The Western Wall
Posted By: Big Bopper, 10/10/2023 9:54:40 AM
Note: I published this piece nine years ago when I was treking in Israel for a while. The unspeakable horror of last weekend prompts me to publish it again, my own small tribute to my Israeli and other Jewish friends. Muslims have the Taj Mahal and Mecca. Catholics have St. Peter’s Basilical and the Vatican. Jews have a wall. The Western Wall is a stack of massive stone blocks a few dozen feet high and a couple of hundred feet long. It’s all that’s left of Jerusalem’s second Jewish temple, a structure that astonished even the Romans. The Romans destroyed it to punish the Jews for their Great Revolt in 70 A.D.
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The Western Wall
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Note: I published this piece nine years ago when I was treking in Israel for a while. The unspeakable horror of last weekend prompts me to publish it again, my own small tribute to my Israeli and other Jewish friends.
Muslims have the Taj Mahal and Mecca. Catholics have St. Peter’s Basilical and the Vatican.
Jews have a wall.
The Western Wall is a stack of massive stone blocks a few dozen feet high and a couple of hundred feet long. It’s all that’s left of Jerusalem’s second Jewish temple, a structure that astonished even the Romans. The Romans destroyed it to punish the Jews for their Great Revolt in 70 A.D.
Palestinian terrorists (no, that’s not necessarily redundant) in Gaza launched a brutal terrorist attack on Israel yesterday. They slaughtered at least 800 Israelis, many of them unarmed women and children. Some were taken hostage back to Gaza where they were paraded through the streets and beaten.
It was a massive and highly coordinated attack with incursions by land, air and sea. From a thousand miles away, Iran was likely funding and coordinating it. There had to be a lot of cyber chatter preceding the attack.
Yet Israel was apparently caught by complete surprise.
The question being rightly asked is, how could Israel’s intel operations
But wait, I thought walls didn’t work!
7 replies
We were told by illegal immigration activists for years that walls don’t work, Oddly, however, they lobbied vigorously against a wall along our porous border with Mexico. If walls don’t work, I wondered, why are the pro-illegal immigration activists so dead set against them?
And if walls don’t work, I further wondered, why did the Berlin Wall succeed in imprisoning freedom-seekers for decades? Why are there walls around prisons? Why is there a wall around the White House?
But I’m not a wall scientist, so I figured there must be good answers to those questions but the answers were beyond my ken.
Demo-rats are jumping the Biden ship
4 replies
Most Americans say they will vote against Joe Biden next year, even if four-time indictee and twice-impeached Donald Trump is the Republican nominee.
Most Americans say Biden was on the take from foreign governments – they think he accepted bribes directly or through his criminal son. And most Democrats think Biden is too old to be president.
A recent poll by ABC/WaPo (not exactly “far-right-wingers” as the media likes to label dissenters from their narrative) puts Biden’s approval rating at 37% overall, in the low 30s on economics, and in the low 20s on immigration.
I’ve been a moderate conservative for over 40 years. My principal source of news has been the Wall Street Journal. Its investigations, reporting, writing and opinion work have been without parallel. (I’ll admit that my regard for the Journal may have been heightened when they published a piece I wrote on mountaineering.)
But no more. Yes, sometimes they still do very good investigative work. And the opinion pages are still very good and mostly conservative. (And their mountaineering stuff is fabulous, albeit limited.)
Iranian hostage-takers should be treated
like Barbary pirates and Palestinian terrorists
– kill them 1 reply
like Barbary pirates and Palestinian terrorists
– kill them 1 reply
The Barbary pirates were a ragtag gang of North African pirates who terrorized Europe for centuries. They pirated commercial shipping, raided as far north as Ireland and Iceland to abduct and enslave Europeans –especially women – for the harems of the Middle East, and exacted tribute in exchange for safe ocean passage.
In two wars, the new United States of America put an end to them. The first was in 1801-1805. The second was ten years later and lasted just a few days, permanently putting the barbarian Barbarians out of business. America and Europe finally stopped paying tribute and ransom and enduring slave raids.
There’s so much more to Deion than neon
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The University of Colorado football program over the years often contended for the Big 8 title. It was the home of great athletes like Kordell Stewart, Darian Hagan, Eric Bieniemy, Rashaan Salaam, Dave Logan and Cliff Branch.
But it fell on hard times the last few years. Last year, they finished 1-11, lost their last four games by an average of over 30 points, and fired the coach.
Then they did something bold. They hired a guy whose coaching experience was limited to several high schools, one of which was plagued by scandal, and then a historically Black college that played second division football.
There’s another COVID variant on the loose.
Yawn.
But it’s no yawn to the virtue signalers and the control freaks and the teachers’ unions and the socialist politicians and the “work” from home crowd. They see it as another chance to signal virtue, exercise freakish control, avoid real teaching, redistribute more wealth, and “work” from home forever.
They had a ball last time. Yes, it damaged a generation of children, cost the country trillions of dollars (the repayment of which we’ll bequeath to those damaged children), sparked a lawlessness that still endures, elected a mean, stupid, senile, bribe-taker to the presidency
This Labor Day, the new buzz is about balancing work with life.
It comes at a time when fewer people are employed than before the pandemic, and many of those who are employed are gaming the system by “working” from home in their PJs while surfing the internet and doing house work (oops, no, they pay others to clean their house). Productivity figures still lag pre-pandemic times.
Weirdly, they think even their part-time, disengaged, goal-less so-called work, in the absence of any accountability or supervision, is too much. It interferes with what they call life.
A wildfire on Maui this month burned down an entire town. It was because the local electric company spent far more money pandering to the Greens than on making their power lines safe. And because the local water czar refused to divert water to firefighters because “water equity.” It left over a hundred people dead and hundreds more still missing.
Joe Biden’s comment was “No comment.”
After all, he was on vacation – as he is 40% of the time – from the rigors of his usual vacation in the White House. After his vacation from vacation finally ended, they packed his somnolent corpus onto Air Force One to Maui
Most people want to join a tribe. With a tribe, you have a place to go – something like the bar in Cheers where everybody knows your name and they’re always glad you came. (Or is it “they’re always there to blame”?)
This tribal instinct is natural. For the first three million years of our existence, tribes served as cohesive institutions to defend themselves and their interests, to conquer the lands of competing tribes, to enslave the members of those competing tribes, to inseminate their women, and to hunt big game. Later they farmed cooperatively, built cities, undertook public works projects, sailed the seas and flew to the moon.
Imagine that I’m a politician (granted, that will never happen, but play along). I like attention and I like money. But much of the attention I’ve gotten over the years has been negative, and the straight salary of a politician is not very good. That’s always bugged me.
Imagine further that you’re someone who wants “access” to me, such as a corrupt foreign government official or corporation. For that access, you’re willing to pretend to respect me and, moreover, you’re willing to pay me that money I’ve always deserved.
Conscious of the appearance of impropriety and the reality of the bribery laws,
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The two men who were on the 2012 Republican presidential ticket are holding a closed-door event with a few 2024 candidates – but noticeably absent from the lineup are Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy.
Sen. Mitt Romney and his former running mate Paul Ryan are hosting the two-day summit in Park City, Utah with the goal of finding an alternative to Donald Trump winning the GOP nomination next year.
The candidates at the forum Tuesday and Wednesday are former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.
Harvard students who blamed Israel for the massacre of its citizens by Hamas had their own future thrown into doubt last night as a host of blue chip CEOs declared them unemployable.
The elite university faced a massive backlash after 31 of its student societies issued a joint statement ‘holding the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence’.
The Anti-Defamation League denounced the statement as ‘anti-Semitic’ and others accused the university of tolerating hate speech.But Wall Street appears even less forgiving with billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman revealing that his fellow bosses want to know who they are so ‘none of us inadvertently hire any of their members’.
The latest attack on Israel by the militant group Hamas was a failure of Israel's huge surveillance and defense systems, a retired US general told CNN. (snip) "What Hamas did, what their leadership did, was apparently they moved off of the normal modern communications links that we take for granted every day, and went back to what you did in the 19th century: face-to-face meetings, they went and used couriers instead of going in and using the telephone or the cell phone," he said. (snip) Leighton said that Hamas launched missiles with a short, lower trajectory, making them harder for Israel to shoot down.
The United States is readying its special forces to help Israel locate American hostages, as waves of Israeli Defense Force reservists arrived at JFK airport in New York to join the fight against Hamas.
Two senior U.S. military officials told The Messenger that 'door kickers' have been put on standby in a nearby European country, ready to assist Israel if necessary in their battle against Hamas. The Israeli death toll rose to 1,200 on Tuesday.
The military sources told the website that there was currently no indication the U.S. special forces would be sent to Israel, but they were only a few hours away by plane if need be.
Encampment-overrun Denver is set to break ground on the first of many micro-communities designed to house the homeless - with 1,000 taxpayer-funded homes set to open by the end of the year. The site, located on S. Santa Fe Drive, is one of 11 being propped up by the famously progressive city, which is currently in the midst of an unprecedented homelessness crisis. Worsening matters is the fact the homeless are not exactly roughing it - with tent-laden processions complete with furniture and other amenities now a common sight in the Mile High City.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has broken with members of her far-left 'squad' of Democrat lawmakers to condemn the 'unacceptable' Pro-Palestine rallies in NYC.
'It should not be hard to shut down hatred and antisemitism where we see it,' AOC said in a statement Monday. 'That is a core tenet of solidarity. The bigotry and callousness expressed in Times Square on Sunday were unacceptable and harmful in this devastating moment.'
A pro-Palestinian mob took over Times Square on Sunday - just one day after terrorist organization Hamas launches its assault on Israel that has left more than 1,000 people dead.
Pope Francis Blames America First
26 replies
When I was growing up and attending Catholic schools, I was taught that the pope is infallible.
But then I read Pope Francis’ updated encyclical letter last week, and now I can only conclude that at least this pope is fallible. In fact, the declaration is so filled with anti-Christian fallacies that one has to wonder whether we have a pope that is actually Catholic. (snip) the U.S. has more emissions and uses more energy than many other nations, but that is because we produce far more output per capita than all other nations except China. It’s the reason the United States is the breadbasket of the world.
Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger has reportedly been left “overwhelmed and exhausted” by the challenge of righting the ship at the Mouse House, whose tanking stock price has spurred activist investor Nelson Peltz to further boost his stake in the firm.
People in Iger’s inner circle told Bloomberg News that the CEO, who recently returned to helm the company with great fanfare after the disastrous tenure of his handpicked successor, Bob Chapek, has often joked to confidantes: “Why did I come back?” Peltz, who called off his proxy fight with Disney in February after Iger committed to a $5.5 billion cost-cutting spree which included laying off 7,000 employees,
Babies beheaded, grandparents slain and families torn apart – the full horror of 'Israel's 9/11' was starting to emerge last night.
Hamas gunmen massacred 40 children in one farm settlement alone, their small bodies lying in their rooms riddled with bullets.
And as shellshocked survivors told their stories, one bereaved grandson, Shmuel Harel, told me: 'They are the new Nazis. This was a holocaust, pure and simple.' He said his terrified 90-year-old grandmother's last moments were being dragged into her living room and shot twice in the head.
A sobbing Israeli woman said she had to listen in helpless horror as her 12-year-old autistic daughter was kidnapped
Global renewable energy funds saw record outflows of money in the third quarter of 2023 as stocks of wind and solar developers and suppliers crashed amid rising costs, higher interest rates, and supply-chain challenges. Renewable energy exchange traded funds (ETFs), tracking the performance of clean energy companies, suffered a total of $1.4 billion of outflows in the third quarter, the highest outflows of any previous quarter, according to data from LSEG Lipper cited by Reuters.
Joe Biden on Tuesday delivered remarks on the ambush Hamas terror attack against Israel over the weekend.
He was 90 minutes late to his remarks. This is the first time the public has seen Joe Biden since Saturday.
Biden sounded like he just rolled out of bed as he mumbled for 10 minutes. He confirmed that 14 Americans in Israel have been taken hostage by Hamas terrorists.
“Sadly for the Jewish people, it’s not new. This attack is brought to the surface painful memories & the scars left by a millennia of anti-Semitism and genocide of the Jewish people…We must be crystal clear. We stand with Israel…
Democrats support Palestinians over Israel,
GOP overwhelmingly stands with US ally:
2023 poll 23 replies
GOP overwhelmingly stands with US ally:
2023 poll 23 replies
More Democrats in the United States support Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank than Israel, the closest U.S. ally in the Middle East, according to a 2023 poll. Democratic sympathies for Palestinians has increased over the last decade, and a Gallup poll published in March 2023 found their affinity toward the Palestinians finally eclipsed their support of Israel, 49% to 38%.
The attitudes from March reflected a continued decline in Israeli support, from 40% to 38% and an 11-point surge of support for Palestinian people, from 38% to 49%.
The 38% support for Israel was a historic low