Thoughts on Assange's reprieve

Yes, Julian Assange was granted the right to appeal his extradition to the US, which the British court said could still eventually happen if the US offered sufficient guarantees of potential incarceration-related issues and, above all, no death penalty.

And?

The US has lied about this to other countries before. Namely, about whether or not someone would be sent to the infamous Supermax (ADX in Bureau of Prisons lingo) in Florence, Colorado.

One of the longest-running and most revealing lawsuits filed by an ADX prisoner was brought in 2020 by Mostafa Kamel Mostafa, the former imam of London’s Finsbury Park mosque, which was shut down by U.K. authorities in 2003 because of its ties to jihadists. Charged with aiding in terrorist plots, Mostafa fought extradition to the United States for more than eight years. Extradition was finally granted after U.S. officials assured the European Court of Human Rights that he would not be sent to ADX. In fact, his medical conditions and physical disabilities were so severe — Mostafa is missing both of his forearms and is nearly blind, the result of a chemical explosion in 1993 — that the European court concluded “there was no real risk of his spending anything more than a short period of time at ADX.”

But after he was convicted in New York in 2014 and sentenced to life in prison, Mostafa was sent to H Unit in ADX, where he’s been housed ever since, in a cell that offers few concessions to his disabilities.

There you are.

EPA continues to kneecap itself on CAFE

Adjusting emissions to vehicle size is part of how Dear Leader's EPA killed its own Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, standards. The piece notes that EPA is now, more than a decade later, finally taking a look at the impact of this rule change. (That's not the only way, though; E85 "flex fuel" loopholes were another way, just in time for Dear Leader's re-election campaign in Iowan and elsewhere in the Corn Belt.)

Meanwhile, the Biden EPA has new standards out. But? They're weaker than originally proposed, in part due to another backpedaling from Biden's original push on electric vehicles. 

Something is better than nothing, though. On the pickup truck side, the new standards may be at least a modest push to reverse the steroid-like growth of pickups over the past decade. Serious? If you see an F-150 from 20 years ago on the highway? Take note. Doesn't it look like a Ford Ranger of today?

Bye, Randy Langstraat

I have written briefly about Flickr photographer Randy Langstraat before, mainly on Twitter. 

I have noted his claims to have "captured" sunbursts, which he frames to shoot at the edge of a rock, when it's clear, by the regularity of the bursts, that he's using a filter. 

 I can't remember how much I've written before about something more serious, and non-photographic. That is, per the late David Roberts, that he appears to be one of those people who feel compelled, when hiking in the Southwest, to gather potsherds into one place, on top of a rock, for display. 

At times, he's hiking places with enough visitation, even in more backcountry, that, per Roberts' worries, he's not destroying "provenance" of the potsherds. In other places he's been at, though, he may be. 

A recent visit of his to Homolovi State Park in Aridzona has a twist. I quote: Shortly before sunset we went on one final hike together to the Homolovi I Pueblo where we found potsherds scattered all over the ground. But, in the picture that is captioned, they're NOT "all over the ground." They're on top of two rocks. So, were they there before, or did he put them there? Ditto with a lower picture, where the caption says: We found a couple large potsherds at this site, too. But, the pictured potsherds are all on one rock.  

In this album and blog post and many others, he has some great photos of petroglyphs, too, and has pictographs in other albums and on other blog posts. But, he rarely digs into details. He may say that site X is Fremont, not Anasazi, but he won't go into more details, like Basketmaker III, Puebloan I or whatever, nor will he talk much, beyond a Kokopelli, about what the figurines may represent, other than generally giving most of them Anglo names. I also am not totally fond of one of his hiking friends not spelling things like "Hubbell" correctly. There's also, to be honest, the bits of envy that DINKs who are in the tech world have both money and free time to blow.

In the album after that, he had THREE sunbursts. Enough. Bye.

Thoughts on Reddit and Zionism

Reddit may just be the front page of the internet in one way. Its algorithm for what subs it shows me is at least as stupid as Twitter and Fuckbook showing me what accounts I "should" follow.

About two weeks ago, I got presented r/jewish in my feed.

First, are there actual antisemitic instances happening today? (NOT antizionist ones.) Yes.

Have they increased since Oct. 7, 2023? If so, not that much.

Is antisemitism in the US worse today than 20-30 years ago? I doubt it, and certainly not worse than 40 or more years ago.

Does every pro-Palestinian supporter want you, individual Jewish commenter, or all Jews, dead? Of course not. But, as part of this post:

I cut ties with pro-Pal people. I don’t want to associate with people who want me dead.

There you go.

No, what you probably really don't want is associating with people who challenge "casual Zionism."

And, that same person, "NYSenseOfHumor," proves my point with their second lie:

They all chant “from the river to the sea,” so yes, they want all Jews dead.

And, lie it is. And, while it's a bit trollish, I'm also dead damn serious when I respond to bullshit like that with:

"From the river to the sea, Zionist lies will never set you free."

That same thread has one person who does explicitly call out Bibi. And an even bigger kudo for "iloveforeverstamps" saying:

Plenty of "Zionists" are antisemitic. We are talking about a real country with a government and a military, and any serious discussion SHOULD be far more complex than "If you're not with us, you're against us". Any stance that can be fully explained in a few sentences is not adequate for making decisions about your relationships and life.

Bottom line. Their whole comment is great.

But then, the lies continue. Being anti-Israel is not being anti-Jew. 

And, on that post and in plenty of others, the old lie that anti-Zionism is antisemitism is repeated ad infinitum.

And, although I didn't see the phrase "self-hating Jew," this, about Jewish Voices for Peace:

JVP is false flag BS

Is close enough.

Well, I din't see "self hating Jew" on THAT post that Reddit suggested to me. 

I figured I'd search for "Finkelstein," as in Norman, within r/Jewish. 

Among the hits?

"I Used to Think 'Self-Hating Jews' Were a Myth."

The ONLY good comment there is this:

Why are there more posts on this sub about people who are jewish and on the left than about people who are jewish and involved in the far right christian nationalist movement? Seems to me like a lot of these accusations apply to the far right activists like ben shapiro and they are actually in a position of power in the world unlike western leftists

Period.

Other posts have the lie that Finkelstein is a Jewish David Irving or similar, which is just not true. His position IS controversial, and IMO pushes envelopes too far. But, he's not a Holocaust denier, and he's not the first Jew to wonder about a possible Holocaust industry being used by the nation of Israel.

I then searched for "Bari Weiss." Other than one post from five years ago, all puff pieces.

Oh, a lot of these folks on those posts say variations of "I'm involved in Hillel." Rather than that giving you a pass for seemingly being in a lovey-dovey organization, per this piece at Mondoweiss, it's a self-own.

Otherwise? These people are online socially isolating, to the degree they are, based on a fear that's largely consciously self-induced based on a mix of cherry-picking, strawmanning and "othering."

Otherwise, two? There's plenty of racism there. Some of it's generic anti-Arab; a lot of it is specifically anti-Palestinian. Related? Some of the racists are also MAGAts. (Shock me.)

Otherwise, part three? These people are liars. They've seen Israeli hasbara refuted again and again. They've seen it shown to be deliberate deep lies. And they keep deliberately repeating it.

Or, in this post, the lies and the racism commingle. (Oh, contra comments on there, "Ashkenazi" is ultimately a linguistic divider as much as anything else. Jews from Poland-Lithuania aren't of totally the same background as Rhineland Jews, just because both speak types of Yiddish. And, far east European Ashkenazis do indeed, by both language and DNA, hint that a "small" version of the Khazar hypothesis has at least a degree of truth. Shlomo Sand knows this in detail; that said, most people at r/Jewish would probably call him a "self-hating Jew" or similar.)

As for the totality of the sub? I'm guessing it's 75 percent full Zionist, 19 percent muddlers/non-Zionist, 4 percent anti-Zionist and 2 percent non-Jewish, however they break out on the Zionism issue.

Texas Progressives talk abortions, Paxton, economy

The Texas Medical Board has partially punted on clarifying exceptions to the state's anti-abortion laws. Not surprising, and in this case, I don't totally blame them. At the federal level, a bureau or agency filling out what a federal law means (Chevron doctrine) is part of the territory. But, here in Tex-ass, it's not supposed to be.

Weasel shit Ken Paxton may pretty much beat the rap in his securities trial, as lead prosecutor Brian Wice is supposedly cutting a sweetheart plea deal that doesn't look a whole lot different than the one a second prosecutor supposedly was negotiating a month ago and that Wice blasted. Update: The rumors were true. Did a Wice assistant leak, trying to push their boss harder? Didn't work, if so.

Tom Oliverson is the first of what will surely be several contestants for Dade Phelan's throne. Phelan has fired back, saying the announcement is unseemly with several runoff elections still to be held, among other things.

"Mattress Matt" McIngvale flies under the radar screen of Ferris Wilks and Tim Dunn, but he's doing his own "hard work" to move Texas from rightist to far right. TNR profiles the reality, not just of his wingnuttery but his shysterism.

The economy is fantastic — unless you want a new job, a new home, or a new car. Let #BlueAnon talking heads spin that one. Biden would like you to compare now to the worst of COVID, and see what a genius he is, but that likely isn't happening. As I said on Twitter to Zachary D. Carter? Inflation is still above pre-COVID levels and unemployment has started creeping up again.

Even if SCOTUS eventually gives SB4 the green light, how are local sheriffs going to enforce it? Let's see Strangeabbott, David Spiller et al pony up all the money and such that would be needed. In addition, AMLO's government in Mexico has already said that on things like repatriations, it will only deal with the US federal government. Greg Abbott, a pouty-faced state version of Trump at times, will thus have reality punching him in his pouty face.

Meet Abraham George, Matt Rinaldi's likely successor as head of the Texas GOP.

Off the Kuff notes that hand counting ballots is still a bad idea.

SocraticGadfly talks about a new airline battle at Love Field.

Stace offers another edition of Thoughts on Viernes covering an SB4 protest, the Firefighter deal in Houston, and the election denying fascist on the METRO board.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project said we must reach out with respect to the Palestinian protest movement. 

Eater Houston looks at the long tradition of Black cowboy culture at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.  

Texas 2036 reports that our state leads the nation in billion dollar disasters. (And probably does not look in detail at how much Texas oil and ranching causes that.)

The Texas Signal looks at the latest report showing a significant increase in medication abortions. 

Evil MoPac has some thoughts about Ken Paxton's anti-porn crusade. 

The Fort Worth Report attended the beginning of construction on Opal Lee's new home.

Israeli genocide hits its Watergate point: What does the president know and when did he know it?

What else can you call it, per my currently pinned Tweet about this Washington Post story from last Monday? The nutgraf is right at the top:

On Oct. 27, three weeks into Israel’s punishing counterattack in Gaza, top Biden officials privately told a small group assembled at the White House what they would not say in public: Israel was regularly bombing buildings without solid intelligence that they were legitimate military targets.

Followed by this:

The previously unreported meeting shows that discrepancies were emerging far earlier than publicly known between the Biden team’s internal doubts about Israel’s conduct and its ironclad external support.

So, I think we're at the point of that Watergate question:

"What did the president know and when did he know it?"

That not enough for you? There's this from Twitter last Friday:

Per Ken, it's clear that Biden's "pier to Gaza" is
A. Like Sarah Palin's bridge to nowhere
B. Purely symbolic
C. Purely shambolic https://t.co/3UevEYH7jy

— TheRealSocraticGadfly 🥝☢️🌻🌲 (@real_gadfly) March 23, 2024

Per others who responded to the Ken Klippenstein Tweet  that I quote-tweeted, I have zero doubt that people fairly high up in the Biden White House knew from the start, from the moment Biden mentioned building this pier, that actually offloading stuff would need a lot more work than that. We're going to have a Pier Massacre about a month after the Flour Massacre with this level of brilliance.

That not enough? Let's wonder how much Genocide Joe already knows — and already knew before the issue became public — about Israel's reported cold-blooded executions at al Shifa hospital. Or torture inside Israeli prisons?

==

It trickles down to executive department spox, like Ms. Singh for the DoD. Biden himself is complicit in these lies.