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Smooth & Heavenly Olympus C5050 Miami, Florida Sunday, September 30th, 2007.
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The religious orthodox credo: think not lest ye be thunk about.
ASK
New Dog Frolicking Brighton, East Sussex, England Monday, March 31st, 2025.
Remember the Good Old 1980s Arad, Israel Wednesday, February 5th, 2025.
Rauschenbike iPhone SE 2020 Brighton, East Sussex, England Tuesday, August 27th, 2024.
Lovely Rishpon iPhone SE 2020 Rishpon, Israel Tuesday, August 20th, 2024.
Late Night Kiryat Sharet iPhone SE 2020 Ra'anana, Israel Tuesday, August 13th, 2024.
Azrieli Structures iPhone SE 2020 Tel Aviv, Israel Sunday, August 11th, 2024.
Ladies & Matkal Tower iPhone SE 2020 Tel Aviv, Israel Sunday, August 11th, 2024.
Telawiwi #2! iPhone SE 2020 Tel Aviv, Israel Sunday, August 11th, 2024.
Near Nevei Ne’eman iPhone SE 2020 Hod Hasharon, Israel Monday, August 5th, 2024.
A Spot of Mine iPhone SE 2020 Hod Hasharon, Israel Monday, August 5th, 2024.
Friday Market Near Carlebach iPhone SE 2020 Tel Aviv, Israel Friday, August 2nd, 2024.
Crazy New Developments iPhone SE 2020 Tel Aviv, Israel Friday, August 2nd, 2024.
Beach Tableau iPhone SE 2020 Herzlia, Israel Wednesday, July 31st, 2024.
Eucalyptus with Dilapidation iPhone SE 2020 Hod Hasharon, Israel Tuesday, July 30th, 2024.
Kelly Maud along the River Adur iPhone SE 2020 Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex, England Sunday, June 16th, 2024.
Well That’s Nice iPhone SE 2020 Brighton, East Sussex, England Saturday, May 25th, 2024.
Tube View iPhone SE 2020 London, England Monday, May 6th, 2024.
Ono Yoko iPhone SE 2020 London, England Monday, May 6th, 2024.
On a nice walks iPhone SE 2020 Brighton, East Sussex, England Sunday, April 21st, 2024.
What Went Wrang #2 iPhone SE 2020 Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland Wednesday, March 20th, 2024.
That’s the Scotland iPhone SE 2020 Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland Wednesday, March 20th, 2024.
Train Station with Angles iPhone SE 2020 Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland Wednesday, March 20th, 2024.
Celtic are Turds iPhone SE 2020 Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland Wednesday, March 20th, 2024.
Glasgow’s One Giant Glass Ceiling iPhone SE 2020 Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland Tuesday, March 19th, 2024.
Goodbye Old Friends iPhone SE 2020 Brighton, East Sussex, England Thursday, February 22nd, 2024.
9:48pm UTC
Monday, October 28th, 2024
The Knesset has finally banned UNRWA, the humanitarian agency serving as strategic weapon against Israel since 1949.
Good bonkers, I’m Adam S Khan, S for Samuel.
I develop work systems at Engaging; and am founder and user-in-chief at RSSDeck, the browsing platform for the rss’d of us.
I live in Brighton, England with Irit and our kids and dog Kelly Maud.
Thanks for dropping by — it’s my pleasure to host you.
Friday, April 18th, 2025
At JCPA, Oded Ailam pens “Why Israel Should Embrace its Role as a Regional Power”.
A country that acts like a leader attracts others. Countries prefer to affiliate with a strong, stable power that leads with purpose and confidence. By projecting strength, not just militarily but diplomatically and economically, Israel can become a pole of attraction in the Middle East – for states, investments, and influence.
I’d like to see stronger initiatives to partner with similar countries. Finland to me seems a great target for seduction. About the same size, also fiercely independent, innovative, threatened — as liberals they lean pro-Palestinian but with better engagement I think they could be shown where true liberalism lies.
Thursday, March 6th, 2025
As a young advisor to then-Deputy Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Madrid Conference in 1991, Dore brought his policy and national security expertise. Dore was a firm believer in the Jordanian-Israeli relationship, and the possibility of a federal-confederal, security-based approach to the Palestinian issue. Dore’s profound strategic concern about preventing future attacks from the East led him to pioneer a revival of General Yigal Alon’s defensible borders concept, which he advanced following the 1967 war.
On Montaigne by Jared Marcel Pollen in The Point.
Montaigne’s depiction of his mind “from day to day, from minute to minute” is sometimes regarded as his method (i.e. his intellectual process), but it is also and equally the formation of a literary style: in letting his mind wander freely in the act of writing, he spontaneously creates a form that allows him to depict that wandering.
Tuesday, February 4th, 2025
In Mosaic, A pair of important lengthy pieces of where we’re at in Israel: The Failed Concepts That Brought Israel to October 7 by Shany Mor, and To Save Itself from International Isolation, Israel Must Hold On to the West Bank by Rafi DeMogge. While both are problematic — DeMogge drums in a two-step argument that territorial withdrawals are actually harmful to Israel diplomatically but is thin on other points, and Mor throat-clears by it seems to me unfairly presenting the settler movement as irrational before focusing on the failure of peace-processing — together they touch on each other to paint a developed picture of the situation.
The idea that a Palestinian living in Palestinian territory under a Palestinian government is somehow a refugee from Palestine is a deadly contrivance, the work of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
Shany Mor, The Failed Concepts That Brought Israel to October 7
Sunday, January 5th, 2025
This New York Times (brilliantly designed) interview with Secretary Anthony Blinken cap-ends the Biden Administration. On Gaza, he says:
My goal has been to end this conflict in Gaza in a way that makes sure that Oct. 7 doesn’t happen again, that ends the suffering of people and does it in an enduring way that brings the hostages home.
I’m not happy about the order here, but okay. But in the next answer he continues:
First, you’ve got to end the conflict in Gaza.
These two positions are contradictory, and that has been the failure of the Biden Administration here. In pressing for the conflict to end NOW, regardless of victory, ensures that his previously-stated goals — ending the suffering of people, enduringly, and with hostages home — will not be met.
There is an immediacy sickness in western discourse. Wanting things NOW, Peace NOW, return the hostages NOW, is infantile and counterproductive. Disdaining plans is akin to disdaining institutions.
Yes, Davar still exists as a publication of Israel’s Histadrut. There’s a great piece by Or Paz-Ivry published in February, 2024 entitled “The Path Not Taken: Yigal Allon’s Approach to the Gaza Strip”.
Now more than ever, Israel is in need of an Allon-esque approach to security, what he referred to as “a strategy of peace.” As part of this conception, the possibility of Jordan playing the stabilizing role that Allon suggested in his plan must be reexamined, as many of the geopolitical conditions that Allon described at the time still exist today, despite the passage of time. These conditions lead to the conclusion that Jordan must be a central partner in any political solution…
I was saying this myself 20+ years ago. A pity in my ignorance I had no idea there was a strong thread of thought along these lines, articulated by a major Israeli figure whom history has regrettably sidelined. I am an Allonite.
Tuesday, December 31st, 2024
In reading what would be Yitzhak Rabin’s final speech to the Knesset, the Prime Minister reassures his colleagues regarding the Oslo Accords:
The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.
He goes on to argue:
An examination of the maps and of the paragraphs of the agreement regarding the additional stages of the redeployment shows that Israel retains complete freedom of action, in order to implement its security and political objectives relating to the permanent solution, and that the division of the areas gives the IDF and the security branches complete security control in Areas B and C, except for the urban areas.
But this belies what the accords state in Annex IV: Protocol Concerning Legal Affairs, Article I.a, namely that Area C “except for the Settlements and the military locations, will be gradually transferred to the Palestinian side in accordance with this Agreement”.
It seems the idea was for Israel to leave Areas A and B, allow Israeli forces to enter Area B to protect Israelis, and leave for a future date a negotiation over how much of C will also be handed over. The text covering this is in Article XIII: Security:
Further redeployments from Area C and transfer of internal security responsibility to the Palestinian Police in Areas B and C will be carried out in three phases, each to take place after an interval of six months, to be completed 18 months after the inauguration of the Council, except for the issues of permanent status negotiations and of Israel’s overall responsibility for Israelis and borders.
That is a big “except for” yet it appears in the sentence as a kind of afterthought — “to be completed except for some important bits”
The Area C handover never happened yet the Palestinians nonetheless presume, along with pretty much all of the international community except some Americans, that it belongs to them. Israel is presented as oppressing the Palestinians by not letting them build there; theoretical dollar amounts are placed on natural resources that the Palestinians are being blocked from exploiting in Area C, like some sort of bill to Israel that is being added up.
The question now is whether it would better to clarify all this or leave it in the current limbo. I would say it does; if Israel unilaterally annexes some of Area C, as the Likud campaigned on in 2019, that does not preclude it from annexing more later. The status quo seems to be however that both sides are willing to sneak around Area C, each hoping the other will somehow eventually disappear.
At Bar Ilan’s Begin-Sadat Center, Brig. Gen. (res.) Eran Ortal (recently retired from military service as commander of the Dado Center for Multidisciplinary Military Thinking) is concerned that in Lebanon Israel has “launched an operation against infrastructure, not against an enemy”.
Thursday, December 19th, 2024
Sometimes one must check in with the other side, such as it is. So this is “Prof. John Mearsheimer on the Fall of Assad: Syria Will Be in CHAOS For the Forseeable Future” on Afshin Rattansi’s Going Underground Vimeo channel. With Mearsheimer’s erudition, University of Chicago credentials and light New York area accent, now I understand why he is taken seriously, yet even he must politely push back against this charlatan Rattansi with the constant bitter laugh, who signs off with:
Continued condolences to those surviving UK/US/EU-armed genocide here in this region. We’ll be back on Monday with the legendary Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters.
It was worth having 28 minutes on just for that. What twaddle.
Wednesday, December 18th, 2024
In The Jerusalem Post, Gil Murciano, CEO of the Mitvim Institute, pleas for Israeli engagement with the new Syria, deriding “splendid isolation” and the “village in the jungle” mentality. For one, if we don’t, the Iranians will be back in full force, willing to help out.
In retrospect, when I used to blog more, this issue was perhaps my main one outside of navel-gazing. Of course, hanging back is the lesson of Menachem Begin’s intervention in Lebanon in the early 1980s; and when he intervened, he was breaking an already-established norm.
There’s no doubt that Israel is in the center of the region, and her actions affect others. So there could be even more authority garnered by being very obviously clearly not interested in intervening in other countries, which is an unusual stance. But hasn’t that Rubicon now been crossed? Perhaps not; Israel’s shockwaves affecting others is not quite so new as it seems; regimes fall after wars with Israel — that’s how Nasser and Assad himself came to power.
I’m torn; while I tend towards the engagement direction, prudence suggests hanging back and staying out of the maelstrom of Middle Eastern affairs as much as is feasible. How much does the Powell Doctrine — you break it, you own it — apply?
Tuesday, December 10th, 2024
John Podhoretz wonders what can explain Obama-Biden policy towards Iran. Michael E. Ginsberg has an answer in American Greatness: “The Biden Administration and Iran: DEI Manifested as Foreign Policy”:
Iran is DEI catnip. For the DEI crowd, Iran today is a non-Western, Third World country, the alleged victim of Western meddling and colonialism that threw off its supposedly Western-imposed chains and established a government whose defining characteristic was hostility to the West. It was the perfect petri dish for a new foreign policy rooted in Western self-abasement, guilt, and deference to “indigenous” voices.
The resulting behavior is a vivid example of the cul-de-sac you go up when you willfully defy reality this way. And when you are responsible for the security and flourishing of the free world, it’s a scandal for the ages.
Friday, December 6th, 2024
David P. Goldman’s back! His piece in Law & Liberty, “China as It Is”, is educational and deft.
The geography of China meant that flood control could not be undertaken locally. It required the full resources of an empire across the 8,000 miles of the Yellow and Yangtse Rivers, not counting tributaries. That was China’s equivalent of Manifest Destiny.
Saturday, November 30th, 2024
Michael Beckley of Tufts gives a mind-blowingly impressive 37-minute lecture on China hitting a great wall.
Thursday, November 28th, 2024
The Reverse Shot’s review by Julien Allen of A Matter of Life & Death does the movie justice. Some 75 years after the movie was made in part apparently to bolster post-war morale and Anglo-American relations, its dive into the relative merits of the USA and the UK is a surprising delight. The visual effects too are wonderfully crafted — it must have opened the minds of viewers such as Stanley Kubrick to the standards possible if you care enough.
Friday, November 22nd, 2024
The guy with the great hair at Web Dev Simplified has made a “How To Handle Permissions Like A Senior Dev” video which addresses the issues that my Engaging OS handles. He comes to a slightly different solution, relying on a third-party setup, something I hadn’t even thought of doing, abstracting out the permissions. And I think I’ve been made to understand that attributes are not just a better and more detailed way to organize the user/role’s permissions, but liberate the user/role from primacy in handling permissions.
Friday, November 15th, 2024
Grades reveal who is persistent, self-disciplined, and compliant—but they don’t reveal much about emotional intelligence, relationship skills, passion, leadership ability, creativity, or courage.
David Brooks, How the Ivy League Broke America
Tuesday, November 5th, 2024
The turnaround had perhaps begun, not a moment too soon: beloved Boeing sheds DEI. This pernicious practice may not have been the original source of the rot at Boeing but its acceptance at an engineering firm was at very least a symptom.
Thursday, October 31st, 2024
Interesting erudition on Jews and Adventists [PDF].
Monday, October 28th, 2024
The Knesset has finally banned UNRWA, the humanitarian agency serving as strategic weapon against Israel since 1949.
Sunday, October 27th, 2024
Jordan B on Donald J. You know what, i think it’s all gonna be okay.
Friday, October 25th, 2024
The Manhattan Institute surveys American Jews. The more Jews attend synagogue, the more they support Trump. Only the Orthodox care most about Israel — and are the only Republican Jews. As a whole, American Jews are mostly sticking with the Democrats despite qualms. Conservatives most care about the economy and abortion equally. Reform Jews care most about abortion (wishing to enable it, presumably).
Sunday, October 20th, 2024
On Sky News, former Head of MI6 Sir John Sawyer disagrees with David Patraeus’s characterization of Sinwar’s takeout being more important than that of Osama Bin Laden — because as opposed to being “a global struggle against the West” Hamas is merely limited to “the occupied territories of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank”. I presume Sky News asked this question in order to get this answer. And it perfectly encapsulates my personal fundamental incompatibility with the established British viewpoint.
Saturday, October 19th, 2024
In Newsweek, Spengler on Orban’s European Zionism:
European nationalists look to Israel as a beacon of hope. It’s the only high-income country with a fertility rate above the 2.1 breakeven level — so far above breakeven at three children per female that its working-age population will more than double from today’s 4.5 million to 11 million by the end of this century, according to UN demographers.
As a member of a scientific advisory board to the Hungarian government, I have had the opportunity to speak to numerous high-ranking officials, and can attest that their admiration for Israel and the Jewish people is sincere, principled and deep. They view Israel as “the exemplar and paragon of a nation,” as Franz Rosenzweig put it.
Liberal American Jews cannot wrap their minds around the new philo-semitism among conservative European nationalists.
No further Ribbonfarm story of ribbonfarm has been, in a small one-of-a-million threads way, the story of civilization itself, through the 2007-24 period. Venkatesh Rao writes:
The story of ribbonfarm has been, in a small one-of-a-million threads way, the story of civilization itself, through the 2007-24 period.
There’s even wit in the laudatory comments.
The path out of loneliness is always a path of action.
Bret Stephens, If Israel Is Alone, What Do We Do About It?
By Armin Rosen in Unherd, the most important thing I’ve read about Sinwar and his passing:
A significant body of facts suggests that Sinwar believed he would succeed in destroying the state of Israel on or about October 7, 2023. A few years before the attacks, he co-sponsored a conference at a Gaza City hotel entitled “Promise of the Hereafter: Post-Liberation Palestine” in which participants discussed topics such as the enslavement of educated Jews and the mass execution of alleged Arab collaborators in the aftermath of Israel’s imminent violent destruction.
Thursday, October 17th, 2024
Great thread: To whom to send condolences on the death of Sinwar. A lot of Greta Thunberg.
Tuesday, October 15th, 2024
I keep going back to it to see if he’s reconsidered, so I guess I need a link to it. Paul Graham, startup hero, in his sharp and well exquisite style, tweeted on October 9th:
65 doctors, nurses, and paramedics told the New York Times what they saw in Gaza. What they saw was a pattern of children being shot in the head.
PG’s artful repetition of the fragment “what they saw” expresses his suppressed fury at Israel’s ongoing moral repugnance. I wonder, once this blood libel is debunked, if he will revisit this thread and more importantly his own priors. In such a sharp mind it’s difficult to imagine the thought framework required to arrive at this fury. PG presumes it’s true; wanting to believe it’s true requires a lot of scaffolding; actually believing it’s true requires still more.
[Update 2024 Oct 19:] Nope, he’s still at it, retweeting more of this kind of thing. Though the only thing he’s tweeted on the topic himself since is this on October 17th:
When I first saw this tweet I was horrified. Then I read the account name and I was relieved. This is from 1940. Then I remembered that the same things are happening right now, and I was horrified again.
He’s referring to this tweet from @RealTimeWWII:
Kennington Park rescue worker: “Whole thing’s blown to bits- heads, arms, legs, feet lying about. Only way you can tell girls from the men is their hair.”
Monday, October 14th, 2024
Tal Becker, a great thinker, on Call Me Back.
Monday, October 7th, 2024
Pretty troubling — in this interview with Hugh Hewitt, who asks repeatedly and gets the same answer again, Trump believes a deal can be made with Iran once they are sufficiently impoverished.
I would have had a deal a long time ago, because they were bust. They were totally busted. They were ready to make a deal. They would have made a deal. … I would have gotten, in my opinion, 50/50 chance, maybe more than that, Iran would have been in the Abraham Accords. They wanted to make a deal so bad until we had that phony election.
To his credit, Hewitt pushes back with: “I think they’re fanatics, and you can’t deal with them.”
The Jerusalem Post reports on Hamas Rape Tunnels of Gaza posters being put up in Tube stations. Generally I abhor the the mournful, sanctimonious, dull tone of British Jewish statements, but this is excellently acerbic. Very well done (I see in the bottom right corner they even put their names to it, that is unusual).
Unpleasant but necessary: this fellow Pataramesh provides sober intel on Iranian capabilities. He seems to think they are the good guys. He’s arguing that Iran’s missile strike was calibrated and limited and sends signals that it can do more.
On Twitter, Dan Linneaus writes (he’s pinned this one to the top of his profile):
Taking out Iran’s oil and nuclear facilities puts the cart before the horse..
He provides more detail here and here. This all makes sense to me: defang them first; this has the added benefit, apart from being smart, of doing what Biden asks: not hitting the oil nor nuclear facilities. Yet.
Israel just pulled off this snake-charming trick against Hizballah, degrading them for a year before delivering a hammering burst of coups de grâce; can it be done again. You know, I bloody think so.
Saturday, October 5th, 2024
Khamenei’s sermon translated in English at his homepage.
Thursday, October 3rd, 2024
Good piece looking at things more from Iran’s perspective in Asia Times, “Iran has everything to lose in direct war with Israel” by Shahram Akbarzadeh.
Fighting Israel is very much a pillar of state identity in Iran. The Iranian political establishment is set up on the principle of challenging the United States and freeing Palestinian lands occupied by Israel. Those things are ingrained in the Iranian state identity. So, if Iran doesn’t act on this principle, there’s a serious risk of undermining its own identity.
Things have come down to the wire, as they do. Reportedly, the Israeli cabinet has decided on its response after a 4-hour meeting. Going by experience it will be shock and awe.
David Goldman often looks to demographics. “Improbable as it may seem,” he writes, “the core scenario according to present trends will make Israel the economic center of the Middle East sometime toward the end of the century.”
Goodness, Niall Ferguson on Bibismarck.
David Goldman tours the world with Caroline Glick with an emphasis on Israel and China.
Wednesday, October 2nd, 2024
Here we fucking go, this didn’t take long.
“We’ll be discussing with the Israelis what they’re going to do, but all seven of us (G7 nations) agree that they have a right to respond but the response but they should respond proportionally Biden told reporters before boarding Air Force One.”
One advantage of striking back immediately would have been not having to deal with this bullshit.
On the other hand, Biden is reliable; if he says he does not support an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, then an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites it is. And they made a show of helping repel the attacks. And they may put in place more sanctions against Iran. And if they are willing to get out of the way, as they have eventually done each step of the journey, that is likely enough.
Stories like The Wall Street Journal’s “Israeli Response to Iran’s Attack to Set Course of Widening War” are faintly ridiculous in their discourse of retaliation and restraint. A typical quote:
“Israel will seek to reinforce the idea that its technological superiority and military skill allow it to strike any target in Iran,” said Norman Roule, who served as the top U.S. intelligence officer on Iran from 2008 to 2017. But Israel is likely to avoid striking targets that could spark a full-scale war with Iran, Roule said
Wrong. Israel is no longer playing the game of retaliation — and has stated so explicitly, as least vis-a-vis Hizballah — nor of message-sending. Whatever happens next is not retaliation but simply the next move in an existential conflict that is therefore indeed all-out war, albeit less visibly so than most due to the complexity of the theater. Further quotes in the article are more on track: “In the end, decision makers in Tehran settled for the idea that restraint would not help to avoid a bigger confrontation anyway,” they quote Walter Posch, a senior researcher with the National Defense Academy in Vienna.
Remember, Netanyahu gave what is in retrospect the most credible wartime speech ever at the UN, one that demands being pored over given that even while he spoke Nasrallah was being assassinated at his order. Much of that halo remains for a subsequent video Netanyahu made to the Iranian people, in which Israel’s long-serving Prime Minister tells them they’ll be free “sooner than people think”. I choose to take this not as credibility-spending bluster but rather with credibility-maintaining seriousness.
After all, Israel had spent much strategic energy on the devastating, ingenious take-out of Hizballah — We’ve been waiting for this opportunity for years, was the IDF’s line — but Hizballah is merely Iran’s proxy. It strains credulity therefore that the forthcoming operations against Iran will be any less historic and gob-smacking. Israel would not have begun Operation New Order with the pager attack against Hizballah’s fighters without having in place the plan for Tehran.
Tuesday, October 1st, 2024
Netanyahu: “When Iran is finally free — and that moment will come a lot sooner than people think — everything will be different.”
Ohad Merlin’s Indigenous Pact:
Israel’s challenge in the next stage is to create a mirror image of [Iran’s] bloody proxy war. Everywhere Iran has sent its arms – that’s where Israel needs to forge alliances and contribute to the cutting of the regime’s arms. Following Ben-Gurion’s “Periphery Alliance” and Begin’s “Minority Alliance” policies, Israel must now forge the “Indigenous Alliance” between the Jewish people and other indigenous peoples and religious communities in the Middle East who are suffering under the oppression of Khamenei and his emissaries throughout the region: Druze, Arabs, Kurds, Sunnis, Christian denominations, anti-regime Shiites – and fight the Islamic Republic together.
Been wondering who is this Khaled Hassan on the Twitters. My pet theory: there’s gonna be a lot more converts to Judaism like him once this damn war is won. It’s gonna be like moving to the New World.
Monday, September 30th, 2024
“There’s something so dazzling about the contemporaneousness of the attacks,” articulates Abe Greenwald on this celebratory episode of the Commentary Daily Podcast.
Netanyahu speaks in English directly to the Iranian people. Portentously, given the newfound utter credibility he has after the last month of military voodoo, he says: “When Iran is finally free — and that moment will come a lot sooner than people think — everything will be different.” Italics mine.
One thing does give me pause: that this is really a speech for a United States President to make. Maybe though I’m thinking too small and it is actually an Israel-scale job to take on Iran while the USA focuses on the larger-power horizon. Maybe it’s actually a fine one-two posture where the USA is willing to defend Israel to the point of insisting others contribute, then is unhappy yet ultimately tolerant when Israeli goes on the offensive. But regardless, you go to war with the army and allies you have.
Thanks for this, jpod. In “Israel Rises”, at his Commentary Magazine, John Podhoretz feels compelled to give thanks by listing Israel’s military successes in the past month.
Whatever the divisions and concerns and cautions inside the corridors of power about the astonishing onslaught of Israel against the Iran Axis of Evil, the fact is Israel stared into the abyss and said, “Not today. Not this week. Not this month. Not ever.”
Saturday, September 28th, 2024
I had to search for this, Hizballah’s own statement on Nasrallah’s death.
True to form, The Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board sums up the situation pithily in “Israel Sends Nasrallah to His Just Reward”. I like that they too noted the headline on the Jeremy Bowen BBC piece “Bowen: West left powerless as Israel claims its biggest victory yet against Hezbollah” (to be fair to him, he doesn’t put it this way in the text) placying Israel beyond the West. They commend Israel for its “remarkable display of intelligence, technological skill, and above all political will.”
Through perhaps gritted teeth and scripted statements and a day later, Biden/Harris nonetheless take the win. The line: “a measure of justice” has been served.
The Underground Hunt for Mexico's Most Wanted Drug Kingpin...
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Coming Out of the Closet Was Liberation. Why Are Some Peeking Back In?
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Cannes Film Festival bans risque outfits from ceremony...
Texas push to ban non-citizens from buying land prompts racism worries...
Retirement Is the New Resistance
Whiny DOJ Lifers Start Support Group
It's Time for Thom Tillis To Go
Stephen Miller Will Defy the Courts if He Has To
Trump Attacking Foundations of Church-State Separation
Trump Seizes the Momentum Back
Democrats Are Normalizing Political Violence
China Called Trump's Bluff
Extend Trump's Tax Cuts, Repeal Biden's Climate Handouts
Johnson Struggling To Deliver on Trump's Tax Cut Promises
Will Mormons Save the Great Salt Lake?
Inside the Battle for the Soul of the LAPD
The Hunt for Mexico's Most Wanted Drug Kingpin
U.S. Defense Budget Must Be an Instrument of Lethality
A Common Sense Budget Reconciliation Bill
Links for the intellectually curious, ranked by readers.
FedRAMP 20x – One Month in and Moving Fast
Understanding LucasArts' iMUSE System
Wtfis: Passive hostname, domain and IP lookup tool for non-robots
A conversation about AI for science with Jason Pruet
Build your own Siri locally and on-device
Show HN: Lumoar – Free SOC 2 tool for SaaS startups
Can you trust that permission pop-up on macOS?
Legion Health (YC S21) is hiring engineers to help fix mental health with AI
Byte latent transformer: Patches scale better than tokens
RIP Usenix ATC
Launch HN: ParaQuery (YC X25) – GPU Accelerated Spark/SQL
Show HN: Airweave – Let agents search any app
The Barbican
Embeddings are underrated (2024)
Demonstrably Secure Software Supply Chains with Nix
“Reasonability” law passed. Police mass against protesters storming Knesset
“Reasonability” law passed. Police massed against protesters storming Knesset
Voting starts on reasonability curb for High Court after opposition nixes any compromise
Police forcibly remove protesters blocking entry to Knesset for crucial votee
Ex-Mossad chief Cohen: Israel consensus vital as Iran’s threat spirals
A pacemaker urgently implanted in prime minister’s heart
Bids to soften first legal reform bill as more military reservists join protest
Air Force dismayed by 1,142 air crew reservists’ threat to balk duty in protest over judicial overhaul
Committee nods to bill curbing High Court’s freedom to overturn government decisions
Israel denies NYT account of Biden-Netanyahu conversation
Prepared for the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
U.S. Strategy on Iran Must Reverse the Mistakes of 2015
Former Justice Minister: Ireland Is Most Anti-Israel Country in Europe
Israel's Sa'ar-6 Corvettes - the Backbone of Its Surface Fleet
The People of Israel Rise Each Morning with Resolve to Defend Their Communities
Israel Still Shines as the Most Resilient Place on Earth
IDF Continues to Erode Hizbullah's Capabilities
Hearing in Britain's House of Commons Turned into Trial Against Israel
Israel Thwarts Palestinian Authority's Planned Camp for Displaced Residents in Samaria
The Gaza War Is a Test Case for the West
87 Percent of Palestinians Deny Hamas Atrocities of Oct. 7, despite Videos
Israel Believes Trump Lacks Senate Support for Saudi Nuclear Deal without Israeli Involvement
IDF, Mossad Recover Body of Israeli Soldier from First Lebanon War in 1982
Israel's Eurovision Entry Survived the Oct. 7 Attack
Lebanon Purges Hizbullah Staff from Beirut Airport to Crack Down on Smuggling
Trump Had "Private Meeting" with Netanyahu Adviser on Thursday
‘AI models are capable of novel research’: OpenAI’s chief scientist on what to expect
Hunting extreme microbes that redefine the limits of life
Migraine drug is first to tackle debilitating early symptoms
North America’s birds are declining where they should be thriving
What language do bats speak? I’m trying to find out
The scars of war last for centuries: how we understand collective trauma needs to change
Why bad philosophy is stopping progress in physics
NSF terminates huge number of grants and stops awarding new ones
Scientists turn lead into gold
Daily briefing: How skunk cabbages get their stink
US environmental agency halts funding for its main science division
A ‘hidden gem’ of the Amazon is a frog with odd habits
Rice paddies produce food for billions ― and lots of methane
China’s dementia incidence is rising fast ― outpacing the global average
A pope, a polymath and plucky women: Books in brief
Why Darfur is now the center of Sudan’s power struggle and humanitarian crisis
Hezbollah leader calls on government to work harder to end Israel’s attacks on Lebanon
Israeli army flattens Rafah ruins
Syria FM says wants to ‘strengthen relations’ with China
Fighter jet slips off the hangar deck of a US aircraft carrier in the Red Sea, one minor injury
Israel army says hit more than 50 ‘terror targets’ in Lebanon in past month
Israel’s Shin Bet chief announces resignation, to step down June 15, Israeli media reports
Gaza rescuers say Israeli strikes kill at least 40
Iran minister blames ‘negligence’ for port blast that killed 65
Israeli authorities order Palestinians to stop building homes in Al-Jib town
A quarterly magazine of urban affairs, published by the Manhattan Institute, edited by Brian C. Anderson.
New York Politicians Are Repeating Old Mistakes
Didn’t They Learn Anything From the Fiscal Crisis?The War on Landlords
From Covid eviction bans to tenant-slanted laws, property owners are under financial siege. Here’s what Trump can do about it.Impoverished Altruism
Limiting charity to material needs fails to nourish the human spirit.The Fading Lessons of New York’s Fiscal Crisis
From exploding welfare costs to billions spent on migrants to soaring compensation, politicians are repeating the mistakes of the 1970s.Presidents and CEOs
10 Blocks podcast
We have long known that psychoanalysts love poetry, says Hannah Zeavin. The jury is out on whether they can be said to love poets
Is Trumpism fascism? The question has caused a deep rift among left-wing historians
“Never leave me alone with poets,” and other demands from the few men who've edited The New Yorker
“I believe in Spinoza’s God,” Einstein said in 1929. What exactly he meant has been debated ever since
Used in hats, boas, and funerary art, dyed ostrich feathers were a 19th-century phenomenon
How to hop trains. A comprehensive guide exists, but you have to look for it in the right places
Stendhal syndrome: Every year, dozens of tourists are rushed to Florence’s hospitals, physically overcome by paintings, sculptures, and frescoes
China warns that Cold War problems could be ‘reheated’ in Asia-Pacific region
Sex-trafficking case against Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs kicks off with first witnesses
BYD factory delayed in Brazil to be ‘fully functional’ by end of 2026, official says
First group of white South Africans arrives in US for resettlement
Fake passports, hidden cameras: 6 Bulgarians who led Russian spy ring are jailed in UK
UK police investigate overnight fire at PM Keir Starmer’s house in London
Mexico says US 15-day suspension of beef imports over screwworm parasite is ‘unfair’
Russia downed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in 2014, UN aviation council rules
Hamas releases Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander in goodwill gesture towards US
Colombia to sign on to China’s Belt and Road Initiative
Brain candy for Happy Mutants
Propmaster pulls back the curtain on movie magic
ICE detains Harvard Medical School cancer researcher
Arcade classic Gauntlet hacked to show entire dungeons on high-res displays
Adorable baby chimp plays peek-a-boo with a giant Easter egg
Artists resist AI with the #StarterPackNoAI movement
This knife has become my best EDC buddy
Medication delivered by chewing gum
Trump "lab leak" website "inaccurate, flawed, and misleading"
Give your photos a professional touch in just a few clicks with Luminar Neo, now $90 for life
Sarah Palin loses her libel lawsuit against the New York Times
Nothing to sniff at: "Large amounts" of cocaine hit Texas beaches after smuggling goes awry
The most important card in your wallet: MagTag slim tracker now $32.99
Being a Lego Master Builder is a real career path, and I'm seriously reconsidering my life choices
Oblivion remake announced and released
Sentences to ponder
Who wants impartial news?
Monday assorted links
Supply is elastic, installment #6437
The game theory of India and Pakistan
Sunday assorted links
Adam Smith on Mercantilism
Eric Topol invites me to his podcast
Where did the Solow residual go?
New Bryan Caplan book, *Pro-Market AND Pro-Business: Essays on Laissez-Faire*
Saturday assorted links
Why progress is important
Is MR Biased?
How will AI affect cities and travel?
Emergent Ventures, 42nd cohort
Rumors and news on everything Apple since 1997
How to add, remove, and configure Mail accounts in iPadOS 18
KinHanK K18G Monitor review: A balance between quality and convenience
Apple's Messages app won't send audio messages with an ampersand
Apple Card promotion offers users 6% cash back on Nike purchases
Apple discontinuing support for older Home architecture with iOS 19
President Trump talked to Apple CEO Tim Cook after China tariff reduction
Apple turns to AI for battery management in iOS 19
C1 modem and more: iOS 18.5 introduces more than 30 different security fixes
Older macOS & iPadOS versions got security updates too
Lowest price: M3 iPad Air dips to $499 after $100 discount on Amazon
Hands on with all the new features in iOS 18.5
iOS 18.5 ships with Mail refinements, new wallpaper
Opinions on corporate and brand identity work.
Announced: Brand New will Shift to Subscription Model
Spotted: New Logo for Blue Islands
Linked: Louis Vuitton Architecture
Noted: New Name and Logo for St. Louis City SC
Reviewed: Friday Likes 339: From Studio MPLS, Wade and Leta, and Unifikat Design Studio
Spotted: New Logo and Identity for Vitkus Clinic by Tandemo
Spotted: New Logo and Identity for Netgen by IDnaGroup
Linked: Biden &Harris &Decimal
Noted: New Logo and Identity for Correos de México by Carl Forsell
Reviewed: New Logo and Identity for BERA by How & How
Spotted: New Logo for Playtika
Spotted: New Logo and Identity for The 19th by Page 33 Studio
Linked: Objects may be Closer than they Ap-pear
Noted: New Logo and Identity for Zappos Adaptive by Eric&Todd
Reviewed: New Logo and Identity for Lot61 by Smörgåsbord
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Fusion eggheads claim modeling fix for particle escape - at least in stellarators
M365 apps on Windows 10 to get security fixes into 2028
Bosses weren’t being paranoid: Remote workers more likely to start their own biz
CISA mutes own website, shifts routine cyber alerts to Musk’s X, RSS, email
FreeBSD fans rally round zVault upstart
Attackers pwn charter airline helping Trump's deportation campaign
CERN boffins turn lead into gold for about a microsecond at unimaginable cost
US, China agree to roll back tariffs – but only for 90 days
OS-busting bug so bad that Microsoft blocks Windows Insider release
Paul McCartney, Elton John, other creatives demand AI comes clean on scraping
LegoGPT is here to make your blocky dreams come true
Britain's cyber agents and industry clash over how to tackle shoddy software
experiments in refactored perception
Ribbonfarm is Retiring
After several years of keeping it going in semi-retired, keep-the-lights-on (KTLO) mode, I’ve decided to officially fully retire this blog. The ribbonfarm.com domain and all links will remain active, but there will be no new content after November 13th, 2024, which happens to be my 50th birthday. There will be one final roundup post before […]Truth-Seeking Modes
Been on a Venn diagram kick lately, since being primed to think in Venns by Harris campaign. This one summarizes an idea I’ve long been noodling on: The healthiest way to relate to a truth-seeking impulse is as an infinite game, where the goal is to continue playing, not arrive at a dispositive “winning” right […]Intellectual Menopause
I ran across the alarming phrase intellectual menopause a few months ago in John Gall’s Systemantics, and it naturally stuck in my brain given I’m pushing 50 and getting predictably angsty about it. The phrase conjures up visions of a phenomenon much more profound and unfunny than the more familiar one we know as midlife […]
