Everything you have written is a lie. The Brits handed equipment? Evictions? Resettlings..!? The day "the minority got military control"? An open air prison? What parallel universe are you living in? Sorry, but Arabs have been butchering Jews at every opportunity for centuries. This started long before Israel was created, even long before Britain was even in the picture. You are clueless.
The 1929 riots are more interesting. [..] With the benefit of hindsight we might say they had a point.
This was a blood curdling massacre of dozens of innocent of men, women and children who had nothing to do with the Arabs' "disappointment of their political and national aspirations". I find your sympathy towards these murderers as well as your general choice of words appalling.
There are loads of reasons to think that the attacks will *never* stop until the settlements are disbanded, for several reasons [..] Removing the settlements won't stop the attacks on civilians (although it will stop attacks on settlements), but it is at least a start towards a solution.
Very funny. Now seriously, there was no peace before the settlements, why do you think there would be peace after they are disbanded? Exactly what sort of 'solution' do you think performing an ethnic cleansing of Jews will achieve? A final one perhaps?
It's not as if Israeli politicians are immune to the hatred though: rabbi Dov Lior is at least as big a wanker as any member of Hamas.
Rabi Dov Lior is not a politician and holds no legal power. Hamas are the governing body of Gaza. Your comparison is a testament to your ignorance and hatred.
If you want the Palestinians to stop attacking Israelis a good step would be to stop the settlements
The Palestinians attacked Israelis as a matter of course long before any settlement existed. What makes you think they will stop if they were gone? (Hint: Removing all settlements from Gaza only made matters far, far worse.)
If all humans are just a figment of a computer simulation then we wouldn't actually 'be' here in the sense that we experience life from within our bodies and minds rather than observe them externally (as we observe a computer simulation).
Since I am experiencing my life, I am either 'real' or I am an external entity who is busy playing a very very very long and immersive computer game (in which case everything else around me is possibly a simulation). But if this were a game, why does it suck so bad? Surely the external me would have had the sense to choose a more fun game or at least change a few settings before starting. Sorry Elon but no, I think I'm real. Or some green tentacled creature who doesn't read game reviews.
It'll cause a huge backlash and increase support for Trump. Facebook, stay out of this. Actually, stay out of as much as possible - you're a messenger, not a dictator.
Thanks. My point was that Slashdot, as well as the linked article, failed to report the most interesting and relevant information pertaining to the subject. That you had to seek the scientific paper and download a 2.2 MB document to obtain this information merely strengthens my argument. Also, like mrsquid0 before you, you broke the minus sign.:)
Thanks. I was going to inquire about the difficulty of seeing Cassiopeia from Canada, when I found (thanks Wikipedia!) that you had missed the negative sign in the Declination... anyway, apparently this object is located in the constellation Hydrus near the celestial south pole. Why this was so difficult to write in the summary or the linked article is beyond me.
Lets see...first, you're ignoring the Israeli violence that precipitated the bus bombings. Secondly, uniformed Israeli soldiers used those buses for transportation. Using Israeli reasoning, that makes the buses valid military targets (since the IDF bombs anything they claim has anything to do with Hamas) and the Israeli government a bunch of soulless terrorists for using the bus passengers as "human shields".
Israeli violence? This was 1993-4, the peak of the Oslo peace process. There were no violent events in that time. If you are referring to events that had occurred before that, well, by that logic there is no way to ever achieve peace. Soldiers use public transportation to get from their homes to their bases and back. It works that way everywhere in the world (I've seen it personally in the US). Comparing that to Hamas' strategy of storing rockets under schools and homes is unacceptable.
Lets see...that's a lie. Even Israeli official will tell you that Hamas had, unlike Israel, been observing a cease fire prior to IDF dropping bombs on Gaza. Not only that, Hamas was arresting those who were firing rockets.
When Israel disengaged from Gaza, it did so under a constant barrage of rocket fire which did not stop for any significant period ever since. Picking some specific period where one Palestinian faction fought with another over whether today is a good day to fire rockets or not is irrelevant. The naval blockade was imposed to stop the incoming flow of GRAD rockets to Gaza.
Sorry to inform you, but that's a pile of racist bullshit. Just because the people of Palestine didn't have a flag doesn't mean there hasn't been a place called Palestine or a Palestinian people.
Before the creation of Israel all its residents were referred to as Palestinians. There were Palestinian Jews and Palestinian Arabs. There was never a Palestinian country or a Palestinian people per se and if there was one, well, my Jewish grandmother was Palestinian as well (and to this day holds a British mandate era passport saying "Palestine"). However your definition of Palestinian seems to exclude the Jews. Sounds a little apartheidish to me.
Other than the constant land confiscations for "parks" or "building code violations", to make way for taxpayer-funded apartments for squatters. Oh, and there's that little system of Apartheid, of course: no right to vote, no right to travel on "Jewish roads", no right to intermarry, and so on.
I have no idea what your first sentence referred to (parks? squatters..?). Palestinians have the right to vote - for their own government. "Jewish roads" - these were established as part of the Oslo accords in order to prevent Jews from traveling through Palestinian cities, in order to reduce the tension this caused (Arabs don't like seeing Jews and like to stone their cars). In any case these roads are open for all users and there is no checkpoint preventing anyone's entry. Intermarriage - you're making this up, right? Or do you have a source?
So if the Romans, the Turks, the British or the Egyptians had wiped out the "continuing Jewish presence" in the area, you would have been okay with that because said Jews were under the thumb of another empire and had no flag of their own?
Of course not. I would fight and establish a state, which is exactly what my grandparents did. What have the Arabs achieved over the past century except for slaughtering innocent people, destroying anything they can, and squandering every opportunity for statehood?
So what do you think should Palestine's response to the constant checkpoints, blockading of their ports, airport and border crossings, as well as the occupation and continued confiscation of their land by Israel should be?
Let's see...
* Checkpoints. Well, once upon a time there were no checkpoints and people were free to move about. Then the Arabs started taking advantage of this freedom to enter Israeli cities with explosive belts and blow up buses. Hence the checkpoints.
* Sea/air ports. All was open and free until Hamas started firing rockets at Israel and importing weapons from Iran.
* Border crossings. Well, the crossings between Israel and Gaza were open for passage of goods and civilians (including workers) until Hamas men repeatedly performed terrorist attacks on them, prompting Israel to shut them down. Not sure what other border crossings you refer to.
* Continued occupation of their land. Sorry to inform you, but there has never been such a thing as "Palestinian Land". In recent centuries the land (which the Romans named Palestine as a propaganda tactic - perhaps the most successful in history) was under Turkish rule, British mandatory rule, Jordanian and Egyptian military occupation, and today Israeli occupation in the West Bank. Hamas rules over 100% of Gaza, and Israel isn't occupying or confiscating any of that (except the last few weeks, and not out of desire to do so). The Arab cities in the West Bank are under their own civil control, no one is confiscating land from Nablus. Perhaps you should ask your leaders why, when Israel repeatedly offered to withdraw from almost the entire West Bank in exchange for peace, they refused, launching more and more horrific terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens. Perhaps you should also ask your leaders why, in 1967, when there was no Israeli occupation at all, they attacked Israel rather than live in peace alongside it?
Several important facts are missing from the summary. The only correct one is that, yes, Gaza's only power plant has been attacked.
However: 1. The effect of this power plant being out of commission is relatively minor. Gaza receives most of its electricity (and water), whether in war or peace, from, guess who - Israel. And no, they don't pay their bills (their debt is around $500 million). In fact the bizarre and twisted reality in the Middle East today is that the Israeli taxpayer is funding electricity for the enemy's rocket manufacturers. 2. The Israeli army has denied firing anywhere near the power plant and there is a high probability that the attack was a misfired Hamas rocket or mortar bomb, similar to other recent cases where Hamas rockets have killed Gazans. 3. About 50,000 Gazans have already been in a blackout for a couple of weeks since a Hamas rocket fell near one of the power lines supplying Gaza with electricity from Israel. The Israeli Electric Company will not risk its technicians' lives to repair this line while under enemy fire, thank you very much.
all because a handful of pesky terrorists keep lobbing ineffective bombs into empty fields.
Houses have been destroyed by these rockets. People have been killed. Millions of people have to run to shelters every few hours (or several times an hour, depending where they live). In a handful of incidents squads of Hamas terrorists have emerged from tunnels or the sea close to small Israeli towns, and if they weren't spotted by the Israeli military they would have taken over these towns, slaughtering or kidnapping their population.
Yes, they have an unenviable situation to deal with; but they have chosen to respond in a way that makes them look like monsters
Ok, Mr. Prime Minister. What would you consider a proportionate response?
You're correct here, but I'd like to mention that recent advancements in HLS (High Level Synthesis) allow regular software programmers to write C code that is compiled directly to hardware logic. There are some new rules to learn, things don't always work as expected and debugging is completely different to debugging software, but my point is that it's definitely possible to write major logic blocks in C without writing a line of VHDL code. So not necessarily will everyone need to learn a HDL to be a part of this change.
Q: Didn't BMW already use the name 'C-1'? A: Yep, they did (as did Chevrolet, Citroën, and a variety of others). 'C-1' is just a working name for our vehicle; it will change as we near production.
Where did I say that the Israelis are superior to any other group? And in what culture is it considered bigotry to express pride of your own group's accomplishments? Cause it sure ain't so in the United WE'RE NUMBER ONE! States of America.
Suppose one would ask something like "why does the USA always get the gold medals in the Olympics running competitions?", to which someone would respond simply, "well, there are a lot of fast runners in America". This could lead to an interesting discussion as to why there are many fast runners in America, or what would attract particularly fast runners to immigrate to America. Or, someone like you would label the answerer a bigot, ending the discussion.
Anyway my claims were intended to counter your false accusations of an uneven playing field. Your sarcastic response indicates your views are unchanged despite having no factual basis. Is there further point to this discussion? I believe no one else is reading.
Your question would be valid if the US aid was a significant percentage of the Israeli economy. Google "us aid israel gdp", skim through a couple of articles and realize that while in the past US aid has been invaluable - and Israel is very grateful for it - at present it is a pittance and in the opinion of many experts not worth the costs involved (and one of the costs is having people with opinions such as yours). If Israel lost all US aid overnight and for some reason decided to continue spending that same amount of money on US equipment (rather than, say, switch to Linux, buy lower-cost weaponry from other countries etc.) taxes would rise by about one percent. Yeah, it would make headlines for a few days and people would bicker and complain like they always do and that would be that.
So let's just assume for the sake of argument that Israel wasn't surrounded by hostile neighbors and did not require its present defense budget. In that case it would neither require nor receive US aid. The Israeli technology sector would still exist as it is (except perhaps the weapons industry, which is not the subject here), but the US aid is now out of the equation. What would you then claim is the sinister "other factor" fueling Israeli tech?
I keep hearing this argument. It's annoying. The US gives Israel billions of dollars' worth in equipment for the military, not money. So the Israeli army uses American jets, ammunition and Microsoft software (yay for the NSA) on its computers. If you think this somehow translates to other money being freed to be invested in high tech, well, if that were the case we wouldn't have companies preferring to set up shop in Cyprus (such as Viber) due to better economic incentives. Finally if American dollars translate into technology development you'd expect the Egyptians to have flying cars by now, which isn't quite the case.
Why is it so hard for some people to accept that there are a lot of smart, creative, entrepreneurial, out-of-the-box thinking people in Israel?
Well, in my experience this kind of thing doesn't happen every 5 seconds; but if it does for you, the little lightning bolt offers a drop down menu in which you may permanently turn off that particular kind of auto-correct, so not all is doom and gloom.
Slashdot Mirror
Everything you have written is a lie. The Brits handed equipment? Evictions? Resettlings..!? The day "the minority got military control"? An open air prison? What parallel universe are you living in?
Sorry, but Arabs have been butchering Jews at every opportunity for centuries. This started long before Israel was created, even long before Britain was even in the picture. You are clueless.
The 1929 riots are more interesting. [..] With the benefit of hindsight we might say they had a point.
This was a blood curdling massacre of dozens of innocent of men, women and children who had nothing to do with the Arabs' "disappointment of their political and national aspirations". I find your sympathy towards these murderers as well as your general choice of words appalling.
There are loads of reasons to think that the attacks will *never* stop until the settlements are disbanded, for several reasons [..]
Removing the settlements won't stop the attacks on civilians (although it will stop attacks on settlements), but it is at least a start towards a solution.
Very funny. Now seriously, there was no peace before the settlements, why do you think there would be peace after they are disbanded? Exactly what sort of 'solution' do you think performing an ethnic cleansing of Jews will achieve? A final one perhaps?
It's not as if Israeli politicians are immune to the hatred though: rabbi Dov Lior is at least as big a wanker as any member of Hamas.
Rabi Dov Lior is not a politician and holds no legal power. Hamas are the governing body of Gaza. Your comparison is a testament to your ignorance and hatred.
If you want the Palestinians to stop attacking Israelis a good step would be to stop the settlements
The Palestinians attacked Israelis as a matter of course long before any settlement existed. What makes you think they will stop if they were gone?
(Hint: Removing all settlements from Gaza only made matters far, far worse.)
If all humans are just a figment of a computer simulation then we wouldn't actually 'be' here in the sense that we experience life from within our bodies and minds rather than observe them externally (as we observe a computer simulation).
Since I am experiencing my life, I am either 'real' or I am an external entity who is busy playing a very very very long and immersive computer game (in which case everything else around me is possibly a simulation). But if this were a game, why does it suck so bad? Surely the external me would have had the sense to choose a more fun game or at least change a few settings before starting. Sorry Elon but no, I think I'm real. Or some green tentacled creature who doesn't read game reviews.
It'll cause a huge backlash and increase support for Trump. Facebook, stay out of this. Actually, stay out of as much as possible - you're a messenger, not a dictator.
So.. it eats stars, farts nebulae and poops dark matter. Makes perfect sense to me.
Oh you corrected yourself, sorry.
Thanks. My point was that Slashdot, as well as the linked article, failed to report the most interesting and relevant information pertaining to the subject. That you had to seek the scientific paper and download a 2.2 MB document to obtain this information merely strengthens my argument. Also, like mrsquid0 before you, you broke the minus sign. :)
Thanks. I was going to inquire about the difficulty of seeing Cassiopeia from Canada, when I found (thanks Wikipedia!) that you had missed the negative sign in the Declination... anyway, apparently this object is located in the constellation Hydrus near the celestial south pole. Why this was so difficult to write in the summary or the linked article is beyond me.
Would it be too much to inform the curious readers as to where in the sky this galaxy is located?
Is there a way to obtain this outside the US?
Lets see...first, you're ignoring the Israeli violence that precipitated the bus bombings. Secondly, uniformed Israeli soldiers used those buses for transportation. Using Israeli reasoning, that makes the buses valid military targets (since the IDF bombs anything they claim has anything to do with Hamas) and the Israeli government a bunch of soulless terrorists for using the bus passengers as "human shields".
Israeli violence? This was 1993-4, the peak of the Oslo peace process. There were no violent events in that time. If you are referring to events that had occurred before that, well, by that logic there is no way to ever achieve peace.
Soldiers use public transportation to get from their homes to their bases and back. It works that way everywhere in the world (I've seen it personally in the US). Comparing that to Hamas' strategy of storing rockets under schools and homes is unacceptable.
Lets see...that's a lie. Even Israeli official will tell you that Hamas had, unlike Israel, been observing a cease fire prior to IDF dropping bombs on Gaza. Not only that, Hamas was arresting those who were firing rockets.
When Israel disengaged from Gaza, it did so under a constant barrage of rocket fire which did not stop for any significant period ever since. Picking some specific period where one Palestinian faction fought with another over whether today is a good day to fire rockets or not is irrelevant. The naval blockade was imposed to stop the incoming flow of GRAD rockets to Gaza.
Sorry to inform you, but that's a pile of racist bullshit. Just because the people of Palestine didn't have a flag doesn't mean there hasn't been a place called Palestine or a Palestinian people.
Before the creation of Israel all its residents were referred to as Palestinians. There were Palestinian Jews and Palestinian Arabs. There was never a Palestinian country or a Palestinian people per se and if there was one, well, my Jewish grandmother was Palestinian as well (and to this day holds a British mandate era passport saying "Palestine"). However your definition of Palestinian seems to exclude the Jews. Sounds a little apartheidish to me.
Other than the constant land confiscations for "parks" or "building code violations", to make way for taxpayer-funded apartments for squatters. Oh, and there's that little system of Apartheid, of course: no right to vote, no right to travel on "Jewish roads", no right to intermarry, and so on.
I have no idea what your first sentence referred to (parks? squatters..?).
Palestinians have the right to vote - for their own government.
"Jewish roads" - these were established as part of the Oslo accords in order to prevent Jews from traveling through Palestinian cities, in order to reduce the tension this caused (Arabs don't like seeing Jews and like to stone their cars). In any case these roads are open for all users and there is no checkpoint preventing anyone's entry.
Intermarriage - you're making this up, right? Or do you have a source?
So if the Romans, the Turks, the British or the Egyptians had wiped out the "continuing Jewish presence" in the area, you would have been okay with that because said Jews were under the thumb of another empire and had no flag of their own?
Of course not. I would fight and establish a state, which is exactly what my grandparents did. What have the Arabs achieved over the past century except for slaughtering innocent people, destroying anything they can, and squandering every opportunity for statehood?
Yes the way Israel treats Gaza is wholly unacceptable
Taking into account the rest of your comment, just what do you consider unacceptable about Israel's treatment of Gaza?
So what do you think should Palestine's response to the constant checkpoints, blockading of their ports, airport and border crossings, as well as the occupation and continued confiscation of their land by Israel should be?
Let's see...
* Checkpoints. Well, once upon a time there were no checkpoints and people were free to move about. Then the Arabs started taking advantage of this freedom to enter Israeli cities with explosive belts and blow up buses. Hence the checkpoints.
* Sea/air ports. All was open and free until Hamas started firing rockets at Israel and importing weapons from Iran.
* Border crossings. Well, the crossings between Israel and Gaza were open for passage of goods and civilians (including workers) until Hamas men repeatedly performed terrorist attacks on them, prompting Israel to shut them down. Not sure what other border crossings you refer to.
* Continued occupation of their land. Sorry to inform you, but there has never been such a thing as "Palestinian Land". In recent centuries the land (which the Romans named Palestine as a propaganda tactic - perhaps the most successful in history) was under Turkish rule, British mandatory rule, Jordanian and Egyptian military occupation, and today Israeli occupation in the West Bank. Hamas rules over 100% of Gaza, and Israel isn't occupying or confiscating any of that (except the last few weeks, and not out of desire to do so). The Arab cities in the West Bank are under their own civil control, no one is confiscating land from Nablus. Perhaps you should ask your leaders why, when Israel repeatedly offered to withdraw from almost the entire West Bank in exchange for peace, they refused, launching more and more horrific terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens. Perhaps you should also ask your leaders why, in 1967, when there was no Israeli occupation at all, they attacked Israel rather than live in peace alongside it?
Several important facts are missing from the summary. The only correct one is that, yes, Gaza's only power plant has been attacked.
However:
1. The effect of this power plant being out of commission is relatively minor. Gaza receives most of its electricity (and water), whether in war or peace, from, guess who - Israel. And no, they don't pay their bills (their debt is around $500 million). In fact the bizarre and twisted reality in the Middle East today is that the Israeli taxpayer is funding electricity for the enemy's rocket manufacturers.
2. The Israeli army has denied firing anywhere near the power plant and there is a high probability that the attack was a misfired Hamas rocket or mortar bomb, similar to other recent cases where Hamas rockets have killed Gazans.
3. About 50,000 Gazans have already been in a blackout for a couple of weeks since a Hamas rocket fell near one of the power lines supplying Gaza with electricity from Israel. The Israeli Electric Company will not risk its technicians' lives to repair this line while under enemy fire, thank you very much.
all because a handful of pesky terrorists keep lobbing ineffective bombs into empty fields.
Houses have been destroyed by these rockets. People have been killed. Millions of people have to run to shelters every few hours (or several times an hour, depending where they live). In a handful of incidents squads of Hamas terrorists have emerged from tunnels or the sea close to small Israeli towns, and if they weren't spotted by the Israeli military they would have taken over these towns, slaughtering or kidnapping their population.
Yes, they have an unenviable situation to deal with; but they have chosen to respond in a way that makes them look like monsters
Ok, Mr. Prime Minister. What would you consider a proportionate response?
The future is hardware; learn a HDL today.
You're correct here, but I'd like to mention that recent advancements in HLS (High Level Synthesis) allow regular software programmers to write C code that is compiled directly to hardware logic. There are some new rules to learn, things don't always work as expected and debugging is completely different to debugging software, but my point is that it's definitely possible to write major logic blocks in C without writing a line of VHDL code. So not necessarily will everyone need to learn a HDL to be a part of this change.
Here, let me read the FAQ for you:
Q: Didn't BMW already use the name 'C-1'?
A: Yep, they did (as did Chevrolet, Citroën, and a variety of others). 'C-1' is just a working name for our vehicle; it will change as we near production.
Where did I say that the Israelis are superior to any other group? And in what culture is it considered bigotry to express pride of your own group's accomplishments? Cause it sure ain't so in the United WE'RE NUMBER ONE! States of America.
Suppose one would ask something like "why does the USA always get the gold medals in the Olympics running competitions?", to which someone would respond simply, "well, there are a lot of fast runners in America". This could lead to an interesting discussion as to why there are many fast runners in America, or what would attract particularly fast runners to immigrate to America. Or, someone like you would label the answerer a bigot, ending the discussion.
Anyway my claims were intended to counter your false accusations of an uneven playing field. Your sarcastic response indicates your views are unchanged despite having no factual basis. Is there further point to this discussion? I believe no one else is reading.
Your question would be valid if the US aid was a significant percentage of the Israeli economy. Google "us aid israel gdp", skim through a couple of articles and realize that while in the past US aid has been invaluable - and Israel is very grateful for it - at present it is a pittance and in the opinion of many experts not worth the costs involved (and one of the costs is having people with opinions such as yours). If Israel lost all US aid overnight and for some reason decided to continue spending that same amount of money on US equipment (rather than, say, switch to Linux, buy lower-cost weaponry from other countries etc.) taxes would rise by about one percent. Yeah, it would make headlines for a few days and people would bicker and complain like they always do and that would be that.
What...?
So let's just assume for the sake of argument that Israel wasn't surrounded by hostile neighbors and did not require its present defense budget. In that case it would neither require nor receive US aid. The Israeli technology sector would still exist as it is (except perhaps the weapons industry, which is not the subject here), but the US aid is now out of the equation. What would you then claim is the sinister "other factor" fueling Israeli tech?
I keep hearing this argument. It's annoying. The US gives Israel billions of dollars' worth in equipment for the military, not money. So the Israeli army uses American jets, ammunition and Microsoft software (yay for the NSA) on its computers. If you think this somehow translates to other money being freed to be invested in high tech, well, if that were the case we wouldn't have companies preferring to set up shop in Cyprus (such as Viber) due to better economic incentives. Finally if American dollars translate into technology development you'd expect the Egyptians to have flying cars by now, which isn't quite the case.
Why is it so hard for some people to accept that there are a lot of smart, creative, entrepreneurial, out-of-the-box thinking people in Israel?
Well, in my experience this kind of thing doesn't happen every 5 seconds; but if it does for you, the little lightning bolt offers a drop down menu in which you may permanently turn off that particular kind of auto-correct, so not all is doom and gloom.
Ctrl-Z is your friend.