The Carnival of the Jews is ready for you, Mr. DeMille.

Every time something annoying happens in my crappy apartment complex now, I say to myself: Six weeks. I’ll be out of here in six weeks.

Right now, the annoying ice cream truck is out there with its annoying “Pop Goes the Weasel” music. And I repeat my mantra: Six weeks. Especially because I am going to a community that probably has hidden cannon mounted to take out ice cream trucks.

Yesterday, I came home and my neighbor was parked on an angle guaranteed to see another car squeeze me in if parked in the remaining space. Six weeks.

The air conditioning kicked out again last night, even though it was fixed last week and I’ll have to call the guy again: Six weeks.

In six weeks, I will be where I belong: A neighborhood where the cars empty out during the day, because people have to work to pay for their pretty condo. A neighborhood where the management company doesn’t run “Summer Specials,” discounting the rent so that crap moves in, and moves out again under cover of night when the discount goes off and they can’t afford the regular rent. A neighborhood that hasn’t seen the crime rate jump so high that the city police are working overtime to drive out the criminals.

Six weeks.

I can feel my blood pressure lowering already.

The AP never disappoints. Nine people have been killed and 42 wounded in Lebanon in the past two days, yet all you find is a brief story in the AP, whitewashed and vague. On the other hand, Israeli troops found and killed a wanted terrorist who was responsible for a suicide bombing. The story is in-depth, and covers several different Israel-related topics on top of the dead Hamasnik.

Let’s take a look at the news out of Lebanon, where we have sectarian fighting going on. The headline:

Clashes continue in northern Lebanon, 3 die

Now let’s take a look at Hebron, where the IDF found (and destroyed) a wanted terrorist:

Israeli troops kill Hamas militant

Hm. You’d think that the Lebanese died due to natural causes or something, judging from that headline. And yet, there is absolutely no doubt why the Hamas terrorist died. It was lead poisoning to the body delivered from the barrels of IDF weapons.

Now let us compare the leads.

Israeli troops killed a Hamas militant in the West Bank town of Hebron early Sunday, surrounding a house and exchanging gunfire with the man before bulldozing the structure.

A Hamas statement said the 25-year-old man was a group member who fought troops for 12 hours before he was killed. The statement threatened retaliation “at the time and place we choose.”

The Israeli military said during the gunfight, troops heard explosions from inside the house, presumably from bombs stored inside. The militant’s mangled body was seen being removed from the rubble.

Ooh, that’s exciting! A 12-hour gun battle, retaliation threats, and explosions! I wonder if the Lebanese civil war “clash” is half as exciting.

Lebanese security officials say three people have been killed in the second day of sectarian clashes in northern Lebanon.

The clashes in Tripoli are between Sunnis and Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

The officials say the three were killed and 27 were wounded on Saturday. A total of nine people have been killed and 42 wounded in two days of fighting. The officials spoke condition of anonymity because they weren’t allowed to talk to the media.

Nope. There’s not a word of description of the battle, other than the vague “clash.” There have been two full days of fighting in northern Lebanon, leading to what the media would call “scores” of casualties if Israel or America were doing the fighting—but you don’t get details here. Because the victims aren’t victims of Israel or the U.S.

Now, the AP explanations of the “violence”:

Israel and Hamas are observing a cease-fire in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. But the agreement does not apply in the West Bank, ruled by moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Israeli troops continue to target militants in the territory, despite objections from Abbas that such actions embarrass him and undermine his control.

According to Israeli defense officials, the militant helped to plan a February suicide bombing in the Israeli town of Dimona that killed a 73-year-old woman and wounded 11.

Note that for every explanation, Israel must be slammed. What purpose does it serve to write the words in bold above, other than to prejudice the reader against Israel? I wonder if they’ll do that kind of explaining with the Lebanon story.

Tension has been high along Lebanon’s religious and political fault lines since the militant Shiite Hezbollah group overran parts of Beirut in May in response to government attempts to limit its power.

Since then, Hezbollah and its allies have joined a national unity government.

Nope. It’s a five-paragraph story. No real depth, just a brief “Oh, look, three more people died in the clash.” Looks like everything is hearts and flowers, except for the part where they’re killing each other—which is glossed over. Please note that the victims are not named, aged, nor are there mournful quotes from relatives. Because that only happens when the dead are Palestinian victims of Israel fire, whether deliberate or accidental.

And we close the book on another fine example of the AP anti-Israel media bias. This is one reason why the world hates Israel. The media narrative always pounds the Jewish State, and eases off the real thugs in the Middle East.

via memeorandum

The Jerusalem Post interviewed presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama during his trip to Israel. Despite the praise, the editor David Horovitz gives the candidate:

And on Wednesday evening, Obama answered my question about whether Israel has a right to try and maintain a presence in the West Bank, for security, religious, historic or other reasons, with a vigor and detail that also seemed to confirm Olmert’s assessment of where conventional friendly wisdom stands and that expanded significantly on his brief settlement remarks in the AIPAC speech.

In a later editorial, the paper (presumably written by Horovitz and other members of the editorial board) sounded a little less positive:

We asked Obama whether he too could live with the “67-plus” paradigm. His response: “Israel may seek ‘67-plus’ and justify it in terms of the buffer that they need for security purposes. They’ve got to consider whether getting that buffer is worth the antagonism of the other party.”

Without that “buffer,” the strategic ridges of the West Bank that overlook metropolitan Tel Aviv and the country’s main airport would be in Palestinian hands. Eighteen kilometers - or 11 miles - would separate “Palestine” from the Mediterranean, the narrow, vulnerable coastal strip along which much of Israel’s population lives.

Israel Matzav hopes that

… after reading the interview one can only hope that it was done before Obama went on the helicopter trip pictured above. If the interview was after the helicopter trip, Obama is even more hopelessly naive than any of us ever thought.

One may assume that the friendliness demonstrated by Sen. Obama to opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu would not necessarily extend to a future Pres. Obama and PM Netanyahu.

Remember what Sen. Obama once said:

Barack Obama faulted elements in the pro-Israel community that he says equate being pro-Israel with being pro-Likud.

“I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you’re anti-Israel and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel,” the Illinois senator and contender for the Democratic presidential nominee told a group of Jewish leaders in Cleveland on Sunday. “If we cannot have an honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we’re not going to make progress.”

(The NJDC did not see fit to publish my comment making this point on their blog.)

I think it’s pretty clear that where Sen. Obama stands. One more time (from the interview):

Look, I think that both sides on this equation are going to have to make some calculations. Israel may seek “67-plus” and justify it in terms of the buffer that they need for security purposes. They’ve got to consider whether getting that buffer is worth the antagonism of the other party.

UPDATE: And a relevant cautionary note about Sen. Obama from Shmuel Rosner:

It is true that Obama is an exciting candidate, more interesting than McCain. If elected, he will be our American friend, like most of his predecessors. If he is not elected, McCain will be that friend. Obama’s greatest shortcoming when it comes to Israel is a strongly rooted opposition to the use of force - an unavoidable necessity for a country like Israel. His relative advantage is greater credit in Arab countries, at least at the start. Perhaps that credit will translate into trust, accompanied by a willingness to make progress. But there is room for suspicion that it will translate instead into manipulation of a president known for his naivete.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Ethan Bronner reports Museum Offers Gray Gaza a View of Its Dazzling Past

It may sound like the indulgence of a well-fed man fleeing the misery around him. But when Jawdat N. Khoudary opens the first museum of archaeology in Gaza this summer it will be a form of Palestinian patriotism, showing how this increasingly poor and isolated coastal strip ruled by the Islamists of Hamas was once a thriving multicultural crossroad.

Bronner, of course, reports on how Khoudray perseveres and thrives against many obstacles, mostly Israeli.

History offers not only legitimacy, of course, but also a framework for coping with the present. Gaza is under an Israeli and international siege aimed at weakening Hamas, widely viewed in the West as a terrorist group. But this is not the first time Gazans have faced a squeeze.

“Gaza has suffered more than most cities,” Mr. Khoudary noted. “There was the siege of Alexander the Great and of the Persians and of the British. At the end of the day this siege will be a footnote.”

After taking us through the problems with acquiring the necessary artifacts for the museum, Bronner reports on an irony.

Mr. Khoudary said he had visited the Israel Museum and hoped that one day some of the Gaza collection could come back here “after we have a qualified government and the capability to protect the heritage of Gaza.” He said Dr. Dothan “did us a favor because it would all be gone or destroyed today.”

Of course we know from Joseph’s tomb and the Temple Mount how good the Palestinians are at preserving antiquities. Still my suspicion that there are elements of Gaza’s history that Mr Khoudry won’t be publicizing.

The history of Jews in Gaza. (h/t Elder of Ziyon)

For example:

During the first ceasefire of the 1948 War, Egyptian forces regularly sniped at Kfar Darom. Two days before the ceasefire collapses altogether, David Ben Gurion orders Kfar Darom to be abandoned, due to an insufficient number of soldiers and arms, and so the kibbutz is destroyed by the Egyptian army without resistance. Map
The members of Kfar Darom found Bnei Darom, a new kibbutz East of Ashdod.

It serves an another reminder that the principle of inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force is applied only when said acquisition is made by Israel, even in the course of defending itself.

Crossposted at Soccer Dad.

Today Thomas Friedman takes from Texas to Tel Aviv.

What would happen if you cross-bred J. R. Ewing of “Dallas” and Carl Pope, the head of the Sierra Club? You’d get T. Boone Pickens. What would happen if you cross-bred Henry Ford and Yitzhak Rabin? You’d get Shai Agassi. And what would happen if you put together T. Boone Pickens, the green billionaire Texas oilman now obsessed with wind power, and Shai Agassi, the Jewish Henry Ford now obsessed with making Israel the world’s leader in electric cars?

You’d have the start of an energy revolution.

The only good thing to come from soaring oil prices is that they have spurred innovator/investors, successful in other fields, to move into clean energy with a mad-as-hell, can-do ambition to replace oil with renewable power. Two of the most interesting of these new clean electron wildcatters are Boone and Shai.

I could do without Friedman’s cute characterizations of each. I’m also not impressed by his premise that government ought to be doing more or his characterization of us being “addicted” to oil. (Agassi uses the term too.) In fact rather than looking at alternative energy technology as “the only good thing” to from rising oil prices, look at it as a sign of the entrepreneurial spirit. I realize that the effect is the same, but the vantage is different. Friedman sees this as a sign of a failure of government; I see it as a (possible) triumph of private initiatives.

Still Shai Agassi would likely approve of the comparison to T. Boone Pickens as indicated in his blog.

Electric cars and windmills are the most complementary products in the green world. Windmills generate a lot more energy at night, as wind picks up when the air cools down. Unfortunately, when you get a lot of wind most people are asleep and the electricity needs to be rerouted elsewhere. Cars are parked at night waiting to get electricity into the batteries - which is a perfect match to the electricity profile of wind generation.

Business Week has more on how Project Better Place got rolling:

The high-risk plan came together through an unusual collection of business and government leaders. Former software executive Shai Agassi, chief executive of Better Place, conceived the plan. He was formerly a top executive at German software giant SAP (SAP). Israel President Shimon Peres got behind it. Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert initiated policy and tax changes to favor green vehicles. Carlos Ghosn, chairman of Renault and Nissan, saw it as a stepping stone into alternative-fuel cars. And Idan Ofer, chairman of holding company Israel Corp., the largest oil refiner in Israel, backed the project with more than $100 million of the $200 million in the first round of funding for the project.

Until now, Nissan and Renault had been among the laggards in alternative-fuel research. While rivals Toyota and Honda pioneered hybrid technologies, Nissan and Renault held back. Now, the two companies are placing bets on all-electric technology. In fact, Ghosn says that as a result of this project the Nissan-Renault Alliance has made electric autos its top priority. The companies expect to initially produce electric cars for Israel and other countries by adapting some of their current models, and to eventually introduce new models designed from the ground up to run on batteries. “This is a unique situation,” Ghosn says of the Israel project. “It’s the first mass marketplace for electric cars under conditions that make sense for all the parties.”

Israel sees a shift away from gasoline engines as vital to its economic and security. To encourage the purchase of green vehicles, the country just boosted the sales tax on gasoline-powered cars to as much as 60% and pledged to buy up old gas cars to get them off the road. “I believe Israel should go from oil to solar energy,” says Peres. “Oil is the greatest problem of all time–the great polluter and promoter of terror. We should get rid of it.”

OK, so it’s not all private initiative.

Anyway for more on how Project Better Place views themselves, check out their website and/or promotional video.

For more on how electric cars would work and the technical issues that need to be resolved check this out.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Qantas airlines had a pretty incredible save the other day The NYT reports:

The jumbo jet, which carried 346 passengers and 19 crew members, landed safely on Friday and those on board left without injury. As a piece of fuselage the size of a sedan ripped from the plane, the jet, Qantas Flight 30, had been forced to descend steeply to 10,000 feet from 29,000 feet.

Passengers described hearing a loud bang and seeing debris fly into the cabin. As the plane depressurized, oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling and cabin crew members shouted to passengers to put them on.

Here’s the part that’s particularly incredible:

He said passengers were not in danger from the depressurization because aircraft that fly above 10,000 feet are generally required to carry oxygen systems. The atmosphere is thin above that altitude, and people can function for only a few minutes without oxygen before becoming groggy and losing consciousness.

Pilots are trained to bring a plane down swiftly to 10,000 feet, where passengers and crew can breathe without assistance. Given that the Qantas jet was at 29,000 feet, the plane dropped roughly a mile a minute, “not the kind of descent you would normally subject passengers to,” Mr. Mann said.

The Times also lists other Qantas close calls and a similar incident from 20 years ago.

Qantas has also had some close calls. In 1999, a Qantas jet ran off a runway in Bangkok while landing in heavy rain. There were no reports of serious injuries.

More recently, a Qantas-operated Boeing 717 was damaged in February when it sustained a hard landing at Darwin, Australia. The landing gear, tires and fuselage of the plane, flown by QantasLink, the airline’s regional carrier, were damaged.

In 1988, a gash opened in a Boeing 737 belonging to Aloha Airlines at 24,000 feet on a flight from Hilo to Honolulu, Hawaii. A chunk of the plane’s roof and the cockpit door were blown out. One flight attendant was killed when she was swept out of the plane, and 65 passengers and crew members were hurt.

Federal investigators said the accident was caused by metal fatigue, exacerbated by corrosion caused by salt water.

The Times mentions the famous Qantas claim and the scene in Rain Man that popularized it.

The Times points out that in its early years before it was incorporated as Qantas it did lose some jets. USA Today’s airline blog has more on how the airline has protected that claim.

The Guardian notes Qantas “paid a reported $100 million to repair it, way above the value of the Boeing 747-400, apparently so it could preserve its ‘never lost a jet’ status.” The airline has had several other incidents during the past decade, but — so far — none have resulted in the loss of a jet.

The cynical tone doesn’t seem right. Even if Qantas has to declare a plane a loss, it’s still a pretty incredible safety record. Last week’s heroic piloting should be a reason to emphasize the record, not question it.

(h/t Mrs. Soccer Dad)

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.