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The Inspector iPhone 6S Kiryat Ono, Israel Sunday, October 2nd, 2016.

The Inspector
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The Inspector iPhone 6S Kiryat Ono, Israel Sunday, October 2nd, 2016.

More Than You Know It
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More Than You Know It iPhone 6S Herzlia, Israel Monday, September 26th, 2016.

World’s Gooeyist
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World’s Gooeyist iPhone 4S London, England Saturday, June 29th, 2013.

Thomas Edison’s Back Garden Jetty
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Thomas Edison’s Back Garden Jetty iPhone 4S Fort Meyers, Florida Saturday, April 20th, 2013.

Car Pet (or My Other Goat is a Camel)
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Car Pet (or My Other Goat is a Camel) iPhone 4S Hod Hasharon, Israel Tuesday, October 2nd, 2012.

Jet Age Jim
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Jet Age Jim iPhone 4S Brussels, Belgium Tuesday, May 15th, 2012.

Hot Pipes
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Hot Pipes Olympus C5050 Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Sunday, May 18th, 2008.

Beach Baskets
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Beach Baskets Nokia 6630 Tuesday, August 15th, 2006.

Pipe to Red Sea
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Pipe to Red Sea Olympus C5050 Eilat, Israel Saturday, July 31st, 2004.

Self-portrait with Wendy-House
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Self-portrait with Wendy-House Olympus C5050 Ra'anana, Israel Saturday, July 17th, 2004.

Bullet at Rest
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Bullet at Rest Minolta (pocket) Tokyo, Japan Wednesday, September 18th, 2002.

•••

About

Briefs

Thursday, March 2nd, 2023

It’s over too quickly, these two great alliterative-entitled Americans in conversation, Alan Alda and Kevin Kelly on AA’s Clear+Vivid podcast. Alda has such a gracious voice, and Kelly’s meets it. Kelly introduces some novel standpoints, earning his “world’s most interesting man” Tim Ferris monicker. The impetus and much of the conversation revolves around AI chatbots.

Saturday, July 30th, 2022

Managing Editor of eVTOL News Dan Gettinger rounds up recent developments by eVTOL leader Archer, Beta, Eve, Joby, Lilium, Volocopter and Wisk.

Thursday, June 16th, 2022

So Marc Andreessen’s interview with Tyler Cowen is making some waves because he seemed unable to justify Web3 (see tweets from Ian Bremmer, and, more predictably caustically, Nassim Nicholas Taleb). Personally I think Andreesse ha’s made the case better elsewhere, for instance, saying that if the internet had originally had a money layer then we’d never have had spam. But for me, as the developer of a new RSS reader, I was more interested in Tyler’s question about RSS:

Tyler Cowen: Do you still use an RSS reader?

Mark Andreessen: I do. This is actually an exciting moment on that topic for those of us who love these things. I use Feedly, which I like a great deal. It’s a guy. The guy who does it is a guy who used to work for us, a wonderful guy. I think it’s a great product and the inheritor of the now-lost Google Reader, the ruthlessly executed Google Reader.

This is talking about books, but Substack — one of our companies — has a new reader. It’s primarily for reading Substack. It basically is recreating, in my view, the best of what Google Reader had. That’s the other one that is getting a lot of use right now. I use both of those.

TC: Why does RSS at least seem to be so much less important than before?

MA: RSS is one of those things. I would say this gets into a broader, overarching, huge debate-fight happening in the tech industry right now. Internet got built on two models, which are diametrically opposed.

So Marc Andreessen uses Feedly and Substack! I wonder why both. I also want to know which reader TC uses — I seem to recall him saying that he does use one. The man seems to reply to hoi polloi — maybe I’ll ask him.

Incidentally I was surprised that this was not one of the better Conversations with Tyler. It didn’t really warm up into a good actual converation. For instance, I’d have thought MA would have asked TC, the world’s most renowned information omnivore, which RSS reader he uses. MA came across as a bit robotic, whereas I hadn’t gotten that impression from him before.

Wednesday, June 8th, 2022

Germany’s industry-leading Lilium demonstrates both vertical take-off and landing with its Phoenix 2 eVTOL technology demonstrator, reports eVTOL.com.

Tuesday, May 17th, 2022

So it seems that video gaming positively impacts childrens’ intelligence

We analyzed 9855 children from the USA who were part of the ABCD dataset with measures of intelligence at baseline (ages 9–10) and after two years. At baseline, time watching (r = − 0.12) and socializing (r = − 0.10) were negatively correlated with intelligence, while gaming did not correlate. After two years, gaming positively impacted intelligence (standardized β =  + 0.17), but socializing had no effect.

Not only is it newsworthy that Israeli company Watergen is installing its drinking water generators in Syria, but that (opposition web site) Syria TV reported the fact.

Tuesday, March 15th, 2022

The BoJo Doctrine: Exploit the potential of all renewable energy technologies in this country, from tidal power to hydro to geothermal … Make a series of big new bets on nuclear power.”

Friday, March 4th, 2022

As an antidote to the war in Ukraine, not far away, in Germany, development of the Lilium eVTOL continues apace. It’s perhaps the most exciting of the upcoming electric planes. The eVTOL Innovation YouTube channel has just dropped a video The Insane Engineering behind The Lilium Jet.

Saturday, February 19th, 2022

Following Tyler Cowen’s growing presence of a web-surfing morning, I note that although the elite is Leftist, the most eminent and influential public thinkers are not. As well as TC I’m thinking of Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Niall Ferguson, Elon Musk. Maybe now even Joe Rogan?

Perhaps it’s a question of age; these guys are all Gen Xers more or less, and all would probably have considered themselves socially liberal and economically conservative by the standards of their youth and early adulthood in the 80s and 90s. There is also a large swathe of others in their wake.

Who on the dominant Left has their stature? Paul Krugman? Is it still Noam Chomsky?

Three of the five I mention are or were known first as builders of enterprises, and TC is now getting into that game, as is Ferguson with the new University of Austin.

Monday, February 14th, 2022

Marc Andreessen has just tweetstormed a section of an Ayn Rand lecture on the contrast between the tribes of Apollo 11 and of Woodstock. Whilst I commend his pro-Deplorables stand, I do feel that as one of the fathers of the age he could be utilizing his mystique to do more, starting perhaps with banging heads in San Francisco. During a recent podcast interview with I forget whom, he dismissed laughingly the prospect of running for office; perhaps he should reconsider. Also, just for some rounding, he might want to read Mailer’s Of a Fire on the Moon, surely an Apollonian who yearns for the Dionysian.

Tuesday, February 8th, 2022

eVTOL Innovation YouTube channel extols the Lilium as the most promising of the upcoming ways we will fly.

Tuesday, February 1st, 2022

The design of Lotus’s upcoming electric vehicle looks like a sleeker Esprit, reports Hearst’s Road & Track; when it’s released we can say we saw the blueprints for this car two years ago.

Sunday, January 9th, 2022

We will never inherit the universe until we learn how to live with radiation—and that means studying it honestly.

J. Storrs Hall, Where is My Flying Car

Sunday, January 2nd, 2022

Counting watts is a better way to measure a people’s standard of living than counting dollars.

J. Storrs Hall, Where is My Flying Car

Tuesday, November 16th, 2021

In American Affairs, my man David P. Goldman argues once again that the United States must step up its basic technological research if it is to avoid losing preeminence to China — and we are all to avoid falling prey to a rather less liberal hegemon. Spengler’s point:

The definitive inventions of late twentieth century technology — laser-powered optical networks, fast and light integrated circuits, and the Internet — all came out of Defense Department projects whose originators could not have foreseen the impact of the new discoveries … All the elements of the modern digital economy — integrated circuits, laser-powered optical networks, sensors, and displays — were invented at the behest of NASA or the Defense Department.

Saturday, October 16th, 2021

David P. Goldman blames the Web technocracy for the end of the American era, comparing it to how Britain lost dominance through the corruption of empire: by eschewing the true wealth creation of manufacturing.

Britain’s best and brightest left Eton and Harrow and went into colonial service, and made fortunes on the sale of British textiles to India, Indian opium to China, and Chinese tea and silks to the West. Britain’s country houses were built on the quick money to be earned from empire, and the British upper class eschewed the dirty work of manufacturing in favor of the faux-aristocracy of the nouveau riche masquerading as landed gentry.

The estimable Goldman is somewhat wrong here I think; web software is much more about conjuring up something from nothing, albeit an intangible digitized something, than it is just shunting stuff around at gunpoint, as he says late-Empire Britain did.

Thursday, October 14th, 2021

Thursday, October 7th, 2021

From the bubbling, dexterous mind of Venkatesh Rao we have two rich essays posted within two days: “Storytelling — Cringe and the Banality of Shadows” and “Remystifying Supply Chains: Supply chains are TV for matter”.

The supply chain crisis is in some ways more unprecedented than Covid itself, given that containerized supply chains, and the world of distributed, networked, computationally coordinated production they enabled, are only a few decades old.

This is the first crisis of this magnitude to hit them.

To find a comparable crisis in history you have to go back to World War 2, with U boats sinking transatlantic shipping. And that was in an era when global trade was less than a third of today’s levels if I’m not mistaken (as a fraction of GDP) and still in the ancient mode of breakbulk shipping.

Tuesday, June 29th, 2021

Chaos Monkeys: Inside the Silicon Valley Money Machine

Antonio Garcia Martinez

♦♦♦♦

As author Antonio García Martínez battles away as an eager newcomer at Facebook, his account jolts one awake to the somewhat forgotten power of literature: we are reminded that what will survive these times will likely not be the mammoth trillion dollar company but instead this book.

And shame on Apple, caving to those who campaigned to have Martinez fired recently from his new job there because of some gross and silly yet heartfelt generalization in the book of San Francisco womenfolk; such philistine snowflakes do little more than buttress his point, as well as forcing our author to remain up on these more commanding if perhaps less remunerative cultural heights.

Saturday, June 26th, 2021

If you do business in LatAm, you’ve got a Miami office. Prodigal son Antonio García Martínez returns to Miami, now on a Substack-fueled writing mission.

I was raised in the Miami of the wild 80s and 90s, and more or less abandoned the city for 20 years before going back due to a family illness circa 2014. Much to my everlasting shock, all the twee fineries of overpaid SF tech life were there: pretentious craft beer poured by bearded lumbersexuals inside stylized industrial loft spaces; whimsically-named, garishly-painted food-trucks clustered in parking lots-turned-parks serving Korean/Mexican fusion tacos; pompous ‘Third Wave’ coffee places (in a city where espresso was already ubiquitous) featuring pierced baristas conjuring a pourover with all the seriousness of a priest performing the eucharistic miracle; glass-clad, high-rise condo buildings, indistinguishable from the same douche-cubes in SF’s SoMa (“GRANITE COUNTERTOPS, STAINLESS STEEL APPLIANCES”) growing like mushrooms in a dewy field throughout the formerly sleepy downtown.

Monday, June 14th, 2021

Friday, June 11th, 2021

Jordan and Israel need to exchange electricity for water. Jordan can produce green solar-powered electricity at 60% of the cost that Israel can, while Israel is the world leader in processing sea water into drinking water. Jordan is in dire need of more water due to a massive influx of refugees who aren’t going anywhere, while Israel needs green electricity to power those desalinization plants.

Sunday, May 16th, 2021

Writing in TidBITS, Glenn Fleishman gives us 13 AirTag tracking scenarios.

Wednesday, May 12th, 2021

Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile defence in action, in a series of videos compiled by the UK’s The Sun.

Saturday, May 8th, 2021

This Dutch fellow tracked the mailing of an AirTag to his own home. It travelled 120km just go to 500m. Next he’s going to send one to Norway.

Thursday, April 22nd, 2021

Wednesday, April 21st, 2021

Thursday, April 1st, 2021

In his Telegraph column, the invaluable Ambrose Evans-Pritchard lays it out that the UK has actually handled Covid pretty well:

We can see in hindsight that the UK began the war on Covid much as it has begun almost every major war over recent centuries: half asleep, in utter shambles, with obsolete contingency plans. The first wave had echoes of the Norway campaign in 1940, or the great retreat of the British Expeditionary Force in August 1914. It always seems to take time for Britons to pull themselves together. Ultimately they do. By the end of the First World War, the British armed forces were arguably the best-run logistical machine on the planet.

Tuesday, January 26th, 2021

Ra’anana-based Vertical Field signed with Emirates Smart Solutions & Technologies (ESST) to build a pilot of its vertical farms in the United Arab Emirates. Major cool.

Tuesday, January 19th, 2021

Nice backgrounder at Stat News on the history of mRNA vaccines.

Wednesday, December 16th, 2020

Israel intercepts a cruise missile in a test of its 3-tier missile defence system.

Tuesday, November 17th, 2020

Wednesday, October 21st, 2020

Thursday, September 17th, 2020

Saturday, September 5th, 2020

Thursday, August 20th, 2020

Tuesday, May 26th, 2020

technovelgy.com, where science meets fiction, and a glorious taste of the old web.

Sunday, April 19th, 2020

Saturday, March 21st, 2020

There’s just so much obviously that we are all reading about the novel coronavirus, i haven’t been posting here. Starting now, here is an important one: Tyler Cowen (who is great when something big is happening) announces the Emergent Ventures prize winners for coronavirus work.

Sunday, March 1st, 2020

Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of an Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader

Brent Schlener and Rick Tetzell

♦♦♦

Although the simple thesis gets repeated interminably, nonetheless it’s a nice one: that Steve Jobs’s greatness stems muchly from his constant becoming, constant learning, constant trying to overcome himself (hence the title, which can be read as descriptive).

It’s great to be in his company, which you feel you are, as one of the authors was himself repeatedly so for decades.

One thing new to me was Pixar’s role in maturing Jobs; we don’t often read about who and what shaped the shaper.

Friday, November 1st, 2019

Wednesday, October 16th, 2019

Volvo unveils its first full battery electric model, the XC40 Recharge SUV with 402bhp a 248-mile range. Featuring no front grille!

Tuesday, October 15th, 2019

A deep dive into the Grand Seiko Snowflake on Hodinkee. “The entire thing seems to have been calculated to create an effect of serenity without boredom; of minimalism without sterility.”

Sunday, October 13th, 2019

AutoCar drives the electric Jaguar I-Pace from London to Frankfurt. As recently as two years ago such a journey simply wasn’t feasible. Now, once you have the more expensive car, it’s much cheaper than driving diesel let alone petrol. That said, charging stops are an hour rather than five minutes, and every 200 miles rather than say every 500. But I think there is some good here. Travellers must get out and stretch their legs for a longer while. All in all our automotive future looks improved.

Tuesday, October 8th, 2019

I’m excited by the Richard Mille Bonbon watch collection. Just fabulous. Crazy expensive but apparently all have been bought, most popularly in Malaysia.

Tuesday, September 24th, 2019

Thursday, September 12th, 2019

On the unstated significance of Apple’s new U1 chip.

I feel rather strongly the Apple U1 Chip, over time will be seen as one of the most important aspect of the September 10th, 2019 Apple Event. We will see it as the start of the HyperLocal world of computing that ultimately will lead to less of a need for the cloud.

Sunday, September 8th, 2019

This author’s 8 best e-bikes, each cooler or funkier than the next.

I want to ride the Goldenpass Express, a Swiss panoramic train designed by Pininfarina.

index topics technology technology

Israel–Iran Proxy War, Day #50

Midway through the hostage deal and ceasefire are two concerns: will the ceasefire become permanent, letting Hamas remain in place? And on what basis does US support for the war rest and will it continue?

Simchat Torah War, Day #17

The US sent an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf, Israel postponed its ground incursion, and the Western media acknowledged its erroneous reporting.

Arab Insanity Pull-up

What shame, to have degraded with one’s own madness such benevolent standards as civil aviation, human rights — even non-combatant status in war.

Denver Met

My intent here is not only to participate in a conference but to suck up myriad Americana as a thirsty exile catapulted back in for a primer.

Yes

It’s a Somewhat Rauschenberg World

I don’t like this use of animals, like Damien Hirst’s. The artist could not have asked the goat for permission so should not have assumed it was granted.

Black Tracks the Presidents

The great virtue of Conrad Black’s Flight of the Eagle is its steady track across the entirety of the nation’s history, treating each president equally under its own law and order.

Homepage Design 2016

Even if a web site appears differently at different screen sizes, it should still feel like itself. On a larger canvas more expression abounds; distill this into the smaller screen and get more personality; do “mobile first” second.

Yes

From iPhone 4S to 6S: An Appreciation

The increased size, something I was so hesitant about, feels fine to me now. And because it’s thinner it feels less obtrusive in my pocket.

Spectreview

With the villain’s quasi-sibling bond to the hero, 2015’s 007 movie deflates to an incestuous Möbius Strip.

In Gaza, Israel Should Own its Terrible Tactic

Although such excoriating labels as “collective punishment” and “state terrorism” aren’t entirely wrong regarding Israel’s application of the Dahieh Doctrine in Gaza, history does suggest that the method is effective in fighting a fundamentally defensive war.

Go Deny Yourself

This four-letter little word undermines our modern values of tolerance and presumption of innocence.

Some Consumer Affairs

I’ve tried to enjoy schlepping water, thinking that it serves to keep us to some human roots.

Yes

From Nokia N95 to iPhone 4S

Annoyances and upsets with the iPhone 4S have been more than offset by its screen, the silkiness of its surfaces, the camera, and the third-party market for both software and hardware.

2001: A Space Odyssey: Dry, Juicy, Linear, Luminous

The dancers in the ape-suits; how they move is an incredibly energetic output for us. Contrast their physical reaction when witnessing the monolith to that of the astronauts in the newly-minted 21st century.

The Mouse and the Cantilever

Steve Jobs we lost at the age of 56; when Frank Lloyd Wright reached that age it was 1923, the time of merely his second comeback with Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel.

Friendship is for Weenies

It’s amazing, given the adulation he enjoyed elsewhere, that the Israeli public knew from the start not to trust US President Obama.

Before the Setup

It’s 1983: Go for the Apple IIe with 64k that could be opened up as a hobbyist machine? Or the smaller, sleeker and newer IIc with double the memory but a closed case?

At Modi’in Mall

There’s nothing else around here except empty desolate pretty hills. The Israel Trail passes by a bit to the west. The shops are mostly franchises, almost all homegrown: Super-Pharm, Aroma, Tzomet Sfarim, Cup O’ Joe’s, LaMetayel, Mega, Fox, Castro, H&O.

Yes

The Israel I Love, the Bad So Far

If the signage were a bit more effective, the staff’s diction and demeanor more professional, then we might have avoided this testy altercation.

Shanghai Europe

So, finally, we stopped yesterday; the Israeli assault on Gaza of late 2008/early 2009 is over. With it, Israel lost moral purity and made vital strategic gains.

Yes

Panning for MacBook Pro

Even if it did nothing, was just a prop in a futuristic movie, the MacBook Pro would be impressive; it’s like a sculpture of my previous computer, the MacBook, except it’s actually an improved computer!

Stop Yesterday

Is the goal of Israel’s current assault on Gaza to discourage Hamas from firing rockets or to render them incapable of doing so? These are two quite different projects.

Short-circuiting Place-based Longing

If there’s one tangible benefit to having lived in a variety of places it’s that it furnishes evidence of the futility of longing to be elsewhere.

A Crawl Across Crawley, Part 1

Irit, the Jam and I walk from Brighton to Gatwick Airport.

Clash of the Midgets

I was annoyed to have my sauna moments despoiled and dominated, reverberating with this old geezer’s most naff yap.

Yes

Israel’s Greatest Victory Since Osirak?

If Ariel Sharon’s withdrawal from Gaza was part of a masterplan to staunch the damage done by the victory of the Six Day War in 1967, then today we see another step in its unfolding.

The Small Adventures, Part 2

There in the empty restaurant by the water at Dieppe I had toast with foie gras, a carafe of red wine, a huge plate of mussels and chips, and finally a crème brûlée. Somehow, though I’ve eaten in restaurants hundreds of times, I felt grown up.

Yes

The Small Adventures

Late for the 11pm train to Milan, we enquired frantically among the taxis for one who’d accept the two dogs and take us to Termini Station so I could begin our journey to Britain.

Tony Blair and the Four-State Solution

Ariel Sharon’s disengagement policy reflected an understanding that ownership of the Palestinian issue is shared with Egypt and Jordan. If Tony Blair were to acquire this view, perhaps he really could help facilitate an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A Restoration and Return

There she was, sitting outside the apartment block! How did she do it? Dogs—or at least Jam—must have some sort of navigational sense we don’t understand.

Curs to Fate

Yesterday I lost Jam in Villa Borghese, the central park here in Rome, some five miles from Talenti, the neighborhood where we’re staying. She has not turned up since.

Yes

Jam and Bread, Jam and Bread!

My dog Jam has spent over a third of her time here in Italy as her fixtures have fallen away—first Maddie, then me. But now I’m back!

Yes

This Trip’s Last Day

I went to Astor Place Haircutters. I crossed Manhattan Bridge on foot. I walked west along Canal St, seeking a bamboo steamer.

I, Thou and Pastor Bob

At the Calvary Church here in Fort Lauderdale the Biblical locations feel so far away that they can be abstracted and spiritualized. There is religious energy here.

Yes

The Big and Easy

The American stage is grand, as are the achievements and ambitions, but daily life seems lamed by a compulsive denaturing.

A Drop in Time

The camera hit the ground lens first, bashing it in so that it would no longer wind in and out, and couldn’t switch on. Without it, my perception of an important personal era was degraded.

A Ride to Gatwick Airport

Airports. They’re so charged, so symbolic, and so empty once you’re at one; I dream of them so often.

Only the Rustle in the Trees

Grief, loss — these are the great teachers surely. What one has will pass.

A Cabaret, Old Chum

It’s a last bastion of civility, being allowed to drink at Penn Station, Brian mused ruefully as we carried our beers to his train home to Great Neck.

Fatahland and Hamastan

Now Israel has a dog in a real Palestinian fight: the nationalists rather than the Islamists.

Yes

Stars, Stripes & Superlatives

Here in Los Angeles I am bombarded with superlatives. Daniel’s record collection. The Bikram Yoga College of India world headquarters. Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. All mixed in with the most ravaging mediocrity.

Shite on Brighton

“Like many provincial towns,” the Private Eye reviewer stabs, “Brighton, as depicted in this hacked-together tribute, defines itself more by what it isn’t than by what it is. It’s not London, for one thing.”

Daily Yin

For my first test of the day as day, I open the back door and step outside to the little patio to see the sky and feel the air. I realize not everybody does this, so if people tell me I’m a miserable bastard then perhaps this little habit will correct their impression.

Mind the Dream

Dreaming about our passed companions as if they are alive requires tricks to the dreaming mind to overcome what it believes and knows to be true.

The Dharma Tits

Buddhism is the philosophy and psychology closest to Cognitive Therapy and vice versa.

Yes

Still Got the Jam

Jam was one of Maddie’s nine puppies, the one who remained after the others were all taken. That was always my plan, to keep the runt.

Such a Tramp

Maddie, who died 18 months ago today, was a mangy mutt and stank, but she was also among the most beautiful dogs I’ve ever seen and for me the longest, richest, widest, deepest streak of feeling lucky.

So You Noticed

I have had something very flattering: a request. Juan Carlos has asked me for comments on Casino Royale.

Reminds Me of Tel Aviv

You get to a stage in life where you are already formed by the past. Thoughts and dilemmas about place are either central questions or a distraction from real issues.

Fly the Blag

Ryanair has brought wretchedness to the skies. Rather than existing on a privileged plane, you stew in a poisoned atmosphere.

Approaching Infinite Justice

Immediately after 9/11, the burgeoning war on terror was named “Operation Infinite Justice”. Within days it was renamed “Operation Enduring Freedom”, but is the new name a mere cloaking of the first?

On the Seventh Day

The Mrs is skeptical of David Allen’s Getting Things Done self-management system because it eschews the rigors of time management in lieu of what feels right. But GTD is about informed feeling.

Don’t Panic!

An academic romp through Jewish American comedy starts out as a veritable rollercoaster ride, but grinds to halt with its obsession with one Bob Dylan.

Photographing a Handsome Old Man

I want to get people in my pics, but it’s tougher when you’re no longer a wide-eyed teenager, because people generally don’t like to think they are a spectacle.

The Beauty of Rain

Rain makes the rocks shine. It puts in motion things that are otherwise static. It illustrates gravity most prettily.

Ode to Salame

It’s supposed to be the arsehole of Tel Aviv, Salame Street, running east-west at its southern tip, but it always does me darn good.

I Love Laundry

How pleasing it is to have my own washing machine. If all isn’t right with the world, not even in my world, at least the laundry cycle is functioning.

Lovely Scenery, But Walks Getting Boring

Unless I drive somewhere new, it’s not much fun to just step out the door and wander. But driving to go for a walk seems a tad ridiculous.

For Love of Economy

It disturbs me to be driving a car that gets fewer kilometers to the shekel than did my previous.

Shinui and the Seven-Year Itch

How refreshing to see Asian faces out shopping in Tel Aviv, or Africans riding the bus to Ra’anana. With them Israel is given fresh wellsprings of culture.

Allah Help the Jackals

While it’s obvious that overplaying your power can result in a downfall, it’s less obvious that underplaying it also leads to trouble. America did this in the 1970s under Carter. Israel seems to have done it almost perennially.

Yes

For Tel Aviv, Better a Skylift Than a Subway

Rather than copycatting a transportation system from the 19th century, Israel could inject into its civic planning the same audacity and resourcefulness that it has historically brought to agriculture and defence.

Yes

Canada Obscura

There’s not a patch of water to be seen—the most liquid thing is the word “Coffee” on one of the low-slung strip-mall buildings. It’s a scene more artful than art itself.

Tour of Kitchen Duty

There was yelling and spray and I raced to keep up. One can enjoy, briefly, the company of men.

Shiny Bright Toadstool

In Israel’s case, burgernomics don’t add up because significant factors contribute to the 30%-odd surcharge on a Big Mac.

The Fresh Jewels of Spring Mound

Quality of life in Tel Aviv is fundamentally enhanced by two simple factors: trees are everywhere, and so are apartments.

Independence Park Up for Grabs?

To this day men of many ages walk these bushes, they delicately lurk these bushes, and stand in places odd to choose.

We Tri Harder

A land could be governed not only by the three separate arms of government, but by three sovereign states.

Yes

Tira Saunters

The one-lane road is empty; down below is the Sharon Plain, looking vast. Israel may be a small country but we’re still speaking here of land.

A Call to Thumbs

When you hitchhike it’s out of your hands, and that’s therapeutic. Paradoxically, you also see how much control you do have.

 

Briefs (cont’d)

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.

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

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

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.

What a day, what a night. Between one thing and another this war has become epic. Yediot reports on the lead-up to the Nasrallah attack, emphasizing that Bibi approved it before his UN speech and that it is a continuation of the operation that began with the pagers [Hebrew]. I’d like to know when precisely it happened: presumably during the speech? And which countries stayed and who walked out. And how many people watched it around the world. And on which platforms.

Thursday, September 26th, 2024

What really is the point of designating an organization terrorist if they are to be accorded the respect of nationstates rather than cancers within nationstates? Under the hapless wastrelhood that passes for American leadership these days, the entire world is pushing for a ceasefire between Israel and Hizballah.

Perhaps however given that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are signatories, it’s merely a UN-esque burlesque, as these neighbors would like to see Hizballah gone almost as much as Israel does, and they know there is no danger of a ceasefire transpiring since these murderous fanatics Hizballah will never agree to it.

That said, while I deeply appreciate that Emirates has continued flying in and out of Ben-Gurion through thick and thin, it would be nice if they were brave enough to stand up and say No, actually we support the expunging of ruinous terrorist statelets.

This would give others pause — maybe not France, with her quaint delusions of Lebanese patronhood (if there were anything behind this anachronistic pose they’d be the ones enforcing Resolution 1701) — but the USA and Germany might be shamed into reconsidering.

 
 

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