Evil Penevil

Some details about Shamsud Din Jabbar in the article below. Pres. Biden said Jabbar had posted videos stating he was inspired by ISIS, but that's a long way from being a member of ISIS. The FBI has not released details of the social media posts, nor has any other information emerged publicly to indicate Jabbar had any ties to ISIS other than a source of inspiration. Army record, DUI, financial trouble: What we know about suspect in New Orleans attack The man who the FBI says drove a truck into a crowd of revelers celebrating New Year's in the French Quarter of New Orleans on Wednesday served in the U.S. Army for over a decade before he obtained a lucrative job at a global accounting firm and encountered financial trouble. ... President Joe Biden on Wednesday said the suspect posted videos on social media shortly before the attack saying he was inspired by ISIS and had expressed "a desire to kill." https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/01/02/new-orleans-attack-suspect-shamsud-din-jabbar/77396433007/

The brother of the accused terrorist says Shamsud Din Jabbar converted to Islam at a young age. Nearly two-thirds of Arab-Americans are Christian and only about 25% are Muslim. The Arabs who emigrated to the U.S. in the 19th and early 20th century were almost all Christians fleeing oppression in the Ottoman Empire. I haven't seen any infomation in the Internet news reports about Shamsud Din Jabbar's ethnic background beyond Arab. ‘No Terrorist to Me’: Relatives and Friends Saw Few Signs Before Attack The man identified as the suspect in the New Year’s Day terror attack in New Orleans served in the U.S. military, worked at Deloitte and grew increasingly devout. An excerpt from the The New York Times' article: Mr. Jabbar’s brother, Abdur Jabbar, 24, said in an interview in Beaumont, Texas, where the brothers grew up, that they last spoke two weeks ago and that his brother did not mention any plans or a desire to go to New Orleans. He said that they had been brought up Christian but that his brother had long ago converted to Islam. “As far as I know he was a Muslim for most of his life,” said the younger Mr. Jabbar. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/01/us/suspect-new-orleans-texan-isis-flag.html

@bannork What is it you dispute about the evidence which the IDF provided in the links in the post by @Bkk Brian? Why don't you find the graphic evidence in the various links to be credible?

Humanity may never forget, but some of the pro-Palestinian posters in this thread have short memories indeed.

Leaven

This thread keeps going round and round, but I think the main argument went flat several pages ago.

Both the helium balloon and the bird are subject to gravity, but they have different means (buoyancy vs lift) of (temporarily) overcoming gravity.

It overcomes gravity. The bird's wings (or the engine of a plane) generate the power to create lift. A helium balloon rises because of buoyancy, which is very different from lift. On the general topic, take a look here: 5 ways we can prove Earth is round, not flat Astronomers have known that Earth is a globe for thousands of years, and there are tested methods to prove this is the case. https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/space-science/earth-is-round-not-flat

If you look at the page that deals with the Israel-Hamas war on the Web site of the Committee to Protect Journalists, you'll see that of the "141 Journalists and Media Workers Killed in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Lebanon between 2023 and 2024 / Motive Confirmed or Unconfirmed," omly ONE worked for a real media outlet (a cameraman for Reuters killed by an artillery shell in Lebanon). The others were members of Hamas or terrorist groups associated with Hamas. They weren't journalists in the sense the word is commonly used in the West. Virtually all the Palestinians who were killed were propagandists for terror organizations and thereforegitimate targets. Terrorist groups don't have civilian members. https://cpj.org/data/killed/all/status=Killed&motiveConfirmed[]=Confirmed&motiveUnconfirmed[]=Unconfirmed&type[]=Journalist&type[]=Media Worker&cc_fips[]=IS&cc_fips[]=LE&start_year=2023&end_year=2024&group_by=year

The Jordan Williams incident was Black-on-Black. No one in the Black community felt sorry for the guy who was stabbed. There was no community pressure to have Williams charged.

Lakes are such small bodies of water in terms of mass that gravity has no measurable effect, except in Lake Superior and Lake Michigan-Huron, where the tide is only a matter of inches. Birds use their wings to generate lift, which overcomes gravity and allows them to fly. There nothing about the lack of tides in lakes or the ability of birds to fly that contradicts the laws of nature regarding gravity. In modern times, the people who professed belief in a flat earth were mostly Christian fundamentalists who accepted the literal truth of the Bible. Revelation 7:1 reads in part, "After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth... ." Since the Bible said the earth had corners, it couldn't be spheroid in shape, the fundamentalists reasoned. Other "flat earthers" have attempted to irritate "scientific minds" with a spurious argument. It's a debate that is not really meant to be taken seriously.

A deeply troubling answer to a serious question. Israelis have nowhere else to go, considering 80% of the current Jewish population of Israel was born in Israel. https://www.cbs.gov.il/he/mediarelease/DocLib/2024/141/11_24_141e.pdf Under international law, the Jews born in Israel have nowhere else to go. Your answer implies no other country but the U.S. wants Israeli Jews, which in fact is close to the historical record of expulsion of Jews fom various countries throughout the centuries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsions_and_exoduses_of_Jews It's not at all strange. In Gaza and the West Bank, Israeli Jews are defending themselves against vicious opponents who seek to destroy them and their country. Jews will no longer walk quietly to their annihilation, as Hamas and Israel's other enemies have learned.

Yup, the Daniel Penny effect has been given as a reason why bystanders were unwilling to aid the woman. But long before Daniel Penny's case attracted so much attention, New Yorkers had been hesitant to render any help to victims of subway crime. Basically, they fear the consquences of getting involved in a criminal matter. Critics say bystanders stood by while illegal migrant allegedly burned woman to death on NYC subway: ‘Daniel Penny effect’ “Nobody came to her aid,” said Guardian Angels founder and community activist Curtis Sliwa. “There’s no doubt that people don’t want to get involved. It’s the Daniel Penny factor. It’s frozen people. They’re saying to themselves: ‘I don’t want to get jammed up like Penny. “People should have been running over to the woman on fire. They did nothing. They said nothing,” Sliwa said, calling the reluctance of bystanders to intervene “the Daniel Penny effect.” https://www.yahoo.com/news/critics-bystanders-stood-while-illegal-231041397.html

It's on YouTube for free as well. Alastair Sim is a great actor, one of the best.

I actually found the spirit of Ebenezer Scrooge to be much more dominant in Pattaya than in the U.S. I saw hundreds of Scrooges sitting in bars and restaurants with their bowls of gruel every night, not just Christmas Eve. They went around muttering "Bah! Humbug!" about everything connected with Thailand. Their message to the Tiny Thai Girls is always the same, even though the girls cheerfully say . 'Buddha bless us, every one!" If you haven't read it, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol gives great insight into the spirit of Christmas in the West, but the state of relations between resident Pattaya ex-pats and Thais. The Pattaya Scrooges will never be visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present or future, as these ghosts consider Pattaya's numerous Scrooges to be hopeless cases, doomed to wander bound with the chains of stinginess they forged in life. BTW, the 1951 version of Scrooge with Alastair Sim is an excellent Christmas movie, maybe the best.

To try to bring this thread back on topic, I'm posting figures on the number of deaths since 2008 due to the conflict in what's called "the occupied Palestinian territory." The figures come from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). not exactly a source friendly towards Israel. The figures don't include deaths in the Gaza Strip from the current conflict that began on Oct. 7, 2023, because OCHA says such figures haven't yet been verified. https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties Prior to the Oct. 7 attacks, the "occupied Palestine territory" had a total population of roughly 5.3 million, with 2.1 million on the Gaza Strip. The 7,093 fatalities from 2008 through 2024 cover both Palestinian combatants and non-combatants who died in the conflict. That's only 0.18% of the population, with males over 18 suffering 68% of the deaths. OCHA considers anyone under 18 to be a "boy" or "girl." Women and girls made up about 13% of those killed. That doesn't look like much of a genocide, even when you add in the 45,000 killed since Oct. 7, 2023. The expanded number would be 0.98%, or just under 1%. In the Holocaust, two-thirds of Europe's Jews (6 million out of 9 mllion) were murdered. In Cambodia under Pol Pot, at least 25% and may 33% of the country's population died. About half the Tutsi population of Rwanda died in the Rwandan Genocide. From Sudan to the Democratic Republic of Congo, many, many millions of Africans have died in various conflicts over the past 30 to 50 years. Often the goal of the African conflicts has been truly genocidal, the elimination of a rival tribe or ethnic group. Those are real genocides in terms of numbers killed and the intent to wipe out certain groups of people. What has happened in Gaza comes nowhere near a true genocide. A lot of Palestinian lives have been lost, but that is collateral damage from warfare in a high-density urban environment coupled with Hamas' use of civilians as human shields. Also according to the OCHA figures, Palestinian fatalities surged in the years the conflict with the IDF flared. Otherwise, the annual death count was far lower. In most years, the number of homicides in large U.S. cities were higher than deaths due to conflict in Gaza and the West Bank. For example, 108 Palestinians were killed in the conflict in 2016, while 778 people were victims of homicide in Chicago that year. Chicago has a population of 2.75 million. No one talks about genocide in Chicago or any other U.S. city. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/12/16/chicago-homicides-in-2024-5-people-slain-heres-how-that-compares-with-previous-years/ One final point: The population of the Gaza Strip will grow about 1.0% in 2024, according to the Palestinian Central Statistics Bureau. "Based on the data, the estimated growth rate in Gaza Strip for 2023 will decrease from about 2.7%, according to PCBS estimates for 2023, to only about 1% during 2024," the PCBS stated. Prior to 2023, Palestinian women had a significantly higher feretility rate than their Israeli counterparts. https://www.pcbs.gov.ps/portals/_pcbs/PressRelease/Press_En_WPD2024E.pdf It's difficult to claim genocide is taking place when the population is still growing, even if the growth rate has slowed significantly. In all previous genocides, the birth rate of the victimized population fell sharply. The notion that Palestinians have been subjected to genocide for many years is nonsense with no support in reality.

I'm surprised this story has attracted so much attention. It's nothing new. For at least 100 years- maybe longer- it's been standard practice for U.S. Presidents to appoint wealthy donors and defeated party candidates as ambassadors. It's a way of rewarding donors and party stalwarts for their service by giving them prestige. However, the "politically appointed ambassaddors" aren't expected to perform sensitive diplomatic duties. The deputy chief of mission- the second ranking person at an embassy- is always a career diplomat who handles contacts with foreign governments as well as running the embassy. The political ambassadors serve as figureheads who represent the U.S. at dinners, public appearances and ceremonial or festive occassions. The host nations know this and political ambassadors never get involved in sensitive negotiations.

At least the next time round, Jews WON'T be digging their own graves, nor will they walk quietly to them. If the Israelis and other Jews ever do go down, they'll take one hell of a lot of Arabs and Muslims with them.

@stevenl You can clear things up by answering one question with either "yes" or "no." You can't add any words or explanation, just a one-word answer. The question is: Does Israel have the right to exist behind secure borders as the homeland of the world's Jews? My answer would be "yes." What's yours?

Zither

Your comment reminds of two lines from the 1960's protest song For What It's Worth by Buffalo Springfield: "There's battle lines being drawn And nobody's right if everybody's wrong." What's necessary is to decide which side has the more reliable figures. I find it hard to believe anyone would put much faith in anything Hamas, a designated terrorist group, says. Hamas' goal is to destroy Israel and its statement of principles is the definition of antisemitism.

If I were an Irish Jew, I'd be getting nervous now. Changing laws to make it easier to prosecute Jews is how the Holocaust started in Germany when the Nazis took power in 1933. One of the first steps the Nazis took was to change laws to the detriment of Jews. This helped "normalize" the persecution of Jews. , A very small number of Jews live in Ireland, which makes their situation all the more perilous. An estimated 2,500 to 2,600 Jews reside in the Republic of Ireland, but less tan 800 are Irish citizens, according Wikipedia. The others are employees of multinational companies, digital nomads, exchange students and spouses of Irish citizens. As the Irish Republic has 5.35 million residents, only 0.05% are Jewish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Ireland The Israeli government has reacted strongly to its Irish counterpart's constant siding with those who seek to destroy Israel. In response to the antisemitic policies of the Irish government, Israel is closing its embassy in Dublin. Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced the closure of the country’s embassy in Ireland on Sunday, accusing Ireland of “extreme anti-Israel policies.” “The actions and antisemitic rhetoric used by Ireland against Israel are rooted in the delegitimization and demonization of the Jewish state, along with double standards. Ireland has crossed every red line in its relations with Israel,” Sa’ar said, according to a foreign ministry statement. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/israel-closes-embassy-in-ireland-blaming-extreme-anti-israel-policies/ar-AA1vTTE7 Meanwhile, there have been attacks on individual Jews, The young man in the story below was an exchange student from the U.S. who was weaing a Star of David pendant. Jewish student attacked in Dublin nightclub in suspected hate crime amid fears of rising anti-Semitism Victim (23) says he was asked ‘are you Jewish?’ before being assaulted by three men A Jewish student suffered a concussion after he was attacked by three men in a Dublin nightclub in a suspected anti-Semitic assault. https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/2024/11/30/jewish-student-attacked-in-dublin-nightclub-in-suspected-hate-crime-amid-fears-of-rising-anti-semitism/ I wouldn't be surprised if Jews with Irish passports began to decide Israel would be a better place for them to live.

The Agreement on Disengagement between Israel and Syria was between military forces, not civilian governments. It was signed in Geneva by an Israeli major general and a Syrian general and was witnessed by a Fimnish general serving with a U.N. peacekeeping force. The final paragraph of the agreement states: "This Agreement is not a Peace Agreement. It is a step towards a just and durable peace on the basis of Security Council resolution 338 dated 22 October 1973." https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v26/d88 When the Assad regime fell, the Syrian Army deserted the positions it had held for the past 50 years under the terms of the agreement. The IDF moved in to prevent these positions from falling to Islamist or other hostile forces. Some minority groups, such as the Druze and Christians, may feel they have more to lose under Islamist control than Israeli control. If past history is any guide, the Islamists have little tolerance for minority religions and crack down hard on them. Moreover, some groups within the Syrian rebels want to wage war against Israel. Footage shows Syrian rebels in Damascus vowing: ‘From here to Jerusalem. We’re coming for Jerusalem. Patience, people of Gaza’ Footage from a mosque in Damascus aired by Hebrew media shows Syrian rebels vowing to march on Jerusalem, a day after a stunning opposition advance took over the capital, ending the Assad family’s five decades of iron rule. https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/footage-shows-syrian-rebels-in-damascus-vowing-were-coming-for-jerusalem-patience-people-of-gaza/ It's not surprising under these circumstances Israel's leaders would choose to move the IDF into the Syrian side of the border area between the two countries while choaos reigns.

It could be the manufacturer is woried the plastic used in the bags will break down when stored in Thailand's heat and humidity.

Injury