The Origin of the Ashkenazi Jews

Interesting reading and links from Razib:

"Roughly the Ashkenazi Jews are a half and half mix of a Middle Eastern population and various European groups. The majority of the European ancestry is “Southern European,” probably something like Italian. But, a minority of the European ancestry is like “Eastern European.” Additionally, the former admixture pre-dated the bottleneck, and probably dates to ~1000 A.D., while the latter event post-dates the bottleneck."

*snip*

And from the comment section, Dx states:

"As to the 2nd wave, there is a curious onomastic tidbit. While traditional Ashkenazi male given names are a mix of Hebrew, German, and Romance etymologies, the female given names have an additional, and historically widespread, layer of etymologically Slavic names. The traditional given names are after a deceased ancestor, and thus show remarkable (albeit by no means perfect) persistence over time. The thing about these etymologically Slavic feminine given names is that they come from Old Czech, and are already attested in the old Prague records. It could be interpreted as a hint that Prague, hypothesized to be the earliest post-bottleneck population center, is also where the elements of the sex-biased admixture took place. Alas, no ancient DNA…" 

Arenas

In Matt's last awesome post lewy alluded to all the arenas in which this political fight is being waged. This hit song caught my attention the first time I heard it a few days ago. Interesting. VERY interesting.

What's Not To Like?

From the Daily Mail:

Earlier this month, senior Tory Cabinet ministers published six pieces of legislation they hoped to pass to restore Britain's border controls and end the supremacy of EU law following a Brexit. 

Michael Gove, Chris Grayling and Boris Johnson set out what is effectively a manifesto for a 'government in waiting'. They pledged that the new laws would be in place by the next General Election in 2020.

Finance Bill: This would abolish the 5 per cent rate of VAT on household energy bills. Paid for by savings from the UK’s contributions to the EU budget. 

National Health Service (Funding Target) Bill: Requirement that by the next general election, the NHS receives a £100 million per week real-terms cash transfusion on top of current plans. Paid for by savings from the UK’s contributions to EU budget. 

Asylum and Immigration Control Bill: Ends the automatic right of all EU citizens to enter the UK by the next election. Criminals refused entry and a ‘non-discriminatory’ Australian points-based system, based on skills, introduced for those wishing to enter from inside and outside the EU. 

European Union Law (Emergency Provisions) Bill: This would end the European Court of Justice’s control over national security, allow ministers to remove EU citizens whose presence is not conducive to the public good – including terrorists and serious criminals – and end the growing use of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights to overrule UK law. 

Free Trade Bill: The UK would leave the EU’s ‘common commercial policy’. That would restore the UK Government’s power to set its own trade policy. UK would take back seat on the World Trade Organization. 

European Communities Act 1972 (Repeal) Bill: Ensures the European Communities Act 1972 – the legal basis for supremacy of EU law – is repealed. EU Treaties will cease to form part of UK law and European Court’s jurisdiction will end. UK would cease to contribute to the EU budget. EU law to be transferred into domestic law with Parliament choosing what to keep, remove or amend.

(Emphasis mine.)

I wonder how many people in the "Remain" camp realised exactly how much British sovereignty was ceded to the Union.

Okay, who wants to start the UN exodus...anyone?

Autumn In Europe

I can't get liveleak html embed video code to work on TCKT, so here is a link to another fascinating video.

Spain's New Gag Law

Wow. Just wow.

The countdown has ended. The government’s new Citizen Safety Law went into effect on Wednesday despite widespread rejection from opposition parties and many sections of society.

“Demonstrations will be freer because they will be protected from violent elements,” claims the ruling Popular Party (PP).

But the opposition accuses the government of creating “a police state” because law enforcement officers will have the power to hand out administrative sanctions that were, until now, the sole preserve of judges.

The following are five things that will be limited by the new “gag law,” as its critics call it.

READ THE REST HERE. 

Coming Soon...

Trip to Israel, how I fractured my elbow, the Israeli health care system, things you never knew about Annie (hint: she lives in Israel!)

The whole of Israel is kosher (who knew?)

Everything closes on Shabbat, even the elevators.

Wine is cheaper than water in Israel (seems fitting somehow, no?)

Cobra Dane. Up and Operational.

THIS is interesting:

A missile-detecting radar array on the remote Aleutian island of Shemya has been spared from sequestration.

Facing half a billion dollars in budget cuts, Reuters reports the Air Force decided earlier this year to reduce operating time for the system in order to save roughly $5 million a year. But last week, General William Shelton announced a reversal of that plan, citing concerns over North Korea.

The 120-foot tall, 95-foot wide Cobra Dane radar can detect objects up to 2,000 miles away.

Bureaucracy Run Amok

Ha ha, from my FB page. This letter (real or not) explains many of the reasons I haven't renewed my UK passport for a couple of years.

This, apparently, is an actual letter received by the UK Passport Office.

Dear Sirs,

I'm in the process of renewing my passport, and still cannot believe how is it that Sky Television has my address and telephone number and knows that I bought a bleeding satellite dish from them back in 1988, and yet, the Government is still asking me where I was bloody born and on what date.

Do you guys do this by hand? My birth date you have on my pension book. It's on all the income tax forms I've filed for the past 30 years. It is on my National Health card. My driving licence. My car insurance. On the last eight damn passports I've had. It's on all those stupid customs declaration forms I've had to fill out before being allowed off the plane over the last 30 years. All those insufferable census forms.

Would somebody please take note, once and for all, that my mother's name is Mary Anne, my father's name is Robert and I'd be absolutely astounded if that WOULD ever change between now and when I die!!

I apologise, I'm really pissed off this morning. Between you an' me, I've had enough of this bullshit! You send the application to my house, then you ask me for my bleeding address!! What is going on? Do you have a gang of neanderthal arseholes workin' there? Look at my damn picture. Do I look like Bin Laden? I don't want to dig up Yasser Arafat, for shit sakes. I just want to go and park my arse on some sandy beach somewhere.

And would someone please tell me, why would you give a shit whether I plan on visiting a farm in the next 15 days? If I ever got the urge to do something wierd to a chicken or a goat, believe you me, you'd be the last fucking people I'd want to tell!

Well, I have to go now,'cause I have to go to the other end of the poxy city to get another fucking copy of my birth certificate, to the tune of £30. Would it be so complicated to have all the services in the same spot to assist in the issuance of a new passport the same day? Nooooooooooooo, that'd be too damn easy and maybe make sense. You'd rather have us running all over the fuckin' place like chickens with our heads cut off, then WE have to find some arsehole to confirm that it's really me on the damn picture - you know, the one where we're not allowed to smile?! (bureaucratic fuckin' morons) Hey, do you know why we couldn't smile if we wanted to? Because we're totally pissed
off!

Signed An Irate Citizen

P.S. Remember what I said above about the picture and getting someone to confirm that it's me? Well, my family has been in this country since 1776 ... I have served in the military for something over 30 years and have had full security clearances over 25 of those years enabling me to undertake highly secretive missions all over the world. However, I have to get someone 'important' to verify who I am - you know, someone like my doctor .. WHO WAS BORN AND RAISED IN FRIGGIN` PAKISTAN!

Bibi

29 year old "Ben Nitay" in 1978. Just as smart, erudite and handsome then as now.

Go Bibi!



PS Ben Nitay is the Anglicized version of Benjamin Netanyahu.

And On This Day We Honour And Remember Them

Remembrance Day 2012, the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.



Video courtesy of Veterans Canada.

Field of Remembrance, Westminster Abbey.  British soldiers killed in Afganistan.

 

 

 

 

Thank you brave soldiers for your courage and sacrifice.

Saturday Night Canadian Music, Eh!

Highlighting the best female vocalists from Canada. Yeah (eh) Canada!

Sweet Surrender, Sarah McLachlan



Help Me, Joni Mitchell



Constant Craving, k.d. lang



From This Moment On, Shania Twain



Insensitive, Jann Arden



You Needed Me, Anne Murray



Misguided Angel, Cowboy Junkies featuring Margo Timmins

Girl On The Scene

As many of you know our much loved airforcewife and family have taken up residence in deepest, darkest Africa (where there is no cheese, sacrebleu!)
Those of us who facebook have been keeping up with their fascinating and hilarious adventures of every day life in Africa.  For those of you who don't facebook, good news, airforcewife has started a new blog called "Girl On The Scene"

I have also included a link to her blog (with her permission) in the sidebar under Pure Gold Blogs.

Enjoy!

Flytilla Folly Fizzles

This is a cross post from my own blog (at Fay's special request). I hope you enjoy it! :-)

It's spring, the day after Pesach, so what do pro-Palestinian terror-supporting "activists" do to celebrate? Why, they plan a "fly-in" to Israel - a flytilla - along the lines of the various flotillas that tried to "break the siege" of Gaza, and similar to the one organized (and which similarly fizzled) last summer.
The aim of the flytilla is two-fold: to get to Palestinian territory and cause disruption there, and to cause as much disruption as possible to Israel's Ben Gurion airport and the innocent travelling public along the way.  As CiFWatch's fact sheet on the flytilla, it's supporters, sponsors and participants states:

According to the organisers, the project is part of the “challenge to Israel’s illegal siege of Palestine”, with their publicity stating that:

“There is no way into Palestine other than through Israeli control points. Israel has turned Palestine into a giant prison, but prisoners have a right to receive visitors.
Welcome to Palestine 2012 will again challenge Israel’s policy of isolating the West Bank while the settler paramilitaries and army commit brutal crimes against a virtually defenceless Palestinian civilian population.”

In 2011 the Palestine Justice Network launched a campaign entitled the ‘One State Initiative’ which rejects the internationally accepted route of negotiations leading to a two-state solution in order to end the Arab-Israeli conflict. Thus, ‘Air Flotilla 2′ represents another campaign designed to lead ultimately to an externally imposed ‘one state solution’ which would entail the dismantling of Israel as a Jewish state and an end to Jewish self-determination.
Provocation and bad public relations for Israel are also part of the underlying motive of the project, as expressed by organizer Jaques Neno when he told potential participants at a meeting in Paris last January that should they end up being arrested, “you have won because when Israel puts you in prison it shows how it becomes more and more fascist”.

In addition, CiFWatch has published an excellent and very detailed report by Hadar Sela.
It would also appear that these "activists" chose today specifically because it is one of Israel's busiest travel days, with tourists and travellers entering and leaving Israel after the Pesach and Easter holidays.

Police in Brussels tussle with flytilla activists

So far however, it seems that the flytilla has been another of those spectacular fizzles that give us such an overdose of schadenfreude. The Times of Israel reports that European airlines have cancelled the tickets of around 100 flytilla participants at the request of Israel:

A coordinator of a mass fly-in of pro-Palestinian activists into Israel’s main airport says airlines have canceled flights for at least 100 people.
Amira Musallam said Saturday that activists notified her via email that Lufthansa, EasyJet and Air France canceled the flight reservations of some suspected activists. Israel Radio reported that British Airways has done the same.
[...]
Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich has called the activists “provocateurs” and said they are bent on disturbing the public order.
Israel reportedly sent no-fly lists to foreign airlines and warned them to bar persona non grata or foot the bill for deporting them.

UPDATE: Even Israel's newest adversary Turkey has prevented activists from boarding planes to Israel.

Authorities are paying particular attention to flights arriving from England, France, Belgium and Turkey, as most of the international activists are expected to arrive from these countries.
Turkish authorities were actively preventing activists from getting on flights from Istanbul, according to reports on Twitter.
Israel Radio reported that 100 activists in Geneva and seven in Rome were prevented from boarding their flights by authorities.

Nine activists who did manage to make it through to Israel were arrested on arrival at Ben Gurion airport.
Ynet adds that Israel has deported several activists who arrived in Israel, whereas activists who have been refused travel permission are staging a protest at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport.
And the Guardian (of course) records the outrage of some British would-be participants in the flytilla who had their tickets cancelled - for which the price will NOT be refunded:

Israel has forced low-cost airline Jet2.com to cancel the tickets of three women from Manchester intending to travel to Bethlehem via Tel Aviv this weekend for a gathering of pro-Palestinian activists.
Jet2.com informed the women by email that the airline would refuse to carry them and no refund would be paid. The move follows pressure on airlines from Israel to ban known activists.
One of the women, retired nurse Norma Turner, said Jet2.com had caved in to pressure. "It never crossed my mind that Israel could stop people with British passports leaving British airports," she told the Guardian.

Of course! It's the Zionist entity's far-reaching tentacles that can reach deep into the British aviation industry. It doesn't occur to the stupid woman that no airline will allow known trouble-makers to travel on their aircraft if they have been informed beforehand by the destination country that these people will be denied entry and that the airline will be considered responsible for repatriating these people. Has she never heard of the American no-fly list for example?
Turner concludes:

"Every country has the right to control its own borders. But to stop us leaving British shores just shows the extent of Israel's power and influence."

What a nasty statement, implying a sinister Israeli "influence" over British travel. She admits that every country has the right to control its own borders but seems to deny that right to Israel. Israel has not stopped her from leaving Britain. They just won't let her enter Israel.
To top off the feel-good moment (which I hope will continue throughout the day), the Israeli government has produced a letter to be handed to any and all activists who do arrive in Israel (h/t Israel Matzav for the full text).  I really and truly hope this is not a spoof. :-) (Click to enlarge).

Letter from Israel's Government to flytilla activists

Let's hope this flytilla fizzle continues to sputter and die out fast.

"When Jews are targeted for destruction,we are all targeted"

Stockwell Day a well known (in Canada) former Canadian conservative politician wrote this amazing blog post after the terrorist murders in Toulouse.

Every one of us who is not Jewish must link arms in a virtual and virtuous circle of protection of the Jewish people around the globe, wherever they live.

Those who allow toxic anti-Semitic thoughts to brew chillingly deep within their depraved hearts and minds must know beyond all doubt that we will not allow Jews to stand,and sometimes perish, alone.

Thank you Mr. Day.

Full text here.

Devastating

That this exists in 2012 is beyond belief. That the UN produces almost daily condemnations against Israel for defending herself, but ignores North Korea, beggars belief.

I guess I knew these camps existed, I just hadn't bothered to find out the breadth and sheer evil of their existence. There are no words.

“One lucky day, I discovered some kernels of corn in a small pile of cow dung,” he said in a report released by Amnesty International in May.

“I picked them up and cleaned them with my sleeve before eating.”

"A heinous, despicable and honourless crime"

The wonderful Canadian columnist, Christie Blatchford, has been reporting on this crime investigation and trial since the beginning. Here is her summary after the verdicts.

The trial judge:

“The apparent reason behind these cold-blooded, shameless murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your twisted notion of honour, a notion of honour that is founded upon the domination and control of women, a sick notion of honour that has absolutely no place in any civilized society.”

By using the words “honourless” and “shameless”, Maranger was tossing back at Shafia some of the very epithets he used so often when speaking about his dead daughters.

The mass honour slaying of Zainab, Sahar and Geeti — respectively 19, 17 and 13 — and 52-year-old Mohammad, Shafia’s other, and sadly barren, wife, ranks among the worst in the sordid history of honour crimes.

Where Your Donation To The Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund Went

This report is devastating.

I have read other reports that were less than complimentary about the methods the Red Cross uses to collect and distribute aid. I decided a number of years ago not to make any contributions through them. We made our Haiti Relief donation through our local Jewish Federation, I trust them to use the money to aid those in need.

Gaetan Drossart, its head of mission, said it was wrong for charities to raise more than they could spend. ‘Organisations want to be in front of the cameras in an emergency to attract attention since this gets the money,’ he said. ‘The humanitarian business is no different to any other business.’
Drossart wants limits placed on the numbers of groups allowed in to disaster zones given the chaos and poor co-ordination he witnessed in the earthquake’s aftermath.

Just down the road from his office colourful wooden sheds called Transitional Shelters dot the landscape. These tiny temporary homes were built not because survivors wanted them — they would have preferred to have ruined properties rebuilt or new homes — but because donors wanted visible signs of progress.

They are taking twice as long and — at £345 million — nearly three times as much money to build as planned. The flagship community was Corail, about ten miles outside Port-au-Prince. Families were lured here with promises of clean water, medical care, education and jobs in proposed garment factories. The actor Sean Penn, who spent several months in Haiti after the quake, was among those who persuaded people to move. (emphasis mine)

Now these unfortunate people are marooned on a rocky patch of land: the factories have not materialised, there are no hospitals, the schools are inadequate and they have started being charged for water at more than twice the cost in the camps. Vast squatter camps have sprung up on the hillsides around them.

‘They promised us when we came here we would find everything we needed,’ said Marjorie Saint Hilaire, a mother of three boys whose husband was killed in the quake. ‘Now we are living in a desert.’

To A Louse

No, it's not a post about the 44th POTUS.

January 25th is Rabbie Burns day!



Here's to Haggis!


And to whiskey!


And:

To A Louse

On seeing one on a lady's bonnet at church.

Ha! Whare ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie?
Your impudence protects you sairly,
I canna say but ye strut rarely
Owre gauze and lace,
Tho' faith! I fear ye dine but sparely
On sic a place.

Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner,
Detested, shunn'd by saunt an' sinner,
How daur ye set your fit upon her --
Sae fine a lady!
Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner
On some poor body.

Swith! in some beggar's hauffet squattle:
There you may creep, and sprawl, and spr
Wi' ither kindred, jumping cattle,
In shoals and nations;
Whare horn nor bane ne'er daur unsettle
Your thick plantations.

Now haud you there! ye're out o' sight,
Below the fatt'rils, snug an' tight;
Na, faith ye yet! ye'll no be right,
Till ye've got on it ---
The vera tapmost, tow'ring height
O' miss's bonnet.

My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose ou
As plump an' grey as onie grozet:
O for some rank, mercurial rozet,
Or fell, red smeddum,
I'd gie ye sic a hearty dose o't,
Wad dress your droddum!

I wad na been surpris'd to spy
You on an auld wife's flainen toy:
Or aiblins some bit duddie boy,
On's wyliecoat;
But Miss's fine Lunardi! fye!
How daur ye do't.

O Jenny, dinna toss your head,
An' set your beauties a' abread!
You little ken what cursed speed
The blastie's makin!
Thae winks an' finger-ends, I dread,
Are notice takin'!

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion!

A Canadian Perspective On How To Lose Friends and Piss Off People.

Ezra Levant is a Canadian conservative. He, along with Mark Steyn, was lynched brought before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal a couple of years ago for speaking the truth racial bigotry.

Here is his take on Obama's oil pipeline decision this past week.



The truth shall set you free.

Oh Canada Quebec

Charming.

Stéphane Gendron, host of Face à Face, a daily talk show on Quebec’s V Television network, garnered a flood of complaints after a December broadcast where he said he supported an ongoing boycott of a Montreal store that sold Israeli-made shoes.

Products made in Israel on land stolen from the Palestinians that is walled in, in an apartheid regime where they are cut off, it’s very serious,” said Mr. Gendron, who is also the mayor of Huntingdon, a small town south of Montreal. “And a country like that does not deserve to exist.

And I'm sure Gendron was a vocal anti-proponent of French only (racist, apathied) language laws in la belle province.

Not.