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Madleen aid vessel is a priceless message to the people and resistance in Gaza

Several weeks before the Freedom Flotilla aid ship set sail to Gaza, Israeli drones bombed the Freedom Flotilla aid ship twice in international waters off the coast of Malta. Luckily, no one was injured.  After that, the Israeli navy intercepted and illegally seized the Madleen aid vessel in international waters when it was about 185 km from Gaza. The ship was transporting first aid and medicine to Gaza. The 12 activists on board who come from seven countries were kidnapped by Israeli pirates, held in isolation, have their phones confiscated and expected to be deported. Four of the activists included Greta Thunberg have been deported after signed expulsion document in Hebrew, a language that they don't understand, obviously consenting to breaking the Israeli laws. The other eight now refused to sign the document will be held for another 96 hours before they are expelled. Among them is Rima Hasan, a Palestinian French parliamentarian who holds diplomatic immunity, which Israel does not respect.

The Untied States of America?

America is heading towards a Constitutional crisis, with the President of the United States, on his own instance, federalizing the California National Guard and sending in the Marines to support the quasi-military fugitive operations of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), rounding up thousands of Angelenos in one of the most densely populated Hispanic and Latino counties in America—Los Angeles.

The President was not asked by local officials for help in controlling violent protests, perhaps because Los Angeles city and county together employ nearly 20,000 sworn law enforcement officers, trained and experienced in handling ambiguous and confrontational situations.

Yet, the President chose to bypass local authority, sending in 4,000 Guardsmen and 700 Marines under the authority of Title 10 of the U.S. Code, dealing with the Armed Forces, Chapter 13, which defines military operations in an insurrection, a violent uprising against the government.

Is Nuclear Winter a Climate Issue?

Thirty-five years after the start of the nuclear age with the first explosion of an atomic bomb, I visited the expanse of desert known as the Nevada Test Site, an hour’s drive northwest of Las Vegas. A pair of officials from the Department of Energy took me on a tour. They explained that nuclear tests were absolutely necessary. “Nuclear weapons are like automobiles,” one told me. “Ford doesn’t put a new automobile out on the highway until they’ve gone through a lengthy test process, driving hundreds of thousands of miles.”

 By then, in 1980, several hundred underground nuclear blasts had already occurred in Nevada, after the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty required that atomic testing take place below the earth’s surface. Previously, about 100 nuclear warheads had been set off above ground at that test site, sending mushroom clouds aloft and endangering with radiation exposure not just nearby soldiers but downwind civilians as well.

The four-man Fatah squad who helped free 7,000 Palestinian prisoners

On September 4, 1982, during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the Bahmdoun abduction operation was a military operation carried out by Fatah, the main constituent organization of the PLO. A Palestinian 4-man squad infiltrated the IDF-held mountainous area near north Bhamdoun, in central Lebanon and attack and IDF observation point, capturing the entire 8- men IDF soldiers from the newly formed Nahal Brigade unit. Four of the IDF soldiers were on active duty, while the remaining four were resting or sleeping. They were all captured without firing a single bullet, according to Wikipedia.
 
 
This provided the Palestinian side with plenty of leverage in two POW exchanges with Israel which free about 7000 Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners held at Ansar prison camp. A four-man squad of Fatah fighter from the elite Al-Jarmaq battalion, led by commander Eisa Hajjo, were selected for the mission.

The administration’s attempts to delegitimize science, especially climate-related science

We expected the worst environmental outcomes when Trump ran for and won re-election in November. Unfortunately, Trump and his administration are doing what we expected, though not totally.

At the time of the election in November 2024, I wrote this about Trump’s environmental policies 

“One of Trump’s signature slogans is ‘drill baby drill,’ which means, as he has told us, his upcoming government, once installed after January 20,2025, will (1) increase government support for fossil fuels, (2) reduce support for solar, wind, and geothermal, (3) encourage more export of fracked natural gas, (4) eviscerate or close the Environmental Protection Agency, (5) open up public land to drilling; and (6) serve as a discouraging international model for other countries to follow (https://vitalissuesbobsheak.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=4795&action=edit).

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