sweasel.com

When you set your computer’s clock, use GMT Conakry, Guinea. Countries close to the equator don’t need adjust clocks seasonally.

Weasel I’m afraid your right about what some people will say when Tel Aviv inevatabley smokes, but the question is what do people like us do then? That question really does keep me awake sometimes.

It’s no my computer’s clock, Malcolm, it’s the blog’s clock. And GMT proper — from what I understand — does not adjust seasonally. So when we’re on British Summer Time, we’re off GMT by an hour.

So, for example, the shipping forecast on the BBC varies by an hour. And the time our electricity switches to cheap rate.

Now let’s be fair here – the southeastern third of The Magic Kingdom and the adjacent portions of Yemen and Oman are inhabited primarily by quartz grains, and they don’t generally use much light at night.

Lost another pool contestant today – Rue McClennahan (sp ?).

Yes, I’m relieved we got her and Hopper out of the way waiting for Friday. That was destined to be a short round whatever happened.

You would think these tools would realize that Israel plays for keeps. Granted, they went on board the Gaza Flotilla with paint ball guns leading, but 10 of the “peace” activists ended toes up.

If the day comes where Tel Aviv is a smoking crater, that will also include craters in Damascus, Mecca, Medina, Qom, Therhan, and a fair number of other places. Israel’s stated proportionality is 10 for 1.

What’s everyone going to do, go to the UN and condemn them? I’m sure that keeps them up at night.

Madam “S”:

This is off-topic ‘n stuff but if I posted where it was O[n]T, it’d get buried. A couple of us bloggers over in the Noonited Snakes were wondering if anyone saw Michael “Cheeseburger” Moore recently. I say he pounded down a couple dozen Whoppers and exploded all over the walls of his flat in New Yawk. The other guy thinks he is undergoing sex reassignment surgery because he can’t find his winkie in the rolls of fat.

So I said I’d ask you if maybe you could do either a wanted poster or a milk carton pic of him so we could find him..

..seein’s how you did that great work of Algore..

..’n stuff.

Thanks awfully,

Your devoted servant, &c.

~TWP

*whistle* lol the only time you’ll find tents in israel is in september… (feast of booths? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_booths) … unlike OTHER countrys…..

Well, in all fairness, all those other countries are mostly sand. And Egypt IS lit up where it’s habitable, along the Nile.

But yeah, valid point.

In the back of my mind, in that dark, dank, political place, I sometimes wish that the whole of the middle east, with the exception of Israel, was laid waste.

And I think dropping Michael Moore from 50,000 feet would do the trick.

having a serious moment… which is rarely a good thing.

We (my fellow bloggers) are truly and seriously talking, theorizing and contemplating the pending annihilation of a rational, forward looking, society respecting, GOD respecting, contributing to the advancement of humanity, Nation. The fact that this world and the US of A specifically is not apoplectic about it is gut wrenching.
I know that the majority of us in this venue are ahead of the curve and “get it”… but how do we relay this to our friends and society at large….?
this path is so stunningly wrong my mind recoils in revulsion and horror.
I’ve been babbling about it for so long most people have tuned me out as being “that crazy man” (ron paul like)and i don’t see how i’m politically electable (still trying though)or able to make a significant difference.

PEOPLE, Friends, fellow human beings….. what the fuck are we doing….

i pray that Farnham’s Freehold is not going to come true….

i’m truly open to suggestions.

Nice graphic, stoatie.

There are a couple comments here that talk about the extensiveness of desert in some of the surrounding Arab countries, and how it isn’t really a fair comparison. This misses the point.

The land of Israel, after hundreds of years of Arab control, was just as much desert as its neighbors. The Jews reclaimed most of the land through ingenuity and hard work, starting decades before the nation of Israel was declared.

Had the “Palestinian” Arabs been in possession, it would have continued to be a desert; just as dark as its neighbors. Don’t know if it’s civilization vs. Islam, as the caption states (there are plenty of Muslims who are decent folk; a lot of them live in Israel). It is sure as shit the difference between free people and those who live out their lives under petty despots.

Spot on about the left, stoatie: they will tut-tut if Israel is nuked, then go on to enjoy their lunches.

This shouldn’t surprise anyone. After all…Islam is a Disease, wrapped around an Ideology, inside a Cult.

…smothered in pork green chili sauce, covered with shredded sharp cheddar cheese…mmmmm.

I did think about the amount of desert in the region. But a couple of points — one, huge swathes of the US (I’m looking at YOU, Texas) are empty, but if you look at the satellite pics (click the link labeled “proper Western nation”) it’s astonishingly lit up, coast to coast. The ME is about the equivalent of Alaska, by my eyeballs.

And two — what Pavel said. A co-worker of mine went to Israel and said you could tell where the boundary of the nation was just by looking. Where it suddenly turns green? That’s Israel. They’ve intensively irrigated and improved the tiny strip of land they’re holding. Just over the border in any direction, not so much.

Can I get me a time stamp, here?

Maybe her Weaselness needs to get one of those star date calculators or something.

And somehow I believe that it wouldn’t be possible to beat anyone to death with those past-their-expiration-date dicks.

BTW…I have my pick at the ready….

I promise, this will be yet another short rounder!

[…] Civilization vs Islam. An interesting sat map of the Middle East with a boundary map overlaid on it by Miz S. Weasel. The lighted spot end to end – Israel. A few other large cities lit up as well. […]

Totally off-topic, but have it anyway: Smart Stoats

Those are smarter than ours in the country, Stacy. I’ve seen four dead stoats in the road this year.

Dead is the only way I’ve ever seen one 🙁

stampity stamp stamp

“Dead is the only way I’ve ever seen one”

Ee’s not dead….He’s pining!

Remarkable stoat, the Wiltshire Wenge…..

(Randy Rager ) “Well, in all fairness, all those other countries are mostly sand.”

Yeah so they are. But HOW long have they had to delevop a country? it took israel about 40 years starting in the 60’s.. …. its taken everywhere else much, much longer to get past the “we lives in tents, fire is the only source of light which we make with poo” stage ….. let alone electricity as a common utility. (not to mention all the psychopaths that SOMEHOW been came the leaders of those country and started to kill people as soon as they came to power…. i mean how many israelies do you see doing THAT?)

Weez: “you could tell where the boundary of the nation was just by looking.”

I’ve always been able to do the same thing with the border between Colorado and New Mexico.

Oooo…. Five minutes ’til Dead Pool!

John Wooden!

(And now, finally….I will haz me a spotted dick! WooHoo! And no having to debase myself with begging and groveling “Pleeze, Miz Weasel, stuff me with your spotted dick!)

Stoaty, you’re right about the border. A long time ago I took a bus from Cairo to Tel Aviv and as soon as we crossed the border, BAM!, green stuff everywhere. Egypt, except along the Nile was tan dusty desert with crap and old tanks laying around. Israel was all nicely irrigated and fertile.

I’m pretty much pro-Israel, but this is a cheap shot. Most of the blank areas are blank because they are completely barren deserts. Note that that includes the southern half of Israel.

And, no, Israel was not “just as much of a desert” as the rest of the area. The northern half of the area which became “Mandatory Palestine” and is now mostly Israel was the western end of the “Fertile Crescent”. It was one of the inhabited parts of the region, along with Lebanon, western Syria, and Mesopotamia.

The Israelis have done a lot with it, but it should be compared to Lebanon, not (say) the Sinai desert or Saudi Arabia.

The photo does raise some interesting questions. For instance, how much of the glow from the Persian Gulf coasts is flare gas from the oil fields? That big blurry spot in SW Iran is gas flare, I think.

And what’s that blob at the Syria-Iraq border? It’s about where the Euphrates crosses the border, and there’s a road. Is the light some kind of monster truck stop? It can’t be flare gas – there’s no oil out there.

Cyprus and Crete are pretty dim; so’s Turkey. (And this week’s events suggest that is figuratively as well as literally true.)

It looks like someone overlaid the photo with an outline map, and especially in the east the projections don’t match.

Interesting observations, Rich, that to some degree reinforce the point stoatie is trying to make here. I don’t think the Fertile Crescent has much to do with anything, else we’d see a nice crescent-shaped sweep of lights to the north and east from Israel.

2/3 of Israel is covered by the Negev desert – sand and swamp, if left to its own devices (or left in Arab hands). The Israelis have reclaimed a great percentage of it. The density of light in Israel drops off essentially immediately at its border. You don’t find anything like it in the region until you get over to the lower Nile, where the earth is so rich even the Arabs can’t manage to fuck it up too bad (though they try.)

The map is not scientifically precise, to be sure, but it does show an unmistakable tendency.

A few years ago I walked around the Old City portion of Jerusalem. The Old City is roughly divided into neighborhoods along ethnic/religious lines. A noticeable contrast among them. Most markets included butcher’s stalls. A meat market will always have a distinctive odor, but in the Jewish sector they smelled of freshly butchered meat, and the displays always looked clean. But the meat markets in the muslim sectors, presumably halal, absolutely stank and looked somewhat grimy. And no one is going to convince me that somehow those mean Jews force the muslim shopkeepers to reduce their level of hygiene. It says something about the culture. It was a stark lesson my nose will not soon forget.