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What on earth is centre-right about the ALP? Its essentally Fabian at this point.

They're in bed with the resource and gambling sectors, and other big business.

Their record on making actual changes to benefit the people of the country vs keeping their donors sweet is pretty terrible lately. They've half-arsed so much in the last few years it's becoming a meme.

Fabians, AFAICT, pride themselves on evidence-based policy direction. That would have (for example) implied a full ban on gambling advertising as the government's own enquiry recommended, rather than whatever watered-down industry sop Albo actually pushed through.


This is the reality.


What is the privacy concern vs a weight loss tracker?


Nobody cares that you're fat. But apparently (some) Americans care if your tracker shows that you've missed your period for one or two months before resuming as normal (indicating a possible abortion).


Ultimately the only protection for that is cultural. If a majority of the population is atheist and refuses to subjugate themselves to authority it doesn't matter what data is leaked. Will that day ever come for America? Unlikely.


It's not presently visible, agreed. Two problems with your gates: 1. "intolerant minority" - america's christ-reagan constituency is shrill enough to get its way without coming close to half the electorate, and 2. you can refuse social credit systems like you can punch mist. In other words, you only need perhaps 10% of the electorate to be utter cunts and you're fucked. I don't know what country has below 10% utter cunts... Bhutan?


I think you'll find its not billionaires stopping that, its elected officials.


Yes their are. Majority of elected officials are just their instrument. The amount of money billionaires spend shaping media, lobbying and campaigns to get power and push propaganda to determine who is elected makes the fight to get people like AOC who are working in the interest of society so much harder.


> people like AOC who are working in the interest of society

People like AOC just pander to uneducated populace who'd prefer to use force to take free stuff of other people who work instead of working themselves.

Very easy to keep electing such politicians — just continue giving out more free stuff, so that people think it's the norm, and working is not required, just always taking is fine. People will vote accordingly


> use force to take free stuff of other people who work instead of working themselves.

Funny, to me this describes the investor class.


I'd really love to understand why you see it that way. In what way do investors force anybody to do anything?


Buy up all the property in an area and raise the rents in order to force other people to give them their hard earned cash so that they can spend it on a yacht in Monaco.


They don't force anybody though. People who think that the renting is too expensive and is not worth paying, are free to either 1) move to a place that has cheaper rent, or 2) build a new house from scratch since it's cheaper than renting.

Price of rent increasing in desirable locations is not due to greed or collusion of bad actors (as long as government prevents monopolies), it's due to more people competing to live in a place that can house only a limited number. Of course everybody wants to live in big cities in the US. But rent is very cheap in dying small towns in the middle of nowhere.


>Of course everybody wants to live in big cities in the US. But rent is very cheap in dying small towns in the middle of nowhere.

Another reason why WFH should become more of the norm, it will help solve the issue of expensive housing an rent since it means people could live in these less expensive towns and still be able to work.


That’s also true of companies that AOC wants to raise taxes on. She’s not forcing anyone to pay those taxes. Companies that don’t want to pay those taxes are free to relocate away from America, abandon selling to the US market, and cut themselves off from the American labor supply. Of course every company wants to be successful in big cities in America. But taxes are very low in dying small countries in the middle of nowhere.


What did she give away for free and how can I get more of it?


Other people's money.


Free stuff like roads and schools? Or free stuff like polluted water and air?


That's a grim view on a politician who - looking from the outside - is just thinking and talking like a normal human.

There are a lot of fine shades between a free riding communism and cut-throat capitalism. Finding workable balances is a key aspects of politics.


To understand why the two are one and the same, is first to understand that the US is a plutocracy.


You are soooo close!


This sort of comment does not belong on hacker news.


I cant recall a war in my lifetime (45 years) where is has been impossible to have any idea of damage. Very little coming out of Iran, very little out of the US.

The whole conspiracy around the downed airman https://www.afr.com/world/middle-east/a-ruse-to-snatch-urani... only adds to it.


If you follow established news media, yes. The war is pretty well documented by independent journalists, good information is just harder the find.

I guess it is a combination of established media not doing well financially and lacking in quality and expertise and the general rise of authoritarianism and death of (mainstream) critical journalism. Free press has been severely limited these days.


I have no idea what you are talking about. Modern war is far more documented than at any other point in history. Videos of strikes appear on social media within minutes of happening, there are play-by-play recaps of the exact times and locations strikes occur, and on social media people share pre-warnings of strikes ~30 mins before they happen. People announce and post videos of "planes/cruise missiles spotted over Iraq", meaning strikes are imminent.

Realtime updates of this quantity did not exist for any of the Gulf war, Kosovo War, Iraq war.


Paywall.

They were trying to take Uranium out?


no, it's confirmed bullshit, the uranium is buried under a mountain of rubble and the equipment brought with the special forces (2 MC-130Js worth and ~100 soldiers) is not enough to retrieve anything. There are several tons of uranium buried under the mountain. Any operation to retrieve tons of buried uranium would require dozens of heavy vehicles and weeks to carry out.

the narrative exists for Iranian propaganda purposes because if you look at what happened (US forces set up a forward-operating-base deep within Iranian territory, held it for hours, found the airman, then left without casualties) it's very embarrassing for the Iranians.


According to multiple sources, the uranium of interest is under 500 kgs and easily transported using relatively light motor vehicles. Ted Postol of MIT has done multiple interviews explaining how it would have been managed.

Iran could have easily scattered the material over multiple locations well before the US/Israel hit the site.

Having said that, I find it incomprehensible that if Iran had the material, they didn't finish the task of building a working weapon. If you have resources the US wants to steal, and you have no nukes, you get attacked.


I replied with the enrichment numbers from 2025, where they reported over 9000kg of material, but it triggered some internal HN system and got auto-flagged. Likely due to content.

I agree that Iran had ample time to disperse and hide any material. Any operation with just 2 C130s with of equipment (about 6 humvees worth) is far to inadequate to find and remove it.


The 445kg number is what Prof Postol talks about, with a slide showing the cascades which should take it to weapons grade in a few weeks of work. In one interview he talked about the size of the canisters required to hold the material and how to transport it.

My SUV can easily carry 500kgs, and it's not even a big vehicle.


Fixating only on the ~500kg of 60% grade material is pointless because 1) nobody knows how much nuclear material Iran actually has, those are 2025 "reported" numbers and 2) nobody knows where it is.

It's speculated this material is buried under a mountain, but we have satellite evidence of Iran digging and transporting something out, so nobody knows for sure. Iran also has nuclear facilities that were never inspected by the IAEA. It's possible there's undocumented nuclear material there.

And only removing the 60% grade material without removing the rest is completely silly. Iran has enough centrifuges to convert its 20% grade material into weapons grade in 1-2 months. And has enough 5% material to convert into weapons grade in 8 months to a year. Removing only the 500kgs of 60% grade material would not solve the issue, Iran would be back to where it was in a few months, and doing so would only kick the can down the road.

That's why all (several tons) of the nuclear material needs to be found and removed.


> That's why all (several tons) of the nuclear material needs to be found and removed.

I'm no fan of the vile Iranian regime but this doesn't fly.

All countries should abandon nuclear weapons. Since that's never going to happen, who is the US to make this demand?

Fact is any resource rich country without nukes will attract the thieving USAians. After Venezuela it was Iran, and after Iran it will be Nigeria.


What you wrote is very delusional and I suggest you read about Iran/Israeli relations pre/post 1979; as well as Iran's stance on Bahrain and the UAE. Read up about Iranian territorial ambitions.

Also, read why Iran and Saudi Arabia have hostile relations (it boils down to Shia Iran is angry of Sunni management of Makkah, as Shia Iran wants to control Makkah). And why Iran had friendly relations with Israel for decades until 1979.

In terms Iranian resources, the US does not care at all. Iranian is a minor oil producer, and they are not relevant on the global stage. They produces less oil than China for heavens sake.

The US presense in the middle east exists to counteract against Iranian aggression. Read a history book to understand why.


In terms of artistic merit, it reminds me of https://gillieandmarc.com/collections/sesame-street-drop

Technique is undoubtedly interesting, but content....


How would you argue that more than one arrest is fair in a modern democracy? Can you even point to an arrest where it passes the pub test?


Yes, the ISS as a sadistic Christof


Babies in the tree?


That's Blood Meridian


I've read it twice. Once as a naive 16-year-old. Once, as a young father. Profoundly upsetting the second time.


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