I'm not blaming him or you in particular, but I have whined about your back and forths, which no one but you two read and gets pretty far away from I/P.

in 1973 Israel faced a very serious existential threat - one almost unimaginable today.

Oh please, anyone but Kant. You cut my utilitarian sensibilities deep. But just to clarify, this whole you not participating in my fantasy world bit really just means you continuing to snipe at me, but with even less effort put on, ya know, cogent arguments than before?

If there's anyone interesting itt recently it's jalfrezi. Fresh blood. Could be on the border of going with friendly reasonable disagreement or deciding half or more of us are aholes. Could be a good addition to the thread.

I want to say that the NASA stuff was somewhat not serious slash I thought maybe he was really going for the moon landing as a hoax for a minute. Does NASA trumpet their accomplishments to lobby for funding? Of course. Could they jump the gun or maybe the PR department is ahead of the science? Sure.

Someone actually said they believe you want to kill everyone in gaza and the west bank? Or is this one of those roundabout you interpret a statement not close to this as being this type things? Granted, there are a lot of just horrible posters, but that would be pretty darned low. Still no idea why microbet brought it up in response to me.

According to the Shin Bet, 111 terror attacks were stopped this year so far. That said, the non-political murder rate is quite low in Israel.

How many terror attacks were thwarted in LA County? That might help answer the question.

yes, but only in an epistemological sense

youre easily the most interesting/least pleasure-seeking hedonist I ever met.

Remind me to tell you about the time I had a PHL100 TA agree that the great philosopher "Purple Laboucha" supported slaughterhouse tennis as a utilitarianist ethical endeavour.

right, that's fair. I only meant to point out that I occasionally (i.e. where he or lolKeeed are not involved) post substantive material as well.

someone else was all into genocide and iirc you didn't feel the need to speak up until I pointed out that everyone was silent. or maybe the opposite, you were the only one who spoke up. either way, posters' positions on genocide needed to be aired.

I'm not saying it's the same necessarily, but getting murdered is getting murdered and I think it helps keep things in perspective. In general, people, not just Israelis, are inordinately afraid of terrorism imo even relative to violence in general. And people are way inordinately afraid of violence.

are we at the part of the conversation where you pretend that your endless hours of debating me doesnt provide pleasure for you? Or are you still on the view that bickering with me is worth thousands of dollars an hour as a public service?

As for anyone else, I doubt anyone even reads it consistently.

It did when I thought you were debating in earnest.

not on the open market. Just to me.

iirc, someone made a claim that I said the logical consequence of which was genocide, was bad but wasn't even a direct call (they didn't seem to recognize the logic). But that isn't remotely the same as someone saying you want a genoicde of palestinians. I'm still confused why this came up.

So let's get this straight. Previously, you enjoyed debating me and believed it was worth thousands of dollars to do so. Now you don't enjoy it but still believe it is worth thousands of dollars. And you seem shocked that I might enjoy the debates you used to enjoy yourself. How odd.

And for something much, much less important, this piece has been making the rounds: http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/08/desig...struction-plan

Other than the obvious internal contradiction, criticisms of its major empirical claims?

Agree. (assuming pretty clear sarcasm is sarcasm).

I think the economic and physical condition in Gaza is incredibly important.

http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/a-speci...emium-1.624607

I was meaning that if no homes have been reconstructed but that 5.5% (or 25% of pre2008 levels) of materials are coming in, then clearly building materials are not a limiting factor in reconstruction

? I meant the sarcasm as being that it was "much, much less important".

Oh yes, sarcasm was indeed sarcastic

You didn't get it straight

I posted more robust evidence of that before but Team SIEGE seems to have not noticed:
The reasons why all of this is happening are obvious, as this article makes clear:

'People are losing hope' - Gaza's slow recovery from the war:
Hamas is misappropriating the concrete to rebuild the tunnels, and is not rebuilding neighbourhoods in Gaza. It appears they want to use Gaza neighbourhoods as zoos, where they bring in reporters and foreign diplomats to show how horrible life is in Gaza.

The GRM is keeping track of the reconstruction. Here is the data.

Some smart Gaza entrepreneurs are manufacturing concrete and recycling materials.

And "human rights" NGOs place the blame on...

Israel:
Every single NGO that signed onto this report is knowingly and willingly libelling Israel when they claim that Gazans cannot rebuild.

That list includes the following organizations, members of the Association of International Development Agencies:
Provable, blatant lies, just to slam Israel. From "non-partisan", "non-political", "human rights" NGOs.

We should donate some 2 by 4s so they can build wood framed houses.

Or, Qatar could ship in some prefab houses, but I think 2 by 4s would be better. More construction work for unemployed people.

Straw bale or adobe houses.

Solar powered, obv.

allegations of anti-Semitism in the pro-Palestine camp are unfounded, check