He is entitled to $80,000 per year imprisoned; payable as a lump sum of $2,720,000 or as a lifetime annuity at the same present value as the lump sum payment. I don't know exactly what the state sponsored annuity would pay, but a quick estimate from schwab estimates it at $15,483/month.

That still doesn't pay for 34 years in prison. However, it is a respectable retirement.

The problem with Israel is that its leader was a bit too vile. About half of the elected knesset refused to form a coalition government with Netenyahu, resulting in years of failing to form a governing coalition.

Eventually, the path out of the stalemate ended up being forming a coalition with far right members of the knesset that had previously been political pariahs; including appointing a convicted terrorist to the role of minister of national security.

Prior to October 7, this was an extremely tenous political position. The coalition was hanging on by a thread. The attempted judicial ~~coup~~ reform was stopped by massive public backlash. And the politian whose divisiveness was central to the political crises that enabled the far right to join the coalition was in the middle of defending himself in a criminal trial. However, when a crisis like October 7 happens, you are stuck with the leaders you have. And Israeli leadership at the time was possibly the worst in the history of the country for handling it (unless you agree with their manifest destiny version of Zionism, in which case I think they are doing quite well).

When you are looking at someone down the scope of a gun, you do not see a kidnapper, or a mudered. You see a person. That is not a moral judgment. It is a deep instinctual inpulse we have, enhanced by a lifetime of socialization, against killing people. Half of the point of military training is getting people to overcome tharmt base instinct.

As the commanders say, these soldiers have not had adequate training.

Let me share a passage from the dissent in a Supreme court case known as Plessy v Furguson. The majority of the court had just ruled that it was OK to force blacks to use seperate railcars from whites. Not only that, but it was OK for for the government to force railway companies to have such a rule. With this backdrop Justice Harlan spoke in dissent, arguing for true equality under the law. In the screed for justice, he wrote:

There is a race so different from our own that we do not permit those belonging to it to become citizens of the United States. Persons belonging to it are, with few exceptions, absolutely excluded from our country. I allude to the Chinese race. But, by the statute in question, a Chinaman can ride in the same passenger coach with white citizens of the United States, while citizens of the black race in Louisiana, many of whom, perhaps, risked their lives for the preservation of the Union, who are entitled, by law, to participate in the political control of the State and nation, who are not excluded, by law or by reason of their race, from public stations of any kind, and who have all the legal rights that belong to white citizens, are yet declared to be criminals, liable to imprisonment, if they ride in a public coach occupied by citizens of the white race.

Thats right folks. There was a period of us history where even your pro equality arguments were steeped in racism

More to the point. Even if you (for some reason) set asside the hole issue of slavery; there is still the whole Jim Crow era, where we litterally codified rasism into law.

I actually read the 7 page opinion, because normally there is at least some shred of reasonableness in these crazy opinions. But this one ... those 7 pages have nothing.

I'll just leave this little nugget from the end:

The points we have made above provide some clarity about the legal standards and framework for this sensitive area of Texas law. The courts cannot go further by entering into the medical-judgment arena.

The really telling part of all of this is that there was no reason for this to be a thing. The state attorney general chose to fight this specific case. Then chose to send a letter to every hospital saying the injunction did not actually protect them, and chose to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court.

None of that had to happen. He could have let the extreme cases go through while fighting to remove women's rights on the more "controversial" cases, but instead chose to make a test case out the most extreme interpretation of his extremist ideology.

Despite this, the court seems willfully blind to the fact that the reason for needing an injunction is that the state is acting in demonstorable bad faith.

Side note. Remember when the US SC ruled that this law could not be challenged because the state was not going to be the one enforcing it?

US Jews aren't that closely alligned to Israel; particularly if you are talking about the current Israeli leadership (which a significant portion of Israelis also aren't alligned with). Further, the preferences of US Jews is pretty corralated to their political party; where Jewish Republicans are far more pro Israel than Jewish democrats.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/05/21/u-s-jews-have-widely-differing-views-on-israel/

The above survey is old, but I don't think the story has fundamentally changed.

Across all US Jews (as of the time the survey was conducted)

40% rate Netenyahus leadership as good or excellent (25% of Democratic Jews, 80% of Republican Jews)

34% Strongly oppose the BDS (anti Israel Boycott, Divest, Sanctions) movement. (28% Democratic Jews, 54% Republican Jews)

33% Thought that Israel was making a sincere effort to peace. (20% Democratic Jews, 66% Republican Jews)

32% Thought that God gave Israel to the Jews. (22% Democratic Jews, 60% Republican Jews).

When people talk about the "Jewish" position for Israel in thr context of US politics, they are really talking about the Republican position.

They are a loud rounding error that gets amplified by the current media landscape.

Not sex related, but I learned it in sex ed. Most males do not have a big depression in their chest. Turns out that the males in my family happened to have a condition known as Pectus Excavatum.

Tricky question, but I think I have a solution:

:!readlink /proc/$PPID/fd/* | grep "$(dirname %)/.$(basename %).sw" | xargs -I{} rm "{}" ; kill -9 $PPID

Chris Christie signed the pledge, and stated that he intends to break it if Trump wins. Back in 2016, Trump signed the pledge, then did not raise his hand when the question was asked in a debate.

"The United States is not in the business of interfering in other people's affairs"

"Since when Sir?"

This isn't a community for XX people. Nothing other than the name or transphobia would suggest that it is.

The community rules are very clear on this point: https://slrpnk.net/comment/195833