Sorchist

Does anybody have any idea how to evaluate Israel's claim that it wasn't them, that it was a Palestinian rocket towards Israel which went wrong and hit the hospital?

Other than just assuming that whatever side you don't like is lying?

I honestly don't have a heuristic to evaluate that other than "the side I trust less must be lying about it"

And I'd like a better way to find out the truth than that

That is a pretty wild definition of "racism" as "the idea that there are races."

But I kind of see how you got there.

The idea that human beings can be carved up along certain lines (demarcated by skin color and ancestry) and that there are significant differences between human capability across these dividing lines - and that justifies power differences and relationships of oppression between those groups -- those are the ideas behind racism, which expresses itself in oppression and injustice.

But the fact that people do carve up humanity along those lines, and therefore people find themselves put in these categories we call "races," and have different experiences and opportunities based on which one they find themselves in -- that's a fact. It's not racist to acknowledge it -- indeed, in a way, it would be racist to deny it because it would be denying the reality of oppression.

So "the idea that there are races" = "people are inherently and biologically divided up into 'black', 'white', etc and this indicates fundamental differences between them" -- that's racism

"the idea that there are races" = "there are 'races' because there are structures in the world which are built on the idea of 'races' having inherent biological differences, and these structures affect people" -- that's accurately recognizing that racism exists.

Does that make sense?

The way the text here it phrased, it sounds like McCarthy wronged the Democrats by giving them nothing, and they're getting him back by letting him go. But the article makes it clear that they asked for nothing and he expects nothing from them, and respects that.

No need to imply animosity and back biting between McCarthy and the Dems that isn't there.

It's more like "you do your thing, we'll do our thing, and that's OK, no matter how it turns out."

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Tuesday that he would not give Democrats anything in exchange for their votes to help save his Speakership, after Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) moved to force a vote on ousting him.

“They haven’t asked for anything. I’m not going to provide anything,” McCarthy said in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

“Hakeem runs his conference,” McCarthy said of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). “He’s going to have a conference, and everybody’s going to talk about it, and I’m not going to put Hakeem in any position, and I respect whatever decision anybody makes.”

I'd say that having three different words for "because" increases nuance. As the link to merriam-webster's article pointed out, you get a nuance of formality between "because" and "as"; "as" is somewhat more formal. I'm not sure if there's another nuance between "because" and causal "since" but smart money is on there being one (if you survey the use of the two I bet you will find there are very subtle differences of usage there -- there almost always are nuances of difference between supposedly synonymous words, even if they're only differences like level of formality).

I don't think you can put this at the feet of BIG DICTIONARY.

Dictionaries are generally descriptivist and don't preach. It's style guides and individual angry language weirdos who preach.

That's the right thing to do. Help people who need help.

"I'm gonna only help people who support me, if you don't support me I'll fuck you over" is a Trump way to think.

I had read that the Biden administration kept pressuring the railways behind the scenes after the strike was averted till the unions got what they had wanted in the first place anyway.

I don't know where I first read it but this link seems to confirm it.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/may/01/railroad-workers-union-win-sick-leave

“We’re very happy about this. We’ve been trying to get this for decades,” said Artie Maratea, president of the Transportation Communications Union. “It was public pressure and political pressure that got them to come to the table.”

Do you live in a country where the government would put a gun to YouTube's head and say 'YOU HAVE TO KEEP BROADCASTING THIS MAN'S CHANNEL, PUT ADS ON IT, AND SHARE THE AD REVENUE WITH HIM, WHETHER YOU WANT TO OR NOT, UNTIL AND UNLESS HE IS CONVICTED OF A CRIME"?

That seems weird.

So apparently they really suck at it? That's kind of hilarious

The trolls have demonstrated a weak command of idiomatic English with articles that, while prolific, often misspell key names or use English and Mandarin interchangeably. Other posts — like a critique of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s August 2022 trip to Taiwan — appear long after the events they purported to preview.

At other times, the spammers attempted to push niche and esoteric Chinese propaganda talking points onto unreceptive audiences by piggybacking on clickable search engine optimized headlines. In one case cited by Meta researchers, Spamouflage Dragon trolls filled the replies of social media forum questions like “How do I lose belly fat through weight lifting?” with propaganda articles about “Chinese Police Strengthening International Law Enforcement Cooperation.”

They don't mention what the propagandists push about COVID. The usual line from weirdo propagandists is that COVID is a secret bioweapon and was released from the Wuhan labs intentionally. I assume China wouldn't sign on to that one? Do they just push the scientific consensus, which is that the origin is unknown but is probably natural, and possibly an unintentional lab leak? Or an exaggeration thereof which completely discounts the lab leak theory but still asserts what is most probable -- it's from animals? That's pretty weak sauce for propaganda. Maybe they push some nuance about COVID that only the Chinese government cares about. Or maybe they go buck wild and say it was developed by NATO biolabs in Ukraine.

I mean, if Trump won and abolished all elections and declared himself dictator for life, then West's chances of being elected president as a third party candidate wouldn't actually change one way or the other.

So maybe being a feckless third party candidate in an authoritarian neofascist dictatorship isn't really that different from being a feckless third party candidate in a constitutional democracy.

Ah yes, it was all a false flag, instigated by the government to take away our freedoms, I get it