scoobdog

As Buddy alluded, Passover is intrinsically connected to Christian Easter traditions, specifically the “Passion of Christ” sequence, so it’s far more likely that earliest exposure to the religious festival would come from more universal pop cultural references like, say, DaVinci’s The Last Supper. Judaism has never secularized its religious practices in the way that Christianity has, nonetheless through the prism of Christianity it gets nearly as much exposure.

The death of Archie is like that too. It's too much a stretch given the original tone of the series.

I didn’t think a phone could gaslight you but here we are.

You know, I think Icarus sounds more balanced than you.

Bro, when you tell a corpse she’s smoking hot, that’s supposed to be figurative…

Don’t tell Chris Rock.

My autocorrect never makes me sound that cool.

He's becoming the new face of traumatic brain injuries.

It was a ducking shame.

Afford doesn’t mean just financially, it means overall capability. In the simplest possible terms, Iran would not be able to defend itself if it got into open conflict with the US without the backing of Russia and (probably) China. They don’t have the manpower, the technologically advanced weaponry, the financial backing, or the regional alliances to sustain their integrity outside of their own borders, and that’s no better exemplified by the assassination that precipitated this. Ultimately their isolation puts them in the unenviable situation of needing to essentially play a very high stakes bluff.

Israel is in a fairly weak position without its big brothers, but it’s immaterial given that everyone besides Israel and the Palestinians treats this as a proxy war… and that includes the United States. The whole point of telegraphing the missile barrage is to see how the US deploys its defense system and who it gets to sign on for the operation. Russia isn’t going to be of any help and China has no interest in getting involved, so who does the US get for their side? TheIranians are inviting the West into the region with this operation, but that might have benefits for the Palestinians. It potentially puts American air forces in the region and makes it more difficult for the IDF to use their aerial attacks as capriciously. It also diffuses the powder keg on the northern border. We’ll see if this eventually pushes everyone toward a ceasefire.

The only thing I can think of to explain this is that Iran needed to retaliate, but still can’t afford an all out war with the West. That in turn suggests that their alliance with Russia isn’t offering the resources it promised.

On that, this whole thing has unfolded in slow motion, which brings up a few points. Iran had to have anticipated the response given the unusually long time between announcing it would retaliate and the actual retaliation. Not that I want more innocent people to die, but it doesn’t seem effective to delay the actual air strike unless there’s another purpose.

Saudi Arabia is mortal enemies with Iran, so they would, naturally, assist any operation that diffuses an Iranian attack.

We don't, or at least, we shouldn't.

I know they did, and it's utterly unforgivable that we have to address the ineptitude of Netanyahu's government and the IDF rather than talk about the atrocities committed by Hamas.

What gets me about all this is that no one has really discussed the third possibility, that he did it and that this might have been the first high profile case of CTE.

Nah, that was just my family reunion.

Ghosty, we all know you stand for justice and the rights of all people.

(Like Buddy said....) Generational monikers are fundamentally arbitrary. They exist mostly to document how changes to social structure, economy, and technology combine to shape a particular group of people. The concept itself didn't become a thing until the Baby Boom happened, largely as a response to fundamental changes in how the "Greatest Generation" changed their approach to raising "Boomers" from their parents'.

I guess that's what happens when you bomb indiscriminately and kill hostages.

This is what you would typically call a "Nothingburger" because it amounts to little more than roughly a week's difference, and, while there is clearly a power move at play the time difference it too close for the Republicans to have any actual leverage.

The term doesn’t explicitly apply to an age range, though it’s generally thought of as the last 1/3 of the generation. Xennials are the group of Xers that came of age at the start of the internet age.

That’s perfect. To think Ghosty had that planned all along.

Fixed that for you.