IGX

I thought that was the prefered pasttime of the welsh.

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/history/origin.html
How accurate is this?

moderately accurate

5% accurate, 95% propaganda. Most quoted authors are Noam Chomsky and Edward Said, supported by a chorus of anti-Western, anti-Israel propagandists. These are the sort of folks who would write the same type of capsule history of the United States as history's most evil empire.

The problem with reading this sort of piece is that if you're not a student of Biblical Israel, 19th century immigration to Israel, the creation of the modern Middle East post World-War 1, the role of the United Nations leading to partition, and the 64 years since the United Nations voted for the create of Israel, it is impossible to assess the accuracy or reasonableness of any piece. So you can look at the authors a piece relies on:

Said is a leading anti-Western, pro-Arab intellectual.

Chomsky was criticial of killing Bin Laden, saying George Bush's crimes were worse. Here's a bit on Chomsky's politics from Wikipedia:

Chomsky has stated that his "personal visions are fairly traditional anarchist ones, with origins in the Enlightenment and classical liberalism",[27] and he has praised libertarian socialism.[78] Although Chomsky tries to avoid the ambiguity of labels, his political views are often characterized in news accounts as "leftist"[79][80][81][82] or "left-wing," and he has described himself as an anarcho-syndicalist.[83] He is a member of the Campaign for Peace and Democracy and the Industrial Workers of the World international union.[84] Chomsky is also a member of the interim consultative committee of the International Organization for a Participatory Society which he describes as having the potential to "carry us a long way towards unifying the many initiatives here and around the world and molding them into a powerful and effective force."[85][86] He published a book on anarchism titled Chomsky on Anarchism, published by the anarchist book collective AK Press in 2006.

Hebrew Hammer wrote:5% accurate, 95%

That's all I needed. Thanks.

I didn't read the whole article I linked so I sure as fuck didn't read everything you posted.

Bobby wrote:I thought that was the prefered pasttime of the welsh.

yes it is. His joke was well intentioned but badly researched.

Hebrew Hammer wrote: Here's a bit on Chomsky's politics from Wikipedia:

Chomsky has stated that his "personal visions are fairly traditional anarchist ones, with origins in the Enlightenment and classical liberalism",[27] and he has praised libertarian socialism.[78] Although Chomsky tries to avoid the ambiguity of labels, his political views are often characterized in news accounts as "leftist"[79][80][81][82] or "left-wing," and he has described himself as an anarcho-syndicalist.[83] He is a member of the Campaign for Peace and Democracy and the Industrial Workers of the World international union.[84] Chomsky is also a member of the interim consultative committee of the International Organization for a Participatory Society which he describes as having the potential to "carry us a long way towards unifying the many initiatives here and around the world and molding them into a powerful and effective force."[85][86] He published a book on anarchism titled Chomsky on Anarchism, published by the anarchist book collective AK Press in 2006.

What's negative about this?

Sharia law doesn't allow a modern society to be sustained. So, back to the stone age in a handful of generations

odin wrote:

Hebrew Hammer wrote: Here's a bit on Chomsky's politics from Wikipedia:

Chomsky has stated that his "personal visions are fairly traditional anarchist ones, with origins in the Enlightenment and classical liberalism",[27] and he has praised libertarian socialism.[78] Although Chomsky tries to avoid the ambiguity of labels, his political views are often characterized in news accounts as "leftist"[79][80][81][82] or "left-wing," and he has described himself as an anarcho-syndicalist.[83] He is a member of the Campaign for Peace and Democracy and the Industrial Workers of the World international union.[84] Chomsky is also a member of the interim consultative committee of the International Organization for a Participatory Society which he describes as having the potential to "carry us a long way towards unifying the many initiatives here and around the world and molding them into a powerful and effective force."[85][86] He published a book on anarchism titled Chomsky on Anarchism, published by the anarchist book collective AK Press in 2006.

What's negative about this?

My Cross Atlantic Broheim Odin,

Two things: Socialism, painted with any brush, is for fucking retards and assholes.

The other is that it's important for people to remember that HH is a loathsome, lying creep and that if he makes a point, believing in the opposite is good policy.

Your Friend,
Baff

Very interesting article. Maybe balanced, maybe not, but still enlightening.

As someone with direct paternal roots in colonialist Africa, and who sat in attendance regularly at a church rooted in liberation theology, you can see how info like that presented in this article would resonate with Obama - HH's candidate of choice.

My honest opinion is to let them go at it. Get Egypt involved too and see what the outcome will be. I bet on Israel FTW, but in a few decades it could be relatively decent over there. Or a wasteland...either way works.

I don't think those Arabs know what the Israelis are capable of...the lessons of atrocity were not lost on them

To begin, Israeli spokespeople frequently remind the world that a million Israeli citizens are within range of Gaza rockets, twelve thousand of which have been fired into Israel in the last twelve years, inflicting thousands of injuries and several dead.

However, we are rarely told exactly how many people have been killed by these rocket attacks........

.........................

......If we borrow the IDF’s claim that more than 12,000 rockets have been fired into Israel in the last twelve years (which I dispute later), we get a kill rate of less than 0.217%. Thus in order to secure a single kill, we should expect to fire about 500 rockets. However, if the goal is to specifically kill Jews rather than foreign workers and Palestinian laborers, then it gets harder. Only 21 Jews have been killed by this method, bringing the kill rate down to 0.175%.

If this sounds disturbing or even anti-Semitic, note that I am just testing the argument of the current Israeli ambassador Michael Oren, who, during Operation Cast Lead, co-wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal claiming that the Gaza rockets and mortars were “more than a crude attempt to kill and terrorize civilians—they were expressions of a genocidal intent.”

Yet the statistics demonstrate that it is much less than a “crude attempt to kill.” One can imagine easier ways to kill a random person than to manufacture and fire 500+ homemade rockets.

Whole article, with fun graphs and such, can be found at:

http://mondoweiss.net/2012/11/dissectin ... tacks.html

tough old man wrote:My honest opinion is to let them go at it. Get Egypt involved too and see what the outcome will be. I bet on Israel FTW, but in a few decades it could be relatively decent over there. Or a wasteland...either way works.

Exactly. This kettle has simmered long enough. Let the chips fall where they may.

tough old man wrote:My honest opinion is to let them go at it. Get Egypt involved too and see what the outcome will be. I bet on Israel FTW, but in a few decades it could be relatively decent over there. Or a wasteland...either way works.

Ring the bell and let 'em go. I'm also betting on IDF for the win, if Egypt jumps in or not. What I saw of them back in the day, they were very much badass.

You'd think that Israel would want a full go at it to protect it's Southern cities, but here's the countervailing considerations.

1. Iran is probably calling a lot of shots. There's nothing that Iran would like more is to get the world focused on Israel rather than on Syria or on Iran's effort to build the bomb. Iran's second card to play is Hezballah firing rockets, but Hezballah isn't as solidly rooted in leadership as is Hamas. Israel's goal is to maintain the calm in the South and return the attention to Iran. That's also the goal of the West and the Persian Gulf nations.

2. Hamas had to fire away at Israel to protect it's rejectionist ideology against the jihadists more radical than Hamas who would like to take over Gaza. Both Israel and Egypt would prefer Hamas rather that Islamic Jihad or some Al Queda affiliate rule Gaza.

3. The West is filled with hand-wringers. So far only one bomb from Israel apparently missed and killed a family, or it was aimed at a higher-up and the Israelis didn't realize the whole family was there. Once ground troops go in, many mistakes will be made, especially given Hamas and Jihadi tactics of attacking from areas where families and children reside. The West will quickly condemn Israel, stopping it from doing what needs to be done.

What could Egypt, Iran, and Syria possibly gain from diverting attention from their domestic situations?

Reading that Jews for Arabs piece, I don't have a problem with it.

I don't have a problem with the mouth breathing, daughter fucking, boys on Thursday, Mosque on Friday animals being fucked over completely, they haven't contributed a fucking thing to modern society except making terrorism more widespread.

Hannity called Israel our closest ally. Since when?

WTF has Israel done for us?

What has any other country in the middle east done for us?

Exactly. None of those shitholes has done a damned thing for us, except take our money for their oil and use it to spread their crazy religion.

The Brits and the Canadians have been there for us.

WTF have the Canadians done for us?

Our biggest trading partners?

They also fought in Vietnam and Afghanistan.

Once again, what do we get from Israel?

Shafpocalypse Now wrote:What has any other country in the middle east done for us?

Oil and hummus.

However, if predictions by the IEA are correct, the US won't need the Middle East for oil in the near future. If that happens, do you think that anybody in the Western Hemisphere will give a shit what happens in that part of the world?

..the International Energy Agency (IEA), the rich world’s energy club, forecast that America could become the world’s largest oil producer by 2020, outstripping Saudi Arabia and Russia. It could also be more or less self-sufficient in energy by 2035.

http://www.economist.com/news/business/ ... ergy-spare

A country that once fretted about its dependence on Middle Eastern fossil fuels is now on the verge of self-sufficiency in natural gas. And the news keeps getting better. This week the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicted that the United States would become the world’s largest oil producer by 2020, outstripping Saudi Arabia and Russia.

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/2 ... s?fsrc=rss

It remains to be seen if the hummus production is able to be bumped up enough for significance.

cleaner464 wrote:Hannity called Israel our closest ally. Since when?

WTF has Israel done for us?

Hannity doesn't shit from apple butter, Joe. Start with that point, it'll spare you a lot of work.