[-] absentbird@lemm.ee 1 points 3 days ago

She's been pushing for a ceasefire since way before Biden supported it. I think her first calls for it came soon after the conflict started.

[-] absentbird@lemm.ee 5 points 1 week ago

All I'm saying is that taxing the rich is good and necessary for as long as they exist. Sure, our current system is a disparity engine, but it's not impossible for us to dilute the effects of it with progressive tax policies, as has been done in years past.

Personally I don't see it as a choice of either tax the rich or abolish capitalism. I see the two goals as mutually connected to liberation and progress: tax the rich until we can replace the system with a better one.

Building coalitions around progressive policies within the current system can help shift more people into alignment with post-capitalist thinking. Fomenting divisions between socialists and progressives does the opposite; solidarity forever.

[-] absentbird@lemm.ee 36 points 1 week ago

You don't have to go that far back to find a time when the rich were heavily taxed and income disparity was much smaller. Keep going back and you can find other times when the disparity was greater and the rich were taxed less.

The best outcome may require the system to be torn down, but it's clearly also possible to tax the rich significantly more even with the system already in place.

[-] absentbird@lemm.ee 3 points 1 week ago

Noone has to do anything.

The original tweet essentially said that all women have a mission from God to use their bodies to make babies. At the very least it's a value judgment on how women live their lives.

There seems to be a sustained campaign against having kids.

I have never encountered this. There is absolutely a sustained campaign for bodily autonomy, and for the acceptance of people who choose not to reproduce; but I haven't encountered anyone talking like the original tweet, saying women have a mission from God to not have kids or something.

This is just fighting against the natural way of life.

Here we go again with imposing judgements on people who don't reproduce. I feel like that's the bigger 'sustained campaign' in this conversation. The natural way of life changes over time, it used to be natural to die young from a bacterial infection, or to have your village sacked by marauders. We don't need to have the same pressures to keep reproduction high as in the past. Populations are still increasing, but people are out here blaming women for not doing it faster? Just take a breath, it's going to be okay.

[-] absentbird@lemm.ee 19 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I think they're advocating that women can choose for themselves what kind of person to be, and the fact their bodies are capable of gestating new humans doesn't obligate them to do so.

It's sort of like how the fact a man's body may be capable of entertaining others by dressing their penis up in a tiny coat and hat doesn't mean we should bully an entire gender into making that the purpose of their existence, nor does it mean we're advocating for a world without sharp dressed dicks.

Let people live their lives based on who they are, not the abilities of their genitals.

[-] absentbird@lemm.ee 4 points 2 weeks ago

I guess the other difference is that the Leaf is front wheel drive only, so as long as the truck lifts the front wheels there's no risk to anything going wrong.

Personally I like it when EVs aren't too different from regular cars, the leaf is basically a Nissan Rogue, but instead of a gas engine there's an electric one, and instead of a gas tank there's a battery pack.

[-] absentbird@lemm.ee 3 points 2 weeks ago

I'm not sure how other EVs do it, but the Nissan Leaf can be put into neutral, since it uses a single motor under the hood. I'm sure putting motors in the wheels complicates things, but I would think the coast idea would work.

[-] absentbird@lemm.ee 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Fair enough.

If you did like using straws you could just swipe some of the salt onto the rim of the straw.

[-] absentbird@lemm.ee 17 points 2 weeks ago

V762 Cassiopeiae: am I a joke to you?

[-] absentbird@lemm.ee 3 points 2 weeks ago

Why not just use the straw?

[-] absentbird@lemm.ee 1 points 3 weeks ago

To each their own. Personally I can't stand MS Office, I think Google Docs is easier for most nontechnical people these days anyway. For the rare cases when Office is needed, the web version works fine on Linux.

LibreOffice works great, and WPS Office is proprietary but at least it's free.

Personally I write my documents in markdown and use pandoc to convert them into PDF or docx or whatever. It's like writing the source code and then compiling, I like it.

I'm sure you've looked into all that, but for anyone else who is interested in alternatives those are my recommendations.

1032
submitted 1 month ago by absentbird@lemm.ee to c/politics@lemmy.world

Reminds me of that SNL skit he was in: https://youtu.be/7AWuBh1MbbM?si=UVg016Prcl9WbYYB

75
Pride System Icon (gitlab.com)
submitted 4 months ago by absentbird@lemm.ee to c/foss@beehaw.org

Just a little system tray icon to show support for the LGBTQ+ community.

Originally created last year as a simple one-off project in response to Windows 11 users getting mad about a pride icon appearing on their task bar.

This year I remade it in Go, added support for Windows (7 and up), and improved compatibility with a variety of Linux environments.

Let me know what you think, or don’t, just please be nice about it.

17
Pride System Icon (gitlab.com)
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by absentbird@lemm.ee to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

Just a little system tray icon to show support for the LGBTQ+ community.

Originally created last year as a simple one-off project in response to Windows 11 users getting mad about a pride icon appearing on their task bar.

This year I remade it in Go, added support for Windows (7 and up), and improved compatibility with a variety of Linux environments.

Let me know what you think, or don't, just please be nice about it.

54
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by absentbird@lemm.ee to c/linux@lemmy.ml
106
submitted 4 months ago by absentbird@lemm.ee to c/world@lemmy.world

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said he is interested in a "partial deal" with Hamas that will free "some of the hostages" held in Gaza and allow Israel to continue fighting in the enclave.

Why it matters: Netanyahu's remarks walk back an Israeli proposal for a three-phase deal that would lead to the release of all remaining 120 hostages and to "sustainable calm" in Gaza.

  • More than 37,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to local health officials.
  • Netanyahu's comments contradicted statements by Biden administration officials who in recent days said Netanyahu and his aides had reiterated their support for the proposal.
  • In recent weeks, Netanyahu's radical right-wing coalition partners, ultranationalist ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, threatened to leave the coalition and topple the government if the proposal turns into an agreement.

Flashback: The proposal was approved by the Israeli war cabinet in late May and was presented publicly by President Biden in a speech on May 31.

  • The Biden administration mobilized broad international support for the proposal and managed to get the UN Security Council to pass a resolution endorsing it.
  • Hamas officially responded to the proposal nearly two weeks after Biden's speech. The group asked for changes in the proposal and raised new demands that went beyond its own previous positions, * U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on June 12.
  • Blinken said at the time that while Israel accepted the proposal, Hamas didn't

Driving the news: Netanyahu remarks were part of an interview with Israel's Channel 14, a pro-Netanyahu television channel.

  • When Netanyahu was asked if he agreed to end the war as part of a hostage deal he said he didn't. "I will not stop the war and leave Hamas standing in Gaza," he said.
  • "I am ready to do a partial deal, it is no secret, that will bring back some of the people. But we are committed to continue the war after the pause in order to achieve the goal of destroying Hamas. I will not give up on this," he added.

Between the lines: Netanyahu claimed his position "was no secret" but it was the first time that he spoke publicly about a "partial deal" or suggested he hadn't intended to implement all three phases in the Israeli proposal.

What they're saying: The Hostages Families Forum Headquarters, an NGO that represents most of the hostages' families and is pushing for their release, attacked Netanyahu for his remarks.

  • "We strongly condemn the Prime Minister's statement in which he walked back from the Israeli proposal. This means he is abandoning 120 hostages and harms the moral duty of the state of Israel to its citizens," they said.

The big picture: The Israeli Prime Minister's remarks are likely to increase tensions between the Israeli government and the White House, which have grown in recent days over Netanyahu's claims that the Biden administration is withholding weapons from Israel.

  • Netanyahu said on Sunday at the start of a cabinet meeting that there was a dramatic decrease in the munitions coming to Israel from the U.S. beginning four months ago.
  • "For long weeks, we turned to our American friends and requested that the shipments be expedited. We did this time and again. We did so at the highest levels, and at all levels, and we did so behind closed doors. We received all sorts of explanations, but the basic situation did not change. Certain items arrived sporadically but the munitions at large remained behind," he said.
  • Netanyahu claimed that only after there was no change in the shipments, he decided to go public in order to "open the bottleneck".
78
submitted 4 months ago by absentbird@lemm.ee to c/world@lemmy.world

The military leader of Hamas has said he believes he has gained the upper hand over Israel and that the spiralling civilian death toll in Gaza would work in the militant group’s favor, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal, citing leaked messages the newspaper said it had seen.

“We have the Israelis right where we want them,” Yahya Sinwar told other Hamas leaders recently, according to one of the messages, the WSJ reported Monday. In another, Sinwar is said to have described civilian deaths as “necessary sacrifices” while citing past independence-related conflicts in countries like Algeria.

The messages reported by the WSJ offer a rare glimpse into the mind of the man steering Hamas’ thinking on the war and suggest an uncompromising determination to continue fighting, regardless of the human cost.

Sinwar’s alleged comments emerged as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was on another tour through the Middle East to push all sides to agree to the latest proposal. Speaking from Tel Aviv on Tuesday, Blinken made it clear that the US believes Sinwar is the ultimate decision-maker.

“I think there are there those who have influenced, but influence is one thing, actually getting a decision made is the is another thing. I don’t think anyone other than the Hamas leadership in Gaza actually are the ones who can make decisions,” Blinken said, adding that “that is what we are waiting on.”

Blinken said that Hamas’ answer to the proposal will reveal the group’s priorities.

“We await the answer from Hamas in and that will speak volumes about what they want, what they’re looking for, who they’re looking after,” Blinken said. “Are they looking after one guy who may be for now safe … I don’t know, 10 stories underground somewhere in Gaza, while the people that he purports to represent continue to suffer in a crossfire of his own making? Or will he do what’s necessary to actually move this to a better place, to help end the suffering of people to help bring real security to Israelis and Palestinians alike.”

In early messages to ceasefire negotiators, Sinwar seemed “surprised” by the brutality of the October 7 attack on Israel.

“Things went out of control,” Sinwar said in one of his messages, according to the WSJ, adding he was “referring to gangs taking civilian women and children as hostages.”

“People got caught up in this, and that should not have happened,” Sinwar said, according to the WSJ.

78
submitted 4 months ago by absentbird@lemm.ee to c/world@lemmy.world

Speaking to ABC News on Sunday morning, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the US had "every expectation" that Israel would "say yes" to the proposed ceasefire deal if Hamas accepts.

"We're waiting for an official response from Hamas," he said, adding that the US hopes that both sides agree to start the first phase of the plan "as soon as possible".

During that initial six-week pause in the fighting, Mr Kirby said the "two sides would sit down and try to negotiate what phase two could look like, and when that could begin".

1
Slava Ukraini (lemm.ee)
submitted 7 months ago by absentbird@lemm.ee to c/memes@midwest.social
830
submitted 8 months ago by absentbird@lemm.ee to c/world@lemmy.world

The US will begin air dropping food aid to the people of Gaza, President Joe Biden announced on Friday, as the humanitarian crisis deepens and Israel continues to resist opening additional land crossings to allow more assistance into the war-torn strip.

Speaking in the Oval Office, Biden said the US would be "pulling out every stop" to get additional aid into Gaza, which has been under heavy bombardment by Israel since the October 7 Hamas terror attacks.

"Aid flowing to Gaza is nowhere nearly enough," the US President said, noting "hundreds of trucks" should be entering the enclave.

Biden said the US is "going to insist that Israel facilitate more trucks and more routes to get more and more people the help they need, no excuses".

He also noted the efforts to broker a deal to free the hostages and secure an "immediate ceasefire" that would allow additional aid in.

view more: next ›

absentbird

joined 1 year ago