Quantumfreakonomics
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Quantumfreakonomics
2d ago
Yeah, but then what? Do we launch a full nuclear strike? A conventional war? Just a blockade?
Quantumfreakonomics
2d ago
The question is if Israeli jailors would sic a dog on their captive with the intent for the dog to rape him. (Actually, how does that work mechanically: did they tie him head down ass up?)
I wouldn't have believed most of the things that happened at Abu Ghraib if there hadn't been pictures of it. Some people will do weird shit if they have the oppurtunity.
Quantumfreakonomics
2d ago
We are now in the timeline where the journalistic integrity of the New York Times rests upon whether or not it is physically possible to train a dog to anally rape a human.
The New York Times ran an opinion article by Nicholas Kristof wherein a number of Palestinians report being raped or otherwise sexually assaulted in Israeli prisons. There’s not much in the way of physical evidence, but that is hardly unusual in rape crimes. Israel has strenuously denied the allegations, characterizing them as blood libel. It seems to be a he-said/she-said that comes down to whether you believe the Palestinian prisoners (who often have ties to Hamas or other extremist groups, hence why they ended up in Israeli prisons) or the IDF.
Certain enterprising young pro-Israel influencers think they can to better than appeal to untrustworthiness. They puport to have found a smoking gun that proves the NYT published a complete fabrication in order to libel the State of Israel, and by extension all Jews. One of the more salacious anecdotes regards a man from Gaza who alleges that he was raped by a dog.
On one occasion, he said, he was held down, stripped naked, and as he was blindfolded and handcuffed, a dog was summoned. With encouragement from a handler in Hebrew, he said, the dog mounted him.
”They were using cameras to take photos, and I heard their laughs and giggles,” he said. He tried to dislodge the dog, he said, but it penetrated him.
If, in fact, such a thing were impossible, then it would prove without doubt that the paper of record recklessly printed unverified falsehoods. We are now in the “doctors arguing with the author about the medical literature” stage of the discourse. See, even though we have documented evidence that dogs can cause rectal injury to humans, in none of those reports was the initial contact involuntary on the part of the human.
I am not well acquainted with dogs, but my understanding is that it is not particularly hard to get them to hump things. I guess the people making this argument are hoping that others won’t want to think too hard about the mechanics of dog rape.
Despite calls and rumors to the contrary, The Times so far has declined to retract the article.
Quantumfreakonomics
2d ago
What happens if China takes Donald Trump hostage?
Quantumfreakonomics
3d ago
As we all know, no virus that is slightly transmissible between humans could ever mutate to become more transmissible between humans.
Quantumfreakonomics
3d ago
COVID was such a complete mess that we never even bothered to do a proper post-incident debriefing report. Nobody even wants to think about what we should do differently next time. A lockdown would have worked in December 2019. By mid-January it was too late.
We should have kept everyone on the boat in the middle of the ocean and resupplied them by helicopter.
Quantumfreakonomics
4d ago
The only known use for a large stockpile of HEU is to create nuclear weapons.
No, it is also needed for naval reactors. They have to use highly enriched uranium in order to be small enough to fit on a boat.
Sort of absurd to think about, but it sure would be a pain in the ass if the US navy had to worry about fast attack submarines sneaking up on their carrier groups.
Quantumfreakonomics
4d ago
This is the same stuff people were saying about Covid well into March 2020
Quantumfreakonomics
5d ago
I feel like I've read similar things 5 times in the past few weeks.
Most of the fake scoops have been from Barak Ravid of Axios. He is Israeli so one would expect his "scoops" to be for the purpose of advancing Israel's interests, but from my POV it looks like he's the Trump administration's mouthpiece for market manipulation leaks.
Quantumfreakonomics
6d ago
The first policy position you see on his website is "Medicare for All". I'm not sure if that plus Palestine makes him part of the Squad
Quantumfreakonomics
6d ago
Lets talk about the Senate Democratic Primaries.
Maine
Graham Platener, aka nazi tattoo guy, aka "disabled" veteran oyster man, is the presumptive Democratic nominee in Maine after 78-year-old former governer Janet Mills dropped out. Platner will be running against the incumbant moderate Republican Susan Collins in the general.
Susan Collins has won five straight terms in Maine, but she is the underdog in the upcoming election due to the expected blue wave.
The Maine election is interesting because the conventional wisdom is that Democrats need to run an unusually moderate candidate to win, and Platner shows that we don't have a good conception of what "moderate" even means. On policy positions Platner is leftist, but culturally he has the effect of a rural white tough-guy (as one might have expected from the Nazi tattoo). Expect the results of this one to be poured-over for years in candidate selection debates.
Michigan
The Michigan Democratic primary is complicated by having three candidates instead of two. Haley Stevens, Mallory McMorrow, and Abdul El-Sayed all have viable campaigns. Looking in from the outside, the big issue in the race is Israel.
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Haley Stevens is "establishment" in the machine sense. She is openly pro-Israel. Not much grassroots support. I expect her to lose barring shenanigans.
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Mallory McMorrow is the traditional liberal PMC candidate. Very white woman coded. Backed by literal Anthropic employees. Her public position is skeptical of certain aspects of the US-Israel relationship, but it is clear that she doesn't have deep convictions on the issue.
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Abdul El-Sayed is the leftist anti-Israel candidate. As his name suggests, he is an Arab Muslim. He is best known at this point for campaigning with leftist streamer Hasan Piker.
The attempts to cancel El-Sayed for his Israel position and Hasan connections seem to have backfired, as he has catapulted into the lead on Polymarket. What I think is happening here is that Israel is by default a low-salience issue, but if Israel is made into an issue by e.g. a US-involved war in the Middle East or constant media coverage of campaign tactics, then the anti-Israel faction of the Democratic party will simply win because they have an overwhelming numerical advantage among the Democrat base.
My interpretation is that the phrase, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," modifies the noun arms, not the noun people. So all of "the people", regardless of whether or not they are part of the militia, get to bear arms, but the "arms" that they have the right to bear are militia arms, i.e. infantry weapons. This means that both you and the Koch brothers get to own assault rifles, RPGs, light machine guns, and mortars, but neither of you can own tanks, attack helicopters, or nuclear warheads.
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