I’m sorry, but there is no situation where it is permissible to stand idle as someone suffers an untimely and preventable death.

Even soldiers at war, captured in foreign territory without visas, are entitled to lifesaving care.

OK. So by that logic, let’s say you are touring Europe and have a heart attack. The paramedics are in the area and available, but refuse to take you to the hospital. You are left to die on the street.

You think you deserve such foul treatment?

When a government is informed that people are dying within its waters, and the gov has the capability to respond but deliberately chooses not to because the victims are “african”, you think that the government bears no responsibity for their deaths?

Is it really so different though? The outcome of both situations is the same. Migrants are dying, through direct action and deliberate inaction.

Mediterranean nations have the opportunity to protect lives, but instead they choose kill / let migrants die.

You are defending willful negligence that leads to the deaths of migrants.

Up to 1 in 13 migrants die in the Mediterranean. Italy as well as Greece have been allowing migrants to die as a part of deterrence-based migration policy. Rescuing the passengers of capsized migrant vessels has been criminalized. There are plenty of articles that confirm these facts. Here is one example.

Are you trying to equate the ideology of a political regime with a minority population of South Africans?

South Africa had no right to exist as an apartheid state, and Israel has no right to exist as an apartheid state.

After apartheid ended and living conditions improved, black South Africans didn’t go and slaughter every white South African as retribution, so when Israel says freed Palestinians would slaughter all Israelites, why should we believe them?

If the occupation ended today and Palestinians were allowed to live fairly and given ample resources to rebuild, what reason would they have to seek further conflict? If treated fairly, why would Palestinians act any differently than the South Africans freed from apartheid? This conflict is ultimately the direct result of unfair treatment after all.

Why are there foreign judges serving in Hong Kong?

It is a holdover from Hong Kong’s past as a British colony. After the UK handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997, the agreement between the countries stipulated that the special territory would continue to operate with its freedoms and systems for 50 years- including its common law legal system which operates in several other jurisdictions worldwide. Currently there seven foreign judges remaining on the court– three British and four from Australia.

So, foreign judges who are meddling in HK affairs are upset that China (the inheritor of HK) is meddling in HK affairs?

If the West actually cared about HK independence, why do they wish to maintain colonial judges in HK courts? If they cared, shouldn’t HK judges be in HK courts?

While China has been heavy handed in its effort to speed up the timeline of the power transfer, in the end, the West has concluded that HK is to be Chinese territory. By the West’s own policy, these are foreign judges getting kicked out by the “rightful” new rulers, just a bit early.

Sure, but “effectiveness” is usually not a binary and is often difficult to measure. Small, but persistent changes should still add up. Eventually.

So long as people recognize that these things are in fact quite toothless, I’m not sure they are entirely detrimental. There’s no reason this couldn’t be used as a starting point for more effective action, now that signatories are in greater contact with the campaign.

I don’t know.

I still think there’s at least some value, even if the only thing it accomplishes is getting people to talk about it. Many people have never even heard of The Internet Archive.

Either way, there isn’t really a reason not to.

Sure, but it is still better than doing nothing.

I expected a bit more competency from pew research, but it seems that this quiz misses the mark quite badly.

If the plant tastes very bitter or soapy

brb, eating soap

That’s fair.

Is it not tax evasion/fraud? In the US, either can bring criminal charges. For a smaller municipality, is there no assistance available from higher government?

It’s both.

An example of bad urban planning is low density urban sprawl, which requires lots of resources for few housing units.

Less housing, price go up. High build cost, price go up.

Blaming AirBnB for high housing prices is like setting up a chain of dominos, and criticizing a guy who comes by and knocks it over.

Yeah, and that’s exactly what they chose to do. They contributed to the reasons John Public can’t afford housing, and were rewarded massively for it.

If it wasn’t him, it would have been someone else, or the wind.

Yeah, anyone can rob a bank with poor security, but we should still punish the guy who actually robs the bank.

Cops would rather beat up college students and the unhoused than go after landlords.

that’s an expense that’s hard to justify to taxpayers

Ah, yes. We don’t have money because collecting taxes would be too expensive. Classic.

EDIT:

https://www.businessinsider.com/irs-tax-audits-recover-12-dollars-for-every-dollar-spent-2023-6?op=1

I would say it is quite well established that Israel wants to continue the conflict. I don’t think that is an opinion at this point.

Sure, the title isn’t the best, but isn’t that also the point they are trying to make?

To put it briefly, the story is being reported on, but it seems that the media who live off clicks and eyeballs are basically doing the equivalent of “anti-clickbait” and downplaying the significance of these stories.

The referenced article primarily critiques the phrasing and tone of the headlines. Through engineering of the headline, you can affect how the body of the article is perceived. The headlines are all quite flaccid and downplay the significance of the refusal. Not coming to an agreement right now, is an admission of intent to enter Rafa.

Headlines are very important as many people will only skim the title. Perhaps you did the same here, and were bamboozled by the headline of the original article?

The links you posted here are just more examples of what the original piece was criticising.

Of course this could all be addressed by designing robust systems that implement strong redundancy, safety checks, and sufficient regulation, but that increases complexity and costs money.