Unheeded, Prophetic Words

In a June 12, 1967, column in I.F. Stone's Weekly, Stone wrote:

Israel's swift and brilliant victory only makes its reconciliation with the Arabs more urgent. Its future and world peace call for a general and final settlement now of the Palestine problem. The cornerstone of that settlement must be to find new homes for the Arab refugees, some within Israel, some outside it, all with compensation for their lost lands and properties. The world Jewish community, already girding itself for a huge financial effort to aid Israel, should be thankful that its victory has come with so little loss of life or damage to either side. The same funds may now be diverted to a constructive and human cause. It was a moral tragedy – to which no Jew worthy of our best Prophetic tradition could be insensitive – that a kindred people was made homeless in the task of finding new homes for the remnants of the Hitler holocaust. Now is the time to right that wrong, to show magnanimity in victory, and to lay the foundation of a new order in the Middle East in which Israeli and Arab can live in peace.

This alone can make Israel secure. This is the third Israeli-Arab war in 20 years. In the absence of a general settlement, war will recur at regular intervals. The Arabs will thirst for revenge.

Marine Traffic

There is a nifty application that we keep on our phone, and look at only occasionally, called Marine Traffic.

Most ships at sea use GPS not only to keep themselves on course, but to let others know where they are. Marine Traffic picks up those signals and maps the positions of the reporting ships. You can touch a ship's icon, and the program will tell you the ship's name, its speed, whether it's a tanker, a cargo ship, or whatever, where it started from, and where it's going.Very cool. 

The other day we took a look at what's going on in the Atlantic Ocean, and saw this:

Click on map for a larger view.

This is actually a "summary" picture. There are far more ships than this, as you discover when you zoom in to the picture. But even so, we found one thing to be rather startling:

Those purple ships? Those are yachts.

Now take a look at the Indian Ocean:

Click on map for a larger view.

The red ships are tankers. The ones that appear to be black are fishing vessels. Cargo vessels are green.

Just thought that was interesting.

The Red Wave

There's nothing we can add to the unending commentary of the talking heads about the mid-term elections. But we did want to share this postcard, found lying in an alley beside a recycling bin:

(Tee-hee.)

Okay, I will add one observation. A billionaire named Dick Uihlein set fire to $50 million in an effort to get this alleged Christian, Darren Bailey, elected.

We're still smiling.

Where Could This War Go?

For those with the time, this discussion of the outlook for the war in Ukraine is very informative. The first 50 seconds or so is just an outtake from later in the discussion; i.e., it repeats itself. The whole thing is about 18 minutes.

Where else have Iranian drones been used by one side, and Turkish drones by the other?  It could be significant down the road.

What NATO country is most likely to wimp out this winter? His guess is the same as ours.

On the Other Hand ...

A week ago we heard retired U.S. General Ben Hodges predict that Ukraine would take back Crimea next year.  Wow! That's great news. 

It is not an opinion held by all. In this video, former MI6 chief Alex Younger is not so optimistic. The entire interview is interesting and informative, but his opinion about the course of the war begins at about 8:50.