Yes totally agree, there’s no way this goes anywhere but worse somehow as long as Netanyahu remains in power. Hopefully elections (or just being hauled off to jail hopefully) push him out soon, for everyone’s sake.

Yes not disputing at all that there’s a proxy war (though Soviet Israeli relationship deteriorated long before that started with Soviets funding Israeli opponents since 1967), just that despite or partially because of this, Israel is closer to Russia than most western countries. Isreal doesn’t want to upset Russia and give them more incentive to fund proxies against them, and some Israeli governments, like Netanyahu’s especially, have helped provide cover for Russian actions. And Russia at times will often take surprisingly pro Israeli moves despite also funding proxies.

I don’t think it would be impossible for Israel to switch alignment to Russia, and I think you would quickly see Russia providing cover and stopping any assistance with proxy conflict against them. It would be essentially accomplishing Russia’s goal, so what would they have to fight Israel about anymore? Putin is a real politic great powers kind of leader who has no qualms about butchering civilians by the thousands. He’s certainly not aligned with Iran because he’s concerned about Palestinians. Israel becoming fully aligned with Russia would be accomplishing a 77 year in the making goal for the Soviet Union and Russia.

That’s true, but also a little more complicated than that I think. At least one of the reasons Israel was able to extract so much aid from the US to begin with was the threat they could align with the Soviet Union (initially one of the biggest supporters of Israel, and first to recognize them as a state officially in 1947, though they had a few others had unofficially recognized them by then). Stalin had a zionist foreign policy, despite (or maybe because of) being antisemitic himself. Though Soviets and Israel largely schismed in 1967 and the Soviet union began throwing its funding behind the surrounding Arab states.

Relations warmed in the 90s again but have been up and down since. But there has been a lot of Russian immigration to Isreal. Russian is the third most spoken language in Israel.

2011, Putin said: “Israel is, in fact, a special state to us. It is practically a Russian-speaking country. Israel is one of the few foreign countries that can be called Russian-speaking. It’s apparent that more than half of the population speaks Russian”.[38] Putin additionally claimed that Israel could be considered part of the Russian cultural world, and contended that “songs which are considered to be national Israeli songs in Israel are in fact Russian national songs”. He further stated that he regarded Russian-speaking Israeli citizens as his compatriots and part of the ‘Russian World’

Israel at times has been quite friendly to Russia. It took a neutral stance on the Crimea annexation, infuriating the United States. Russia recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in 2017. Israel refused to recognize Russians assassinating people abroad, infuriating the UK. Netanyahu has spoke often about his friendship with Putin. Israel refused to impose sanctions on Russia or send defensive weapons to Ukraine.

I mean you could go on, it’s a complicated relationship, with especially Netanyahu favoring closer relations with Russia and trying to play both sides. Iran’s relationship with Russia certainly presents complications, but I don’t think Israel getting closer to Russia or at least using the threat of it to extract more from the United States is out of the question. They’re often trying to “play both sides” of the Russia and US divide to their benefit. Especially if Netanyahu remains in power.

https://www.axios.com/2022/10/25/ukraine-russia-israel-netanyahu-putin-lapid-kuleba

https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/netanyahu-governments-approach-russia-and-ukraine

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel–Russia_relations

China and Israel have had surprisingly good relations too. And again, Netanyahu has consistently tried to make those closer, possibly to help keep US aid flowing.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/with-israeli-us-ties-troubled-china-says-xi-looking-forward-to-netanyahu-visit/

Not saying the US shouldn’t cut off Isreal, please do, but the results may be surprising if that were to actually happen. I don’t think putin harbors any particular concerns for the plight of the Palestinian people.

MRSA is just a version of staph aureus that is resistant to some common antibiotics. The antibiotic resistant version is common everywhere now since we use so much antibiotics. The antibiotic resistant version doesn’t make someone sicker in and of itself than the non resistant version, it just doesn’t respond to some antibiotics. From context I gather this was MRSA pneumonia.

Staph aureus lives on all of our skin, mouth and external surfaces. It’s not like something you catch, it’s something that’s already there and takes advantage of an opening, like a wound, lungs already damaged by a recent flu virus or something, or a weakened immune system. It’s common that people in the hospital get staph infections, because they’re already there for something else making them sick that gives staph an opening. Strokes are also more common in hospitalized patients that are sick with other things. Strokes usually aren’t directly related to an infection, but the pro inflammatory response can increase clotting and make a stroke more likely. Strokes also can inversely make pneumonia more likely, if you have trouble swallowing and saliva and secretions are going down the wrong tube, then it creates an easy way for bacteria from your mouth like staph to get to the lungs and start up a pneumonia.

Tldr: MRSA is on your skin right now, don’t worry about it too much, don’t overuse antibiotics

Yeah one of the civil suits against him was successful:

https://apnews.com/article/harvey-weinstein-sexual-misconduct-cases-33140bb3d4a4571629e21ef413dbc707

Also he’s not out of jail, this is just his New York conviction. He was also criminally convicted in California.

They always have time to try and stop Democrats from doing anything they think would be popular. They especially worry about anything that would be popular with their own constituents, since even a majority of Republicans support marijuana legalization.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajherrington/2023/02/24/new-poll-shows-23-of-republican-voters-support-legalizing-marijuana/?sh=484afe4636cf

Look at the games they played in Minnesota for a really glaring example on this issue. Republicans there went to the trouble of funding and recruiting candidates for a “legalize marijuana now party.” This allowed them to split the vote just enough in swing districts to prevent democratic control of the state senate, meanwhile the Republicans blocked any marijuana legalization (except for the time they accidentally legalized small dose edibles because they didn’t read a bill about hemp carefully, they were really mad about that, lol). When the democrats recaptured the majority in both houses in the 2022 election, they legalized marijuana. Filibustering isn’t like in the federal senate though, for federal legalization will need to convince at least eight to ten republican senators to go along with it

https://minnesotareformer.com/2020/06/15/some-legalize-cannabis-candidates-are-giving-off-a-very-maga-vibe/

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2023/08/01/recreational-cannabis-is-now-legal-in-minnesota-heres-what-we-know

The house passed marijuana legalization in 2020 and 2022 when democrats controlled it. Didn’t make it past the senate though, with almost every republican opposed.

From an article linked within the article:

Despite the plaudits, China in fact sat on releasing the genetic map, or genome, of the virus for more than a week after three different government labs had fully decoded the information. Tight controls on information and competition within the Chinese public health system were to blame, according to dozens of interviews and internal documents.

Chinese government labs only released the genome after another lab published it ahead of authorities on a virologist website on Jan. 11.

If it weren’t for this scientist it would have taken even longer to get the dna sequence (and even longer for the life saving vaccines). And the whole time Chinese government labs already had the sequence and were refusing to share it with the world despite the World Health organization and scientists around the world begging them to.

Republicans of course voted against any fines at all:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/04/fcc-fines-big-three-carriers-196m-for-selling-users-real-time-location-data/

Now with a 3-2 democratic majority on fcc a lot is getting done. One of Biden’s nominees was stonewalled by the senate for years (ISPs launched a huge smear campaign against her, even the daily mail of all things went after her). Biden had to relent and finally nominated someone else who got approved late 2023, finally breaking the 2-2 deadlock that Republicans were using to block everything like this including net neutrality.

Alright, vote for a dictator that makes their own laws out of thin air then and disregards any courts. Or go after congress to change laws so that new regulations under those laws can be made faster and with less oversight, though that would backfire during republican administrations. Or just keep shouting bad faith arguments to attack a presidential administration you apparently agree with on this issue I guess. Because he very quickly reversed any executive orders he could of Trump’s on this issue. Here’s an order from 2021 on this actual issue.

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/biden-issues-executive-order-expanding-lgbtq-nondiscrimination-protections-n1255165

Reversing actual agency regulations is unfortunately a longer process that is very dependent the specific law, but that was kicked off as soon as his appointees got in place. The new admin did get the regulations changed back in faster time than it took Trump to impose them.

First of all, it’s not like Biden sat down and wrote these himself. Appointees by Biden at the health and human service administration directed these rules be written by civil servants who work at the department. Changes to regulations have to follow the processes laid out in the laws originally passed by congress giving the agency the authority to write that regulation. Usually that involves a long process of research, mandatory waiting periods, comments, legal reviews, votes by administrators, etc. These new rules began to be drafted in January 2022. Here’s all about 600 pages of them. It’s not something like, Biden rolled out of bed this morning and decided to reverse lgbtq discrimination in healthcare finally to help himself in the election. The rule this is replacing/updating for instance had work on it begin in 2015 that didn’t finish until 2020.

If the complex processes for these new regulations aren’t followed then they aren’t drawing their power from any law, and they’ll be struck down by courts in a heartbeat. This happened to a lot of Trump’s incompetent administrators who had a lot of hastily passed or incorrectly passed regulations that didn’t survive legal review.

https://www.vox.com/2021/1/19/22239074/affordable-clean-energy-rule-vacated-trump-court-climate-change-obama-biden

Afforded to a handful of oligarchs/donors:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trustees_of_Columbia_University_in_the_City_of_New_York

This source suggests something about a judge not being present for an arraignment, and so they were released with instructions to present again in May. Sounds like they probably haven’t been formally charged with anything. You can be arrested without being charged, usually charges come shortly after an arrest. But they can’t hold you indefinitely with no charge, which is why they were just released with instructions to return on a certain date.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/emerson-college-protest-arrests-divides-along-public-safety-vs-political-lines/ar-AA1nGB5t

From the article:

Viana said he didn’t know what charges the demonstrators faced but that some will likely be charged with disturbing the peace and others with trespassing.

They also were apparently reading some city anti camping ordinance to the protestors.

No I was referring specifically to these common misleading sensational headlines on minor movements of the stock market, not news headlines in general. Or if you’re referring to 401ks again, yes in general it’s a bad idea to be making active trades in a 401k with a time horizon of decades based on day to day minor fluctuations of the stock market.

The s&p 500 is down 0.8% today, and still up 23.6% over the past year despite that, well above it’s long term average growth rate still. These day to day fluctuations are barely a blip looking on a long scale time horizon like with a 401k.

If you held your entire 401k in 100% stocks and are planning on retiring tomorrow cashing out the entire account all at once I suppose it would be important, but that’s ridiculous for a number of reasons.

Headline writers always like to use the dow Jones because they get to write some seemingly big numbers instead of s&p 500 decreases by 36, which doesn’t sound nearly as impressive (because it’s not). They could say the dow Jones decreased by 1% in the headline, but again, not as sensational, won’t get clicks. Shouldn’t even be using dow Jones anyways, kind of a dumb index. Almost half of the “loss” this article refers to rebounded even by the time I wrote this comment compared to when the article was published, which is why the headline no longer matches the original.

The law is written on a false non medical premise, so it’s not possible for any doctor to interpret because it’s nonsense divorced from reality.

There is no such thing as some clear line in medicine between, ah now instead of just grievous injury she will certainly die without an abortion at this point so let’s do it now and she’ll be fine. There may be black and whites at some extreme ends, but mostly there’s just a spectrum of constantly changing grey probabilities.

This is all total fiction that exists only in the head of pro lifers and the people writing these laws. Even if that fiction was reality, there’s a non zero chance that prosecutors will harass people performing abortions anyways, and they’ll bring in their own hack experts saying no that abortion wasn’t necessary, and the judgement is done by a jury of lay people not doctors with medical expertise, good chance the doctors get thrown in jail anyways in this fictional universe pro lifers have created.

There’s just no practical reality where a law that only “protects life of the mother” can exist. Legislators need to stay out of the doctors office and let pregnant individuals make the decisions with the assistance of doctors, only then can the life and health of the mother actually be protected.

Yes it would apply:

Canceled or significantly changed flights: Passengers will be entitled to a refund if their flight is canceled or significantly changed, and they do not accept alternative transportation or travel credits offered. For the first time, the rule defines “significant change.” Significant changes to a flight include departure or arrival times that are more than 3 hours domestically and 6 hours internationally; departures or arrivals from a different airport; increases in the number of connections; instances where passengers are downgraded to a lower class of service; or connections at different airports or flights on different planes that are less accessible or accommodating to a person with a disability.

https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/biden-harris-administration-announces-final-rule-requiring-automatic-refunds-airline

Here’s a figure from the actual research the articles are describing and linked inside:

https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/A-Tik-Tok-ing-Timebomb_12.21.23.pdf

This is based on methodology TikTok itself suggested be done, comparing posts on TikTok to Instagram.

Caroline Svarre, whose parents paid to have her transported by two strangers in the middle of the night to Trails Carolina when she was 14, said she was “in shock” her first day.

Yup, also one that does the middle of the night kidnaps for maximum trauma infliction.

Shockingly, the treatment guidelines for panic disorder also don’t inlude zipping people into small bags all night:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6478076/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6354045/

They should be shut down permanently, and those responsible for these policies held criminally liable.