Bears repeating: death to the Islamic Republic.

'The matter can be deemed concluded'

Israel may, of course, feel differently (esp. if one of the drones/missiles hits the country). But the statement is consistent with what I wrote earlier: this was performative war. Showboating for supporters in Iran/Arab countries with no…

Don't lose sight of one thing in your reporting & analysis:

the people of Iran have shown -- in their protests, chants, etc -- that they have no enmity with Israel.

I pray (and expect) that there will be no war. But if there is, it's the REGIME's war. May it topple them.

At this stage, this seems a lot like performative war. Launch drones to boast of having attacked Israel, but in such a way that you won't actually hit Israel.
I pray, for the sake of Israel and the people of Iran, that it won't escalate.

I don't see war as likely. Why?
Because, in its upper ranks, Iran's regime isn't ideological. It's a crime syndicate interested in self preservation & continued plunder.

Attacking Israel in a way that compels an overwhelming Israeli/US response would undermine those interests.

For some reason there's never enough room for these on the placards at 'anti imperialist' rallies

While most news outlets in the west are saying that Iran is about to attack Israel, the Iranian people have a different take on their own regime. The latest slogan on a wall in Iran says, “Israel, hit ‘em! They don’t have the balls to get revenge!”

NPR doing to OJ what WaPo did to the head of ISIS.

[NPR post on Threads. h/t Yashar Ali 🐘 for seeing it]

A message for the lawyers at the National Lawyers Guild (National Lawyers Guild) who advised her otherwise:

The 1st Amendment protects many things, but not going to someone's backyard and yelling at them.

These are related stories.

If the West hadn't tolerated a fatwa on a British writer in 1988, it wouldn't have to worry about a missile strike on Israel in 2024.

Dictators only understand the language of power. Unless they are stopped, they will take more & more.

Bret Stephens in today's NYT nytimes.com/2024/04/09/opi…

Playing around with the Microsoft Microsoft Designer with my kids today.

It generates ridiculous pics of many holy figures. But maybe you'll notice one (respectful) image it won't generate.

I find it worrying that AI is being taught these unreasonable speech prohibitions.

No doubt the expert class has been wrong & arrogant a lot recently.

But one of the most pernicious ideas that populists have pushed in recent years is that the public doesn't need 'an expert class to distill knowledge.' Or that favouring expert opinion is against free speech.

The Al Jazeera obit of Walid Daqqa contains this weird little tidbit.

Excellent Cathy Young 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇮🇱 piece. Watching most of the IDW (notable exceptions: Sam Harris, Claire Lehmann) become audience-captured, illiberal conspiracy theorists has been tragic.
And, naturally, there's a direct correlation between their discarding of principle & their…

Trudeau’s government’s knowledge of PRC election interference from 2017 on is so thorough and damning in evidence, that my early impressions this constitutes one of the most serious political corruption cases in Canadian history is looking more validated by the day, two more big…

Total cloud cover in Toronto

#Eclipse2024

So much of the criticism directed at Israel for how it is conducting its war is coming from bad-faith actors weaponizing international law.

You’ve asked me several questions on this thread and accused me of avoiding answering, so here goes.

I believe a woman is a human being who belongs to the sex class that produces large gametes. It’s irrelevant whether or not her gametes have ever been fertilised, whether or not…

A completely forseeable event for which authorities have had years to plan is not an 'emergency'.

Government use of emergency powers should be an exceedingly rare thing. Calling every non-routine occurence an emergency normalizes government power grabs.