* Hamas keeps its missiles, arms and other military equipment inside or underneath schools and hospitals
* UNRWA was functioning as an arms dealer by putting arms inside of bags of flour or other food items
* Hamas generally has its fighters not wear uniform, but instead wear civilian clothes or even niqabs (where only the eyes are visible). Making it extremely difficult for the IDF to determine who is a combatant and who isn't- and guaranteeing mistakes will be made.
* Hamas also uses child soldiers or orders children to throw stones at IDF soldiers - again ensuring IDF soldiers have to always be afraid the person in front of them is going to kill them and that they have to make split second decisions on what to do about it
Ah yes, the human shield argument. Like the "tunnels" and graphics provided by the IDF. Convenient isn't? Every hospital, apartment block, school and refugee camp has hamas in them, so everything is fair game.
ya it's pretty FUCKED UP that HAMAS does that, and Iran funds it, isn't it? or do you think Israel just wants to slaughter people weaker than them because they can? if that was their aim why did they wait until 10/8 to start doing it? they could have done it any time in the last 30 years.
Your numbers are way off: there are between 10k and 20k Jews in Iran. There are also 5 parliament seats in Iranian parliament (out of 290 members) that are reserved for religious minorities, of which two seats are for Armenians, one for Syrians, one for Jews and one for Zoroastrians.
Israel has been using force for multiple decades to no avail, it ultimately was delayed by diplomacy.
If force alone could stop a nuclear program, why does North Korea have bombs? Many nations could have attacked them without any concerns of recourse for decades.
Have you done research and found that the majority of the excess cost of constructing California homes is due to the specific regulations dealing with earthquakes? Are you sure there aren't other regulations and/or building codes there that have nothing to do with earthquakes or health/safety, yet massively impact the cost of homes in California?
People love to blame regulations. I live in a bushfire, cyclone and flood prone part of Australia. We have lots of regulations. For example a category 5 cyclone recent hit us, but no one overly concerned because it is a new area, and if you live in a cyclone area your house must be able to withstand 300 km/h winds. If you live in a bushfire area, you are required to have 20,000 litres of water on hand at all times. If you live in near a freeway, you are required to have 14mm glass to dampen the sound.
As it happens, I am building a house now, and an subject to all those regulations. It added maybe 10% to the total. But in real terms housing price has gone up far that that more since the 1970's.
Why? The reason is fairly mundane really: https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/new-us-homes-today-are-1000-s... Combine that with modern houses being air-conditioned, need to garage 2 cars, have stone benches and multiple TV's (none of which are mandated by regulation), and you get to the real reason.
It has nothing to do with the regulations, yet people blame it anyway.
We just need to build affordable housing. You would think given there is a demand for it, capitalism would make it happen. Yet it isn't happening. If you want to blame the government for something, not putting the regulations in place to create a market place to ensure it does happen would where I'd be looking. I doubt they would have much to do with reducing building safety, or opening up unsuitable land, and more to do with somehow arranging the financing so that it becomes attractive to build smaller, plain, boring looking cookie cutter houses.
"If you want to blame the government for something..."
* 88% of California jurisdictions have a minimum lot size of 5,000 sq ft or more
* Prior to 2024, jurisdictions in California required a minimum of two spots per single family home, or one to two spots per unit in a multifamily. California created a law to address this in 2024, but jurisdictions in most states still have similar requirements.
* Most jurisdictions in the US have restrictions around density - many only allowing single family homes or strictly limiting the number of multifamily units.
Other countries, including Australia, have similar restrictions. Google says the cost of adding central AC to a home is between $7k and $12k, so likely not a primary driver of the increase in cost of housing. "Multiple TVs" are definitely not a significant driver in increased housing costs.
Those figures aren't useful without more background information. For example, 88% of California jurisdictions have a minimum lot size of 5,000 sq ft (which sounds small to me, so that's a good thing?). For the 5,000 sq ft to be a limitation California would need a lot of inner city jurisdictions. In US and Australian suburbia a 5,000 sq ft lot is small, and there is lots of land outside of the cities. On the other hand, if we are talking high density inner-city housing whether everything is accessible via public transport then 5,000 sq ft is far too large as you say. It would not fly in a European city. But most of California isn't like that, so the 88% sounds fine.
And two parking spots per single family home sounds in line with a California household having close to 2 cars. Again, 2 cars is overkill in the city, but in suburbs with both parents working it's almost a necessity.
Your final point has no figures to back it up at all.
While TV's, AC, plantation blinds, stone bench tops, multiple shower roses, 2 dish washers, plumbed in fridge, and so on each don't add much individually the a modern house today is downright opulent compared to the one I grew up in decades ago. Add that to them doubling in floor area per person housed, and you get to the real reason why costs have more than doubled.
All of that follows from one thing - only rich people have the money to build homes, and they build homes rich people like. Those houses are big. They sit on large green lots. They are fenced. They can garage at least 2 cars. They are expensive, and they want similar houses around them, so they, the people who live there, petition for laws like the ones you mention. And they get them, reasonably enough.
To me it looks like you're blaming the government for delivering what the constituents asked for. Blaming a democratically elected government for passing laws the majority wants isn't going to stop the majority from re-electing them next year. You need to do something more constructive - like come up with reasons why it's in everyones interest (rich and poor alike) to ensure a single mother with 2 can be housed, and them work on solutions for that.
This infatuation in the USA for blaming the government they elected for all their woes is downright odd. Blame generally doesn't get you very far.
Hamas filmed the rapes using GoPro cameras. Families of the murdered women don't approve their publication. I recommend reading the UK October 7 Parliamentary Commision Report [1]. A relevant passage on page 131 states:
> The United Nations Report on Sexual Violence found that there were reasonable grounds to believe that “sexual violence occurred in Kibbutz Re’im, including rape.” The rape of women happened on Route 232, “outside of a bomb shelter at the entrance of Kibbutz Re’im, which was corroborated by witness testimonies and digital material.
Tenants rights are not only about how long you get to stay without paying rent. Not being able to compel your landlord to remove pests, mold or fix noisy steam radiators is not something that would benefit the vast majority of tenants.
Yeah, sure those are needed but they are not the reason you have to jump through hooves and pay ridiculous deposits just to rent an apartment. I know quite a few landlords. None of them would complain about stricter rules and obligations when it comes to maintenance. What they think about every day is non paying or otherwise problematic tenants. This affects the process they use to decide who to rent to and the demographic they are willing to rent to as well.
The effect is that honest people find it difficult to rent an apartment because abusers run rampant and the system protects them. In some European countries you need to prove you have stable job and get recommendation from the previous landlord to even be in the consideration and then you basically have to go for an interview. It's a ridiculous and humiliating process which wouldn't exist if landlords could throw out abusers without much hassle.
Healthy food is not as expensive as people claim. At least the average person can afford fruits and vegetables and staples they can cook. Most of our health problems are from overeating and eating a high amount of junk and sugar, not from being unable to buy everything at Whole Foods.
And you can devalue any asset if you can sufficiently increase its supply. Used cars are also an asset and you don't see billionaires gobling them up (with the exception of rare collectibles).
Used cars can generate income if you lease them out. And there are firms that will do this including dealerships and rental car companies. What you don't see though (unlike real estate) is random general investors (who are not car leasing specialists) buying up large chunks of the used car supply in order to lease them out. And the reason they don't do this is because new cars get manufactured fast enough such that older cars just keep getting devalued making it a relatively low margin business. The suggestion being made by YIMBYs (of course) to continuously allow constructing high density housing such that there will always be lots of brand new units on the market in order to help devalue the older units. I would suspect at that point that general investors would likely leave the apartment leasing business, selling them either to individuals that will choose to live in them, or to firms whose specialty is home leasing - the only type of business likely to be able to profitably lease used housing at low margins at that point.
The thing about insurance is that the reason you purchase it is for managing tail events. And the only way to know if you are satisfied with your insurance company is to experience a tail event and see how your insurance company behaves. If you develop an expensive to manage chronic illness, is your insurance company prompt in paying claims? Does it try to deny all of them and require you to hire an attorney to get them to pay anything at all? Does it turn out that much of the treatments you need for recovery were never covered by insurance at all? And even if it is paying - how many hours a week do they expect you to spend submitting and resubmitting claims and calling various doctors to collect more information and submit more and more paperwork?
* Hamas keeps its missiles, arms and other military equipment inside or underneath schools and hospitals
* UNRWA was functioning as an arms dealer by putting arms inside of bags of flour or other food items
* Hamas generally has its fighters not wear uniform, but instead wear civilian clothes or even niqabs (where only the eyes are visible). Making it extremely difficult for the IDF to determine who is a combatant and who isn't- and guaranteeing mistakes will be made.
* Hamas also uses child soldiers or orders children to throw stones at IDF soldiers - again ensuring IDF soldiers have to always be afraid the person in front of them is going to kill them and that they have to make split second decisions on what to do about it
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