Tuesday, November 18, 2014



Comet landing: Organic molecules detected by Philae


Comet

The Philae lander has detected organic molecules on the surface of its comet, scientists have confirmed.
Carbon-containing "organics" are the basis of life on Earth and may give clues to chemical ingredients delivered to our planet early in its history.
The compounds were picked up by a German-built instrument designed to "sniff" the comet's thin atmosphere.
Other analyses suggest the comet's surface is largely water-ice covered with a thin dust layer.
The European Space Agency (Esa) craft touched down on the Comet 67P on 12 November after a 10-year journey.
Dr Fred Goessmann, principal investigator on the Cosac instrument, which made the organics detection, confirmed the find to BBC News. But he added that the team was still trying to interpret the results. 
It has not been disclosed which molecules have been found, or how complex they are.
But the results are likely to provide insights into the possible role of comets in contributing some of the chemical building blocks to the primordial mix from which life evolved on the early Earth.
Preliminary results from the Mupus instrument, which deployed a hammer to the comet after Philae's landing, suggest there is a layer of dust 10-20cm thick on the surface with very hard water-ice underneath.
The ice would be frozen solid at temperatures encountered in the outer Solar System - Mupus data suggest this layer has a tensile strength similar to sandstone.
"It's within a very broad spectrum of ice models. It was harder than expected at that location, but it’s still within bounds," said Prof Mark McCaughrean, senior science adviser to Esa, told BBC News.
He explained: "You can't rule out rock, but if you look at the global story, we know the overall density of the comet is 0.4g/cubic cm. There's no way the thing's made of rock. 
"It's more likely there's sintered ice at the surface with more porous material lower down that hasn't been exposed to the Sun in the same way."
After bouncing off the surface at least twice, Philae came to a stop in some sort of high-walled trap.
"The fact that we landed up against something may actually be in our favour. If we'd landed on the main surface, the dust layer may have been even thicker and it's possible we might not have gone down [to the ice]."
Scientists had to race to perform as many key tests as they could before Philae's battery life ran out at the weekend.
On re-charge
A key objective was to drill a sample of "soil" and analyse it in Cosac's oven. But, disappointingly, the latest information suggest no soil was delivered to the instrument.
"We didn't necessarily see many organics in the signal. That could be because we didn't manage to pick up a sample. But what we know is that the drill went down to its full extent and came back up again."
"But there's no independent way to say: This is what the sample looks like before you put it in there." 
Scientists are hopeful however that as Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko approaches the Sun in coming months, Philae's solar panels will see sunlight again, allowing the batteries to re-charge - allowing it to perform more science.
"There's a trade off - once it gets too hot, Philae will die as well. There is a sweet spot," said Prof McCaughrean. 
He added: "Given the fact that there is a factor of six, seven, eight in solar illumination and the last action we took was to rotate the body of Philae around to get the bigger solar panel in, I think it's perfectly reasonable to think it may well happen.
"By being in the shadow of the cliff, it might even help us, that we might not get so hot, even at full solar illumination. But if you don't get so hot that you don't overheat, have you got enough solar power to charge the system."
The lander's Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS), designed to provide information on the elemental composition of the surface, seems to have partially seen a signal from its own lens cover - which could have dropped off at a strange angle because Philae was not lying flat. 

83 comments:

  1. Deuce ☂Tue Nov 18, 01:51:00 PM EST
    An idiotic comment claiming that Q will be happy with the death of the murdered man. I would take it down but will leave it to see if you have the decency to take it down yourself. What’s the matter with you?



    When you get all pissy about Israel and Jews? You stop reading…

    The Israeli Jew in NYC was attacked.

    Not KILLED…

    No where close…

    Just got beaten. As did his defender…

    And Yes, it was sarcasm that the story would make Quirk happy…

    ReplyDelete
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    1. What is "Occupation"Tue Nov 18, 01:27:00 PM EST
      This should make Quirk happy…


      Orthodox Jewish man attacked at Brooklyn train station in apparent hate crime
      The 53-year-old, identified as an Israeli tourist, was called a ‘dirty bloody Jew’ and a ‘f---ing Jew’ by his assailants, one of which beat him with his own umbrella in Williamsburg at the Marcy Ave. station before 4 p.m. Monday. The three fled on a Manhattan-bound train after a bystander intervened and was also attacked.

      Delete
    2. No one killed, just jew haters beating and screaming at a Jew…

      Yep that should make you happy too...

      Delete
    3. Deuce ☂Tue Nov 18, 01:51:00 PM EST
      An idiotic comment claiming that Q will be happy with the death of the murdered man. I would take it down but will leave it to see if you have the decency to take it down yourself. What’s the matter with you?


      Deuce ☂Tue Nov 18, 01:52:00 PM EST
      Man up and take it down.


      Deuce ☂Tue Nov 18, 01:53:00 PM EST
      If you don’t take it down, then don’t piss and moan to me about Rat going over the top with some of his nonsense.


      Rat's over the top nonsense has NOTHING to do with what I posted… Rat's bullshit is well known and way over the top and you have permitted his crap for years.

      So?

      What will you do? Get Rat to post even more extreme Jew hating trash? Calls for Jihad or death?

      Delete
  2. Deuce ☂Tue Nov 18, 01:48:00 PM EST
    ...and the Israelis having been treating the Palestinians like street dogs. The unfortunate thing is that the four Jewish victims killed were probably were decent people and had nothing to do the outrages of the Israeli government.

    That will be the same for the poor bastard Palestinians that will have had nothing to do with the killing but will be killed by the IDF in the next round of state terror and revenge by the real criminal Netanyahu.




    Blame the Jews…. Yeah how dare they live and work and pray in Jerusalem. How dare they WALK on the Temple Mount.. How DARE they shall we say…. EXIST…

    Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, the PA, ISIS, Iranian revolutionary guard, moslem brotherhood, Hezbollah…

    All the same.

    But go ahead make excuses for them

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    1. .

      No point. With every word you post you make the point I was trying to make on the last thread.

      .

      Delete
    2. your words on the last thread said it all...

      Delete
    3. QuirkTue Nov 18, 01:36:00 PM EST
      .

      No, I'm not.

      If my point wasn't made clear, let me spell it out for you. A single (or four) Israeli gets killed and you guys make an entire thread of it. Daily attacks or killings of Palestinians are ignored. That's fine. I wouldn't normally comment on it. But this morning, WIO, drug me into the conversation.

      To suggest that attacks on Palestinians by Israelis are all just 'accidents' as WiO does above is absurd. To suggest that criminal cases of attacks on Palestinians are handled the same way as criminal attacks on Israeli's in Israel, either by authorities or the press, goes beyond absurd.

      This is not to excuse the death of 4 innocents, but merely to put them in perspective. This is nothing new. Like the murders in Detroit, this has been going on in Israel for decades and it will keep going on. The perspective voiced here that all the problems in Israel are the result of the Palestinian people is absurd in my opinion. However, if you want to voice it, do so. Just don't drag me into the conversation.



      Quirk, the reason I feel you are full of crap?

      Israelis are not murdering palestinians with rocks and firebombs. Nor are they driving over children on purpose.

      YES there have been some murders of palestinians by Israelis, like that kids who was burned to death. And the Jews that did that? Will never seen the light of day again, they will die in prison.

      But to suggest there is some sort of tit for tat thing going on is specious.

      The crime that the Palestinians are murdering Jews for is WALKING on the TEMPLE MOUNT….

      Pull your head out.

      Now if you were correct?

      The body count of the palestinians would skyrocket by 10,000 fold. And you MAY get your wish.

      When the palestinians are scattered like the syrian refugees and 250,000 lay dead? Your point will prove correct.

      Heaven help us if the Jews lowered themselves to become like their cousins…

      Delete
  3. .

    Looks like we will have to wait a while to see just how successful the Philae mission was. Too bad.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  4. How was this comet created in the first place?

    One of the end results of some supernova explosion in the past?

    That's what we are - old star stuff......

    (Maria often calls Q this - 'my darling old star stuff' - he eats it up)

    ReplyDelete
  5. QuirkTue Nov 18, 01:36:00 PM EST
    .

    No, I'm not.


    Okay, I'll take your word for that. I did not finish the remainder, just as I did not read your two lengthy posts beyond "three dicks and dead Jews." (hope I got that about right) Enjoy...

    ReplyDelete
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    1. .

      :o)

      Right.

      I'm sure you didn't. Just as I believe the rat when he says the same.

      Enjoy...

      .

      Delete
    2. More of our tax dollars at work:

      Today's UNRWA teacher lessons: Terrorist worship, Hitler admiration, and Jew-hatred

      In the aftermath of today's terror attack, it is reasonable to remember that the incitement to glorify terrorists and hate Jews is inculcated in the young. UNRWA supposedly has some standards they pretend to live up to; other schools that Palestinian kids attend are probably even worse.

      Ibrahim Hajjar teaches at a UNRWA school who lives in Hebron. He enthusiastically supported today's terror attack,writing a poem in honor of the murderers.

      https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10204087926812723&set=a.1484422544816.2064323.1061439809&type=1&permPage=1

      "You people but you are masters of human beings as you bone but you bone bone خسئ both bids for what you did and God heroes heroes"

      Amazing…

      And Bibi is the criminal… Yeah..

      Delete
    3. The death toll is now five.

      Delete
    4. I am not "the rat". Whatever you may have written beyond the perversion I am certain to have seen a thousand times. Your evil is typical and, therefore, predictably banal.

      Delete
    5. Addressing the nation, Mr Nethanyahu said: 'We are at the height of an ongoing terror attack focused on Jerusalem.
      'This evening, I ordered the destruction of the houses of the Palestinians who carried out this massacre and to speed up the demolition of those who carried out previous attack.'


      He said: 'Citizens of Israel, I call on you to demonstrate great vigilance and to respect the law because the state will bring to justice all the terrorists and those who dispatch them.
      'It is forbidden for anyone to take the law into their own hands, even if tempers are high and even if you're burning with anger."
      He linked the attack to inflammatory statements about the flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound made by the Palestinian Authority, the Islamist Hamas movement and Israel's Islamic Movement, a religious advocacy group.
      Known to Jews as the Temple Mount, the mosque compound is sacred to both faiths and one of the most sensitive sites in the Middle East.
      'Hamas, the Islamic Movement and the Palestinian Authority are spreading no end of libels... against the state of Israel.
      'They say that the Jews are defiling the Temple Mount, they say that we are planning to destroy the holy places there, that we are intending to change the prayer rites there.
      'It's all a lie. And these lies have already cost a very high price..
      'Today more victims were added to their number due to this crazy blood libel.'


      But Bibi's a criminal…

      Delete
    6. Masked Palestinians hold axes and a gun as they celebrate the massacre of four worshippers

      Palestinian supporters of The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, (PFLP), a small militant group, dance while waving their flags, after they heard the news of the shooting

      A Palestinian woman scatters sweets as she celebrates with others an attack on a Jerusalem synagogue




      Could you see yourself dancing with these kind of folksy folks?


      Delete
    7. .

      Say WiO, why don't you go back and re-write your post so that it makes sense.

      I am having a hard time seeing any logical connection between tax dollars, some nutjob teacher who evidently can't speak English, and your comment on Bibi.

      .

      .

      Delete
    8. .

      I am not "the rat".

      No one said you were. You are simply the opposite side of the same coin.

      IMO of course.

      .

      Delete
    9. .

      Bibi talks a good game. Publically. We have seen examples of where his public statements don't match those he utters in private. To invoke the word and spirit of Bob of late, 'kinda like Gruber'.

      .

      Delete
    10. QuirkTue Nov 18, 06:17:00 PM EST
      .

      Say WiO, why don't you go back and re-write your post so that it makes sense.

      I am having a hard time seeing any logical connection between tax dollars, some nutjob teacher who evidently can't speak English, and your comment on Bibi.


      UNRWA is a UN agency supported by our tax dollars that KEEPS palestinians as refugees forever.

      It is also the agency that hires thousands of terrorists (hamas) and is required by the Oslo Accords to teach the Palestinians. Teaching incitement to hate is a violation of that charter.

      As for Bibi, Deuce implied that Bibi is the criminal that started all the violence..

      Does that help you understand better?

      Delete
    11. .

      Well it's better English but I still don't see the logical connection UNRWA and Bibi.

      As for the UN dues, it appears that as of 18 November 2014, 132 Member States have paid their regular budget assessments in full. Russia has paid theirs. China, Botswana, the Congo all paid. Jordan and Egypt paid. Hell, even Israel has paid. However, it appears the US hasn't got around to it yet.

      http://www.un.org/en/ga/contributions/honourroll.shtml

      .

      Delete
  6. Qruber is just old star stuff........you must forgive him for rambling on meaninglessly sometimes................

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    1. .

      “Matter is much older than life. Billions of years before the sun and earth even formed, atoms were being synthesized in the insides of hot stars and then returned to space when the stars blew themselves up. Newly formed planets were made of this stellar debris, the earth and every living thing are made of star stuff.”

      Carl Sagan

      “We are stardust, we are golden...

      Joni Mitchell


      The Highwayman

      .

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    2. "Ooooooo,ahah,,,my oldie goldie star stuff Quirkie" groaned and sighed Maria.....

      Delete
    3. Joseph Campbell takes it back another notch and says what we really are is space, the energy of space.....

      Delete
    4. "Ooooooo, you big hunk of nothing,Quirkie" groaned Maria......

      Delete
    5. .

      Many fellow 'mythologists' would agree with Campbell, at least as it applies to him, specifically as it applies to the space between his ears.

      Heavens, the man got his degree in English Lit. What more can you say?

      :o)

      .

      Delete
  7. Ferguson is a ticking time bomb.

    Both sides are armed up. Businesses all boarded up.

    The Police in the middle.

    The National Guard on call.

    All hell may break loose.......

    The Grand Jury meets on Thursdays.......they might issue a decision on the 20th......

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Darren Wilson Supporters Pay for '#PantsUpDontLOOT' Billboard...

      'If You Do Not Have A Gun, Get One Soon'...................drudge

      Delete
    2. The Grand Jury, which is not sequestered, knows all this. Wonder if it might affect their decision......

      Delete
    3. From Pew Research Center from CDC data (2010)
      PEW

      Among racial and ethnic groups, blacks are over-represented among gun homicide victims; blacks were 55% of shooting homicide victims in 2010, but 13% of the population. [6,093 deaths]

      By contrast, whites are underrepresented; whites were 25% of the victims of gun homicide in 2010, but 65% of the population. [2770 deaths]…

      For Hispanics, the 17% share of gun homicide victims was about equal to their 16% proportion of the total population. [1883 deaths]…


      (Other races and ethnic groups scored at 3%. [332 deaths])

      Delete
    4. TIME (Aug 22, 2013)
      RACE
      Don’t Ignore Race in Christopher Lane’s Murder
      The association of young black men with violence doesn't come out of thin air
      Don’t Ignore Race in Christopher Lane’s Murder

      So, it’s just fake to pretend that the association of young black men with violence comes out of thin air. Young black men murder 14 times more than young white men. If the kinds of things I just mentioned were regularly done by whites, it’d be trumpeted as justification for being scared to death of them.

      Delete
    5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    6. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    7. WND [Milwaukee] (08/10/2013)
      BLACK-ON-BLACK MURDERS EPIDEMIC IN THIS CITY
      Report also reveals 9 of 10 suspects have criminal records
      BLACK-ON-BLACK MURDERS EPIDEMIC IN THIS CITY

      Data compiled by the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission (MHRC) shows that for the year 2012, 93 percent of the known murder suspects had criminal backgrounds. And it reveals most of the murder suspects were black, and the victims the same…
      In the city of 597,867 people, there were 91 murders in 2012, with 80 percent of the victims being black and 75 percent of the known suspects also being black.

      Six percent of the homicide victims were white, with five percent of known suspects being white.

      Twelve percent of the victims were Hispanic and 19 percent of the known suspects also Hispanic.

      The city of Milwaukee itself is 40 percent black, 17 percent Latino, and 37 percent white.

      Of known 2011 homicide suspects in Milwaukee, 93 percent are black, while 4 percent are white and Latino.



      _____________________________________________________________________________


      Since blacks murder at a rate of 14 times that of whites and that the victims are typically black, suggests to me that there is a black on black murder epidemic, with nothing remotely comparable found among whites or other races or ethnicities. Simply saying that whites tend to murder whites does not begin address this glaring fact. Yes, whites, and Hispanics for that matter, do kill others of the same ethnicity most often because, arguably, proximity yields opportunity. While true it cannot explain away the enormous difference in frequency. One need not be a racialist to point this out. One need not be a racialist to advise that the miniscule number of alleged killings of black young men by white police officers is a straw man used to deflect attention from the genuine problem: inordinately high black on black homicide rates. Additionally, there is the heinous reality that the second highest cause of death among black children ages 1-4 is homicide! I fail to see how the usual excuses satisfactorily deal with such a perverse reality.

      Delete
  8. Dispatches
    Michael J. Totten
    Subscribe to RSS - Michael J. Totten's blog
    The Kurds Rise From the Ashes of Syria
    17 November 2014

    Syria no longer exists.

    The tyrannical regime of Bashar al-Assad governs parts of what’s left of it. The psychopathic Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) controls another large swath. Small scraps of territory are ruled by sundry other militias which, more likely than not, will eventually be absorbed by Assad or ISIS.

    Up north the Kurds have carved out a proto state of their own which they call Rojava. It is being violently squeezed by ISIS from the south, and it’s jammed up against the wall of the Turkish border to the north. It is split into three besieged non-contiguous cantons, the most endangered of which is based around the city of Kobani.

    Yet Syrian Kurdistan, spliced and diced though it may be, stubbornly continues existing.

    ISIS says Rojava is an atheist entity that must be destroyed. Turkey says it’s a left-wing terrorist state that must at least be resisted.

    The United States quietly considers Rojava an ally.

    Darius Bazargan produced a short documentary about Kurdish Syria for the BBC’s Our World called Rojava: Syria’s Secret Revolution, where we see Commander Redur Khalil, spokesman for the armed forces: If the American and European plans are to succeed, he says, “they will need allies on the ground.” He and his people are it. There is no one else.

    Their ideology is quasi-Marxist, which is hardly ideal, but it’s vastly preferable to the Assad regime and ISIS. At the very least it ensures there is no religious repression. Women, men, and people from all religious backgrounds—secular or otherwise—have the same rights. Apostates from Islam and converts to Christianity face no persecution. Jews wouldn’t suffer much either if there were many around. An Israeli woman recently volunteered to fight alongside them and she is most welcome. Rojava is also not a ethnocracy. Arabs live there too, and many fight in the armed forces against ISIS.

    The quasi-Marxism of the proto state’s leaders may be a potential problem for the region’s long-term prosperity, but it poses no threat to the West whatsoever and is likely just a transition phase anyway.......

    http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/michael-j-totten/kurds-rise-ashes-syria

    ReplyDelete
  9. Senate fails to pass XL pipeline by 60 votes.......only got 59.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Supposed to be bad news for Mary Landrieu but she is going to get clobbered anyway.

      The Republicans will pass it in the next session.

      Delete
    2. Landrieu has a reputation for surviving near-death electoral encounters.

      Delete
  10. David Horovitz: Palestinian terrorists should know: It’s not going to work
    Adding to the overwhelming feeling of sheer awfulness pervading the city today is the dismal sense of déjà vu. We’ve been through all of this before, in the Second Intifada terror war — the relentless attacks, the blood, the sirens, the heart-rending funerals, the families ripped apart, the effort to maintain some kind of normality when nowhere is truly safe from terrorism, the international indifference, criticism and misrepresentation.
    And the sheer pointlessness of it all.
    Because the final thing that has to be put in writing, even on a horrible, evil day like this, when the fingers loathe the necessity to tap the keyboard, is that it’s not going to work. Palestinian terrorists, and those who incite them and support them, should know: We are not going to be shot and stabbed and bludgeoned out of here by your brutality and the false justifications you invoke to legitimate it.
    We stood firm during year upon year of Second Intifada terrorism, when you were blowing up our buses, malls, restaurants and supermarkets, and pragmatism could have dictated that we do what the terrorism was designed to make us do: flee. We do not insist on maintaining our majority Jewish state to the exclusion of your rights. Anything but. We seek co-existence. But your rights cannot be achieved by denying us ours.
    For this is the homeland of the Jewish nation, the only place we have ever been sovereign or sought sovereignty. And what needs writing and saying, most especially on a terrible day like today, is that we will not be driven from it.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Jeffrey Goldberg: Hamas Endorses a Massacre
      One of the most shocking aspects of the murderous attack on a Jerusalem synagogue this morning by men with guns and axes is not the attack itself—we've seen, from time to time, this sort of sectarian barbarism take place in places like Jerusalem, and Hebron. The most shocking aspect is the wholesale endorsement of this slaughter by Hamas, a group that, during this summer's war in Gaza, half-succeeded in convincing the world that it wasn't what it actually is: a group with actual genocidal intentions.
      According to witnesses, the two attackers entered the synagogue, in the Har Nof neighborhood, and began killing worshipers with pistols and axes. (Both assailants were killed by police, but not before they murdered four worshipers and injured at least six others, including two police officers.)
      “To see Jews wearing tefillin [phylacteries] and wrapped in the tallit [prayer shawls] lying in pools of blood, I wondered if I was imagining scenes from the Holocaust,” said Yehuda Meshi Zahav, who leads an emergency-response team, according to The New York Times. "It was a massacre of Jews at prayer.”

      Delete
    2. Netanyahu agreed with Kerry and Abdullah to discourage Jewish visits to the Temple Mount -- prayers by Jews there being an "attack" against the mosques, don't you know. Despite this, Abu Mazen continued to incite violence through falsehood. So be it.

      If Netanyahu has a spine (highly unlikely) he might consider encouraging Jews to flock to our Temple Mount to pray with fervor -- no more game playing. It belongs to us as much as to the Arabs, according to international agreements routinely violated by Jordan. Therefore, the Har haBáyit should be open to unrestricted use by Jews. Friday prayer might be an exception, but that would depend upon Arab manners.

      To those who would bewail such a liberal policy, are Jews to be treated as curs?

      Delete
    3. Anyone (ANYONE) guilty of violence on or about the Temple Mount and the Wall would be banned from visitation for one year upon the first conviction, five years upon the second, and a lifetime upon the third. Violation beyond the third conviction would lead to imprisonment with hard labor. This would include idiots throwing stones at women coming to visit and/or pray at the Kotel. It would also include those impish Arab utes who throw rocks, use slingshots, or hurl Molotov cocktails.

      Delete
    4. "Yassa, Massa Allen"... See, I pay attention to pithy commentary. :-)

      Delete
  11. What is "Occupation"Tue Nov 18, 06:15:00 PM EST
    Masked Palestinians hold axes and a gun as they celebrate the massacre of four worshippers

    Palestinian supporters of The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, (PFLP), a small militant group, dance while waving their flags, after they heard the news of the shooting

    A Palestinian woman scatters sweets as she celebrates with others an attack on a Jerusalem synagogue




    Could you see yourself dancing with these kind of folksy folks?


    We saw Israelis, I assume Jews, sitting on lawn chairs, eating snacks, cheering Israeli bombs on Palestinian neighborhoods. The only difference was the body count and the Israelis killed by the scores. What could possibly have caused the retaliation?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You saw one photo of a dozen people watching the RETALIATION against Gaza for 7 years of rocket attacks.

      Gaza was given freedom just a few short years ago. Hamas took it over, threw arabs off roof tops and started shelling Israel.

      Play silly games? Win silly prizes.

      You still defend hamas...

      tsk tsk..

      you are on the wrong side of morality

      Delete
    2. Maybe Israelis should start celebrating each and every arab death by parading around down town with body parts of the dead.. Oh that's what the arabs do....

      Delete
    3. Jews should flock to the Temple Mount by the thousands for a Day of Prayer.

      The Jewish right to visit at will the Temple Mount and pray would be the single greatest loss to the Arabs since 1948. All the subsequent bloodshed would have been for naught. If you want to hurt the bastards, this is the way.

      Stop with the nonsense of razing houses and dispossessing women and children in retaliation for murder. Stop trying to determine proportionality; just open the Temple Mount to unrestricted Jewish access and pray. Why?

      Ishmael means (contextually) "G-d will hear". This is why Muslims pray five times a day: they believe in the efficacy of prayer, even the prayers of Jews. This is why Arabs are so adamant about keeping Jews off the Temple Mount and, most importantly, from praying there.

      What reasonable person would deny the Jews something granted by international law? How soon we forget that from 1948-1967, Jordan was the villain at the UN because of its refusal to grant Jews access to much of Jerusalem.

      Delete
    4. It is interesting that how you gauge the importance is defined by how much loss will be inflicted on the Arabs - truly a moral compass gone awry!!

      Delete
  12. Replies
    1. well that's too broad to comment on..

      But sure, Israel has some faults. But the Palestinians and Iranian Mullahs would be on the short list...

      oh and Obama... :)

      Delete
  13. http://www.jewsnews.co.il/2014/11/17/faisal-weizmann-agreement-when-the-arabs-asked-the-jews-to-return-to-israel-2/
    Faisal–Weizmann Agreement – When the Arabs asked the Jews to return to Israel

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  14. Who are the real victims of terrorism?

    f the 17,958 people who died in terrorist attacks in 2013, 82 percent were in one of five countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Syria. That's one finding from this year's Global Terrorism Index report, published by the Institute for Economics and Peace. The report is based on data from the University of Maryland's Global Terrorism Database, which has information on more than 125,000 terrorist attacks between 1970 and 2013.

    The report found a 61-percent jump in terrorism fatalities between 2012 and 2013. "Over the same period," the authors wrote, "the number of countries that experienced more than 50 [terrorism-related] deaths rose from 15 to 24"—an indication that the problem of terrorism was getting both more fatal and more widespread a year before ISIS declared a new caliphate.

    But it's also striking where terrorism didn't occur. Much of the increase in terrorism-related fatalities in 2013 took place in Iraq, where terrorists claimed nearly 4,000 lives—a 168-percent increase over 2012. Worldwide, Iraq was the worst-affected country, accounting for 34 percent of terrorism-related fatalities in 2013, with Afghanistan ranked next with 17.3 percent. Meanwhile, between 2000 and 2013, the report found, around 5 percent of terrorism-related fatalities occurred in the 34 wealthy countries of the OECD. In 2013 specifically, there were 113 terrorism-related deaths in OECD countries—0.6 percent of the worldwide total. Six of these took place in the United States.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Israel lost 7 to terrorism in 2013.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. Doesn't reflect the THOUSANDS of failed attempts.

      In America ATTEMPTED MURDER is still a crime.

      :)

      If Israel values it's citizens to provide shelter from incoming attacks, rockets and missiles maybe the palesitnians should build more shelters and fewer rocker launchers..

      Delete
  16. The terror and destruction caused by the Israelis in 2014 to the Palestinians will surely be answered, such is the nature of human nature.

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    1. The terror and destruction that the arabs have caused the world and the Jews since 1783 will surely be answered, such is the nature of human nature.

      The arabs brought the concept of "assassin" to the world. The arabs taught the world about suicide bombers, airplane hijackings, IED's and of course 911 in America, the train bombings in Spain and London and the Boston bombing of a marathon..

      :)

      Delete
    2. ... play silly games, win silly prizes ... The whining is unmanly.

      Delete
  17. “I will hurt you for this. I don't know how yet, but give me time. A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you'll know the debt is paid.”

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Israel killed 2,000 in recent war in Gaza.

      Iran and Iraq killed MILLIONS.

      Syria has killed 250,000 and made 11 million homeless.

      Millions have been killed by arabs for centuries, couple that with Islam's death cult status?

      The arab world/islamic world is dying.

      “I will hurt you for this. I don't know how yet, but give me time. A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you'll know the debt is paid.”

      The Jews have suffered thru far worse than anything most people can comprehend. Today Iran is attempting this again, genocide. But what is interesting? islamic lands and arab nations are crumbling and killing each other at a faster and faster pace as every day goes by...

      Since the Ishmael was sent packing by his father Abraham at his wife's insistence the arab people have had a chip on their shoulder against Isaac....

      We are Isaac's heir.

      We understand our bitter, mean spirited cousins better than any scot, england or yank will every understand...

      Dating an arab gal doesn't give you insight, it just gets you played.

      Delete
    2. By deuce's logic?

      The Jews should have some scores to settle

      “I will hurt you for this. I don't know how yet, but give me time. A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you'll know the debt is paid.”

      The spanish expulsion of 1492
      The arab destruction and conquering of jerusalem in 690 by Saladin
      the arab's siding with the nazis
      The germans deserve an ass kicking
      The arab riots in the 1920's
      The arab attacks on Israel in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1984...

      “I will hurt you for this. I don't know how yet, but give me time. A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you'll know the debt is paid.”

      Yep, it works both ways...

      but revenge is a dish best served cold.

      Watching the arab world consume itself by itself I guess is:

      “I will hurt you for this. I don't know how yet, but give me time. A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you'll know the debt is paid.”

      But I don't have to lower myself to do it...

      I will just watch.

      Delete
  18. AshTue Nov 18, 09:46:00 PM EST
    It is interesting that how you gauge the importance is defined by how much loss will be inflicted on the Arabs - truly a moral compass gone awry!!


    Ash, tell me true, should Jews have the right to pray upon the Temple Mount? Being a dude with an aligned moral compass, I am sure you will answer forthrightly. Right?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think tweaking Arab perceptions of injury about prayer by Jews is preferable to harming their human shields so strongly endorsed and condemned hereabouts, conveniently as the case may be. Don't you?

      Delete
    2. Ash, it cannot really be had both ways. Unless, of course, the Jews can do nothing right other than abandon Israel. Surely you and others would not advocate this approach.

      Delete
  19. When my moral wheels are out of alignment, I always go to Ash's Moral Compass Alignment Service Center. Qruber is a mechanic there.

    He gives me a cut rate.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. (the service is shitty but the rate is right)

      Delete
    2. So, Bob, if I need my moral compass realigned, say to Mecca, would you recommend A.M.C.A.S.C.?

      Delete
    3. .

      He gives me a cut rate.

      Well, you are our biggest customer. We look at you as job security.

      .

      Delete
  20. What is "Occupation"Tue Nov 18, 09:04:00 PM EST
    Israel killed 2,000 in recent war in Gaza.

    Not meaning to be petty, but some number of Gazans were killed in Israel's defense of the Jewish homeland. They needn't have died, it is true, but their democratically elected government made it so. Just as no Allied airman was guilty of the collateral damage done to Germany in WWII, such is the case with Israel and its defensive actions against the Gazan equivalent of V-2s (Vergeltungswaffen 2).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No criticism of you is intended, as I am sure you know.

      :-)

      Delete
  21. Great GruberGate video montage -

    This Gruber-gate supercut video is positively enraging
    posted at 8:01 pm on November 18, 2014 by Noah Rothman

    Share on Facebook 120
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    This video, flagged by invaluable Twitter resource and Ace of Spades Decision Desk entrepreneur John Ekdahl, is among the most infuriating things you will see today.

    Composed by American Commitment, this video is nothing more than a smash cut of the various videos of Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber juxtaposed against footage of Democratic lawmakers either denying his existence or exalting him to the havens.

    This video perfectly encapsulates why the imbroglio surrounding Gruber’s comments has the potential to blow the debate over the Affordable Care Act wide open. For a law which enjoys a popularity rating of 37 percent, Obamacare supporters can scarcely afford for the ACA to shed more of its already moribund favorability – particularly at a time in American history when the law’s opponents are on the ascendancy.

    The nut of why this whole episode is so infuriating, when isn’t enervating, is the repeated insults done to America’s collective intelligence by those who believe themselves to be members of a superior class. That condition is made even more insufferable by those Obamacare supporters who are attempting to rewrite the history of the ACA in order to airbrush Gruber out of the picture.

    The Federalist’s Sean Davis has a compelling piece on this phenomenon, and it’s worth your full attention. It concludes…

    Come. On. I hate to break it to you all, but Gruber doesn’t get to be an architect of Obamacare and Romneycare when you want to use his authority and credentials to bash Republicans or spin for the law, and then radically transform into one of three Jon Grubers who just happens to live in Obama’s neighborhood once Gruber becomes a massive liability for the Left.

    Gruber was one of the key architects of Obamacare. He didn’t just build econometric simulation models based on the law. He was also involved in drafting its key components. And he was paid enormous sums of money for his advice and counsel. These are facts. Accept them, learn to deal with them, and give the embarrassingly bad Gruber Truthing a rest.

    The sloppy, almost perfunctory efforts from some members of the liberal press simply are not up to the task of defusing “Gruber-gate.” The public was told that the entirety of the American health care system had to be remade in order to extend coverage to, at most by the end of this year, 13 million people. Now, they are being informed by no less a figure than the law’s architect that they were idiots for believing him and his allies.

    This could all be quite explosive.

    http://hotair.com/archives/2014/11/18/this-gruber-gate-supercut-video-is-positively-enraging/

    We are told we are all morons.........stupid.......fools, idiots, imbeciles.......

    ReplyDelete
  22. ... in tribute to the comet riders ...

    Yes!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ... and to seeing ten years' work tumbled into darkness ...

      O Fortuna

      O Fortune,
      like the moon
      you are changeable,
      ever waxing
      and waning;
      hateful life
      first oppresses
      and then soothes
      as fancy takes it;
      poverty
      and power
      it melts them like ice.

      Fate – monstrous
      and empty,
      you whirling wheel,
      you are malevolent,
      well-being is vain
      and always fades to nothing,...

      Delete
  23. Deuce ☂Tue Nov 18, 08:54:00 PM EST
    The terror and destruction caused by the Israelis in 2014 to the Palestinians will surely be answered, such is the nature of human nature.


    I wonder, will the Hamas be held to the same standard by their very own people?

    The people they executed in the street, the children they murdered after they were used as slaves to dig tunnels, the people they beat and cowered into staying on as human shields?

    Will the relatives of those Fatah folks tossed off of rooftops by the Hamas remember and take revenge?

    Will the sons of those shot with shotguns in the knees by hamas someday take revenge?

    Human nature being what it is?

    I'd say the Gazans are in for some serious shit...

    ReplyDelete