BansheeOne

For all the talk about "Russians are targeting hospitals", I'm still kinda startled that their milbloggers are not just admitting it, but saying it's okay because Ukrainians are accepting civilian casualities in their attacks after all. (Autotranslated from Rybar.)

https://www.dw.com/en/israel-pm-optimistic-about-historic-pact-with-saudi-arabia/a-66904593

That's not cynical, just common sense. At election time, governments will naturally play to domestic over international interests. Poland is hardly unique in that - Gerhard Schröder campaigning on opposition to intervention in Iraq springs to mind, and the Polish antics are just a take on the current Republican "America before Ukraine!" from the government side - though admittedly populist parties like the PiS are more prone to building up foreign enemies to present themselves as protectors of the fatherland. Last time around they did that with the attempt to outlaw references to possible Polish complicity in the Holocaust, to the point it caused a diplomatic row with Israel rather than Germany, against which it was aimed. This time it has been German reparations for WW II, and linking the election with a referendum against supposedly EU-enforced immigration à la Orban; their initial presentation of the national continuation of the import ban on Ukrainian grain after it expired at the EU level was also "we'll do this no matter what Berlin and Brussels say!" (who said ... nothing). The escalation against Ukraine itself is probably in part due to nervousness after the recent allegations that Polish embassies issued Schengen work visa to Africans and Asians for bribes, threatening to blow up their anti-immigration selling point. The immediate trigger may however have been Zelensky's UN speech in which he not only critiziced the Eastern European countries enacting national import bans on Ukrainian grain, without naming them, but also expressively lauded Germany supported a permanent German UNSC seat. Which was likely more than the PiS could take. 😁 Hence everyone flipping their lid, Prime Minister Morawieczki going "no more weapons for Ukraine!", and President Duda likening them to a drowning man threatening to drag his rescuers down with him, right before backpedaling that the "no more weapons" thing had been grossly misunderstood. That's however another data point why all the talk of Poland supposedly being built up to become a security exporter in Eastern Europe is of dubious credibility; at least under the PiS, they'll mostly keep exporting their inner insecurity.

Aha! Though apparently the place it was hit is beyond the Russian main line of anti-tank defenses, which some hold to be somewhat significant for miniscule Ukrainian progress.

Actually looks like another near-miss. Even the radar antenna looks undamaged, or at least it's still turning.

No, I don't grasp that in any way, because even back in the early 80s, we were aware that homo- and bisexuality existed when asked by our teacher in the first class dealing with human sexuality, circa third grade in elementary school; and by eighth grade we were exploring our own sexuality, more theoretically for some, more practically for others, sometimes including a crush on a friend of the same sex (I sure had one at 15, and was damn jealous when he in turn got his first girlfriend), like any normal teenager, including Anne Frank. If any parents are kidding themselves that their kids don't know about or are not experiencing these things, and should or even can be be shielded from them, they are very likely sorely mistaken. And if two pages out of 150 in a graphic novel depicting such normalcy in a teenager 80 years ago who fell victim to the Holocaust causes outrage from such parents, I'd say it's no wonder they're bringing up increasingly life-incompetent protected snowflakes who never really grow up, never assume responsibility for themselves, can't handle opposing opinions or inconvenient facts, and form a society in which shouting matches seem to have replaced dialogue, and not getting laid seems a sufficient excuse to shoot up your school, workplace, or a convenient shopping mall to get the attention you deserve.

I know, I know. Reagan was a weak-dick president too, because on his watch Argentina invaded the Falklands, the Russians shot down KAL 007, Islamic Jihad blew up the Marines in Beirut, the Iraqis attacked USS Stark, and Iran mined Samuel B. Roberts. None of them tried to pull any of that shit with a real leader like Clinton.

Okay, let's move those goal posts back to the case under discussion. Who is pushing anything on anyone by using the graphic novel edition of Anne Frank's diary in eighth-grade classes? Near as I can tell, the excitement is mostly about this short passage from the original, in which Anne, after reading an article about blushing, mentions an attraction to her own sex, again a typical phase for many teenagers; also about some others where she talks about getting her period, which she welcomes as a sign of becoming a woman; and two corresponding pages in the graphic novel. If anything, those are toned down a little.

Who is pushing anything on anyone here?

Remember, NATO made Russia invade Ukraine, and then they made Ukraine defend itself, too. Those bastards.

I suspect that if anyone's zooming in on those parts (an aggregate five pages or so from the originals), it's hysterical parents and the public reaction. The point in using Anne Frank's diaries to teach kids about the holocaust has always been that she was a totally normal teenager just like them who fell victim to genocide along with millions of others, and it could happen to everyone. Of course she mused about form and function of genitalia, touching a friend's breasts, and getting her first period, too. But I daresay there's nothing a girl from the 1940s who spent age 13 to 15 hiding in a back building from the Nazis with her family could write that would corrupt her age cohort from Generation Internet. Even Americans. 😄

Or after the elections next month. I think the PiS just ran out of accusations against Russia, Germany and the EU for their campaign. 😁

Azerbaijan takes Artsakh with special military operation inside 24 hours, Russia green with envy.

You mean the Matt Stone/Trey Parker musical which includes an African warlord named General Butt-Fucking Naked who is obsessed with female circumcision? Then "Four Lions" is for you. 😁

I know of course that a federal abortion ban is at best controversial in the GOP, and more likely supported only by a minority; at least since Dobbs cut off their momentum in the midterms. It was just a TankNet broadbrushism, as in "Democrats are commies who want to kill unborns right until birth, then change the gender of the survivors". 😉

Damn, and here I thought it was "Putin". I forgot again that all events in the world are direct results of decisions made by the current POTUS. 😖

Eighth-graders learning that a historical figure their age had teenage thoughts? We certainly can't have that! As an aside, the various edits of the original diary are an interesting story in itself. Anne herself had ambitions to become a writer, and at some point began reworking her entries; she also pasted over two pages of what she thought "dirty jokes" and sexual remarks in the original herself. Her father got parts of both versions from one of the family's supporters after the war and was so impressed by his daughter's accurate descriptions and deep thoughts that he had it published. He had the remaining sexual content and critical entries about her mother and the parents' marriage removed though, which is understandable from his point of view, but restored the names of his family since Anne had used aliases for everyone. For sales in Germany, some anti-German remarks were also changed in the translation from Dutch. Editions published since 2001 have included the previously ommitted content except for the two pages deleted by Anne herself, which were made legible again only in 2018.

By now the he second KC-130J has had its first flight. It should be delivered in early 2024, with the final aircraft following later that year.

That took me a second. 😄

Ten were delivered from Germany before the recent faulty batch, but I haven't seen any pictures of them in Ukraine, just from training in Germany.

Well, you could argue that Trump has a successful populist's proven gut instinct for voter sentiment, and it's telling him that even among famously purist primary voters, it's something which will not damage or possibly even help him.

Considering that this was the Republican stance right until it was actually handed to them by the Supreme Court, at which point they promptly changed course by 180 degrees and started talking about a national abortion ban, this may be the most principled thing Trump ever said ...

There seems to be a problem with the latest batch of ten Leopard 1A5 meant to be delivered to Ukraine. The Ukrainian commission in Poland reportedly refused acceptance on technical grounds, and dispatched German experts agreed they were in need of repairs. Which is rather embarrassing for tanks supposedly just reconditioned.

British-Kenyan singer Roger Whittaker, at 87. He had a big following in Germany since his style fit well into the popular Schlager category, to the point he also sang in German though he didn't understand it. My parents had a record of a local concert, but with English texts; I still know some of them by heart 40 years later.

The thing is, as Merkel's spokesman he articulated the "Merkel doctrine" that Israel's security is raison d'etat for Germany for years; it's no accident he became ambassador to Israel afterwards, though he's actually a journalist by profession. And I see he went to the length of learning to express himself in the language of the host country, which too few political appointees in such positions do. If there is one guy with the public credentials of support for Israel to fill that post, it's him; so accusing him of any ill-willed interference for simply attending a court session, and commenting how important it is, is rather silly. Particularly since his Israeli counterparts, whatever their background, regularly comment on issues like anti-Semitism in German domestic political debate - which everyone expects of them, and few mind, but of course can be technically construed to be interference with internal affairs, too.