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Discovery iPhone 6S East Sussex, England Sunday, June 18th, 2017.
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Every scientific or technological revolution tears down yet another anthropocentric conceit.
Venkatesh Rao, Superhistory, Not Superintelligence
New Dog Frolicking Brighton, East Sussex, England Monday, March 31st, 2025.
Remember the Good Old 1980s Arad, Israel Wednesday, February 5th, 2025.
Rauschenbike iPhone SE 2020 Brighton, East Sussex, England Tuesday, August 27th, 2024.
Lovely Rishpon iPhone SE 2020 Rishpon, Israel Tuesday, August 20th, 2024.
Late Night Kiryat Sharet iPhone SE 2020 Ra'anana, Israel Tuesday, August 13th, 2024.
Azrieli Structures iPhone SE 2020 Tel Aviv, Israel Sunday, August 11th, 2024.
Ladies & Matkal Tower iPhone SE 2020 Tel Aviv, Israel Sunday, August 11th, 2024.
Telawiwi #2! iPhone SE 2020 Tel Aviv, Israel Sunday, August 11th, 2024.
Near Nevei Ne’eman iPhone SE 2020 Hod Hasharon, Israel Monday, August 5th, 2024.
A Spot of Mine iPhone SE 2020 Hod Hasharon, Israel Monday, August 5th, 2024.
Friday Market Near Carlebach iPhone SE 2020 Tel Aviv, Israel Friday, August 2nd, 2024.
Crazy New Developments iPhone SE 2020 Tel Aviv, Israel Friday, August 2nd, 2024.
Beach Tableau iPhone SE 2020 Herzlia, Israel Wednesday, July 31st, 2024.
Eucalyptus with Dilapidation iPhone SE 2020 Hod Hasharon, Israel Tuesday, July 30th, 2024.
Kelly Maud along the River Adur iPhone SE 2020 Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex, England Sunday, June 16th, 2024.
Well That’s Nice iPhone SE 2020 Brighton, East Sussex, England Saturday, May 25th, 2024.
Tube View iPhone SE 2020 London, England Monday, May 6th, 2024.
Ono Yoko iPhone SE 2020 London, England Monday, May 6th, 2024.
On a nice walks iPhone SE 2020 Brighton, East Sussex, England Sunday, April 21st, 2024.
What Went Wrang #2 iPhone SE 2020 Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland Wednesday, March 20th, 2024.
That’s the Scotland iPhone SE 2020 Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland Wednesday, March 20th, 2024.
Train Station with Angles iPhone SE 2020 Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland Wednesday, March 20th, 2024.
Celtic are Turds iPhone SE 2020 Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland Wednesday, March 20th, 2024.
Glasgow’s One Giant Glass Ceiling iPhone SE 2020 Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland Tuesday, March 19th, 2024.
Goodbye Old Friends iPhone SE 2020 Brighton, East Sussex, England Thursday, February 22nd, 2024.
9:48pm UTC
Monday, October 28th, 2024
The Knesset has finally banned UNRWA, the humanitarian agency serving as strategic weapon against Israel since 1949.
Good bonkers, I’m Adam S Khan, S for Samuel.
I develop work systems at Engaging; and am founder and user-in-chief at RSSDeck, the browsing platform for the rss’d of us.
I live in Brighton, England with Irit and our kids and dog Kelly Maud.
Thanks for dropping by — it’s my pleasure to host you.
Friday, April 18th, 2025
At JCPA, Oded Ailam pens “Why Israel Should Embrace its Role as a Regional Power”.
A country that acts like a leader attracts others. Countries prefer to affiliate with a strong, stable power that leads with purpose and confidence. By projecting strength, not just militarily but diplomatically and economically, Israel can become a pole of attraction in the Middle East – for states, investments, and influence.
I’d like to see stronger initiatives to partner with similar countries. Finland to me seems a great target for seduction. About the same size, also fiercely independent, innovative, threatened — as liberals they lean pro-Palestinian but with better engagement I think they could be shown where true liberalism lies.
Thursday, March 6th, 2025
As a young advisor to then-Deputy Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Madrid Conference in 1991, Dore brought his policy and national security expertise. Dore was a firm believer in the Jordanian-Israeli relationship, and the possibility of a federal-confederal, security-based approach to the Palestinian issue. Dore’s profound strategic concern about preventing future attacks from the East led him to pioneer a revival of General Yigal Alon’s defensible borders concept, which he advanced following the 1967 war.
On Montaigne by Jared Marcel Pollen in The Point.
Montaigne’s depiction of his mind “from day to day, from minute to minute” is sometimes regarded as his method (i.e. his intellectual process), but it is also and equally the formation of a literary style: in letting his mind wander freely in the act of writing, he spontaneously creates a form that allows him to depict that wandering.
Tuesday, February 4th, 2025
In Mosaic, A pair of important lengthy pieces of where we’re at in Israel: The Failed Concepts That Brought Israel to October 7 by Shany Mor, and To Save Itself from International Isolation, Israel Must Hold On to the West Bank by Rafi DeMogge. While both are problematic — DeMogge drums in a two-step argument that territorial withdrawals are actually harmful to Israel diplomatically but is thin on other points, and Mor throat-clears by it seems to me unfairly presenting the settler movement as irrational before focusing on the failure of peace-processing — together they touch on each other to paint a developed picture of the situation.
The idea that a Palestinian living in Palestinian territory under a Palestinian government is somehow a refugee from Palestine is a deadly contrivance, the work of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
Shany Mor, The Failed Concepts That Brought Israel to October 7
Sunday, January 5th, 2025
This New York Times (brilliantly designed) interview with Secretary Anthony Blinken cap-ends the Biden Administration. On Gaza, he says:
My goal has been to end this conflict in Gaza in a way that makes sure that Oct. 7 doesn’t happen again, that ends the suffering of people and does it in an enduring way that brings the hostages home.
I’m not happy about the order here, but okay. But in the next answer he continues:
First, you’ve got to end the conflict in Gaza.
These two positions are contradictory, and that has been the failure of the Biden Administration here. In pressing for the conflict to end NOW, regardless of victory, ensures that his previously-stated goals — ending the suffering of people, enduringly, and with hostages home — will not be met.
There is an immediacy sickness in western discourse. Wanting things NOW, Peace NOW, return the hostages NOW, is infantile and counterproductive. Disdaining plans is akin to disdaining institutions.
Yes, Davar still exists as a publication of Israel’s Histadrut. There’s a great piece by Or Paz-Ivry published in February, 2024 entitled “The Path Not Taken: Yigal Allon’s Approach to the Gaza Strip”.
Now more than ever, Israel is in need of an Allon-esque approach to security, what he referred to as “a strategy of peace.” As part of this conception, the possibility of Jordan playing the stabilizing role that Allon suggested in his plan must be reexamined, as many of the geopolitical conditions that Allon described at the time still exist today, despite the passage of time. These conditions lead to the conclusion that Jordan must be a central partner in any political solution…
I was saying this myself 20+ years ago. A pity in my ignorance I had no idea there was a strong thread of thought along these lines, articulated by a major Israeli figure whom history has regrettably sidelined. I am an Allonite.
Tuesday, December 31st, 2024
In reading what would be Yitzhak Rabin’s final speech to the Knesset, the Prime Minister reassures his colleagues regarding the Oslo Accords:
The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.
He goes on to argue:
An examination of the maps and of the paragraphs of the agreement regarding the additional stages of the redeployment shows that Israel retains complete freedom of action, in order to implement its security and political objectives relating to the permanent solution, and that the division of the areas gives the IDF and the security branches complete security control in Areas B and C, except for the urban areas.
But this belies what the accords state in Annex IV: Protocol Concerning Legal Affairs, Article I.a, namely that Area C “except for the Settlements and the military locations, will be gradually transferred to the Palestinian side in accordance with this Agreement”.
It seems the idea was for Israel to leave Areas A and B, allow Israeli forces to enter Area B to protect Israelis, and leave for a future date a negotiation over how much of C will also be handed over. The text covering this is in Article XIII: Security:
Further redeployments from Area C and transfer of internal security responsibility to the Palestinian Police in Areas B and C will be carried out in three phases, each to take place after an interval of six months, to be completed 18 months after the inauguration of the Council, except for the issues of permanent status negotiations and of Israel’s overall responsibility for Israelis and borders.
That is a big “except for” yet it appears in the sentence as a kind of afterthought — “to be completed except for some important bits”
The Area C handover never happened yet the Palestinians nonetheless presume, along with pretty much all of the international community except some Americans, that it belongs to them. Israel is presented as oppressing the Palestinians by not letting them build there; theoretical dollar amounts are placed on natural resources that the Palestinians are being blocked from exploiting in Area C, like some sort of bill to Israel that is being added up.
The question now is whether it would better to clarify all this or leave it in the current limbo. I would say it does; if Israel unilaterally annexes some of Area C, as the Likud campaigned on in 2019, that does not preclude it from annexing more later. The status quo seems to be however that both sides are willing to sneak around Area C, each hoping the other will somehow eventually disappear.
At Bar Ilan’s Begin-Sadat Center, Brig. Gen. (res.) Eran Ortal (recently retired from military service as commander of the Dado Center for Multidisciplinary Military Thinking) is concerned that in Lebanon Israel has “launched an operation against infrastructure, not against an enemy”.
Thursday, December 19th, 2024
Sometimes one must check in with the other side, such as it is. So this is “Prof. John Mearsheimer on the Fall of Assad: Syria Will Be in CHAOS For the Forseeable Future” on Afshin Rattansi’s Going Underground Vimeo channel. With Mearsheimer’s erudition, University of Chicago credentials and light New York area accent, now I understand why he is taken seriously, yet even he must politely push back against this charlatan Rattansi with the constant bitter laugh, who signs off with:
Continued condolences to those surviving UK/US/EU-armed genocide here in this region. We’ll be back on Monday with the legendary Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters.
It was worth having 28 minutes on just for that. What twaddle.
Wednesday, December 18th, 2024
In The Jerusalem Post, Gil Murciano, CEO of the Mitvim Institute, pleas for Israeli engagement with the new Syria, deriding “splendid isolation” and the “village in the jungle” mentality. For one, if we don’t, the Iranians will be back in full force, willing to help out.
In retrospect, when I used to blog more, this issue was perhaps my main one outside of navel-gazing. Of course, hanging back is the lesson of Menachem Begin’s intervention in Lebanon in the early 1980s; and when he intervened, he was breaking an already-established norm.
There’s no doubt that Israel is in the center of the region, and her actions affect others. So there could be even more authority garnered by being very obviously clearly not interested in intervening in other countries, which is an unusual stance. But hasn’t that Rubicon now been crossed? Perhaps not; Israel’s shockwaves affecting others is not quite so new as it seems; regimes fall after wars with Israel — that’s how Nasser and Assad himself came to power.
I’m torn; while I tend towards the engagement direction, prudence suggests hanging back and staying out of the maelstrom of Middle Eastern affairs as much as is feasible. How much does the Powell Doctrine — you break it, you own it — apply?
Tuesday, December 10th, 2024
John Podhoretz wonders what can explain Obama-Biden policy towards Iran. Michael E. Ginsberg has an answer in American Greatness: “The Biden Administration and Iran: DEI Manifested as Foreign Policy”:
Iran is DEI catnip. For the DEI crowd, Iran today is a non-Western, Third World country, the alleged victim of Western meddling and colonialism that threw off its supposedly Western-imposed chains and established a government whose defining characteristic was hostility to the West. It was the perfect petri dish for a new foreign policy rooted in Western self-abasement, guilt, and deference to “indigenous” voices.
The resulting behavior is a vivid example of the cul-de-sac you go up when you willfully defy reality this way. And when you are responsible for the security and flourishing of the free world, it’s a scandal for the ages.
Friday, December 6th, 2024
David P. Goldman’s back! His piece in Law & Liberty, “China as It Is”, is educational and deft.
The geography of China meant that flood control could not be undertaken locally. It required the full resources of an empire across the 8,000 miles of the Yellow and Yangtse Rivers, not counting tributaries. That was China’s equivalent of Manifest Destiny.
Saturday, November 30th, 2024
Michael Beckley of Tufts gives a mind-blowingly impressive 37-minute lecture on China hitting a great wall.
Thursday, November 28th, 2024
The Reverse Shot’s review by Julien Allen of A Matter of Life & Death does the movie justice. Some 75 years after the movie was made in part apparently to bolster post-war morale and Anglo-American relations, its dive into the relative merits of the USA and the UK is a surprising delight. The visual effects too are wonderfully crafted — it must have opened the minds of viewers such as Stanley Kubrick to the standards possible if you care enough.
Friday, November 22nd, 2024
The guy with the great hair at Web Dev Simplified has made a “How To Handle Permissions Like A Senior Dev” video which addresses the issues that my Engaging OS handles. He comes to a slightly different solution, relying on a third-party setup, something I hadn’t even thought of doing, abstracting out the permissions. And I think I’ve been made to understand that attributes are not just a better and more detailed way to organize the user/role’s permissions, but liberate the user/role from primacy in handling permissions.
Friday, November 15th, 2024
Grades reveal who is persistent, self-disciplined, and compliant—but they don’t reveal much about emotional intelligence, relationship skills, passion, leadership ability, creativity, or courage.
David Brooks, How the Ivy League Broke America
Tuesday, November 5th, 2024
The turnaround had perhaps begun, not a moment too soon: beloved Boeing sheds DEI. This pernicious practice may not have been the original source of the rot at Boeing but its acceptance at an engineering firm was at very least a symptom.
Thursday, October 31st, 2024
Interesting erudition on Jews and Adventists [PDF].
Monday, October 28th, 2024
The Knesset has finally banned UNRWA, the humanitarian agency serving as strategic weapon against Israel since 1949.
Sunday, October 27th, 2024
Jordan B on Donald J. You know what, i think it’s all gonna be okay.
Friday, October 25th, 2024
The Manhattan Institute surveys American Jews. The more Jews attend synagogue, the more they support Trump. Only the Orthodox care most about Israel — and are the only Republican Jews. As a whole, American Jews are mostly sticking with the Democrats despite qualms. Conservatives most care about the economy and abortion equally. Reform Jews care most about abortion (wishing to enable it, presumably).
Sunday, October 20th, 2024
On Sky News, former Head of MI6 Sir John Sawyer disagrees with David Patraeus’s characterization of Sinwar’s takeout being more important than that of Osama Bin Laden — because as opposed to being “a global struggle against the West” Hamas is merely limited to “the occupied territories of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank”. I presume Sky News asked this question in order to get this answer. And it perfectly encapsulates my personal fundamental incompatibility with the established British viewpoint.
Saturday, October 19th, 2024
In Newsweek, Spengler on Orban’s European Zionism:
European nationalists look to Israel as a beacon of hope. It’s the only high-income country with a fertility rate above the 2.1 breakeven level — so far above breakeven at three children per female that its working-age population will more than double from today’s 4.5 million to 11 million by the end of this century, according to UN demographers.
As a member of a scientific advisory board to the Hungarian government, I have had the opportunity to speak to numerous high-ranking officials, and can attest that their admiration for Israel and the Jewish people is sincere, principled and deep. They view Israel as “the exemplar and paragon of a nation,” as Franz Rosenzweig put it.
Liberal American Jews cannot wrap their minds around the new philo-semitism among conservative European nationalists.
No further Ribbonfarm story of ribbonfarm has been, in a small one-of-a-million threads way, the story of civilization itself, through the 2007-24 period. Venkatesh Rao writes:
The story of ribbonfarm has been, in a small one-of-a-million threads way, the story of civilization itself, through the 2007-24 period.
There’s even wit in the laudatory comments.
The path out of loneliness is always a path of action.
Bret Stephens, If Israel Is Alone, What Do We Do About It?
By Armin Rosen in Unherd, the most important thing I’ve read about Sinwar and his passing:
A significant body of facts suggests that Sinwar believed he would succeed in destroying the state of Israel on or about October 7, 2023. A few years before the attacks, he co-sponsored a conference at a Gaza City hotel entitled “Promise of the Hereafter: Post-Liberation Palestine” in which participants discussed topics such as the enslavement of educated Jews and the mass execution of alleged Arab collaborators in the aftermath of Israel’s imminent violent destruction.
Thursday, October 17th, 2024
Great thread: To whom to send condolences on the death of Sinwar. A lot of Greta Thunberg.
Tuesday, October 15th, 2024
I keep going back to it to see if he’s reconsidered, so I guess I need a link to it. Paul Graham, startup hero, in his sharp and well exquisite style, tweeted on October 9th:
65 doctors, nurses, and paramedics told the New York Times what they saw in Gaza. What they saw was a pattern of children being shot in the head.
PG’s artful repetition of the fragment “what they saw” expresses his suppressed fury at Israel’s ongoing moral repugnance. I wonder, once this blood libel is debunked, if he will revisit this thread and more importantly his own priors. In such a sharp mind it’s difficult to imagine the thought framework required to arrive at this fury. PG presumes it’s true; wanting to believe it’s true requires a lot of scaffolding; actually believing it’s true requires still more.
[Update 2024 Oct 19:] Nope, he’s still at it, retweeting more of this kind of thing. Though the only thing he’s tweeted on the topic himself since is this on October 17th:
When I first saw this tweet I was horrified. Then I read the account name and I was relieved. This is from 1940. Then I remembered that the same things are happening right now, and I was horrified again.
He’s referring to this tweet from @RealTimeWWII:
Kennington Park rescue worker: “Whole thing’s blown to bits- heads, arms, legs, feet lying about. Only way you can tell girls from the men is their hair.”
Monday, October 14th, 2024
Tal Becker, a great thinker, on Call Me Back.
Monday, October 7th, 2024
Pretty troubling — in this interview with Hugh Hewitt, who asks repeatedly and gets the same answer again, Trump believes a deal can be made with Iran once they are sufficiently impoverished.
I would have had a deal a long time ago, because they were bust. They were totally busted. They were ready to make a deal. They would have made a deal. … I would have gotten, in my opinion, 50/50 chance, maybe more than that, Iran would have been in the Abraham Accords. They wanted to make a deal so bad until we had that phony election.
To his credit, Hewitt pushes back with: “I think they’re fanatics, and you can’t deal with them.”
The Jerusalem Post reports on Hamas Rape Tunnels of Gaza posters being put up in Tube stations. Generally I abhor the the mournful, sanctimonious, dull tone of British Jewish statements, but this is excellently acerbic. Very well done (I see in the bottom right corner they even put their names to it, that is unusual).
Unpleasant but necessary: this fellow Pataramesh provides sober intel on Iranian capabilities. He seems to think they are the good guys. He’s arguing that Iran’s missile strike was calibrated and limited and sends signals that it can do more.
On Twitter, Dan Linneaus writes (he’s pinned this one to the top of his profile):
Taking out Iran’s oil and nuclear facilities puts the cart before the horse..
He provides more detail here and here. This all makes sense to me: defang them first; this has the added benefit, apart from being smart, of doing what Biden asks: not hitting the oil nor nuclear facilities. Yet.
Israel just pulled off this snake-charming trick against Hizballah, degrading them for a year before delivering a hammering burst of coups de grâce; can it be done again. You know, I bloody think so.
Saturday, October 5th, 2024
Khamenei’s sermon translated in English at his homepage.
Thursday, October 3rd, 2024
Good piece looking at things more from Iran’s perspective in Asia Times, “Iran has everything to lose in direct war with Israel” by Shahram Akbarzadeh.
Fighting Israel is very much a pillar of state identity in Iran. The Iranian political establishment is set up on the principle of challenging the United States and freeing Palestinian lands occupied by Israel. Those things are ingrained in the Iranian state identity. So, if Iran doesn’t act on this principle, there’s a serious risk of undermining its own identity.
Things have come down to the wire, as they do. Reportedly, the Israeli cabinet has decided on its response after a 4-hour meeting. Going by experience it will be shock and awe.
David Goldman often looks to demographics. “Improbable as it may seem,” he writes, “the core scenario according to present trends will make Israel the economic center of the Middle East sometime toward the end of the century.”
Goodness, Niall Ferguson on Bibismarck.
David Goldman tours the world with Caroline Glick with an emphasis on Israel and China.
Wednesday, October 2nd, 2024
Here we fucking go, this didn’t take long.
“We’ll be discussing with the Israelis what they’re going to do, but all seven of us (G7 nations) agree that they have a right to respond but the response but they should respond proportionally Biden told reporters before boarding Air Force One.”
One advantage of striking back immediately would have been not having to deal with this bullshit.
On the other hand, Biden is reliable; if he says he does not support an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, then an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites it is. And they made a show of helping repel the attacks. And they may put in place more sanctions against Iran. And if they are willing to get out of the way, as they have eventually done each step of the journey, that is likely enough.
Stories like The Wall Street Journal’s “Israeli Response to Iran’s Attack to Set Course of Widening War” are faintly ridiculous in their discourse of retaliation and restraint. A typical quote:
“Israel will seek to reinforce the idea that its technological superiority and military skill allow it to strike any target in Iran,” said Norman Roule, who served as the top U.S. intelligence officer on Iran from 2008 to 2017. But Israel is likely to avoid striking targets that could spark a full-scale war with Iran, Roule said
Wrong. Israel is no longer playing the game of retaliation — and has stated so explicitly, as least vis-a-vis Hizballah — nor of message-sending. Whatever happens next is not retaliation but simply the next move in an existential conflict that is therefore indeed all-out war, albeit less visibly so than most due to the complexity of the theater. Further quotes in the article are more on track: “In the end, decision makers in Tehran settled for the idea that restraint would not help to avoid a bigger confrontation anyway,” they quote Walter Posch, a senior researcher with the National Defense Academy in Vienna.
Remember, Netanyahu gave what is in retrospect the most credible wartime speech ever at the UN, one that demands being pored over given that even while he spoke Nasrallah was being assassinated at his order. Much of that halo remains for a subsequent video Netanyahu made to the Iranian people, in which Israel’s long-serving Prime Minister tells them they’ll be free “sooner than people think”. I choose to take this not as credibility-spending bluster but rather with credibility-maintaining seriousness.
After all, Israel had spent much strategic energy on the devastating, ingenious take-out of Hizballah — We’ve been waiting for this opportunity for years, was the IDF’s line — but Hizballah is merely Iran’s proxy. It strains credulity therefore that the forthcoming operations against Iran will be any less historic and gob-smacking. Israel would not have begun Operation New Order with the pager attack against Hizballah’s fighters without having in place the plan for Tehran.
Tuesday, October 1st, 2024
Netanyahu: “When Iran is finally free — and that moment will come a lot sooner than people think — everything will be different.”
Ohad Merlin’s Indigenous Pact:
Israel’s challenge in the next stage is to create a mirror image of [Iran’s] bloody proxy war. Everywhere Iran has sent its arms – that’s where Israel needs to forge alliances and contribute to the cutting of the regime’s arms. Following Ben-Gurion’s “Periphery Alliance” and Begin’s “Minority Alliance” policies, Israel must now forge the “Indigenous Alliance” between the Jewish people and other indigenous peoples and religious communities in the Middle East who are suffering under the oppression of Khamenei and his emissaries throughout the region: Druze, Arabs, Kurds, Sunnis, Christian denominations, anti-regime Shiites – and fight the Islamic Republic together.
Been wondering who is this Khaled Hassan on the Twitters. My pet theory: there’s gonna be a lot more converts to Judaism like him once this damn war is won. It’s gonna be like moving to the New World.
Monday, September 30th, 2024
“There’s something so dazzling about the contemporaneousness of the attacks,” articulates Abe Greenwald on this celebratory episode of the Commentary Daily Podcast.
Netanyahu speaks in English directly to the Iranian people. Portentously, given the newfound utter credibility he has after the last month of military voodoo, he says: “When Iran is finally free — and that moment will come a lot sooner than people think — everything will be different.” Italics mine.
One thing does give me pause: that this is really a speech for a United States President to make. Maybe though I’m thinking too small and it is actually an Israel-scale job to take on Iran while the USA focuses on the larger-power horizon. Maybe it’s actually a fine one-two posture where the USA is willing to defend Israel to the point of insisting others contribute, then is unhappy yet ultimately tolerant when Israeli goes on the offensive. But regardless, you go to war with the army and allies you have.
Thanks for this, jpod. In “Israel Rises”, at his Commentary Magazine, John Podhoretz feels compelled to give thanks by listing Israel’s military successes in the past month.
Whatever the divisions and concerns and cautions inside the corridors of power about the astonishing onslaught of Israel against the Iran Axis of Evil, the fact is Israel stared into the abyss and said, “Not today. Not this week. Not this month. Not ever.”
Saturday, September 28th, 2024
I had to search for this, Hizballah’s own statement on Nasrallah’s death.
True to form, The Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board sums up the situation pithily in “Israel Sends Nasrallah to His Just Reward”. I like that they too noted the headline on the Jeremy Bowen BBC piece “Bowen: West left powerless as Israel claims its biggest victory yet against Hezbollah” (to be fair to him, he doesn’t put it this way in the text) placying Israel beyond the West. They commend Israel for its “remarkable display of intelligence, technological skill, and above all political will.”
Through perhaps gritted teeth and scripted statements and a day later, Biden/Harris nonetheless take the win. The line: “a measure of justice” has been served.
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Tariffs and Inflation: Clarifying the Convoluted
A Curricular Solution to the Crisis of Civic Illiteracy
Don't Rule Out a U.S.-Iran Nuclear Deal Just Yet
Bringing a Negotiated End to Russia-Ukraine War
Davos and Other Hustles
Woodrow Wilson, Tariff Slayer
Harvard University's Intricate China Ties
Mark Carney's House of Cards
DC Press Corps Pretends To Be Sorry About Lying
Trump and the Art of 'Dealism'
Trump Would Beat Harris or Biden Again
Ensuring Biden's Open Border Policies Don't Happen Again
Being an Unaccompanied Immigrant Minor Is Getting Harder
How Strategic Dealmaking Can Fortify American Power
Consumer Debt Has Reached an All-Time High
Links for the intellectually curious, ranked by readers.
Modern Realty (YC S24) Is Hiring
Beyond Performance: Measuring the environmental impact of analytical databases
Show HN: Beatsync – perfect audio sync across multiple devices
Bamba: An open-source LLM that crosses a transformer with an SSM
Chain of Recursive Thoughts: Make AI think harder by making it argue with itself
Everything we announced at our first LlamaCon
O3 beats a master-level GeoGuessr player, even with fake EXIF data
Indian court orders blocking of Proton Mail
Firefox tab groups are here
The last masters of Afro-Colombian machete fencing
ArkFlow: High-performance Rust stream processing engine
Jepsen: Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL 17.4
AirBorne: Wormable zero-click remote code execution (RCE) in AirPlay protocol
Performance optimization is hard because it's fundamentally a brute-force task
Programming languages should have a tree traversal primitive
“Reasonability” law passed. Police mass against protesters storming Knesset
“Reasonability” law passed. Police massed against protesters storming Knesset
Voting starts on reasonability curb for High Court after opposition nixes any compromise
Police forcibly remove protesters blocking entry to Knesset for crucial votee
Ex-Mossad chief Cohen: Israel consensus vital as Iran’s threat spirals
A pacemaker urgently implanted in prime minister’s heart
Bids to soften first legal reform bill as more military reservists join protest
Air Force dismayed by 1,142 air crew reservists’ threat to balk duty in protest over judicial overhaul
Committee nods to bill curbing High Court’s freedom to overturn government decisions
Israel denies NYT account of Biden-Netanyahu conversation
Prepared for the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
Turkey's Expanding Military Footprint Threatens Israel
We Honor the Fallen with Unshakeable Determination
Macron Fights for a Palestinian State
Jordan's Ban on the Muslim Brotherhood: Extremist Ideas Can Die Too
ICC Judges Order Prosecutor to Stop Publicizing Applications for Arrest Warrants in Palestinian Case
Get the U.S. Out of UNESCO
The Anti-Israel Stronghold inside the State Department
Independence Day 2025: 77+1 Reasons I Love Israel
IDF Targets Hizbullah Weapons Warehouse in Beirut
Negotiations with Iran Must Address Iranian Sponsorship of Terrorism
Israeli Defense Officials Preparing to Expand Gaza Operation
Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer: "I Am Confident that Trump Will Distance Himself from a Bad Deal with Iran"
Netanyahu: "Without Our Help, Assad's Regime Wouldn't Have Fallen"
This Is a Fight for Basic Human Rights
Large Majority of American Jews Maintain Elevated Engagement after Oct. 7
Historic pandemic treaty is a triumph in a world being torn apart
The do’s and don’ts of scientific image editing
When a great ball of fire came crashing down
Debris from rockets is polluting the Caribbean
Canada’s election: what Mark Carney’s win means for science
Preserve access to crucial climate data
The use of AI in peer review could undermine science
Cell classification should be based on more than just DNA
COVID vaccine works faster with both doses in the same arm
Will US science survive Trump 2.0?
Tattoo-making tools used by ancient Maya revealed
Microbial molecule of ageing gut nudges blood stem cells towards cancer
Academia needs a more honest, scientific approach to DEI
How the world’s largest language family spread — and why others go extinct
‘Fear extinction’ signal in mouse brain offers clues about how to treat PTSD
Why Darfur is now the center of Sudan’s power struggle and humanitarian crisis
Hezbollah leader calls on government to work harder to end Israel’s attacks on Lebanon
Israeli army flattens Rafah ruins
Syria FM says wants to ‘strengthen relations’ with China
Fighter jet slips off the hangar deck of a US aircraft carrier in the Red Sea, one minor injury
Israel army says hit more than 50 ‘terror targets’ in Lebanon in past month
Israel’s Shin Bet chief announces resignation, to step down June 15, Israeli media reports
Gaza rescuers say Israeli strikes kill at least 40
Iran minister blames ‘negligence’ for port blast that killed 65
Israeli authorities order Palestinians to stop building homes in Al-Jib town
A quarterly magazine of urban affairs, published by the Manhattan Institute, edited by Brian C. Anderson.
Trump’s Executive Order Is a Big Win for Policing
It calls for funding to boost recruitment and retention, enhance training, and expand legal protections for police officers.Trump Is Likely to Win His Fight with Universities
The administration holds many cards, and it seems determined to play them all.How Universities Restrict Faculty Freedom
The fellow-to-faculty model helps administrators strong-arm academic departments into hiring their preferred candidates.Trump’s Tariffs Are a Self-Inflicted Political Wound
The president’s trade agenda abandons conservative caution in favor of economic disruption.Princeton Professor: “I want President Eisgruber subpoenaed before Congress”
He has created a system of racial discrimination.
The cat that wouldn’t die. Schrödinger’s cat has joined Pavlov’s dog in science’s bestiary of the bizarre
The pressure to build a personal brand is one of the great pathologies of the past three decades
Since academics started studying science fiction in the 1970s, “there has been a sense that science fiction is of the left, while fantasy is of the right”
To understand where UFOs come from, look to the collective unconscious rather than another planet
The rogue anthropologist David Graeber swung for the fences — and did not let strikeouts deter him
In Chaucer’s time, average sentence length was 49 words. Now sentences are much shorter. Why?
Scholars generally believe Shakespeare had a disastrous marriage. New research challenges that consensus
Canada now likely has more latitude to work with China if US tensions persist: analysts
Elon Musk teases Grok 3.5 hours after Alibaba’s Qwen3 generates buzz amid US-China AI race
How Central Asia is embracing Chinese arms sales
US is urged to mine seabeds for critical minerals in counter to China
Ukraine’s Zelensky calls for fair peace with no ‘rewards’ for Putin
Meeting in Brazil, Brics foreign ministers fail to issue joint statement
Denmark’s King Frederik X arrives in Greenland, as Trump eyes strategic Arctic island
3 killed in Sweden shooting, as police hunt for masked gunman
Trump trade war: US consumer confidence hits 5-year low amid tariff concerns
Amazon scraps plan to list tariff costs after Trump official calls it ‘hostile, political act’
Brain candy for Happy Mutants
Propmaster pulls back the curtain on movie magic
ICE detains Harvard Medical School cancer researcher
Arcade classic Gauntlet hacked to show entire dungeons on high-res displays
Adorable baby chimp plays peek-a-boo with a giant Easter egg
Artists resist AI with the #StarterPackNoAI movement
This knife has become my best EDC buddy
Medication delivered by chewing gum
Trump "lab leak" website "inaccurate, flawed, and misleading"
Give your photos a professional touch in just a few clicks with Luminar Neo, now $90 for life
Sarah Palin loses her libel lawsuit against the New York Times
Nothing to sniff at: "Large amounts" of cocaine hit Texas beaches after smuggling goes awry
The most important card in your wallet: MagTag slim tracker now $32.99
Being a Lego Master Builder is a real career path, and I'm seriously reconsidering my life choices
Oblivion remake announced and released
Markets in everything
Tuesday assorted links
Slovakia/Portugal fact of the day
In defense of an online life
Monday assorted links
The Political Economy of Protective Labor Laws for Women
The Public Choice Outreach Conference
Spain fact of the day
USA fact of the day
Hungary fact of the day
Sunday assorted links
Yale Faculty v. Administrators
The new Stripe stablecoin product
Is it genetics that will give you freedom from the AIs?
My 18-minute podcast with Ehsan Adouane
Rumors and news on everything Apple since 1997
iPhone 17 dummy video offers a new look at Apple's 2025 device lineup
Apple Watch SE 3 might be available in larger 41mm and 45mm sizes
Arms race: Apple's waiting for robotics for US iPhone assembly, says Commerce Secretary
Minisforum TB4-01 12-in-1 Thunderbolt 4 Dock review: 2.5 gigabit ethernet and legacy ports, inexpensively
Apple quietly launches 'Snapshot' artists, actors, and athletes discovery guide
Amazon denies it had plans to be clear about consumer tariff costs
Parallels Desktop 20.3 update adds Touch ID and OBS support
Rumored iPhone 18 memory bandwidth boost will greatly enhance processing power
Hackers could hijack AirPlay & CarPlay devices using set of 'Airborne' flaws
Better than Apple AirTag: the best Find My trackers
What you should know about Apple's switch from rsync to openrsync
Apple supplier Pegatron says tariffs will mean third world-style shortages for US
Opinions on corporate and brand identity work.
Announced: Brand New will Shift to Subscription Model
Spotted: New Logo for Blue Islands
Linked: Louis Vuitton Architecture
Noted: New Name and Logo for St. Louis City SC
Reviewed: Friday Likes 339: From Studio MPLS, Wade and Leta, and Unifikat Design Studio
Spotted: New Logo and Identity for Vitkus Clinic by Tandemo
Spotted: New Logo and Identity for Netgen by IDnaGroup
Linked: Biden &Harris &Decimal
Noted: New Logo and Identity for Correos de México by Carl Forsell
Reviewed: New Logo and Identity for BERA by How & How
Spotted: New Logo for Playtika
Spotted: New Logo and Identity for The 19th by Page 33 Studio
Linked: Objects may be Closer than they Ap-pear
Noted: New Logo and Identity for Zappos Adaptive by Eric&Todd
Reviewed: New Logo and Identity for Lot61 by Smörgåsbord
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Meta bets you want a sprinkle of social in your chatbot
TAKE IT DOWN Act? Yes, take the act down before it's too late for online speech
Watch out for any Linux malware sneakily evading syscall-watching antivirus
Duolingo jumps aboard the 'AI-first' train, will phase out contractors
Enterprise tech dominates zero-day exploits with no signs of slowdown
Backblaze denies 'sham accounting' claims as short sellers circle
China now America's number one cyber threat – US must get up to speed
OpenBSD 7.7 released with updated hardware support, 9Front ships second update of 2025
Infosec pros tell Trump to quit bullying Chris Krebs – it's undermining security
The State of Open Source in 2025? Honestly, it's a mess but you knew that already
China is using AI to sharpen every link in its attack chain, FBI warns
808 lines of BBC BASIC and a dream: Arm architecture turns 40
experiments in refactored perception
Ribbonfarm is Retiring
After several years of keeping it going in semi-retired, keep-the-lights-on (KTLO) mode, I’ve decided to officially fully retire this blog. The ribbonfarm.com domain and all links will remain active, but there will be no new content after November 13th, 2024, which happens to be my 50th birthday. There will be one final roundup post before […]Truth-Seeking Modes
Been on a Venn diagram kick lately, since being primed to think in Venns by Harris campaign. This one summarizes an idea I’ve long been noodling on: The healthiest way to relate to a truth-seeking impulse is as an infinite game, where the goal is to continue playing, not arrive at a dispositive “winning” right […]Intellectual Menopause
I ran across the alarming phrase intellectual menopause a few months ago in John Gall’s Systemantics, and it naturally stuck in my brain given I’m pushing 50 and getting predictably angsty about it. The phrase conjures up visions of a phenomenon much more profound and unfunny than the more familiar one we know as midlife […]
