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[Owendonovan]

From Xitter

Do I pronounce this as one would in Spanish?

[ti-amie]

Editorial | Netanyahu Bears Responsibility for This Israel-Gaza War

Haaretz Editorial

Oct 8, 2023
The disaster that befell Israel on the holiday of Simchat Torah is the clear responsibility of one person: Benjamin Netanyahu. The prime minister, who has prided himself on his vast political experience and irreplaceable wisdom in security matters, completely failed to identify the dangers he was consciously leading Israel into when establishing a government of annexation and dispossession, when appointing Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir to key positions, while embracing a foreign policy that openly ignored the existence and rights of Palestinians.

Netanyahu will certainly try to evade his responsibility and cast the blame on the heads of the army, Military Intelligence and the Shin Bet security service who, like their predecessors on the eve of the Yom Kippur War, saw a low probability of war with their preparations for a Hamas attack proving flawed.

They scorned the enemy and its offensive military capabilities. Over the next days and weeks, when the depth of Israel Defense Forces and intelligence failures come to light, a justified demand to replace them and take stock will surely arise.

However, the military and intelligence failure does not absolve Netanyahu of his overall responsibility for the crisis, as he is the ultimate arbiter of Israeli foreign and security affairs. Netanyahu is no novice in this role, like Ehud Olmert was in the Second Lebanon War. Nor is he ignorant in military matters, as Golda Meir in 1973 and Menachem Begin in 1982 claimed to be.

Netanyahu also shaped the policy embraced by the short-lived “government of change” led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid: a multidimensional effort to crush the Palestinian national movement in both its wings, in Gaza and the West Bank, at a price that would seem acceptable to the Israeli public.

In the past, Netanyahu marketed himself as a cautious leader who eschewed wars and multiple casualties on Israel’s side. After his victory in the last election, he replaced this caution with the policy of a “fully-right government,” with overt steps taken to annex the West Bank, to carry out ethnic cleansing in parts of the Oslo-defined Area C, including the Hebron Hills and the Jordan Valley.
This also included a massive expansion of settlements and bolstering of the Jewish presence on Temple Mount, near the Al-Aqsa Mosque, as well as boasts of an impending peace deal with the Saudis in which the Palestinians would get nothing, with open talk of a “second Nakba” in his governing coalition. As expected, signs of an outbreak of hostilities began in the West Bank, where Palestinians started feeling the heavier hand of the Israeli occupier. Hamas exploited the opportunity in order to launch its surprise attack on Saturday.
Above all, the danger looming over Israel in recent years has been fully realized. A prime minister indicted in three corruption cases cannot look after state affairs, as national interests will necessarily be subordinate to extricating him from a possible conviction and jail time.

This was the reason for establishing this horrific coalition and the judicial coup advanced by Netanyahu, and for the enfeeblement of top army and intelligence officers, who were perceived as political opponents. The price was paid by the victims of the invasion in the Western Negev.

The above article is Haaretz’s lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.


https://archive.ph/2023.10.09-201713/ht ... 0-1109.107

[Owendonovan]

Well, Netanyahu certainly can't be tried for the crimes he committed now. What. A. Mess.
Try talking to anyone about this without some kind of impassioned point being made to try and make you look like you're in the wrong, from either side.

[dryrunguy]

This morning's NY Times newsletter has a really good summary of the tunnel system in Gaza commonly known as the Metro. Some of this I did not know, so I thought I would share it here.

::

A maze of tunnels

There is a transportation network below Gaza, one that Israel is trying to destroy.

The network is made up of tunnels, where most Hamas fighters are likely living alongside stockpiles of weapons, food, water and, now, more than 200 Israeli hostages. Parts of the tunnels are large enough for vehicles to drive in them.

The Israeli military first launched an intense air attack targeting these tunnels and has now sent in ground troops to destroy them. Eliminating the tunnels would go long way toward breaking Hamas’s control over Gaza.

In today’s newsletter, we’ll explain why the tunnel network is so important — and why Israel will not have an easy time dismantling it.

‘The metro’

Tunnels have existed under Gaza for years. But after Israel withdrew its forces and settlers from Gaza nearly two decades ago, Hamas vastly expanded the underground network. Hamas has a long history of terrorist violence — both the U.S. and the European Union consider it a terrorist group — and the tunnels allow its members to hide from Israeli air attacks.

Israel created further incentive for tunnel construction by tightening the blockade of Gaza after 2007. The main rationale for the blockade was to keep out weapons and related material, but Israel’s definition is so broad that the blockade also restricted the flow of basic items. In response, Gazans have used the tunnels — which extend south into Egypt — to smuggle in food, goods, people and weapons. Some people refer to the hundreds of miles of tunnels as “the metro.”

(This story, by our colleagues Adam Goldman, Helene Cooper and Justin Scheck, has more details.)

Egypt’s government has also viewed the tunnels as a security threat. A decade ago, Egypt tried to destroy some tunnels along its border with Gaza, by dumping sewage into them and leveling houses that concealed entrances, as Joel Roskin, a geology professor at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, told our colleagues.

In the current war, Hamas will use the tunnels to hide and to attack Israeli soldiers from unexpected places. “By using the tunnels, the enemy can surround and attack us from behind,” said Col. Amir Olo, the former commander of the elite Israeli engineering unit in charge of dismantling tunnels.

The civilian toll

The battle over the tunnels is a major reason that this war already has a high civilian death toll. More than two million people live above the tunnels — a layer of human life between many Hamas targets and Israeli missiles.

Hamas has hidden many weapons under hospitals, schools and mosques so that Israel must risk killing civilians, and face an international backlash, when it fights. Hamas fighters also slip above and below ground, blending with civilians.

These practices mean that Hamas is responsible for many of the civilian deaths, according to international law, as David French, a Times Opinion writer and former military lawyer, has explained. Deliberately putting military resources near civilians and disguising fighters as civilians are both violations of the laws of war.

António Guterres, the secretary general of the United Nations, has said Israel is also violating international law by continuing to bomb southern Gaza — partly to destroy tunnels — after first ordering people to evacuate there for safety.

While Israel says its strikes are precise, Palestinians say that the bombing has felt vengeful and unfocused. One man lost 45 members of his extended family. Overall, Hamas says, at least 8,000 people have died in the war, and the U.N. has confirmed the deaths of at least 2,360 children.

One issue is that bombs that hit tunnels can still kill civilians through a kind of aftershock. When bombs explode underground, buildings above can collapse into a crater. “The craters become mass graves,” said Eyal Weizman, the director of Forensic Architecture, a research group.

Whatever the appropriate mix of blame between Israel and Hamas, the human toll has led to widespread criticism of Israel. And as its ground incursions continue, the toll will surely grow. The more than 200 hostages held by Hamas, likely in the tunnels, will also be at risk.

Air, then ground

The first stage of Israel’s campaign against the tunnels has been its air war. The military has launched more than 7,000 airstrikes on Gaza since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that killed more than 1,400 Israelis. That air war continues, along with the ground operation.

Israel has dropped special bombs that don’t explode until after they have burrowed into the ground. Another type of weapon, called “sponge bombs,” creates an explosion of hardening foam to seal off tunnels. If tunnel entrances are sealed, fighters can’t pop out of them in surprise attacks.

The ground operation allows Israel to take additional steps to demolish tunnels. An Israeli reservist soldier described one technique, called “purple hair,” to our colleagues:

Israeli troops drop smoke grenades into a tunnel, and then watch for purple smoke to come out of any houses in the area. The smoke, the soldier said, signals that a house is connected to the tunnel network and must be sealed off before soldiers descend into the tunnels. The smoke moves like strands of hair throughout the tunnel system, he said.

This description helps make clear why urban warfare tends to be so deadly. “It will be bloody, brutal fighting,” said Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the former leader of U.S. military operations in the Middle East.

[ti-amie]

Just in case you think MAGA hasn't gone international or that Florida Man syndrome is limited to the US. There is video but I'm not posting it. If you want you can find it in the link.

Horrifying Moment Man Casually Shoots Dead 2 Eco-Protesters Blocking Panama Highway; American Lawyer Arrested
Kenneth Darlington, 77, an American professor and lawyer who has had past brushes with the law in Panama, was arrested at the scene
Published 11/09/23 06:23 AM ET|Updated 7 hr ago
Nick Gallagher

A lawyer and professor from the U.S. is suspected of shooting and killing two protesters as they blocked a highway in Panama to protest a controversial mining contract.

A group of teachers had been blocking traffic along the Pan-American Highway in Chame, roughly 50 miles outside of Panama City, for about two weeks as a form of civil disobedience, Newsroom Panama reported.

The protesters appeared to have barricaded the road with rocks, tires, and other debris to halt traffic.

Video footage from a news agency reporting on the protest captures the chilling moment a man approaches the group in the moments before the attack. He's seen arguing with several demonstrators before casually drawing a pistol and pointing it in various directions.

At one point, the man tries to move some of the protesters' barriers himself. The footage then cuts to the aftermath of the shooting, with demonstrators screaming and rushing to the aid of the gunshot victims — and later, officers hauling the suspect into the back of a police vehicle.

Alternate footage appears to show the man continuing to move debris out of the roadway even as protesters care for the dying victims.

The suspect, Kenneth Darlington, 77, reportedly holds dual citizenship in Panama and the U.S. He was previously arrested in 2005 when Panamanian police officers raided his home, uncovering two "weapons of war." At the time, he said those firearms were only collector's items, and he was released after posting bail.

Darlington also allegedly worked as a spokesperson for Marc Harris, an accountant who was charged with money laundering in Panama that same year, per Newsroom Panama.

One of the victims, Abdiel Díaz, died at the scene, AFP reported. The other, Iván Rodríguez, 62, was pronounced dead at the hospital.

The demonstrators were protesting against a contract that would allow a Canadian company — First Quantum, and its subsidiary, Minera Panama — to continue operating the nation's largest copper mine, which reportedly generates 5% of the country's GDP, according to the Washington Post.

Protesters have argued that Panamanians themselves should get to decide how to use their country's natural resources — and that these riches should ultimately be preserved.

The protests are thought to be the largest since the 1980s, when Panamanians marched to show their opposition to military dictator Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega.

https://themessenger.com/news/panama-pr ... darlington

[dryrunguy]

Iceland is preparing for a volcanic eruption in the southwestern part of the island.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ic ... 023-11-11/

[ti-amie]

AND there's a new island off the coast of Japan!

[ti-amie]

Temperature differences from average over the past week in central South America. (WeatherBell)

Taylor Swift concertgoer died
By Matthew Cappucci and Jason Samenow
November 19, 2023 at 1:14 p.m. EST

Unprecedented heat for mid-November is roasting Brazil and other parts of South America amid a record stretch of hot weather for the planet.

The heat in Rio de Janeiro, a city of nearly 7 million people, has proved disruptive and deadly. During sweltering temperatures Friday night, a woman died at a Taylor Swift concert. It was so hot Saturday that Swift postponed her concert scheduled for that night. “The safety and well-being of my fans, fellow performers and crew has to and always will come first,” read a message posted to Swift’s Instagram story on Saturday afternoon.

Even though it’s still spring in the Southern Hemisphere, temperatures have climbed well above what’s typical even in summer, which is more than a month away.

A stagnant area of high pressure, El Niño and human-caused climate change have converged to generate this excessive heat.

How hot it’s been
Rio has seen a suffocating combination of heat and humidity for days. On Friday, when the woman died at the concert, midday temperatures topped 100 and dew points, a measure of humidity, were in the upper 70s. Any dew point over 75 degrees is oppressively humid.

At a dew point of 77, about 23 grams of water, or about 1.55 tablespoons, are present in every cubic meter of atmosphere. That’s the weight of roughly nine pennies.

Heat indexes on Friday — a measure of how it feels factoring in humidity — exceeded 120 degrees. Climate historian Maximiliano Herrera tweeted the heat index reached as high as 137 degrees in Rio’s suburbs Saturday.

The higher the heat index, the less sweat can evaporate off our bodies. That’s because the air is already closer to its moisture-storing capacity. At high heat indexes, less heat can evaporate from our skin and cool us down as a result. That can lead to difficulties in regulating our body temperatures. If left unchecked, heat exhaustion and heat stroke can occur.

Saturday’s temperatures around Rio were both dangerously high and record-setting. Rio’s Jacarepaguá-Roberto Marinho Airport reported a heat index of 131 degrees on Saturday morning, the product of a temperature nearing 97 degrees and a dew point of 86. Most of the city’s other airports saw high temperatures between 105 and 107 degrees.

According to Herrera, the town of Seropédica, a suburb about 25 miles west-northwest of Rio and 15 miles inland, hit 108.7 degrees, a November record.

Record-high temperatures also spread into Peru and Bolivia. On Saturday, highs of 102.6 in Tingo de Ponaza, Peru, and 102.2 degrees in Cobija, Bolivia, set November records, according to Herrera.

The heat first moved into Brazil about a week ago. The BBC reported that red alerts were issued for nearly 3,000 towns and cities because of “unbearable” heat. On Nov. 12, it said, Rio hit 108.5 degrees, a record for the month.

The intensity of the heat is forecast to ease some after Sunday but temperatures are predicted to remain warmer than normal through the next week in central South America.

What’s driving the heat

Contributing to the heat has been counterclockwise-spinning surface high pressure system just offshore of Brazil. That’s induced warm, humid northerly winds, pumping in the same kind of humidity characteristic of the Amazon rainforest. There’s also a “heat dome,” or ridge of hot, sinking air at higher altitudes. While deflecting away the jet stream and any inclement weather and cloud cover, it’s promoting hot sunshine.


High-altitude weather map shows a heat dome — or zone of high pressure aloft — just east of Brazil, which promotes sinking air and sunshine. (TropicalTidBits.com)

The heat is also being boosted by a strengthening El Niño, the climate pattern associated with warmer-than-normal ocean waters in the tropical Pacific Ocean.

Furthermore, the frequency, intensity and duration of extreme heat events, like this one, are increasing because of human-caused climate change. The planet just observed its warmest 12-month period on record and the past five months have all been the warmest observed.

According to the United Nations, Brazil has warmed by 0.9 degrees during just the past few decades. Land use changes, including deforestation of the Amazon, is expected to accelerate that pace of warming.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/ ... lor-swift/

[ti-amie]

TL;dr the heat index a few days ago was 137F

[Fastbackss]

TL;dr the heat index a few days ago was 137F

I read the whole article surprised it was in Fahrenheit and then saw it was from the Washington Post haha

[ti-amie]

TL;dr the heat index a few days ago was 137F

I read the whole article surprised it was in Fahrenheit and then saw it was from the Washington Post haha

Understood. I'm a typical US educated person. Celsius, like the metric system is totally foreign to me. According to the converter on Google it would be about 58.3 Celsius.

[dryrunguy]

The NY Times is reporting that Israel and Hamas have agreed to a "brief" cease fire to facilitate hostage release.

Let's see what "brief" means.

[ti-amie]

New Amauta
@NewAmauta
Argentina has a new far-right president

Javier Milei, an "anarcho-capitalist", chief economist at the World Economic Forum, & considered Argentina's Trump, will now govern the Latin American power

Milei campaigned on dollarization to replace the peso with the dollar, erasing their central bank, & subordinating Argentine sovereignty to US monetary policy

And, he wants to overturn Law 26.160 which ended all court cases that'd displace #Natives off their land

[ti-amie]

How is Xitter these days you ask?

John O'Connell @jdpoc@bird.makeup
Dublin, in summary.

(Common sense from Seth Abramson on Threads)






Elon Musk weighs in on Dublin riots claiming country’s PM ‘hates the Irish people’
SpaceX owner is currently battling accusations that he has allowed antisemitic content to be shown alongisde major advertisers’ ads on X/Twitter

Graig Graziosi
2 hours ago

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and owner of X/Twitter, said that Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar "hates the Irish people" after the nation announced its intent to "modernise" its laws against hate and hate speech.

The interaction took place on Mr Musk's social media platform. He was responding to a an account named "Sir Doge of the Coin" — a reference to the Doge coin meme cryptocurrency — who shared a snippet of a news story about the legislative initiative and complained that the "Irish government want all of your freedoms."

"Irish children were stabbed by a foreign man in Dublin yesterday yet the government twist the story and use the backlash as an opportunity to pass new hate speech laws," the owner of the meme crypto account wrote. "The Irish government want all of your freedoms."

Mr Musk, the wealthiest man on the planet and the owner of one of the most influential social media platforms, responded to the meme account — whose pfp is a cartoon Shiba Inu in medieval armour — by saying "Ironically, the Irish PM hates the Irish people."

Mr Musk has long claimed he is a “free speech absolutist,” though his adherence to those principles is questionable.

The exchange was an outgrowth of the current tension in Ireland after three children and an adult were stabbed near a school in Dublin. Critics of the government's immigration policy have painted the stabbing to be evidence that stricter control over who is allowed into the nation is needed.

One of the children, a five-year-old, remains in "very serious condition," and the adult, a female teacher, is still in "serious condition," CNN reports.

Since the stabbing on Thursday, police in Ireland have reported that right-wing agitators have stirred up violent protests and mobilised angry mobs on to Dublin's streets.

“These are scenes that we have not seen in decades. But what is clear is that people have been radicalised through social media," Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said during a press briefing on Friday. He went on to describe the rioters as "a complete lunatic hooligan faction driven by far-right ideology," CNN reports.

“These criminals did not do what they did because they love Ireland, they did not do what they did because they wanted to protect Irish people, they did not do it out of any sense of patriotism, however warped,” Mr Varadkar told a news conference. “They did so because they’re filled with hate, they love violence, they love chaos, and they love causing pain to others.”

Police said they arrested 34 people in the ensuing riots.

Mr Musk's comments come at a time when his company, X/Twitter, is under fire for reportedly serving antisemitic content next to major advertisers' ads.

He has both denied and seemingly confirmed those reports in a civil lawsuit he has brought against MediaMatters, the watchdog group that initially reported the issue.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 53496.html

Referenced Xpost is at the above link.

[ti-amie]

Smith says she'll reveal details next week on threat to invoke sovereignty act


Alberta Premier Danielle Smith gives the state of the province address in Edmonton on Wednesday October 25, 2023. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Fransson)

Brittany Ekelund
CTVNewsEdmonton.ca Digital Producer
Published Nov. 25, 2023 5:05 p.m. EST

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she will reveal details next week on her threat to invoke her government's sovereignty act over federal clean energy regulations.

Smith told her provincewide radio call-in show on Saturday that she's "had it" with federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, saying he "doesn't care about the constitution" and noting Ottawa has recently lost two court cases dealing with disputes over federal-provincial jurisdiction.

The Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act, which Smith's government passed last year, would allow the province to reject federal laws or regulations when the province thinks they cause harm to Alberta. It has not been tested in court.

Last month, Smith laid out conditions under which her government would enact portions of the law.

She told reporters an "aggressive'' cap on oil and gas emissions including methane, a cap on emissions from fertilizer use or a 2035 target for a net-zero electricity grid are all lines in the sand.

Smith told the radio audience Saturday that people will have to wait until Monday to "see the architecture" of how the act will be invoked, but noted Alberta won't put electricity providers at risk of going to jail if they don't meet what she called Ottawa's "unachievable" targets.

"I have to tell you that I didn't want to do this. I really did, from the very first conversation I had with (Prime Minister) Justin Trudeau, I wanted to work with him on this. We put it together the table with the negotiators so we could find areas of common ground," Smith said.

"But Steven Guilbeault, I don't know, he's a maverick. He doesn't seem to care about the law, he doesn't care about the constitution. I do, and we're going to make sure we assert that."

Smith has previously said utilities executives would face jail time if they don't meet federal emissions targets, a claim which Calgary Liberal MP George Chahal called "ludicrous" last month.

Smith maintains there's reason to believe power generators could achieve a later target of 2050. Sooner, she's said, could put the grid at risk of failure during peak periods.

Her United Conservative Party's throne speech in October repeated previous promises to enact portions of the sovereignty act if Ottawa brings in climate change measures that the province deems aren't in its interest.

A Federal Court ruling on Nov. 16 struck down a cabinet order underlying Ottawa's ban of some single-use plastics, which Guilbeault has said the government will appeal. And in October, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that federal legislation dealing with the environmental effects of major developments was unconstitutional because it sought to regulate activities within provincial jurisdiction.

"They've lost two court cases now -- one at the Supreme Court level and one at a Federal Court level -- saying they have to stay in their lane," Smith said of the Feds on Saturday.

"Their lane is clearly not electricity. Electricity, if anyone wants to read the constitution under Sec. 92, falls to the provinces."

Guilbeault released draft regulations in early August to establish a net-zero energy grid by 2035. He has said Canada does not want to be left behind as the United States and other G7 countries move toward clean electricity.

He's also said any claim that building a clean electricity grid in Alberta will lead to blackouts is misinformation, designed to inflame rather than inform.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 25, 2023

https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/smith-says- ... -1.6660944