Beardy Guy Musings

Wed, 21 Feb 2024 08:32:29 -0600

Today Adobe announced its annual MAX conference would take place in Florida. A US state the NAACP has declared unsafe for Black travelers. 500 employees signed an internal letter, condemning the decision…

Serif’s Affinity suite of apps: Publisher, Photo, Designer are excellent alternatives to Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. A one time purchase, option to buy a universal license to use all three apps on 3 platforms: Windows, Mac and iPad.

Wed, 21 Feb 2024 07:52:24 -0600

Not a surprise but with the latest UN Security Council Veto the US is alone in its ongoing support of Israel’s genocide against Palestine. In our support of war crimes and genocide we are guilty of war crimes and genocide.

US veto sinks Algeria’s ceasefire resolution at UN Security Council…

The United States has once again vetoed a draft resolution on Gaza at the UN Security Council. It’s the third veto by the US since the start of the war. The text put forward by Algeria called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, and had 13 members voting in favour. The US was the only country to vote against it.

More Than 50 Countries Argue Before World Court Against Israeli Occupation of Palestine…

Arguments are underway at the International Court of Justice, where more than 50 countries are asking the World Court to issue a nonbinding legal opinion against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza since 1967. The request is separate from South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the ICJ. “Israel has been instrumentalizing the rules of international humanitarian law … to further its settler-colonial project in Palestine,” says Ahmed Abofoul of the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq, which submitted an advisory opinion on the case. “I have no doubt that the court will decide that Israel’s occupation is illegal,” he says. We also discuss what comes after the ruling and Israeli society’s reaction to the war.

Hearing on Israeli occupation could help peace process under international law…

Daniel Levy, president of the US/Middle East Project think tank, says the likely response of Israel’s allies to this week’s proceedings at the ICJ is that the court should “keep its nose out” of an issue that they will argue is political and not legal. “Why is that so important? Because the question here is whether the peace process, the 30 years of agreements, … is something that should be untouched by international law,” Levy told Al Jazeera.

Momentum grows for protest vote against Biden in Michigan primary…

Activists are calling for a ballot protest at Michigan’s February 27 primary, in an effort to push President Joe Biden to support a ceasefire and end the administration’s support for Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza.

Our Revolution has become the latest organization to back the movement. The progressive action group recently sent an email to 87,000 of its members in Michigan and nearly 225,000 supporters in other states, calling on them to vote uncommitted.

“We need to send President Biden a message: We are outraged by U.S. complicity in the destruction of Gaza, the killing of thousands of civilians, including more than 10,000 children, and it must STOP!” read the email. “By voting uncommitted on 2/27, Our Rev supporters can push Biden to change course on Gaza now and increase his chances of winning Michigan in November.” I’m the Mayor of Dearborn, Mich., and My City Feels Betrayed…

Dearborn does not sleep. We have not slept. Our entire city is haunted by the images, videos and stories streaming out of Gaza. Life seems heavily veiled in a haze of shared grief, fear, helplessness and even guilt as we try to understand how our tax dollars could be used by those we elected to slaughter our relatives overseas.

We don’t have to imagine the violence and injustice being carried out against the Palestinian people. Many of us lived it, and still bear the scars of life under occupation and apartheid.

“What I Saw Wasn’t War — It Was Annihilation,” Says U.S. Doctor Who Volunteered in Gaza Hospital…

We speak with an American doctor just back from Gaza about the “unimaginable scale” of its humanitarian crisis. Irfan Galaria, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon, recently wrote an op-ed for the L.A. Times describing Israel’s assault on Gaza’s civilians as “annihilation.” Dr. Galaria, who has worked in conflict zones around the world, says he and his team witnessed “a collateral humanitarian crisis of an unimaginable scale,” involving the “deliberate attempt” to both target civilians with military assault and to deprive them of aid. “I thought I was going to be prepared, but I was not prepared for what I saw,” he says.

Mon, 19 Feb 2024 19:39:00 -0600

Hey hey, look, the Apple pundit club have gotten together to do their Apple report card again! Not a surprise but they’re all declaring the iPad is still dying? And then of course there are the folks like Steve Troughton-Smith chiming in on Mastodon but he and other commenters in the thread aren’t offering anything new either. It’s just a repetition of the pundit echo chamber.

Even worse, many commenters proudly proclaim that they’re still using old hardware from before 2020. One even stating he uses a 2017 iPad Pro while complaining about poor multi-tasking. They’re so busy proving that they can’t be bothered with the iPad they are that they apparently haven’t stopped to consider that 3GB of memory in a 2018 iPad might not function as well as a modern M1 iPad with 8 or 16GB of memory. Maybe base your judgment on the real-world capabilities of current hardware?

Let’s see, no, really, this is going to be fun. A year ago, February 2023, “the iPad guy” as he calls himself spent 12 months complaining that the Stage Manager was broken. He made a big show of switching to the Mac.

Many others said the Mac and iPad OS’s needed a “Snow Leopard” year. Yes, that’s an Apple trope when they all conclude that there are too many bugs and that Apple should go easy on new features, take a year fixing bugs. Yes, the Pundits were in quite an uproar about the redesign of the Mac Settings app. Meanwhile they were all also saying that the iPad Pro was overpowered with no pro apps.

Now, keep with me here. In late spring Apple released Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro, their two most well known pro apps. The pundits reaction? “Finally!” But many of them immediately panned the releases because the new iPad apps lacked some features. You know, sort of ignoring that these were entirely new, version 1 apps for iPad. BUT, BUT, BUT not perfect, lacking full feature parity… FAIL!! Also, same day, BUT, BUT, BUT, no Xcode!!! FAIL!!!!

By late May the Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro releases were old news and hardly mattered. WWDC was around the corner. And yes, some new features were announced but, you know, nothing that interesting according to the pundits. At least Stage Manager seemed to be getting a fix. In summary, big MEH. Never mind that they’d all been clamoring for a “Snow Leopard” release which is what they got. Though not really as there were quite a few new features but not enough to impress. And yes, Stage Manager was fixed. And even enabled for older iPads which had been a big complaint. But, you know, MEH. The star of the show was Vision Pro.

Jump forward to the end of 2023, no new iPads! Oh, this is terrible. No new iPads!! Where’s the new new? The new hardware? Where is it!!! A thousand pundits needing clickbait fodder cried out.

But wait, the previous group think was that the iPad hardware with the M2 was way over-powered. How is the lack of new over-powered hardware a problem?

My take on the pundits and their iPad “analysis”: Garbage. It’s self-contradictory, confused cry-baby group think. They ignore the progress that’s made and forget what they’ve complained about the previous year. And when prevous critiques are addressed they ignore it, likely having forgotten what a big problem they’d claimed it was.

And they ignore the fact that tens of millions of iPads continue to be sold even with the boring old design.

Do none of these people have family that they still speak to? Does my family happen to be a bunch of weirdos? Because I’ll tell you, in my family of weirdos iPads are the second most popular computer to the iPhone. There are only 5 Macs, 3 PCs and 8+ iPads.

Pundits think themselves the center of the tech world but seem to forget that, in fact, they’re the weirdos that change their to-do apps, notes apps, text editors 3 times a month. It’s pundits that complain that the iPad can’t be used to code apps in Xcode or be used to record multiple streams of audio at the same time. Pundits that are the edge cases.

So a few pundits can’t seem to figure out what to do with their iPads. Meanwhile millions of iPads are, in fact, being sold. Millions of users are buying apps on the App Store. Huh. What are millions of users getting from the App Store?

Here’s just a quick sample of some of the big hitters I guess at. These are the number of ratings and average rating, not the number of app downloads:

Microsoft Word, 2 million ratings, 4.7 stars
Microsoft Outlook, 6.6 million ratings, 4.8 stars
Microsoft Teams, 3.2 million ratings, 4.8 stars
Microsoft Excel, 1 million ratings, 4.8 stars
Microsoft OneNote, 855,000 ratings, 4.7 stars
Microsoft Power BI (I’d never heard of it but it’s for business data analytics ) 67,000 ratings, 4.7 stars
Salesforce, 295,000 ratings, 4.7 stars
LinkedIn Sales Navigator, 42,000 ratings, 4.8 stars
LinkedIn Learning, 78,000 ratings, 4.8 stars
Procreate, 40,000 ratings, 4.5 stars
Sketchbook, 216,000 ratings, 4.8 stars
Canva 1.9 million ratings, 4.9 stars
Lightroom, 38,000 ratings, 4.8 stars
AutoCAD, 6,000 ratings, 4.4 stars
Morpholio Trace - Sketch CAD 9,600 ratings, 4.7 stars

The list goes on and on and on. Gosh, well, I mean, maybe I’m getting the wrong idea here, but it seems like if one were to step outside of the pundit club and spend just a minimal effort thinking about sales numbers, app downloads, app ratings, one might actually come up with another narrative, one in which millions of iPads are not just purchased but then put to actual use out there in this big world.

But no, no, that doesn’t fit well with the story these guys are telling each other.

Do better pundits. If you’re going to make a living demanding that Apple do better, that Apple meet your high standards, hows about you raise your standards for yourselves. Do some actual thinking. Step outside your own preconceived notions about how tech is used.

Try doing your jobs.

Mon, 19 Feb 2024 07:05:31 -0600

Palestine awakens the revolution…

Since Israel began its slaughter in Gaza on October 7, I have felt my own heart become a grave for over 25,000 people in Palestine. I, along with the rest of the world, have borne witness to the world’s most documented genocide in history. I have watched, from my phone, the attempted annihilation of an entire nation.

These 100 days of genocide have replaced every cell in my body and made me into a different person. I am not the same as I was before witnessing these atrocities; my soul has shifted to revolve around this revolution. I’m not alone. The world has changed right along with me.

Total Chaos: What A Palestinian American Doctor Saw In Gaza…

Dr. Thaer Ahmad, emergency room physician and assistant program director of the Advocate Christ Emergency Medicine Residency Program, discusses his recent experience volunteering at the Al Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip.https://www.instagram.com/tahmadmd/?hl=enhttps://christem.com/Thaer Ahmad then walks through his assessment of the already shaky state of the healthcare system in pre-October 7th Gaza, as well as his relationship to the healthcare system, as a first-generation Palestinian-American doctor, before tackling the extensive effort it took to get into Gaza as a healthcare worker. Next, Dr. Ahmad explores the extreme changes in quality of life in Southern Gaza from his previous experiences providing healthcare, parsing through the impact of mass displacement into Rafah alongside the dwindling number of functioning hospitals in the region creating a system of severely overworked, underfunded, and under-resourced healthcare workers.

Gaza Besieged, Jews Divided, & a World in Pain: Gabor, Aaron, & Daniel Maté in Conversation…

This conversation took place in early 2024, three months into Israel’s bombardment and invasion and the ensuing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. Gabor Maté and sons Aaron and Daniel got together in Vancouver BC to discuss what’s happening in Gaza, Israel, and the worldwide Jewish community.

Which Countries Supply Arms to Israel…

As civilian casualties continue to mount in Gaza, global calls for countries to halt arms sales to Israel grow. The United States Senate has approved a bill committing $14bn to support Israel’s war on Gaza this week.

Even before the start of the war last October, the US firmly supported Israel with the supply of military equipment, contributing $3bn annually in military aid. Many other countries provide military support to Israel via arms sales.

Civilian casualties continue to mount in Gaza – currently standing at more than 28,000 dead with thousands more trapped under rubble and presumed dead in just four months of bombardment and ground invasions. The rising death toll is prompting international condemnation.

Human Rights Discourse Has Failed to Stop the Genocide in Gaza…

Four months into the assault on Gaza, the Israeli military has forced over a million refugees to the edge of the Egyptian border and is now bombing them while threatening to mount a ground assault against them. In the following text, Jonathan Pollak, a longtime participant in Anarchists Against the Wall and other anti-colonial solidarity efforts, explains why we should not look to international institutions or protest movements within Israeli society to put a stop to the genocide in Gaza and calls on ordinary people to take action.

Sun, 18 Feb 2024 16:38:47 -0600

Finished reading: The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi 📚

Climate fiction about the future of the southwest of the US after decades of extended drought. Seems about right.

The iPad Pro, Mac and Vision Pro can all co-exist

Sun, 18 Feb 2024 11:31:08 -0600

It’s been a couple weeks since Apple released it’s iPad Face Computer and various memes are bouncing around the pundit echo chamber. I’ve not tried it and don’t expect to anytime in the foreseeable future. I have issues with vertigo that would likely make it less than optimal but, also, it’s far beyond my budget. All that said, as the iPad is my preferred computer, I see the merits of VisionOS being based on iPadOS and that brings me to the primary point of this post.

It’s been an ongoing meme in the Apple pundit and social mediaverse that Apple should bring macOS to the iPad Pro. I don’t think it will and I hope it doesn’t.

For those that want macOS on an iPad, VisionOS has the solution. Build in native support for screen sharing with a Mac. If your preference is the Mac and the iPad is a secondary device then you’ll likely have a Mac nearby and the screen sharing that VisionOS offers would likely work just fine. I’ve got a Mac as a file server and when I need to check in on it to update the OS the Screens app is perfect. I login and it feels as though I’m using macOS on the iPad. The only drawback that would likely be solved by a solution provided by Apple is that the Mac’s screen dimension is different resulting in black bars along the top and bottom of the iPad screen. I’d guess Apple would provide a full screen solution.

Why not have macOS as an option for the iPad Pro? If you want macOS buy a Mac. If you really enjoy and want an iPad, buy an iPad. If you enjoy both, buy both.

I think there are those out there that are suggesting they would just purchase an iPad Pro instead of a Mac. That the iPad would be the one solution that could do both, boot into either OS as desired. Or that what they want is a touch screen Mac. Here’s my prediction of variations of the reviews of the real-world experiences of that device:

“The iPad Pro that can boot with macOS is great until I need to do this particular task that is too slow because the iPad is thermally constricted because it doesn’t have fans. iPad is great for light duty work but for my pro work I need the upper end of Mac hardware with fans.” These are the reviews from people that currently use MacBook Pros, Mac Studio, etc.
“Sure, it’s great that the iPad Pro can boot macOS but I don’t want to pay an extra $700 for the touch screen and extra Magic Keyboard. I don’t use iPadOS and the touch screen enough to pay that extra cost. I’ll just buy a MacBook Air for less.”
“The iPad Pro with macOS is underpowered and still requires a trackpad and a keyboard. And I don’t really want to use iPadOS, I might as well just get a Mac and save money.”
And if Apple were to provide a touch interface for macOS on the iPad hardware: “This touch experience doesn’t feel right. Apple needs to fix it. I’m just going to turn it off and use a trackpad and keyboard.”
Or, “It’s great that Apple provides a touch-based macOS experience on the iPad, why not just call it a Mac? We don’t need the iPad Pro anymore, it’s all just so confusing. Look at that confusing lineup.”

Taking off from the last two points, many Mac users argue that iPadOS is too limited in many ways and that a touch optimized macOS would allow for all the Mac things. True. But I don’t think it will happen and I don’t want it to happen. Here’s why.

Apple has spent the past few years increasing the capabilities of iPadOS. It retains the simple user mode that came with the original iPad. But it now has a far more capable Files app and Stage Manager for the advanced users. Every year the advanced features of iPadOS get better. I don’t want Apple to turn it’s attention away from that effort to accommodate users that prefer macOS. .
Apple has spent time and resources to bring Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro to the iPad Pro. I don’t think they’re going to back track on that kind of effort and I don’t think they would have taken that step if they had plans to bring macOS to the iPad.
There are now features for visionOS that could come to iPadOS. Primarily I’m thinking of the above mentioned Mac screen sharing that would address the “put macOS on the iPad” problem. But perhaps others might follow. Would eye tracking and the finger gestures work on future iPad hardware with improved cameras? I’d rather see Apple’s focus be on improving and innovating iPadOS instead of accommodating users that prefer macOS.

And finally, a last point to the small group of pundits that are breathlessly enthusiastic about the Vision Pro eventually replacing the iPad and/or the Mac, just stop. Stop. The Vision Pro is its own thing. It doesn’t need to replace anything. There are far too many iPad users that could never afford even a cheaper Vision Pro and many that would never want to strap on a face computer. So, just stop with the hot takes that are not grounded in reality.

And to the pundits and YouTubers that will spend the next 5 years trying to make a living off of clickbait stunts like “I sold my Mac/iPad! Can I get all my work done with the Vision Pro!?”, again, stop. Don’t. Just don’t. That whole meme has already outlasted its welcome and usefulness with the iPad version. Find something more original to talk about.

Linked: Climate Emergency

Fri, 16 Feb 2024 09:18:15 -0600

Skyrocketing ocean temperatures have scientists scratching their heads - Ars Technica…

For nearly a year now, a bizarre heating event has been unfolding across the world’s oceans. In March 2023, global sea surface temperatures started shattering record daily highs, and have stayed that way since. … “In the tropical eastern Atlantic, it’s four months ahead of pace—it’s looking like it’s already June out there,” says Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami. “It’s really getting to be strange that we’re just seeing the records break by this much, and for this long.”

‘In a word, horrific’: Trump’s extreme anti-environment blueprint…

The United States’s first major climate legislation dismantled, a crackdown on government scientists, a frenzy of oil and gas drilling, the Paris climate deal not only dead but buried.

A blueprint is emerging for a second Donald Trump term that is even more extreme for the environment than his first, according to interviews with multiple Trump allies and advisers.

Europe calls for swift reduction of fossil fuels, despite ‘greenlash’…

Despite growing backlash against** **climate regulations, the European Union called Tuesday for a 90 percent emissions cut by 2040 — a target that can only be met with a dramatic reduction in fossil fuels, as well as an overhaul of how people move around and get their food.

The aggressive timeline shows that much of Europe remains committed to ambitious climate regulations even as other major economies, including the United States, have yet to take binding action. If European nations agree to the 2040 target, it would put the E.U. on track to meet a much bigger goal, in 2050, of “net zero” carbon neutrality.

Melting ice roads cut off Indigenous communities in northern Canada

Melting ice roads cut off Indigenous communities in Canada’s far north as unseasonably warm weather on Friday also saw its largest city, Toronto, break a winter heat record.

Communities in Ontario and neighboring Manitoba provinces declared a state of emergency as the warm spell made the network of ice roads—which across Canada spans more than 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) between dispersed populations—unpassable.

‘We are in an era of megafires’: new tactics demanded as wildfires intensify across South America - The Guardian…

As South America endures unprecedented high temperatures, after the hottest January on record globally, it is still coming to terms with the devastating wildfires that have torn across the continent.

Chile has been the most notably affected country, with at least 131 people dying in a fire that ripped through the coastal Valparaíso region in what has quickly become a national tragedy. Last year, at least 23 people died in summer wildfires in the country.

The threat of extinction is getting worse for migratory animals…

More than one in five migratory species officially deemed in need of international protection are now in danger of extinction. That’s according to the most comprehensive report of their populations yet, released as a United Nations wildlife conservation conference kicks off this week in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

Human activity is pushing these species to the brink. But that also means there are concrete steps people can take to safeguard their futures. The first-of-its-kind stocktake of the world’s migratory species isn’t all doom and gloom — there are some success stories sprinkled in there. It just goes to show that it’s not too late to act; it just has to be fast because the clock is ticking for many of the billions of animals that migrate each year.

Climate change is erasing previous gains in air quality — fires are mostly to blame…

Air quality in the US is projected to backslide in the coming decades, landing back where it was in the mid-2000s as a result of climate change, according to a new report. The report comes with an online tool for users to zoom in on individual properties to see what kind of air quality residents might experience there in the future. It paints a picture of a changing landscape for regulators, who are going to have to adapt to evolving threats.

Climate change turns an idyllic California community into a ‘perilous paradise’…

The clouds have parted after torrential downpours soaked southern California. It’s the third-wettest two-day period Los Angeles has ever seen since records began. And those totals aren’t even close to the more than 14 inches that fell on a western Los Angeles County neighborhood called Topanga.

The community of about 8,000 people had to deal with flooding, mudslides and evacuation orders. It was thanks to a dangerous combination of a slow-moving atmospheric river, a bomb cyclone and El Niño.

Apple getting weird?

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 13:13:35 -0600

Jason Snell wants Apple to get weird. Here’s my pitch for a new iPad Studio. Hang with me for a minute because this is, well, weird.

The M series board, battery and everything that we now know as an iPad is not behind a screen. It’s a keyboard. It’s the base where most of the weight is. And it has more ports.

The touch screen would be thinner and lighter than what we now know as an iPad. It would also have a battery just for the screen and the most minimal hardware to connect the two wirelessly. Dock the screen to the keyboard to charge the screen and Pencil. Use it docked as a laptop. Remove the screen to use it as a tablet. Hold it, put it in a raised stand, walk around within the wireless range of the base unit. It’s thinner and lighter when used hand held. Comes as a 13 and 15". This is the mobile screen for the laptop form factor.

An additional, desktop form factor is possible with an add-on accessory: a 24" desktop touch screen for graphic design that has a base unit that allows it to fold down at a low angle for use as a graphics tablet or positioned upright as a traditional screen. Or use it with any Apple Studio Display without touch input.

This would NOT run macOS. iPadOS only.

What we currently know as the iPad Pro would also continue in a less radical form. The screen would remain the iPad with a new, more lap-top like base as is rumored. It would have its own battery. The current iPad Pro battery would retain it’s current 10 hour life but could be charged by the base. The base would add additional ports though the iPad itself would still just have one USB C port.

There you have it. The new iPad Pro and iPad Studio.

Ongoing link round-up of events in Gaza

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 10:17:40 -0600

Bombs, Disease, Starvation: Canadian Doctor Describes the Desperate Situation Inside Gaza…

As Israel continues to threaten to invade Rafah, where over a million Palestinians have sought refuge, we speak to a surgeon who recently returned from a humanitarian mission at the European Hospital in Khan Younis in Gaza. “What I saw in Khan Younis were the most horrific scenes in my entire life,” says Canadian ophthalmologist Dr. Yasser Khan. He describes the dire conditions of injured civilians in Gaza, the majority of whom are children. “The genocidal intent of Israeli politicians, the Israeli army, is really clear. What is really bizarre is that they haven’t hid it,” says Khan. “The killing machine that Israel has unleashed on the healthcare system, I think, is unprecedented. … If the bombings are not going to get you, then disease will surely get you.”

‘There will be no Gaza’: Palestinian policy expert slams U.S. policy toward Israel and Gaza…

President Biden has been venting his frustration in recent private conversations over his inability to persuade Israel to change its military tactics in the Gaza strip, according to NBC News reporting. Yet, as Biden reportedly disparages Netanyahu in private, not much has changed in terms of U.S. policy toward Israel and Gaza, as the death count soars. Rula Jebreal, a Palestinian policy expert and visiting professor at the University of Miami, joins Joy Reid with her analysis.

Is Israel in breach of the ruling by the ICJ? | Inside Story - YouTube…

The United Nations' top court has ordered Israel to prevent and punish actions that could lead to or incite genocide in Gaza. The ruling was widely viewed as a step towards ending Israel’s war. But in the weeks that followed, troops have continued to act with impunity – intensifying their indiscriminate killing of Palestinians. Now Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is threatening a possible military offensive in Rafah, the southern-most point of the territory. Palestinians are trapped, with nowhere to go. So, what can be done to end Israel’s brutality?

Mother in Rafah Desperate to Escape as Israel Prepares Ground Invasion…

As Palestinian health officials say overnight Israeli strikes killed dozens in Rafah, where over 1 million Palestinians have sought refuge, we speak with a teacher trying to evacuate Rafah with her young children, who urges the U.S. government to stop the bloodshed. “My message to President Biden: We are innocent civilians, and we have no fault in what is happening,” says Duha Latif. “Our children deserve to live a normal life like the rest of the world’s children.” Latif is fundraising to gather the money she needs to enter Egypt. The latest Israeli bombardment was conducted as part of an operation to free two Israeli hostages and came amid warnings from U.S. President Joe Biden and other world leaders against Israel’s expected ground invasion of Rafah. Aid agencies fear the offensive would cause massive casualties.

Why does the US refuse to call for a ceasefire in Gaza? | The Bottom Line - YouTube…

The United States' support for Israel’s war on Gaza makes the country look ineffectual and hypocritical to the rest of the world, according to Harvard University professor Stephen Walt, co-author of The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy. Walt tells host Steve Clemons that Israel and the US-Israel relationship have changed over the decades, but US President Joe Biden is holding on to a view of Israel formed in the West in the 1970s.

Gaza: 67 dead in Rafah strikes as Israel plans ground assault…

While in Gaza they mourned the nearly 70 who were killed by the bombardments that accompanied the raid. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza puts the figure of those killed since Israel began military action in response to the 7th of October attacks at more than 28,000. Israel is proposing a ground invasion of Rafah which is now estimated to be housing more than a million Palestinians.

How Israel automated occupation in Hebron | The Listening Post…

Palestinians in Hebron are some of the most heavily monitored and controlled people on the planet. In the first episode of a two-part special, Tariq Nafi reports from the occupied West Bank on the previously unknown facial recognition system ‘Red Wolf’, uncovered by Amnesty International and Breaking the Silence.

How Israeli Apartheid Destroyed My Hometown - YouTube…

Segregated streets. Settler violence. Military harassment. This happens all over the occupied West Bank, but perhaps nowhere are these scenes more concentrated than in the Old City of Hebron. The once vibrant Palestinian cultural center is now ground zero of Israeli apartheid. It’s also where AJ+‘s Dena Takruri’s family calls home. In this deeply personal documentary, Dena spends a day in Hebron retracing the footsteps of her father, who was born and raised in Hebron. She talks to Palestinians who are subjected to daily harassment from the Israeli military and settlers. And she is guided through the city by former Israeli soldiers, who tell her why their conscience is now forcing them to speak out against the occupation.

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 08:22:03 -0600

Jon Stewart Tackles The Biden-Trump Rematch That Nobody Wants | The Daily Show - YouTube

He’s back. And his take on the upcoming presidential election is spot on.

Mon, 12 Feb 2024 20:55:52 -0600

Photos: Superb Owl Sunday VIII - The Atlantic

A special Sunday event: our eighth annual photo collection celebrating the magnificent birds of prey. These nocturnal hunters hail from Europe, Asia, North America, and South America, and are depicted here in photos from recent years. If you have some time today before the big game (or are skipping the event entirely), we invite you to take a look.

Mon, 12 Feb 2024 13:27:51 -0600

Kimberley Rose - The definition of antisemitism that has become a weapon to defend Israel…

The Palestinian death toll is over 28,000 and yet here I am debating words? Why? Because words, in particular the working definition of antisemitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance IHRA, is being used as a weapon to silence people and defend Israel. And these words are increasing being worked into laws. Lawmakers in more than half-dozen US states are pushing laws to define antisemitism

Mon, 12 Feb 2024 13:24:05 -0600

As millions in the US entertained themselves with the Super Bowl Sunday night Israel, with the full support of the US, continued its genocide in Gaza.

Noura Erakat: Israel’s Looming Invasion of Rafah is the “Worst-Case Scenario” - YouTube…

As the United States, the European Union and countries around the world are warning Israel against a ground invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza, we speak with Palestinian human rights attorney Noura Erakat. “This is disproportionate, excessive force that is meant to terrorize a population,” says Erakat. “Israel must stop its genocidal campaign now.” Erakat also responds to news that one of President Biden’s top foreign policy aides has admitted the administration has made “missteps” in the Middle East, and discusses calls to stop arms transfers under international law to prevent war crimes.

An easy hack for an ever present clipboard history for iPad!

Sun, 11 Feb 2024 17:35:07 -0600

This is fairly easy and straightforward though it requires more than one Apple device. Ensure that you’ve got handoff/continuity turned on for the shared clipboard on your devices.

Install an app like PastePal or another similar app that has iCloud sync and the ability to automatically monitor the clipboard. PastePal is a one-time payment and works on iPad, iPhone and Mac. My iPad Mini is always within reach as is my iPhone. For now I’ve added the app to both of those device home screens. It does require that the app be active on the device, not in the background. So it’s not a perfect solution. In theory a nearby Mac should also work but my Mac often stops seeing shared clipboards whereas the iPhone/iPads almost always work.

Anytime I copy on my iPad Pro my secondary “PastePal Server” gets the clipboard and it syncs back to my iPad Pro almost immediately. I’ve been using it all day and it’s worked flawlessly. Editing to add: It’s important to check the settings for the app. Turn on Monitor Clipboard, iCloud sync as well as “Save images in iCloud Drive”.

I’d tried this awhile back using an app called Yoink which also has iCloud sync and clipboard monitoring. It should work in the same way but I found it unreliable so gave up on it. Yoink does okay to monitor the clipboard on the iPad using a kind of hacky method using the picture-in-picture to remain active. But at some point fairly recently I noticed that not all clipboard items were being reliably saved in the app.

Sat, 10 Feb 2024 19:59:19 -0600

2021 Remaster “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” with Prince, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne and Steve Winwood - YouTube

Prince at 3:30.

2021 Remastered Edit: Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, Steve Winwood, Dhani Harrison & Prince pay tribute to George Harrison at the 2004 Induction Ceremony

Linked: Palestinian Gaza News

Sat, 10 Feb 2024 07:29:43 -0600

Chris Hedges “The Genocide in Gaza”…

Best-selling author, foreign correspondent, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges addressed the Middle East crisis with a talk titled “The Genocide in Gaza” on December 6, 2023 at The Sanctuary for Independent Media in North Troy NY.

31 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes in Rafah after Netanyahu says invasion there is inevitable…

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli airstrikes killed at least 31 Palestinians in Rafah early Saturday, hours after Israel’s prime minister said he asked the military to plan for the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people from the southern Gaza city ahead of a ground invasion.

Benjamin Netanyahu did not provide details or a timeline, but the announcement set off widespread panic. More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are packed into Rafah, many after being uprooted repeatedly by Israeli evacuation orders that now cover two-thirds of Gaza’s territory. It’s not clear where they could run next.

Medical teams targeted: Israeli sniper fire hits operating room staff…

Palestinian medics targeted by Israelis; hospitals disrupted. Plea for foreign intervention. Blockades worsen situation. Medical workers in Gaza are under attack, as Israeli forces have deliberately shot and injured them while they were on duty. The shortage of medical personnel at Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis has made it difficult to treat sick and injured Palestinians. The doctors at Nasser hospital are calling for foreign intervention to ensure the safety of medical workers. Israel’s blockade on food, fuel, and medicine entering Gaza has worsened the situation, making it harder for understocked hospitals to operate effectively.

Ex-UNRWA Official: Funding Cuts Make Donor Countries Complicit in Starvation of Gaza…

As Israel’s assault on Gaza has displaced the majority of Palestinians in Gaza, more than half are sheltering in facilities run by UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. Despite being the largest humanitarian agency in Gaza, UNRWA says it may run out of funds by the end of the month, after at least 18 states or institutions, including many of the agency’s biggest funders, announced they were suspending their donations in January. The cuts came after the Israeli government accused several UNRWA employees of participating in the Hamas attack on October 7. Israel made the allegations in a document it provided to foreign governments which apparently contained no direct evidence of the claims. “As of now, the evidence simply does not exist” outside of this “dodgy Israeli dossier,” says Chris Gunness, former chief spokesperson for UNRWA. He slams donors who have pulled their funding as “doing Israel’s political bidding” in its “scheme to dismantle UNRWA” and further dispossess Palestinians in Gaza.

How to End America’s Hypocrisy on Gaza…

The military campaign that Israel launched in response to Hamas’s brutal October 7 attacks has killed more than 27,000 people in the Gaza Strip and injured more than 60,000 others, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. About 75 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has been displaced. Some 400,000 people are enduring famine because of the blockade Israel has imposed on Gaza and the severe restrictions on humanitarian aid that have deprived civilians of what they need to survive. This number could grow if international funding for aid falters.

Fri, 09 Feb 2024 16:03:08 -0600

For activists or anyone following the current situation in Israel this is an excellent pamphlet written by April Rosenblum: The past didn’t go anywhere.

The Past was an activist effort, not an academic work, and was written just after my undergraduate years. It tends to resonate most with people on the activist Left. Other audiences might find these resources helpful.

Fri, 09 Feb 2024 10:17:28 -0600

I’ve been posting a lot recently about Israel’s ongoing actions against Palestians. On February 5th I wrote:

It’s been many years but one thing I remember about being in school and learning about the Holocaust is that it was a common refrain for kids to ask “Why or how did the people of Germany let it happen? Why did they go along with it?” It’s the sort of question that echoes into adulthood and into the public consciousness on the question of the Nazis, fascism and the crimes of the time.

But I look around today and I think, well, we can see how it happens. It’s happening again. If history demonstrates that Israel committed genocide in 2024 how will you feel about your silence, your role as an enabler?

A reader sent this message:

Can I offer a suggestion? I appreciate the intention, but making comparisons between Israel’s actions and those of Nazi Germany is considered antisemitic. It’s a very painful comparison that is hard to have reasonable discussions about.

They shared this link: Working definition of antisemitism

Contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to:

The particular bit that stood out to me in the context of my post was this:

Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

The reader went on to share this:

Unfortunately, there are many other instances of genocide in recent history. I’ve found the Rwandan and Armenian genocides, where government forces blamed a whole people for a rebel group’s actions and collectively punished them, to be a good comparison point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides

It’s a list worth looking at. We should bear witness to all genocide. But my primary concern right now, in 2024, is the fact that in the near future it’s likely that Israel will be on that list and along with it should be the United States.

I may not have been clear in my writing but I’m not just referring to the state of Israel but the US as well. My point is that if genocide is being committed in 2024 by the state of Israel against the Palestinian people the citizens of the US are complicit. We aid and abet Israel and have for many decades. The crimes being committed today are an extension of previous crimes that we have supported.

And to be clear our criminal, interventionist and violent foreign policy goes far beyond our support of Israel.

I’m certainly not attempting to spread anti-Semitic views and I’ve bookmarked the site for further reading. But that said, Israel may well be, at this moment, committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Certainly the ICJ thinks this is a very real possibility.

I want to make clear that I understand that Israel does not equal the Jewish people and that not all Jewish people agree with the policy of Israel. In no way should blame be directed at Jewish people as a collective whole.

But at the end of this, it may well be that Israel on that Wikipedia page, noted as a state that carried out genocide along with many others over the course of history. And the US should be listed along with it.

I would also add this link to another page on Wikipedia that deals specifically with the genocide of Indigenous peoples.

Linked: Climate Emergency

Thu, 08 Feb 2024 17:21:26 -0600

Chile forest fires: At least 51 dead, say officials | BBC News…

At least 51 people were killed by forest fires in Chile’s Valparaíso region, local authorities have said. President Gabriel Boric declared a state of emergency and said he would make “all necessary resources” available to tackle the situation. It is believed to be Chile’s deadliest forest fire on record. Many of those affected were visiting the coastal region during the summer holidays.

Record hot oceans are causing havoc from California to Chile. Is climate change to blame? - USA TODAY…

“Our findings emphasize a changing climatic landscape for California, attributing the extreme characteristics of the California floods to the dual forces of human-driven climate change and a subtle influence of natural climate variability,” said Davide Faranda, a researcher in climate physics at the French National Center for Scientific Research.

Heat waves rage in South America

Meanwhile, intense heat waves have been occurring across much of South America, including Chile, Argentina, Paraguay and Colombia.

On Jan. 31, the temperature in Santiago, Chile’s capital city, hit 99.1 degrees, the third highest temperature in 112 years of reporting, the World Meteorological Association reported. Drought, low humidity and strong winds also are blamed for creating conditions that contributed to the catastrophic fires occurring across the continent.

At least 130 people have died in Chile, with hundreds more missing in the Valparaiso region, including the coastal town of Viña del Mar, the WMO said.

Study uncovers alarming underestimates of global threat expected to expand drastically in coming decades: ‘Expect survivable but not livable conditions’

A new study suggests that we have underestimated the health risks associated with climate change, especially among older people.

What happened?

A group of scientists set out to explore human survivability and livability in a warming world and found that previous estimates had significantly underestimated the risk to human survival (or overestimated humans’ capacity to survive) in hot, dry conditions, especially for older adults.

Earlier studies had utilized a threshold of 35 degrees Celsius (equal to 95 degrees Fahrenheit) for wet bulb temperature (Tw) — one pair of scientists hypothesized that six hours of exposure in these conditions would lead to death, according to News-Medical.Net. (A wet bulb temperature of 95 F is equal to 95 F at 100% humidity or 115 F at 50% humidity.)

Two Climate Advisers Quit U.S. Export-Import Bank Over Fossil Fuel Plans - The New York Times

The project in Bahrain is one of several controversial overseas fossil fuel projects that the Export-Import Bank of the United States is currently considering.

The two advisers, who sit on an 18-person board that President Biden created to help the bank take climate change into account when making investments, resigned last week after a meeting about the Bahrain project, according to five current and former bank officials, who spoke on the condition that they not be identified because they were not authorized to discuss internal deliberations.

They described mounting frustration among climate advisory board members, who say they are being kept in the dark about upcoming fossil fuel loans and blocked from making recommendations about whether to approve or even modify a particular project.

At least two more climate advisory board members are considering stepping down, according to the officials.

Mr. Biden’s aides have expressed concern about the direction of the bank, which has consistently flouted a 2021 presidential order that government agencies stop financing carbon-intensive projects overseas.

This ancient material is displacing plastics and creating a billion-dollar industry…

Now cork is experiencing a revival as more industries look for sustainable alternatives to plastic and other materials derived from fossil fuels. The bark is now used for flooring and furniture, to make shoes and clothes and as insulation in homes and electric cars. Portugal’s exports reached an all-time high of 670 million euro ($728 million) in the first half of 2023.

But cork is more than a trendy green material. In addition to jobs, the forests where it grows provide food and shelter for animals, all while sequestering carbon dioxide. And unlike most trees grown commercially, cork oaks are never cut down, meaning their carbon storage capacity continues through the 200 years or more they live.

Thu, 08 Feb 2024 17:13:17 -0600

Israel Has Killed Nearly 900 Palestinians Since ICJ Order to Prevent Acts of Genocide…

In the week since the International Court of Justice ruled that the Israeli government is plausibly committing genocide and ordered it to prevent potential further acts of genocide, Israeli forces have only continued committing atrocities against Palestinians.

Buoyed by the staying support of American officials, Israeli forces have killed at least 874 Palestinians and injured at least 1,490 in Gaza since last week’s ICJ ruling…

Ex-UNRWA Official: Funding Cuts Make Donor Countries Complicit in Starvation of Gaza - YouTube

As Israel’s assault on Gaza has displaced the majority of Palestinians in Gaza, more than half are sheltering in facilities run by UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. Despite being the largest humanitarian agency in Gaza, UNRWA says it may run out of funds by the end of the month, after at least 18 states or institutions, including many of the agency’s biggest funders, announced they were suspending their donations in January. The cuts came after the Israeli government accused several UNRWA employees of participating in the Hamas attack on October 7. Israel made the allegations in a document it provided to foreign governments which apparently contained no direct evidence of the claims. “As of now, the evidence simply does not exist” outside of this “dodgy Israeli dossier,” says Chris Gunness, former chief spokesperson for UNRWA. He slams donors who have pulled their funding as “doing Israel’s political bidding” in its “scheme to dismantle UNRWA” and further dispossess Palestinians in Gaza.

The Majority Report…

Sam and Emma speak with Steven Friedman, director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Johannesburg, to discuss his recent book Good Jew Bad Jew: Racism, anti-Semitism and the assault on meaning. Steven Friedman then joins, parsing through the birth of his recent work from the severe backlash to anti-Zionist and anti-racist Jews as “self-hating,” alongside a severe perversion of the concept of anti-Semitism from the hatred of Jews as a people, to a narrow opposition to the apartheid state of Israel, also touching on the growing union between the state of Israel and the biggest celebrity symbols of anti-Semitism. Stepping back, Friedman explores the evolution of Zionism in relation to a largely Europe-based Jewry, with OG Zionists like Theodor Herzl and A.D. Gordon seeing the exclusion of the Jewish people from the European elite as a cultural failing of their people – one that can be solved via the establishment of a Zionist state and thus a Zionist elite.

‘Overshadow Gaza crimes’: World reacts to US attacks on Iraq and Syria | Al Jazeera

The United States has conducted a wave of air strikes on Iran-aligned targets in Iraq and Syria in retaliation for an attack that killed American soldiers in Jordan.

On Saturday, Iraq said 16 people, including civilians, were killed on its soil, and a monitoring group reported 18 people were killed in Syria. … Here is how the world reacted to the US action:

Iran

“The attacks are a violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq and Syria, international law, and a clear violation of the United Nations Charter,” said Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Nasser Kanaani.

Iraq

“This aggressive strike will put security in Iraq and the region on the brink of the abyss,” the Iraqi government said in a statement, and denied Washington’s claims of coordinating the air raids with Baghdad as “false” and “aimed at misleading international public opinion”.

Syria

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the strikes served to “inflame the conflict in the Middle East in an extremely dangerous way” and added to Washington’s “record of violations against Syria’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the safety of its people, proving once again that it is the main source of global instability”.

State Department Declares “Ethnic Cleansing” in Sudan but Won’t Say the Same About Israel’s War in Gaza…

“U.S. officials regularly — and often rightly — condemn the actions of other warring parties in other places like Ukraine, Ethiopia, and Sudan,” Sarah Yager, the Washington director at Human Rights Watch, told The Intercept. “But on Gaza, U.S. officials are avoiding passing judgment on Israel’s conduct.”

“Complicit” in Israeli Atrocities

On a near-daily basis, a State Department spokesperson takes questions from the media and is routinely pressed about the latest atrocity alleged to have been committed by Israeli forces, whether it’s gunfire aimed at civilians in a church; the bombing of hospitals, mosques, schools, universities, or residential buildings; or the cutting off of food, fuel, and medicine. Generally, the questions refer to either video evidence or on-record statements from Israeli government ministers.

The State Department consistently declines to cast judgment, often saying that the views or actions of some elements of the security forces or some ministers don’t represent the official Israeli position.

Wed, 07 Feb 2024 15:18:20 -0600

If you use an #iPad with an external monitor here’s a quick tip. The easiest way to move any particular window from the iPad to the external monitor is a keyboard shortcut: Globe+Control+\

It works in reverse to move a window from the external to the iPad.

Wed, 07 Feb 2024 10:27:12 -0600

Report Finds “No Evidence” in Key Dossier to Support Israel’s UNRWA Allegations…

A key Israeli intelligence dossier used by countries to justify defunding the primary aid group for Palestinian refugees contains “no evidence” to back up Israel’s allegations against the group, new reports have found….

In a report this week, Channel 4 reported that, despite being used by many countries to justify withdrawing aid amid horrific conditions in Gaza and risk complicity in genocide, the document actually “provides no evidence to support its explosive new claim that UNRWA staff were involved.”

Tue, 06 Feb 2024 19:07:43 -0600

This is not settlement but land theft. Israeli Settlers Are Terrorizing Palestinians In Record Numbers…

Just like in #Gaza, violence in the occupied West Bank didn’t start on October 7. But violent attacks by settlers or soldiers have reached record-high levels. We traveled to Qusra, where 6 people were killed in less than 24 hours by settlers. Al Jazeera English Digital Correspondent Zena Al Tahhan was harassed multiple times by the Israeli army while trying to report on this story.

Tue, 06 Feb 2024 18:45:53 -0600

Bernie Sanders: The U.S. is complicit in the disaster in Gaza…

Through our financial support of Israel, the U.S. is complicit in the humanitarian disaster in Gaza. I will be damned if I’m going to give another nickel to the Netanyahu government in order to continue this war against the Palestinian people.

#gaza

Tue, 06 Feb 2024 08:25:30 -0600

Israel Has Killed Nearly 900 Palestinians Since ICJ Order to Prevent Acts of Genocide…

In the week since the International Court of Justice ruled that the Israeli government is plausibly committing genocide and ordered it to prevent potential further acts of genocide, Israeli forces have only continued committing atrocities against Palestinians.

Buoyed by the staying support of American officials, Israeli forces have killed at least 874 Palestinians and injured at least 1,490 in Gaza since last week’s ICJ ruling…