Best of the Web:


Airplane

Best of the Web: Israeli exodus: 500,000 flee country since October 7, many seek to relocate to Europe


Jordan News
Mon, 11 Dec 2023 21:22 UTC
israel airport
Since October 7, data from the Population and Immigration Authority reveals that Israelis that approximately 370,000 Israelis have left the country with the latest update spanning to the end of November. According to the statistics, Israelis are increasingly seeking refuge abroad, particularly in Europe, with a growing interest in purchasing real estate across several European countries.

Israeli economic newspaper, "The Marker" highlighted that Isreali families have been showing keen interest in buying real estate and homes abroad since October 7. By the end of October, about 230,309 Israelis immigrated, while an additional 139,839 left during November, according to the data and in tandem with Israel's Ministry of Interior, Jo24 reported.

Comment: A number of analysts predicted that this would happen, highlighting that a significant number of Israelis weren't born in the country, and even those that were have extensive family networks in nations across the West.

Since there's no reason to believe that Israel's pathocrats will desist in their aggression any time soon, one can presume that the number of those leaving will continue to increase; which is a luxury the indigenous Palestinians don't have.

See also: 401 Israeli troops killed since Oct 7th, IDF reports 1/5 of official dead killed by friendly fire

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Heart - Black

Best of the Web: Gaza is deliberately being made uninhabitable

Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin's Newsletter
Wed, 13 Dec 2023 08:27 UTC
destroyed home in palestine
Infectious diseases are tearing through Gaza, whose healthcare system has been rendered almost nonexistent, and people are beginning to starve in massive numbers. All of this is due to concrete policy decisions made by Israel in its horrific assault on the Gaza Strip.

In an article titled "Gaza's health system is 'on its knees' as Israel pushes into Khan Younis," The Washington Post reports that the mass displacement of nearly two million Palestinians in Gaza has led to overcrowding and unsanitary living conditions that are rapidly giving rise to disease.

"Meanwhile, the Gaza Health Ministry and other medical workers said they were recording new cases of acute hepatitis, scabies, measles and upper respiratory infections, mostly among children," the Post reports. "Infectious diseases are spreading fast, said Imad al-Hams, a physician at the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah, as people crowd into tiny slivers of land to escape advancing Israeli forces."

tweet 1
https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1734272475901673636
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Star of David

Best of the Web: The Death and Destruction in Gaza

John J. Mearsheimer
John's Substack
Mon, 11 Dec 2023 20:56 UTC
Israel bombing gaza
© Ashraf Amra / Anadolu Agency / Gettyimages.ruAn aerial view of locals conducting search and rescue operations among the rubble of collapsed buildings in Gaza.
I do not believe that anything I say about what is happening in Gaza will affect Israeli or American policy in that conflict. But I want to be on record so that when historians look back on this moral calamity, they will see that some Americans were on the right side of history.

What Israel is doing in Gaza to the Palestinian civilian population - with the support of the Biden administration - is a crime against humanity that serves no meaningful military purpose. As J-Street, an important organization in the Israel lobby, puts it, "The scope of the unfolding humanitarian disaster and civilian casualties is nearly unfathomable."[1]

Let me elaborate.

First, Israel is purposely massacring huge number of civilians, roughly 70 percent of whom are children and women. The claim that Israel is going to great lengths to minimize civilian casualties is belied by statements from high level Israeli officials. For example, the IDF spokesman said on 10 October 2023 that "the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy." That same day, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced: "I have lowered all the restraints - we will kill everyone we fight against; we will use every means."[2]
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Black Magic

Best of the Web: How scientific materialism begot woke ideology

William A. Dembski
billdembski.com
Fri, 08 Dec 2023 23:04 UTC
lawrence krauss
Physicist Lawrence Krauss, die-hard materialist
Last week, I received the following email from the National Association of Scholars (NAS):
Join the National Association of Scholars on Friday, December 8, at 3 pm ET for "Restoring the Sciences: Science Under Attack."

Free inquiry, open debate, and skeptical questioning are the cornerstones of healthy science. But does that describe science today? Arguably, no — those cornerstones are currently being eroded at universities and scientific institutions around the county.

Can scientists pretend that science is immune to the ideologies that have conquered the humanities and are now sweeping through a broad range of disciplines in the science ecosystem? "No," says Dr. Lawrence Krauss. Science is imperiled, and without scientists standing up for core principles, the vibrancy of scientific discovery and scholarship is in danger of following the liberal arts to a post-truth future.

This event will feature Lawrence Krauss, a cosmologist, theoretical physicist, author, and winner of numerous international awards for his scientific research and his writing. He is a passionate advocate of science, and for enlightening the public on the value of science to society, and the importance of defending science's core principles. He is president of The Origins Project Foundation.

To learn more about the event, click here.
The NAS here is attempting to stand against the subversion of the academy, and science in particular, from the assaults on freedom of thought and expression by woke ideology. Increasingly, I'm seeing people like Krauss (and Pinker and Dawkins) assume the role as champions of traditional academic values (reason, merit, free discourse) against the barbarian hordes.
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Tornado1

Best of the Web: Tornado causes serious damage in Leitrim Village, Ireland

Donal O'Grady
Leitrim Observer
Sun, 10 Dec 2023 14:35 UTC

Comment: A tornado... in Ireland... in winter! We're definitely in a 'new climate normal'...


mmmmm
Serious damage was caused property and cars in Leitrim Village this lunch time when a tornado struck.
A freak weather event this lunch time has caused serious damage to property and cars in Leitrim Village.

With Storm Fergus descending on the country this afternoon, there was serious thunder and lightning witnessed at about 12.30pm in the Carrick-on-Shannon area.

Reports then came in of a tornado ripping through Leitrim Village at about 12.40pm, causing damage to properties, knocking trees and walls as well as damaging cars.

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Fireball 5

Flashback Best of the Web: Comets may have caused Earth's great empires to fall

Robert S. Boyd
Knight Ridder Washington Bureau
Tue, 17 Aug 1999 20:27 UTC
Triumph Death Pieter Bruegel Elder
'The Triumph of Death', by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Recent scientific discoveries are shedding new light on why great empires such as Egypt, Babylon and Rome fell apart, giving way to the periodic "dark ages'' that punctuate human history.

At least five times during the last 6,000 years, major environmental calamities undermined civilizations around the world. Some researchers say these disasters appear to be linked to collisions with comets or fragments of comets such as the one that broke apart and smashed spectacularly into Jupiter five years ago.

The impacts, yielding many megatons of explosive energy, produced vast clouds of smoke and dust that circled the globe for years, dimming the sun, driving down temperatures and sowing hunger, disease and death.

The last such global crisis occurred between A.D. 530 and 540 - at the beginning of the Dark Ages in Europe - when Earth was pummeled by a swarm of cosmic debris.
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Books

Best of the Web: Irish politician: "70% of legislation comes from Brussels - Ireland's parliament only transposes what's already been decided"

Ben Scallan
Gript
Sat, 09 Dec 2023 19:41 UTC

Comment: "It'll be grand," they said when making the Irish people vote a SECOND time on the so-called 'Lisbon Treaty', which gifted Brussels centralized legislative powers in 2008...


berlaymont brussels eu
Many people in Ireland today fail to realise that 70% of the country's legislation comes from Europe, a Fine Gael MEP from Kerry has said.

The remarks were made by Ireland South MEP Seán Kelly on Friday morning this week during an interview on Radio Kerry's 'Kerry Today' show with Jerry O'Sullivan, after the MEP was asked to respond to a rumour that he may give up his seat in Europe to run in the next general election in Kerry.

Kelly shot down the notion, saying that the idea didn't come from him.

"I did speak to Fine Gael," he said, adding that they had asked him to consider running for the Dáil.

"But I told them that my commitment was to Europe, that I hoped to run in the elections on June 7th next year, that I was the first Kerry person to be elected to the European parliament to represent Kerry and Ireland South, and that I have a lot of experience now and do a lot of good work."


Comment: No doubt the pay and perks are better too.


Comment: When UKIP (Nigel Farage's anti-EU party) campaigned for a 'leave' vote in the 2016 'Brexit' referendum, the MSM decried as 'fake news' their claim that 75% of the UK's laws were decided in Brussels. Farage may have been exaggerating, or he may have been 'forecasting' that figure, but either way, it turns out he was right.

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Snowflake Cold

Best of the Web: Coldest start to winter in decades for Russia: Parts of Siberia are enduring extreme cold below minus-70 degrees Fahrenheit

Ian Livingston
Washington Post
Wed, 06 Dec 2023 11:41 UTC
russia siberia cold
© weatherbell.comA major cold snap has hit eastern Russia in recent days
As the icebox of the Northern Hemisphere, Russia's Siberia is notorious for its frigid weather. But the cold so far this December — the most severe in decades in some areas — is extreme even by its own bone-chilling standards.

Temperatures around minus-58 degrees (minus-50 Celsius) and even lower have spread over northeastern Siberia in recent days and will persist for several more. The mercury has dipped as low as minus-73.7 degrees (minus-58.7 Celsius) thus far.

Most of Russia is predicted to endure temperatures much below average through the next week. The coldest conditions relative to normal will tend to drift toward the central and western parts of the country with daily temperature some 20 to 40 degrees below average.

The punishing chill in Siberia is a massive departure from abnormally warm weather prevailing over much of the rest of the planet. The European Union's Copernicus Climate Service announced Wednesday that last month was the warmest November ever observed by a wide margin and the sixth month in a row to set a record high. This year is a virtual lock to be the planet's warmest on record.


Comment: That's according to 'satellite data', which is 'cooked' to produce 'the right results'. The actual, lived November for most Europeans was a cold and wet one.


Climate scientists still expect bouts of extreme cold in a warming world, but they are projected to become less frequent and intense, while covering smaller areas, over time.

Comment: See also: Temperatures in Siberia dip to minus 56 Celsius as record snow blankets Moscow

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Bizarro Earth

Best of the Web: Civilian deaths in Gaza highest of all world conflicts in 20th Century, including World Wars, Israeli study reveals

Julian Borger
The Guardian
Sat, 09 Dec 2023 17:19 UTC
gaza child death
Civilian proportion of deaths is higher than that in all world conflicts in 20th century, Haaretz newspaper says
The aerial bombing campaign by Israel in Gaza is the most indiscriminate in terms of civilian casualties in recent years, a study published by an Israeli newspaper has found.

The analysis by Haaretz came as Israeli forces fought to consolidate their control of northern Gaza on Saturday, bombing the Shejaiya district of Gaza City, while also conducting airstrikes on Rafah, a town on the southern border with Egypt where the Israeli army has told people in Gaza to take shelter.

The full death toll from the past 24 hours was unclear but the main hospital in central Gaza, at Deir al-Balah, reported it received 71 bodies, and 62 bodies were taken to Nasser hospital in the main southern city of Khan Younis, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Comment: See also: Israel's ground war conundrum







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Dollars

Best of the Web: ZAKA, scandal-stained Israeli 'rescue' group, fuels October 7 fabrications for money

Max Blumenthal
The Grayzone
Wed, 06 Dec 2023 00:00 UTC
2 guys
© Landau
Founded by a serial rapist known as the "Haredi Jeffrey Epstein," Israeli ultra-Orthodox rescue group ZAKA is responsible for some of the most obscene post-October 7 atrocity fabrications, from beheaded babies to "mass rape" to a fetus cut from its mother.

Secretary of State Tony Blinken and President Joseph Biden have each echoed demonstrably false ZAKA testimonies about Hamas atrocities.

Marred by allegations of financial fraud, ZAKA is leveraging October 7 publicity to raise unprecedented sums of cash.

Its rival, United Hatzalah, has spun out bogus tales of babies baked in ovens as it closes in on a $50 million fundraising goal.

During an October 31 Senate hearing on Israel's war in Gaza, Secretary of State Antony Blinken offered his rationale for rejecting a ceasefire. Summoning as much emotion as a dour Democratic Party operative could muster, Blinken conjured up a gruesome scene intended to illustrate the savagery of Hamas, and the impossibility of negotiations with such an organization:
"A young boy and girl, 6 and 8 years old, and their parents around the breakfast table. The father's eye gouged out in front of his kids. The mother's breast cut off, the girl's foot amputated, the boy's fingers cut off before they were executed."
The Secretary of State concluded, "That is what this [Israeli] society is dealing with."

Comment: Playing 'the fake victim' card, Israel is selling horror for money.

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