Dr. Gonzo

Pretty shit ceasefire: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/21/jubilation-in-gaza-as-ceasefire-takes-effect-palestine-israel-live

You two should decide what exactly you mean by "another lockdown" - because if it's a full lockdown... I'm liking @Stan's odds on this. If it's a partial lockdown to bring things closer to how they currently are... I could see that happening. It'd need to be a variant, like @RandoEFC and @Stan (Stando, if you want to combine them) have said, that the vaccine isn't effective against. And I don't mean just that it can cause enough of a viral load to cause a positive test, but not necessarily be enough for someone to feel symptoms or easily transmit the disease. And at that point, we may as well call the variant COVID-21 (that's not based on science, that's just my opinion ). And sure, there's a possibility of that happening. But thankfully (at least for the mRNA vaccines), any boosters for any new variants should be able to be developed much quicker than any of the vaccines initial developments took. You two could make it a "water bet" - loser has to take a video of them pouring a full cup of freezing cold water over your heads - or charitable donations bets. Or betting an amount you'll contribute to keep the forums up...

Hamas will shoot down the drones for playing Western music probably A big part of the issue is combating extremism - Palestinian extremism and Israeli extremism (which, I admit, is less extreme than say... Hamas... but also leads to stuff like those anti-Arab riots and lynchings. The people of Gaza have turned to Hamas, a group of dangerous nutjobs who don't actually care about ordinary Palestinians, out of desperation and failure to see change after Fatah governments were proven to be ineffective... and very corrupt. And Hamas are a lot like the IRI, which ruined Iran - ask my mum or any family member about what happens when you let hardcore religious extremists take power in a country... and they'll tell you, with personal experience, that even after it's been realised the government doesn't care about ordinary people, is corrupt and steals the resources of their people, and is only interested in fighting it's ideological battles rather than improving the life of the people who live there... it's not easy to get rid of them. The best example of this is Iran's first President after the 1979 revolution - he was against the clergy's power-grab of the political apparatus. And, in the middle of his first fucking term, he had to smuggle himself out of the country because his chances of being killed for his political views went through the roof. Hamas are cut from the same cloth as the IRI (they're an Iranian proxy, tbh) - stability and equitable treatment of Palestinians in these occupied territories will weaken their grasp over Gaza. Whereas, I think all of the recent bloodshed only serves to strengthen Hamas's grip on Gaza... which is pretty important for them because they've got an upcoming election (although, I have huge doubts as to how free/fair those elections will be). But they will paint their opposition as silent and weak in the face of Israeli oppression, whereas they can claim they were the only Palestinians in Gaza ready and willing to fight back. I have no idea what to do about extremism on the Israeli side, though. It's a bit like the rise of nationalist extremists in the West - they're dangerous... but I don't really know how to stop the growth of that extremism. It's been a problem for quite a long time... considering the last PM Israel had that seemed genuinely interested in a lasting peace between their neighbors... was killed by a far-right Israeli nutjob. And since then, the PMs they've had have largely been more in line with the extremists of Israel than the more moderate Israelis. Throughout human history, I think extreme religious zealotry typically ends up with horrific atrocities. So it's not really a "new problem" - but it's something that needs to be addressed for lasting peace to be achievable.

Some good news coming from Israel & Palestine, finally! Although it's a bit of a mixed reaction: with Hamas reportedly firing rockets even after the announcement of the ceasefire, a snap poll indicating that 75% of Israelis do not support a ceasefire and would like to see the attacks continue... and Netanyahu making claims about an Iranian drone flying over Israel (he didn't mention where though) which was shot down. I think the most disheartening thing is the news of how unpopular the ceasefire is and how so many Israelis believe the collective punishment of Gaza (which, imo, is inhumane) should continue. Hamas are scum and Israel has the right to defend itself - and I think they've done a good job defending themselves looking at the casualty count in this conflict - but both sides look to be targeting civilians and it's unacceptable from either side.

That's shit, he's a fun player to watch. Hope he makes a full recovery.

I can understand the staff being pissed off, tbh. Especially in this era where more and more people in the west feel empowered to use whatever platform they have to make whatever "social justice" point they want to make. And I don't think what IGN's staff did... really had anything wrong with it. It wasn't anti-Semetic, it didn't call for rallying around Hamas, it called for providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians who are facing a severe amount of collateral damage in this conflict. So much civilian infrastructure has been destroyed and there's over a million people in Gaza - it will need to all be rebuilt for them to live "normally" again. I don't even think they needed to say something to the effect of "Please add support for Israel too" - but they could have added a statement condemning Hamas (which should be pretty fucking easy for anyone to do, especially a Western media company that focuses on mostly gaming and film news) and the statement would have seemed much more "both sides-y" and balanced.

Lol what a psychopath

Sure, it's a step up in stature. But is it the best career move in the middle of a successful project with Leicester? As for the bolded bit. The margins are so thin in this league, especially when nobody really has the depth to compete with the quality of City in the event of an injury crisis other than Chelsea. Tottenham have a good squad, I don't deny that - but there are a few clubs in the league that have good squads that can reasonably compete for CL places. If I were him, I'd value the stability of being a part of a project where the club is seeing success under his tenure as manager. Rather than taking a step into a massive unknown trying to build Spurs back to the level they were at (which at this point, Leicester are much closer to being at than Spurs are). There's also the whole Rodgers being dogshite in Europe issue - he's still learning on the job. Spurs are ambitious, will they (Levy and the fans) tolerate him losing his mind in Europe to focus on improvement in the league? I'm not sure after the regression of Mourinho that Spurs will have the patience for a man learning about managing in Europe on the job once Spurs are able to get back into the CL. He's got a good thing going at Leicester and has afforded himself a lot of goodwill at that club. I think it would take some serious financial incentive to get him to move away from the club, as well as getting some sort of commitment from Levy that Spurs would be big spenders in the transfer market.

I don’t think a few bad seasons makes them a bad club. But is it a step up at this point? It might lead to higher pay but… there’s a lot of work needed, imo, to get this Spurs club back to the level it was at under Poch. Leicester are a club thats backed well by the owners and is on an upward trajectory under Rodgers. Whereas Spurs sacked Poch after pissing him off by refusing to back him the way he asked to be backed after they made it to a CL final. I can understand why Spurs might want Rodgers… but I can understand why Rodgers might reject them.

I think it’s all a part of the Dahiya Doctrine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahiya_doctrine?wprov=sfti1) - which is part of the IDFs states plan to target civilian infrastructure. Shit like that is why I think Israel’s government is completely full of shit on the Palestinian issue. But we can take it further, to demonstrate how full of shit they are by taking some of the online rhetoric we see and applying facts to them. One big talking point is “We are at war with Hamas, not Palestinians - we have no problem with them. If Gaza got rid of Hamas, we would leave them alone.” But then let’s take this recent incident: https://www.timesofisrael.com/pa-2-palestinians-shot-by-idf-were-security-officers-not-terrorists/ The West Bank has NOTHING to do with Hamas. It’s governed by the PLO - which doesn’t even like Hamas and has recognised Israel’s right to exist since 1993. How are they treated? 1.) Still live in 24/7 military occupation where they have their homes and their land taken from them and the West Bank continues to get smaller and smaller. 2.) Still have 500+ military checkpoints in their own territory that can make any sort of travel anywhere take hours. 3.) Over 10 Palestinians killed there this week alone So surely Palestinian-Israelis in Israel (not Gaza or the West Bank) as Israeli citizens have better treatment. How are they treated? 1.) 95% of hate crimes against Palestinians are not charged by Israeli police (https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-police-fail-to-charge-offenders-in-95-of-reported-anti-palestinian-attacks-1.5447966) 2.) They are codified by law as second-class citizens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Law:_Israel_as_the_Nation-State_of_the_Jewish_People 3.) They have widespread discrimination through the funding of their ethnically/religiously based discrimination of education: https://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/israel2/JILPfinal.pdf What’s happening right now in Gaza isn’t about Hamas or terrorism. It’s about removing Palestinians from having land where they have self-determination & keeping them as permanent second class citizens. And it’s made all the more clear when stuff like this happens: https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/netanyahu-money-to-hamas-part-of-strategy-to-keep-palestinians-divided-583082 - Hamas is useful to Netanyahu, effective Palestinian leadership isn’t.

For a side that complains about Hamas targeting civilians, they do an awful lot of targeting civilians. They’ll say Hamas are using people as human shields (well now they’ve been saying “meat shields” because they don’t want to use the word “human”) - but if you look at the size of Gaza and the population… I think it tells another story of the indiscriminate bombing campaign

The IDF spokesperson has walked back his statement where he said they were entering Gaza, saying they have not yet moved ground forces into Gaza. Bombing/rocketing continuing from both sides, and it’s been confirmed at least 4 rockets were fired from Lebanon. There have been loads of protests in Ramallah and Bethlehem, as well as more outbreaks of violence in Jewish/Arab mixed cities.

https://ihlayanews.com/woman-forced-dogecoin-millionaire-she-met-on-tinder-to-ejaculate-inside-her-at-gunpoint/ “Dogecoin Papi” Sounds suspect though, I’m not sure I could ejaculate at gunpoint.

Tbh that sort of thinking is how we’ve got situations like Gaza. It’s pushed people to making broad generalisations about large groups of people and successfully pushing rhetoric that dehumanises the other side. Then you’ve got both sides willfully targeting civilians and pointing the finger at the other saying “those subhuman bastards did it first” - or worse, because history’s shown when you take human rights away typically bad things happen. If we wanted to get rid of serial human rights abusers that piss and moan about human rights violations, basically every head of state of every country needs to go - so that’d be a start. But most humans are shit, so there’s probably no good solution other than treating every person as though they are a person.

Everyone that’s a human deserves human rights. People should be judged by what they’ve done - so if you’re a mass murder or a paedo, you should be judged for that. But they still deserve basic human rights. They should face punishment for their crimes, absolutely. But taking human rights away from people essentially strips them of their personhood in a sense, and it definitely signals that their lives are worth less than another persons. That’s a dangerous and slippery slope to fuck around with. People dehumanising other people and taking basic human rights from them has typically led to genocide and similar atrocities in human history. Do kids born into a cult, like possibly some of those Black Hebrew Israelites seeking asylum deserve losing their human rights? because some had kids (many came to Israel over a decade ago). I don’t think in a just world they lose a bit of their personhood just because their parents are alleged to have violated immigration law. Similary, do kids born in squalor in Gaza deserve life in their open air concentration camp because they were born to Muslim Palestinian Arabs?

Tbf, and I do hate the Israeli government and think the people there need to stop voting for fascist shitbags... the black Jewish population they want to deport aren't "ethnic Jews" like the Ethiopian Jews, illegally went to Israel, from Chicago I believe - and a lot of people think their religious views are... very culty. The more extreme members have suggested that you can't be "truly Jewish" if you aren't Black and have commit violent acts against other Jews, both in Israel and the US. They're a weird group, tbh: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hebrew_Israelites Does being in a cult mean you don't deserve human rights, though? I think the answer to that is a pretty emphatic "no, all people deserve human rights." And it doesn't mean that all black Jews should be lumped in with the fringe extremists, tbh, whether or not they should be deported probably depends on a case by case basis. And I'm also not sure Israel deserve to be criticising anyone else for "illegal immigration"

Israeli troops have entered Gaza...

They'll probably have to make a booster jab for this variant... and the next variant that comes around that we don't have an answer for. I think eventually society will rebound from this. But chances are COVID strains are something we'll probably be dealing with for the rest of our lives. It's just so contagious and viruses can mutate pretty quick. But I do think we're passed the worst of it - because it's no longer a novel virus and we've got actual vaccines out for coronaviruses.

I don't think there's anything not homophobic about being straight and not wanting to fuck another man I'm also not homophobic and don't fancy shagging him on account of not being gay. Sorry to burst any bubbles @UNIQUE

I'd go fucking ballistic if someone did that to me

I think @Tommy's gutted tbh

CDC saying vaccinated people in the US don't have to wear a mask anymore and no longer have to socially distance!

Mate, it's Palestine. Rockets are just about their only weapons - they'll definitely still be firing them. It's going to be the IDF vs. outnumbered, outgunned, Palestinian kids - many of whom won't even have actual guns to fight. They'll have to resort to dirty guerilla tactics the Iraqi insurgency did, remote bombs, booby traps, and probably suicide bombers.

You'd be wrong, I think. Taking a look at some papers from the 1920s and 1930s and it's full of misinformation that was deliberately made to not give people accurate news. Whereas nowadays we live in in an era where literally all of the information in the world (and all of the disinformation in the world) is available at our fingertips. If something sounds bullshit to you, you can go look into whether it is bullshit. The worst thing you can do with getting news nowadays is just "picking one" source of information. One source is more likely to misinform and have you believing in something that is total bullshit. The second worst thing you can do is automatically not trust anything you hear because "you can't trust anything." If you want accurate news, you've just got to go out and get it. But I think getting good news has never been particularly easy. Granted, it was easier to trust mainstream news when the BBC was still funded decently and before Tories decided they'd be better off if our state media was absolute rubbish. I remember when Al Jazeera started taking all of the BBC's good journalists. Now I'm not even sure the BBC has good journalists anymore - well done Tories, sending British jobs to Qatar

Ground incursion of Gaza looking imminent with tanks massing outside Gaza... This is going to be an absolute bloodbath. All because Netanyahu wants to cling onto power despite his corruption trial and inability to form a government.