The New Coffee Room

Venezuelan politician Maria Corina Machado wins Nobel Peace Prize

What did the bookmakers say? Long shot? How much would I have made betting on her….

I think a more reasonable option is him getting it in 2026.

at least you have the guts to go up in an elevator to the rock. i dont like those high building views, even for someone who grew up in new york, i hate high floors in buildings. and i think my fear of heights is increasing with age although i never feel it in planes, always get a window seat, which is weird.

@AndyD said in Mildly interesting:

Can't recall seeing a relief map of this area; look at all those mountainous areas in Yemen etc!

yemen is not on the map, thats over to the east across the red sea, maybe you are referring to the Sinai peninsula, which in the south is quite mountainous (eg...Mount Sinai)

@kluurs i get it. no one here is blind to the horrors and we do have our own fair share of tik tok idiots who want to self glorify, but speaking from first hand knowledge, the overwhelming majority of Israelis, including soldiers who are after all, representative of the population as there is mandatory conscription (more or less but thats another topic) are normative people thrown into an impossible situation. yes many non combatants killed. but intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group?

(I could not find any documented sources to a soldier boasting of killing 9 infants....the only thing i found maybe applicable is this news item" https://wisconsinwatch.org/2024/02/israel-gaza-killing-babies-university-of-wisconsin-madison-chabad-fact-brief/ which was of course disinformation)

be that as it may, there is incredible anger here at the flippant use of the word genocide. like by this incredibly misguided young lady with a gazillion followers.

His taste in young interns?

Is there a kindle edition?

@jon-nyc said in Hamas attacks Israel:

Honestly it’s like calling a glance at a black woman’s hair ‘white supremacy’.

You take a word with a well understood and emotionally charged meaning and apply it to something very different with the hopes of getting some of the stink of the word on the new thing.

Of course it also cheapens the word if you’re successful.

This tweet pithily demonstrates that since most of us still assign to the word the original horror it was meant to convey, but there’s a palpable absurdity in its use given Hamas is taking days to decide whether it wants it to end and will probably not quite get there. After all, there’s hunger, and there’s release-the-hostages hunger. Their famine seems to be somewhere between the two.

I agree with all you wrote very eloquently but I think the one problem which facilitates the cheapening of the term is the fact that the holocaust is getting so farther and farther back in history such that many young people simply are disconnected to it ( a recurring theme in this aging forum is that historical events once so present in our psyche are but wisps of memory for young people. Pearl Harbor seems to be forgotten and the impact of 9/11 will be in another generation.matter of time that movies like Schindler’s list or the pianist describing world war 2 will not be made anymore)

Be that as it may, your description of the use of the word genocide is right on target. What a fucked up world. Just reading the descriptions by the flotilla detainees led by Greta of their 48 imprisonment being nazi like, is enough to make you shake your head and think how are people so incredibly stupid.

Old enough to remember the tv shows….

The far side met here also

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/A1NQz37O-rL._SY522_.jpg

This is a story I never knew. The worst naval mishap in American history. 1923. Seven US destroyers crashed into the California coast on a foggy night. Because they were all folllowing the lead ship which made an error in navigation and smashed at full speed into a rocky coast, and one after the other they next ones came flying in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Point_disaster

it’s a neat little bridge between Romantic Prague and 1970s Canadian rock!

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6637577/2025/09/18/mlb-baseball-lifespan-pitches-phillies-yankees/

I like baseball but I didn’t know a lot of the stuff in this article

To be game-ready, though, the balls must be stored for two weeks, untouched, in a humidor set to 70 degrees at 57 percent relative humidity. Three hours before each game, clubhouse attendants apply a mixture of water and mud to 192 balls (16 dozen), which are then inspected by an MLB gameday compliance monitor. Fourteen dozen approved balls, or 168, must be available for each game.

workaround
An L-1 visa allows companies with an international presence to transfer managers, executives, and specialized knowledge workers from a foreign branch or affiliate to the United States, if the transferring employee worked for the related entity abroad for at least one year in the last three years.

so if you work for say microsoft india, microsoft can move you to the USA, did i get that right?

ive seen 18. interesting that most of those i saw in a movie theater although of late, i cant remember going to a theater recently. strictly netflix.

i would go to the british museum, ive been, but like the met, thats a museum you can keep on revisiting and always find new wonders

The black pickup is the spitting image of my pick up. I’ve named her the midnight beast. And yes she is as diesel as they get.

I remember the (alleged) moon landing. I must be old. In fact I even remember JFKs funeral. I was five and I remember we were let out of of kindergarten during the funeral to watch on tv. A very early memory which is vivid.

That’s a hell of a lot of young people who have no personal memory of that day. Think Pearl Harbor 1941 and then 1965. Different generations.

Yes now saying 15 planes, 10 munitions dropped. Enroute refueling. No way the US didn’t know. They have a huge Air Force presence there which means they completely own the skies.

Actually don’t know but that’s what every one here is assuming.