Mantergeistmann
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User ID: 323
Make 'em collapsible hats, and follow the rules of Naval Warfare: it's fine to be deceptive up until the final moment of the operation/arrest, at which point you must put your hat on immediately beforehand. Failure to do so will, again, automatically lead to harsh penalties so there's no "oh, well, in the heat of the moment I forgot".
Edit: Especially in a situation where they're putting on masks: if you have time to put on a mask, you have time to put on your Official Hat of Authority.
Mantergeistmann
10hr ago
Solution: ICE agents must wear an absolutely obnoxiously visible hat. Anyone else wearing this hat is subject to massive minimum fines and prison sentences, no plea bargains allowed. The regular uniformed police receive a bounty of $50,000 dollars for each person they (correctly) arrest who is wearing one of those hats and is not part of ICE, and all ICE agents must carry some sort of badge/ID that they must provide the uniformed police on request to prove they are ICE.
Boom. ICE is very easily idenfitifiable and verifiable, while being anonymous, and the police have a massive incentive and simple way to ensure it isn't abused by other parties.
Mantergeistmann
1d ago
I'm reminded of a very pro-immigrant friend who was absolutely indignant at the Free State Project and people moving to New Hampshire to vote their values...
Mantergeistmann
3d ago
Other than the use of the term "sprawling" (which seems to be doing a lot of heavy lifting), is there anything to indicate that this center does go underneath skyscrapers, and not just the military complex above it? I couldn't find anything in the article you linked, but there may be other information out there.
Mantergeistmann
3d ago
Israeli Army command post deep underground beneath its headquarters
Isn't that like saying "there's a US Army command post/bunker deep underground beneath the Pentagon"? And yes, launch as many bombs as you want at the Pentagon/bunkers beneath it during a war; it's certainly not a war crime to hit any nearby civilians with a miss.
Mantergeistmann
3d ago
Why was this well-off man with a family renting with a Papa John's pizza guy?
Sublease for a temporary business assignment? I know a few people with a house several hours from where they work who get an apartment - sleep in town on work nights, go home on weekends.
Mantergeistmann
4d ago
10 million people, 7 million of them Jews, cannot sustain significant long-term military capacity against even low-medium strength foes if they lose the support of the US
Given that most of their neighbors want them dead and gone, and not due to generic geopolitical tensions, that just sounds like withdrawing US support will put them in a position where their only hope for survival is to establish regional supremacy as quickly and forcefully as possible, since they really can't sustain a long-term war against a coalition. Very unstable, certainly, but better than slowly and inevitably being ground into the ocean.
Mantergeistmann
5d ago
Follow-up question: what do you mean by the road train stuff?
Presumably, when one driver is going above the speed limit, a bunch of other drivers will assume a line behind the first and match speed. Safety in numbers, after all - the police can't pull everyone over (unless there's a speed trap set up).
Mantergeistmann
5d ago
I also find it fascinating not just for their decision to use it as a strategy, but for the population to go along with it with (apparently) only limited coercion required.
Mantergeistmann
5d ago
Hezbollah to a limited extent, but they're not what I would have considered a full governing body. Houthis, I have no idea what their infrastructure or... anything there actually is like, I will admit.
Mantergeistmann
5d ago
I would like to have an electric car for commuting, but I need the all-in price on a gently used electric car to be much closer to $15,000 than $50,000 before that can happen.
I haven't looked at the market, and I'm sure it isn't there yet, but depending on your commuting distance, a plug-in hybrid may be worth considering.
Mantergeistmann
5d ago
Cars I have owned: Hyundai Elantra (one step above base kit), Prius Prime (fully kitted out). The Elantra was a very solid car. Reliable, up until some of the parts that will always wear out started to wear out. Put 150k miles on it. The Prius Prime is new, and fantastic, and I love the stupid little features you get at the high trim level that I never thought I would have cared about.
Also it parks itself. Sometimes.
Mantergeistmann
5d ago
It is certainly where Hamas would have placed such a facility.
Hamas seems to be the only governing body on the planet where "deliberately putting your own people on danger" is seen as a plus, not a minus. I have trouble imagining, say, the Russian populace being used as public affairs shields by Putin on such a scale and putting up with it.
Mantergeistmann
5d ago
Realistically speaking, if Iran develops nukes relations between the two countries will probably just follow the India-Pakistan model.
I would argue one key difference is that geographically, Israel is small enough for a limited amouny of nuclear weapons to take out a significant chunk of the country.
Mantergeistmann
5d ago
Also North Korea has plenty of artillery trained at Seoul regardless, as I understand it. I'm not sure a nuke would actually be more destructive than the conventional capabilities.
Mantergeistmann
5d ago
To this end it has been the official position of the Isreali government for decades now that a nuclear armed Iran poses an existential threat
I'm curious: is there any other set of countries where this is considered the case? I honestly can't think of another that would have a legitimate concern that some other specific country getting the Bomb would be that big of a concern.
Mantergeistmann
8d ago
I really, really miss that sparkly midnight green color for cars, personally.
Mantergeistmann
14d ago
Mantergeistmann
14d ago
One of the most fascinating protest signs that I ever saw simply said LIBERALS GET THE BULLET TOO in all-caps sharpie. To this day, I'm not even sure they were protesting.
I'm reminded of the BLM flag that was the snake with "YES WE WILL TREAD" or something similar. Like, they were protesting oppressive police by... wanting to oppress libertarians? Constitutionalists? The US Navy post-9/11? I mean, I assume they simply interpreted the entire flag as "Outgroup Flag" and didn't think about it, but still.
Mantergeistmann
19d ago
Babes at the beach, possibly.
Mantergeistmann
19d ago
If living hostages could be divided up I'm sure they'd try that.
It's like the biblical test of Solomon (or was it David) to find out who the baby' mother is, except Hamas wouldn't even wait for him to finish speaking before pulling out the saw.
Mantergeistmann
23d ago
cartel money laundering charges
I must have completely missed that... I'm assuming it was Clinton-related?
Mantergeistmann
25d ago
They've already been bombing Gaza intensively, that's not what a precision air campaign looks like.
Intensive and precision are not opposed. I'd say it looks roughly like what I'd expect a targeted campaign against a foe deliberately and firmly embedded in infrastructure to look like.
What is Israel supposed to do against the Houthis? Israel doesn't have any navy worth caring about. The US navy, bigger and better in every way, has proven totally unsuccessful at beating the Houthis or bombing them into submission.
Israel is far more willing to hit targets of vital import (pun on "port" not intended) that the US is unwilling to hit. Remember when everyone complained about how horrible the US was for hitting a fuel port, which is about as close to a military target as you can get without it being a guy in uniform? Israel is under no such constraints, and that's the sort of thing that would degrade their capabilities properly.
they're a fundamentally small power with a foreign policy that presupposes access to vast resources that don't actually belong to them. Pakistan has nukes too, Iran probably does. They're hugely outnumbered. Israel needs to get more realistic in their aspirations. They can't escalate out of this.
Weirdly, it's possible escalation is their only possible strategy. As you said, they're outnumbered and surrounded. You don't win that one by letting your opponents build up their strength, coordinate, and keep chipping away at you with rockets and low-level proxies. And if option a) is "negotiate with people who are on record as wanting us all dead", and "fight to survive"... You don't worry much about building hearts and minds with the current regimes.
Mantergeistmann
26d ago
bombing an embassy building is a hostile act towards both host country and the country whose embassy it is, but I'm pretty sure Israel was OK with that.
Given that they were already in some sort of a state of hostilities to both parties involved, I'd agree. To a lesser extent, it's not dissimilar from the allies hitting the German Embassy in Rome with a bomb during WWII. I don't know if such a thing happened, but I highly doubt anyone on any side would have made a fuss if it had.
I believe that only applies to certain inalienable rights.
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