It’s the first arms shipment to Israel to be announced by the administration since it put another arms transfer on hold earlier in the month.

The Biden administration has told key lawmakers it is sending a new package of more than $1 billion in arms and ammunition to Israel, three congressional aides said Tuesday.

It’s the first arms shipment to Israel to be announced by the administration since it put another arms transfer — consisting of 3,500 bombs — on hold this month. The administration has said it paused that earlier transfer to keep Israel from using the bombs in its growing offensive in the crowded southern Gaza city of Rafah.

  • @flames5123English
    1•15 days ago

    STAR voting is so much better than RCV. RCV is only marginally better than first past the post.

    • @venusaurEnglish
      1•15 days ago

      is it just RCV with 5 rankings, or you rank every candidate?

      • @flames5123English
        1•15 days ago

        You can rank every candidate, so you can give multiple people 5’s. If you can’t decide between them. In RCV, if 51% vote #1 for candidate A, 49% vote #1 for candidate B, but 100% vote #2 for candidate C, the winner is still candidate A even though everyone voted for C. Everyone would’ve been a little satisfied. In STAR, if everyone put 4’s for C, they would win.

        • @venusaurEnglish
          1•15 days ago

          Most people would still give A and B 5’s or 4’s, so C still loses even if they get all 4’s, no?

          • @flames5123English
            1•15 days ago

            You total all of the points. So say 100 people with the 51/49 doing A/B at 5, and all 100 do C at 4. A would have 255 points, B would have 245 points, and C would have 400. C wins by a landslide.

            • @venusaurEnglish
              1•15 days ago

              Ah right assuming A and B are opposing candidates. Kind of a way to eliminate the most popular opposing candidates in a runoff assuming there is a middle of the road candidate that everybody likes.

              In RCV this might be translated differently tho. Maybe 26% vote C #1, 49% A #1, 25% B #1 with C #2, then in runoff, C would win.

              I don’t see everybody liking the same candidate for #2.

              • @flames5123English
                1•15 days ago

                It’s more of an example how a more popular candidate can lose because RCV still depends on first past the post and isn’t that much better. It’s not translated by points. Everyone gets #1 first. If anyone has 51%, they win and we’re done. If no one has 51%, then we eliminate the least popular candidate, transferring the votes. This continues until one is at 51%. RCV is a bandaid.

                Check out this CGP Grey video about RCV: https://youtu.be/3Y3jE3B8HsE

                • @venusaurEnglish
                  2•15 days ago

                  Is anybody using Star voting now? I just feel like it can be gamed. If you want your major candidate to win, you wouldn’t rank anybody else highly.

                  Thanks for the video. I totally agree that there are other voting systems like approval voting that may be better, but lots of traction with RCV already. Can be a stepping stone to other voting systems. Perfect is the enemy of good enough. Gotta take baby steps.