InevitableSwing

InevitableSwing [none/use name] @hexbear.net 3h ago

Al Jazeera

Lebanon death toll hits 486 as Israeli attacks continue
Lebanon’s Health Ministry has reported that since Israeli attacks began on March 2, at least 486 people have been killed and 1,313 others have been wounded.
Amid the growing death toll, our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic report that an Israeli drone targeted a car in the town of Burj Rahal in southern Lebanon, and an Israeli airstrike took place on the town of Srifa, also in southern Lebanon.

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InevitableSwing [none/use name] @hexbear.net 3h ago

Whenever I see a phrase like "taxpayer money" on Bluesky - I know the poster is a super lib.

InevitableSwing [none/use name] @hexbear.net 3h ago

It reminds me of the GOP's efforts to repeal the estate tax. They paid Frank Luntz to come up with a PR solution to get the rubes to be pro-rich. I wonder what they paid him. A million dollars? Anyway - his solution was to call it a "death tax". And that worked like a charm.

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Ninja edit

James L. Martin, chairman of the conservative 60 Plus Association, described Luntz's role as being that of pollster and popularizer of the phrase "death tax."
Martin gained an important ally in GOP pollster Frank Luntz, whose polling revealed that 'death tax' sparked voter resentment in a way that 'inheritance tax' and 'estate tax' couldn't match. After all, who wouldn't be opposed to a 'tax on death'? Luntz shared his findings with Republicans and included the phrase in the GOP's Contract with America. Luntz went so far as to recommend in a memo to GOP lawmakers that they stage press conferences 'at your local mortuary' to dramatize the issue.
'I believe this backdrop will clearly resonate with your constituents,' he wrote. 'Death is something the American people understand.' Apparently, he's right. Spurred by Luntz, Republicans have employed the term 'death tax' so aggressively that it has entered the popular lexicon. Nonpartisan venues like newspapers and magazines have begun to use it in a neutral context—a coup for abolitionists like Martin.
In a confidential memo to the Republican party, Luntz is credited with advising the Bush administration that the phrase "global warming" should be abandoned in favour of "climate change", which he called a "less frightening" phrase than the former.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Luntz

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InevitableSwing [none/use name] @hexbear.net 16h ago

A Bluesky comment

For context: WA is close to passing a law that would add a tax to people earning 1M+ per year that would remove sales tax on various hygiene products and medicine, fund tax credits for families under the poverty line, and provide free meals for students. I guess that’s Nazism to them!

I still have no idea if it's satire or those people have lead poisoned brains.

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InevitableSwing [none/use name] @hexbear.net 16h ago

AP

JUST IN: Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock index plunges more than 7% and other Asian markets also tumble as oil surges to $114 a barrel

That's the whole thing.

InevitableSwing [none/use name] @hexbear.net 18h ago

Mood

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InevitableSwing [none/use name] @hexbear.net 22h ago

Centcom is pretending the Iranians are using human shields.

U.S. Forces Issue Safety Warning to Civilians in Iran - x.comU.S. Central Command @CENTCOM

Note - Xcancel doesn't work.

Full text

TAMPA, Fla. – U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) is issuing a safety warning to civilians in Iran, March 8, as Iran’s terrorist regime blatantly disregards the safety of innocent people.

The Iranian regime is using heavily populated civilian areas to conduct military operations, including launching one-way attack drones and ballistic missiles. This dangerous decision risks the lives of all civilians in Iran since locations used for military purposes lose protected status and could become legitimate military targets under international law.

Iranian forces are using crowded areas surrounded by civilians in cities such as Dezful, Esfahan and Shiraz to launch attack drones and ballistic missiles. U.S. forces strongly urge civilians in Iran to stay at home. The Iranian regime is knowingly endangering innocent lives. Additionally, Iranian forces are jeopardizing the safety of innocent people throughout the Middle East by deliberately and indiscriminately targeting civilian airports, hotels, and residential neighborhoods.

“Iran’s terrorist regime is blatantly disregarding civilian lives by attacking Gulf partners while compromising the safety of their own people,” said Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of CENTCOM. Iran has launched hundreds of ballistic missiles and thousands of one-way attack drones since Feb 28. However, launch rates have drastically declined as U.S. and partner forces decimate Iran’s military capabilities.

The U.S. military takes every feasible precaution to minimize harm to civilians but cannot guarantee civilian safety in or near facilities used by the Iranian regime for military purposes. Unlike the Iranian regime, U.S. forces do not target or intentionally risk the safety of civilians.

I had to fix the layout by hand.

InevitableSwing [none/use name] @hexbear.net 22h ago

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InevitableSwing [none/use name] @hexbear.net 22h ago

Scoop: U.S. dismayed by Israel's Iran fuel strikes, sources say - axios.com

Full text

Israel's strikes on 30 Iranian fuel depots Saturday went far beyond what the U.S. expected when Israel notified it in advance, sparking the first significant disagreement between the allies since the war began eight days ago, according to a U.S. official, Israeli official and a source with knowledge.

The U.S. is concerned Israeli strikes on infrastructure that serves ordinary Iranians could backfire strategically, rallying Iranian society to support the regime and driving up oil prices. The Israeli air force's Saturday strikes created large fires in Tehran, igniting flames visible for miles and blanketing the capital in heavy smoke.

The IDF claimed in a statement that the fuel depots "are used by the Iranian regime to supply fuel to different consumers including its military organs." An Israeli military official said the strikes were intended in part to tell Iran to stop targeting Israeli civilian infrastructure.

Israeli and U.S. officials said the IDF notified the U.S. military ahead of the strikes. But a U.S. official said that the U.S. military was surprised by how wide-ranging they were.

"We don't think it was a good idea," a senior U.S. official said.
An Israeli official said the U.S. message to Israel was "WTF".

The White House and the IDF didn't comment. While the facilities that were struck are not oil production facilities, U.S. officials are concerned the footage of burning depots could removedoil markets and push energy prices even higher.

"The president doesn't like the attack. He wants to save the oil. He doesn't want to burn it. And it reminds people of higher gas prices," a Trump adviser told Axios. The spokesman for Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya headquarters, which oversees the military operations, warned Saturday that if attacks on Iran's oil infrastructure continue, Tehran may respond with similar strikes across the region.

He added that Iran so far hasn't targeted regional fuel and energy infrastructure and threatened that if Iran does, oil prices could hit $200 a barrel. Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, one of the most senior officials in the regime, warned that if attacks on infrastructure continue, Iran will retaliate "without delay."

A U.S. official says the disagreement and what the U.S. expects in the war is expected to be addressed at senior political levels between the two allies.

I removed annoying shit like "Why it matters:". Also - Axios's layout is idiotic. I created sane paragraphs.

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InevitableSwing [none/use name] @hexbear.net 22h ago

Al Jezeera

Khamenei’s son named as Iran’s new leader
Mojtaba Khamenei, the second son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been named as Iran’s new leader, state media report.

InevitableSwing [none/use name] @hexbear.net 22h ago

FT

More than half a million people had been displaced across Lebanon in less than a week of hostilities between Israel and Lebanese militant group Hizbollah, the government said on Sunday. Authorities have registered 517,000 on its online portal, but the actual number is likely to be higher. The cash-strapped government has struggled to accommodate the large number of people who have been forced to flee their homes as Israel has called on residents of large swaths of the country to evacuate.

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InevitableSwing [none/use name] @hexbear.net 23h ago

Tehrangeles

It is a shopping, eating and gathering place for the large number (estimates range from 500,000–600,000) of Iranian-Americans and their descendants residing in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the largest such community outside of Iran.

InevitableSwing [none/use name] @hexbear.net 1d ago

Through September

Telling Trump what he wants to hear. What could go wrong?

InevitableSwing [none/use name] @hexbear.net 1d ago

I'll leave this here in case you missed this gem.

Economic possibilities for Gaza - by Noah Smith
It doesn't hurt to dream of better days.
NOAH SMITH
OCT 19, 2023

A sampling - he has a section called "Easy wins: tourism, tax haven, and natural gas".

InevitableSwing [none/use name] @hexbear.net 2d ago

every single wave changing the beach face just a little.

How Sunlight Pushes Asteroids. It's a page at NASA and there's a ~2 minute video.

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InevitableSwing [none/use name] @hexbear.net 2d ago

Shellbanks

Is there a more common term than shellbank? Wikipedia doesn't have it and I googled but the results where for financial institutions, a turtle DNA project, and Swedish site that wasn't useful for me.