Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Not nearly as many lightning bugs as there used to be, around here.  I'm sure the regular use of pesticides hasn't helped, nor the urbanization of the area.

they seem to like cornfields

I've also heard they like brush piles

Makes sense.

There's a pretty large open field at the edge of my neighborhood, butted right up against a forested nature preserve that goes on for miles beyond.  That's a good place to see lightning bugs during the season, and there are definitely more of them when the brush is thick, compared to when it's been recently mowed down.

Lost in the hubbub surrounding California’s new $20-per-hour minimum wage for fast food workers is how that raise could impact public schools, forcing districts to compete with the likes of McDonald’s and Wendy’s for cafeteria workers amid a state budget crunch.

The minimum wage law that took effect Monday guarantees at least $20-per-hour for workers at fast food restaurant chains with at least 60 locations nationwide. That doesn’t include school food service workers, historically some of the lowest-paid workers in public education.


Yet demand for school meals is higher than ever in California, the first state to guarantee free meals for all students regardless of their family’s income. And demand is projected to fuel an increase of more than 70 million extra meals in California schools this year compared to 2018, according to the state Department of Education.

But these jobs typically have lots of turnover and are harder to fill. The minimum wage boost for fast food workers could make that even more difficult.

“They are all very worried about it. Most are saying they anticipate it will be harder and harder to hire employees,” said Carrie Bogdanovich, president of the California School Nutrition Association.


https://fortune.com/2024/04/04/california-20-hour-fast-food-minimum-wage-schools-compete-cafeteria-workers/

I'm convinced it was an embassy and I'm also convinced that it was also an Iranian military base running Iranian military operations under the protection of Iran's ally, Syria, from a much-closer range to their militaristic interests in Israel.

But it's also not unusual to stage special ops and even military operations from within an embassy, and it rarely leads to attacks.  It's always been understood that's a step too far.  So I agree that a direct attack on that militarized embassy is a tough action to defend, even if you know it's being used against you militarily, which history has proven is the exact thing Iran tends to do.

But what concerns me a lot more than Israel striking a known antagonistic militarized embassy that is almost certainly running operations against them, is what IDF did to the food/aid workers from the World Central Kitchen.  Systematically targeting and destroying an entire convoy of international civilian relief workers, as they're providing food to the starved Palestinians, is absolutely freaking terrible.  And the response has been near complete withdrawal of all food relief/aid in the area.  At this point it's hard not to question the intent of Israel, to think that they're intentionally preventing much-needed food from reaching the masses.  This is the one that makes me really, really angry.  They claim it's a mistake but the operation was a precision, surgical strike.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-68710515

100000%. 

It was an embassy compound, and every embassy compound in the world has military & intelligence personnel on it. Every single one. I have family members that were in the military, that were stationed: at US embassies. Diplomats aren't the only people stationed at embassies, spies & military personnel are there as well, and you can't just go around bombing embassies to try to get to them- not only does it violate international law, but that would be complete and utter chaos if it became common practice. 

I also agree that while that was terrible- what is MUCH worse is what Israel is doing to Gaza and the systemic slaughtering of aid workers and reporters (over 200 in the last 6 months) all in an attempt to choke the life out of Gaza and suppress what is really going on there is a crime against humanity. WCK convoy was targeted for nearly 2km with three different drones and struck three different times. Israel openly admits this- and says "well, we thought maybe one the armed security helping them might've been Hamas affiliated- although we haven't shown a single shred of evidence of this"- and even if that was the case- and it very likely isn't- that does not excuse for a second what they did. It is absolutely unfathomable to me what has taken place there and the fact that it's only possible because of US support chaps my ass to no end. Biden is a complete and utter failure as a President and a complete joke. He talks on and on about how he's concerned for the lives of innocents and that his wife is against the policy of the Israeli's- but he does nothing. Just supports the mass slaughter and starvation of mostly women and children in Gaza en masse and wants to keep giving them free weapons that the US taxpayer is on the hook for ($18 billion more) and keep granting them loan guarantees. 

Israel just annexed like 2,000 more acres in the West Bank to build settlements (which is against international law of course), and if you read this from an Israeli news magazine it's frightening- the AI system that Israel is using to conduct drone strikes- taking the human element almost out of strikes completely, basically a rubber stamp and human approves it so long as the target is male: and of course this system makes tons of errors ("AI" machine learning isn't actually sentient):  https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/

Also: UK state lawyers have told the Prime Minister that Israel is committing war crimes- which means by law UK is not allowed to sell them arms as they will be seen as complicit- and we only know about this because of leaked audio recordings. The UK gov't hasn't gone public with this: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/30/uk-government-lawyers-say-israel-is-breaking-international-law-claims-top-tory-in-leaked-recording

US has similar laws. Why is nothing being done and no pressure being put on them? Kinda weird. Oh wait, no it's not, AIPAC has enormous influence over the political landscape of this country. How is this even legal that what is essentially a foreign intelligence/lobbying operation allowed to have any say in the politics of this country? AIPAC should be banned, as should every single foreign lobby imo. 

I have seen it called an embassy (or consulate, which makes little sense), but I've yet to see any evidence anywhere it WAS part of the embassy.

stop. just. stop. jfc man. for the love of god.

It's not stupid, it's simply fast-forwarding to the end of the movie. 
Either the Jews will have a permanent state in the middle east or they won't.

Don't pretend decades of proxy-wars is any better.  It's just slower.

yeah, cause a nuclear war involving weapons significantly more powerful than the ones dropped on Japan is definitely the answer. 

I have seen it called an embassy (or consulate, which makes little sense), but I've yet to see any evidence anywhere it WAS part of the embassy.

That's fair, too.  But it was at the very least embassy-adjacent.

It's possible that diplomatic missions were conducted there.  But it's also about 99% certain that military operations were being conducted from that facility, given the fact that a senior Iranian military officer and several other officers from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were the ones who were both targeted, and confirmed, among the dead.

It's hard for me to gin up much sympathy for the deaths of Iranian military officers running operations against Israel in the middle of a proxy war they're voluntarily participating in, nor anger against Israel for performing a military strike against an obvious military target.

The strikes against the WCK and other aid workers, on the other hand, are pretty much unfathomable to me.