Is it simply impossible for you to imagine that other peoples have different opinions and viewpoints on things?

There are an infinity of viewpoints, and many (most?) of them will be wrong.

• “Lebanon, Iran and the Palestinians can defend themselves” is not wrong.
• “Lebanon and Iran are currently defending themselves” is wrong.

Lebanon isn’t even included in this, Hezbollah is not Lebanon. Iran is attacking Israel. They could stop doing that anytime and have Israel leave them alone. That includes giving up on their uranium enrichment.

Palestinians are a much more complicated situation, because the settler land theft is agression from Israel and should have stopped decades ago. But the current Palestinian leaders (both Hamas and Fatah) don’t actually care to solve that. They would rather have their citizens continue to die so they can continue getting richer. Which is why they encourage deadly attacks on civilian which will keep Netanyahu and his ilk in power, because Israelis like all humans tend to respond to violence with violence.

These are human beings sick of imperialist aggression.

Bullshit. How can you be so blind? Iran is led by right-wing theocrats leaders, they would be imperialist themselves if they could afford to. Actually they are, since they supported Syria when it fucking invaded Lebanon for 30 years. And then left Hezbollah to continue controlling the place, where it has more influence than the actual Lebanese governement, which is supposed to represent the Lebanese people.

Hezbollah does not act in the interest of the Lebanese people, they are murderous thugs that obey their masters in Tehran. If they truly wanted to help Lebanese people, they would not be shooting at Israel. There are so many things in terrible shape in Lebanon they could be fixing, but no, they are a large part of the problem because they want control over making things better.

I’m sorry, but even if this isn’t new, I find it completely insane. Like, mind-blowing. Damn.

Heard something about where you can do dungeons solo-party? I think that was gw2.

“Dungeons” as a general term is understood to be “group content”.

In GW2, these are:

• Dungeons, which you go through with the Core (base game) story, then are available as a max level (don’t worry, you get there fast) content with 3/4 different paths each. They are made so you go through with 5 people. There’s a LFG system which (while ugly,) works and if you don’t find one you can just put up a group yourself with the title “Ascalon Catacombs - Story Mode” or “Caudecus Manor - 1st Path (or P1)”, and it should fill up pretty fast. However, once you have enough mastery over your character, you should be able to solo them. I don’t recommend expecting to be able to solo them easily right off the bat, however.
• Fractals, which are also 5-men content, and are accessible from max level. Those go in difficulty degrees from 1 to 100, and also have a LFG section dedicated to them. Like Dungeons, you could I guess solo them, however this gets harder the higher level you go, and I honestly consider people who can solo the higher levels as madmen.
• Strikes are 10-men content, and are shorter (one boss) events, and go from easy to hard content to go through. They are usually considered end-game content already. With 10 people. I suppose some of the easier ones are soloable, but that seems like an absolute slog to me and very un-fun. A few of them have challenge modes for the challenge-addicted.
• Raids are older content (though they are bringing back a new one in the current expac) which are the highest level of difficulty available of content (though the challenge strikes are harder than some raids, iirc). Those are harder to get into because of the smaller population of dedicated players, you usually need to find a raiding guild to get some training runs in so you can then find a regular roster. I’m honestly not sure how it is nowadays, but my experience with them is limited because I did not enjoy that difficulty level.
• Group Instances are 50-men content, limited in number but generally accessible in difficulty. You just generally pop up at the entry spot whenever it is time for the public entry, then get randomly assigned to an instance completing it (although you can find specialized squads doing them if you look). Those are not soloable, but you don’t need to speak with anyone as people generally know what they have to do and manage to get through.
• I guess World Bosses count also? Those are open world, so just be there a bit before the event starts and you’ll have enough people waiting to do them on the map, so while again they are not “solo”, you don’t actually need to talk to anyone to get your fill of content.

I remember trying Guild Wars 2 and thinking every other player might as well just be a bot because nobody interacted. :(

I’m sorry that was your experience, but this is very much opposite of mine. Not only is the game still going strong (new expac came out like two weeks ago btw, and it’s pretty good!), but in all my years playing (and that’s been since Day 1), I’ve had so many fun interactions in the game.

And that’s without even counting the ones with my guilds. I’ve even had some fun chats in ranked PvP, the saltiest place in the game. I’m playing in European servers, which probably doesn’t change much versus NA, but yeah, there are often conversations going on in map chat, or locally, between total strangers. Also between teams in WvW, during events, during festivals, waiting at the Wall after the Chak Gerent…

It’s a very friendly community and I encourage you to give it another try! And yeah, if you can find a guild suited to your tastes it’s even better!

I’m glad people like that guy exist

Sorry for the delayed answer.

I fail to see how using OpenSecrets is a problem. Be it private donors or foreign groups/governements, all the money is (officially) there, is that not so?

Because in the comment you are answering to, the comparisons are done also against groups funded by private donors. Which should also not be registered under the act. And again, those other groups massively outspend the pro-Israel ones.

What other foreign nation lobbying group donates $14M to the opponent of a congressman and pays for attack ads against him to hurt his chances in an upcoming election? It’s unprecedented.

I have honestly no idea? But from my understanding, any other random lobbying group could also do the same, if they had an interest into it. Hell, maybe they do already but there has been no reporting on it because it’s less interesting if it’s the NRA or Lockheed-Martin?

You are correct though, I did indeed not watch it. Hence I misunderstood the comment I was answering to as being negative towards Signal. Thanks for the added context.

Tell me though, which company will not hand over what data they have when asked by their country’s judiciary?

The question here is how much data they keep. Strict legal minimum or more.

Sure, but even in other categories AIPAC is far from a top-player from what I understand.

Here are the numbers for the 2022 cycle, since 2024 isn’t done yet I found 2022 more relevant.

American Israel Public Affairs Cmte Contributions $13,423,002 Ranks 46 of 34,495

Lobbying Ranks 247 of 8,586 in 2022 $2,723,081 in 2022 $2,757,247 in 2021

Here is the section for the “Pro-Israel” Interest Group, which includes other groups than AIPAC. It still totals 44m$ for 2022.

Here is the page for Lobbying -> Single Issue category, for 2022. Here also, “Pro-Israel” is far from a top player. The “Human Rights” category, which many say is pretty much opposite of what Israel’s governement is doing these days, outspends them 16 to 1.

So everything I’ve seen so far really doesn’t push me to believe that they have such a massive influence that OP or whoever that Cenk Uygur guy is can honestly say “AIPAC controls everything”. Unless someone can show me there are numbers that are not taken into account in OpenSecrets (and then, if that’s the case, give me a comparison in how other groups use those alternative channels), then this is basically antisemitism (“Jews control the world”) from OP and Cenk, currently upvoted at +200.

As much as we can know, it’s legit. Hell, it’s the one mentioned in the sidebar of this place.

They explain in detail their rating, with sources. That’s the most important one. Then, they have transparency on their funding and they are highly reviewed by fellow fact-checkers.

There’s not much more one can do without doing a systematic review of their ratings.

You can see which country spends money in US politics on OpenSecrets, actually.

Link for 2023 spending: https://www.opensecrets.org/fara?cycle=2023

• Country | 2023 Spending

• Liberia $235,465,089

• Saudi Arabia $93,058,680

• China $85,378,704

• Japan $69,410,221

• Hong Kong $55,957,695

• Bahamas $52,861,943

• Marshall Islands $45,711,184

• United Arab Emirates $40,491,794

• South Korea $30,982,223

• Canada $21,529,601

I for one am quite hyped about this new expac. They have really sold me on the Homestead.

You can still try the base game for free if you want to give it another go.

And when it goes on sale, the “Complete” Collection (First three expacs + the Living Story 2, 3, 4 and 5) is a steal at 50$/€. That’s 10 years of content you can catch up to. Even full price I’d say worth it, if you’re looking for a casual-friendly MMO with enough content to keep you entertained for a long time.

Another rec for GW2. I’d recommend you try the F2P game so you get a general sense of the mechanics and see if you like it, then wait for a sale to buy the “Elder Dragon Saga—Complete Collection” for half-price. I mean, there’s enough content for it to be worth 100 bucks, but for 50 it’s a bargain.

Not 100% but 99.9%… IIRC Guild Wars 2 servers had like 1 actual outage in 11 years. They have pretty amazing structure.

Aye

How do people still live without uBlock Origin is beyond me.

I get that we don’t want to increase healthcare costs more, but the working conditions of our public health service are dramatic and should have been improved 20 years ago.

We need a profound reform of the system, because healthcare workers should deserve 40 hour weeks like the rest of us, and doctors should be able to get enough operating hours to get their degree without having to work 70 hour weeks for a literal decade. It’s insane.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/washington-free-beacon/

The other big reason which isn’t covered is privacy (in protests for example)…

But thanks for finding the law, you saved me some time. I’ll just add the equivalent text in the Constitutition

3 The law shall provide for exceptions. These may only be justified on the grounds of health, safety, weather conditions or local custom.