Yaakov Kirschen's Blog, page 235

Lag Ba'Omer

The scene depicted in the cartoon will take place tomorrow night after the Sabbath ends and the bonfires of the Lag Ba'Omer holiday light up the sky. -Dry Bones- Israel's Political Comic Strip Since 1973

Viral Antisemitism

The Dry Bones Project

We've set up a tax deductible (U.S.)project which offers creative Dry Bones answers to the challenge of viral antisemitism.
To see some of what the Dry Bones Project has done and is doing please click on Secretcodeshiddenwar.com

For more details on what else the Dry Bones Project is doing and how to support our work please click on http://drybonesproject.com/ -Dry Bones- Israel's Political Comic Strip Since 1973

Being Normal

We should be better than to sink to the level of "normal" countries.

the breaking story:

Court convicts former PM Olmert in Holyland graft trial
For first time in history, ex-PM convicted of taking bribes.
Judge claims Olmert 'lied in court,' after new info given in high-profile case -more

-Dry Bones- Israel's Political Comic Strip Since 1973

Media Popularity

Yup.
They just love the story of the "Bad Jews." -Dry Bones- Israel's Political Comic Strip Since 1973

America's Blame Game

Israeli Official Slams Indyk's 'Hypocrisy'

A senior Israeli official has accused U.S. mediator Martin Indyk of “hypocrisy” in the wake of his comments blaming Israeli “settlement activity” for causing peace talks with the Palestinian Authority (PA) to fail.
The official, who spoke to Reuters on Friday, said Indyk had known construction in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem would continue during the discussions...

Indyk, who spoke Thursday at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, insisted that both sides were guilty of bad faith and "not serious" about peace.
However, he also lay harsh blame on Israel's "settlements" for the failure of peace talks, claiming they had torpedoed negotiations on purpose.
“I can tell you first hand that that [announcing more building] had a very damaging effect, and by the way it was intended to have that damaging effect,” he said. “The promoters of the settlement activity are the ones who were adamantly opposed to the negotiations even though they were in a government that was committed to the negotiations.”
“Rampant settlement activity – especially in the midst of negotiations – doesn’t just undermine Palestinian trust in the purpose of the negotiations; it can undermine Israel’s Jewish future,” Indyk charged . “If this continues, it could mortally wound the idea of Israel as a Jewish state – and that would be a tragedy of historic proportions.”-more

-Dry Bones- Israel's Political Comic Strip Since 1973

the American Flaw

A favorite quote of mine:

"Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing
...after they have exhausted all other possibilities."

-Winston Churchil -Dry Bones- Israel's Political Comic Strip Since 1973

face it

According to Time:

More Than 11 Million Young People Have Fled Facebook Since 2011

Skeptics of Facebook’s business model have long pointed to anecdotal evidence that the social network is losing its luster with teens as evidence that the firm will ultimately be unable to justify its $140 billion valuation. Indeed, even Facebook itself admitted last fall that it had lost younger users. “We did see a decrease in [teenage] daily users [during the quarter], especially younger teens,” Facebook chief financial officer David Ebersman said during a call with analysts.

But it’s always been difficult to gauge exactly what the magnitude of this lost interest has been. On Wednesday, the digital consultancy iStrategy Labs released a study that draws from Facebook’s Social Advertising platform to glean exactly how many young users have left the social network in recent years. The resulting estimates are pretty staggering. According to iStrategy, Facebook has 4,292,080 fewer high-school aged users and 6,948,848 college-aged users than it did in 2011. -more -Dry Bones- Israel's Political Comic Strip Since 1973

Better Search Results

According to Reuters:

Google Unveils Email Scanning Practices in New Terms of Service
April 14, 2014
Google Inc updated its terms of service on Monday, informing users that their incoming and outgoing emails are automatically analyzed by software to create targeted ads.

The revisions more explicitly spell out the manner in which Google software scans users' emails, both when messages are stored on Google's servers and when they are in transit, a controversial practice that has been at the heart of litigation.

Last month, a U.S. judge decided not to combine several lawsuits that accused Google of violating the privacy rights of hundreds of millions of email users into a single class action.

Users of Google's Gmail email service have accused the company of violating federal and state privacy and wiretapping laws by scanning their messages so it could compile secret profiles and target advertising. Google has argued that users implicitly consented to its activity, recognizing it as part of the email delivery process. -more

-Dry Bones- Israel's Political Comic Strip Since 1973

The Way It Is

Sunday evening May 4 through Monday May 5 is Yom Hazikaron, Israel's National Remembrance Day for the Fallen & the Victims of Terror.

Monday evening May 5 through Tuesday May 6 is Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel's Independence day.

The official "switch" from Yom Hazikaron to Yom Ha'atzmaut takes place a few minutes after sundown, with a ceremony at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl military cemetery in which the national flag is raised from half staff to the top of the pole. Usually, the president of Israel will deliver a speech of congratulations while soldiers representing all the various branches and units of the Israel Defense Forces parade with their flags. In recent decades this smaller-scale ceremony has replaced a much larger daytime parade which was the main event during the 1950s and '60s. -more

-Dry Bones- Israel's Political Comic Strip Since 1973

Israel at 66!

This coming week we'll be celebrating Israel's 66th Birthday!Happy Israel Day! -Dry Bones- Israel's Political Comic Strip Since 1973