position, exactly as you and 'dang and whoever are asking and expecting of commenters to do here, and you just keep posting absurd, racist statements and so they have deteriorated to today. I don't expect you to actually do anything about it at this point, but I want to leave a record on this site that I did what I said I've been doing, and you've been doing what I said you've been doing. Maybe you'll surprise me, I don't know.

EDIT: I'm actually really really glad I linked this exact comment, because right beneath it is one of the other highest karma posters on this site, who is of Jewish descent, making my point for me in the best way possible, in opposition to you, and you are continuing in the thread to do exactly what it is I've been telling you you are doing; speaking out of your own ignorance and giving it a patina of authority for example here by gesturing at the ADL and saying "just google it" which is absurd.

Pretty telling that it is me, and not your top karma poster, who is getting this reprimand. You are welcome to ban me, and I'm not going to appeal or beg to stay here, its your site after all. But if all I had to do to make my account more palatable to you was mix in the occasional comment on a js framework, or cooking, or exploit development, while continuing to pour out anti-arab racism, as Thomas here has done, repeatedly, for months, than maybe you are doing me the favor. I have yet to see a single comment from you about that. For the record I have reviewed your the guidelines, and I stand by everything I've posted here. I don't use this site "primarily for political battle", in fact I have avoided "political" threads for years. If posting things like "all Palestinians belong in Jordan" as Thomas has done, in threads just like this, for months, isn't something worth responding to directly by you than your rules don't mean much. Or simply apply to less useful people.

EDIT: I forgot about the part where Thomas here tells pacifist jews they are "getting close to the blood libel". That didn't merit a response from you either. Classy stuff dang.

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according to who? A little girl was killed today precisely because she picked up someones pager. On top of that solar panels (!!!) are blowing up across Lebanon right now, do those count? Are those somehow incontrovertibly "associated" with a combatant?

Cool man, checked in on the story lately? Because literal solar panels are now exploding across Lebanon. I'm sure everyone within 20 yards of them is clearly a terrorist.

How do you know this? you can't know it. You have no idea how many people had these devices.

Were the children militants? What about hospital staff? And, how do you know who these people are? You don't, but you're all over this thread running cover for a terrorist attack. I've already seen plenty of reporting that many of these targeted people were not, in fact, militants, but simply political members of Hezbollah. Would you be running the same cover if Hezbollah, or Iran had targeted Knesset staff? Disgusting stuff man, truly odious.

You realize these went off in supermarkets, right? In hospitals? In homes where children were near by? There has already been reporting on at least two dead children.

"Many Jewish people" according to....who, you? Seriously! Who is the "many Jewish people"??! Do you regularly poll the jewish diaspora? Israel? Specifically on the collective jewish opinions of JVP? Man if I wanted to write up an example breakdown on how to structure a weasel word contradiction ridden filled post I could start a lot worse than here! "They tread pretty close to the line on things like the Blood Libel in their rhetoric" sure seems like something I'd want to substantiate! Claiming one of the most venerable peace organizations in American Jewish communal life is "treading the line on Blood Libel" (love that capitalization, great stuff) is disgusting, full stop. Maybe if you recognize that you're "not qualified to render that judgement" you should....not do it. Which is exactly what a cowardly "they come close to blood libel" type of a claim is. A claim about antisemitism. Really really gross and frankly beggars belief that you, a gentile, who is a self-professed catholic (I've been on this board almost as long as you have homie, and up until recently I read your posts with interest) feels the need to accuse a bunch of pacifist jews of capital B capital L Blood Libel.

As for US police training in Israel, once again, you show your own profound ignorance, or outright dishonesty, by stating this is a "risible" claim. US police training in Israel has been well documented, and pretending that there aren't any carryover effects of that training is itself the "risible" claim. https://www.amnestyusa.org/updates/with-whom-are-many-u-s-po...

Pretty telling you stepped right past my point about conversion! Funny how you cherry picked the parts of my comment to respond to and then couched virtually your entire message in hedges! Also Al-Jazzeera has been operating in Gaza for nearly 20 years at this point, they have run pieces and interviews extremely critical of Hamas. As to the "I'm not legitimizing this" final sentence I'm not sure what you think your argument and others you've been dropping in these threads, are supposed to be doing given you sure do love to come in and drop some really gross generalizations and anti-arab racism in the way you paint Palestinian society. You are free to continually reference things like Hamas "throwing PA supporters off roofs", and consequently people are free to wonder and comment on why it is you only seem to pop up in these threads to make interventions like that, and not, say, literally anything at all about atrocities being committed by Israel.

In no way is the ability to get citizenship via religious conversion comparable to anything in the US, and as far as I am aware, neither in Europe. You are indeed "writing off Gazan journalism" when saying "Hamas-controlled Gaza", which at this point is ludicrous given that Hamas controls literally nothing in Gaza, and certainly didn't control the Al-jazeera reporters, reuters reporters, Washington post reporters, and so on who have been killed by Israeli airstrikes so far. Also pretty weird argument to make when Israel is one of the only "democracies" in the world whose press operates under military censorship laws and has for decades.

No, I am speaking directly to your castigation of "calls to globalize the Intifada". So, don't do that Tom. Its right there in my thread, in both of my comments. I could go back and find other examples from other threads in the last couple of months, but I'm pretty clearly talking about this thread, right here.

Edit: Can't reply to you for some reason, and no, you don't know me, though we have met, and corresponded via email a few times, but attempting to make my reply about "being angry" is really gross dude. I responded substantively to both of your comments and your reply appears to be to simply ignore that; so be it!

I would suggest maybe not lecturing others on how to "help the cause" from a ycombinator thread in which you described the Intifada, a popular uprising that was nonviolent for years, including tax resistance and boycotts, as a dyed-in-the-wool-this-is-what-it-is "call to murder civilians". I think you either don't care or don't realize how much you don't know and are absolutely trotting out wide generalizations yourself that are the mirror image of antisemitism, directed at Palestinians. The Kahanist comparison is also an incredibly poor one given that a literal Kahanist (Ben-Gvir), who is on video waving the stolen hood ornament of Rabin's car, saying "we can get to Rabin", is now the minister in charge of national security and has handed out thousands of rifles to settlers, independent of the militia he was given by Netanyahu to not bring down the far right coalition. Seems a bit more important to me than clucking about a harvard faculty advisor to a student group, and especially wrapping that in "well it only hurts your side" message board rhetoric! Israeli soldiers fired on crowds queuing for food from aid trucks yesterday, again. Every single hospital in Gaza has been bombed with some utterly destroyed. You are welcome to snipe in these threads as much as you want but this is a thing you are pretty clearly out of your depth on and should devote some time, which I know you are able to do, to following up. That is simply the most charitable way I can put it.

many many people can and do and correctly deny that "many critics of Israel" "weaponize antisemitism against Israel". Lots of weasel words on that post! Which just so happen to themselves de-legitimize very necessary criticism of both Zionism writ large and Israel itself! And calls to "globalize the Intifadah" are overwhelming about a popular revolution you know nothing about but love to post about with some very racist certainty. The intifadah was a popular revolution that caught much of the self anointed Palestinian leadership by surprise, and has been consistently criticized for selling it (the popular organizing committees) out for Oslo. This isn't particularly hidden and isn't some kind of wild take but in fact quite well understood outside of a media landscape that endlessly portrays all attempts at Palestinian self-determination as necessarily violent. I suggest maybe taking a step back from these threads, you are very clearly speaking about a thing you don't understand while and ongoing campaign of mass murder is being conducted and you are defending the murdering. That isn't a value statement, whatever downvoters may feel, its a fact.

This was actually a good piece on my hometown and bitcoin mining, lots more that could have been written just about this installation and this town but glad to see this bit of journalism

interestingly enough I was at the county commissioners (I from this town) when this exact installation was originally debated precisely because the company was the recipent of a tax break and the court was doing its diligence on whether or not that was appropriate. I spoke against it at the time and am not surprised that other issues have come up since.

I did not know this, and recommended someone recently install from the app store and it was $25. Makes a lot more sense now.

you have not in anyway cleared up why "hiring people from there" is somehow a bad thing, which, yes, is a deeply racist attitude.

I don't care whether you invest, nor do I care about corporate law. Nor, really, is corporate law at the heart of this matter! But, hey, if it shuts down opposition on forum arguments I'm sure thats an easy card to try and pull out. So let me be crystal clear, no one needs to know corporate law to comment on whether or not a YC funded startup is ripping off another startup, a startup that had previously applied to YC and was turned down! The idea that YC is in some way not responsible for the companies which would not even exist if not for the money and connections provided by YC is dishonest in the extreme. You should be embarrassed but I know you won't. In half an hour or less this comment will likely be flagged out of existence and no one will the wiser.