there are some people out there that think anything short of defending yourself from an invasion is illegal. they're wrong.

my best guess is that they're trying to get the iranians to shoot at them, but the truth is that they already have been. claims that this action are in breach of "international law" are absurd - iran has been attacking american interests in the region for decades. arguments might be made about proportionality, but how could anybody argue the americans haven't shown restraint? they are refusing to replace the government. i'm opposed to what they're doing because it's far too restrained, and is being restrained naively, to attempt to arrive at an impossible outcome.

nonetheless.

if they are trying to get the iranians to shoot at them, to sink something, to justify making this a real war, it is legally unnecessary, but overdue, nonetheless. this should have been a short operation to tear down the aristocracy and get out, not a drawn out attempt to sign a treaty with an irrational cult. they don't need this justification, but if they want it, so be it.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/cargo-ship-strait-of-hormuz-attack-reports-9.7186056

arab americans are almost the perfect archetype of post-reagan american republicans - pro-market, anti-communist, social conservative, religious. and, no, they don't like jews. the only difference is that they're muslims instead of christians. 

that's why they scare the hell out of me. just when christianity was finally dying, stupid liberals went and imported millions of muslims, who have given the christian right a major shot in the arm and could very well save it from dying.

american leftists are clueless because they see everything through a filter of race, which nobody else in the world does. arabs and africans come to america and don't understand that they're supposed to be brown. democrats then get confused or pissed off when they don't act like descendants of slaves, like they're supposed to. they're "ungrateful" when they don't act like house niggers. i guess the democrats haven't really changed that much, have they?

but that's not my concern. it's not my problem, it's not my issue.

my concern is this influx of a new religious right, when we had just about done away with it, and having the foresight to identify it as a substantive political opponent, rather than fall into delusions around pretending it's going to be an ally. they're not allies, just because they're brown. they have brains and ideas, and they're an overwhelmingly conservative demographic that is going to help the right tremendously in the upcoming decades.

the fact that they don't like jews is a commonality, not a contradiction. it's worth remembering that hitler was aligned with the arabs, in an attempt to drive the jews out of the british mandate. hitler was a popular leader in the middle east. the nazis were not anti-muslim at all, but admired their militarism, in comparison to what they called the softness of christianity. this came out of an analysis on the decline of the first reich by a british historian that was influential on the nazis, named edward gibbon. it was thought in nazi circles that the roman empire (which they were trying to bring back) would not have fallen if it had converted to islam instead of held to christianity. these considerations are not very concerning to the likes of tucker carlson, but don't think that he doesn't realize that his own anti-semitism has deep roots in the arab-american community, or even in the so-called "pro-palestinian left". of course it does. he knows it. that's the fucking point.

an alliance between these groups makes sense, as they are both conservative fringe groups. as a secular atheist socialist that's tired of pretending i give a fuck about religious minorities, i'd be just as happy to leave them behind, let them find their tribe and move on.

i think this is dead wrong. 

"pro-palestinian leftists", in truth, tend to be religious social conservatives that have far more in common with tucker carlson than bernie sanders, in terms of their vision of america, and what they actually want for the country. arab-americans also tend to be exceedingly pro-market, as markets are an arab cultural institution. western history derives capitalism from medieval italian city states, which is true, but it doesn't address the cultural borrowing from the islamic theocracies that those italian city states were doing almost all of their business with, as they were forced to, in the process of importing stuff from india and china. the taxes these arab theocracies imposed, which led to inflation in europe, was a major stimulus for europeans to get into boats to sail around them, in the end. however, the reality of arab imperialism stuck between europe and the east was a reality for several centuries, and had a substantive influence on how capitalism developed in the section of europe that was focused almost entirely on doing business with arab imperial power. what i'm getting at is that capitalism, as we understand it, developed in italy out of arab beginnings, and you can see that by going to an arab market, which developed out of phoenician roots in modern lebanon. the romans and greeks were state-capitalist pseudo communists, in comparison. arabs tend to like capitalism and tend to be violently opposed to communism, which is why they made such good allies to the americans during the cold war.

arab-americans will find greater allies in the republican party, in the long run. they won't have to deal with the gays, or pretend women are equal. they believe in god, or at least pretend to; democrats will need to increasingly embrace non-belief as the atheist population grows, and young americans become increasingly impatient with religious politicians. in 2026, i won't vote for or support anybody that doesn't explicitly call themselves an atheist and campaign on it. 

for these reasons, arabs and hispanics are both going to find themselves increasingly more aligned with the right, as the democratic base loses interest in and patience with aligning with them, against their self-interests.

https://www.ms.now/opinion/tucker-carlson-israel-left-pro-palestinian

while it's very difficult and sad to deal with these situations, health care staff has no discernible legal right to restrain an individual seeking to kill themselves, which is their inalienable right, as an autonomous individual. it sounds like medical staff did the right thing in allowing the individual the right to make his autonomous life-ending decisions.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winnipeg-health-sciences-centre-crisis-response-centre-lawsuit-9.7182391

it's anybody's guess whether these kids are still alive, although it seems doubtful. but it's clear that they aren't anywhere near the place they disappeared from.

i normally point to animal predation in these cases and make the argument that human children are actually a prey item for a variety of top predators, including cougars, wolves and bears.

however, my understanding is that there is evidence that these kids were removed from the property by a waiting vehicle on the night of their disappearance and this is probably a trafficking case. they could e anywhere, but they aren't on the farm. and they could be in any state of existence.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/jack-and-lilly-sullivan-missing-one-year-9.7182916

donald trump is not on the ballot in november, not directly or indirectly, and his ability to act as commander in chief, which is his job, is not reliant on his control of congress the way it is in a westminister system. 

in the united states, these are entirely separate branches of government that have no relevance to each other.

only members of congress are on the ballot this november, and it is not the case that americans will be voting for the president by proxy. americans will be voting for their representatives, based on their own performance. that is a well understood feature of the american system that is very different from the british system.