Friday, January 19: Slipping Mask
This charade can’t hold up much longer.
When Joey Biden is out here admitting on camera that his airstrikes on Yemen aren’t working, we can probably stop operating under the assumption that this bozo is anything but sadistic and cognitively impaired. When his running mate is onstage, seemingly high as a kite, walking crowds through basic math, we can probably recognize that “the lesser of two evils” are both hopelessly out of their depth and evidently incapable of navigating the current chaos in Gaza.
Gaza has been experiencing rolling blackouts for days, but the bombs continue to fall and the death toll continues to mount. In the last week alone Israel has killed at least 1036 Palestinians in Gaza, all while enforcing this total blackout. Those that aren’t killed are either displaced or detained and mistreated beyond belief. A UN human rights official found that Palestinian detainees by Israeli security forces in Gaza were subjected to weeks of imprisonment in unknown locations and physical abuse. Some of these Palestinian men were held by occupying forces for anywhere from 30 to 55 days.
Meanwhile, Benny Netanyahu is stating plainly that he has told US leaders that he’s opposed to a Palestinian state in any postwar scenario. This isn’t exactly breaking news to anyone paying attention, but openly admitting this must be so embarrassing for the US leaders still pointlessly shouting about a “two-state solution”. In a nationally-televised speech, Netanyahu defiantly repeated that the apartheid state won’t stop its genocidal military offensive until it achieves its impossible goals of “destroying Hamas and bringing home all the hostages”. Netanyahu pushed back against any claims that those goals are unrealistic, promising to press ahead for many months and claiming, “We will not settle for anything short of an absolute victory.”
Side Items
Halal Cart Villain Update: After threatening and harassing a halal food cart vendor, Stuart Seldowitz has agreed to complete an anti-bias course and magically had all the charges against him dropped. If you recall, Seldowitz was caught on video telling an Egyptian food worker that 4,000 dead Palestinian children “wasn’t enough”. This man was the acting director for the National Security Council South Asia Directorate under President Obama and was deputy director/senior political officer in the state department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs from 1999 to 2003. I wouldn’t go so far as to post his address, but if you see this clown in the streets of New York, please send him my regards (throw a tomato or two)
Good Guy Pastor: A pastor in Ohio was arraigned in court this week after being hit with 18 zoning law violation charges directly relating to him keeping his church open 24/7 to house the homeless. The city of Bryan, Ohio apparently thinks that operating the church’s 24/7 homeless outreach program violates zoning restrictions. Mind you multiple unhoused people have reportedly died in the past week from the cold. Bryan, OH sounds like a real dork of a town
The Fall of Google Search: I’m old enough to remember when Google’s search engine first came into popularity, which is admittedly a wild thing to think about. I remember being in elementary school and having computer class where we could explore early online search engines like Yahoo or AskJeeves (RIP Jeeves, you deserved better) or Google of course, but the point was these search engines were incredible ways to locate tons of information. Sadly, if you’ve google’d anything recently you know those days are behind us. A new, year-long study found that Google Search has gotten noticeably worse, and top-ranking sites are "on average more optimized, more monetized with affiliate marketing, and they show signs of lower text quality". There’s also evidence of AI-generated top-ranking results for products and services, which just goes to show that you generally can’t trust online reviews