Yep!

Both sides taking the off-ramp, returning to the shadow war, and not attacking each other directly.

999 problems and federation is probably one

Weird. Why are the powers that be hiding 3 posts from you???

Whoa, this was my 1000th post. Huzzah! (or Sorry!)

At least for now, it looks like Iran is downplaying the attacks, which is a good sign for de-escalation.

Unprecedented? Maybe? But unexpected? You’d have to have been deluded to think Iran was just going to take it.

You’ve sort of set that up as either that reaction or no reaction. Everyone expected a reaction. Iran and Israel have been at this a long time. Israel expected a reaction similar to their past actions. And they’ve always avoided direct confrontation. I don’t think I saw anyone predicting that response from Iran before it happened.

No it definitely was. The first attack from Iran from a few months back was done pretty politely.

I’m just skeptical of that. I think their second attack was similar to the first but with less lead time and better weaponry – an amped up version of their initial message which was basically, “don’t fuck with us.”

The main reason I’m skeptical is that I don’t think Iran wants war right now. They had even initially said that Hezbollah was going to responsible for the response. That led to internal debate that was won by more hard line voices. But this really couldn’t be a worse time for war for Iran. They’re probably weaker right now than they’ve ever been. Their economy is terrible and the public hates the government. Their unpopularity led to civil unrest that they violently suppressed, which restored order but increased public dislike of the government. The domestic picture is not rosy right now.

On top of that, their game plan in conflict is to be backed up by their proxies, primarily Hezbollah. That plan is in tatters now. Hamas has probably lost about 75% of their fighters. They’re in no position to be a major threat at the moment. Hezbollah has been weakened and is relatively disorganized compared to a few months ago. They had near absolute trust in Nasrallah and they probably can’t be certain that whoever replaces him will share his level of commitment. The Houthis are further away and are the least reliable of the three. Finally, Iran doesn’t have to lose to lose. Any diminishment of Iran is a relative strengthening of Saudi Arabia that shifts the balance of power in the region.

All of that taken together leads me to think their intention was to put an exclamation mark on their previous message and not dare Israel to go to war with them.

Iran’s response was literally unprecedented. No one could have reasonably expected them to react that way based on their past behaviour.

The point though, is that Israel miscalculated. They saw that attack as similar to past actions they’d taken. They didn’t see it as an escalation and, most importantly, they didn’t think Iran would see it that way. They were extremely wrong. Similarly, though based on much less information, I suspect that Iran’s most recent attack wasn’t intended as a massive escalation but as coming right up to the line without crossing it. More saying “we are deadly fucking serious.” It wasn’t taken that way.

The larger point is that two sides that don’t talk to each other making estimates of reactions to violent responses is dangerous as fuck.

Wiki:

The Maeil Business Newspaper (Korean: 매일경제신문), also simply known as Maekyung (derived from the pronunciation of the Korean name) or MK, is a comprehensive daily newspaper published in South Korea, first issued on March 24, 1966. The president of the publishing company is Chang Dae-whan.

. . .

Maeil Business Newspapers are generally moderate media, but many say they are close to pro-business conservatism.

According to coverage from ABC, there weren’t any:

Mexican army troops have killed 19 suspected drug cartel gunmen in a shootout and suffered no casualties, the Defense Department said.

No it doesn’t.

Raw milk is illegal in Canada. Raw milk cheese is legal everywhere in Canada as long as it’s aged at least 60 days. Though in Quebec, higher risk younger unpasteurized cheese is also legal. Unpasteurized cheese is also ubiquitous - available just about anywhere you can buy cheese. Anyone buying high end cheese is probably eating it without realizing it.

I think people mix up young and aged raw milk cheese. Aged 60+ days, the risks of pasteurized and unpasteurized cheese are about the same (very low but not zero). There isn’t even any sort of pressure to ban them.

I’d love to be able to get some to make cheese.

Seems a bit of a stretch that that was her intention.

Sweet! I’ll send a message to the admins.

I don’t think there’s really much moderating to do, but we probably need one. Otherwise any reports would go to the admins and we’d be effectively modded by them. I don’t think they’d be super happy about that. It’d also prevent someone else who turns out to be a weird Russian propaganda guy and a dick to everyone from swooping in and bumming everyone out.

I guess I wouldn’t mind doing that, unless anyone has an objection. We could also have a few mods who basically just have fancy titles and talk about hockey.

It’s complicated:

Threats against journalists and their sources have increased exponentially since the latest round of factional fighting broke out after two Sinaloa drug capos — one from each faction — flew to the United States and were arrested there.

. . .

Journalists have reported being stopped by gunmen on roadways outside Culiacan and told they couldn’t cover the continuing gunbattles happening on the outskirts of the city on an almost daily basis.

The fear is well founded; in 2022, one of El Debate’s columnists, Luis Enrique Ramírez, was abducted and killed in Culiacan. His beaten body was found wrapped in plastic on a dirt road outside the city.

Israel, the US, and probably others were looking for him but no one could find him. It was a chance encounter with trainee soldiers.

That guy was the reason I stopped posting here. Might’ve been the reason a few other regulars took off, too.

I’m totally on board for posting here again. I feel pretty “if you build it” about whether to post here or somewhere else. It just takes a pretty small group of consistent posters to get a community going. We need a new mod though (you?).

It looks like the mod was banned 4 months ago.

hey pal