Sunday, April 27, 2014

While the USA political rightwing finds environmental laws a burden,...

...their origins began with the understanding that extinction of one species would ultimately lead to extinction of all species, including human beings.

One fascinating thing I learned from The Sixth Extinction (click here) is that this isn't the first time climate change has caused a mass extinction. Some of the causes of these events are still pretty obscure, but it seems the best explanation for the first mass extinction seems to be very severe climate change in the opposite direction from the way we're changing the climate. A cold event. And the best explanation for the worst mass extinction of all time was a very, very severe episode of global warming, ocean acidification, and ocean anoxia, too, which is where the oceans have no oxygen in various layers. They become very stratified, and a lot of the oceans would just be what we call "Dead Zones." That's a very sobering parallel. Anyone who doesn't find that sobering really ought to think again, because that is what we're doing. We're putting a lot of CO2 up there, and it seems pretty clear that event was at least associated with CO2....

There was always the understanding that human qualities could be found in many species in the world, including the capacity for love and empathy. 

At one time in recent history human arrogance and deceit would never interfere with our understanding of our place on Earth. I strongly believe the political hubris of wealth and crony politics has put our very species in peril that is already witnessed in climate events killing tens of thousands of human beings in a matter of days.

The humility of humanity is a far greater virtue than the wealth of Wall Street. 

The deaths are adding up tonight, aren't they? So, what exactly are we facing another day in paradise or the climate crisis scientists have warned about for decades? 

How does the USA calculate 'acceptable deaths' of the climate crisis? Ten is not too bad. Collateral damage to the wealth of 0.1 percent and the political coffers. When does the 'acceptable deaths' become unacceptable? 100. 1000. 10,000. Where does the USA finally draw the line to the deaths of the climate crisis? Never. All deaths are acceptable as the price for control of wealth? Really?

What will the cost of the climate crisis be? October 7, 2012 : 6:02 PM (click here)
 
Extreme:
“More than 100 million people will die and global economic growth will be cut by 3.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030 if the world fails to tackle climate change, a report commissioned by 20 governments said on Wednesday.”

“As global average temperatures rise due to greenhouse gas emissions, the effects on the planet, such as melting ice caps, extreme weather, drought and rising sea levels, will threaten populations and livelihoods, said the report conducted by humanitarian organization DARA. “

Wealth? To whom? Because the USA's treasury reflects growing amounts of funding spent to recover Americans from devastation. The unfortunate thing is that the USA treasury hasn't perfected the science of reviving the dead completely.

by Barbara J. King
In the Atlantic forest of Brazil, (click here) a female marmoset monkey — a small, arboreal primate — fell from a tree to the ground, striking her head. This female, known to observing scientists as F1B and as dominant to other females in her group, was severely injured and died two-and-a-half hours later.

Of F1B's 11 group mates, only one approached her closely as she lay in evident pain: M1B, her mate of over three years. What M1B did next was captured on video, and is the subject of by Bruna Martins Bezerra, Matthew Philip Keasey, Nicola Schiel and Antonio da Silva Souto, published in the journal Primates....

Marine Current Turbines' tidal-energy converter in Strangford Lough, UK, generates power with underwater blades that can be raised for maintenance.

After years in the doldrums, the quest to harvest energy from the oceans is gathering speed. (click here)

Jeff Tollefson
But the outlook has brightened for those hoping to tap this source of energy. In the past few years, several major industrial leaders have acquired start-up companies that harvest energy from tides, the easiest type of marine power to capture. In March, three projects were approved for Canada's Bay of Fundy, home to some of the largest tides on the globe. The wave-energy industry, which is targeting a much larger but more elusive resource, has had a few setbacks, including a decision to scale back plans for an array off the coast of Oregon last month. But there is little doubt that both types of marine energy will eventually grow. Last year, the London-based consultancy Bloomberg New Energy Finance projected that up to 22 tidal projects and 17 wave projects generating more than one megawatt of electricity — enough to power around 250 homes — could be installed by 2020.

In theory, oceans could power the entire globe without adding any pollution to the atmosphere. And they could provide a more dependable source of electricity than the wind or sun. They are also geographically convenient: roughly 44% of the global population lives within 150 kilometres of the coastline....

The more snow and ice lost to the climate crisis the dirtier the snow and less albedo is realized.


acquired November 29, 2005

...The map (click here) above shows the outlines of glaciers around Everest, overlaid on a topographic map of the region based on digital elevation model (DEM) data from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite. Progressively lighter shades of brown depict higher elevations of bare land; glaciers are shown with progressively lighter shades of blue (higher is lighter). 

A Mt. Everest ice core spanning 1860–2000 AD (click here) and analyzed at high resolution for black carbon (BC) using a Single Particle Soot Photometer (SP2) demonstrates strong seasonality, with peak concentrations during the winter‐spring, and low concentrations during the summer monsoon season. BC concentrations from 1975–2000 relative to1860–1975 have increased approximately threefold, indicating that BC from anthropogenic sources is being transportedto high elevation regions of the Himalaya....


April 7, 2014

...In June 2013 (click here) my field assistant Sam Ecenia from the University of Colorado, Boulder and I trekked up to the base of Cho Oyu, the sixth highest peak in the world and the source of the Ngozumpa glacier. Imagery from then and in August revealed a lot of dirty snow and ice as the melt season progressed. The contamination is partly natural dust and partly man-made soot from incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, biofuels and biomass.

Then in October 2013 a cyclone from the Bay of Bengal moved toward the Himalaya and dumped over a meter of snow in just two days. I set up a temporary weather station to track air temperatures and snow albedo (reflectivity) changes, and physically sampled snow with another field assistants, Emma Marcucci, a recent Ph.D. from Boulder, and Martin Coleman, a retired Lockheed Martin engineer. Just days after the storm, the snow was already quite dirty. Although it appeared white to the naked eye, we found plenty of contaminants after melting down the samples and running them through a filter. The samples are currently in the lab so it remains to be determined how much is due to natural dust and how much is man-made pollution or debris from road construction in Kathmandu or from extensive trail erosion along the route to base camp
.
Over the course of three weeks, as the snow melted despite decreasing temperature, instruments called pyranometers recorded a reflectivity decrease of nearly 20 percent. You know how you feel much warmer in the sun if you wear a dark shirt rather than a light-colored shirt? That’s because the dark material absorbs more solar radiation. Dark particles on the white snow do the same thing, melting the snow faster....

150 people killed every year by this force of nature

CBC News 
Posted: Sep 24, 2012 2:34 PM ET  
Last Updated: Sep 24, 2012 2:40 PM ET

...A number of factors (click here) can set off a disturbance. They include natural factors like new precipitation (be it rain or additional snow), a sudden warming, wind, ice fall or rock fall, as well as so-called "artificial" factors like skiers and snowmobilers. The long-held notion that avalanches can be triggered by the human voice has been largely debunked.

According to the Utah Avalanche Center, 90 per cent of avalanche fatalities are triggered by the weight of one of the victims in the group. In other words, the pressure exerted by human movement caused a fracture in the snowpack, loosening the top layer and unleashing a torrent of snow.

Most avalanches occur 24 hours after a rapid, heavy snowfall....

There is little to no 'packing' of the snow at that point. Skiers that like loose and deep snow realize the dangers of such a snowfall.

Weather Forecast for Mount Everest (click here) at 21536 ft altitude issued: 4am 28 Apr 2014 (local time)

The Sherpas know the mountain is changing and as a result the instability has increased. That instability is reflected throughout the 713-square-mile Sagarmatha National Park area with retreating glaciers and snowline.

By JohnThomas Didymus
May 16, 2013 in Environment

Researchers announced at the Meeting of the Americas in Cancun, Mexico, May 14, that snow and ice on Mount Everest and the neighboring area was melting at an increasing rate. According to the study, global warming is affecting the Everest environment...

...According to Live Science, Sudeep Thakuri, (click here) a graduate student at the University of Milan in Italy, who led the research, said increasing temperatures have caused glaciers in the Mount Everest region to shrink by 1,300 feet (400m) or 13 percent in the last 50 years. The study also found that the snowline has receded in the same period by 590 feet (180 meters).

Thakuri said that shrinking glaciers and receding snowline has caused rocks and debris previously permanently covered by snow to appear. According to the researchers, the visible debris in the region had increased by 16 percent since the 1960s. 

CBS News reports that the research team tracked the temperatures and precipitation rates using hydro-meteorological data from Nepal Climate Observatory and Nepal's Department of Hydrology and Meteorology. They found there had been a 1.08 degrees Fahrenheit increase in temperature and 3.9-inch (100 millimeters) decrease in precipitation (snow and rainfall) during the pre-monsoon and winter moths since 1992....

There are 14 mountain peaks over 8000 meters.

One would think survival more important than arrogance.

Last year, (click here) when the attention of the world was focused on a fight between Sherpas and some Western mountaineers, you would hardly have known four Sherpas died on Everest in separate incidents. Last week, after an avalanche killed 16 Nepali mountaineers, 13 of them Sherpas, the passing militancy of the [Brawl] in April 2013 looks like the opening of a new era, hopefully not one that encourages violence but addresses what may have lain underneath it: years of inequality, disrespect, and lack of recognition.
A 2010 mega-heatwave southeast of Moscow spurred massive wildfires.

Mechanism behind mega-heatwaves pinpointed (click here)

Two recent record hot spells traced to feedback loop between dry soils and trapped air.

Hannah Hoag
 
The 'mega-heatwaves' that parched Europe in 2003 and Russia in 2010 were exacerbated by a vicious feedback loop between soil and atmosphere, researchers report today in Nature Geoscience. Drying ground added more heat into air close to Earth's surface, a process that repeated over time to produce record-breaking warmth that shrivelled crops, set forests ablaze and claimed tens of thousands of lives....

April 27, 2014
 
GAGE, N.M. (AP) – A New Mexico (click here) State Forestry official says crews were able to stop a wildfire near the town of Gage from growing overnight.
Forestry spokesman Dan Ware says firefighters patrolled the perimeter and the Prom Fire remained about 50 percent contained Sunday morning.
Ware says the blaze, which had initially been estimated to be at least 2,000 acres in size, now appears to be about 1,000 acres.
He says no structures are being threatened.
Ware says firefighters will spend the day looking for hot spots against windy and dusty conditions.
The cause of the fire has yet to be determined.
Gage is a small town of about 100 people west of the larger city of Deming.

This is a window electric socket.


This is a solar use concept. It currently takes a charge for 5 to 8 hours to charge. Once charged it can be taken from the window and carried anywhere to deliver 10 hours of electricity.

It is reusable.

The Window Socket (click here) offers a neat way to harness solar energy and use it as a plug socket. So far we have seen solutions that act as a solar battery backup, but none as a direct plug-in. Simple in design, the plug just attaches to any window and does its job intuitively. 

The pictures show the Window Socket on the window and the business side of the Window Socket with solar technology.

This technology allows a battery capacity to solar energy that is portable with long life usage.  

The Window Socket offers a neat way to harness solar energy and use it as a plug socket. So far we have seen solutions that act as a solar battery backup, but none as a direct plug-in. Simple in design, the plug just attaches to any window and does its job intuitively.
Read more at http://www.yankodesign.com/2013/04/26/plug-it-on-the-window/#DDMMssaqmP0zRBgT.99

Still yet more glacier breakdown

This image was acquired on April 13, 2014. It is the autumn in the southern hemisphere. The latent heat in the water is still breaking down the glaciers.

acquired April 13, 2014

In this image, (click here) bright icebergs spread across Pine Island Bay, resembling shards of broken glass. The bergs appear to be crumbling off Thwaites Glacier, a small part of which is visible on the right edge of the image. Thwaites and its neighbor, Pine Island Glacier, are the fastest-moving glaciers in Antarctica.

The Pine Island Glacier has long been predicted to be among the largest contribution of sea level rise.








NASA, since 2001 has been watching this glacier for it's melting. This year with the arrival of spring into the southern hemisphere of Earth delivered a greater deterioration of the Pine Island Glacier.

Published on Sep 12, 2013
For five years an international team of experts, led by NASA emeritus glaciologist Robert Bindschadler and funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA, planned and orchestrated a mission to drill through the floating ice shelf of the Pine Island Glacier. Finally they persevered over harsh weather conditions, a short Antarctic field season, and the remote location of the glacier, and installed a variety of instruments to measure the properties of the ocean water below the ice shelf.

The late start to the tornado season was due to far colder temperatures for a longer time.

The Weather Channel Current Temperatures Map
April 27, 2014
2315 GMT

The differences in temperatures is stark.

The brown color in the map below is where somewhat normal highs are occurring. However, it is where the cold and hot are mixing. So, the so called normal highs aren't established through normal dynamics.

That mixing is where some of the worst turbulence is found. Mixing is mixing.

The Weather Channel's Departure from Normal Highs 
April 27, 2014
0900 GMT 

The winds were 150 mph which translated into an EF3 tornado.

April 27, 2014
The Daily Reflector

OKLAHOMA CITY - (click here) Strong storms swept through parts of the Midwest on Sunday, spawning damaging winds, large hail and at least one tornado as the first official tornado death of 2014 was confirmed. 

The North Carolina Department of Public Safety confirms that an 11-month-old in Chowan county was injured in Friday's storms in the eastern part of the state and died Sunday, reports CBS affiliate WNCT in Greensville.
The 11-month-old was the first tornado related death in the nation of 2014, officials said. Governor Pat McCrory sent his prayers to the family and the 11-month-old at an afternoon press conference Sunday, while touring the devastation in Beaufort County...
UNISYS North and West Hemisphere Satellite (click here for 12 hour loop - thank you)
April 27, 2014
2030.18z

As air heats it expands. I am sure Bella's balloon experiment has been on the blog before. But, the point is the same. 

There are straight line winds coming in from the Pacific. They are carrying water vapor from the equator. As the wind brings air into the center of North America it piles up and mixes with cold air. The vortex forms and air turbulence begins.

This is going to be bad and we have already had a brush with these storms in North Carolina.

The tornadoes aren't occurring in single incidence. The appearance of tornadoes now occurs in 'outbreaks.' There is never just one anymore.
 

Tornadoes damage 200 homes in eastern North Carolina (click here)

Posted: Apr 26, 2014 2:15 PM EST  
Updated: Apr 26, 2014 2:15 PM EST 
 MOREHEAD CITY, N.C. (AP) - The National Weather Service is confirming multiple tornado touchdowns Friday in eastern North Carolina, where officials say 200 homes were seriously damaged.
Meteorologists say they have confirmed EF-2 tornadoes touched down in Pitt and Beaufort counties. Their survey is continuing and a final assessment is expected by the end of the day.
The emergency management director in Beaufort County says 200 homes were either heavily damaged or destroyed, and more than a dozen people were taken to the hospital.
Severe weather is possible today and tomorrow in parts of the nation's midsection. Forecasters say an area stretching from Texas to South Dakota is at risk for large hail, strong wind gusts and tornadoes today.
Tomorrow, they say the greatest chance of tornadoes will be in Arkansas and parts of Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas.

"It's Sunday Night"
Just for fun, the Mythbusters and a Van de Graaff generator.

"Scorched Earth is best known as a military policy involving deliberate and usually widespread destruction of property and resources so that an invading enemy cannot use them. Resources can be the town economic structure itself and the housing of the people.






It is also viewed as a victory or supremacy at all costs.

Basically, "Scorched Earth" is a definition of imposed values regardless of the number of innocent victims.

Van Der Graaf Generator and Peter Hammill were a band from 1967 to 1978

Peter Hammill and Gary Lucas (click here) have collaborated on a new album titled "Otherworld", released on 3rd February 2014.



"Sorched Earth" by Van der Graaf Generation (click here)

Just one crazy moment while the dice are cast,
he looks into the future and remembers what is past,
wonders what he's doing on this battlefield,
shrugs to his shadow, impatient, too proud yet to kneel.

In his wake he leaves scorched earth and work in vain;
smoke drifts up behind him - he is free again,
free to run before the onslaught of a deadly foe,
leaving nothing fit for pillage, hardly leaving home.
It's far too late to turn, unless it's to stone.
Charging madly forward, tracks across the snow;
wind screams madness to him, ever on he goes,
leaving spoor to mark his passage, trace his weary climb.
Cross the moor and make the headland -
stumbling, wayward, blind.
In the end his footprints extend as one single line.

This latest exponent of heresy is goaded into an attack,
persuaded to charge at his enemy.
Too late, he knows it is,
too late now to turn back, too soon by far to falter.
The past sits uneasily at his rear,
he's walking right into the trap,
surrounded, but striving through will and fear.
Ahead of him he knows there waits an ambuscade
but the dice slip through his fingers
and he's living from day to day,
carrying his world around upon his back,
leaving nothing behind but the tell-tale of his track.

He will not be hostage, he will not be slave,
no snare of past can trap him, though the future may.
Still he runs and burns behind him in advanced retreat;
still his life remains unfettered - he denies defeat.
It's far too late to turn, unless it's to stone.
Leave the past to burn - at least that's been his own.

Scorched earth, that's all that's left when he's done;
holding nothing but beholden to no-one,
claiming nothing, out of no false pride, he survives.
Snow tracks are all that's left to be seen
of a man who entered the course of a dream,
claiming nothing but the life he's known
- this, at least, has been his own. 

The focus on Asian Americans as an afflicted population is simply an excuse to enforced racism in the USA.

According to the 2010 USA Census there are concentrations of Asian Americans in the USA. It is not an enforced policy anywhere in the USA to limit the population to cities.

Now, the argument to leverage power against minorities seeking eduction for an entire country is based in the idea Asian Americans are oppressed by Affirmative Action policies. 

I don't think so.

...Typically 40 percent of the students (click here) attending top-tier universities such as Harvard, Princeton, and Yale have a hook. The major hooks are:
• Legacy, meaning a family history of college attendance at a specific school (usually mother or father, but sometimes a grandparent -- and graduate school attendance does not always count)
• Recruited athlete
• Underrepresented student (African American, Latino/a, Native American, Alaskan Native, Pacific Islander, bi-racial, or multiracial)
• Development (donation) case
• VIP or high-profile applicant 


The admission process in some universities might have to be reviewed on a case by case basis, but, the real challenge to the USA is being as inclusive as it can be since the future is demanding far more college graduates than currently exists.

Any disparity in Asian American admissions is just 'the next excuse' to discriminate against all minorities. It is nonsense. There are frequently issues that manifest with any policy. It is the obligation of the country to follow these problems and LEGISLATE to address them. The recent decision by the Supreme Court to continue to hack away at minority opportunity will cause increased racism through out the country where it is preferred.

This brief highlights (click here) various state and industry led workforce development initiatives. All approach workforce development in different ways and target various populations. They range from aligning K12 and postsecondary education to workforce needs, to alternative ways of delivering basic skills, to re-training the underemployed and unemployed, to training specific skills for specific industries. All the initiatives, however, are models of collaboration among several state agencies and business partners to develop workers with the skills needed to continue to grow businesses and state economies.

In the face of challenges to fill employment in the USA as viewed by this assessment has to be the knowledge there will be racial layers of 'wealth' that accompanies the jobs gap.

If the Supreme Court is going to assign opportunity for citizens of all races to the states then each state better be evaluated for their policies and advancement of minority populations. That assessment of each state, county and city needs to be the basis of exposing bigotry, racism and discrimination. In that lies opportunity to Democrats to break down hatred as a political plank in elections.

This recognition of where there will be disparities for those educated with a college degree only proves when an entire generation of Americans are left out of economic opportunities it is due to government and funding negligence and not the aspirations of the citizens themselves. What occurred with this most recent generation is a historic national shame. The problem solving to insure futures of Americans begins long before the reality of the outcome. Republican policy for over twenty years caused the crash of opportunity for this generation. There is no excuse.

According to this study Asian American men did just fine.

Percentage of Population 25 or Older With a Postsecondary Degree of Any Kind, 2008 (click here)  

If one is looking for a reliable source of information about educational statistics, look to the vast amount of information at the National Center of Educational Statistics of the US Department of Education. (click here)

The problem with "The Clippers" bigotry is about money.

Marketing Plan Los Angeles Clippers (click here)

Does anyone doubt if Don Sterling was making money hand over fist by a stadium filled with African Americans he would be stating things differently?

Is the bigoted ranting not about who is encouraged to attend games and whom is not? Well.

...He berates (click here) her for posting a photo with Magic Johnson to “The Instagram,” hanging out with black people (he’s fine with her doing so in private) and worst of all, bringing black people to "his games." So to clarify: Black Clipper fans, the owner would prefer it if you not attend in person, and in particular, not with his girlfriend. Not because he himself harbors any prejudice; it’s that the world does, you see?...

How long will the lack of wealth by our minorities enforce this level of racism? They can't even get in the stadiums lined with African American players. This is about whom and whom does not attend the games and sits in box seats and why


Israel's extremism in allowing occupation of Palestine is due to the intractible politics of the GOP.

Israel's current leadership finds reasons to defeat any USA effort to settle the Palestinian - Israel disputes because there is no reason to change. The politics regarding the USA and Israel are like puppets on a string.

His appearance (click here) at Sheldon’s event is an early and important indication. It’s perhaps not decisive, but it is clear that he has concluded there’s nothing wrong, politically or morally, with paying homage to a loyal-to-Israel warmonger. For all those who might have hoped Jeb had learned something useful from the failed presidency of his brother, it’s a pretty clear indication. Most probably, he has not.

For all the intent to bring about a peace of a two nation solution, there are powerful Republicans that would see Palestine ethnically removed from the face of Earth as well.

With the ability of such lobbyists and billionaires in USA politics there is defiance to allow Palestine to exist in any election. In order for the USA to put pressure on Israel to end their ethnic cleansing in at the very least The West Bank, there needs to be efforts to end the hatred readily at hand in USA elections.

Don't take my word for it. I don't stand alone.

Sheldon Adelson’s culture of hate (click here)

If anyone said about Jews what the American Jewish billionaire says about Palestinians, he’d be considered a Jew-hater in the same league as Farrakhan and Ahmadinejad. 

By Peter Beinart 
Apr. 2, 2014
12:30 PM

...Think I’m exaggerating? Let’s check the record. Adelson has called for nuking the Iranian desert (which supposedly wouldn’t “hurt a soul”) and then nuking Tehran unless Iran abandons its nuclear weapons program. I’m all for Iran abandoning its nuclear weapons program. But how does threatening Tehran with nuclear annihilation make Adelson any different than those Iranians who have threatened to destroy Israel? 

Then there’s Adelson’s view that the Palestinians are an “invented people.” Again, flip it around. In 2008, when Tel Aviv University’s Shlomo Sand published a book called “The Invention of the Jewish People,” he was widely called anti-Semitic. When Adelson says the same about Palestinians, he’s a Republican rock star. 

This isn’t hawkishness. It’s hate. Hawks acknowledge that there are divisions among Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims, but argue that, at this moment in time, the forces of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic militancy have the upper hand. For Adelson, by contrast, there are no distinctions. All Palestinians and all Muslims are detestable killers. It’s just who they are. “There isn’t a Palestinian alive who wasn’t raised on a curriculum of hatred and hostility toward the Jews,” he told the Jewish Press in 2011....

It is time for Palestinian leadership to stop smiling politely as if Israel is an earnest participant in peace and a two nation solution. It is time for Palestinian leaders to point to hate mongering and insults against it's sovereignty deeply bargained for by past Israeli leaders of great esteem, namely Ariel Sharon.

The current Israeli leadership are not building on Sharon's directive, but, have used any rocket across it's border as a greater and greater reason to foment hate. 

There are many, many Israeli leaders that have moved forward to create and stabilize a Palestinian nation. There have been great Palestinians that have bargained with death to move the nation forward. These leaders and their vision cannot be abandoned for a 'power base' of USA Republican politics that seek ethnic cleansing as a solution to 'THE PROBLEM.'

Israel has been recognized to exist which is guaranteed to them by the support of the USA for over sixty-five years now. Israel is an important ally, but, so are the Palestinians that exist as a nation within the Israel borders. They have a right to a permanent Homeland. The UN Resolution regarding Israel occurred in 1947. It is long overdue that Palestine be formed with a resolution guaranteeing it's right to exist as well. 

The greatest hurdle to Palestinian nation stability are the very boundaries of that nation of people. They need a Permanent Nation solution with clearly defined borders that limit Israel's aggression and defeats Israel's extremist settlers. 

Israel's withdrawal from peace talks is absolute proof of a strategy against Palestine. It is time to move the Palestinians agenda for an independent homeland forward and limit the ability of Israel to redefine and redefine it's own borders. In redefining it's borders lies the aggression of ethnic cleansing and it has to end. 

Israel's chronic objections to settling Palestinian borders is due to 'indefensible borders.' That is not going to change no matter the size of the Palestinian Homeland, so it is time to end the fantasy of defensible borders by the Israeli leadership. It is a hideous EXCUSE never before used as a strategy against a nation of people. 

It is absolutely amazing what a small country, such as Israel, can do to an entire region's stability. Jordan should have such power for the Palestinians it houses as refugees. 

Israel has successsfully evaded the issue of settlements yet again.

We know Hamas are the bad guys in all this. That is not new. When is Israel going to take on the challenge of ending the settlements that give Hamas the reason to be the bad guys?

Israel cut off the talks. It needs to be Israel that suffers sanctions to end the stalemate.

April 24, 2014
Associated Press 

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel broke off Mideast peace talks (click here) and brought the U.S.-brokered process to the brink of collapse Thursday, protesting a reconciliation agreement between the Western-backed Palestinian Authority and the militant group Hamas, the Jewish state's sworn enemy.

Israel's Security Cabinet made the decision during a marathon emergency meeting convened to discuss the new Palestinian deal. The rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah announced the reconciliation plan Wednesday, meant to end a seven-year rift.

Israel objects to any participation in Palestinian politics by Hamas, which has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings and other attacks over the past two decades.

In a statement issued by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, the government said it would not hold negotiations with a government "backed by Hamas."...

Israel have their own militants. When are they going to be listed on terrorist lists?

Where is Abbas to call out these attacks on Palestinians? When is Abbas going to take Israeli prisoners? When will there be trails of those that cross the lines in the sand and begin building illegitimate buildings? 

Abbas is an empty partner to these talks. He seeks cooperation from Israel rather than pointing to it's illegal aggressions. 

Israel's military is actively involved in human rights violations.

Israeli settlers often attack children in the south Hebron hills with protection from the Jewish state's army (Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP)

Radical Israeli settlers attack seven-year-old girl (click here)

Published April 25th, 2014
SyndiGate.info 

Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian family in the south Hebron hills on Thursday, injuring a seven-year-old girl, a peace group said.

At midday on Thursday, two settlers riding a quad bike attacked four children and their mother with stones as they were returning from school to the villages of Tuba and Maghayir al-Abeed, Operation Dove said.

A seven-year-old was hit by a stone and fell while attempting to escape, injuring her head. She required five stitches for her wound.

The family was attacked while using the only available path without requiring a military escort, which usually accompanies children from Tuba and Maghayir al-Abeed to their school due to the threat of settler violence....


No USA company in any way should be supporting Israeli settlements. Instead, they should be supporting the security of the Palestinian people.

April 22, 2014
By Mark Hague 

In March 13, 2013, (click here) Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel (VTJP) launched a campaign calling on Ben & Jerry’s, a leader of the socially responsible business community, to stop marketing, catering and selling ice cream in Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. We also urged the company to issue a statement expressing its opposition to the occupation and Israel’s settlement enterprise, consistent with the principles of its social mission.

Our demands have not been met, but the campaign is strong and growing....

Why Ben and Jerry's? Because they lead corporate models for "values based" participation in capital markets and sales to consumers. Ben and Jerry's want to have that lead, but, they need to pay attention to exactly it's participation when human rights are in the balance. We value Ben and Jerry's leadership, but, they are derailing their own value system by supplying economic participation in "Occupied Territories" in Palestine. It isn't moral.

Ben & Jerry’s is Selling Ice Cream in Israel’s Illegal Settlements in Palestine (click here)

These settlements aren't even about Gaza, they are entering and occupying the West Bank. The West Bank has been the heart of the Palestinian Homeland. It could be argued the settlements are a form of genocide intended to remove the very land a people survives culturally and ethnically. There is every reason to believe the settlements by Israel is ethnic cleansing.

Ed Miliband and his wife Justine visited the Khan al-Ahmar Bedouin community in the West Bank




Expanding Jewish settlements (click here) in the occupied West Bank poses "a mortal threat to the two-state solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Ed Miliband has said.
The Labour leader, nearing the end of a three-day visit, said Israel's policy on settlements was "wrong and illegal".
He visited a Bedouin camp where residents are among 2,300 Palestinians facing possible displacement.
Mr Miliband's trip follows a recent faltering in US-led peace talks.
Israel and the Palestinians have blamed each other for taking steps they believe breach commitments aimed at advancing negotiations.
Mr Miliband, who is Jewish, said he supported "the homeland for the Jewish people" but also made it clear he does not back all actions of the Israeli government.
Speaking after his visit to the Khan al-Ahmar camp on Saturday, Mr Miliband said: "What I have seen today shows that the expansion of Israeli settlements on the Palestinian West Bank is not only wrong and illegal but represents a mortal threat to the two-state solution and to a successful outcome of the peace process....

The USA has a moral obligation to defend the Palestinian Homeland no differently than it would defend Israel. Ethic cleansing is a crime at the Hague and the USA cannot be a part of it.

The Abbas government is not criminal. It does not have the capacity to cause problems. Quite the contrary. Palestine as it exists today is designed to be harmful to the future of the Palestinian Homeland. The Abbas government has little to know sovereign authority in protecting it's borders. If there is a reason extremists exist today in Palestine, then it is for the same reason they existed when Yassar Arafat attempted to end the hostilities between these two nations. Yassar Arafat's life was chronically under threat from both sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Who knows who actually killed him?

The truth is the truth, there can't be multiple choice. The facts are clear, Israel has no intention of conducting peace. Israel has extremists within it's borders and it's military supplies protections to those militants. The participation by the Israeli military indicts it's leadership in the aggressions of it's extremists as well. Neither Palestine or Israel can claim to be pursuing peace with such travesties, if anything Israel fuels and justifies the Palestinian extremists as it has more power in these circumstances.
Ben & Jerry’s is Selling Ice Cream in Israel’s Illegal Settlements in Palestine - See more at: http://www.vtjp.org/icecream/#sthash.p6JZ9mvU.dpufBen & Jerry’s is Selling Ice Cream in Israel’s Illegal Settlements in Palestine