An exercise in critical thinking
I had such a tough, long day yesterday.
Out the house around 7am, only back at 7.30pm. Then baby was crying, so I spent another 20 minutes trying to calm him down (the tuning forks worked a treat. If anyone is interested in hearing more about that, let me know, I’m happy to write about it.)
Then, I stuffed in some food and ran off to the Rav’s prayers down on Ido HaNavi, where I hadn’t been since motzash. Usually, I try to go at least three times a week, because I really see the difference to my mood and ‘coping ability’ when I don’t go three times a week.
We got there late, and left a little earlier than usual – because with all the craziness post-bris, and with my daughter staying with us to recuperate, BH, I had totally forgotten to get the groceries for Shabbat.
So then, we ran off to a super in Romema, before it closed, to get chicken and meat etc, that I can’t get with badatz hechsers closer to home.
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At the cue, I got stuck behind a young American-Israel chareidi woman who was chatting to someone she just bumped into – another American, obviously not her husband – while the guy on the till was frantically trying to get the piece of meat she’d bought to scan.
It refused to scan.
She didn’t notice what was going on, because she was enjoying her discussion with whoever too much. Eventually, I was so tired that it broke through my twin barriers of ‘British politeness’ and ‘accepting everything with love’, that held for the first 15 minutes.
Um, do you think maybe you want to go and choose a different piece of meat, that can be scanned? I asked her. He’s tried everything, it’s just not working…
She looked at me and said so prettily, it’s the last one! I feel so bad, but I need it for Shabbat.
I’d just walked past the deep freezers stuff to the brim, still, with all sorts of bits of meat. I found it hard to believe her. So, we waited for another 10 minutes, until even the super-patient chareidi guy on the till also ran out of the ability of ‘accepting everything with love’, and told her it was impossible to scan.
And at that point, she ‘felt so bad’ again, vaguely, in my direction, and then paid and walked off without the meat.
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The American guy she was chatting to in such a lively way leaned over to give me a ‘friendly’ piece of advice. “It’s not us that’s broken, it’s the system,” he said. “Sometimes, you just have to wait.”
Yah, thanks guy!
Whatever.
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So, I got home exhausted.
Even though it was approaching midnight, I decided to have a nice hot bath, and then go to bed. The plan worked perfectly – until 4.30 am.
That’s when Jerusalem’s sirens started blaring.
I personally know it’s all bllcks, excuse my French, but I woke up to say a loud Tikkun Haklali for my daughter and her husband, to reassure them there was absolutely no need to run away in a panic because of ‘the Houthis’.
(More on this in a moment).
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I got up at 9am today, totally whacked for the first half an hour.
But then I put on Elitzur’s song:
Twice.
And danced to it, and it gave me some koach to get the chicken in the oven, and get started on the very basic food I’m making for Shabbat.
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In the meantime, I came to check what the ‘story’ was, about why the US military and it’s Erev Rav puppets here decided to wake me up with more bllcks about ‘the Houthis’ firing rockets at Israel from Yemen.
And that brings us up to the “critical thinking” exercise part of this post.
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You’ll find a write-up of the official story on the Arutz 7 propaganda site HERE.
This is the secondary headline:
Sirens sounded in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Gush Dan and the Shfela following a launch from Yemen. IDF says the missile was intercepted. Fragments fall in Modi’in. 12 people treated for injuries sustained on the way to shelter.
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Let’s begin the exercise.
First, let’s locate YEMEN on a map, in relation to Eretz Yisrael:
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The very nearest part of ‘YEMEN’ in relation to Modiin, where shrapnel from this ‘missile from Yemen’ is meant to have fallen is 1,816km away.
Remember what we learnt about those Z rockets from Iran that are what these ‘Houthis’ are meant to be firing at us, from THIS post?
That those rockets have a maximum range of 1,000 km (again, assuming you believe all the ‘ballistic missiles going 600 km up into space’ bllcks in the first place. Which I don’t.)
Let’s pause here, while I turn to you dear reader, to think for yourself about what we just learned here.
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Here’s some questions to try to answer yourself:
- Is it possible that a Z missile from Iran with a maximum range of 1,000 km could get anywhere near Eretz Yisrael, if fired by ‘houthis’ in Yemen, a minimum of 1,816 km away?
- If it’s not possible, what else could explain this?
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Now, if you’re really advanced in ‘critical thinking’, you may come to the conclusion that these missiles are NOT being fired directly from YEMEN itself, but maybe, they are being fired from the Red Sea Gulf, off a ship, or something.
That’s possible. Let’s see where that idea leads.
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This next image ‘imagines’ a houthi ship out to sea in the range of around 1,000 km, that would put it very close to the Saudi Arabian coastline, and Jedda:
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Here’s some more questions to ask yourself, if you’re going with this theory:
How do the ‘Houthis’ have a naval vessel capable of firing a medium range ballistic missile from the sea?
How could it be, that if such a vessel exists, Israel couldn’t simply bomb it out of existence, before it fired anything?
Don’t tell ‘international law’, blahdy blahdy blah, because literally, no-one is in the middle of the sea recording what happens there. Israel could bomb any ‘Houthi’ warship to smithereens in a second, without anyone being any the wiser.
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All this is assuming that ‘ballistic missiles’ actually exist, and work as advertised, by entering ‘outer space’ hundreds of miles up, before dropping down on their targets.
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Next, let’s take a look at what sort of technology capability would be required, to launch a medium range ballistic missile from out to sea.
Here’s a couple of options to consider:
From a submarine (think ‘Trident’)
From a ‘disguised shipping container’ – this is how we are being told ‘the Houthis’ are launching these things.
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And here is a video from ‘X’ apparently showing one of these missile launches:
Iran’s IRGC published a video today of launching a ballistic missile from their forward base Shahid Mahdavi (converted container ship). pic.twitter.com/400Y8DYPlr
— Mehdi H. (@mhmiranusa) February 13, 2024
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Questions to ask yourself:
- What angle is this missile being fired at?
- Is this a ‘ballistic missile’ – i.e. One that apparently goes up many hundreds of kms ‘into space’ before falling on its target?
- If it’s not a ballistic missile, what is it?
- Does it look like this missile could travel 1000+ km to reach Israel, with it’s trajectory?
- Once a ‘disguised container ship’ has been clearly identified as firing a missile towards Eretz Yisrael – what would prevent the IAF from blowing that ‘disguised container ship’ to pieces?
- How many ‘disguised container ships’ do you think Iran / the Houthis actually have?
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So now, let’s return to our side of this equation, because I for sure heard a few booms yesterday night, but nothing shook.
Is it credible that:
- IF a medium-range ballistic missile was fired from a ‘disguised shipping container’ in the middle of the Red Sea Gulf located approximately 1000 km away, and
- That ‘ballistic missile’ had to travel into space to a height of at least 600+ km (or whatever it’s meant to be) to ‘drop down’ on EY, and
- It was apparently ‘intercepted’ and exploded up in the thermosphere, approx 140 km above earth,
That I would be hearing a ‘boom’ in Jerusalem?
Or that shrapnel from this interception would fall in Modiin?
Especially, when that same ‘news story’ on Arutz 7 tells us all this:
The IDF said that a missile launched from Yemen was intercepted by the IAF prior to crossing into Israeli territory.
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If something was exploded in Israel’s skies yesterday night, it wasn’t a ‘ballistic missile’ from the Houthis.
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For months and months before we got to this stage, Rav Berland was repeatedly giving over the ‘story’ of the woman from Ashdod who ran to the mamad (security room) with her small child, who got dropped on her head as a result.
The Rav just kept repeating that this small child, dropped so many years ago, is ‘still in a coma’ and never woke up.
And then, he’d just keep saying: nobody needs to run to a security room, they just need to say a Tikkun HaKlali!
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I don’t know if I ever bothered to translate this story when he was giving it over, repeatedly, because it seemed so ‘weird’.
Last year, no-one was getting injured from running to their mamads in a panic…..
This week – there are literally a score of people being injured every single night, as they dash off to their mamads half-asleep, because of ‘the Houthis’.
Yesterday, apparently a teenager got run over by a car in Yavne in the middle of ‘running off to a mamad’.
Not for the first time, I’m seeing the Rav’s wisdom and foresight shining through clearly, in all this myriad ways, great and small.
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Here ends today’s lesson in critical thinking.
If you feel like sharing your own thoughts about what’s going on, and how to answer the questions above, feel free.
But one thing is certain: no Houthis from ‘Yemen’ fired anything at Eretz Yisrael at 4.30am yesterday morning.
A great trauma-based psyop to start off the year! Ho ho ho!
This story is as real as outer space…
Rivka, you said before that the Evil Ones are overplaying how great AI is, and now they’re saying that this year they’ll unleash these demons upon us, and they’ll soon begin to overtake our jobs. But we all know the official narratives are never true. So what do you think is actually afoot here?
I’m honestly scared, and I don’t know if God shall us from this demonic technology for a while.
In other news, I will soon start using a flip-phone instead of my current Apple (as in the Masons’ forbidden fruit) iPhone. God is kind and good in everything.
I’ve been looking into AI more. It’s very good at certain tasks that CAN be automated – like a super-calculator, that can translate, proof-read etc.
But AI can’t ‘think’. Bottom line. It lacks the creative impulse that is spiritual, and rooted in the human soul.
There are some jobs that it probably could do better than humans – the jobs where humans doing them are basically glorified ‘robots’ anyway.
But anything requiring true creativity and thought and humanity – no way AI can EVER do this, no matter how ‘advanced’ it gets.
bs”d Yes! Please tell us more about babies and tuning forks.
Well, in the beginning of this war…the Americans put alot of there warships in the mediteranean sea, the gulf, their secret bases that are here….and if you remember just before that the 5000 us commandos here doing training here..
The Americans are not here for friendly support …
Is there any opinion from the Rabbi on bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies? I’m starting to invest as a store of value. I would like to start acquiring gold but physical grass is very expensive here. And I ended up leading myself to bitcoin, which is overvalued
Strange to say, the Rav was asked about crypto currencies a few weeks ago. He said there is still some more way to go before they peak (although I’m adding here my two cents, that who knows when that is going to actually happen) and you should only invest in something that’s worth a thousand. I didn’t understand what that last comment actually means, each person can do their own hitbodedut to see what insight they get sent, personally.
Thank you very much. This information was very useful
mazal tov.
re: cryptocurrencies
just a technical opinion, but bitcoin is the main project, with an aim to be part of or replace the special drawing rights synthetic currency and stabilize the banks against failure.
the other crypto projects are examples of self-delusion in otherwise well-meaning people. start-up culture, but with a product that costs almost nothing, and a whole planet full of possible customers. too much marketing also.
if ‘crypto’ projects have ‘mining’ involving actual electricity, they are in a zero-sum competition for electricity and silicon chips, and a waste of time.
if they are based on something other than provable electricity usage they might as well be ‘elements alpha standalone side-chain’ from blockstream.
the non-mining projects are valid and not scams, and also they are not an investments.
blockstream standalone side-chain is just a technology for big banks to do the similar thing of restructuring the systemic risk of macro-economic failure and bank runs, while having the negotiating leverage to possibly threaten to shut out russia, china, brazil, indonesia and so on.
trying that kind of clamp-down with bitcoin would result in more than one bitcoin branch, and most users and software engineers in the field don’t want that.
the usefulness and long-term viability of the main project is in arriving at a global consensus on what the big bank spreadsheet is.
it has side-effects of causing more hydro-electric projects and incentivizes the rescue of trapped natural gas — actually improving the greenhouse mix because co2 is not as greenhousey as methane.
other side-effects include carrying out pike’s vision of the end of all wars, with nation no longer printing money against nation in balance-of-payments trade wars.
no doubt, moreinu harav shlit”a is working on sweetening this beyond pike’s wildest daydreams.
as an elderly cripple i am happy when a siren blares to stand by a stout wall say tehillim and/or “put my head between my(defective) legs and kiss my xxx goodby!( the latter meant in my ininitable joking fashion)seriously though, running is a far worse statistical move for even healthy people!
Houthies = Iran = US = Attack on Israel = inducement to teshuva = ?? (confusion). See CW on Magic Missiles :-))
PS I continue not hearing any ‘sireens’, but did wake betw 4:30 – 5am
I was living in a similar frazzlement all of Chanukah, with so much to do, hubby not feeling well, and early lighting and cooking, etc..
So happy: Mazal Tov on becoming a ‘grannie’. Welcome to the world of diapers! (its been a while hasn’t it?)
Why do the Evil Ones want us to believe that AI will take our jobs and is better than us overall?
Your guess is as good as mine, but my take on it is that it’s just part of that overall ‘schwang’ to make us all feel powerless, and to give up on the spiritual side of life that makes us uniquely ‘human’, and that no machine can ever come close to replicating.
AI is literally a sophisticated ‘calculator’. Anything that can be mechanised, it’s very good at it (when it works properly, with proper data and proper rules to follow….)
But the AI is literally incapable of doing ANYTHING without human input. The human input is the creative spark, the ‘soul’ of AI. So to keep telling us that AI can do all the stuff that humans can do is incorrect – grossly misleading.
And even the ‘simple’ stuff still requires human input and the creative spark. It’s a tool that humans can use, not a replacement.