FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
And every gimmick hungry yob
Digging gold from rock n roll
Grabs the mic to tell us
he'll die before he's sold
But I believe in this
And it's been tested by research
He who fucks nuns
Will later join the church
User ID: 195
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4mo ago
Qatar hosts a US base, has been repeatedly publicly proclaimed as an ally by successive administrations, have Trump a PLANE, and only harbored the enemy leaders at this point because the United States told them to keep them around. Collaborator might actually be too mild.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4mo ago
Gabby Giffords was, you know, in Congress. And presumably knew many fellow congressmen personally, who had no interest in letting the issue drop. She also had the advantage of being a woman, and of being horrifically crippled rather than killed, which is I think worse. The results in 2012 were, I suppose, a Democratic bump but moderate in impact: they added two seats to their Senate majority and bit eight seats out of the Republican House majority. The equivalent impact towards R next year would add up to the R's holding 227 seats in the House, and 56 in the Senate. Which would improve the Republican position quite a bit when trying to corral the loony bin for budget bills, but it's not the death of the Democrats.
And four years later the Republicans would return with much extremer rhetoric and win the Presidency, House, and Senate in a huge upset.
Charlie Kirk's death is unfortunate, but it's not some kind of win-now button. If it were, we would have actually seen a false flag before.
As we're probably all aware by now, Israel bombed Doha, Qatar this week, in an attempt to assassinate Hamas' leadership resident in the city. There's some dispute over who exactly was killed in the attack, whether any non-Hamas people were hurt, etc. It appears to have been reasonably precise, any collateral damage is in count-on-one-hand territory. It's unclear what impact this will have on the ongoing conflict, or on Israeli relations with Qatar and more importantly with the United States. There's a LOT of conflicting stories out there about who knew what when, did the United States greenlight the attack and plan it, maybe even sending over a ceasefire proposal to bait them into meeting together; or the Israelis acted alone and Trump's team is furious at being left out of the loop.
What this does say is, Qatar has joined the ranks of countries that have no true sovereignty, and can be bombed at will by capable powers. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia; all have come to be considered failed states, where the United States and its allies, or Iran and its proxies, can bomb targets at will and the putative "governments" of such places will merely wring their hands and protest at the United Nations on the topic. Is Qatar now in danger of becoming another country that can be bombed at will? This would mark a major escalation. The countries previously treated as bombing ranges by the great powers were poor, backwards, weak; Qatar is small but it is oil-rich. By Human Development Index countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan were near the very bottom, while Qatar is around the level of Poland.
This represents something shocking, in that Qatar has been historically less hostile to Israel than the Arab average, and is a direct ally of the United States, hosting the largest US base in the middle east. Qatar was actually hosting the Hamas leadership at the quiet behest of the United States, to keep them coherent and on hand rather than chaotic and in Palestine or underground, and wanted to kick them out after 10/7 but was told not to by Israel's protector the United States. Despite all this cooperation, Qatar does not get to decide if Doha will be bombed today, Israel feels it can make that decision with impunity.
EDITED TO EMPHASIZE
Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani proposed expelling Hamas’s leaders from Doha during a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken days after the terror group’s October 7 onslaught, two officials familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel on Wednesday.The proposal was made in somewhat of a roundabout way during the emir’s opening remarks at an October 13 closed-door meeting in Doha with Blinken. Thani began by expressing his horror over Hamas’s attack in which some 1,200 people in Israel were slaughtered and another 253 were abducted into Gaza. He then asked whether it was time for the US to ask Qatar to expel the Hamas’s leaders, the two officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. When Blinken began his own remarks, he didn’t respond directly to the emir’s proposal but did go on to say that he thought it would be better for Qatar to use its contacts with Hamas — through the office it allowed the terror group to establish in Doha in 2012 at Washington’s behest — to mediate between the Gaza war parties to secure a hostage deal, the officials recalled. They added that the US secretary of state also clarified that it would not be “business as usual” for Hamas in Qatar once the conflict concludes.
Qatar was not harboring Hamas because they like Hamas, they are literally harboring Hamas at Israeli/US request.
The message is being taken in the Muslim world: collaboration will not save you. To quote from an apparently pro-Hamas substack post that popped up in my feed:
Trump directed his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, to “inform the Qataris of the impending attack.” So the Qataris knew that America had greenlit an attack on their sovereign territory. They then either allowed the attack to proceed or were too powerless to stop an attack on their own soil. Either way, it reveals who is actually in control of the country with just over a quarter of a million citizens but enormous natural resources.
The Israeli bombing in Doha serves an important lesson: resisting Israeli barbarism is a high-risk, high-reward endevaour. Those who resist, as the Palestinians, Hezbollah, and the Yemenis have done, will undoubtedly suffer losses — but, most importantly, they will be able to look themselves in the eye with dignity. The collaborators, however, will not only be publicly humiliated but will ultimately be destroyed once they have outlived their usefulness. For the four Arab states that have normalised as part of the so-called Abraham Accords, the fate of Qatar should serve as an example.
So the question then arises: why did the Israelis commit such a brazen and criminal attack on a country aligned with their interests? The short answer is that they intended to send a stark message: they can bomb a country even when it is aligned with them. As if to erase any doubt about the message behind the attack on Qatar, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana posted a tweet — in Arabic, no less — with an attached video of the targeted building in flames, accompanied by a blunt caption: “This is a message to all of the Middle East.” Take note: the tweet makes no mention of the Hamas leadership in Doha; its sole focus is the Middle East.
This is the fairly reasonable interpretation being offered by the insane lunatic fringes, the excellent propaganda handed to the Islamists. Israel as of now claims power of life and death over the citizens of Qatar, they used it mostly righteously on this occasion, and they may continue to do so. Or they may not. And that is not for the Qataris to judge, they can only accept the decision. And this to a US ally. Is there a country in the middle east where they would not have launched such an attack? On principle, or merely because the cost/benefit wasn't there yet? Does Israel claim the right to kill any Arab anywhere in the Middle East? Or perhaps they would not blanche at killing Arabs in France or Germany.
This has been an uncomfortable question for me since the Bin Laden raids, but it feels more pressing than ever today:
Under what circumstances would you feel that a foreign drone strike targeting a terrorist living or operating in the United States was justified and acceptable?
Consider some examples of individuals considered terrorists who live openly in the United States.
Fethullah Gulen, purportedly behind a coup attempt in Turkey that lead to the deaths of hundreds, lived for years not a few hours from me. If the Turks had decided to bomb Saylorsburg, PA to get him, or did it today to get his successor, would that be acceptable?
I've personally been to events at which the Dalai Lama spoke. The ChiComms consider him a dangerous separatist terrorist. If they had bombed the college basketball stadium or the NYC auditorium at which I saw him speak, would that have been acceptable? What about Uyghur leader Anwar Turani? Or Guratpwat Singh Pannum the Sikh leader seeking to establish Khalistan?
Zelensky has traveled to the United States multiple times, if the Russians blew up his limo would that be acceptable? What about the reverse, if Ukrainian nationalist psychos had shot down Putin's plane over Alaska?
My own view is simple. None of these are acceptable to me, as a US citizen, even if I dislike some of these groups. The Schelling point of sovereignty is maintaining a legitimate monopoly on violence within the territory, if the United States gives that up it can never be gotten back. The United States, and the United States alone, gets to make the decision as to who enjoys the protection of our laws. No other country can assassinate or bomb its enemies on our soil, not if we remain a sovereign country. If it wishes to request their extradition, they may do so, but it is at our own pleasure that we will accede to or refuse such a demand. If any other country claims the right to kill on our soil, then the protection of our government is meaningless, what is to stop any other country from killing a citizen? The Schelling fence between non-citizen and citizen on our soil feels significantly weaker than the one between on our soil and not on our soil. We've already seen how the citizenship distinction can evaporate abroad.
I hope that Israel will be able to make amends with Qatar, and that this will not lead to further degradation of the political situation in the Middle East.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4mo ago
I feel like the gender identity of criminals is sort of a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't situation. If the NYT uses "preferred" pronouns, then we all point and scream and say they're honoring the criminal. If the NYT makes an exception to its general rules on "preferred" pronouns, then we all point and laugh and say "look, even the NYT doesn't believe that trans women are women, they revoke the status as soon as they commit a crime."
I actually like the capitalization of Black when referring to black people in America. It neatly denotes a cohesive cultural subgroup which otherwise requires a confusing counterintuitive stew of euphemisms: African American mostly worked, but it doesn't include Zohran or Elon even though they are literally from Africa and in America; American Descendants of Slavery was a little more precise, but there's obvious edge cases involving black skinned people who were never enslaved, or non-black people who were in other circumstances. Black neatly captures the group we are talking about when we are talking about them. I don't really think white either is or needs a similar group identification.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4mo ago
Feels weird to be a false flag without, as of yet, an internet manifesto, but I guess anything is possible.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4mo ago
The Black Panthers or the IRA would have kicked out Thomas Crooks or Ryan Routh for being a liability.
I don't know enough about either the IRA or those particular men to really argue that intelligently, but the Black Panthers leadership was so drug addled, horny, dysfunctional, and idiotic that I'm not very confident they would have kicked guys out for being weird.
My view of things is more that a young man possessed of the kind of death drive that leads to a school shooting can easily be diverted by socially offered outlets for that death drive, like terrorism or gang violence or tribal warfare. This is why we don't really see school shootings in demographics with significant gang problems, or in countries with terrorism problems.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4mo ago
I think the predominant reaction would be to write that person off as a crank, but I'm not an MSNBC viewer so I may be wrong about that reaction.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4mo ago
Oh ok sorry I get what you're saying now. I agree West Virginia is certainly more Red Tribe or MAGA than it is doctrinaire partisan Republican; what I'm getting at is more that even in a Red Tribe state there are Blue Tribe individuals and communities within driving distance. Ergo it's not that surprising for there to be a (presumably) leftist assassin in Utah, or in turn a Proud Boys march/riot in the PNW.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4mo ago
I mean sure it's possible, but the most recent identical ban at the federal level did not feature confiscation. And confiscation would be pretty impractical on balance. There's a chance of confiscation, and a chance of non-confiscation, but considering scenarios, for me the outcomes look something like:
No Ban: I bought a gun I always kind of wanted or intended to buy anyway, maybe for a little more money or with a little less research than I otherwise would have. Not that bad an outcome.
Ban, no confiscation: I have a gun that I wanted and intended to purchase, which I otherwise would not be able to buy.
Ban, confiscation: I lose the gun.
Ban, TSHTF and TEOTWAWKI as a result of trying to confiscate 10,000,000 firearms from unfriendly owners: Boy, sure glad I have this thing today.
No Purchase: I have a few hundred dollars I wouldn't otherwise have.
Leaving aside internet tough-guy memes about boating accidents.
Obviously you can put your own values and probabilities in here and get a lot of outcomes, but the whole thing was pretty marginal to me. I didn't move heaven and earth to do it, I drove up the road a couple miles and I spent a day's earnings.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4mo ago
If Barack Hussein Obama, icon of milquetoast respectability, says that, I'd probably drive to three different gun stores to buy ammo.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4mo ago
It's a while ago now, so I'm not going to claim I have the mood dead to rights, but I mostly recall Republicans quickly circling the wagons around avoiding gun control legislation more than anything.
What I'm saying that Republicans didn't do was moderate on their rhetoric, or disappear from public life. The modern Republican party is more extreme in its rhetoric in every way than the party in 2011, and it's in power. Mitt Romney vs Donald Trump as standard bearer.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4mo ago
I'm not sure what you're saying. West Virginia is dominantly Republican, the most republican state by vote share in 2024!
But even if you peel off half or more of that Democratic vote share as red tribe democrats and ignore the possibility of blue tribe Republicans, that still leaves 10-15% of the voters as blue tribe. Which is more than enough people to produce a single lone gunman, QED.
There's nowhere in the continental united states where you're more than a few hours on the highway from members of your outgroup.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4mo ago
If you want a really nice cup of coffee at home, on a budget and with minimal equipment, Turkish coffee is the simplest. All you need is a copper cezve and some fine ground coffee and away you go. Watch it boil carefully, get the foam off in each cup or you'll never find a husband. At the end of the cup, read your fortune in the grounds.
It's got the ritual, the smell, some uniqueness and show value if you have company, it's strong, it's available on demand without maintaining the equipment.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4mo ago
While it isn't a 1:1 swap situation, I'm sure given the choice by some kind of philosophical demon Charlie Kirk would have picked Charlie Kirk getting shot over a room full of fifth graders.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4mo ago
right winger who was deep into qanon style conspiracies.
He could have also been crazy, the two are not mutually exclusive.
I would say for qanon the two are mutually required.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4mo ago
This misunderstands the nature of blue vs red states. Even the reddest states contain blue tribe towns, even in the bluest cities the cops and construction workers are red tribe. At a glance, only in West Virginia did either Kamala or Trump get below 30% of the vote, with Kamala coming in at 29%.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4mo ago
As always, it's going to backfire on whatever political positions the perpetrator holds. Dems are either going to have to moderate and cut off crazy fringe to avoid alienating the majority, or they'll just lose.
Much like Republicans moderated, cut off the crazy fringe, or "just lost" after Gabby Giffords got shot in 2011.
There may be a short term reaction to this, but it's an off year so any electoral impact will be limited to odd local and state elections. Too much runway before we hit the midterms, there are by a normal year pace going to be a half dozen more mass shootings before that. The left might lose a few randomly selected commentators who are disgraced by their reaction to this, but by 2028 Charlie Kirk will be the conservative wonk's Lane Frost: a T shirt slogan, but no ongoing impact.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4mo ago
It was a local auction house running operations through hibid, local pickup from our neighborhood gun store only.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4mo ago
I mean no one knows exactly what the ban would look like prior to it actually occurring. But the federal assault weapons ban of the Clinton era did not involve any confiscation or turn in process, if you owned one purchased a week before the bill passed it was yours. Ditto the NFA in the 1920s, though I believe it did impose the tax stamp process on machine guns.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4mo ago
Or if I'm browsing an auction of a firearms collection and there are several cheap ARs sitting at a $5.00 opening bid, and I want to get things going because the auctioneer is an old family friend, so I put in a bid for $150 on all five of them, there's no way they'll go that cheap but I want to get the action started and get the price up, and I'm figuring that there's absolutely no way I'll end up with more than one of them and I don't have time to watch the auction live. And then the auction ends and I wind up with three of them for an average price of $60 each plus vig. I guess that's kind of a reason.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4mo ago
You can count on conservatives to be ethically consistent when it comes to gun rights. I don't expect anyone on the right to talk about banning the rifle used to kill him.
I'll admit to having been surprised by this post Butler. I immediately went out and bought an AR, thinking I might not be able to next week.
Now, naturally, I've bought several more for no apparent reason.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4mo ago
I'm not sure there's a principled way to distinguish between "ideologically motivated" and "seems to have gone nuts." For obvious reasons we tend not to have long case histories of assassins post-act, but I kinda doubt most of them were level headed and doing well.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4mo ago
Congratulations Hoff, every team that has won a game in Brazil has won the super bowl that season. It's their year.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
4mo ago
End of Summer BJJ Journey Thoughts
-- Belts are dumb. I've reached the point where I can go with a lot of the blue belts in the gym... by the convenient expedient that the gym recently promoted a whole bunch of guys to blue belt. I'm still barely touching the guys who were blue belts last year, but a lot of the new ones I can roll even with, and some of them I've been catching pretty well lately. I'll say this here on the anonymous internet: there's a couple guys I really don't think should have gotten promoted at all, they're just not that good, I beat up on them consistently. I don't feel like I'm anywhere near knowing enough to get any kind of promotion, and I kind of hope I never do, or at least not for a long time. The belt system invented in Judo has been brilliant marketing, it's been adapted all over the place from the Six Sigma to Krav Maga, even a pretty simple sport like Muay Thai has some kind of fakakta armband system, because it works, it sells, people put in effort to get the belt as a certification of their skill level. The attraction of concrete standards of advancement is irresistible, but on the margins like any classification it is pretty meaningless.
-- More and more I'm trying to find the moves that work for me and hunt them. At first I overindexed advice not to force stuff, and wound up trying to hit the absolute optimal move my opponent was giving me, and constantly trying stuff I only half knew how to do. Now I'm taking more of a flow chart approach, where in every spot I have one or two moves I'm comfortable with that I aim for. And that's lead to way more success, not just with the moves I'm aiming for, but seeing openings appear for moves that I couldn't hit before. For the longest time I basically never hit armbars, I'd try to drop one in and lose it, to the point where I got gunshy trying them because I didn't want to lose postion. Instead now I'm hunting americanas from the moment I get into side control, and in the process I chase them into a position where the armbar is right there on a platter for me. This is probably wildly obvious stuff, but I had to learn it the hard way, because I'm stupid.
-- I've realized that every matchup is decided in half guard for me. I'm actually pretty decent at stealing back half guard from side control or mount, or pulling half guard on the way down when I've lost the takedown battle. And all my passing game is station-to-station, passing to half guard then passing from there. The game gets decided in half guard, if I can escape from half guard to a better position I win, if I get stuck in half guard I eventually lose. So I've been trying to study more half guard techniques and try them out. Part of the problem is again passivity. Just making a point of fighting as soon as I get to half guard to get to a knee shield is a huge improvement, where before I tended to settle in and let myself get flattened. I feel like with a good half guard game, I'll be much closer to my goal of being able to give a good roll to everyone in the gym.
-- My standup game is embarrassing to me. I'm getting good enough to stall for a while, but I'm having very little success getting people down in tough rounds. When I do get anyone down, it's more that they pull guard because I've achieved a dominant position and they want to get it to the ground. I've been doing well with arm drags, and pinch headlocks, but I need to finish. And I've still yet to hit a shot successfully. Another area I need to improve and be less passive.
-- On the bright side, I've come home grinning ear to ear after a few just soul stealing wins over guys who thought they were better than me. On the one hand I'll do anything I can to help this guy out, I give guys rides home, help them move, give stuff away in the gym group chat, I love these guys. On the other hand, there is no better feeling than watching the disappointment and anger fill his eyes after I snatch the ankle lock when he didn't see it coming. Watching someone pack up and leave after falling into the kimura, because they're just so disgusted.
This always seems like kind of an iffy proposition to me. In that their principles are so alien to me that they automatically read as insane, yet they seem to be fully capable of rationally pursuing those principles and goals. There are postulates embedded in their math that make my worldview entirely incompatible with theirs.
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