I've worked with a bunch of government agencies and the chances of a SQL injection are low. Not because they're good, but because they'll use some kind of framework to speed up development which will have injection prevention baked in.
I watched the whole trial. The verdict was definitely just, but her lawyer didn’t do her any favors. At one point, in a moment of frustration, her lawyer exclaimed ‘I’m going to kill myself’, at a trial for a mother of a kid who killed a bunch of kids.
She ‘opened the door’ to a whole bunch of evidence that had previously been ruled inadmissible, including the defendants infidelity and the entire text communications between the defendant and her husband.
She said “I’m sorry” about a thousand times, which I am convinced was an intentional strategy to associate the defense with being sorry.
They weren’t supposed to use the shooters name but she used it three times in her opening statement.
Most of her objections were not valid legal objections, but just argument.
The whole thing was a train wreck, I actually feel bad for her (the attorney not the defendant).
She ‘opened the door’ to a whole bunch of evidence that had previously been ruled inadmissible, including the defendants infidelity and the entire text communications between the defendant and her husband.
Article:
But, during the defense’s questioning, Smith suggested that police intimidated and threatened Meloche into providing his testimony, so prosecutors pushed back and sought to allow the judge to include evidence that the two had an affair. Prosecutors argued that Meloche was not pressured, but that he didn’t want information about their affair to become public.
Smith was the lawyer. Sounds like the lawyer fucked up.
The defense opened the door by going down a line of questioning which would permit the prosecution to cross based on texts which were previously ruled off limits. She was given a chance to move on to a different line of questioning, but she (defense attorney) insisted on continuing with that line of questioning, with full knowledge that all of the texts would then be admitted, just so she could make her point about the witness potentially being intimidated by the police.
She was trying to say that the witness was threatened with loosing his job, in reality the witness was intimidated about his wife finding out he was having an affair with the defendant.
After the dramatic exchange between defense and prosecution where the prosecution insisted that the judge force the defense to clearly state that thy are ok with the full text exchange being admitted, she agreed, saying “I have no problem with all of the texts being admitted, I have no problem with opening the door”
Her next question to the witness was “did you feel that the police were intimidating you by telling you that you might loose your job”… he responded “no.” So there was no payoff for the defense on that line of questioning. Then the prosecution asked during cross “were you worried about your wife finding out that you were having an affair with the defendant” and he replied “yes”.
Classic case of don’t ask a question that you don’t already know the answer to.
I didn’t read the article, I watched every moment of the trial.
Yeah but people in Gaza have guns and they fight back so that’s scary.
These were three unarmed men in a hospital so the brave IDF had the courage to break several laws of war by disguising as civilians and executing them.
Sure, what’s a few more international laws broken? But my point was, if they were going to commit war crimes anyway, maybe they could have done it like this instead of killing 10,000 children.
Yeah, weird that anyone would pick up a gun and point at a group of people that just bombed away generations of non-combatants, because they may just fear for their (and loved ones) lives at this point. They are now fueling the group that takes the place of Hamas by continuing to go scorched earth on all of Gaza.
Yeah, my first reaction was “at least it wasn’t civilians this time.” Whole thing is fucked up but it’s better than a 2,000 pound bomb on the hospital.
With targeted operations like this, they knew exactly who they were going after and where. That’s not a defense of Israel’s actions, just a statement that this isn’t the sort of thing they’d do to take out some random civilians.
In fact, much the opposite. This more closely resembles the sort of action Israel could have done from the beginning to take down Hamas without destroying Gaza. It would have deprived Hamas of their propaganda wins, would have kept the world firmly on Israel’s side, and would have been much more effective long-term.
Unlikely to be Israeli dissidents in a Gaza West Bank hospital, and if they were Palestinian dissidents against Hamas, it wouldn’t make any sense to target them.
And if they were journalists, we’d already be hearing about it from their publishers, as we have with other journalist killings.
The most likely scenario is that they really were members of Hamas, but that just serves to highlight that the atrocities Netanyahu’s government has otherwise engaged in have been unnecessary.
Edit: Correcting myself, because accuracy is important.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad themselves, or are they too just Israeli hasbara?
“Hamas confirmed that Jalamneh was one of its members. The Jenin Brigade, which includes a number of Palestinian armed resistance groups, said in a statement that two of the three men were members of Islamic Jihad.”
But then those 10,000 children would still be alive. The point of Israel’s campaign is the eradication of Palestinean people from the Gaza strip without having to accommodate the political rights that the US constitution (without which Israel is glass) would have afforded them.
I’ve seen this article in several places. This particular article states that at least one of the guys was armed with a pistol, while neglecting to detail the others. Nowhere did I read that there “were three unarmed men”. Do you have a source, please?
The military did not provide details on how the three were killed. Its statement said Jalamneh was armed with a pistol, but made no mention of an exchange of fire.
Some guy named Jalamneh, according to the article.
The IDF’s statement was accompanied by a single photo of a handgun and two ammunition clips that it described as “the weapon carried by the terrorist,” without saying which of the men allegedly had the gun.
A hospital spokesperson said there was no exchange of fire, indicating that it was a targeted killing.
The biggest tell is that they executed the dude lying on the hospital bed.
There is absolutely no way for NSFL: the hospital bed bullet hole to exist other than the IDF walking up to him point blank, putting the barrel on his temple and pulling the trigger.
Someone in a bed was shot, based on the blood stain, yes. “Point blank” and “barrel on his temple” are not supported by the article. I was simply asking for facts rather than speculation.
The article says that the IDF which just broke a world record for “most amount of simultaneous war crimes” claimed one person had a weapon. This does not make it true.
I’m not believing Hamas without evidence and I sure as hell am not believing the IDF without evidence.
The evidence points to the IDF executing people that did not shoot at them.
This is running an operation in a controlled situation in an area where they already have security control/cooperation. This is three terrorists. Hamas in Gaza is in the 10s of thousands, with a tunnel network, boobytraps, and decades of preparation. It’s out of touch with reality to suggest that they are equivalent.
A better question if you ask me is that if they could carry out this operation, why couldn’t they capture them and bring them to trial?
One being a Hamas commander and the other two being members of Islamic Jihad, also a terrorist organization. At least one of them had a gun with him.
The IDF’s claim is that the three were involved in a transfer of weapons and were planning another Oct 7th style terrorist attack.
Now if we dismiss IDF’s claim as “propaganda”, sure one can say “boo Israel bad, perfidy!!” but Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists hiding as civilian patients in a hospital is pure moral bankruptcy no matter whether the above accusations are true or false, because they know fully well that their presence is endangering every other patient there.
That said, I’d also have preferred if the IDF detained them for questioning instead, they could have extract so much valuable intel on the hostages and the tunnels instead.
Also important to add: only the bedding got damaged and not a single civilian was harmed in the whole operation.
This isn’t UBI though. It’s welfare. It just proves that people will use welfare support responsibly. A real test of UBI would be to give everyone in a community, not just a small pool of low income families the same amount (among other things). That ain’t going to happen.
I agree but some of the arguments here have a hint of truth in them such as the whole landlord thing. I think a lot of folk are wary of anything that sounds UBI related because it boils everything down to ‘one simple fix’. Programs like this work, but they’re only one piece in the puzzle such as taking housing off the market, higher taxes on the wealthy etc. I know you know this stuff. The UBI crowd takes theses studies and uses them to say ‘UBI works’ or ‘UBI can work’ even though it’s not UBI.
The UBI crowd takes theses studies and uses them to say ‘UBI works’ or ‘UBI can work’ even though it’s not UBI.
That’s a bit disengenuous. Of course people acknowledge that economic policy is difficult to experiment with.
People serious about UBI talk about phasing it in over a long period of time, in lieu of “experiments”. For example in Australia we already have refundable tax rebates (I’m sure everyone has these I just don’t know what they’re called), all you’d have to do would be to introduce a $1,000 refundable tax rebate and increase that by $1,000 each year until you get to a reasonable UBI. If, along the way the data showed deleterious effects then you could correct or discontinue.
There’s a lot of effort to deny any previous UBI experiment as having even been done. Heck the top reply to your comment here denies this is even a UBI experiment. The line is usually the only way to do the experiment is to do it and that’s the Socialisms so we can’t ever know, sorry poors.
Well, since the “U” in UBI stands for “universal”, and since the group of people who received this money were selected because they were very poor, then this is not a UBI experiment. This is just a welfare program.
I feel somewhat against it simply because I don’t think it’s necessary once you make a certain point of money. Do people making six figures really need an extra 10% or less on top of that?
No, they don’t, but I think the idea is that the process of factually verifying someone’s actual income isn’t worth the waste of just giving it to them anyway.
Means testing has been shown to cost significantly more. That’s why I’m a fan of universal programs and not welfare programs (like the one in this study).
I would argue someone making six figures getting 10% more will have a big impact still. Give everyone the benefit, even billionaires. Using your argument, the billionaire won’t care about getting an extra $1,000 - that’s nothing to them. But no one feels “cheated” because you arbitrarily put the limit, and you know no one else is cheating the system because there is no system to cheat!
Paying for universal programs would require changing our tax structure, which I’m also supportive of.
For an anecdotal example, when I was in my 20s I worked with an old lady at a fish market who had to strictly regulate the number of hours she worked in a year because she couldn’t afford to make above a certain amount of money. If she went into the next higher tax bracket, she would’ve been kicked off her social security, and regardless of how many hours she worked, wouldn’t be able to make up for the lost money.
Another interesting benefit I’ve heard of from a similar study that gave everybody above a certain age in a town $1,000 a month, but was focused on the impact to the labor pool, was that almost everybody continued to work except for in two categories: pregnant women and high-school students. This coincided with an increase in the average grades of high-school students, the number of kids who graduated, and the number of kids who continued on to college. The theory was that the kids who would normally have to work to help put food on the table were instead able to focus on their studies.
I’ve been surprised and super disappointed by a lot of the views I’ve been seeing in Lemmy comments lately. Anti homeless, judging addiction, fairly socially conservative, buying into the whole retail theft narrative, and the worst has been the misogyny framed as “realism” or some shit.
I’ve been lazy on Lemmy and just stopped searching for new lemmyverses after I hopped off reddit. But I really doubt you’re gonna find good political discourse on the Internet. I’m really disappointed everywhere I turn and I’d rather participate in real life action than argue during the few free hours I have.
Just pay attention to the instances the comments come from. This account is federated with .world and I am always seeing the most awful takes on here and it seems like most of the time it comes from users there.
I have another account not federated with .world, but it is with pretty much everything else. There’s fewer comments (rarely over 100) but it’s usually actual discussion and not revolving around anti-humanitarian practices.
It’s not a guarantee, but it seems very very high.
It makes sense…I think the FOSS/anti-big tech world brings together a weird mix of far-left socialists and also libertarian types (hence the anti UBI sentiment)
Plus lemmy has just as many shills and bots as reddit, that or it is the ultimate echo chamber, since you can ser pretty much copy paste answers on any controversial topics. The last one seems to be “LLMs are not real AI” (which, they are. Just not AGI)
IDK, I’m a leftist, and am skeptical about UBI because it’s more of a free-market approach to solving a problems, rather than just directly solving problems. I.e. the government could just build more and better homeless housing, and expand section 8 to cover more of the cost and more people. I’m a bit afraid UBI would be used as an excuse to cut social programs, in a similar way that school vouchers are used to cut spending on education and leave families paying for what the vouchers don’t cover.
Bingo. A UBI is attractive because the people that keep the economy rolling are nearly completely unable to access what the economy produces. Why are we trying to keep this broken mess limping along with a UBI? The economy is designed to produce poverty and a UBI will do very little to change that fact.
It not that people are against everyone having the basics, it is that it mathematically makes no sense. As soon as you give everyone this money, not just a small trial you’ll see that it is immediately eaten in inflation, rent etc.
Much better is to make the first $1000 dollars not necessary. Free staple foods, free healthcare, free low tier usage on utilities, free local public transport.
Giving people $1000 means they can spend it specifically on the things they need. They might need to pay off a healthcare debt with that $1000 far more than they need low tier usage on their utilities.
I think a better idea that universal basic income is universal basic services. Give everyone equal access to healthcare, food, housing, etc. Not jobs, though. Giving everyone a job leads to creating jobs that don’t need to exist just to make sure everyone has work. The USSR had guaranteed employment and that got to where you’d have to go through three different clerks at the supermarket to buy a pound of meat. Also, the State decided what was and wasn’t “work”. Oh, you’re a painter? You think the State will pay you to paint? That’s nice. Pick up that shovel and paint a ditch in the dirt. Oh, you are poet? I have a poem for you, comrade!
Roses are red, violets are blue, load those crates into that truck, or it’s the gulag for you!
I’ve been a proponent for UBI for a long time however after reading your comments I agree with you.
In reality, I’ve advocated for UBI because I feel the govt should provide these basic services. However in reality UBI does just seem like a means to an end.
We really should just redefine what “utilities” are (including internet, phone, public transit tickets, etc) and then provide basic access to utilities for free.
But there’s no difference between giving someone $1000 for food and providing that food for free.
Either way the food is paid for by someone, whether the government hands over the check and then passes out the food, adding a layer of inefficiency, or the government hands out the check and the people buy the food, offering freedom of choice.
I’m in favor of calling the bluff, but leave it peaceful:
Army bases remain US army bases and the national guard remains US. Texas must raise its own military without any US military equipment. Existing US servicemen must resign if they wish to join the Texas military, and will be treated as foreign army – they must leave US bases.
Any companies headquartered in Texas will be considered foreign companies and subject to all relevant taxes and laws. Employees will be considered employed by foreign companies. Any subsidizes and other credits to these companies are forfeit.
Employees of the state government will be considered foreign state agents.
Trade deals must be negotiated with the US. Any US facilities providing goods and services, like water or energy, will now charge a fair market rate.
Texas must renegotiate trade with other countries.
For the first five years, Texas and the US must allow people to freely move out of or into Texas. If any Texas resident wishes to live as a US citizen, Texas must pay for their relocation.
After that, or if they choose to renounce US citizenship, Texans are considered foreigners and will be treated as illegal immigrants if they enter the US without proper documentation.
Texas universities lose all US accreditation. Current Students may transfer to a US university at no cost, and have their existing credits recognized. Texas will pay for any moves. New students from Texas will be considered foreign students and applicants for admissions and tuition at US universities.
Any attack on US people or property or facilities will be seen as an act of war.
Texas senators and house representatives are expelled from Congress.
They’ll be crying and begging to rejoin the US within a month. They’ll be a fourth world hell scape within a year if they don’t.
This is basically what happened at the beginning of the civil war except the south had much better terms, and the confederates decided to attack a US army base because they’re assholes and that’s what assholes do. They would absolutely do the same again.
The US civil war isn’t what civil wars look like in the modern context. There was a boarder and most of the North was safe. That’s not what modern civil wars look like. They look like Serbia.
You have to go to work and on your way to work there’s someone who’s been sniping people for months. The cops won’t do anything because “let’s go Brandon” or some shit, the mayor no longer has control over the police, and you still have to go to work because you still have to pay for food. So you duck and weave between cars with rotting drivers to get in to your office and you hope you don’t get killed today.
Modern civil wars have no borders. They look like mass shootings, car attacks, snipers, bombings, and other random terrorism. Or they look like the Syrian civil war, with 30 different groups all fighting each other aligning with each other sometimes and fighting others, for decades, sometimes aligned with the government and sometimes against it.
The key thing about Texas is that they have a ton of oil. Even assuming a normal war, the US military lives off oil. If it was quick they could probably do it without dipping in to strategic reserves, but what would happen to the oil infrastructure at the start of the war? Damaging that supply could impact the US ability to wage war, so that’s not a risk they’re going to take.
If anything comes of this beyond Republicans using it to pump up their base, I’ll be surprised.
They look like Serbia if you’re not a superpower. Rest assured leadership would get hit with drone strikes simultaneously and the war likely wouldn’t even start.
The only way a civil war in this country stands a chance is if it’s by surprise and given that these people can’t it won’t shut the fuck up that send unlikely.
No, they’re doing it now. This is what it looks like to carry out a war by stochastic terrorism. They just keep saying the conspiracy theory shit and doing these stunts and saying, “Our people just need to take matters in to their own hands!” And people carry out random attacks against things with playable deniability that they’re leading it.
No one is drone striking Tucker Carlson, and they won’t, no matter how many people he kills, how many synagogue or mosque attacks he’s responsible for, because he can always just say, “oh, free speech. I didn’t plan that. It’s just a coincidence that every time there’s a mass shootings the person follows my Twitter.”
Read up on the Rwandan genocide. This is what they did. They ramped up dehumanizing rehetoric until people hacked their neighbors apart with machetes and locked buildings full of people and set them on fire. It was normal people carrying out the atrocities, but there was enough of a direct connection to end up in the international criminal court. We’re in the early stages of the same type of conflict, except we have more guns here.
There’s no one to drone strike because every time this happens it’s “another lone wolf.”
I mean a right wing group opened fire on a electric substation that was barely over a year ago, and we kinda just moved on. We are already somehow in the slow burn of a civil war and there has been several incidents stopped before more destruction could be done.
A modern civil war in America looks like what is happening currently in America. We just don’t have a lot of big flashy things happening.
You know other than the record shattering mass murders that occurs at schools and other public places.
Could it get worse? Absolutely. Will it? Who knows. Maybe we do go back to lining up on the borders and shooting each other too.
Since when have Replicunts given a shit about the constitution? They treat it like they treat the bible. Twist it into fitting their narrative and ignore the parts that don’t.
You know that for 90% of people, they could just tell everyone how much they owe and call it good?
Like there’s zero need for us to file taxes because they already know how much we spent. Over all, people would be taxed less because there’s no need to itemize deductions in what is meant to be an obtusely arcane process fundamentally designed to benefit the other 10% while creating an entire industry…
Just FYI, for people living in the following states:
Arizona
California
Florida
Massachusetts
Nevada
New Hampshire
New York
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Washington
Wyoming
You will be able to participate in the pilot program called Direct File.
Unlike Free File, Direct File is open to any income level and is NOT through a third party provider. You are directly filing with the IRS. That said, it is indeed a pilot program and it does not offer many of the usual IRS forms, so check the website to see if you can use this or not.
And for those wondering. Yes, this is exactly the kind of thing Intuit et al lobbied hard to Congress back in 2022 to not pass.
Obviously this isn't the return free system we've been promised since the 80s. But it is a good first step. The IRS has been tasked to report back to Congress when the pilot is over this year. For all we know the new system may work correct right out of the box, may eat some children, or cause the Hoover dam to explode. This is the first time the IRS has been allowed to build such a thing for the public.
Hopefully this all goes off without a hitch, because every success with Direct File is a kick to Goodarzi's nuts. Here's hoping this is the first step towards simplified taxes/return free taxes.
It is so ass backwards that they functionally require(d) an intermediary to file online. It would be so much easier to just have a literal email address (or webpage) where you could send your taxes. Too bad the vast majority of our politicians serve business interests (money) and not the American people.
And just to pour it on. Remember that Intuit had a PowerPoint presentation that leaked that indicated the number of challenges they have faced with Congress and the IRS repeatedly trying to create a return-free system. One of the slides from that PowerPoint.
It's amazing to think how much energy and money Intuit has spent to prevent simple taxes for the American public. Like it's been a thing they've been doing since the early 90s. They have gone to great lengths to deny people the ability to just click a button on the IRS website and call it done. The fact that we are actually getting Direct File is in itself an amazing accomplishment considering the massive amount of energy the tax preparation industry has tossed at ensuring this one thing, DID NOT HAPPEN.
Like if anyone actually sits and reads the history of Intuit and the US tax system, it's just some amazing, I cannot believe this happened IRL. Just the sheer knowing how evil they are and how they didn't care because it could affect their bottom line. They knew that they were falsely steering people into their paid product out of the Free File program and they didn't need to that to them. There were internal memos that were published where they admitted, "this is not in the spirit of the program" but failed to change course because "doing so would have significant impact of delivery of product to paying customers."
And the sheer level of money, people, energy, lobbying, etc they were throwing stopping all of this from happening. It's incredible. And yet, we're finally getting a pilot program to do some basic things directly with the Government. How Congress managed the squeak it out is a testament to how so many people wanted to indicate that Democrats did nothing with the two years they were given, and just this one thing was monumental and it's barely anything.
Because the people pushing back to prevent it, the term deep pockets, doesn't even begin to explain it. Like I never thought we would ever get a program like this. Yes, it's massively crippled BUT IT'S SOMETHING. It's just wild that this exists this year, I cannot even think of good words to describe how impossible this felt not but five years ago.
I get a letter stating how much I owe or will get reimbursed from the information they have.
If I have additional revenue or tax deductions that aren't listed in the prefilled forms, I can add them and submit them (or have a tax accountant do it).
The letter comes with an envelope that doesn't need postage.
Most people don't have to do anything but simply see money appear on their bank account or pay what they owe by a certain date and that's that.
EDIT: Oh and we can access our taxes online with our national IDs.
So while you can opt to do everything on paper, you or your tax accountant can do your taxes online instead of filling in the forms in case the prefilled forms missed anything. The website will have the same info prefilled as the papers did.
And the taxes website has help sections and information popups to explain pretty much every single tax code imaginable.
I imagine that’s how it is in every sane country, yeah.
I get a letter stating how much I owe or will get reimbursed from the information they have.
If I have additional revenue or tax deductions that aren’t listed in the prefilled forms, I can add them and submit them (or have a tax accountant do it).
Does anybody every admit to more income? lol.
The letter comes with an envelope that doesn’t need postage.
IMO the only good thing they happened while Trump was president was raising the standard deduction because I no longer need to itemize. It got so much easier and cheaper to file. I still have to do the state taxes though and even without itemizing I’m not exactly an accountant so I do always find it kind of complicated.
His hairstyle is “commonly or historically associated with race”, so it’s covered under the crown act. His hair was in a very common style with a long association with his race for centuries. The law doesn’t allow for discrimination for typical hairstyles, it doesn’t give any leeway to discriminate if the superintendent thinks it should be shorter.
I teach in TX, so this is more than just a headline to me. I’m so tired of having students that are scared to come to school because they might be bullied by teachers and administrators.
This is an incredibly biased article that elevates a voice equating the support of ending the Palestinian genocide with anti-semitism, which is demonstrably false.
Gaza is controlled by terrorists who launched an attack against Israel and Israel is responding to the attack. Civilians die in war, but the Israeli goal is very clearly not genocide.
Allegations. UN member countries that support South Africa’s complaint at the UN:
Presidents of Algeria, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Iran, Türkiye, and Venezuela have all described Israel’s actions as a genocide, as has the Palestinian President. State officials and representatives from Bangladesh, Egypt, Honduras, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Malaysia, Namibia, Pakistan, Syria, and Tunisia.
They all have such impressive credibility on human rights and totally don’t have an ax to grind against or an Iran to suck up to. /s
Because you like to pick and choose things to make your “argument” of accepting genocide, let me just quote all of the high ranking Israel officials saying God awful Nazi shit:
Netanyahu said “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible.” The Bible says “Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants.”
IDF Major general Giora Eiland wrote “Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist”.[23] He added “Creating a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a necessary means to achieving the goal.”[23] Israeli historian Omer Bartov writes that no Israeli politician nor anyone in the IDF denounced this statement.
The spokesperson for the Israeli army said, in regards to Israel’s bombing of Gaza, “the emphasis is on damage not accuracy”. This statement was interpreted by legal scholars as intention of destruction.
Look at these Israeli Nazis creating their own little holocaust.
You may want to read this article. It clarifies the misunderstandings you are referencing in your comment. The statements to which you are referring are mistranslated and misunderstood.
This article is paywalled. And all I could read was that you can’t use statements from people with no direct role in military operations. You think none of those people have influence over their military operations? You don’t think Benjamin Netenyahu has influence to what the IDF does?
Tell me how they say those awful things, and then along with that they intentionally starve Palestinians and don’t give them water and you say that isn’t connected and that it isn’t an attempt at culling the population.
This story was updated on January 21, 2024 at 2:33pm.
In late November, the NPR reporter Leila Fadel interviewed the international-law scholar David Crane about a disquieting subject: potential genocide in Gaza. Crane was uniquely qualified to opine on this fraught topic, having served as the founding chief prosecutor for the UN’s Special Court for Sierra Leone, where he indicted the president of Liberia for war crimes. On air, he explained why he did not think Israel’s actions met the criteria.
“If I was charged with investigating and prosecuting genocide,” Crane said, “I would have to have in large measure a smoking gun,” which he characterized as “a rebel group, a person, a head of state” explicitly directing those under their control to destroy a people in “whole or in part.” Precisely because genocide is the highest crime, proving it demands the highest standard of evidence. What is required, in relation to the current conflict, is not simply documentation of destruction or war crimes, and not just incendiary statements from individual soldiers or politicians with no role directing military operations, but rather a declaration of intent to eliminate Gazans—not just Hamas—by the top Israeli decision makers.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Crane said, had not made such a statement, which meant that legal intent could not be established. By contrast, he added, “Hamas has clearly stated that they intend to destroy, in whole or in part, the Israeli people and the Israeli state. That is a declaration of a genocidal intent.” Fadel was not convinced, and deftly countered with several damning quotes from the Israeli defense minister, Yoav Gallant: “We are fighting human animals.” “Gaza won’t return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything.” The segment ended inconclusively.
Last week, a similar exchange unfolded on BBC radio, when an anchor pressed British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps about Israel’s conduct in Gaza. “The defense minister said, ‘We will eliminate everything,’ in relation to Gaza,” the host observed. Wasn’t this a clear call to violate international humanitarian law? Under repeated questioning, Shapps allowed that Gallant might have overstepped in the emotional aftermath of Hamas’s slaughter of more than 1,000 Israelis, but insisted that the quotation did not reflect the man he’d been regularly talking with about “trying to find ways to be precise and proportionate.” Recommended Reading
As it turns out, there’s a reason the quote did not sound like Gallant: The Israeli defense minister never really said it.
On October 10, as the charred remains of murdered Israelis were still being identified in their homes, Gallant spoke to a group of soldiers who had repelled the Hamas assault, in a statement that was captured on video. Translated from the original Hebrew, here is the relevant portion of what he said: “Gaza will not return to what it was before. There will be no Hamas. We will eliminate it all.” This isn’t a matter of interpretation or translation. Gallant’s vow to “eliminate it all” was directed explicitly at Hamas, not Gaza. One doesn’t even need to speak Hebrew, as I do, to confirm this: The word Hamas is clearly audible in the video. The remainder of Gallant’s remarks also dealt with rooting out Hamas: “We understand that Hamas wanted to change the situation; it will change 180 degrees from what they thought. They will regret this moment.” It was not Gallant who conflated Hamas and Gaza, but rather those who mischaracterized his words. The smoking gun was filled with blanks.
And yet, the misleadingly truncated version of Gallant’s quote has not just been circulated on NPR and the BBC. The New York Times has made the same elision twice, and it appeared in The Guardian, in a piece by Kenneth Roth, the former head of Human Rights Watch. It was also quoted in The Washington Post, where a writer ironically claimed that Gallant had said “the quiet part out loud,” while quietly omitting whom Gallant was actually talking about. Most consequentially, this mistaken rendering of Gallant’s words was publicly invoked last week by South Africa’s legal team in the International Court of Justice as evidence of Israel’s genocidal intent; it served as one of their only citations sourced to someone in Israel’s war cabinet. The line was then reiterated on the floor of Congress by Representative Rashida Tlaib.
Politicians and lawyers are not always known for their probity, but journalists have fact-checkers. How did an error this substantial get missed so many times in so many places? One New York Times article that cited Gallant’s mangled misquote sourced the words to an op-ed in another outlet, which sourced them to an X post that featured an embedded TikTok video. But the cascade of media failures appears to have begun with a 42-second video excerpt of Gallant’s talk that was uploaded by Bloomberg with incomplete English subtitles. The clip, since viewed more than half a million times, simply skips over “There will be no Hamas” in its translation. (Bloomberg did not return a request for comment at press time. Following publication, it removed the original video and issued a corrected version that includes the excised sentence about Hamas. The New York Times subsequently corrected its two pieces that contained the misquote.)
Unfortunately, this concatenation of errors is part of a pattern. As someone who has covered Israeli extremism for years and written about the hard right’s push to ethnically cleanse Gaza and resettle it, I have been carefully tracking the rise of such dangerous ideas for more than a decade. In this perilous wartime environment, it is essential to know who is saying what, and whether they have the authority to act on it. But while far too many right-wing members of Israel’s Parliament have expressed borderline or straightforwardly genocidal sentiments during the Gaza conflict, such statements attributed to the three people making Israel’s actual military decisions, the voting members of its war cabinet—Gallant, Netanyahu, and the former opposition lawmaker Benny Gantz—repeatedly turn out to be mistaken or misrepresented.
Take the claim, also cited by NPR’s Fadel among others, that Gallant referred to Gazans as “human animals.” The defense minister has used this harsh language several times, and it’s reasonable to wonder whom he’s referring to. But as can be seen from the same Bloomberg video, Gallant uses this phrase to talk about Hamas, telling soldiers who fought off Hamas on the devastated Gaza border: “You have seen what we are fighting against. We are fighting against human animals. This is the ISIS of Gaza.” (Hamas’s atrocities on October 7 have been likened to acts of the Islamic State by both Israeli and American officials, including President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.) One can certainly take issue with Gallant’s language—for one thing, a nonhuman animal never executed a grandmother in her home and then uploaded the snuff film to her Facebook page—but not with the fact that the defense minister’s words referred specifically to Hamas.
So much for Gallant. But what about Netanyahu, a man in thrall to the hard right and not exactly known for rhetorical restraint? On January 5, the New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg argued that President Biden was being naive to Netanyahu’s ambitions to displace Gaza’s population. “As Israeli news outlets have reported,” she wrote, “Netanyahu said this week that the government is considering a ‘scenario of surrender and deportation’ of residents of the Gaza Strip.” Goldberg is an excellent journalist well versed in this topic, and she based her claim on a usually reliable source: the English live blog of Haaretz, Israel’s leading progressive paper, which summarized a news item from Israeli TV. But once again, something crucial was lost in translation.
The original Hebrew media report did not say that Netanyahu was considering the surrender and deportation of Gaza’s residents. It said that, in a meeting with families of the Israeli hostages, Netanyahu expressed openness to the surrender and deportation of Hamas’s senior leadership in exchange for the remaining captives—a theoretical proposal for ending the war that has been raised by the United States but rejected by Hamas. The title of the TV segment was “Recordings of the Prime Minister in a meeting with the families of the abductees and a statement regarding the possible exile of senior Hamas officials.” That was also the headline in the Israeli media. Haaretz quietly corrected its blog days later, though the uncorrected Times column still links to it as evidence, and viral screenshots of the erroneous English translation continue to circulate on social media.
The mistake matters: Far from being decided on the question of Gazan displacement, Netanyahu turned out to be malleable, and has since come out publicly against it under heavy pressure from the Biden administration. Diplomacy like that depends on an accurate understanding of the state of play.
Finally, there is an error of biblical proportions. On October 28, Netanyahu gave a short Hebrew address to the public about the unfolding war against Hamas, in which he cited a verse from the Torah. “‘Remember what Amalek did to you,’” he said. “We remember and we fight.” Netanyahu is a secular Jew, but he is also a student of the Bible, often alluding to it in his public statements. Here is the context of that biblical quote, Deuteronomy 25:17–18, which refers to an enemy clan that pursued and murdered the Israelites: “Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey
"Remember what Amalek did to you,’” he said. “We remember and we fight.” Netanyahu is a secular Jew, but he is also a student of the Bible, often alluding to it in his public statements. Here is the context of that biblical quote, Deuteronomy 25:17–18, which refers to an enemy clan that pursued and murdered the Israelites: “Remember what Amalek did to you on your journey, after you left Egypt—how, undeterred by fear of God, he surprised you on the march, when you were famished and weary, and cut down all the stragglers in your rear.” The Bible then enjoins the Israelites to “blot out the memory of Amalek.”
In the days since, this seemingly straightforward reference to a surprise attack on the innocent and the need to punish its perpetrators has been adduced as evidence of Netanyahu’s genocidal intent. The allegation has appeared in outlets including The New York Times and Mother Jones, as well as in South Africa’s arguments at The Hague. But to make the leap from Netanyahu’s citation to genocidal ambition, all of these accounts conflate the biblical story he cites about Amalek with a completely different one in another book of the Bible that takes place hundreds of years later. The verse from Deuteronomy that the Israeli leader quoted—which is explicitly cited in the official translation of his speech—recounts the time of Moses. Netanyahu’s critics mistakenly source his words to the book of Samuel, in which King Saul is commanded to wipe out every member of Amalek, down to their children and livestock. Tellingly, none of those citing Samuel ever quote the verses from Deuteronomy that Netanyahu actually referenced, which clearly illustrate his intended meaning.
“Speaking Hebrew, he’s comparing Hamas to the nation of Amalek in a passage from the Book of Samuel,” reported Leila Fadel, incorrectly, on NPR. The BBC similarly misattributed the passage in its interview with Defense Secretary Shapps, quoting from Samuel and not Deuteronomy. “Netanyahu urged the soldiers to ‘remember what Amalek has done to you,’” the South African lawyer Tembeka Ngcukaitobi argued in the Hague. “This refers to the biblical command by God to Saul for the retaliatory destruction of an entire group of people known as the Amalekites: ‘Put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’” This was not, in fact, what Netanyahu was referring to.
Since ancient times, Amalek has served as Jewish shorthand for a foe that seeks to exterminate the Jewish people. Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, makes regular reference to “remember what Amalek did to you,” both in its documentation and in its public exhibition. Israel’s previous president invoked Amalek when critiquing remarks made by then-President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil about the Nazi genocide. Ironically, The Hague’s own Holocaust memorial is called the “Amalek monument,” and its plaque cites the same Hebrew verse as Netanyahu did. Obviously, these allusions to Amalek refer to the Nazis, not their extended families or the entire German people. The collapsing of this traditional Jewish concept into its worst possible interpretation echoes similar misrepresentations of Muslim terminology, such as jihad. Jewish extremists have sometimes cast all Palestinians as Amalek, but that no more defines the term for everyday Jews than the use of “Allahu akbar” by Muslim terrorists like Hamas defines the phrase for everyday Muslims.
Amalek was not the only one of Netanyahu’s basic biblical references to be miscast as malevolent in the current conflict. In late October, the Israeli leader cited a verse from Isaiah at the end of a speech. “This was a biblical reference to God’s protection of the Jewish people,” wrote the Financial Times editor and columnist Edward Luce. “It also served as a dog whistle to Netanyahu’s allies in America’s evangelical movement … Such talk from Israel’s leader and America’s de facto leader of the opposition deprives Hamas of its dark monopoly on theocracy.”
Here is what Netanyahu said: “With deep faith in the justice of our cause and in the eternity of Israel, we will realize the prophecy of Isaiah 60:18—‘Violence shall no more be heard in your land, desolation nor destruction within your borders; but you shall call your walls Salvation, and your gates Praise.’” Anyone familiar with the original Hebrew verse understands that Netanyahu here was not making a messianic pronouncement, but rather a play on words. In one of history’s great ironies, Hamas is the biblical word for “violence.” (This is why Israelis typically pronounce it with a guttural kh, following their modern pronunciation of the biblical word, to the frustration and amusement of Arabic speakers who correctly pronounce the group’s name with a soft h.) Puns are often objectionable, but they are not theocracy.
I’ve written extensively about Netanyahu’s profound failures. He welcomed the far-right into Israel’s government and gave its members titles and ministries. He has regularly refused to rebuke their extremism because he fears losing power. He is the reason Israel is reduced to arguing that it is innocent of genocidal intent, not because its politicians haven’t expressed it, but because those politicians aren’t military decision makers. In other words, Netanyahu is the one who created the context in which banal biblical references could be understood as far-right appeals. But Jewish scripture should not be distorted by journalists or jurists in an erroneous attempt to indict him.
These omissions and misinterpretations are not merely cosmetic: They misled readers, judges, and politicians. None of them should have happened. The good news is that they can be avoided in the future by making sure to check translations at their source; pressing writers to link to primary sources when possible; and placing scriptural citations from any faith into their proper theological and historical context. Certainly, no outlet or activist should be cavalierly accusing people or countries of committing genocide based on thirdhand mistranslations or truncated quotations.
Neutral principles like these can’t resolve the deep moral and political quandaries posed by the Israel-Hamas conflict. They can’t tell readers what to think about its devastation. But they will ensure that whatever conclusions readers draw will be based on facts, not fictions—which is, at root, the purpose of journalism.
It’d be nice if they’d stop bombing hospitals and depriving millions of people of the basic necessities of survival then. Oh, and it’d also be nice if they’d stop referring to Palestinians as animals and shooting children in the west bank. And It’d be nice if Netanyahu would stop saying his goal is to annex the west bank and the Gaza strip. And if the Israeli state would stop encouraging settlers to illegally (by their own laws) occupy the west bank.
The attack was also 3 months ago. And tens of thousands of Palestinians have been murdered since then.
It’s not annexation, it’s called irredentism in this circumstance. Gaza is uninhabitable from structural and civil engineering standpoints because of Hamas’s tunnels. It has no capacity or resources to make itself safe. It has also proven it has no ability or desire to actually root out Hamas. So now their neighbor is morally obligated to do it for them.
High civilian causalities? Are you serious? Whonos the one that killed over 20,000 people? Who are the ones starving half a million people? Is it Hamas? No Its Israel. “High civilian causalities” my ass. The IDF also caused some of the causalities on October 7th too. They shot indiscriminately and hit their own people.
Yes friendly fire in the chaos of hundreds of mass shooting, active shooter events.
In my country, that sort of chaos is why we have the felony murder rule and why it’s been used in past incidents of friendly fire to properly charge the criminals with such needless deaths, if first responders accidentally shoot each other or a bystander.
I don’t agree. If the IDF warns people before they bomb a building and people refuse to leave the building, it’s their refusal that is the superceding cause, it’s a knowing assumption of risk.
Good actual example. First or second week of the war north of Gaza City. Everyone had already been airdropped leaflets and received masses text and emergency broadcast warnings to evacuate and head south and that anyone who stayed behind was in extreme danger. A few hundred thousand people did not evacuate.
IDF stumbles across a tunnel section is wanted to bomb underneath several blocks of apartments. Israel, as a world leader in the development of strategies to avoid civilian casualties, uses the cell phone network to call people still in the buildings. They start running door to door, IDF stays on the phone and promises not to bomb until the people leading the evacuations say everyone is clear.
As they evacuate, a number of people refuse. Hamas has been spreading Facebook posts saying that the calls are a hoax. They tell the caller, “prove this is real, fire a warning shot.” Bam, warning shot goes off. They say “there’s a lot of bombing, prove it’s real and do another warning,” bam another warning shell. They are convinced and so they continue evacuating. Everyone gets out, a resident tells the IDF it’s clear, several city blocks get demolished when IDF blew up the tunnels. 3,600 people used to live there and there were zero civilian casualties. The tunnels were completed destroyed.
In my view, the superceding cause to the apartments falling down was when Hamas built a tunnel underneath them and then used them to launch a massive terrorist attack–involving thousands of rockets (fired actually indiscriminately against civilians targets and infrastructure) and mass shootings at concerts and restaurants, on families just driving down the road, and on first responders who came in response to the gunfire–and then retreated back into those same tunnels, making them legitimate military targets.
This story is the exception only because everyone agreed to leave.
If people had refused to leave or been tricked or forced to stay behind by Hamas, in my example above, the superceding cause of their deaths would have been Hamas spreading rumors, in addition to all the propaganda is has already spread about dying with honor as martyrs, which caused people not to evactuate in the first place.
I guess the October 7 attackers thought they would retreat back into the tunnels and Israel was just going to say “darn, guess they got away!”
I agree. Civilian death tolls have been rapidly going down, not increasing. The airstrikes match up with the tunnels systems. There is no credibility to claims of “indiscriminate” bombings. The high number of civilian casualties is simply and readily explained by the fact that Hamas refused to let people evacuate and forced them to remain behind to be used as human shields and martyrs. High civilian casualties is one of Hamas’s weapons, and with Iran’s influence campaigns and astroturfing, it’s working to trick a lot of people whose ignorance and gullibility are going to allow Trump to win another term.
The only countries who’ve joined South Africa’s complaint to the UN criminal court are dictatorships, authoritarian , and/or theocratic shitholes such as Iran, Syria, Bahrain, Iraq, Brazil, Venezuela, Malaysia, and Cuba. The question South Africa’s complaint raises, after sorting through the circular logic, recursive reasoning, and claims attributed to incredible sources or simply “reports,” is when did South Africa start doing Iran’s bidding?
There’s been some heinous war crimes committed by IDF soldiers, maybe even a culture that causes soldiers to go too far. Those are the exception, by a lot. I have faith that, as a democracy, credible accusations will be investigated and charged within the customs of Israel’s military justice system, and most reports of atrocities have been highly exaggerated, recursive, and/or lack basic indicia of credibility.
“match up with tunnel systems” they leveled countless city blocks. They’ve bombed hospitals, they tell Palestinians to go to one part of Gaza where they say it’s “safe” and then they bomb there too. Over 20,000 people dying is not a fucking accident, it’s all intentional. They aren’t even letting them eat or have water. Forced starvation and dehydration among the whole population, oh wow yeah that really doesn’t sound like they’re trying to get rid of all of them.
I wouldn’t bother with this person. Stopped ages ago. They know all this information. Sadly when you’re stuck in tunnel vision, no facts or evidence or rationales will ever get you out.
It’s pretty insane that people can just say these straight up Nazi takes on here and not get banned but if you say anything slightly controversial the other way around suddenly it’s a huge problem.
Just a reminder that before Palestinians lived there Jewish people lived there. I don’t really support either side. I just like saying uncomfortable facts out loud because I’m on the internet. Downvote away
So genocide is ok as long as enough time passes from the event? It’s such an obvious dog whistle when those opposed to the current genocide are magically unopposed to the genocide perpetrated against a certain group of people “before 1930”. It’s not ok to perform acts of genocide against the Palestinian civilians today nor is it ok for the historical Jewish populations to have had acts of genocide perpetrated against them.
Because you see all Jews as from Palestine. That isn’t the case. Before the colonization project started Jews and Arabs had lived together there for thousands of years. Then Europeans showed up, and suddenly most of the Arabs are corraled into reservations that the Europeans and Americans keep encroaching on with settlements.
Rather than assimilate to the existing culture and produce a single post colonial state they decided to try and push the Arabs out. Nobody would care if they had produced a post colonial state that had heavy protections for Jewish refugees, but was not a Jewish state.
3 thousand years ago? Before there was Jewish or Palestinian people there, the was no one. Hence I believe the area should be completely emptied. Just like to say uncomfortable facts out loud.
It depends on how it’s said. Is it said as part of an effort to build a multicultural / religious state or part of an effort to rid the region of other ethnicities?
The two state solution is going to continue what we have now where they kill each other over the border because neither side is going to be content with it
If you trust in Hamas, at least you can distrust Netanyahu
Why would you assume I trust any Hamas sources when I can just listen to Israeli leaders openly call for genecide? Also Hamas is a corpse of a regime who the West pretends is still alive to justify the genecide. My fear is the power vacuum will be replaced with something much worse. The Iraq war all over again.
I wouldn’t count out a one state solution eventually. As this genecide and looming regional conflicts isolate Israeli politicians. Because let’s not forget, it’s leadership not civilians that create these horrible events.
If the Israeli public had an honest discourse, they would pick peace over the perpetual terror their government creates. It takes a lot of proganda to make people vote against their own interests. Just remember all the American support the 2nd Iraq war started at only for that to collapse as people realized the Bush administration was loaded with war criminals.
Just remember all the American support the 2nd Iraq war started at only for that to collapse as people realized the Bush administration was loaded with war criminals.
It's a little different because as far as Israel is concerned, this war is normal. It's an extension of the status quo that Israel as a country and a people has already accepted since 1949 and never changed it since, not when they elected Netanyahu in 1996, not when they kept reelecting him for 20 years. And support for the right wing is rising, not falling. That's different in America because in America a war in the Middle East is not the status quo. If you wanna compare compare to Native Americans and European settlers.
What I'm trying to say is: If we wait for Israelis to realize that genocide is bad on their own, the best we'll get is some crocodile tears and an apology from their Lebensraum to what few Palestinians remain after they successfully genocide them. Don't expect much from the Israeli public on that front; these people want their Zion.
Israel is an American project with a weird caveat, their government is allowed to influence our elections to send tens of billions in aid back to Israel.
That will ultimately be their downfall when that money dries up. People revolt when their lifestyle drops significantly. An isolated IDF can’t afford to genecide both Muslim and Jew.
Cars have always been relatively expensive to own and operate and the American way, unfortunately, has been to take out lines of credit in order to purchase vehicles they could just barely afford.
It’s insane to think about but the average car payment for a new vehicle in 2023 was $726 and the average loan term is nearly 70 months!
I’ve always lived by two rules when it comes to vehicles:
Never buy new. Buy approximately two years old used low mileage
If I can’t afford the vehicle on a three year note, I can’t afford the vehicle
Additionally, always secure third party financing and have it in your back pocket, but don’t tell the dealership that part until absolutely necessary. They may try to match it, but their fine print has always had catches it in that make it a worse option in my experience.
I’m not sure if these rules will work going forward as prices seem to have doubled in the past three years, and I’m loathe to ponder how purchase is getting replaced by subscribe.
My current car is ten years old with 110k miles on it. I keep it super maintained because I can’t stomach the thought of my next buying experience.
I totally agree with your rules here, however I recently helped my mom buy a new car (2023 Nissan Murano) and while sitting with her in the finance room deciding on warranty stuff I realized that cars are mostly 100 interconnected computers on wheels. This means the most likely thing to break on a car is a computer. This is something only the dealer can fix probably. Because of this you can’t get the same kind of warranty on a used car, only new.
The warranty my mom on this new car is great and it will cover any kind of computer issue for years. If she had gone and saved a bunch of money by picking a used car from the same year or 1-2 years old she could not get that warranty, and if a computer issue popped up years later it could be terribly expensive.
The computers are, by far, the most reliable parts of a car. They’re not subject to mechanical stresses or wear, and the real-time/embedded operating systems are far more fault resistant than desktop/phone OSes. The computers also mean that you can buy a $20 OBDII scanner and have the car tell you what’s wrong with it. Maybe an extra $10 for an app that will decode most of the manufacturer-specific codes. The difference between those $30 diagnostics and the $10,000 system the dealer uses is mostly that the dealer system includes all the manufacturer codes and step-by-step directions for fixing each fault.
Maybe an interesting aside, i have an associate who makes a living being the guy mechanics call. When they can’t figure out how to do what the computer is telling them to do, they have a contract with his company where he’ll walk them thru the repair. He can see all the data from their shop obdii thingy too, and helps troubleshoot remotely.
He says the effect of this system over the years (in his experience) is that in-shop mechanics are increasingly untrained guys ‘off the street’ who ‘don’t know shit from shit’
Just thought that was an interesting tidbit about the industry or even a sign of the future of that job
Thanks for this, it makes a lot of sense actually. Oh well, my mom has her car and the warranty she will hopefully never need, but it’s there if she does. I guess it all comes down to care tactics in the dealership, pressuring you to buy warranties and such that you may not need and cannot buy at any other time except right then.
I’ll be sticking with the recently used philosophy for the future though.
The computers actually make them easier to work on. They monitor and throw codes when things go wrong. A Google search will usually give a list of probable causes. I have troubleshooted and replaced some unusual parts because of that ability (e.g. shift position sensor). And the computers rarely fail themself.
I bought my first car on credit. After my last payment, I diverted that money into dedicated savings for the next car. Kept me from lifestyle creep and paid myself interest instead of the bank.
They werent designed by the car lobby, but many did have their transit bought out by the car lobby coupled with the suburban american dream resulting in the demolition of many downtowns and neighbourhoods to make highways and surface level parking lots.
I live somewhere that I can get to nearly everything I need by walking except for work and I feel far more free than a car ever made me feel.
The suburban experiment is more responsible for the design of american cities. The post WW2 period saw rapid expansion of suburbs and road networks. Country style living with city amenities. The problem is they stopped building any other type of development and pretty much exclussively building SFH suburbs and strip malls/big box stores.
www.vox.com/2015/5/7/…/streetcar-history-demiseThis article covers the GM holding comapny that bought lines. It also mentions how just buying the lines wasn’t the only issue, once cars were normalized they were just allowed to drive on street car tracks which effectively turned street cars into buses and caused massive delays.
The sweet spot for me was buying cars in roughly the 6 year rage. Specifically Toyotas and Hondas. My last car was an '06 Accord and it was a fantastic car. Affordable to buy, no bullshit, cheap to repair and required repairs rarely, drove great, solid interior. I would have kept driving it for another 5-10 years easy if I hadn't moved to a country/city where driving is totally unnecessary.
My buddy bought it off me and did some minor things to it and is still happily driving as his daily commuter right now.
I live by nearly the same rules. No more than 3 years max, and a check in my pocket from my credit union. But I not afraid to go older if the vehicle is on hood shape and reasonably low mileage. Vehicles depreciate for age, condition, and mileage. I will take the savings of a 5-7 year vehicle if the condition and mileage are great. But they are hard to find, it often takes a couple months of looking.
I think statistically speaking the absolute best value is a 5 year old car that has been at least reasonably well-maintained. The vast majority of depreciation happens during those first 5 years.
For those that do need to finance a car, a three year loan term should be the maximum. I think you are 100% correct on that. There are people with car loans that have terms of 7 years. It’s sad that people are setting themselves up for failure like that. If you can’t afford the monthly payments on a 3 year term then you really can’t afford the car at all.
No worries, I wasn’t trying to imply that to be honest. I liked your comment and was simply trying to add some extra information for anyone else that stumbled upon the thread.
190k miles and I feel the same about what my next purchase will be like. Bought this current car when it was 11 years old and had 75k on it. I can sell it now for as much as I paid for it in 2016.
I bought an 8yo car 2 years ago. It’s just about to hit 100kkm on the odometer, and cost me a couple grand today as a result of the previous owner’s lack of care/maintenance.
I’ve been upgrading/replacing things as I’ve been able to afford to, but this is the last car I buy (that isn’t electric) as a result of the ridiculous pricing of vehicles today. I certainly couldn’t afford the car I CURRENTLY OWN if I had to buy it today.
Also note I adore this car, otherwise I wouldn’t be putting all this time AND money in, it would be one or the other (or sale :D )
Luckily for me public transport and emobility vehicles (scooters, bikes and skateboards, [I chose skateboard]) in my city are much better than the average in my country. Also regarding emobility vehicles I’m in one of the only states where they aren’t banned (except on private property).
I’m hoping I get many more years of smiles out of my road legal track car, in the event I don’t it will be sold (or stripped out for track only) and I’ll just ride my bike more, it’s faster and makes a better noise anyway.
On top of being much better for the environment, I hope EV conversions become commonplace very soon. I would much rather (regrettably) convert my car to EV than buy a purpose built one, I don’t need GPS, lane keep, cameras, spyware, a giant tablet screen (otherwise known as a distraction) and a small fortune for every one of those components that fails. I just need instruments to tell me if the car is working as designed/intended.
I buy much older vehicles, know how to fix them, and generally will keep them a few years and sell them at a non loss. I’ve done this for nearly 25 years, never spent more than $1,000 to repair a vehicle in a year (only happened thrice in 25 years that I’ve come close to $1,000) and in all but those three times I’ve never spent over $500 a year in maintenance on any of them.
Never had a car payment. Always kept at least two vehicles. Before family life it was a daily driver and a sports car of some sort. I’d sell the sports cars before they’d even need a new set of tires. Never lost a dime on any of those. Camaros, corvettes, s2000, etc.
Learn to fix your cars and options get way nicer if you want to be cheap about it. A 12 year old car doesn’t really depreciate that much if you keep it a few years. A 2009 will be found for about the same price as a 2006.
Currently I have an 08, an 06, and a motorcycle from 96.
Brand new cars in 1973 were like $2500 ($17000 in today’s dollar). No one wants to sell compacts in the US anymore because people love their giant SUVs.
Leasing is like setting money on fire and using money to put the fire out. The only scenario it ever makes sense is vs buying and selling a car every 2-3 years.
Modern cars are extremely reliable, there isn’t a good reason to need a new one in less than a decade unless it’s involved in an accident.
That was my only hesitation for buying an EV: they’re too new and changing too quickly to have much track record on how well they last. I did go ahead though, so we’ll see in 10-15 years.
Historically my practice is to buy a reliable car new and keep until major repairs, usually 10-15 years. It helps if you are able to set aside sufficient money to avoid a loan
Leasing is usually a worse choice financially. However it can make sense in a few scenarios such as having to always have a new car and business expensing. Now might be one of the few times it’s worth leasing, in the US for some EVs where a lease can take advantage of the full tax incentive but a purchase can not
I get that it’s malicious compliance, but part of me thinks this is exactly what they want. The correct definition of words is what they are trying to keep from children. They are constantly misusing or abusing the English language to push their agenda. What better way to brainwash than remove the ability to find out what a word means?
So there's this thing called the internet, which has dictionaries on it.
Also, 1984 is a great fiction novel, but the linguistics within it is more than a little shoddy. Not to mention, Republicans are not as smart as you think they are.
I think they are dumb as a box of air, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want exactly this. Just because they are dumb makes it even more believable that they actually want this and think it will accomplish anything. One of them read 1984 and said “we should do that”. More probably, one of them watched 1984.
My point, which I guess I didn't state as explicitly as I needed to, is that the entire linguistic premise of newspeak in 1984 is essentially nonsense. Language simply doesn't work that way, and people's understanding of words does not generally derive from dictionaries.
To pose a simple question to you, of all the words you know, how many of them did you learn by consulting a dictionary? Or perhaps even more simply, how many times have you looked at a dictionary in the past year?
For the vast majority of people, the answers are "a tiny fraction" and "single digits".
I learned a huge number of words from dictionaries and vocabulary books in school. Some I learned from context in other books. All three are being banned. Discussions of certain words are also banned.
Further, it is not malicious compliance. It is CYA. When you do something they don’t like that’s not against the rules, they’ll pull this shit out as an excuse to can them. Then, they’ll ban the thing they didn’t like in the first place.
Last, the people around me would largely say I’m pretty smart (not a genius, but I know a fair amount and I’m fairly clever), some of that was just genetic and some of that was my home life, but a lot of that organization of learning and processes came from my formal education, which was all public schools and universities. I would not be anywhere near as successful now without it. Kids in Florida today are taking a hit. They won’t be as competitive as people from states where this isn’t happening.
I get where you are coming from, I do not think the people you are talking about have the mental aptitude to comprehend the problems with the book 1984, hence they would think it would be a good blueprint for control.
When I was a wee lad reading something I would ask my parents what words meant and we would look it up in the dictionary. Eventually I just did it by myself so the answer to your question is “most of them”. I haven’t had to check my dictionary for some time recently but my Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary is still in a prominent place in my bookcase, right next to my Roget’s II.
Given that dictionaries are a relatively recent development in history, and yet people did manage to speak English, I can guarantee you that 'most of them' is a massive over-estimate.
To be clear, I'm not trying to imply that dictionaries aren't useful or that them being inaccessible is a good thing, but the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of people's linguistic knowledge is learned unconsciously through context and simply talking and hearing other people speak.
Just to throw it at you, of your first sentence there:
When I was a wee lad reading something I would ask my parents what words meant and we would look it up in the dictionary
I would essentially guarantee you didn't learn any of those words by looking them up in a dictionary, and you probably knew them all before you could even read, with the exception of 'dictionary'.
Just to chime in here again to you and the person you’re replying to. Maybe you can both lament with me. I learned many words the same way, having a parent that would grab a dictionary, and I do the same thing as a parent.
Let’s take a second to pour one out for the words we learned serendipitously, just flipping through the dictionary for fun, or an encyclopedia, or just the library stacks.
In so many ways, search engines, algorithms, and memes have robbed us of this.
My point is that not having access to a dictionary does not massively reduce one's ability to learn their own native language, not that dictionaries aren't useful.
I actually majored in Linguistics and will eventually wind up doing a Ph.D in it because I'm a horrific nerd. I love dictionaries and consult them literally every day for etymology information. That doesn't change the fact that, as I said, the absolute vast majority of someone's linguistic knowledge of their own native language is gained by observing the language used in context, not by explicit lookups in a dictionary. You don't teach a baby to speak by throwing a dictionary at it; you just talk to it and they figure it out.
My youngest was 16 months old and I swear I was having full kn conversations with her. She couldn’t speak, but she could gesture and match my tone. She clearly understood just about everything I was saying.
I’ve always liked linguistics. Delved into very superficially in law school in the context of statutory interpretation. Plenty of legal people have written a ton about it, but I found the linguistic analyses very interesting.
Anyway, since you majored, I’m still not really clear on what you mean by how the newspeak in 1984 is not realistic for dystopian predictions (summarizing) because it’s not how linguistics work. Can you elaborate?
It’s like with war and how the victor writes the history of it; the victor might also write the dictionary by shaping the majority lexicon. Part of the fascist toolkit is coopting language to prevent subjugated people from having the tools to resist.
All this don’t say gay, don’t say trans stuff, book bannings, in the south. The attacks on critical race analysis. They didn’t their slaves how to read or write either, let alone how to organize a vote drive or something.
Unless I misunderstood you, what is so inherent about linguistics that stops a fascist from redefining a word or obfuscating it’s original meaning (in the mind of its hearer (forgot the term for this)) to serve a political end?
I've gotta dash, but essentially, the fundamental linguistic premise behind 1984 is this idea that, if people do not have a word to describe a thing, then they cannot meaningfully think about it.
This is, to put it simply, just not true. The greater concept is called linguistic relativism, or the theory that specific languages play a significant role in our general cognition, but outside of some very minor effects, evidence simply doesn't support it. All human languages are essentially of equivalent complexity, and even in situations where a pidgin is created through language contact, it rapidly re-complicates into a fully developed language.
For a concrete example, the idea is that, by replacing 'bad' with 'ungood', people's domain of thought will be meaningfully reduced. The problem is minds don't actually give much of a shit about etymology. In practice, what would rapidly happen is that 'ungood' would come to simply be the word for 'bad' just as deeply as the word 'bad' is to us. To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, consider the word 'discover'. When I say it, you might think of a new scientific discovery, an explorer finding new land, or something to that effect. What you probably do not think of is that is quite literally 'dis-cover', that is, to undo the act of covering something up. Etymology very rapidly gets disconnected from peoples' internal sense of a word, and to that end, manipulating it doesn't really do all that much.
To go back to Newspeak, it's trivial to re-develop a word for 'rebellion' with something like 'goodthink freeness', which will quickly be internalized into meaning the same concept. The range of possible thought doesn't actually get meaningfully reduced.
linguistic relativism, or the theory that specific languages play a significant role in our general cognition, but outside of some very minor effects, evidence simply doesn’t support it.
Have you seen the movie Arrival? This is where I first learned of this.
I talked to a neurologist friend afterward who was convinced of it, along with his M.D. psychiatrist girlfriend. I’m surprised to hear it’s less certain to linguists than to medicine. Unfortunately I forgot the evidence I found so compelling, maybe it was that I had just seen that movie.
Amongst linguists, Arrival is beloved for essentially everything except that one single element haha. Except for the linguistic relativism, it's actually an extremely accurate depiction of what linguistics work looks like. Of course, it is still a sci-fi movie and so it needs a little magic as well, and I won't begrudge it for that.
I'm not surprised about your medical friends though. Because everyone speaks a language, they people often thing that this makes them qualified to speak on linguistics, especially smart people.
I don't want to entirely overstate this though. For instance, if you present people with two shapes, one with a bunch of spikes and the other a more softer blob-like thing, tell them that one of them is called a bouba and one is called a kiki, and ask them to guess which is which, the vast majority of people with call the spikey one the kiki and the blobby one the bouba. So there are some curious inherent effects that language has on our perceptions, but they're subtle, and absolutely nothing like "you cannot imagine the mere concept of disobedience because you don't have a word for it".
I’ve heard of that research. Very cool. Some words definitely do have a shape don’t they. I like the explanation of the 1984 bit.
My medical friends had the understanding that differences between languages in structure and syntax, even like, differences in conjugation, were correlated to physical differences in neuroanatomy. I pictured such things honing out certain neural pathways, and theorizing how it could have the effect of making certain rhetoric or logic more or less natural to learners of one language over another, perhaps. Thinking it might also effect how one might think about and perceive numbers or music.
Ah yeah, I have heard of similar things, particularly with differences in word order (subject-verb-object vs subject-object-verb, for example), and I don't doubt that there are some minor effects there. Ultimately though, my general understanding of the research is that any effects from this are quite small and don't really rise past the point of being little curiosities. In the grand scheme of things, all human languages are of essentially equivalent expressive power and all do essentially the same things, even if in different ways. This is perhaps not terribly surprising really, given that they're all running on the same hardware of a human brain.
I would note that there may be something of an slight over-correction in linguistic orthodoxy with topics like this, since efforts to prove the inferiority and simplicity of "savage" languages was a big effort in late 1800s and early 1900s scientific racism. I remember my professor once showing me a book written by the chair of Harvard's Linguistics Department talking about how the noble Sanskrit was corrupted by being mixed with too many "Orientals" until it became watered down into basic and dumb languages like Hindi. Hell, the entire theory of the Aryan race originated with linguistics, the term itself originally just being a (ultimately incorrect) term for Proto-Indo-European, the theoretical ancestor language of Greek, Slavic, Germanic, Celtic, Latin, Persian, Sanskrit, and some others, the idea being that any group of people whose descendants became all those great civilizations was obvious the pinnacle of humanity. It was of course noted that Hebrew does not belong to this family. The entire field - along with sociology in general - had a massive course correction after WWII for obvious reasons, and while this does align much closer to the actual truth, it has lead linguists to generally be quite reluctant to ever pursue the idea of any language being "better" in some way than others.
I promise you, they simply dont know what books they are banning. They come up with some criteria and then schools have to sort through their books to make sure they all comply. A graphic novel of the book of genesis got banned from my school district. I garuntee they did not intend for that to happen.
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