Caroline Glick's new blog

Caroline Glick, columnist for the Jerusalem Post, has a new blog. Enjoy!

Wednesday Link Latte - 11-28-07

Fun, fun, fun!

An oldie, but relevant: So the Pope wants good relations?

Annapolis: Saudis without Ear Phones

Paris McDonalds - after the "Youths" get to it

Paris Riots, Day 3

"Stop Bush!" (No Left Turns)

Israel’s Credit Rating up to A

President Bush: "...Need to Confront Israeli Terrorism." (Video)

Bush: US will support Israel if it is attacked by Iran

The top 10 IT disasters of all time [not really disasters though]

Turning Water into Fuel

Russian Pilots Stumbled Upon New Anomalous Zone

Deserves its own post but no time: Congo: Horrors Lurking Beyond The Big Media Coverage

Chilling: Three guys caught selling nuclear material

What's even more disturbing is thinking about the smarter criminals who aren't getting caught:

Slovakia: Police arrest 3 in radioactive material deal

Police said Wednesday three people have been arrested for attempting to sell one kilogram (2.2 lbs) of an unspecified nuclear material. Police spokesman Martin Korch said the three allegedly planned a deal to sell the material for $1 million.

By the way, it takes four kilograms of plutonium to make a nuclear bomb.

Alternatively, it takes 20 kilograms of uranium to make a nuclear bomb.

Gender Equality in the Middle East

[picture from Israeli Weapons]

While Saudi Arabia is busy giving 200 lashes to rape victims, Israel has just announced its first female deputy squadron commander in the Air Force. Go Jews.

Update: More details on Captain Yifat here.

Monday Link Latte - 11/26/07

The day is short but the links are many.

One Year after Ceasefire: A Rocket Every Three Hours

Video: Japanese Binocular Soccer

Xplorer GPS Smart Shoe
and GTX Corporation

You think they'd learn: Syria advised by North Korean chemical arms experts

Another milestone the MSM won’t mark

Video: Bionic exoskeletons

Syria: Not a reactor - something far more vicious

EL Al Profits Soar to New Record

Oops: Personal records of 25 million individuals lost

A good Annapolis Rant

This one by lawhawk, with good hyperlinks :) All good rants should come with hyperlinks...

The Palestinian terrorists simply can't help themselves. Rockets once again rain down on Israel from Gaza. Israel struck at a separate rocket launching terror cell, killing three. Palestinians claim Israel is going after Palestinian factories in Gaza, but the fact is that the Palestinians use those locations to build rockets for firing at Israel.

Hamas says that Abbas has no right to make any agreements on behalf of the Palestinians. Hamas has a point. Hamas was elected by a majority of the Palestinians. To the diplomats, this is just an inconvenient fact to sweep under the rug.

It's another inconvenient fact that Hamas says that they will not abide by whatever agreement is produced at Annapolis (including the hot air).

The fact is that the Middle East, outside of Jordan and Egypt, do not recognize Israel, and this latest charade is doing nothing to change that fact. Bahrain's foreign minister notes that Israel wanted to open diplomatic relations with the Gulf State. Bahrain has suggested only that it might reconsider its position following Annapolis. That's a polite way of saying that unless Israel caves on all demands, nothing will change.

Syria will be joining the circus as well. If Israel is to be carved up, they want a piece of the action as well (see: Heights, Golan).

lawhawk goes on to say that even if successful, there will be no permanent damage to Israel. I disagree. I think that there may be damage to Israel, even if the Islamist Palestinians don't change a whit. I guess I should do some linked rant, but I'm all out of steam.

Directionally Challenged

No, no, Ahmed, you idiot! Israel is that way!!

Terrorists Fire Rocket, Hit Gaza

(IsraelNN.com) Terrorists fired a rocket from northern Gaza on Monday afternoon. The rocket missed its target and landed in the former town of Dugit, which is currently under Hamas control.Terrorists fired two rockets from northern Gaza earlier in the day. One landed in the town of Netiv HaAsarah and one landed near Ashkelon. Nobody was injured in the attacks.

To the terrorists credit, Dugit used to be a Jewish town.

THIS is Israel

Via Israel Matzav comes a story of an amazing Israeli superhero who by day saves children's lives, and by night destroys murderous terrorists.

This, my friends, is Israel:

The 2-year-old's flawed heart beat backward, pumping blue blood to his lips and inking rings around his eyes.

Ahmad edged across his hospital bed, toward his mother, Nasima Abu Hamed. Nasima, a Palestinian from Gaza, had brought Ahmad to Israel for an operation. She moved uneasily through hospital halls decked with Israeli flags -- but the Jewish doctors could save her son.

A pediatrician named Yuval walked in wearing a white coat. Nasima smiled. Yuval high-fived Ahmad, who was wearing toddler-size army fatigues. Yuval said in Arabic, "How's he doing?"

Nasima shrugged and asked, "When is the surgery?"

Nasima was eager to return to Gaza. There was trouble at home, clashes with Israeli soldiers. Fear had kept her family up all night, the chop of hostile helicopters. Two years ago, a missile fired from a helicopter had killed two cousins. If Nasima ever met an Israeli pilot, "I would faint and die from fear."

Yuval patted Ahmad on the head. The surgery would be soon. Later, Nasima called Yuval "our savior of the children."

Yuval is a savior of children. He is also an attack helicopter pilot. It was Yuval in his Cobra -- though Nasima didn't know it -- hovering over her town, as Israeli troops battled armed Palestinians. By day, Yuval works as a pediatrician. By night, he fires missiles for the air force.

Nuclear Confrontation

These Quick Comics are really fun. They need a little bit more characters and customizable features, but it is really easy and fun. Try 'em out!

Nuclear Confrontation

The Evolution of Annapolis

I'm pretty tired and not so funny period, but Israellycool started doing comics on QuickComics, so I thought I'd give it a try too. Here's my first weak attempt:
The Evolution of Annapolis:

A Shabbos Goy-bot

Sweet.

A robot programmed to work on Shabbat will do it: clear the table, turn off the oven, control the a/c and click lights off and on - especially the bathroom one that gets turned off accidentally in the middle of the night by half-awake innocents.

According to the Hebrew press, “Shabbat Robot” is the brainchild of White Box Robotics, a subsidiary of Frontline Robotics.

The robot is meant to replace the traditional Shabbos Goy - a controversial term used for non-Jews hired to perform work-related tasks for Jews on the Sabbath.

But it’s gonna cost ya; About $4000 when product hits the market.

Quote du Jour

"You must pull aside every curtain to look for it [peace], but you do so with your left hand. In your right, you hold a pistol, ready to pull the trigger."

- Israeli Defense Minister and closet ninja, Ehud Barak

Tuesday Link Latte - with 3 extra shots

Today's link latte is proudly brought to you by Starbucks, who quietly lace their lattes with heroin.

Them's fightin' words

Rafael signs $25m deal with US Navy

A goodwill gesture by the Arabs

How to negotiate, by Abu Mazen. Abbas: No peace without release of all prisoners

A just and lasting peace. Or I'll blow your heads off.

The forgotten hostages [ht: LGF]

From the "To Post" archive. Not quite current, but still worth a perusal:

JoeSettler: Money, Murder, and Mayhem

Geneva Violations Galore - Firing rockets from a Gaza school [Video]

YouTube - Pachelbel guitar

YouTube - Hahaha

Video: Giuliani at the FRC Values Voters Summit - Long, but a good speech by Rudy being real.

Video: How things go in slo-mo

Sha-right: World’s tallest tower will house 1 million people.

Moving On. A real last lecture. Bring a tissue.

Wow. Some sweet spacewalking pictures from a recent mission.

Tel Aviv experiences economic miracle

Peter's Evil Overlord List

Things that make you go hmmm...

Whoa. Reprogramming cells into stem cells

Wow. Reprogramming skin cells into the penultimate changeling cells - stem cells. And they used gene-carrying viruses to do it. Unreal. This could change the face of medicine.

Both labs did basically the same thing. Each used viruses to ferry four genes into the skin cells. These particular genes were known to turn other genes on and off, but just how they produced cells that mimic embryonic stem cells is a mystery.

"People didn't know it would be this easy," Thomson said. "Thousands of labs in the United States can do this, basically tomorrow."

My new car

I just haven't bought it yet...

Lasserz, missiles, and a hummer. What more can a guy want? Oh, right - a plasma screen TV. I'll install that after-market.

In late September 2007, Boeing successfully tested a 1kw solid state laser weapon mounted on a converted Avenger anti aircraft vehicle in Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. The laser successfully destroyed several unexploded mortar shells from a safe distance and was also able to destroy two unmanned aerial vehicles (which were on the ground). Boeing hopes to introduce the first operational laser-based weapon systems in the not too distant future, helping soldiers to fight road side bombs and to defend themselves from possible aerial threats.

1864 = 2008

Tigerhawk fleshes out the full correlation between 1864 and 2008, but here is one of the excellent articles he brings:

While things in Iraq could turn around again, it now looks as if the change in US strategy and the injection of additional forces in 2007 is on the way to producing a military victory over al-Qaida and domestic Iraqi terrorists. Equally important has been the decision by a number of Sunni tribes to turn against the foreign terrorists. The result has been the restoration of security to Fallujah and a large part of the country and a sharp reduction in casualties. Next November it is likely to be clear that defeat was avoided and that troops are coming home.

Another result has been that more astute critics of the war have stopped talking about the hopelessness of the military effort and switched to complaining that the Iraqi government has failed to do what they believe is necessary to achieve "reconciliation." But the development of a non-dictatorial political system in Iraq is a slow, delicate, and uncertain process and voters may not think that American senators are the best judges of how well the Iraqis are doing....

In 1864 Americans were fed up with the Civil War, in which there were days on which more soldiers were killed than have died in four years of the Iraq war. "Mr. Lincoln is already beaten," wrote Horace Greeley, perhaps the leading journalist. And three months before the election Republican leaders told president Lincoln that he had no hope of reelection. As Peter Wallison of AEI recently recalled, the Democratic platform denounced "four years of failure" in the war effort and Gen. George B. McClellan, the Democratic candidate opposing Lincoln recommended making peace on Southern terms.

But on September 1 the news reached Washington that Atlanta had fallen to the Union army, and on election day it appeared as if the North was on the way to victory. Lincoln was decisively reelected. And, according to historian Allan Nevins, "The damage done to the Democratic Party by the platform could not be undone. Its … stigmatization of the heroic war effort as worthless gave the Northern millions an image of the Democratic Party they could never forget….and would cost the party votes for a generation."

For well over a year now most prominent Democrats have insisted that the Iraq war had been lost and that the US should get its troops home as quickly as possible. It was true that the US was losing the war in 2006. Two responses were possible. The Democrats response was, in effect, "the war is hopeless, we should give up." The administration response was, "we have to do something different so that we can win."

Most voters prefer the second response - especially when it is successful.

In November 2008 it is likely to be clear that if the US had followed the Democrats' advice the US would have suffered an unnecessary defeat. Those voters who believe that the US is facing dangerous threats from jihadis may well feel that it is not safe to bring to power the party that would have brought defeat in Iraq....

Iran's Nuclear Diversification

A very good article by Oliver Guitta in the Middle East Times points to the Syrian nuclear facility strike by Israel and the strategic implications for Iran. While the Syria-North Korea tie has been well documented and discussed, the Syria-Iran connection has not been explored fully. It may very well be that Syria is Iran's "Plan B", a "home away from home" for Iran's nuclear ambitions, should anyone bomb Iran's facilities back to kingdom come.

Now regarding the September 6 strike; while we may never know what really occurred, what remains sure is that the situation is direr than one could imagine and that most likely, Israel did not just bomb a nuclear site in the early stages. Indeed, the silence of the international community and especially the Arab world after the attack is a first, and it shows the gravity of what happened. Even though Syria and its Iranian sponsor are detested, and in the case of Iran feared, in the Muslim world, the fact that there was no condemnation of Israel at the U.N. could be interpreted as a tacit relief that Israel acted.

Another proof of what transpired came from ranking Republicans on the House Intelligence and Foreign Relations committees, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Peter Hoekstra, who were briefed on the Israeli strike and sworn to secrecy. They wrote an op-ed in the October 20 Wall Street Journal clearly underlining the seriousness of the situation regarding both the North Korean and Iranian involvement in the Syrian arms program.

Finally, the fact that the Bush administration (including President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and most notably Defense Secretary Robert Gates) has been ramping up the rhetoric and taking action against Iran (including the latest sanctions against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards) in the past week, might also be linked to what really happened in Syria.

Hate Crimes - Jews are 5 times more likely victims

Via LGF via Robert Spencer comes this study that shows that Jews are five times more likely to be victims of hate crimes than the victimized victims of rampant and pervasive Islamophobia. Cue CAIR whining in...3...2...1...

Robert Spencer links to an FBI report on US “hate-motivated crimes” during 2006, showing the truth behind the constant claims of victimhood from Islamic advocacy groups: FBI hate crimes report for 2006: Jews over 5 times more likely to be attacked than Muslims.

Anti-Black 3,136
Anti-Jewish 1,027
Anti-White 1,008
Anti-Male Homosexual 881
Anti-Hispanic 770
Anti-Female Homosexual 192
Anti-Islamic 191

Monday Link Latte

Borrowing the post's name from Dark Roasted Blend, comes today's link latte, more coarsely known as a link dump:

Israeli Air Force Upgrading US Helicopters

New Spray Catch Terrorists “Red-Handed”

Surge Numbers Show Amazing Progress In Iraq (don't like statistics? Visit Michael Yon and get the qualitative changes of life in Iraq)

The WSJ Morning Brief (good, but subscription required).

Advice for Holiday Hell (with your libby relatives.)

Serious High-Tech investment in Israel (AOL and Intel).

Say Thank You to our Troops

This Thanksgiving, say thank you to our troops (ht: LGF):

Say Thank You

This Thanksgiving, the Department of Defense is partnering with major cell phone providers so that you can send "thank you" text messages to the troops fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world. It is called "The Giving Thanks Campaign."

A couple of seconds of your time, and your kind words will reach American troops free of charge. When you text your message of thanks to "89279" (TXASY) between November 17th and 22nd, you'll receive a special thanks in return.

We will all sit down to our dinner on Thursday in freedom because of the job that they do, and their honorable and extraordinary commitment to our the security of our country. Frankly, most of us will thank them in our blessing prayers; it would be wonderful to let them know how important they are directly.

Bumper sticker wisdon smackdown

Heh. Time for some libby smackdown on their wannabe clever bumper-stickers.

“COEXIST” (spelled out with various religious symbols) - If some of the followers of the religion represented by the crescent moon “c” on your cute little bumper sticker would stop hijacking planes and blowing up buildings, coexisting would be a little easier.

...

Earth to the under-30 crowd that has this sticker on your bumpers: the Patriot Act is for keeping tabs on terrorists. The feds don’t give a damn about eavesdropping on your phone conversations about ultimate Frisbee.

Mashiv Haruach...

Now you can watch the results of your Mashiv Haruach uMorid Hagashem davening online! Israel's new rain radar provides up to the hour rain information... when it's raining.

(IsraelNN.com) The Israel Meteorological Service has introduced a new online service to its website – a rain radar map showing the location and intensity of rainfall throughout Israel on an hourly basis.

The forecast for Friday and Saturday: Partly cloudy to clear with no significant change in temperatures. The weather will become warmer and drier than usual, mainly in the mountainous and inland regions.

Do not click unless you are prepared to cry

Via the normally funny IMAO blog, comes this heart-wrenching photograph. Do not click unless you are prepared to cry.

Aid = Atrocities; Money=Murder

JoeSettler depicts the correlation on the amount of money given to the palestinian Arabs and the number of murders committed by them.

I came across these statistics on CAMERA via Iris.

You can obviously draw your own conclusions, but you can’t ignore the correlation.

A study was done on Palestinian Terrorism and Murder and Foreign Aid.

As you can see from the charts, as foreign aid to the Palestinians increases, so do Palestinian acts of murder. When foreign aid to Palestinians decreases, Palestinian acts of murder correspondingly decrease.

In fact, the more money they receive, the more murders the Palestinians commit, the less money they receive, the less murders they commit – it is practically a 100% correlation.

(As an aside, when Palestinians are blocked from killing Jews, they kill each other instead).

But what is most interesting is the time lag between the receipt of the money and the number of murders.

The increase and decrease of the money received precipitates the number of murders that will be committed by one year.


You can practically estimate how many Palestinians acts of murder and terrorism will be committed in any year based on how much money they received the year before.

In 2007 they received the most money ever.