Yeah, it's really dumb. The banks basically pay some Muslim Imam DEI bux to get their blessing and then they're good to go offering Islamic compliant loans.
On a normal mortgage you pay principal and interest amortized over many years.
With an Islamic mortgage, when you purchase a property, you have the purchase price of the property and then a bank fee. That bank fee is then split over many years. Exactly like interest. But it's a fee.
I've over simplified, but that's basically it.
It wouldn't surprise me at all. Things have to have changed since I was there. Additionally, I was not deeply under cover. The really deeply under cover people can spend a career working for CIA and literally never once come to HQ. I imagine they gv\ave the DO agents different rules.
If CIA cared that much they'd tell their people not drive to work with their phones in the car. Google/Apple, telecom, and insurance companies know who nearly every employee is.
They did when I worked there (briefly, 15 years ago).
They, at the time, told people to take the batteries out of their phones before they got close to HQ. They said even back then that they had evidence of foreign services utilizing cellphone towers with malicious tracking devices. I guess cell phone towers are basically public so any company, or shell company, is allowed access. Anyway, you were supposed to take the battery out because that just made your cellphone "disappear" as if it lost signal, ran out of battery, etc. If you turned off your phone it sends a "shutting down" signal which they thought was more suspicious.
I have no idea how they manage things now that cellphones rarely have removable batteries. No phones were allowed to come into the building, you had to leave them in your car. People who needed to be on call had pagers--in the 2010s~!
Another good one was being able to figure out who was CIA or military based on their strava runs in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
CIA is anal as fuck about releasing the names of just about anyone who works there. The head of what used to be called the Directorate of Operations (DO) and is now the NCS (National Clandestine Service) -- the spying division -- used always be undercover, for instance. A very large percentage of CIA employees have a random cover name they use for interagency emails, etc.
I was basing my statement on these quotes:
"What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing."
I don't think this is particularly serious, but it is, nonetheless stupid as fuck and a huge mistake.
This reporter being added to the Signal chat seems to be a simple accident (not negligence) and they only discussed at most Secret info, which isn't required to stay in a secure area.
Hard to say. If it was discussing operational details and information that was gained via TS means (SI, etc) then technically it all could have been under TS.
Agree 100% about Hillary.
How the fuck does someone invite a journalist into the group chat and no one notices? Crazy
Of course they do. But do the secure options work between military and all the other people involve? Are they as easy to use or as good (user features) as as convenient? No, but they are secure.
Who knows, maybe everyone was using hardened phones already. Either way, major fuckup. Anyone who freaked out over Hillary's email server should be really upset by this too.
Same etymology, the Greek word for circle is kuklos, and the Ku Klux Klan was probably a derivation from that (a social circle).
When I was a kid, my mom used to go to used bookstores and fill up a grocery bag with harlequin romance novels to give to my grandmother. Grandma read lots of other stuff too, but she loved the bodice rippers.. Nothing new here!
Yep, typical conspiracy nut—just keep moving those goal posts, and DARVO when you’re caught.
The historiography of Nile-Euphrates is nil.
I don’t know what HIAS is, but sure, those are great targets.
Got it. The Israeli flag, adopted more than a century ago, references the Oded Yonon plan from 1982. It also doesn’t say what you claim.
Typical for conspiracy theories you quickly fallback to nonsensical personal attacks.
The only thing that actually matters is that Israel has de facto control over the US government and because of that is able to act the way it does. Once Israel loses unconditional western support the problem would solve itself.
Ok, so on that point, we are in total agreement.
Ranting that "Greater Israel" exists, extends from the Nile to the Euphrates, and is the goal of the Israeli government and people destroys this political debate. The second someone starts saying "those sneaky Jews are getting ready to annex Egypt and Iraq!" and starts trotting out tired and thoroughly debunked propaganda lines, the argument is over, and the cry of "anti-semitism" wins the day.
Focus on what's really happening.
I think one of the best images is the mass of Orthodox settlers tramping through the al-Aqsa mosque. Who can support that? I bet 99% of Americans don't even know it it happens.
Focus on the Democrat obsession with privilege and people of color. There's hay to make there.
Focusing on thoroughly debunked and moronic claims like the Nile-Euphrates state of Israel is just a distraction and an inanity.
That kind of argument can go both ways.
If Israel is seeking to control from the Nile to the Euphrates, why did it pull out of the Sinai in 1979? Why did Israel pull out of Lebanon in 2000? Why did Israel pull out of Gaza in the 1950s, destroy settlements and pull out again the 1980s and in 2005, etc.?
There are obviously many factors, but the prime one is lack of popular support from Israeli citizens to continue occupations.
Given the weight of the historical evidence, Israel has, on multiple occasions, ceded land for peace. It worked with Egypt and has held for more than 45 years.
I have never been able to understand why, when Israel's abuses in the West Bank are so flagrant and when troops of settlers are allowed to run amok on the Temple Mount, why do nutter conspiracy theorists start frothing at the mouth about Israeli plans to annex Cairo and Iraq.
It's crazy. It distracts from the real issues. I'm half inclined to label the worst of the conspiracy theorists as Zionist shills distracting from everything that actually matters.
Greater Israel isn't a random conspiracy theory that someone pulled out of their ass.
Read what I've said, consistently, since my first post.
Israel nationalists having expansionistic goals (specifically, southern Syria, Trans-Jordan, Sinai, etc.) is not a conspiracy theory.
I've also out that these are minority viewpoints and a very large chunk of Israeli society would even withdraw entirely from the West Bank.
"Greater Israel" meaning the Nile to the Euphrates, willfully ignorant and foolish conspiracy theory.
Bwahaha yes, that's right, despite having been in conflict with Palestinians in around 3,000 sq miles of land for 70 years with no resolution in sight and thousands of dead Israelis in just the last year, Israel wants to annex 100,000s of square miles and 10s of million more Muslims. Then, they will genocide them, and the rest of the world will just sit there.
Bat. Shit. Crazy.
But they've already moved beyond the Golan heights. And they've occupied large parts of Lebanon in the past and then were subsequently kicked out.
Quoted from my OP: "Syria (Mt Hermon / Druze areas), and maybe even Lebanon"
You phrase that like they did it voluntarily and weren't forced to do so.
Yes, the Egypt–Israel peace treaty of 1979.
So calling it 'batshit crazy hyperbole' is a bit... hyperbolic don't you think?
No, saying that Israel wants to annex everything from the Nile to the Euphrates is stupider than batshit crazy. Anyone who thinks that Israel wants to control Cairo, Aleppo, Damascus, Amman, Najaf, and Karbala and the 10s of millions of Arab Muslims in those regions is willfully ignorant.
That's a complete reading comprehension fail.
Your first sentence about the West Bank is a non sequitur and irrelevant.
Regime change in Syria was obviously at least a temporarily good thing for Israel. The Assad family had been fighting Israel for more than 50 years. In the power vacuum, Israel could wipe out the vast majority of Syrian military hardware. Did I really need to spell that out for you?
Third, another reading fail. Not even a reading comprehension fail, just a reading fail.
It's the curse of most conspiracy theories that even while believing in a seed of truth—Israeli nationalist expansionist goals—the conspiracy theorist has to take things to such a batshit insane level (e.g., Israel wants to annex all land between the Nile and the Euphrates) that everyone else just gets sick of hearing about it and walks away.
By making shit up and spouting falsehoods that are easily debunked, you make anyone who is anti-Zionist and anti-Israel look like a loon.
Batshit crazy hyperbole doesn't help you make your point.
Are there segments of the Israeli government and citizenry that would like to annex some additional lands in Egypt (Sinai), Jordan, Syria (Mt Hermon / Druze areas), and maybe even Lebanon? Yes.
Beyond the Sinai? Beyond the Golan? Beyond the immediate trans-Jordan? No.
Even the most rabid and insane Jewish nationalist knows that occupying vast swathes of territory where Jews would be outnumbered 1000:1 is a fools errand.
Israeli public opinion polling has shown, for years, that somewhere around 40-50%+ of the population supports pulling out of the West Bank even.
Israeli already gave up the Sinai once and it worked--they've had peace with Egypt for more than 40 years.
I wish he still did more of it, instead of treating it as secondary to being a wierd furry/yaoi vtuber.
Hmm.. Could’ve got without knowing that. He has a Farms thread and everything..
Renting also can make sense for people who are not going to stay in place for long.
I've seen different analyses, and it of courses hinges on whether property values are going up, down, or staying the same, but the usual numbers I've seen are that ownership makes sense if you will be there for 3+ years.
Renting often makes sense for professional athletes. They can be traded any time. Their career can end any time. They spend much of their time in other cities. Many don’t spend more than a year at a time in one place.
Living above your means, or burning that much money in rent, period, is moronic.
I bet he's good at the Cardassian neck trick.
Very good point about leftists 100 years ago.
It’s pretty ironic. For much of my early life I was a hardcore libertarian. While my family has been religious, I’ve never been religious, and deism is not an important part—not any part—of my life.
Today, I firmly believe that we need something like a Catholic church to help maintain order and cultural stability.
Human-centric leftism decays into nihilism and self-destruction.
It's been a long time since I've watched The Orville and I don't think I ever saw the third season. My memory of the Bortus/Klyden thing is that their government basically mandated male-male relationships (reproduction was never explained that I recall).
One of them, Klyden, was born a biological female, but as a child was forced to undergo sex mutilation to appear male.
You can read it as a pro-trans "identity" plotline, but the more blunt and direct interpretation is a detrans, forced child sex changes are bad plot.
RIP Norm Macdonald.
Good point! I forgot about that.
A lot of mental gymnastics for the exact same outcomes..