The censor - soon in your home too

The censor will call itself "Content Filtering" these days. If you have used something similar in your cable or other TV provider's set top box to prevent your kids from viewing inappropriate context,  you might guess where it is going.

Only now it is done on a completely another level and it is you who are being protected by the omniscient, benevolent and omnipotent eye of your betters. The ones in Brussels this time.

Here it comes, from one of my British friends who will remain unnamed, just in case. The friend is subscribed to Virgin as an Internet provider. This is what appeared on the screen, after the friend tried to get into Breitbart.com:

I am not a great fan of Breitbart, not in its current incarnation, I haste to declare (in case of the above mentioned Big Brother listening in). But this sucks. It sucks in all major ways and should be fought.

So you better fight.

Update: And something similar almost happened here too.

A radically unprecedented and far-reaching proposal that would have given the government the ability to block Israeli web users’ access to parts or the entirety of any website was stopped in its tracks Wednesday morning, hours before it was set to be voted into law by Knesset members who had “no idea” of its far-reaching implications.

People like Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked are a clear and present danger to democracy. That much is clear, unfortunately.

Update 2: OK, more on the internet filters as implemented in UK.

The Guide to ISP web filters is quite a good explainer:

Since 2013 all new customers to the four biggest ISPs - along with many of the smaller providers - were automatically opted in to web filtering. In 2014 this was extended to all existing subscribers too. If you haven't previously chosen to opt out of the filtering, it's likely your connection will be affected.

The Guide talks about 8 categories of verbotten content, one of which at least (Hate Speech) allows the internet provider a great freedom of decision. The article presents porn as the main issue that was resolved thanks to the filters, but in reality it isn't the only one. Virgin, for instance, calls its filtering "Child Safe", which is quite deceptive, obviously, since they use the Hate Speech on political sites as well.

And yes, you can opt out of the filtering, it is an option, not a mandatory one. When you sign up to service, filtering is switched on automatically, so it needs your intervention to remove it.

But make up your own mind.

Gaza again - it is coming

The four years preceding the last few months' events on the Gaza borders were relatively quiet. Yes, from time to time the silence was interrupted by a few rocket or grenade launches, but nothing too bad. However, ceasefire wasn't to the full satisfaction of the Gazan ruling clique, especially with the new blood in the top management:

That beast will never change its spots, that for sure. So here are some pictures and no predictions of the obvious and, seemingly, inevitable, soon to come.

Ashkelon 

Sderot

Sderot

Tel Aviv (training)

Is football the universal religion or is BBC off its collective gourd?

It started for me with looking at the reports on this night's skirmishes on the Gaza border, after a series of rocket and mortar shells barrages from the neighbors. Somehow it evolved in getting to the BBC site. And this is part of what I have found in their World section of the news:

Surely you understand that it is a rare client what clicks on the World section of their site. And even there, all the coverage the murder of "over 100" Pakistanis got is the following:

A suicide bomber has killed at least 128 people at a campaign rally in south-western Pakistan - the deadliest attack in the country since 2014.

A local candidate was among the dead in the Mastung town, police say. So-called Islamic State (IS) claimed the attack.

Earlier, a bomb attack on a similar rally in the northern town of Bannu killed four people. The attacks come ahead of general elections on 25 July.

It must be clear to anyone that vying with Scarlett Johansson isn't all that easy.
And here comes the front page of BBC of that same day (click to enlarge):

What, indeed,  could compete with the crucial question of football vs religion? Or with the way Thai cave smells?

Yeah... and this is the way it goes.

P.S. And regarding the skirmishes mentioned: this is the closest BBC got to any mention of those:

So there.

Fixing Gaza...Permanently

Rob Miller aka Joshuapundit has written a post that may appear controversial to many of its readers.
However, the level of desperation with the unending strife and unending hate from our Gazan neighbors lead Israelis increasingly thinking about this way of solving the problem. Not yet there, but thinking of it.

***

Since March 30th, much of the world's press and a chunk of the so-called 'international community' has been focusing on a series of what can only be called violent riots emanating from Gaza against Israel's border.

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And now, from the murky depths of the 'net...

It is not a big story, all in all. Just a fairly random example of the crap that floats in quantities on the surface (and beneath it) of the endless ocean of bits and bytes we let into our houses.

A small (probably Israeli) Russian language outfit Mignews published an unremarkable short article, titled (translated):

Israeli doctors found out that whiskey protects against cancer

I am calling it unremarkable, because for many years media is inundated by articles about similar discoveries about any and all alcoholic beverages. For all I know, there might be even a grain (no pun intended) of truth in this claim.

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Review of “Hitler’s Children” by William Grim

This post is mostly a copy/paste of a response to a long article about the apparent nostalgia for the old times that is titled “Hitler’s Children”, written quite a long time ago by one William Grin. But first of all a short preface. The response is written by my penfriend Benjamin Goldstein, a German Jew who is immensely qualified to analyze and criticize the Germany-related content, especially of such a disturbing manner.

The article he is dissecting was sent to me by a friend and, after reading it, I had some doubts about its veracity and a possibility of exaggeration. I have spent only a limited time in Germany by myself, met a limited number of Germans and, being a strict follower of the famous "Don't mention the war" doctrine, have seen mostly good in the people I have encountered. But here comes a man...

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The Master and Margarita, a random quote

— Тьма, пришедшая со Средиземного моря, накрыла ненавидимый прокуратором город. Исчезли висячие мосты, соединяющие храм со страшной Антониевой башней… Пропал Ершалаим, великий город, как будто не существовал на свете… Так пропадите же вы пропадом с вашей обгоревшей тетрадкой и сушеной розой! Сидите здесь на скамейке одна и умоляйте его, чтобы он отпустил вас на свободу, дал дышать воздухом, ушел бы из памяти!

- The darkness that came from the Mediterranean Sea covered the city hated by the procurator. The hanging bridges connecting the temple with the dread Antonia Tower disappeared ... Yershalaim — the great city — vanished as if it had never existed in the world ... So you, too, can just vanish away along with your burnt notebook and dried-up rose! Sit here on the bench alone and entreat him to set you free, to let you breathe the air, to go from your memory!

Michail Bulgakov, he whose manuscripts don't burn.

And if, reading this, you don't feel the infinity passing by and the air in your lungs pushing out, you really have to read this book. Possibly again.

Henry Joel Cadbury and American Reform Rabbis

The story of the connection between the two started for me with this disturbing NYT quote:

Not knowing who professor Henry J. Cadbury was, I have started googling, and one of the first links happened to be an archive page of JTA, from the year 1934, referenced in the quote above.

Professor Pleads for Accord Between Jews and Germans

Lo and behold: the quote above was sounded not in some judenrein "safe space", but at annual convention of the Central Conference of American Reform Rabbis.

A plea that the Jewish people “display good will instead of hatred” toward the Nazis who are provoked to committing violence by an attitude of antagonism, was voiced by Professor Henry J. Cadbury, of Bryn Mawr, chairman of the American Friends Service Committee, in an address at the opening session of the forty-fifth annual convention of the Central Conference of American Reform Rabbis held here at the South Mountain Manor Summer Resort. More than 150 rabbis from all parts of the United States and Canada attended.

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Harlan Ellison RIP

• The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity.
• I don't mind you thinking I'm stupid, but don't talk to me like I'm stupid.
• Love ain't nothing but sex misspelled.

Abrasive, enormously talented, somewhat wild: the life was that much better with you around, but your books stay.

RIP. See you later.

Another two gems in my NYT collection

And another gem via Greg Aydt:

With thanks to Noga The Contentious.

To join that other, apparently later, pearl:

Friends of Pallywood, their bloopers and some historical truth

To the people who follow various failures of the "anti-Zionist" propaganda, this case might not be anything special at first.

At issue is a tweet that COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions) shared with its 120,000+ followers in order to commemorate the plight of Palestinian refugees on World Refugee Day. The tweet included an iconic photograph from 1950 depicting a group of Jewish refugees who had been placed by the Israeli government into a refugee absorption center, known as a ma’abara.

But the lazy "anti-Zionism" of COSATU is only part of the story. The other part is about a related matter:

Stories abound about one of these groups of refugees—the Palestinian Arab refugees. Even Israelis learn about the creation of the Palestinian refugee crisis in their schools. But, as is clear from COSATU’s blunder with the appropriated photo, many Palestinians and their global supporters aren’t aware of the other refugee population—the “forgotten exodus” of Jewish refugees and the suffering that Jews in nearly a dozen Arab countries experienced on account of hostility toward Jews, Zionism, and the very creation of the state of Israel.

Read the whole article, it is worth your time.

The Russian collision or 80+ examples of futility

I know, I know, it might become an obsession. So I have done two things to alleviate the issue: the intentional typo in the headline and a nice masthead picture that has (almost) nothing to do with the subject. But what can I do, with my unhealthy predilection to spy stories of all kinds, especially where a good juicy conspiracy theory is involved? If it goes on, I will be considered a Trump supporter soon, my pledge of neutrality notwithstanding...

It so happens, that many of my FB friends, those of anti-Trump persuasion, happily disseminated a link to this article:

TRUMP’S RUSSIA COVER-UP BY THE NUMBERS – 80+ CONTACTS WITH RUSSIA-LINKED OPERATIVES

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Israeli operation, Russian one - or both?

Frankly, this meme I have chosen for the masthead of the post isn't even especially funny. But the subject of the post isn't especially funny either. Weird will be the most fitting adjective, but judge for yourself.

The article in question this time is titled: How Russiagate Became Israelgate, with a subtitle It’s not about Vladimir Putin anymore. And it opens a view on a new direction in the ever expanding scope of the Mueller team's activities.

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The real collusion with Russia

Consider this post to be a free gift* to the Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller and his tireless investigation of the above mentioned collusion. Which investigation, after a year of tireless digging in all possible directions, seems to have strayed far away from its original target.

The matter at hand is Russian supply of natural gas to European countries. To remind you:

Russia provides approximately a quarter of the natural gas consumed in the European Union; approximately 80% of those exports travel through pipelines across Ukrainian soil prior to arriving in the EU.

So far so good (for Kremlin, that is): being a provider of the essential substance gives Russia, beside a significant income, a valuable addition to their stranglehold on the European behavior in other aspects.

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Terry Glavin on Gaza - when your friends are worried about you

This post isn't easy for me to write. Not because I don't know what it should say, just because I don't have a solution to the problem raised by Terry Glavin in the article A moral dilemma on the Israel-Gaza border. It is much easier to respond to a relentless propaganda attack by your enemies than to a true concern about you, expressed by your true friend.

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