Quick thought on Santos: he could be lying, shouldn’t we find out? Remember why Cawthorn got drummed out? He was repugnant the entire time but once he spilled the tea on blow and orgies then they swing the sword.
Once An Accident, Twice A Coincidence, Three Times A Pattern.
I first heard the news of this crash from CBS.I like to get the news from many sources,CBS,NBC,CNN and Washington Post.I don't consider FOX to be news but just opinion.That said,everybody reported that it could be terrorism.I'm not sure this started from FOX as you stated, but I have no doubt that they would really run with it.Whenever a media outlet like CNN,NY Times or Washington Post get their stories wrong, they admit it,appologize for it and then take actions to correct it.When this happens at FOX,you get silence.This is par for the course for FOX just as it is for their leader Donald Trump."Birds of a feather flock together.
"Anti-Israel students then created a group chat, according to a senior at the school quoted in the report. “Hundreds of kids” then “flooded into hallways,...chanting, jumping, shouting, and waving Palestinian flags or banners.”"
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As a country, we are doomed based on actions taken by some high school and college students, who apparently have nothing that they need to be studying to better themselves. IMO, these "protesters," especially at the high school level, have no real clue as to what they are actually condemning, they are just mindlessly parroting others.
At the high school level, the bovine scat being spread cannot be more than echoes of what they are seeing and hearing from either their parents (who deserve to be investigated by child protective services for abusing the mental health of their kids by teaching hate) or by teachers who *should* know better than to conflate a people -- Palestinians -- with a known terrorist organization -- Hamas, but don't care because to condemn Hamas violates progressive talking points of Israeli genocide and Ethnic Cleansing. (Maybe these "educators" should look up the definition of "genocide" and compare it to what the Israeli leadership is doing -- morally questionable at best but not genocide -- and the Hamas covenant that *specifically* calls for Palestine, and then the entire Middle East, to be made judenrein.) These so-called adults are doing nothing more than poisoning impressionable minds by their spewing of their hate. These teachers need to be sanctioned in some manner and the students involved should be suspended for disrupting classes (see below regarding consequences).
At the college level, the trend of so many professors moving further and further towards "progressivism," and their involvement in intimidating those they deem not progressive enough, needs to stop. While proclaiming their leftist beliefs they are showing themselves to be as illiberal as those who dwell in the MAGAverse. A primary function of colleges and universities is to encourage a healthy discussion on differences of opinions. Anyone, professor or student, who bucks the on-campus preferred ideology is either othered or ostracized, or self-censors to avoid conflict (especially professors who can and likely will be removed from the faculty for wrongthink). To make matters worse, administrators take no actions to prevent the activists from bullying those students who came to the school for an education and not to improve their CVs by being willing foot-soldiers for a cause. The students must be made aware that they will be held accountable for their actions, that there are consequences for what they do. If they don't learn this lesson now they will constantly be reminded by their future employers who don't take kindly to employee disruptions. (BTW, this complaint of professors who stray so far from the core purposes of college: education, preparing the students to live in the non-academic world and to open their minds to new ideas, applies to schools with a conservative lean also.)
You are omitting Tic Tok et al as a source of information. Any one who has teenagers to talk to knows the role of the interned on young people. It is an unfair assumption to put the blame solely on teachers. I think teachers would love to have that much influence.
Another thought is that maybe you should be reassured that young people care enough about geopolitics to exercise their First Amendment rights and demonstrate and speechify. Not to be cynical but five years from now most of those students will have toned down their social activism as they realize there are other ways to spend their time that are more pressing, like getting educated and trained to get a job. Their politics might change but they will remember how to demonstrate for what they believe. I'm not defending their point of view. I'm just saying that if you disagree with them you have the same right to free speech. High school support of the Palestinian cause is not the end of the world as we know it. Give them room to figure some things out for themselves. Most of us do, eventually.
As for "young people care enough about geopolitics to exercise their First Amendment rights and demonstrate and speechify[,]" if they care enough then it behooves them to have, at least, a minimal grasp of what they are protesting for. As I also said in my response to TW Falcon, there probably aren't even 15% of the high school protesters that understand that their repeating the slogan "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" calls for the total eradication of Israel and the extermination of Jews -- not Israelis, Jews only.
I don't deny that most of those students will "tone down" their SJW urges as they mature. In my case, my active protestations of the Vietnam war were tampered down when I graduated college and entered the workplace, and I expect that the same thing will occur with the high schoolers as they grow up. Let me add here that I also appreciate that these young adults take their 1A rights seriously, and I don't condemn them for exercising those rights. I firmly believe that you/they have the same rights as me, with the obvious exceptions of those rights that have an age minimum like voting, owning a firearm or drinking.
"High school support of the Palestinian cause is not the end of the world as we know it." This is true, but the students conflate the Palestinian cause with Hamas actions and there are apparently no adults in the room to disabuse them of this mix. They are being taught that the IDF is indiscriminatingly bombing Gaza and intentionally targeting Palestinian noncombatants, with little to no mention of Hamas doing that very thing: purposely aiming at Israeli citizens.
Let the high schoolers protest to their hearts' content, but someone needs to teach them that while all Hamas fighters are Palestinian not all Palestinians are Hamas affiliated. There is a difference between a people and a terrorist organization claiming to "protect" those people. The Palestinian cause is worthy of support while Hamas deserves nothing less than world-wide condemnation for its efforts to rid the world of "the Zionist entity," and its overwhelming desire to make Palestine, and then the entire Middle East, judenrein (but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for the MSM around the world to point out this minor detail).
I think you are incorrect at blaming the teachers for this. There are reasons to believe it is social media that is driving it.
Particularly in the case Charlie cited where the students were acting against a teacher who was not defending or excusing Hamas but, on the contrary, had posted and demonstrated in support of Israel.
It's very likely that social media contributes to the problem, but I think we both realize that it is way more complicated than the contributions of a single source or even multiple sources. I still contend that there are teachers at the high school level that add to the disharmony by their actions and speech -- intended or unintentional. My main gripe, though, is aimed at professors and administrators at the postsecondary level. When I attended college back in the dark ages the Vietnam war was at its height. My professors allowed some anti-war protesting in class (and outside-the-classroom protests were something to behold), and obviously some professors took part in the protests too, but all retained control of their classrooms; students did not call the shots like it appears to be happening these days. Yes, we did disrupt some classes, but most of us knew that there could be some serious fallout for our actions. I consider myself to be one of the lucky ones, I was a member of YAWF and graduated into the SDS, but I got away with it.
As for Mr Sykes' specific example of the high school teacher showing support for Israel, the other teachers and the administration showed a dereliction of their duties. The bedlam continued for two hours with minimal, if any, attempts to restore some sense of order and decorum. The students were allowed to spew out the hatred they must have been taught by their parents unabated. I can't believe that most of the student protesters actually understood the slogans they were shouting; I'd wager that fewer than 15% realized that they were promoting genocide when they repeated "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." They see Hamas as freedom fighters, not terrorists, because that is how the media -- including social media -- is portraying them: Hamas good, Israel bad. Young minds soak up everything, and if there are no adult voices disabusing them of their hate-filled rhetoric it will become ingrained and continue to be passed down to future generations.
Even young adults need to recognize that there can be repercussions (positive or negative) resulting from their actions.
I'm not sure where I am branding anyone as a Communist, nor am I saying that the people I'm referring to should be blacklisted from any future pursuits within their chosen profession. Are you suggesting that the actions taken by the students should be ignored? Maybe that actions don't have *any* corresponding consequences, good or bad? Possibly that employers don't have a problem with disruptive employees? (Oh, wait... I know... an employee making enough waves to distract fellow workers from competently performing their jobs should get a promotion and a raise, yes?)
If anyone in real life can't grasp the fact that for every action there is an equal reaction (again, positive or negative), where do you think they'll end up? Someone at the postsecondary education level (almost always old enough to vote and carry a firearm, but not to drink) who doesn't understand this basic rule of life, that there are ramifications for what one does or says, will not survive in the world outside academia. Reality will devour these poor souls.
Can you please be so kind as to point out where I call for blacklisting students? I don't see where I suggest that student protesters should be denied employment in their chosen field, like actors and writers were under McCarthy's Red Scare. Certainly there are employers who will not hire someone or rescind a job offer based on the student's actions, e.g. Ryna Workman, President of NYU's Student Bar Association, students at Columbia and Harvard and many other schools.
What I did say is that the student protesters are ignoring, or don't understand, potential problems based on their decidedly illiberal actions They can, and should, support Palestinians in general, but being Hamas apologists, rationalizing the cowardly assault on Israeli civilians as being justified by previous Israeli governmental bombings of Gaza, is a step too far for many. If they don't experience any pushback whatsoever for what they are doing, they will continue in the mistaken belief that they will not be held to account for future actions; ones that could cause irreparable harm to their employers.
Please don't feed the troll. Trolls live in echo chambers and aren't really listening to your arguments: they're totally enchanted with their own eruptions, which aren't really connected with your views at all. You and your ideas deserve better.
Our dear Leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition, Pierre Poilievre, Conservative Party of Canada, rose in the House of Commons that afternoon to demand to know what the Prime Minister was doing about this "terrorist" attack at the Rainbow Bridge. When a Canadian journalist confronted him later with the facts, Poilievre complained about left-wing media bias and doubled down on his previous bullshit. You guys don't have the monopoly on stupid.
One would think that Mr. Poilievre would have bigger things to think about, if he read yesterday's Big Read in the Financial Times, "How Geopolitics Caught Up with Canada":
Si les Anglo-Canadiens et les Américains sont si préoccupés par le terrorisme, que diriez-vous de mettre en lumière le traitement séculaire réservé aux Québécois par le gouvernement Canadien, membre du Commonwealth Britannique!
George Santos was actually the host of The O'Reilly Factor for almost twenty years, and prior to that he played Jed Clampett on the Beverly Hillbillies.
Another great piece from you, Charlie, one that I will share. I agree with you 98.8% of the time (I didn't agree with your take on withdrawing from Afghanistan, for instance), but there is one thing in this piece on which I would pump the brakes a bit, namely Heaton's tweet. After reciting a litany of generalizations, which I suppose is unavoidable in a tweet that is supposed to prompt discussion, she calls people whose views are different from hers regarding Hamas and Israel "brainwashed" and refraining from uttering the same condemnations that she does "afraid." That doesn't sound like someone who really wants to hear and process different perspectives on the matter.
Not all criticism of Israel derives from anti-semitism. What happened to the anti-colonial impulse that animates many on the left? Is it somehow ruled out that anyone can find a problem of that sort in the Israeli project?
"John Roberts (Fox News-Adjacent Personality): 'We don't know how long the people who perpetrated this attack have been in this country.'"
Well, we now know that the "Canadian Terrorist Couple" pretty much were not long in the U.S. since their Bentley caromed off a Canadian barrier and was hurtled across the bridge to the American side...back to you, John! ;-)
Ah…the “this tiny point was wrong so everything is false” argument.
As to “Israel is doing it wrong,” I’ll ask you (as I would Medhi):
Exactly how would you destroy Hamas - the infrastructure, the fighters, the support systems - without invading?
How does that happen? Ask pretty please?
Oh, and also note (which Medhi also conveniently glosses over) - it wasn’t just Hamas fighters that did the raping and the killing. It was average Gazans/Palestinians. How do you root those people out too?
If you think Israel is engaged in wanton aimless killing, it’s YOU who are showing your bias by refusing to understand what happens in a war - innocents die - but just simply declare Israel to be evil.
Good question #1 - how does Israel destroy Hamas, and end the murderous, existential threat that they strive to be, without invading?
Good question #2 - how does Israel destroy Hamas and address the threat without killing many thousands of civilians (including children), making chunks of Gaza uninhabitable, creating a massive refugee crisis on their border, and perpetuating if not worsening the endless enmity between them and the Palestinians, and throwing more fuel on the cycle of grievance and retribution?
I don't know the answers, but I know a horrific dilemma when I see one. Being justified in retaliating and taking out the threat - knowing that innocents die in a war - does not mean being justified in doing so by any means and at any cost. It does seem that there has to a better way. Not a good way, not an easy way, not a destruction and death-free way, but a less egregious way. I don't know what it is, but I fear that the way they have gone about it will make matters worse. Perhaps far worse. I could be - and hope - that I'm wrong.
Apparently, many people think the Israelis need to take lots of casualties with their military just walking in without high explosives/air cover, bombing enemy sites, because...civilian casualties.
Guess what? No military in the world - none, zero, zip - would do that. That's just military malpractice. You use the force you have to take out the target (say, a building people are shooting at you from). If you destroy the building and there happen to be innocents inside, that is perfectly acceptable.
No one expects the side to stop fighting, escort civilians out of the building...all while under fire from the enemy IN THE BUILDING...and then, when they are 100% SURE that there are no civilians left in the building (not sure how they do that, but that is apparently the bar), then they can resume fighting.
Oh and if the enemy in the building kills civilians, well, it's the attackers fault.
For some reason though, Israel is expected to do that.
(continued from below) That, is revenge, pure and simple, and a response that we should have come to condemn a hundred, or a thousand years ago.
Israel should have moved their military into the Gaza Strip immediately after they were attacked, and begun to sift out the innocents, moving them to safety, while sifting out Hamas and those who supported Hamas and moving them into prisons, and in so doing, shown that they are the adults in the room and a rightous example of an improving human race on our planet, and it should not have been a difficult position for any respectable, and especially, a so-called religous entity, to take. This is in fact, yet another example that shows clearly, that religiousity does not equate to respectablility, much less morality. It clearly shows the opposite.
It should have been very simple for Israel to see, because of the fact that they had just then, witnessed the horror of the killing of their own children. Their response SHOULD have been, a military one, yes, but, with the understanding that ya just don't mame and murder kids. Ever.
No right thinking person could imagine that Hamas's attack on Israel was anything but an animalistic atrocity. All right thinking people should, and do for the most part, agree, that their existance on the planet needs to come to an end, and as soon as possible. But, to say that in the past, what happened in war, that innocents have died, does not in any way, excuse or justify the continuation of that kind of policy in the present, or the future.
I for one, would hope that we as a species, would at least be trying to be more advanced than that, that we might be improving ourselves, that we might be doing better. And now, that can, happen. In modern warfare, what with weapons that can very accurately seek out specific targets, that is indeed possible. What with Israel's massive and extremely well equiped military, I would contend that Israel has the ability to do better than to send massive, MASSive, numbers of unguided missiles, for weeks, into the Strip, taking lives and pummeling perfectly good buildings where people did and might have continued to reside, into dust, buildings where they -knew-, innocents, and worse, innocent -children-, did in fact reside, shows no improvement, no maturity in their thinking, and instead shows that they don't care, about right and wrong, and instead, they made clear that it was their deliberate thought out decision to act in anger, to seek a bloody revenge, to destroy lives and property, much as a twelve year old boy might do, with the lame excuse that "innocents die in war". From where I sit, that, is despicable.
The spilling of the blood of children, no matter how much we despise the actions of Hamas, can never be justified if we are to consider ourselves to be a moral, decent, and ethical people.
If someone invades your home, kidnaps, rapes and then murders your innocent daughter, would your answer to that be to find them, kidnap, rape and then murder -their-, innnocent daughters? And then try to justify your actions by saying, "In a war, innocents die"? Really? Because in the view of many, that would be a shocking, lame, atrocious, childish and backward thinking response, and just as animalistic as the actions of Hamas. That is not justice. That, is revenge, pure and simple, and a response that we should have come to condemn a hundred, or a thousand years ago.
Israel should have moved their military into the Gaza Strip immediately after they were attacked, and begun to sift out the innocents, moving them to safety, while sifting out Hamas and those who supported Hamas and moving them into prisons, and in so doing, shown that they are the adults in the room and a rightous example of an improving human race on our planet, and it should not have been a difficult position for any respectable, and especially, a so-called religous entity, to take. This is in fact, yet another example that shows clearly, that religiousity does not equate to respectablility, much less morality. It clearly shows the opposite.
It should have been very simple for Israel to see, because of the fact that they had just then, witnessed the horror of the killing of their own children. Their response SHOULD have been, a military one, yes, but, with the understanding that ya just don't mame and murder kids. Ever.
Well, first, your premise that Israel is just randomly dropping bombs on Gaza ("massive, MASSive, numbers of unguided missiles, for weeks, into the Strip,") is completely countered by the fact that you then claim that Israel TARGETED specific "buildings where they -knew-, innocents, and worse, innocent -children-, did in fact reside."
Which is it? Israel is just randomly carpet bombing or they are using precision weapons to target specific buildings? You can't have it both ways.
Secondly, your idea of "modern warfare" is straight from video games and completely naive. You think it's clean and precise, but it is nothing of the sort. It is messy, tragic and horrible. But Hamas started it, and the Palestinians supported it. It's war.
Example" "Israel should have moved their military into the Gaza Strip immediately after they were attacked, and begun to sift out the innocents" Are you kidding me? You don't think Hamas would have been shooting at them? Didn't Israel need time to organize and plan? Nope - not in your world. Israel is all powerful and Hamas would have just stepped aside and let Israel move civilians.
Good grief that is naive...take a look at the last few weeks and tell us how Hamas just let civilians move to the south of Gaza. Oh, that's right...they didn't...they shot them. Or how Hamas has done no fighting whatsoever in Gaza...LOL, right.
As to your analogy, if my neighbors raped and killed my family (and their family celebrated it), and I found them barricaded and heavily armed in their house, and I had a tank, I certainly wouldn't go walking up, knock on the door and ask the perps to come out so I could have a discussion (and risk getting killed myself). I'd blast it with the tank.
" if my neighbors raped and killed my family, and I found them barricaded and heavily armed in their house, and I had a tank, I certainly wouldn't go walking up, knock on the door and ask the perps to come out so I could have a discussion (and risk getting killed myself). I'd blast it with the tank."
But you forget, Scott, there are innocent women and CHILDREN, inside of that house that you would blow up, from the safety of the inside of a tank. Real tough guy. Huh. Your morality is childish, and lacking, and you have clearly never worked out a code of ethics for yourself, that is in any way, ethical. You would simply -assume- that everybody in that house, is "heavily armed, and barricaded", and then blow the place to hell. Wow. Just wow. What if they aren't, all Hamas fighters? What if even a few of them, are hostages? Innocents? Guys like you have a habit of making shit up to fit your narrative, and you've done that here. I can't believe how small you are. Grown men would surround the house and force the bad guys to surrender, even if they have to starve them out. American cops do this all of the time.
No, it’s you who are the Internet tough guy. You think you’d just go barging into a house where you know there are bad guys who are armed?
Thats Call of Duty/Rambo fantasy.
“Starve them out”
Huh…aren’t we told that’s inhumane? A siege? A violation of international law and that Israel can’t do that?
Again - you’re in fantasy land.
“The cops”
Who exactly are the “cops” Israel is to turn to for justice? No one. So your idea that the “cops” can just wait it out is again - fantasy. They have no choice but to take out the bad guys.
Oh the bad guys won’t let their wives and kids go? Those deaths are on them. Not me.
Reality check: good people everywhere wish for peace on earth - elusive dream. Knowing more as the years pile on, I’ve become convinced there are just enough sociopathic or selfish or heartless humans within our ranks corruptible by money and power for evil, greed and ego to keep the elusive dream from ever happening. Sorry to admit this; I want peace and love more than anything.
Thank you for taking this on. There is no comprehension being shown in Nathan Meade's comments of what urban warfare is like, or of the numbers involved. The IDF is one of the best trained and best armed forces in the world, but it is SMALL, because Israel is a small country. Every casualty in a small force is a massive loss in relative terms. The only way that they could have "moved their military into the Gaza Strip immediately after they were attacked, and begun to sift out the innocents, moving them to safety, while sifting out Hamas and those who supported Hamas and moving them into prisons" is if Hamas had immediately laid down their arms, surrendered, and come out with their hands up. Instead, Hamas is doing what they always do: using the civilian population as human shields while they try to kill as many Israelis as possible.
"Their response SHOULD have been, a military one, yes, but, with the understanding that ya just don't mame [sic] and murder kids. Ever." I wish that Nathan Meade would inform us how that's supposed to happen when the terrorists are using the kids as human shields.
Nope. There are an estimated 30-40,000 Hamas fighters. 300,000 Israeli soldiers assembled to move into Gaza. Sounds pretty much like the kind of standoff that happens on a regular basis, in hostage situations, all over America, and nearly every day. Bad guys often use hostages to escape, or, as you say, as human shields, and yet our police forces, somehow, manage to free hostages the vast majority of the time, and only rarely do hostages get killed. And our Cops in the US never, ever, fire missiles into buildings where hostage situations exist. That, would be a ludicrous idea.
Thousands, of Gaza residents have been killed, perhaps tens, of thousands, in order to protect 200+ hostages. Oh! But they are AMERICAN and ISRAELI hostages, which of course makes all of the difference in the world ! .. ? Not in my book. I have no dog in this fight. A human life, is a human life, and all, are precious. Again. This is about revenge. This is Bibi exacting revenge, and I believe, for political reasons. He's just trying to hold onto power, and that, to me, is revolting.
This is not a police action against a criminal gang, it's a military response to a genocidal attack by a heavily armed, non-state military force. Your concern for human life may be admirable, but a stubborn refusal to recognize the crucial category difference is leading you to a faulty analysis and some very bad conclusions.
Military force? I think you give them far too much credit. Hamas is nothing but a bunch of murdering thugs with automatic weapons and rocket launchers. What they did was one of the most horrific things I've ever read or heard about. Line up the actual perps? I would shoot them myself.
--But the answer was not to kill tens of thousands of innocents from a safe distance--.
In my view, Bibi used the pain and anger of his own citizens as a political tool, to show them that he is the tough guy. He did this in order to give the people of his own country the revenge that they naturaly would and did want, that anyone would want, in order to regain their favor, in order to try to stay in power. I don't claim to have all of the answers, and I'm not on either side of this fight. All I've been saying, is that that weeks-long bombing of innocent people, was wrong.
Again. Israel had 300,000 well trained soldiers at the border. Hamas had 30,000-40,000 fighters, but Bibi knew that his people wouldn't put up with one more Israeli death. He would have lost the little support that he had left, so he just bombed the hell out of the entire northern half of the Gaza Strip. I'm not the only one who thinks his responce to the Hamas attack was wrong. I would go farther and say it was insane, except for the fact that it wasn't. It was cruel, and calulated, and done for political reasons. That, like the Hamas attack, was despicable.
My god Scott. Your reading comprehension is shamefully lacking. I said that Israel "targeted" the entire northern Gaza Strip, knowing full well that innocent people were inside of those buildings. I didn't say that Israel used targeting weapons, I said that they COULD have used them against Hamas. "I would contend that Israel has the ability to do better.." than to send massive, MASSive, numbers of unguided missiles, for weeks, into the Strip. I'm sorry that I confused you.
"Didn't Israel need time to organize and plan?" They took as much time as they saw fit, and then they started to send missiles, indiscrimantly, into the Gaza Strip! Everybody knows this. And I never said that warefare "can be clean and precise". YOU said I said that, while repeatedly acusing me of being naive. Wow. I could go on, but I'll just stop there. You are a man without vision, an ability to see a better future than what we have now, and yes, your reading comprehension needs a great deal of improvement. I'd work on that. My comment stands, and I'm now done with you.
Your link is broken - for "who leapt at the early reports "
A girl can dream…
Great piece on the “jump the gun” declarations of terrorism.
Quick thought on Santos: he could be lying, shouldn’t we find out? Remember why Cawthorn got drummed out? He was repugnant the entire time but once he spilled the tea on blow and orgies then they swing the sword.
Once An Accident, Twice A Coincidence, Three Times A Pattern.
Appears to be more like Alice in Wonderland until you realize it’s a very old, thick and growing Swamp. Murky indeed.
I first heard the news of this crash from CBS.I like to get the news from many sources,CBS,NBC,CNN and Washington Post.I don't consider FOX to be news but just opinion.That said,everybody reported that it could be terrorism.I'm not sure this started from FOX as you stated, but I have no doubt that they would really run with it.Whenever a media outlet like CNN,NY Times or Washington Post get their stories wrong, they admit it,appologize for it and then take actions to correct it.When this happens at FOX,you get silence.This is par for the course for FOX just as it is for their leader Donald Trump."Birds of a feather flock together.
You can say that again!
As for Gaetz, I’m in line with the Republicans on this and wish them speedy success.
"Anti-Israel students then created a group chat, according to a senior at the school quoted in the report. “Hundreds of kids” then “flooded into hallways,...chanting, jumping, shouting, and waving Palestinian flags or banners.”"
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As a country, we are doomed based on actions taken by some high school and college students, who apparently have nothing that they need to be studying to better themselves. IMO, these "protesters," especially at the high school level, have no real clue as to what they are actually condemning, they are just mindlessly parroting others.
At the high school level, the bovine scat being spread cannot be more than echoes of what they are seeing and hearing from either their parents (who deserve to be investigated by child protective services for abusing the mental health of their kids by teaching hate) or by teachers who *should* know better than to conflate a people -- Palestinians -- with a known terrorist organization -- Hamas, but don't care because to condemn Hamas violates progressive talking points of Israeli genocide and Ethnic Cleansing. (Maybe these "educators" should look up the definition of "genocide" and compare it to what the Israeli leadership is doing -- morally questionable at best but not genocide -- and the Hamas covenant that *specifically* calls for Palestine, and then the entire Middle East, to be made judenrein.) These so-called adults are doing nothing more than poisoning impressionable minds by their spewing of their hate. These teachers need to be sanctioned in some manner and the students involved should be suspended for disrupting classes (see below regarding consequences).
At the college level, the trend of so many professors moving further and further towards "progressivism," and their involvement in intimidating those they deem not progressive enough, needs to stop. While proclaiming their leftist beliefs they are showing themselves to be as illiberal as those who dwell in the MAGAverse. A primary function of colleges and universities is to encourage a healthy discussion on differences of opinions. Anyone, professor or student, who bucks the on-campus preferred ideology is either othered or ostracized, or self-censors to avoid conflict (especially professors who can and likely will be removed from the faculty for wrongthink). To make matters worse, administrators take no actions to prevent the activists from bullying those students who came to the school for an education and not to improve their CVs by being willing foot-soldiers for a cause. The students must be made aware that they will be held accountable for their actions, that there are consequences for what they do. If they don't learn this lesson now they will constantly be reminded by their future employers who don't take kindly to employee disruptions. (BTW, this complaint of professors who stray so far from the core purposes of college: education, preparing the students to live in the non-academic world and to open their minds to new ideas, applies to schools with a conservative lean also.)
fnord
You are omitting Tic Tok et al as a source of information. Any one who has teenagers to talk to knows the role of the interned on young people. It is an unfair assumption to put the blame solely on teachers. I think teachers would love to have that much influence.
Another thought is that maybe you should be reassured that young people care enough about geopolitics to exercise their First Amendment rights and demonstrate and speechify. Not to be cynical but five years from now most of those students will have toned down their social activism as they realize there are other ways to spend their time that are more pressing, like getting educated and trained to get a job. Their politics might change but they will remember how to demonstrate for what they believe. I'm not defending their point of view. I'm just saying that if you disagree with them you have the same right to free speech. High school support of the Palestinian cause is not the end of the world as we know it. Give them room to figure some things out for themselves. Most of us do, eventually.
I don't discount the effects of social media, including Tik Tok (a truly depressing statistic: 14% of all Americans get their news from Tik Tok, the breakdown numbers are even scarier, 32% of 18-29 year olds and 15% for those between 30 and 49 https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/11/15/more-americans-are-getting-news-on-tiktok-bucking-the-trend-seen-on-most-other-social-media-sites/) which I point out in my reply to TW Falcon below, but I will still place some of the blame on the teachers (not solely as you imply that I do).
As for "young people care enough about geopolitics to exercise their First Amendment rights and demonstrate and speechify[,]" if they care enough then it behooves them to have, at least, a minimal grasp of what they are protesting for. As I also said in my response to TW Falcon, there probably aren't even 15% of the high school protesters that understand that their repeating the slogan "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" calls for the total eradication of Israel and the extermination of Jews -- not Israelis, Jews only.
I don't deny that most of those students will "tone down" their SJW urges as they mature. In my case, my active protestations of the Vietnam war were tampered down when I graduated college and entered the workplace, and I expect that the same thing will occur with the high schoolers as they grow up. Let me add here that I also appreciate that these young adults take their 1A rights seriously, and I don't condemn them for exercising those rights. I firmly believe that you/they have the same rights as me, with the obvious exceptions of those rights that have an age minimum like voting, owning a firearm or drinking.
"High school support of the Palestinian cause is not the end of the world as we know it." This is true, but the students conflate the Palestinian cause with Hamas actions and there are apparently no adults in the room to disabuse them of this mix. They are being taught that the IDF is indiscriminatingly bombing Gaza and intentionally targeting Palestinian noncombatants, with little to no mention of Hamas doing that very thing: purposely aiming at Israeli citizens.
Let the high schoolers protest to their hearts' content, but someone needs to teach them that while all Hamas fighters are Palestinian not all Palestinians are Hamas affiliated. There is a difference between a people and a terrorist organization claiming to "protect" those people. The Palestinian cause is worthy of support while Hamas deserves nothing less than world-wide condemnation for its efforts to rid the world of "the Zionist entity," and its overwhelming desire to make Palestine, and then the entire Middle East, judenrein (but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for the MSM around the world to point out this minor detail).
fnord
I think you are incorrect at blaming the teachers for this. There are reasons to believe it is social media that is driving it.
Particularly in the case Charlie cited where the students were acting against a teacher who was not defending or excusing Hamas but, on the contrary, had posted and demonstrated in support of Israel.
It's very likely that social media contributes to the problem, but I think we both realize that it is way more complicated than the contributions of a single source or even multiple sources. I still contend that there are teachers at the high school level that add to the disharmony by their actions and speech -- intended or unintentional. My main gripe, though, is aimed at professors and administrators at the postsecondary level. When I attended college back in the dark ages the Vietnam war was at its height. My professors allowed some anti-war protesting in class (and outside-the-classroom protests were something to behold), and obviously some professors took part in the protests too, but all retained control of their classrooms; students did not call the shots like it appears to be happening these days. Yes, we did disrupt some classes, but most of us knew that there could be some serious fallout for our actions. I consider myself to be one of the lucky ones, I was a member of YAWF and graduated into the SDS, but I got away with it.
As for Mr Sykes' specific example of the high school teacher showing support for Israel, the other teachers and the administration showed a dereliction of their duties. The bedlam continued for two hours with minimal, if any, attempts to restore some sense of order and decorum. The students were allowed to spew out the hatred they must have been taught by their parents unabated. I can't believe that most of the student protesters actually understood the slogans they were shouting; I'd wager that fewer than 15% realized that they were promoting genocide when they repeated "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." They see Hamas as freedom fighters, not terrorists, because that is how the media -- including social media -- is portraying them: Hamas good, Israel bad. Young minds soak up everything, and if there are no adult voices disabusing them of their hate-filled rhetoric it will become ingrained and continue to be passed down to future generations.
Even young adults need to recognize that there can be repercussions (positive or negative) resulting from their actions.
fnord
"Thank you, Sen. Joe McCarthy, for weighing in."
I'm not sure where I am branding anyone as a Communist, nor am I saying that the people I'm referring to should be blacklisted from any future pursuits within their chosen profession. Are you suggesting that the actions taken by the students should be ignored? Maybe that actions don't have *any* corresponding consequences, good or bad? Possibly that employers don't have a problem with disruptive employees? (Oh, wait... I know... an employee making enough waves to distract fellow workers from competently performing their jobs should get a promotion and a raise, yes?)
If anyone in real life can't grasp the fact that for every action there is an equal reaction (again, positive or negative), where do you think they'll end up? Someone at the postsecondary education level (almost always old enough to vote and carry a firearm, but not to drink) who doesn't understand this basic rule of life, that there are ramifications for what one does or says, will not survive in the world outside academia. Reality will devour these poor souls.
fnord
Can you please be so kind as to point out where I call for blacklisting students? I don't see where I suggest that student protesters should be denied employment in their chosen field, like actors and writers were under McCarthy's Red Scare. Certainly there are employers who will not hire someone or rescind a job offer based on the student's actions, e.g. Ryna Workman, President of NYU's Student Bar Association, students at Columbia and Harvard and many other schools.
What I did say is that the student protesters are ignoring, or don't understand, potential problems based on their decidedly illiberal actions They can, and should, support Palestinians in general, but being Hamas apologists, rationalizing the cowardly assault on Israeli civilians as being justified by previous Israeli governmental bombings of Gaza, is a step too far for many. If they don't experience any pushback whatsoever for what they are doing, they will continue in the mistaken belief that they will not be held to account for future actions; ones that could cause irreparable harm to their employers.
fnord
Please don't feed the troll. Trolls live in echo chambers and aren't really listening to your arguments: they're totally enchanted with their own eruptions, which aren't really connected with your views at all. You and your ideas deserve better.
Thank you, Al, for your kind words and support.
fnord
Our dear Leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition, Pierre Poilievre, Conservative Party of Canada, rose in the House of Commons that afternoon to demand to know what the Prime Minister was doing about this "terrorist" attack at the Rainbow Bridge. When a Canadian journalist confronted him later with the facts, Poilievre complained about left-wing media bias and doubled down on his previous bullshit. You guys don't have the monopoly on stupid.
One would think that Mr. Poilievre would have bigger things to think about, if he read yesterday's Big Read in the Financial Times, "How Geopolitics Caught Up with Canada":
https://www.ft.com/content/b5d91bce-4e36-427a-8fbd-00764bfa3460
Take that, R Mercer and all those looking to flee to Canada!
Si les Anglo-Canadiens et les Américains sont si préoccupés par le terrorisme, que diriez-vous de mettre en lumière le traitement séculaire réservé aux Québécois par le gouvernement Canadien, membre du Commonwealth Britannique!
Look for Fox News to plug George Santos into a prime-time evening slot. The man is a natural.
George Santos was actually the host of The O'Reilly Factor for almost twenty years, and prior to that he played Jed Clampett on the Beverly Hillbillies.
I beg to differ...he played Jed's nephew, Jethro Bodine.
Na.He played Gilligan on Gilligan's Island
Ginger
George Santos in drag.
A common misconception.
He actually played all three characters using a (at the time) highly experimental video compositing process that he invented.
Another common misconception,he played all Characters on Beverly Hillbillies and Gilligan's Island.
Slow News Night? No problem. With this man fiction is stranger than truth.
I doubt Ru Paul would want him.
Oh, Kari.... The first line of that tweet! "Dr. Freud... Paging Dr. Freud..."
Forget about HAL. It's FOX. AI* Artificial Information....
Surely you mean "Artificial Idiocy".
In retrospect, you have a point. Nothing artifical over at FOX. Take Jessie Watters. Authentically Inbred to be sure...
Another great piece from you, Charlie, one that I will share. I agree with you 98.8% of the time (I didn't agree with your take on withdrawing from Afghanistan, for instance), but there is one thing in this piece on which I would pump the brakes a bit, namely Heaton's tweet. After reciting a litany of generalizations, which I suppose is unavoidable in a tweet that is supposed to prompt discussion, she calls people whose views are different from hers regarding Hamas and Israel "brainwashed" and refraining from uttering the same condemnations that she does "afraid." That doesn't sound like someone who really wants to hear and process different perspectives on the matter.
Or has already heard all the anti-Semitic "perspectives" that she feels she needs to understand where they're coming from.
Not all criticism of Israel derives from anti-semitism. What happened to the anti-colonial impulse that animates many on the left? Is it somehow ruled out that anyone can find a problem of that sort in the Israeli project?
For intellectually honest, informed people yes, I think so: https://quillette.com/2023/10/21/its-not-the-occupation/
RE; Terrorism on Niagara Falls border bridge.
"John Roberts (Fox News-Adjacent Personality): 'We don't know how long the people who perpetrated this attack have been in this country.'"
Well, we now know that the "Canadian Terrorist Couple" pretty much were not long in the U.S. since their Bentley caromed off a Canadian barrier and was hurtled across the bridge to the American side...back to you, John! ;-)
FOX NEWS Alert: Terrorist are now thinking of infiltrating by hiding themselves in barrels and going over Niagra Falls. Stay Tuned.
Hahahahahahahaha --- as a frequent visitor to the Falls when a college student in Erie, PA, I have an endless fascination with such hijinks!
Good one! Oh, and they weren't "perpetrators" of anything.
Other than that and other untruths, Fox was spot-on.
Ah…the “this tiny point was wrong so everything is false” argument.
As to “Israel is doing it wrong,” I’ll ask you (as I would Medhi):
Exactly how would you destroy Hamas - the infrastructure, the fighters, the support systems - without invading?
How does that happen? Ask pretty please?
Oh, and also note (which Medhi also conveniently glosses over) - it wasn’t just Hamas fighters that did the raping and the killing. It was average Gazans/Palestinians. How do you root those people out too?
If you think Israel is engaged in wanton aimless killing, it’s YOU who are showing your bias by refusing to understand what happens in a war - innocents die - but just simply declare Israel to be evil.
Scott:
Good question #1 - how does Israel destroy Hamas, and end the murderous, existential threat that they strive to be, without invading?
Good question #2 - how does Israel destroy Hamas and address the threat without killing many thousands of civilians (including children), making chunks of Gaza uninhabitable, creating a massive refugee crisis on their border, and perpetuating if not worsening the endless enmity between them and the Palestinians, and throwing more fuel on the cycle of grievance and retribution?
I don't know the answers, but I know a horrific dilemma when I see one. Being justified in retaliating and taking out the threat - knowing that innocents die in a war - does not mean being justified in doing so by any means and at any cost. It does seem that there has to a better way. Not a good way, not an easy way, not a destruction and death-free way, but a less egregious way. I don't know what it is, but I fear that the way they have gone about it will make matters worse. Perhaps far worse. I could be - and hope - that I'm wrong.
Apparently, many people think the Israelis need to take lots of casualties with their military just walking in without high explosives/air cover, bombing enemy sites, because...civilian casualties.
Guess what? No military in the world - none, zero, zip - would do that. That's just military malpractice. You use the force you have to take out the target (say, a building people are shooting at you from). If you destroy the building and there happen to be innocents inside, that is perfectly acceptable.
No one expects the side to stop fighting, escort civilians out of the building...all while under fire from the enemy IN THE BUILDING...and then, when they are 100% SURE that there are no civilians left in the building (not sure how they do that, but that is apparently the bar), then they can resume fighting.
Oh and if the enemy in the building kills civilians, well, it's the attackers fault.
For some reason though, Israel is expected to do that.
(continued from below) That, is revenge, pure and simple, and a response that we should have come to condemn a hundred, or a thousand years ago.
Israel should have moved their military into the Gaza Strip immediately after they were attacked, and begun to sift out the innocents, moving them to safety, while sifting out Hamas and those who supported Hamas and moving them into prisons, and in so doing, shown that they are the adults in the room and a rightous example of an improving human race on our planet, and it should not have been a difficult position for any respectable, and especially, a so-called religous entity, to take. This is in fact, yet another example that shows clearly, that religiousity does not equate to respectablility, much less morality. It clearly shows the opposite.
It should have been very simple for Israel to see, because of the fact that they had just then, witnessed the horror of the killing of their own children. Their response SHOULD have been, a military one, yes, but, with the understanding that ya just don't mame and murder kids. Ever.
No right thinking person could imagine that Hamas's attack on Israel was anything but an animalistic atrocity. All right thinking people should, and do for the most part, agree, that their existance on the planet needs to come to an end, and as soon as possible. But, to say that in the past, what happened in war, that innocents have died, does not in any way, excuse or justify the continuation of that kind of policy in the present, or the future.
I for one, would hope that we as a species, would at least be trying to be more advanced than that, that we might be improving ourselves, that we might be doing better. And now, that can, happen. In modern warfare, what with weapons that can very accurately seek out specific targets, that is indeed possible. What with Israel's massive and extremely well equiped military, I would contend that Israel has the ability to do better than to send massive, MASSive, numbers of unguided missiles, for weeks, into the Strip, taking lives and pummeling perfectly good buildings where people did and might have continued to reside, into dust, buildings where they -knew-, innocents, and worse, innocent -children-, did in fact reside, shows no improvement, no maturity in their thinking, and instead shows that they don't care, about right and wrong, and instead, they made clear that it was their deliberate thought out decision to act in anger, to seek a bloody revenge, to destroy lives and property, much as a twelve year old boy might do, with the lame excuse that "innocents die in war". From where I sit, that, is despicable.
The spilling of the blood of children, no matter how much we despise the actions of Hamas, can never be justified if we are to consider ourselves to be a moral, decent, and ethical people.
If someone invades your home, kidnaps, rapes and then murders your innocent daughter, would your answer to that be to find them, kidnap, rape and then murder -their-, innnocent daughters? And then try to justify your actions by saying, "In a war, innocents die"? Really? Because in the view of many, that would be a shocking, lame, atrocious, childish and backward thinking response, and just as animalistic as the actions of Hamas. That is not justice. That, is revenge, pure and simple, and a response that we should have come to condemn a hundred, or a thousand years ago.
Israel should have moved their military into the Gaza Strip immediately after they were attacked, and begun to sift out the innocents, moving them to safety, while sifting out Hamas and those who supported Hamas and moving them into prisons, and in so doing, shown that they are the adults in the room and a rightous example of an improving human race on our planet, and it should not have been a difficult position for any respectable, and especially, a so-called religous entity, to take. This is in fact, yet another example that shows clearly, that religiousity does not equate to respectablility, much less morality. It clearly shows the opposite.
It should have been very simple for Israel to see, because of the fact that they had just then, witnessed the horror of the killing of their own children. Their response SHOULD have been, a military one, yes, but, with the understanding that ya just don't mame and murder kids. Ever.
Well, first, your premise that Israel is just randomly dropping bombs on Gaza ("massive, MASSive, numbers of unguided missiles, for weeks, into the Strip,") is completely countered by the fact that you then claim that Israel TARGETED specific "buildings where they -knew-, innocents, and worse, innocent -children-, did in fact reside."
Which is it? Israel is just randomly carpet bombing or they are using precision weapons to target specific buildings? You can't have it both ways.
Secondly, your idea of "modern warfare" is straight from video games and completely naive. You think it's clean and precise, but it is nothing of the sort. It is messy, tragic and horrible. But Hamas started it, and the Palestinians supported it. It's war.
Example" "Israel should have moved their military into the Gaza Strip immediately after they were attacked, and begun to sift out the innocents" Are you kidding me? You don't think Hamas would have been shooting at them? Didn't Israel need time to organize and plan? Nope - not in your world. Israel is all powerful and Hamas would have just stepped aside and let Israel move civilians.
Good grief that is naive...take a look at the last few weeks and tell us how Hamas just let civilians move to the south of Gaza. Oh, that's right...they didn't...they shot them. Or how Hamas has done no fighting whatsoever in Gaza...LOL, right.
As to your analogy, if my neighbors raped and killed my family (and their family celebrated it), and I found them barricaded and heavily armed in their house, and I had a tank, I certainly wouldn't go walking up, knock on the door and ask the perps to come out so I could have a discussion (and risk getting killed myself). I'd blast it with the tank.
" if my neighbors raped and killed my family, and I found them barricaded and heavily armed in their house, and I had a tank, I certainly wouldn't go walking up, knock on the door and ask the perps to come out so I could have a discussion (and risk getting killed myself). I'd blast it with the tank."
But you forget, Scott, there are innocent women and CHILDREN, inside of that house that you would blow up, from the safety of the inside of a tank. Real tough guy. Huh. Your morality is childish, and lacking, and you have clearly never worked out a code of ethics for yourself, that is in any way, ethical. You would simply -assume- that everybody in that house, is "heavily armed, and barricaded", and then blow the place to hell. Wow. Just wow. What if they aren't, all Hamas fighters? What if even a few of them, are hostages? Innocents? Guys like you have a habit of making shit up to fit your narrative, and you've done that here. I can't believe how small you are. Grown men would surround the house and force the bad guys to surrender, even if they have to starve them out. American cops do this all of the time.
No, it’s you who are the Internet tough guy. You think you’d just go barging into a house where you know there are bad guys who are armed?
Thats Call of Duty/Rambo fantasy.
“Starve them out”
Huh…aren’t we told that’s inhumane? A siege? A violation of international law and that Israel can’t do that?
Again - you’re in fantasy land.
“The cops”
Who exactly are the “cops” Israel is to turn to for justice? No one. So your idea that the “cops” can just wait it out is again - fantasy. They have no choice but to take out the bad guys.
Oh the bad guys won’t let their wives and kids go? Those deaths are on them. Not me.
As is the norm with you Scott, your reading skills show that you are not worth an attempt to respond.
And unfortunately innocent men, women and children have died in every war since the beginning of time.
Devastating and horrific, but true.
Of course. Absolutely true. Does that mean that it should always, and forever, be so?
Reality check: good people everywhere wish for peace on earth - elusive dream. Knowing more as the years pile on, I’ve become convinced there are just enough sociopathic or selfish or heartless humans within our ranks corruptible by money and power for evil, greed and ego to keep the elusive dream from ever happening. Sorry to admit this; I want peace and love more than anything.
Thank you for taking this on. There is no comprehension being shown in Nathan Meade's comments of what urban warfare is like, or of the numbers involved. The IDF is one of the best trained and best armed forces in the world, but it is SMALL, because Israel is a small country. Every casualty in a small force is a massive loss in relative terms. The only way that they could have "moved their military into the Gaza Strip immediately after they were attacked, and begun to sift out the innocents, moving them to safety, while sifting out Hamas and those who supported Hamas and moving them into prisons" is if Hamas had immediately laid down their arms, surrendered, and come out with their hands up. Instead, Hamas is doing what they always do: using the civilian population as human shields while they try to kill as many Israelis as possible.
"Their response SHOULD have been, a military one, yes, but, with the understanding that ya just don't mame [sic] and murder kids. Ever." I wish that Nathan Meade would inform us how that's supposed to happen when the terrorists are using the kids as human shields.
Nope. There are an estimated 30-40,000 Hamas fighters. 300,000 Israeli soldiers assembled to move into Gaza. Sounds pretty much like the kind of standoff that happens on a regular basis, in hostage situations, all over America, and nearly every day. Bad guys often use hostages to escape, or, as you say, as human shields, and yet our police forces, somehow, manage to free hostages the vast majority of the time, and only rarely do hostages get killed. And our Cops in the US never, ever, fire missiles into buildings where hostage situations exist. That, would be a ludicrous idea.
Thousands, of Gaza residents have been killed, perhaps tens, of thousands, in order to protect 200+ hostages. Oh! But they are AMERICAN and ISRAELI hostages, which of course makes all of the difference in the world ! .. ? Not in my book. I have no dog in this fight. A human life, is a human life, and all, are precious. Again. This is about revenge. This is Bibi exacting revenge, and I believe, for political reasons. He's just trying to hold onto power, and that, to me, is revolting.
This is not a police action against a criminal gang, it's a military response to a genocidal attack by a heavily armed, non-state military force. Your concern for human life may be admirable, but a stubborn refusal to recognize the crucial category difference is leading you to a faulty analysis and some very bad conclusions.
Here's a more fact-based way to look at it: https://quillette.com/2023/11/20/israel-gaza-and-proportionality/
Military force? I think you give them far too much credit. Hamas is nothing but a bunch of murdering thugs with automatic weapons and rocket launchers. What they did was one of the most horrific things I've ever read or heard about. Line up the actual perps? I would shoot them myself.
--But the answer was not to kill tens of thousands of innocents from a safe distance--.
In my view, Bibi used the pain and anger of his own citizens as a political tool, to show them that he is the tough guy. He did this in order to give the people of his own country the revenge that they naturaly would and did want, that anyone would want, in order to regain their favor, in order to try to stay in power. I don't claim to have all of the answers, and I'm not on either side of this fight. All I've been saying, is that that weeks-long bombing of innocent people, was wrong.
Again. Israel had 300,000 well trained soldiers at the border. Hamas had 30,000-40,000 fighters, but Bibi knew that his people wouldn't put up with one more Israeli death. He would have lost the little support that he had left, so he just bombed the hell out of the entire northern half of the Gaza Strip. I'm not the only one who thinks his responce to the Hamas attack was wrong. I would go farther and say it was insane, except for the fact that it wasn't. It was cruel, and calulated, and done for political reasons. That, like the Hamas attack, was despicable.
My god Scott. Your reading comprehension is shamefully lacking. I said that Israel "targeted" the entire northern Gaza Strip, knowing full well that innocent people were inside of those buildings. I didn't say that Israel used targeting weapons, I said that they COULD have used them against Hamas. "I would contend that Israel has the ability to do better.." than to send massive, MASSive, numbers of unguided missiles, for weeks, into the Strip. I'm sorry that I confused you.
"Didn't Israel need time to organize and plan?" They took as much time as they saw fit, and then they started to send missiles, indiscrimantly, into the Gaza Strip! Everybody knows this. And I never said that warefare "can be clean and precise". YOU said I said that, while repeatedly acusing me of being naive. Wow. I could go on, but I'll just stop there. You are a man without vision, an ability to see a better future than what we have now, and yes, your reading comprehension needs a great deal of improvement. I'd work on that. My comment stands, and I'm now done with you.