Octopus Overlords

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Mon Apr 19, 2021 12:36 am

Jaymann wrote:I think an asteroid mission would be awesome.

We have a few of those.

Jaymann wrote: ↑Mon Apr 19, 2021 1:00 am

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Mon Apr 19, 2021 12:36 am

Jaymann wrote:I think an asteroid mission would be awesome.

We have a few of those.

Manned?

Defiant wrote: ↑Mon Nov 16, 2020 12:58 am Not treating the Palestinian-Israeli conflict isn't the start and end of everything in the middle east, as previous administrations had, thus allowing his administration to successfully pursue several agreements in the region. And finally moving the US embassy that previous presidents repeatedly promised to move, but "experts" claimed would cause the region to go to hell in a hand basket. Possibly also killing Solemani, although the Pandemic may have obscured the potential consequences of it.

On Sept. 15, 2020, President Donald Trump trumpeted his proudest — and virtually sole — foreign policy achievement: the signing of the Abraham Accords opening formal ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. “After decades of division and conflict, we mark the dawn of a new Middle East,” he said in a White House ceremony. “Together, these agreements will serve as the foundation for a comprehensive peace across the entire region.”

Fast forward eight months, and that boast appears even more risible now than it did at the time. The clashes in recent days between Israelis and Palestinians make clear that there is no “peace” and no “new Middle East.” It remains the same blood-soaked mess as ever. The Abraham Accords were nice, but they did nothing to resolve underlying conflicts in Yemen, Syria, Libya — or the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is now seeing one of its periodic eruptions of violence, with Hamas inundating Israel with rockets from the Gaza Strip and Israeli warplanes striking back against targets in Gaza. The result is civilian casualties on both sides — although, as usual, far more among the Palestinians than among the better-protected Israelis.

Even those of us who are supporters of Israel must admit that the proximate cause of the current flare-up is Israel’s continuing land grab in East Jerusalem and the West Bank — something that Trump did much to encourage with his uncritical and unwavering support for his fellow right-wing populist, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. More than 9,200 Israeli homes were built in the West Bank during the Trump years with nary a peep of protest from Washington. Far from trying to curb Israeli expansion, as previous presidents did, Trump unwisely recognized Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights and cut off aid to the Palestinians.

Right-wing Israeli settlers have been trying to evict six more Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem by arguing that the houses belong to Jewish owners who were dispossessed during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence. Netanyahu has tried to portray this as an ordinary land dispute that the Israeli Supreme Court will adjudicate; a decision was due Monday before the violence spiraled out of control.

But Palestinians rightly point out that the Israeli legal system is biased against them. The law allows Israelis to claim possession of houses they lost in 1948 but does not extend similar rights to Palestinians. Palestinians see the looming evictions as part of an Israeli plan to take such firm possession of East Jerusalem that it can never be the capital of a future Palestinian state. Again, Trump made the problem worse by seeming to recognize Israeli sovereignty over all of Jerusalem when he moved the U.S. Embassy there from Tel Aviv.

Palestinians (and also Israeli Arabs) are angry, and predictably their protests have flared into clashes with Israeli police. Israeli officers even entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of the holiest sites in Islam, firing rubber bullets and throwing stun grenades while battling Palestinian youths throwing rocks at them.

This gave Hamas the perfect excuse to jump into the fray under the guise of defending Palestinian rights in Jerusalem. But however legitimate the Palestinian grievances, nothing justifies the indiscriminate rocketing of civilians. This is a war crime, and Israel is fully justified in striking back as long as it makes every effort to minimize collateral damage.

Biden restores $200m in US aid to Palestinians slashed by Trump
The US will restore more than $200m (£145m) in aid to Palestinians, reversing massive funding cuts under the Trump administration that left humanitarian groups scrambling to keep people from plunging into poverty.

“[We] plan to restart US economic, development, and humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people,” the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said in a statement.

The aid includes $75m in economic and development funds for the occupied West Bank and Gaza, which will provide food and clean water to Palestinians and help small businesses. A further $150m will be provided to the United Nations relief and works agency for Palestine refugees in the near east (UNRWA), a UN body that supports more than 5 million Palestinian refugees across the region.

Defiant wrote: ↑Tue May 18, 2021 6:23 pm Except it doesn't. Despite the overinflation from the administration (and the disparagement by those that hate Trump) these agreements, though achievements worthy of note, were only tangentially related to solving the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Unless they're ending the agreements, they're still successes, and my understanding is they're not ending them (I haven't even heard them recall ambassadors)

malchior wrote: ↑Tue May 18, 2021 6:27 pm

Defiant wrote: ↑Tue May 18, 2021 6:23 pm Except it doesn't. Despite the overinflation from the administration (and the disparagement by those that hate Trump) these agreements, though achievements worthy of note, were only tangentially related to solving the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Unless they're ending the agreements, they're still successes, and my understanding is they're not ending them (I haven't even heard them recall ambassadors)

That's a little too narrow. Those countries took a significant amount of flak over those deals in the last week. Maybe that'll blow over but they paid a price for it. Time will tell if they feel like the bargain was worth it.

El Guapo wrote: ↑Wed May 19, 2021 10:06 am

malchior wrote: ↑Tue May 18, 2021 6:27 pm

Defiant wrote: ↑Tue May 18, 2021 6:23 pm Except it doesn't. Despite the overinflation from the administration (and the disparagement by those that hate Trump) these agreements, though achievements worthy of note, were only tangentially related to solving the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Unless they're ending the agreements, they're still successes, and my understanding is they're not ending them (I haven't even heard them recall ambassadors)

That's a little too narrow. Those countries took a significant amount of flak over those deals in the last week. Maybe that'll blow over but they paid a price for it. Time will tell if they feel like the bargain was worth it.

Yeah, knocking the Abraham Accords for failing to solve the Palestinian crisis or other wars in the Middle East (how was it supposed to end violence in Libya?) seems a little bizarre. I get that Trump tried to tout the deal as a herald of a new era of peace, but honestly that's pretty standard rhetoric for any new peace deal.

I'm sure the recent violence will increase pressure on the UAE and other Arab states that have made peace with Israel to distance themselves. We'll see how that plays out. But ultimately these states have limited input from their citizens, and these deals were always based more on the fact that most Arab states now fear Iran more than they hate Israel. Since Iran hasn't gotten any weaker, I'd be surprised if much changes on these treaties.

stimpy wrote: ↑Thu Jun 10, 2021 12:03 pm I think you all owe him an apology......

https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/cm/ ... 00816.html

The observational study, published by medRxiv, found that antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine, along with zinc, could increase the coronavirus survival rate by as much as nearly 200% if distributed at higher doses to ventilated patients with a severe version of the illness.