That was 64 years ago and are you suggesting here that things that happened that far back have no bearing today? Hell, the brother of the dictator from 64 years ago is currently in charge there today still oppressing the Cuban people so it’s not like there hasn't been some continuity.

If you are a lawyer how technically competent would you need to be to have complete assurance that your engineering team is now and always will be in full compliance to eliminate all risk to allow a lack of consent.

Or…you just drop the Ack on site and not worry over it. Thats not spite, it’s compliance convenience.

The method of compliance may may not be perfect, but it addresses the legal problem. There wouldn't be a legal issue without the law. This is not a chicken or the egg situation. No law, no need to inform even if no tracking cookies exist.

> hassle your customers in the worst way they have so far conceived

By informing and asking for a acknowledgment? That seems pretty benign compared to a ton of things I have seen over the last nearly three decades.

No, it’s a legal CYA that provides safe harbor in case you are accused of the behavior. If a law says you need to inform, your lawyers will demand you inform even if zero cookies are used on the site.

Instead we are presented with some lukewarm have it both ways BS where the only solution to truly give you safe harbor is present the cookie acknowledgment. Good corporate lawyers will demand the dickover even if you do not use cookies at all just to cover the company’s ass.

Bit of a difference…

I’ll admit that I definitely like collecting my paycheck much more than I worry about customer annoyance at acknowledging a cookie policy. Some hills ain't worth dying on.

It’s certainly on the surface impressive, but when I dive into the details of what it creates, the slop becomes so apparent I cant unsee it and it distracts me.

Every cuban ex-pat I know (and thats quite a lot because I live in FL) will tell you there is a Cuba problem. They all still have family suffering under that regime.

Here is a nice little brain teaser…What law would that be? And who would or could enforce said law? And if said law cannot be enforced, is it actually a law at all?

> Explain how that gave the US any "soft power" influence over the Cuban government.

Pretty sure the Castro bros regime knowing that there is nearly a half million people who are specifically “non-fans” of the current Cuban government, but are people patriotic towards Cuba, with family still in Cuba…who are sitting 100 miles off the Cuban shores would factor into cuban government decision making as it relates to US relations.

My comment was about why this was not a “it’s both” type of situation. So just own your motivation for what it is—you emigrate so you can get a better life in a new country than you can get in your old country. That’s honorable enough.

You want a better life, the country providing it is arbitrary as long as it accepts the currency that you can provide for that better life by your skill set.

If it was altruistic you would emigrate because you believe in the country you are emigrating to even if it meant your life was worse.

Within my circle of friends (generally those who are in Europe), I have been trying explain this distinction whenever it’s brought up that “US violates international law”. Be it Greenland, Iran, Israel…whatever…if your international law’s enforcement arm (The US) will not enforce on itself, then whatever the US does or decides to do is legal.

I’m not a Trump supporter but I am exhausted watching other people who don’t support him provide such lazy arguments.

It was literally only until the last 5 words that I realized you were not talking about Iran. Funny how you ignore their part in all this.

However, I do want to take issue with the idea of “deeply incompetent”. That doesn't fit. They are either extremely competent at implementing their political agenda, or extremely lucky. Additionally this whole situation is contrary to the Trump administration’s normal playbook. If anything is consistent about Trump is that he panders to his base. This was the exact opposite. Why the change?

Thats the problem with assuming that this is Trump business as usual, its not…which is why I feel that there is a catalyst to go off their normal playbook.

While I am not big on trust either, I am perplexed why “successful” negotiations would all of a sudden turn on a dime into a regional military event without a major catalyst— especially this close to midterms. This action was not politically helpful to Trump, was risky with his base, yet he did it anyway.

But that is a whole separate topic from speaking to the hypothetical “we should have tried a blockade first”. Whether you believe the justification or not there is a honesty to the timing, immediacy, and level of violence of the action here. When you couple that with some indisputable facts here—we know that for nearly five decades Iran has advocated genocide on Israel and the US as a matter of their state policy. We know that they have repeatedly acted when they could to this end. We know they were seeking nuclear weapons. We know that active diplomacy was going on and then it turned on a dime suddenly to military action.

It seems to me that the level of military violence inflicted on Iran with such a short switch from diplomatic talks was consistent with the belief by someone that they were danger close to having a nuclear weapon. You can be dishonest and corrupt, but still see and act on immediate threats.