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Exactly. For either of the main parties, it’s barely a drop in the bucket. The claim that theoney is being withheld “in case they need it” is farcical.

Third parties, on the other hand, need all the help they can get.

The case for US electoral reform, exhibit #847…

It’s hard enough for third parties to offer voters an alternative to the two main parties without the duopoly actively blocking what little financial support they have.

It’s literally just boredom and dissatisfaction driving people to change from one side to another. Thanks to the two-party corporatocracy that the US pretends is a democracy, what other options do they have?

I’m a fan of atmospheric horror too, so I’ll give Longlegs a watch.

Recently, I’ve also seen:

• Late Night With the Devil - really good retro horror flick. They got the feel of the late 70s just right, and i enjoyed the way the tension gradually builds to a crescendo.

• A Quiet Place: Day One - was a big fan of the first movie, but the sequels have been increasingly disappointing. This one was definitely the weakest, IMO, but still somewhat enjoyable if you still feel like seeing a little more of the same.

• Furiosa - it was never going to be quite as good as Fury Road, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. It leant a little too much towards the grotesque at times, but the central performances and the world building were still good.

• Immaculate - Sweeney is pretty good and it has some atmosphere but by the end it got a little too silly for me. A fairly passable religious genre horror, all round.

• Dune: Part Two - as a big fan of the books, I have to say it was a little disappointing. Villeneuve nailed the look and feel of Arrakis no doubt, but this part felt rushed and unsatisfying - It really needed another 30 or 40 minutes to allow some of the central plot points to land and to give the characters more room to develop. I enjoyed it, but it’s not the masterpiece it could have been.

Your final paragraph is kind of the central point they’re making, though. There seems to be a public mood of antipathy towards incumbent administration, which is bad news for Biden and the Democrats. People are fed up of the way things are and want a change, and Biden is deeply unpopular.

In order to convincingly beat Trump they need to do something bold: either offer a fresher, younger candidate or make big, daring bi-partisan policy plays on healthcare, education, more affordable housing, etc.

If they do nothing but stick to the old “vote for Biden and ‘business as usual’ because it’s the only way to beat fascism”, it looks like it may not be enough.

This is ironic because in the opinion piece by Rabbi Hain published in the Columbia student newspaper, he complains that

For years, Columbia’s Palestinian freedom movement has differentiated between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, affirming that one can be critical of Israel without being anti-Semitic. But by using the October 7 attacks as a rallying point for the movement, attendees of the campus rally can no longer argue that their activism differentiates between the two. They are now saying the quiet part out loud: Dead Jews don’t matter.

So here he’s trying to accuse pro-Palestine students for conflating Anti-Zionism and antisemitism, when in fact groups like the Anti-Defamation League and American Israel Public Affairs Committee have been doing this exact same thing for years! And now even the US Congress is in on the action.

This is precisely why conflating to two is wrong: it dilutes the term “antisemitism” so much that people start to roll their eyes when they see it being weaponized to silence criticism of Israel, which then makes it harder to protect Jewish people from actual anti-semitic attacks.

To be fair, they call themselves The Satanic Temple. If they didn’t want to court the “dark messenger” notoriety in the first place, they would just call themselves something serious like The Humanist Society.

Again, while there are definitely some parallels between Putin’s annexation of Crimea and Hitler’s of the Sudetenland, there are also plenty of differences that make a direct comparison complicated and not altogether helpful. Hitler’s goals were obviously more wide-ranging, proactive, and expansionist, whereas Putin’s were much more localized and reactive to a perceived threat. A diplomatic solution didn’t work with Hitler but it might have for Putin.

I understand and sympathize with Ukrainians who want to fight to the bitter end, but how much longer will that take? How many more lives will be lost? Is a military victory even likely?

With Ukraine recently being given access to long-range US missiles with which they have conducted strikes within Russian territory, the war seems to be gradually escalating with neither side willing to back down.

NO BUTS. That’s IT. Russia is IN THE WRONG.

No argument from me. I wasn’t condoning the Russian invasion so much as explaining what Russia’s grievances were.

How do you ensure a tyrant doesn’t regroup under a ceasefire and strike again after he gained a prize?

It was not Putin’s intention to stay in Ukraine for long and the war has proven to be very costly. What he really wanted was to show the world that he would stand up to what he saw as the bullying of NATO, the EU, and the US.

A diplomatic solution that would have given Putin a chance to save face while also ensuring a ceasefire would have likely been enough for him, since he knew that Russia didn’t have the military strength to beat NATO and Euro forces in an outright ground war. This, incidentally, is why I don’t buy the direct comparison to Hitler, who actually had both the will and the military / economic might to take over Europe.

As to the very reasonable question of how: One suggestion I remember liking the sound of was the idea to establish a de-militarized zone along the Russian-Ukrainian border in the contested Donetsk-Luhansk region under the joint supervision of Kiyv, Moscow and the European Union.

Either way, I’m not saying it would have definitely worked out, but it seemed to me that not enough effort was given to trying to find a relatively peaceful alternative to a war that was always going to last years and costs tens of thousands of lives.

1. I explicitly said the Russian invasion was not justified

2. Propaganda is often a kernel of truth wrapped in a lie. That’s true of US & EU propaganda as well.

I took the time to explain a nuanced alternative viewpoint and support it with reliable sources. It’s pretty unfair to just dismiss it as a gish gallop or misinformation.

I don’t have time to sit down and fully respond to your points now, but hopefully I’ll have time later today.

See my comment here as a response.

See my comment here as a response.

The Russia/Ukraine conflict is a lot more complex than people in the West generally think.

You won’t hear this often in mainstream media but NATO expansionism and the involvement of neo-nazi, far right paramilitary groups in the Maidan revolution in Ukraine, along with US State Department involvement, were legitimate grievances for Russia. (There’s a great interview with a Ukrainian sociologist here that I think explains things in a fairly even handed way).

Russia was wrong to invade Ukraine, no question, but in the beginning there was a potential diplomatic resolution on the table if the US and NATO were willing to back off Ukraine. Support for joining NATO was always mixed in Ukraine anyway - Before the war, less than half of Ukrainians wanted it.

And who says the war will be endless? That’s another Russian talking-point intending to sow defeatism.

Russia’s resources are vast and they are supported by China. Ukraine is backed by the deep pockets of NATO. Over half a million troops on both sides have been killed (edit: or wounded). A recent UN report said:

Russia’s full-scale armed attack on Ukraine, which is about to enter its third year with no end in sight, continues to cause serious and widespread human rights violations, destroying lives and livelihoods

and stated that over 30,000 civilians have already died. A diplomatic solution three years ago could have possibly prevented all that.

Yup, this pretty much sums it up.

To add, the vast majority of the antisemitism complaints involved other Labour ministers liking and posting anti-Israel Tweets that were consider too extreme. These ranged from ones that “crossed the line” of criticism against Israeli policy and the Israel lobby in the UK (some of which you can read in the report on pages 27-30) to ones that allegedly blamed Jewish members of the Labour party for making false complaints, or even tried to dimish the Holocaust (although I can’t find the exact details of those).

Either way, none of the complaints involved Corbyn himself but his reputation was tarnished and it made him an easy target for his opponents.

Certain parts of the media/political establishment certainly tried to paint him that way, but really he was only guilty of not being hawkish enough on Russia.

He was always in favor of a ceasefire and a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict instead of perpetuating an endless war.

There is no rule that says the universe must make sense to human beings. In fact the more we learn about it - subatomic particles, quantum mechanics, the multiverse, etc. the stranger it becomes and the less it appears to operate in ways that are intuitive to our primitive primate brains.

Hell, even space and time might not be fundamental properties, and could themselves be abstractions which emerge from an even deeper underlying reality…

All of which is to say your list should have an extra option:

D. Who The Fuck Knows?

As someone married to a JW and who is friends with several others, I will say this: like any group of people, they can be a mixed bag. Some are more closeted and “in the truth” whereas others are more outgoing and “worldly”.

One the things that I actually admire about them (the individuals, mind you, not the Watchtower organization) is that they really seem to try and live by the teachings of the Bible and study it frequently. Much more so than, say, your average evangelical Protestant.

As someone who is mostly agnostic, those who belive that absence of evidence equals evidence of absence belong in psychotherapy.

This position is a straw man. Atheists generally do not argue that God categorically does not exist. Instead, we usually say that we don’t believe in God because there is insufficient evidence. Much like the proverbial invisible unicorn in your backyard - since there is no evidence that it exists, there is no reason for it to affect how we go about our daily lives.

When it comes to whether you’re agnostic or atheist, I think it helps to answer the following question on a scale of 0 - 10: How confident are you that God exists? If you say around 5, then you’re agnostic. If you say around 1 or 2, then you’re an atheist.