Chucktshoes

Air Force. Didn’t do much militarying, but I did sit around in comfortable digs thinking about stuff.

Just like those that called me a racist when I condemned the BLM riots had no sway over me, I won’t be cowed by charges of anti-semitism because I question if our alliance with the nation-state of Israel actually serves our interests. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, if you’d like to get back to making the case that supporting Israel in their military response IS in the best interests of the American people, I’d love to get back to that conversation.

You’re right that the prohibition only completely works when the ban is complete. It always leaks in around the edges though and sometimes something gets big enough that we have to at least attempt to make space for it. I’m personally always hopeful that things remain respectful. Sadly, I’m mostly wrong. Sometimes I’m not though. I think I remember the Ukraine thread dying out instead of being closed even with some widely diverging opinions there. That was a pretty good one. You are wrong about the first part of your first sentence. Your opinion does matter here.

This is a hilariously bad twisting of the things I’ve actually said combined with a supremely sillier attempt to put some things in my mouth I didn’t even come close to saying. It’s also hilarious to me how even the mildest criticism of Israel, or questioning if the US’s absolute support is actually in our best interest or not gets one labeled as an anti-Semite or worse. It’s ok though. I’m used to this tactic as I’ve been dealing with it from arguing with leftists for years on the internet. “Maybe we should deal with our logistics and energy infrastructure before we send tens of billions to Ukraine in a proxy war.” ”Why do you want Russia to win, you Putin stooge?” “Maybe we should put our citizens first and secure our borders?” ”Why do you hate Mexicans, you racist?” ”I’m not sure our domestic social safety net is sustainable.” “Why do you want old and poor people to starve you heartless SOB?” It’s just plain funny to me.

Two of them are our business. One of them ain’t.

9 dead, unknown number missing and unaccounted for. Now I’m gonna come off a bit heartless sounding here. For any Americans that have found themselves dead or captured by Hamas, they have my sympathy, but that doesn’t extend enough to risk the lives of service members or further escalations of hostilities to rescue them. When one travels abroad they need to understand that the risks involved. Sure, they went to some rave for peace or whatever, but if you are in Israel you have a significantly more than non-zero chance of getting caught up in the crossfire between Israelis and Palestinians. They rolled the dice and it came up craps. Sorry for their luck.

I’m just able to understand the distinction between Israel of the Scriptures, the modern day apartheid state of Israel, and Jews, as a descriptor of people who hold a religion though made up of various cultural and ethnic backgrounds. One of those three groups is a direct participant in creation of, and partly responsible for creating the situation going on today. Two of them are not, those some of the third will suffer the consequences as well.

This is Israel’s chickens coming home to roost. They created Hamas. (I don’t mean in an esoteric fashion like creating the general mood and circumstances in settlement policy, but directly by funding the organizations since the 70s that joined together and formed it in 87.) They now have their excuse to go through and commit genocide. I expect that Gaza will cease to exist as a Palestinian entity after this. Israel’s southern land grab will likely now become complete. They’ve been doing it piecemeal through the settlements, but now they can do it in one fell swoop. The modern day nation state of Israel has taken great advantage of the American evangelicals’ continued conflation with it and the biblical naming of God’s people as Israel. They’ve used this affinity borne of confusion to subvert our foreign policy to support those who are not true allies though they wear the masks of one. There is no special interest lobby even close to as powerful as the Israel lobby. They have done as much to bend American foreign policy to their will and against our actual interests far beyond even the House of Saud.

There is a third option.

Y’all should take note of this. @OMCHamlin is fully on point here. Let’s all try really hard to remain on topic instead of devolving into petty non-sequitur partisan barbs that add exactly zero to the conversation.

His lawyers have filed a motion that the acquittal on grounds of self defense on the primary charge precludes the guilty verdict on that particular charge. There will be a hearing about having that verdict set aside at a later date. Personally, I hope it goes his way. It’s a good idea to remember that we are able to look at this with the full knowledge of who Cook is. Colie didn’t have that luxury in the moment. An often repeated mantra in the EDC/Self-Defense world is “better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6”. So that’s the situation he’s found himself in, getting judged by 12. It may be a little simplistic, but it’s good to remember that it’s essentially the choice he argued he was making in the moment. I think that the real takeaway for folks here is that you need to have something in your arsenal between a harsh word and a bullet.

Cook played a game of FA and he FO. Colie was in a position of being advanced upon by two people, one of which was significantly larger and acting in a very confusing, undeniably aggressive and abnormal manner. He was retreating and voicing his desire for Cook to stop. Fear and confusion were evident in his voice to me on the tape. I believe the jury made the right decision as Colie was in a position of being on the negative end of a disparity of force equation. His belief of being at risk of great bodily harm or death I view as entirely reasonable.

@Omegasummed it up well. You’re GTG in both your home of record and duty station.

Under normal circumstances I would make a statement about condolences for the family and friends that loved them. I’m not sure there are any because I can’t see where anyone in her life that actually cared for her instead of using her didn’t have the “taking the keys” talk a long, long time ago.

Since we lost the liberty safe thread in the crash, figured I would repost the instructions on how to reset the master code for the Securan keypads used by Liberty and multiple other safe manufacturers. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1699653058865885511.html

I’m one of those people who sliced the ever living crap out of my finger with that particular group buy knife. It was magnificently, sharp and went really deep in the tip of my finger. So yeah, if you’re going to put an auto in your pocket it better have a manual safety.

Thank you sir for all of your hard work getting us back up and running.

I mean, I say shoot a few. Fry them up. Enjoy a meal and leave the bones out by the truck as a warning.

Tagging @TGO Davidbecause I know how much you love a good stipple job.

I believe that to be the case. There are also other pending cases that may have a great impact without being thought of as directly 2A related such as the re-evaluation of Chevron Deference.