An indiscriminate attack on an unsuspecting population using planted explosives and does not differentiate between civilians and enemy combatants isn't a "terrorist attack."

What is it then? A "police action"? "Self-defense"?

From AP

A booby trap is defined as “any device designed or adapted to kill or injure, and which functions unexpectedly when a person disturbs or approaches an apparently harmless object,” according to Article 7 of a 1996 adaptation of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, which Israel has adopted.

The protocol prohibits booby traps “or other devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects which are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material.”

Now, as far as a legal distinction, the jury is still out. But, morally, this is indefensible to the point of being state-sanctioned terrorism.

Here is the full text of the letter that Obama left 45. I'd never thought to read it.

Dear Mr. President -

Congratulations on a remarkable run. Millions have placed their hopes in you, and allof us, regardless of party, should hope for expanded prosperity and security during your tenure.

This is a unique office, without a clear blueprint for success, so I don’t know that any advice from me will be particularly helpful. Still, let me offer a few reflections from the past 8 years.

First, we’ve both been blessed, in different ways, with great good fortune. Not everyone is so lucky. It’s up to us to do everything we can (to) build more ladders of success for every child and family that’s willing to work hard.

Second, American leadership in this world really is indispensable. It’s up to us, through action and example, to sustain the international order that’s expanded steadily since the end of the Cold War, and upon which our own wealth and safety depend.

Third, we are just temporary occupants of this office. That makes us guardians of those democratic institutions and traditions – like rule of law, separation of powers, equal protection and civil liberties – that our forebears fought and bled for. Regardless of the push and pull of daily politics, it’s up to us to leave those instruments of our democracy at least as strong as we found them.

And finally, take time, in the rush of events and responsibilities, for friends and family. They’ll get you through the inevitable rough patches.

Michelle and I wish you and Melania the very best as you embark on this great adventure, and know that we stand ready to help in any ways which we can.

Good luck and Godspeed,

BO

A few notes:

Obama forecast 45s disregard for "rule of law, separation of powers, equal protection and civil liberties". He KNEW 45 would fuck that up.

The role all Presidents, since Reagan, have played in "sustain[ing] the international order that’s expanded steadily since the end of the Cold War, and upon which our own wealth and safety depend" is a warning about fomenting or courting instability. It is also a tacit admission of the Military-Industrial complex and its attendant supports in entertainment, energy, and finance that projects American values and superiority worldwide. He KNEW 45 would fuck that up, too.

Finally, and from the start of the letter, "we’ve both been blessed... Not everyone is so lucky" is a reminder that the office is meant to support the less fortunate. We all KNEW 45 would fuck that up.

I have never ridden a horse.

Lilo and Stitch is the best Disney movie.

Many, many spoilers below. But, seriously, this movie is 21 years old. Get over yourselves.

Check it: a young girl adopts an illegal alien (killing machine from deep space) and protects him from the U.S. (and galactic) government (Military-Industrial complexes), while keeping her incredibly depressed sister (slices both ways) from giving up completely as they keep their Indigenous Hawaiian family together in their co-opted homeland. One sister works a series of dead-end tourism jobs; the other has anger issues. The hate each other and love each other fiercely, though they are about 12 years apart in age.

Oh, yeah, and their parents are dead.

Meanwhile, the alien is a political refugee and freedom fighter fleeing from his own people who want him dead for —get this— existing. A lab-grown, indestructible terrorist, he seeks asylum on an island — but he can't swim.

He does learn to surf.

The only downside to this film is that Disney produced it. And Elvis.

"Ohana means family. Nobody gets left behind or forgotten."

Heliocentric model.

Cosmic distance and time. Light speed as a limit.

The geological age of the Earth.

Dinosaurs.

Evolutionary theory.

Continental drift.

The periodic table of the elements.

Quantum theory, including wave-particle duality.

The Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

Black holes.

Lockpicking Lawyer

Short videos. Reminder that no lock is impenetrable. Also, April Fool's Day videos are very special.

Kaptain Kristian

Video essays. No longer in production, high-quality reviews of some cultural artifacts. He's moved his operation to Curiosity Stream. Made me realize it's worth it to pay creators directly for their work rather than having advertisers and platforms like YouTube. Now, if only I had money to pay these creators. Aye, there's the rub.

Every Frame a Painting

Expert film analysis. If it's not, it sure looks like it is.

CGP Grey

Snarky educational. Fun! The best damn flag contest, best takedown of first-past the post voting, and best reflection on how to go forward after hitting YouTube fame. I still want to know if he and Roman Mars have talked flags.

Kutiman ‐ Thru You

Classic YouTube. 15 years ago, mans took a bunch of other YouTube videos and remixed them into each other, producing meta tracks.

1000 Days. 19 November 2024.

Heres two:

The ratio between cells of your body that belong to you vs. cells on or in your body that are microorganisms is about 1:1 — slightly favouring the bacteria.

If the Sun were destroyed, we would not know about it until more than 8 minutes after it happened.

The data is skewed. All of the functioning systems we use reward concentrations of power.

Thereby, systems of rule must distribute power and contest the concentration of power. It literally takes a village to save us from ourselves.

David Graeber and David Wengrow introduced me to historical examples of non-hierarchical societies in The Dawn of Everything.

I've given this a re-watch.

The opening credits were great.

The settings and costumes were good even if the actors weren't. If you want to see Dane DeHaan in his element, see Chronicle. Cara Delevigne ... um...

Except Clive Owen. He's a treasure. Any actor who can convincingly win a gunfight with a carrot has got the chops.

The attack over planet Mül was objectively well done and the crash scene was impressive.

It's a good bit of fun in much the same way as The Fifth Element.

That my parents knew what they were doing, made good choices, and were reasonable people.

No, no, ... and no.

That I'd grow up to eat candy, collect baseball cards, play video games, and read comic books.

No (type II diabetes runs in my family), no (wtf is a baseball card anyway), no (video games were replaced with homework permanently), and — well, actually — yes.

I love a good comic book, graphic novel, and/or animated series.

Wait, maybe the justices just gave Biden the authority to do just that.

...

Naw. See, if he did, that'd delegitimize the presidency and cause a constitutional crisis.

But, if a Republican President does it, it's an exercise in upholding American freedom and the true authority of the office. See the difference?

By the same token, and I consider these a different category, headlamps. Camping got a whole lot better with a solid headlamp setup. The red light is crucial.

Act to honour and recognize all humans as human. This is Said's Law.

Act to sustain human security. This is Cura's Law.

Act to accept responsibility for each action, especially where it guides future actions. This is Sartre's Law.

I'd be all about a prequel series for Morgan Freeman's character in Se7en. Only if David Fincher returned to direct through.

Soil farming.

I sh!t you not, we need this. Topsoil in many parts of the world is leached of nutrients, or packed with chemical by-products of insecticide, herbicide, and fertilizers, or the topsoil has eroded away. Or, it's buried under concrete, asphalt, glass, and steel.

Soil farming for vertical farms, indoor cultivation at home, and replacing some other food growth options just makes good sense.

3D-Printed Houses

Hear me out. Right now, they're small and ugly as f*ck; but that's a design issue. Getting the materials and designs right can encourage mass adoption of sustainable design, waste sequestration, and abundant housing.

Guatemala's ruling class spent months trying to negate the democratic election of anti-corruption, centre-left, progressivist, social-democrat, now-President Bernardo Arévalo. Certainly, the ruling class will screw with the whole system, and, possibly, they will attempt to kill him.

Bernardo is the son of former president Juan José Arévalo, whose time in office immediately followed an uprising that deposed U.S. backed dictator Jorge Ubico in 1945. Hate runs deep.

Keep in mind that the tenuous peace in Guatemala is consistently marred by gang violence, institutional corruption, kidnappings, and murder. This ray of light for the campesinos, indigenous people, and impoverished majority is, hopefully, sustainable with a mandate to improve Guatemala into a place where people can live. It would behoove (United States of) Americans to support this president as he could move the needle on making life liveable in Guatemala and stemming the flow of refugees and migrant workers to the North.

Yes. But, also, it's not.

Let me explain.

The act itself is an exercise in either selfishness, selflessness, or synchronicity. Tuning into another person while still enjoying your own experience can be very challenging.

Then, there are trust issues. What are your sexual histories? What are your desires or qualms? How will your relationship look after? What if one of you doesn't like what the other did, said, smelled like, etc.?

Finally, there's the social element. Are you exclusive? Are you ok with being exclusive? What do you friends and family think of your sexual partner(s)? Does that matter to you? Are you going to have children? Does that matter to you?

Selfishness is great for the sex act, but you may not have sex often. I think it's the road to truly being an incel.

Selflessness is a great way to get hurt often, but you'll probably have lots of sex. Some sex addicts turn themselves over to their addiction.

The hard work is in developing a relationship with yourself, your needs, your partner(s), and their needs. Honesty, clarity, and uncomfortable conversations are all a part of the process.

When you find someone to experiment with, and there is ENTHUSIASTIC consent, be sure to be clear about what you're agreeing to. And, for universe's sake, foreplay is for everyone. Use protection, lubricate appropriately, and check in regularly whether everyone is still having a good time.

Then, yes. It can be mind-blowingly great.

Remember, you can do everything right and still not end up having the sex. Live to try another day.

In 2007, I, a non-white non-Korean, took a job in South Korea. Then, I took another. Then, at the third job, I was hired, but the owner's brother was amenable to some of the more racist thoughts that guided the approach to business in SK. He thought I would hurt the business. He resisted hiring another non-white, non-Korean.

The owner asked me to write a letter. Instead of saying, "that's not my job", I wrote the letter. I made the case. They hired another non-white, non-Korean after me.

I'm still pretty proud of that letter.

Some might say that "your perspective is distorted." things are incredible for the top 10% of the socio-economic scale and getting better by most metrics (do not look at the numbers for maternal and infant mortality).

• The average person in a G7 state today lives better than kings of old.
• We in G7 countries have abundant water, food, and sanitation. In America, food is so subsidized that it is ridiculously cheap by historical standards.
• Your odds of dying to violence or disease have never been lower in all of human history unless you are one of the world's 100 million refugees, live in Africa (pop. 1400 m) or Central America (pop. 52.7 m), or in one of the world's 27 [1] current conflict zones (approx pop. 2800 m)... that's over 4 billion people or half of humanity
• You have all human knowledge at your fingertips, and technology is expected to keep improving our lives in novel ways as long as you can afford it.
• You can visit any place on Earth in a matter of hours if your passport permits you to do so and as long as there is jet fuel and have access to cheap exotic foreign goods which are unreliable, break easily, produce garbage, and are slowly killing the planet and its peoplr.
• Civil rights are protected a lot more today than they were in many/most civilizations of the past unless you're trans-, or black, or a woman, or a black trans-woman.
• Entertainment is abundant and cheap, and takes forms that people of the past could only dream about.

While we certainly have our incredibly massive, systemic challenges to overcome, like climate change (ha!), wealth inequality (ha ha!), and social problems (hahaha!), let's not forget how good we (when you say we, you certainly mean your ingroup) could have it if we tore down this corrupt edifice and built an efficient, sustainable, just world.

Legit question. Wasn't that episode 1?

e. Indeed, it was, and Newsweek was talking about last New Year's.

Here's one more:

Dark Forest Theory as a solution to the Fermi Paradox.

As a child: Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer

As a university student: Heat, Léon, 2001

As an adult, before kids: Sicario, Brick

As an adult, after kids: Cars

What I wish my answer was: Koyaanisqatsi

I could hate on the Dark Knight all day. The month it came out, my brother put it best, "It's two movies. A good, short, Joker movie and a bad, long, Batman movie."

When you watch this film and only the Joker scenes, its 10x better.

I'm glad someone put the prions in here. As a biology student, there was only one thing more terrifying than retroviruses — prions.

I saw Being There about 10 years ago, and it was made 35 years before that. It is a masterwork.

I worked with teacher named Mr. Zero for a year. He was super cool.

Also, if you haven't seen it, the Zero Effect is a solid movie with Ben Stiller and Bill Pullman. The latter plays Daryl Zero.

As far as other media within Rick & Morty, the Second Life-like "Roy" is something that I wish could exist. Immersive gameplay, accelerated time, tangible experiences, and endless possibilities.

Brazil (1985)

Chinatown (1974)

Conspiracy (2001)

Charging for cell phones. So much better than a decade ago.

Dissident voice: Noam Chomsky

The greatest of all time make changes to whatever game they are playing. Chomsky changes the realm of ideas. He questions narratives and provides damning evidence in support of his claims. His books reveal the inner workings of the Military-Industrial complex. He contests the positions of US Presidents of both parties. He follows the money, the use of language, and the differences between official fantasies and concrete realities. He raises others up, never sought fame, just did the hard work. Took all the heat that naysayers threw.

Read:

• Manufacturing Consent (1988)

• Understanding Power

• Hegemony or Survival (2003)

• On Palestine (2015), w/ Ilan Pappé

View:

• The Corporation (2003) - features Chomsky

• Imperial Grand Strategy

• Distorted Morality (2003)

Key question here. I'd take it at 37 and go back to being 17 with the skills, knowledge, and experiences and most importantly income of my 37 year-old self. But, I'd pass myself off as 18. Unless, of course, it's not a secret. In which case the strategy totally changes.

If it's known and knowable that I took this drug, then I'd take it at 55 and de-age to 35. Then, when my kids are in their teens and tweens, I'll have the energy for their B.S. Also, when I retire at 95 (b/c seriously, retirement wont be a thing for me), I'll only be 75 and I'll still be able to fight off some of the horde of lawyer-bots, advertisclones, and chain letters that are coming after my pension.

Sci Fi top 6 ‐ focusing a bit on the soft sci-fi

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) dir: Stanley Kubrick

2. Arrival (2016) dir: Denis Villeneuve

3. Her (2013) dir: Spike Jonze

4. BladeRunner (1982) dir: Ridley Scott

5. Children of Men (2006) dir: Alfonso Cuarón

6. GATTACA (1997) dir: Andrew Niccol

So... What you're saying is, I need a cat.

Good luck finding housing in Canada, bud.

This is basically what I told people when I started to watch some of the most amazing international and documentary cinema in the early 00s. Ciudade de Deus, La Cité d'enfants Perdus, Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amelie Poulain, La Vita è Bella, Der Untergang, Lola Rennt, 올드 보이, Mononoke Hime, Rabbit-Proof Fence, Whale Rider. Documentaries by Adam Curtis or Errol Morris. So many people just don't know.

Hahaha. I'm a teacher. It is better to err on the side of caution. Never know when I'm actually sleep-typing an email and forget to be cordial.

It's more about self-discipline and self-awareness rather than self-censorship. The self-censorship kicks in when I'm in the classroom, and some kid feels the need to act a damn fool.

Does the work you do, if you still work for a living, follow you home? And, if you have children, are any of them still in need of your assistance for feeding, bathing, and/or toileting?

I'm really looking forward to being in my mid-50s. My youngest will be approaching 10. By then, I should be able to reintroduce video games to my life at that point.

Unsaid so far: Samurai Jack.

Funny, I didn't mind that the characters' motivations were written differently. Much more about their pasts and their circumstances than their outward emotional states, their irrational fears or momentary actions, and their short-term gains. It more all about the situation, the collective motivations, and the achievable ends.

I liked reading a Chinese sci-fi novel. It was alien twice.