The New Coffee Room

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A long but very interesting piece on recent military and political events. The analysis on how European diplomacy is functioning is insightful.

https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/42507

I thought so, too. I’ve always wondered about the “filmed live before a studio audience” sitcoms about how much the cameras and crew interfere with the visibility. Anybody here ever sit in one of those audiences?

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https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/18/world/middleeast/gaza-aid-convoy-looted-unrwa-israel.html

A large convoy of trucks carrying aid was “violently looted” in the Gaza Strip over the weekend and its drivers forced at gunpoint to unload supplies, the main United Nations agency that helps Palestinians said on Monday, calling it one of the worst such incidents of the war.

The agency, known as UNRWA, said in a statement on Monday that the convoy of 109 trucks had been driving from the Kerem Shalom border crossing in southern Gaza when it was looted on Saturday. Most of the trucks were lost, some of the drivers were reportedly shot, and some vehicles sustained extensive damage, the agency said.

Only 11 trucks made it to their destination, said Louise Wateridge, an UNRWA spokeswoman currently in Gaza. Attackers shot the trucks’ tires out in order to stop and loot some of the vehicles, she said, and the agency is still waiting to hear how many casualties there were, and what types of injuries convoy members sustained.

The incident highlighted the difficulties aid workers face bringing aid into Gaza, despite months of attempts to help it arrive safely. The need is urgent. Earlier this month, a U.N.-backed panel said that all of Gaza faced a risk of famine between now and April, with the north at particular risk.

“People at the moment are absolutely desperate for anything,” Ms. Wateridge said. “We’re back at a stage where we’re seeing people literally fighting over a bag of flour.”

She said: “Israeli authorities continue to restrict a huge amount of the humanitarian response. Everything here is being strangled — food, flour, water — everything.”

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the episode. It was not clear who was responsible for the looting. In the past, Israel has accused Hamas militants of robbing aid convoys to supply their own forces. Hamas also did not respond to a request for comment.

The convoy had been scheduled to enter Gaza on Sunday, but the Israeli military instructed it to leave a day earlier “at short notice via an alternate, unfamiliar route,” he U.N. agency said.

Ms. Wateridge told The New York Times that her agency was instructed a day before the scheduled transport that the convoy had to leave within 30 minutes — a huge logistical risk for drivers, who had little mobile data access to plan for the new routes safely.

"In the past Israel has accused..."

Well, NYT, who was responsible for the looting? C'mon gimme a wild-assed guess. Is it just possible that it was someone whose organization starts with "H"? It took you 7 paragraphs to even say the word.

I love the way Earth rotates.

It totally makes my day.

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Just started it. Very, very interesting.

Best trivia? Musk's father was thinking of naming him "Nice," pronounced like the city in France. Reconsidered when "nice musk" would be the way it was pronounced. Hard childhood and an easy read, so far.

They’d need a valuation model that would survive an audit. I doubt they’re fucking with it. Doesn’t mean their model is perfect. Hard to imagine how to value it, it has meme stock potential and you can’t very well model that.

McCarthy:

All search warrants involve the possibility of forced entry. All of them involve police seizures of property, which can subject the personnel involved to legal risks as well as safety risks. The cops or federal agents usually do a good job of identifying themselves during the process of seeking or forcing entry; yet there are tragic instances in which people inside the premises mistakenly believe violent criminals, rather than cops, are trying to get in, resulting in physical confrontations including, sometimes, exchanges of gunfire.

As a result, and as a matter of common sense, the FBI always has an operational plan for carrying out a court-authorized search. That plan customarily involves reminding the search teams of the FBI’s use-of-force policies. Those policies, of course, include a refresher on the conditions under which lethal force may be used. This is to prepare law-enforcement officials for contingencies that are all too familiar, and to protect the agency and agents in the event of later legal claims.

If you don’t instantly grasp why police agencies would perform these prudential steps, you must have been living under a rock for the last decade or so, which has featured no shortage of instances in which allegations of excessive police force have been made (and a thankfully small percentage of instances when excessive force was actually used), with intense scrutiny and occasional rioting in the aftermath.

It would have been surprising if the Mar-a-Lago search hadn’t been conducted in accordance with an operational plan of which use-of-force policies were a component. It was important to do this search by the book — more on that momentarily. But there was never anticipation that force, much less lethal force, would be used, and there was never any threat to the former president. My understanding is that the FBI was reluctant to do the search — it was Justice Department officials who ran out of patience with Trump’s intransigence. The bureau intentionally carried out the search when it was known that Trump was not on the premises.

Watching a Canadian show from 2012 called Continuum. It's about some folks who time travel from 2077 back to 2012. There's a "protector" (policewoman) who is tracking a group who were slated for execution for crimes against the state. It's not a 3 star series (46 episodes) - worth binging but not lifealtering.

Excellent. When Lucas started getting his sense of smell back it was fairly rapid progress. Hopefully it will be the same for her!

@jon-nyc

FFS

I've installed a plugin for reactions. You can react to a post by clicking on the little emoji that now shows up under a post.

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Let's see whether this adds anything to the board. If it is annoying I can always disable it.

Mayo Spuds

Mayonnaise-Roasted Potatoes

1/2 c mayonnaise or Miracle Whip dressing
1 Tbsp dried rosemary
1 Tbsp garlic powder
1 Tbsp onion powder
1 tsp seasoned salt or Mrs. Dash
1 Tbsp water
2 lb small red potatoes, quartered

Mix mayonnaise, seasonings, and water in a large bowl or gallon-size plastic bag.

Add potatoes; toss to coat.

Place potatoes on a greased cookie sheet.

Bake at 400 degrees for 30-40 minutes or until golden brown; stirring after 15 minutes.

NOTE: Oregano can be substituted for all or part of the rosemary. Feel free to decrease garlic and onion powders depending on your preference.

Came out very good. Took only 30 minutes.

However, woefully under-spiced. Couldn't taste the rosemary and needed more salt.

Link to video

Nah. What the world needs is a lot fewer pussy males like you.

@LuFins-Dad said in Whither the GOP post Trump 2020 election loss:

Depends, were those people fired?

If one person makes a bad comment about closely working with President Trump, yeah, he could be a sour grape. Five people who worked closely with him, hmmm maybe still a sour grape. When you get to 10 or more, I have to think that there is something to it. And again, most of these people are not a junior analyst who only sees President Trump on TV. These are people who probably spent more time on a daily basis with President Trump than his wife.

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/10/25/a-declaration-of-war-fed-and-ecb-plot-to-tax-or-ban-bitcoin-and-use-price-gains-to-escape-357-trillion-doom-loop/

The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis has published a paper this week arguing bitcoin and similar assets could be taxed or banned to help governments maintain deficits.

"A legal prohibition against bitcoin can restore unique implementation of permanent primary deficits, and so can a tax on bitcoin," the paper's authors wrote, adding bitcoin creates a "balanced budget trap" that highlights spending shortfalls.

The Fed has "joined the European Central Bank in its attack on bitcoin," said VanEck's head of digital asset research Matthew Sigel, writing in an X thread that the paper "fantasizes about 'legal prohibition' and extra taxes on bitcoin to ensure government debt remains the 'only risk-free security.'"

A team of biologists recently discovered a new parasitic wasp species in the United States that has a unique way of infecting its hosts. Syntretus perlmani lays its eggs in the bodies of living, adult fruit flies instead of larvae or pupae. The wasp larvae then burst out of the fly’s abdomen, killing it.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07919-7

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a,b, The development of wasp larvae inside host flies (a) is accompanied by growth of wasp teratocytes (b, black arrows), which can be seen through the host abdominal cuticle and obstruct the view of the testes (b, white arrow). c, The second and following larval instars lack a head capsule and tail spike, and the final instar grows to nearly the length of the host fly (see Supplementary Video 2). d, Pupal development takes place within a white silken cocoon as is typical of euphorine wasps. e, Larval emergence is always from the abdomen and has been observed to occur between the second and third tergites (dorsolaterally) or laterally through a tear in the abdominal cuticle. f, The adult wasp (male shown) is small, yellowish brown and approximately 1.5 mm in length. Scale bars, 0.5 mm (a–d) and 1 mm (e,f).