Knightfox

Does anyone actually care what New Zealand thinks? If New Zealand cares so much they can start taking more people in. From what I understand New Zealand is one of the few countries that takes more quota refugees than asylum seekers. That means they take in less asylum seekers than the UN mandated quota of refugees. The UN quota is 1500 per year so their total intake per year is less than 3000 people.

I wouldn't say New Zealand is xenophobic, but they are extremely restrictive on immigration, asylum seekers, and refugees. I play a lot of Path of Exile which is based out of New Zealand and they've stated that to get a job there you have to move to New Zealand because New Zealand law prohibits companies from hiring from outside of New Zealand unless the company can prove that the needed job can't be filled by a New Zealander.

The standard of living in New Zealand is fairly high, but it's mostly because they are NIMBY and I Got Mine.

I honestly don't know enough to say, I'm just repeating what I've heard from others many times over the last decade or so.

Oh that's cool, I ran across the same website while making a comment to another user here.

I'm not super sure how reliable they should be considered to be honest. Looking at Mediabiadfactcheck.com they state that they are mostly factual in reporting but points to their lack of transparency on funding and strongly loaded emotional wording that may be misleading.

Based on the rest of the review it seems that they are really good about being very specific in their statements to avoid inaccuracies. Looking through this article and a few of their other articles they mostly focus on local accounts (X person said this, they live in Gaza) or third party references (Y on Twitter said this based on an article by Z at the BBC).

Another representation of this style of reporting would be this example:

Headline: "The Election Was Stolen!"

Body: New information has come out about an investigation into the legitimacy of the 2020 election. SOUTHERN boy on Twitter shows a video of FBI officials going into the election offices to perform an investigation. SOUTHERN boy also recently posted a potential connection between the investigation and the Trump 2020 election, but it hasn't been picked up by the mainstream media.

We also spoke to Melissa Simpson in Mississippi and she says she and all her neighbors believe the election was stolen.

Since 2020 Trump has been telling everyone that, "The Election Was Stolen!" Does SOUTHERN boys information show the proof to Trump's claim?

End example

Technically nothing I posted is false, I'm not making any claims myself, but anyone reading this would know the subtext to my article.

A lot of people have no objection about receiving news about Palestinians from blatantly pro Israeli outlets. So yeah, there is one Pro Palestinian source, surely the balanced person would take info from both.

In the real world this is certainly true, there are way more Pro-Israel publications and listening to an opposing opinion is wise, but on Lemmy it seems that the vast majority of active persons have been unwilling to accept any Israel source, no matter how tangential.

The double standards have to stop. Either object against both, or read both and decide for yourself.

There's nothing to say this person doesn't, and given the amount of flak Israel related sources get it's worth noting the bias here as well.

But to always call out just Palestinian sources, it smells of cultural oppression

I completely agree, but I am somewhat thrown by the choice of name by this publication. It just lacks a certain professionalism associated with good journalism. This isn't to say it's not a worthwhile source, it's just not the best name. It's kinda like if someone named their publication the Digital Revolution, the Uprising, or something similar, I'm just gonna cringe a bit and be skeptical from the start.

Looking online I found this site (https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/electronic-intifada/) which reviews the bias of various media sources. Based on this it's just a group of international journalists with their publication based out of Chicago. Their information seems to be mostly from grass roots reporting or third and fourth party accounts.

EDIT: I wanted to quickly follow up, I'm reading through the article now and it's a real shit show for navigating. In general I'm not familiar enough with the people they reference that it's really hard to get a good read on this article. It's kinda like if I said that a guy I know named Billy works at the city and he said he spoke with the Mayor who said that crime is on the rise, but the Chief of Police released a report to the contrary. Billy could be worthwhile, but I don't know Billy and I can't readily find good references to the Mayor's statement.

Even the representation of the original referenced article by YNet is kinda shit. For example, they use a reference to Syrian Girl on Twitter who is referencing Yoav Zitun on YNet, who is referencing a paraphrased statement from Lieutenant Colonel A. Zitun states that the Lieutenant ordered the Fighters to shoot everything near the fence and later attacked their own installation so that other troops could move up to it. Syrian Girl makes the connection that Zitun's reporting indicates that the military was blindly killing everything that moves (including their own troops) and EI runs with that sentiment.

In Zitun's own article (included at the bottom of the EI article) it is clear that unrestricted firing was only in proximity to the fence itself but other bypasses of firing restrictions were approved separately as needed or were taken by Fighters without approval.

From what I've heard the BBB is as much a BS organization as HP, companies can pay to have the complaints removed.

Not the OP, but I think that's exactly what they're talking about, entertainment. I don't know if Korea has overtaken Japan in that sphere, but it's certainly significant. I'd also point out that Korea's COVID response was so organized that there was a period of time that it was being looked to and mentioned in the media which is culturally relevant (kinda like pointing out the Finnish education system or the German reputation for engineering).

In all honesty, if this wasn't serving as a proxy war that might have been possible, but I think with China, Iran, and Russia squaring up to support Palestine there's no way we're going to cut off Israel. From a big picture perspective Israel is the only real ally the US or western powers have in the middle east and even if we dumped them for the crimes they commit it would ultimately hurt the US and western powers to abandon or sanction them.

I saw an article saying that Belgium is considering sanctions against Israel, but Belgium is also a NATO country and only has 24k active troops with an additional 6k in reserves. In 2022 Belgium had the third lowest % GDP military investment out of the NATO countries.

Whether we like it or not the big players in the game aren't looking at the atrocities Israel commits in Gaza, they're looking at whether they will have a foothold and ally in the middle east if we have a World War.

We as individuals can take a stance on the conflict without considering the geopolitical outcomes, but to be able to do so we should admit that we are in a place of privilege. I imagine that if news came out that Ukraine blew up a school Poland still would still support Ukraine, because they're right next door.

At the same time, countries which don't meaningfully contribute to their own defense should recognize their privilege when it comes to the world stage.

EDIT: Had accidentally called Ukraine Russia, fixed now.

Hell we would probably have deployed troops to Gaza and also to stand by in case of actions from Iran, Egypt, Lebanon, or Syria.

I kinda wish there was more discussion about the long term outcomes. I personally don't think a two state option is going to work, especially those that hinge on control of Jerusalem. An independent Palestinian state could be established, but would almost certainly be controlled by Hamas or other like minded groups.

Hamas believes in a two state solution so far as it gains territory, but I think that as soon as that is accomplished the long term plan would be to eventually destroy Israel and make a Reunified Palestine.

If this is true then there will never be peace until either Palestine or Israel is utterly destroyed.

Conversely, if Israel doesn't just take over Palestine completely things are likely to continue as they have since the 60's. Hamas does a terrorist attack, Israel responds by blowing up a school, rinse and repeat forever because the groups in control of each side are fucking extremist conservative monsters that believe their magical space daddy is right.

I'm not making excuses for the atrocities committed by Israel or Hamas, I'm just laying out the road map for the next 100 years. If you had to pick between Hamas (or Hamas like) controlled Palestine or Zionist controlled Israel which would you prefer?

I guess there is a third and fourth option, the third option is to have no opinion and whatever happens happens. The fourth option would be to, somehow, maintain the status quo and wait till a time where both sides stop believing in the extremist religious dogma. The fourth option could be something like a UN occupation of Israel Palestine to prevent the two sides from killing each other?

EDIT: Also, if you look at the proposed maps for a two state solution you should already know that a two state solution wouldn't work, it's like if Cold War Germany had a baby with the Michigan UP and somehow the offspring was even worse.

I have Windows 10, so things may be different for 11 or whatever version you're on, but can't you just uninstall OneDrive without specifically closing it? I feel like that's what I did when it was default installed.

You're literally my parents. They were long term landlords, bought properties for nothing in the 90's rented them for 20-30 years and then sold them. Most properties were long term rentals, people lived there for 5+ years, one lady had 6 kids in 10 years in one of their houses. Rents in their area are ~$1200-2000, my parents were still renting at $700 because the place was paid off and the people living there had been there for nearly a decade.

Side hustle landlords ain't the enemy, it's the corporate landlords that are the true problem. Unfortunately the people being oppressively fucked don't see a difference and it's hard to blame them.

Hope your side hustle works out for you and I hope you stay one of the good ones.

EDIT: My parents both have full time jobs, having rentals wasn't a job for them. They rented to pay the mortgage and pay for upkeep. The long term plan for them was to sell the houses and retire, not live off rent for perpetuity. They rented the properties at a rate that allowed them to pay the mortgage off quickly and pay for landlord repairs (roof, HVAC, water heater, septic tank, etc).

No, you misunderstand what I mean.

Ah I see, you're correct, I did misunderstand you. I think your point is true, but still lacks finesse in describing the relationship between developers and digital store fronts. I also think you're disregarding the benefit that the additional 18% cut the developer gets to keep as well as creating partnership options rather than being stuck with a defacto monopoly.

I also don't think it's fair to compare GOG or Humble Bundle with Epic or Steam, their purposes and market share is so much smaller than Steam. Epic isn't trying to compete with GOG or Humble.

Also, you're correct that the developer is making money either way, but they are making a larger percentage on sales through Epic. You're probably right that the developers aren't taking that into account, but they are materially benefited by its success. If they fail to account for that benefit and Epic fails then it will mean they make less money overall.

I think instead of your McDonalds example a better one would be contractors for a large business. Maybe your business frequently uses an electrical contractor and due to special circumstances the field is exceptionally limited (specialty license or security clearance). There is one contractor available and they have a monopoly and can charge whatever they want. So far this company has been really fair and not abused their power, but a new contractor becomes available. The new contractor has an inferior service line and is a bit slower, but they're also cheaper. You could just ignore the new contractor and what happens happens, but in the real world it's fairly common for businesses to diversify service contracts to maintain a pool of available contractors.