Titan presents proof that the universe seems to be OK in the infrared.
Large scale structure (LSS) of the local universe as seen
through the far-infrared COBE/IRAS foreground dust mask.
The COBE/IRAS image comes from
LAMBDA and is derived from the work
of Schlegel et al. (1998); see below. The 2MASS image
shows the background galaxies color coded
by their redshift (blue are close, red are
far galaxies). See below for more details.
Click here for a quicktime movie
version.
He joins sister Pollyanna and their imaginary playmates YandA in wishing everyone a very Happy New Year. Let us hope that 2013 will be a better year than its predecessor. Readers have called Titan a sourpuss, but in fact we are always optimistic. A friend who served years in the Gulag indeed says that we are foolishly optimistic, but we continue in our folly, and try to change the world. We think that the most important sentence in the Siddur (Jewish prayerbook) is in the concluding prayer of each service "to repair the world in the Kingdom of God." We really do not need the Kingdom of God to understand that the world requires repairing. We must continue in the New Year with our Sisyphean task, ranting at injustice, calling for action against human rights violations and in general setting ourselves up as butts for the cynical humor of the know-it-alls who tell us that nothing does any good. We are like Tom Lehrer's Folksong Army, maybe foolish, but true to ourselves.
In this mode, let us refer you to the Miriam Shlesinger Human Rights action blog. As the weeks and months go by without Miriam, we continue to realize what we have lost. She got us into the human rights struggle. We shall always miss her.
IN MEMORIAM
On December 30, we mark the 40th yahrzeit (anniversary) of the
death of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972). He was
arguably the greatest moral and philosophical figure in 20th
century Judaism, with all due respect to Franz Rosenzweig and
Martin Buber among many other great people. He was closely
associated with Martin Luther King both in the civil rights
struggle and in the opposition to the war in Vietnam. He
marched with King in Selma and returned with the famous quote,
"My legs were praying."
Selma, Alabama 1965
Rabbi Heschel, we so sadly need you today.
DECEMBER 25 has passed. It is the birthday of a man whose work and life changed all of ours. We refer of course to Sir IsaacNewton, born December 25, 1643, died March 31, 1727.
Sir Isaac Newton
His work in physics and mathematics, built upon the empirical heritage of Galileo, gave us our first understanding of gravity and the differential calculus as well. His calculations drove the final nails into the coffin of the geocentric universe. We are glad to show an image from the telescope system most appropriately named for him located in Herstmonceux, United Kingdom.
This image of the Crescent Nebula or NGC 6888 was obtained using the
Wide Field Camera on the Isaac Newton Telescope. It is a three-colour
composite made from data collected using filters to isolate the light
emitted by hydrogen alpha (H-alpha) and doubly ionised oxygen (OIII)
atoms, and coded in the image as red, green (25% H-alpha and 75% OIII)
and blue.
Credit: D. López (IAC) [ JPEG | TIFF | PDF ].
NOW THE RANTS
We start with a call for the US government and in particular the President to get serious about gun control. One might hope that the shock of Newtown would have some effect, yet we see the deaths piling up. Slate Magazine and @GunDeaths have set up a site that tallies the deaths by gunshot in the US since Newtown. As of December 27, there had been 242 such deaths.We invite you to link to the site and track the carnage, then tell someone about it in the hope that the outrage will go viral and politicians will have to overcome their fear of the gun lobby and do something to protect human beings.
KILLING BY THE STATE
We want to register our protest along with the progressive community and Amnesty International over the execution of six people in Taiwan.
A Taiwanese activist stands in front of a billboard reading 'say no to the death penalty'
Zeng Si-ru, Hung Ming-tsung, Huang Hsien –cheng, Chen Chin-huo, Kuang Te-chiang and Tai Te-ying were executed earlier today at different locations across Taiwan. This makes a mockery of the talk of the Taiwanese government of steps towards abolition of capital punishment. Shame!!
ON THE WELFARE STATE AND ITS DEMISE
We would like to call your attention to two interviews with Noam Chomsky
Author, historian and political commentator Noam Chomsky. (photo: Ben Rusk/flickr)
on the future of the welfare state and the state of the modern world. Chomsky has many distinctions, including being denied entry to Israel. What he has to say is worthy of your time.
Members
of Women of the Wall prayed this month while wearing tallits, fringed
prayer shawls, and tefillin, leather prayer boxes, both of which Jewish
men are told to wear.
The alienation of the Reform and Conservative movements, who constitute the majority of Jews in North America is something that Israel can ill afford. Let us hope that something positive will come of this in terms of religious freedom. The Wall is not the private domain of the Orthodox, but is the property of all Jews everywhere and of both genders and all persuasions.
POLITICS AND DISSENT
A left-wing protest in Tel Aviv last year. Photo by Tal Cohen
In Israel we watch an election campaign that seems irrelevant to those of us who aspire for a democracy living in peace with its neighbors. Long ago Dosh showed what our search for peace really is, as Srulik rides his hobby horse to nowhere.
Carlo Stenger has summed up in Haaretz the reason why we on the left, despite our political weakness, continue to inspire hatred by the right wing politicians and what our role is. We quote :
"I can assure Israel’s right-wing nationalists that we Israeli progressives will continue to be a pain in the neck. We will continue to uphold the values of truth, justice and rationality out of the deep conviction that these values, while universal, are also essential to our identity as modern Jews. We may not have the political clout; but one of the most important lessons of Jewish history is that, in the long run, the pen and the word outlast brute power. "
Of course, we sometimes get an oddball at demonstrations...
Our French friends have always known that one should be optimistic and not take hard things that happen too much to heart. Mademe la Marquise certainly needed the encouragement she received.
MAN OF THE YEAR
Last week Pollyanna noted that Time magazine had, according to Andy Borowitz, nominated Mitt Romney as Man of the Year for 1912. In the same spirit, we note that the Onion has nominated a surprise Person of the Year and of course Jerry Sandusky as Sportsman of the Year.
We wind up with a comment by our sweet little Cynthia on corporate morality.
while Doonesbury laments the separation of church and state
Titan is back with you to share the state of the world. It is not something that even sister Pollyanna would be glad about. If you believe it is coming to an end next week, you can head for the mountain shown above for sanctuary. The safe haven mountain in France has been closed by the authorities so only Serbia is left. More below.
For starters, as usual, we refer you to our Miriam Shlesinger Human Rights Action blog. Please open it and help the people who are so much in need of support in their trials and tribulations at the hands of oppressive regimes and corporations.
IN MEMORIAM Ravi Shenkar 1920-2012
Ravi Shenkar, the great Indian musician, died this week at age 92.
He had a great career spanning both East and West and can be said to be responsible for the meeting of Eastern and Western music. He was the mentor of the Beatle George Harrison, won countless awards for his virtuosity on the sitar and became an iconic figure for generations of musicians. The musician Norah Jones is his daughter. For details of his life we refer you to the obituary in The Guardian.
This week the world is as messed up as usual and Titan will rant as usual. We start with a shocking event to which we cannot relate except with outrage and grief. Yesterday, 28 people, including 20 children, were killed by a gunman
who entered the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown CT in the
USA.. He was the son of a teacher at that school. The gunman,
identified as Adam Lanza, 20, was found dead at the scene of
the slaughter. The body of a woman believed to be his mother was found
at their home in Newtown, authorities said. This is another in the
chain of mass killings that plagues the United States. President Obama
spoke from his heart.
Maybe someone will find the political will to do something about it.
SCHOOL SEGREGATION IN EUROPE
We continue with an issue of school segregation taking place in the heart of Europe. Five years after the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Czech government was failing to provide equal education opportunities to Roma children, essentially nothing has changed.
Romani children in the Czech Republic are still being denied the educational opportunities offered to other students.
Again we see a government that lacks the political will to carry out its own declared policies and the children of the Romany community are continuing to receive inferior education in poor quality schools. Details can be read in a report issued last month by Amnesty International and the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC).
ADMIRATION FOR HITLER IN INDIA
It is indeed odd and troubling that a country that claims to be a democracy could have school children and even some adults expressing admiration for one of the greatest monsters that history has recorded over all time. Thousands of Indians buy Mein Kampf every week. Much of this can be attributed to Bal Thackeray, chief of the Shiv Sena party who died on Nov. 17. Thackeray freely, openly and often admitted his admiration for Hitler, his book, the Nazis and their methods. In 1993, for example, he gave an interview to Time magazine. “There is nothing wrong,” he said then, “if [Indian] Muslims are treated as Jews were in Nazi Germany.” We note that a young woman who objected to the disruption of traffic in Mumbai because of Thackeray's funeral was arrested and charged. One might well worry about a country in which young people admire Hitler and hold Ghandi in contempt.
ARE WE STILL ARGUING ABOUT RAPE?
We would like to think that there is no question today in the minds of decent people that rape is a crime of violence and dominance. It appears that someone named Alyssa Royce, writing in a zine called the Good Men's Project makes a valiant, albeit misguided, attempt to shift at least part of the blame for rape to the victim and to society at large. BTW, if you opened her link you will have seen the cover of the zine and realized what the message must be. Jeff Fecke writing in Care2Causes does not buy it nor do we. Nice guys do not rape, period.
Indeed, there must be zero tolerance on this issue. Sister Pollyanna ranted just a week ago about an Israeli talk show hostess who told a rape victim to "loosen up about sex." It is possible to go through life as a man, to enjoy sex and never rape anyone. We quote JF: "If you view your sexual partners as human beings, you want their consent. Indeed, you know full well that if they’re happy with what’s going on, you will be too. For most men, and most women, this is not a difficult concept to grasp. There will always be those who choose not to seek out consent, of course — people who enjoy violating boundaries, people who choose to act without consent, people who choose to ignore what their partner wants. They are people, not monsters, and we should recognize them as such, but they are also rapists, always — and nice people don’t hurt others."
APOCALYPSE NEXT WEEK
We are not sure whether this item belongs to the regular blog or to the humor section. It appears that people in Russia are panicking because of the forthcoming "end of the world" which was not really predicted by the Mayan calendar for Dec. 21, 2012. They are stocking up on food and, of course, vodka etc. and fleeing to dachas or whatever. In France, there is a mountain named Bugarach which is said to be safe. Some French and international Web sites devoted to the apocalypse claim that the mountain of Bugarach is a sacred place that will protect them from the end of the world.
Nanda Gonzague for The New York Times
A myth surrounds the Bugarach mountain and its supposed magnetism. Some people plan to take refuge there on Dec. 21, 2012.
Some even believe that, on doomsday, they will be spirited away by a group of aliens who live under the mountain. This is reminiscent of the Heaven's Gate cult whose members committed suicide in 1997 in order to be taken away by the aliens supposed to be trailing comet Hale-Bopp.
G. Rhemann image of C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp)
The area has been closed off to protect the locals. This is madness, but we have learned to live with the silly of the world. Poor people in Bugarach. The nuts are left with the mountain in Serbia shown at the top of this blog. We are used to being told in synagogue that our thoughts influence the weather (a New Age rabbi who thinks she understands the world) or that the Hebrew calendar is exact because God gave Moses the period of the Moon on Mt. Sinai. I wonder if He told him about the change in the lunar period as well. What is frightening is that these people live among us and vote.
ANTISEMITISM IN EGYPT AND ELSEWHERE
For over thirty years wee have had a very cold peace with Egypt which is certainly better than a hot war if we may paraphrase Cicero and Benjamin Franklin. During our visits to Egypt we did indeed notice Mein Kampf and the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion in book store windows and even at news stands in the streets. It appears that under the new regime antisemitism has only become worse. Jeffrey Goldberg points out that antisemitism is a symptom of a poor and backward society, who are poor and backward not because of the Jews, but because of lack of ability to function in the complex modern world and the Jews are an easy scapegoat. He quotes a relevant analysis of Walter Russell Mead who points out that they lack the ability to “see the world clearly and discern cause and effect relations in complex social settings.” Mead calls anti-Semitism the “sociology of the befuddled.” We regard this both as an oversimplification and a shifting of accountability. In fact, countries that are not poor and backward can be virulently antisemitic, for example Christian countries because of the Church and its preachings. In modern Poland, there are effectively no Jews, since either the Nazis killed them or the Poles drove them out after the war. Nonetheless, antisemitism rears its head today , although not as strongly as in Ukraine, possibly because Poland is more prosperous than the Ukraine and less backward. Most Poles have never met a Jew and when the drunk football hooligan shouts "Jew" he really means the Catholic on the other side of the field waving the banner of the opposing team. The BBC produced an informative documentary on Football Euro 2012 and the racist behavior of fans in Poland and Ukraine.
HOME SWEET HOME RACISM AT HOME:
1)ETHIOPIAN WOMEN
It has now become known that women immigrants from Ethiopia were treated with a strong contraceptive drug that has bad side effects. The women were compelled to submit to this abuse in the transit camps and the use of it has continued. It is hard to believe, but in Israel, in 2012, Ethiopian women are still forced to receive injections of the Depo-Provera contraceptive. This injection is not a commonly prescribed means of contraception. It is considered a last resort and is usually given to women who are institutionalized or developmentally disabled or otherwise unable to use more conventional contraceptives. Yet according to an investigation recently aired on the“Vacuum” documentary series hosted by Gal Gabay and shown on Israeli Educational Television, it is also given to many new immigrants from Ethiopia. A vehement protest has been written in Haaretz by Efrat Yardai of the Achoti organization. Even the right-wing Jerusalem Post registered a protest at this abuse of powerless women.
(File photo) A televised investigation found that more than 40 women have received injections of the Depo-Provera contraceptive.Photo by Tomer Appelbaum
The lack of accountability in the entire system indicates an attitude that at best is paternalistic and at worse racist--yes we want Jewish babies, but white ones please. The issue of the treatment and integration of the Ethiopian immigrants has been discussed by Lisa Anteby and by the late Baruch Kimmerling,(1998. “The New Israelis: multi-cultures without pluri-culturalism”, Alpayim, n° 16, (: 264-308, in Hebrew). The point made by Kimmerling is that whereas the Russian immigrants were able to make it on their own, the Ethiopians were like clay in the hands of the potters, the potters being the bureaucrats of the Jewish Agency and the government who did with them as they saw fit. It is a revolting situation, reminiscent of the way immigrants from Yemen were treated a generation or more ago.
2) ETHNIC MINORITIES AND THE OCCUPATION
We have recently seen an outcry from a Rabbi Navon who objects to the celebration of Christmas on the streets of Haifa. For details see Yossi Gurevich (see blog alongside in Hebrew). We cannot but think of the huge Hannuka menora at Union Square in San Francisco put up by Habad next to the Christmas tree. Perhaps we should remember the letter that Lord Rothschild wrote to Herzl in 1902 in which he explained his opposition to political Zionism. The letter is quoted in an article by Shulamit Aloni in which she denounces the orthodox fanaticism that controls Israel. Lord Rothschild writes that he "should view with horror the establishment of a Jewish colony pure and simple; such a colony would be Imperium Imperio; it would be a Ghetto with the prejudice of the Ghetto; it would be a small petty Jewish state, orthodox and illiberal, excluding the Gentile and the Christian." We hoped that this would not happen, but it has and Israel is certainly no longer worthy of the vision of its founders who hoped for a liberal democratic Jewish state. The term Jewish and democratic are always said in the same breath. As Knesset member Ahmed Tibi once said, Israel is democratic for Jews and Jewish for Arabs.
WHY WAS THE 17 YEAR OLD KILLED ON HISBIRTHDAY?
Muhammad Ziad Awad Salaymah from Hebron celebrated his 17th birthday Wednesday.
Muhammad Ziad Awad Salaymah, a 17-year-old Palestinian shot to death at an army checkpoint in Hebron
His mother sent him to buy a cake for the planned party, and when he left his home on his way to the bakery he was stopped at an army checkpoint, where he was shot to death by a woman officer from the Border Police unit. These are the facts. From here, each side has a different version. Here is a description containing both versions of the story. Decide for yourself who is telling the truth
BLACKLISTED
Prof. Rivka Feldhay, a historian-philosopher of science at Tel Aviv University was supposed to appear in a symposium in Germany in the presence of PM Natanyahu and Chancellor Merkel with other Israeli academics and their German counterparts.
Prof. Feldhay
At the last minute she was banned because she apparently signed a petition in 2002 calling on soldiers to refuse to serve the Occupation. The matter has raised a major outcry in Israel and Germany. She is obviously on some kind of blacklist, as we probably are as well. Prof. Feldhay was subjected to an unwarranted attack by a journalist and gave him a worthy reply. Most of us have signed many such petitions over the years and are on some kind of list. (Our friend, the late Baruch Kimmerling was left off a published list of Likud boycotees and was mortally offended). Titan himself signed a petition many Julian days ago against the binding of his brother Prometheus and his subjection to a steady vulture attack. As punishment, Zeus kicked him out of his cushy Earth orbit and exiled him to the boondocks of Saturn. At least for the last nine years the loneliness has been relieved by visits from the Cassini orbiter.
Alas, Huygens was a nice guest, but his batteries died and he has not had much to say for a long time.
A RAY OF HOPE
Recently a group of soldiers entered Hebron and Kadum and retreated before stone throwers instead of opening fire.
As Gideon Levy points out we should be proud to have soldiers who think twice before killing children. Of course, the collective penis of Israeli society was mortally offended and the right wing is calling for blood. In the same way that the High Command of the IDF seems to have internalized the lessons of the Goldstone report and the Mavi Marmora disaster, it seems to have given orders that the itchy finger on the trigger should be restrained, in contrast to the lady of the Border Police who can put a notch on her gun.
What If deals with the silly question of how many model rocket engines would be needed to launch something into space. It shows an inability on the part of many people to think quantitatively and to understand orders of magnitude.
. EVOLUTION Our physician partner, the first half of YandA, recently attended a symposium on the intelligent use of antibiotic medications. We dedicate this XKCD creation to her and her colleagues:
In the wake of the US elections, there was a movement in several red states, in particular Texas, tosecede from the Union. Doonesbury suggests that it might be a good idea to expel Texas.
Now it is Titan's turn to bother you with things that bother us. First, however, we start with a picture of home where Titan lives and orbits. Note kid sister Tethys in the upper left hand corner. Small as she may be, Tethys is more massive than the entire ring system. For the mythology buffs among you, she was the Titaness or goddess in charge of fresh water.
CHINA
We would love to have a blog without a rant about China, but that will apparently be for our grandbloggers. We want to call your attention again to the self-immolations by Tibetans in China itself as well as in Tibet.
Demonstration in India against Chinese oppression
Somehow the Chinese have managed to keep these terrible events off the world agenda. In November alone, there were two dozen such cases. Tibetans are raising their voices in protest. In recent days over a thousand Tibetan students have clashed with armed police as they protest the publication of a government booklet that called the recent wave of self immolations "acts of stupidity" and condemned the study of Tibetan language as "irrelevant".
The booklet, 10 real views of Tsolho Area, enraged Tibetan medical students in Tsolho (Hainan) prefecture in Qinghai Province when it was distributed in schools around the area. The students called for an investigation into the booklet's creation and for wider equality. Police reportedly beat protesters after taking control of the school where the protest was taking place, resulting in 20 students being taken to hospital. Why are we silent? Please post this on your social media pages and make it go viral.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT FOR GAYS?
The Ugandan parliament is debating a bill that would criminalize homosexuality. This bill is very extreme, and calls for the death penalty for being arrested for being gay or committing an "illegal sex act". "Aggravated homosexuality" can also lead to the death penalty. People are charged with this when multiple violations happen, which can include actions such as renting a room to a gay person, donating to a gay cause, fighting for gay rights (even if it's just through the internet) or not reporting a gay person to law enforcement. Straight individuals can be charged with these offenses as well. We have an urgent action call in the Human Rights blog and will add it here as well. The parliamentarian who is pushing it wants to make it a "Christmas gift" to the people of Uganda. Already the worldwide outcry has reportedly caused the sponsors to drop the death penalty clause. Please act.
UNION RIGHTS IN MISSISSIPPI
The Japanese auto maker Nissan is conducting a campaign to prevent its workers in Mississippi from forming a union. Nissan is denying these workers a fair, democratic election, and management has sent a clear message to the workforce that considering a union could cost them their job.
Supported by workers, students, community leaders and human rights activists around the world, the United Auto Workers (UAW) have launched a campaign on LabourStart calling on Nissan’s Chief Operating Officer, Toshiyuki Shiga, to intervene to make things right in Mississippi. Please join this campaign to achieve justice in the work place. It is disgraceful that such a campaign is needed in a country that claims to lead the democratic world. Please act. The page may come up with my name etc. but you can put in your own.
STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY IN EGYPT
When the regime in Egypt was deposed, Prof. Shlomo Avineri of the Hebrew University was pessimistic about the establishment of democracy in its place. His reasoning was quite lucid: "As always, it is easier to bring down an autocracy than to construct and consolidate a democratic regime. When communism in Eastern Europe collapsed, their old systems, despite some obvious differences, had the same characteristics: they were one-party dictatorships, with state control over the economy, education, and the media. Today, they are very different from each other. Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, for example, succeeded in navigating a successful transition to democracy and a functioning market economy. Russia reverted to a neo-authoritarian system. The former Soviet republics in Central Asia have all developed various “sultanistic” forms of government.
The reason for these differences is simple: democratic transition requires not only elections, but also several pre-conditions – a vibrant civil society; previous traditions, whether actual or remembered, of representation, pluralism, tolerance, and individualism; a limited role of religion; and an effective institutional framework for a multi-party system. Where these conditions exist, a transition to democracy can succeed; where they are missing, the chances – as in Russia – for a successful transition to a consolidated democracy are slim." Read more
and what is really hilarious is that the Chinese People's Daily took it seriously and fell hook line and sinker for the spoof. This is of the same genus as the media in Saudi Arabia falling for an Andy Borowitz satire in which Obama was supposed to agree to be a Moslem in return for some Republican votes in the House of Representatives.
It seems to us that the absence of the prerequisites for liberal democracy such as civil society can cause regimes to fail to recognize satire or to react to it ferociously. A few blogs back we reported on the Teddy Bear attack on Belarus that got some poor chap in prison for photographing Teddy Bears dropped by parachute by Swedish journalists with signs calling for democracy.
In late 18th century Vienna the play The Marriage of Figaro, by Beaumarchais, was banned, and the Mozart opera of the same name was only allowed to premier in Prague and could be performed only in Italian, lest the masses see the aristocracy ridiculed. The underground Samidzat in the USSR was taken seriously by the regime that regarded it as a threat and blogging goes on in Putinland. The Hungarian-born satirists Georg Mikos in the UK and Ephraim Kishon in Israel both complained that in a democracy satire becomes a lost art because one can criticize the regime directly. They claimed that the trick in Hungary was to write on a fine line so that your audience would understand, but the blockhead censors would not. Today the blogosphere provides a platform for everyone, even Titan. Unfortunately, the blogosphere is not uncensored as we saw recently in Vietnam and China, inter alia. Despite the "complaint" of Mikos and Kishon, satire flourishes in the free world. For example, we see how Jon Stewart puts the media in their place over their idiotic handling of the recent Gaza conflict.
TOBACCO AND THE BRAIN
We have long considered smokers to be idiots, as we were before we quit in 1964. Now it appears that there is a chicken and egg question, since data indicate that smoking rots the brain.
Does smoking affect the health of the mind as well as the body?
It looks like a feedback chain, young fool starts smoking, tobacco enhances stupidity and smoking is reinforced in the old fool. At least today we have some protection in the public sphere as more and more anti-smoking laws go into effect across the civilized world.
BELIEVE IN GOD OR ELSE!
If you work for Homeland Security in Kentucky and do not profess a belief in God, you can go to jail for a year. This is obviously a breach of the US Constitution, but the local courts have failed to rule against it. We expect that it will fall when it reaches the Supreme Court, but in the meantime, avoid Kentucky. We note with some amusement that the author of this piece in Alternet is named Laura Gottesdiener.
HOME SWEET HOME
First, we would like to congratulate the people of Palestine on their victory in the UN General Assembly where they won recognition de facto as a sovereign state in the 1967 borders. The vote was overwhelming, and while it does not confer statehood, it gives status.
Celebration in Gaza
The assembly approved the upgrade despite threats by the United States and Israel to punish the Palestinians by withholding funds for the West Bank government. U.N. envoys said Israel might not retaliate harshly against the Palestinians over the vote as long as they do not seek to join the International Criminal Court.
If the Palestinians were to join the ICC, they could file complaints with the court accusing Israel of war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious crimes. We would love to see some Israeli politicians and generals standing before a court to account for their crimes.
The stupidity of both the United States and Israel in opposing this decision is apparent. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the vote "unfortunate and counterproductive," while the Vatican praised the move and called for an internationally guaranteed special status for Jerusalem, something bound to irritate Israel.
We sincerely hope that the Natanyahu government will be shrewd enough to avoid taking punitive steps against the Palestinians. The fact that Abbas was able to obtain an achievement by political means can offset the case of the Hamas who obtained concessions from Israel by force of arms.
INDICTMENT AGAINST BORDER POLICE
We are pleased to note that indictments have been filed against two Border Police officers for brutal abuse of a Palestinian. The sadism of their actions is typical of this organization which is really military, but disguised as police. We have encountered them and have been abused by them as well. Of course, probably nothing will come of the indictment that has been filed with the police investigative body and has yet to reach the courts. The police mafia looks after its own.
What If? takes a silly question and gives you a complicated and equally silly answer, but it is amusing. You have to calculate the value of your time against the value of your smile in this case.
Some married ladies might understand the logic behind this Weingarten cartoon:
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