mooeypoo

Ask ydoAps. I believe it was him who "pwned" me into reopening the thread.

Of course it works - you force the evidence in. It makes no sense, though.

There are confirmed eye wittness on the side of the IDF that claims the exact opposite. Either we find another objective source, or we decide to treat both sides as unreliable. Incidentally, a Turkish representative to the Red Cross reported that the injured are receiving excellent care in Israeli hospitals. That might not say what was done onboard the ship, but since we seem to not be able to trust eitehr side's accounts, it can at least give us a hint of how Israel, in general, treats the wounded. ~moo

You have to justify this, otherwise the rest makes no sense. Why is God (1 - 1) and not 0 or 10, or 100, or 5? BTW, (1 - 1) isn't a set. 1 is something by definition. It's one. Zero is said to be 'nothing'. This is wordsalad. The sentence makes no sense. Science isn't about belief, so either you show us a theory or you're spewing wordsalad here that you don't even think is right yourself. I don't think I understand what you mean. Worse, I don't think *you* know what you mean. ~moo p.s - it's E=MC^2, not E=2MC, which, I think, you mean.

No, a final shot between the eyes is something soldiers do when they are concerned about their - and others - lives. Four rapid shots are the custom for someone who is trained to make sure that a situation is diffused (yes, by resorting to deadly force, when it's decided that there was no choice). We have no proof that the soldiers went to VERIFY a kill, and the sitaution on board - look at the pictures from *both* sources, IDF and the flotilla people - was out of hand. That makes it less likely that the soldiers had TIME to go verify a kill. It's much more likely they shot in rapid succession, like they are trained to do. They're not the only soldiers who are trained to shoot in rapid succession, and that part (when defending their lives, which it seems they intended to do, seeing as they came onboard with painball guns and waited almost 2 minutes of beatings before starting to shoot) is not against the geneva convention. ~moo

We know? Or we believe? .... what?

And if the people on the flotilla would have laid down their arms peacefully instead of fighting, the situation would be different. As was in the other six ships.

Indeed. It seems the PR war is bigger than the actual war on the ground.

I'm not sure. I think it's since the beginning of the year. I will check. In any case, yes, there's no doubt this will be the biggest amount of cement into Gaza, if the international aid organizations will take responsibility on it and not let Hamas steal that too. Yeah, seriously, there's no doubt there was a lot of screwups on both sides, but I don't see any reason to think the IDF stole things from people -specially in such a high-profile incidence. It's much more likely that things were taken for a security check and the amount of people caused some mixups. I used to work in ELAL Security in the airport, we had flights of ~400 people and it can be very messy. We took precautions, but sometimes that's very hard to do. Here, *all* bags were checked and there were a LOT more than 400 people to check (only the last ship had 600 people in it.. think how many were in all of them together). I am leaning towards "****up" as the logical reason here, rather than some malicious theft that makes little sense in a high-profile situation. No, we have the recordings (some of them are posted online) - the thread wasn't that they will meet lethal force, the threat was that they will be stopped. It wasn't the plan to use lethal force; if it would've been the plan, the soldiers would've been sent to the ship with actual lethal weapons rather than paintball guns. ~moo Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Honestly, in this particular case, I doubt this was a 'confirm kill' situation. First, it's now illegal in Israel, but also in order to confirm a kill you need to have control over the situation (to go back to the dead person and confirm.. the kill..). These wounds and these accounts, and according to the various accounts of the events and the relative chaos that was there, I really don't think the soldiers had time to confirm their kills. What is more likely, is that they reacted instinctively, and for a Commando soldier, that means 4 consecutive-quick-shots instead of single-shots when firing. That sounds much more plausible to me than confirming the kill in the middle of a situation where the soldiers clearly lost control. ~moo

It's not applicable because you're picking the data to fit the theory, Clipper. There's no *REASON* why God=1 other than because you want it to be. There's no reason why any of the other numbers are the way they are other than because you want them to be. If you could find another valid reason of why the numbers are the way they are, independent of your theory, and *then* have the theory explain them, great. But you can't. You nitpick numbers just because they fit, and the are meaningless. Why can't I choose God = 3? I can even give you more reasons why, if any number, god should be 3 or 7 ('magical' numbers in the bible, used a lot in the context of 'holiness' in the bible, blaaa blaaa) - you can't really give me a valid reason why my numbers are inferior to yours other than because they don't fit to what you want. That's not how science is done. I can come up with random numbers and random mathematical gymnastics that shows something completely different, and there will be no way to test which theory is better - your or mine - because both of them rely on personal preference to numbers rather than some external evidence or connection. ~moo

Oh, where can I find the (hopefully recorded?) feeds? Anyone recorded that? I'd love to see those, actually... hadn't seen those online.... ?

No, I *SERIOUSLY* doubt the military broadcasted this live via satellite. But anyways, the ships are still in Israel port - they're being emptied of the humanitarian aid. So whatever was taken, was on the persons. Sure, it might be something that the military missed, but Israel is known for being quite good in security checks of luggage and people, and it sounds weird to me that they've seemed to miss so many. In any case, pictures *are* being release, and not all of them are doing good to Israel.. so it doesn't make sense to me that the IDF went to all this trouble of censoring but released damaging pictures? ~moo

Unless someone hid it in their rear cavity, an SD card would be found in a thorough search. But Israel is publishing pictures and also pictures are coming from other sources - video and stills - so it seems that even *if* the IDF tried to hide evidence, it's doing a shitty job.

What he is saying is that your math is flawed, Clipper. You are purposefully picking something that will work in your theory -- you are fitting the "evidence" to the theory. In science, things work the other way around - you fit the theory to the evidence and only *afterwards* you make predictions and see if they come true. Also, what's the falsifiability condition of your theory? There must be one.

Then where are the pictures (the not-favorable-to-Israel-at-all pictures) coming from, if Israel stole everything and deleted everything?

Some of those photos are published online, here is an example: http://fotogaleri.hurriyet.com.tr/GaleriDetay.aspx?cid=36575&p=1&rid=2 The IDF screws up, but they didn't destroy photos. BTW, if they had any reason to destroy any of the photos, it would be those that are published, since the faces of the soldiers are published - something the IDF is extremely opposed to, specially soldiers in elite units. So, although all the items in the people's bags were temporarily confiscated while checks were done, it seems the IDF's claims that they returned them is true. ~moo

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-seizes-second-aid-ship-as-protests-grow-1992671.html Someone got mixed up somewhere? As promised, there is an answer with an official response from COGAT: The most recent ship carrying supplies to Gaza docked at the port of Ashdod on Saturday, bringing the total number of aid-carrying vessels to seven in the last week. Israel is delivering the goods aboard the ships using the same channels which 100 trucks full of aid enter Gaza daily. Due to the fact that the thousands of tons of aid, including cement, must first be offloaded onto trucks from the boats, not all of the aid has been delivered yet. This process, which includes screening goods for weapons, takes time. The maximum capacity for a truck is roughly 25 tons, so while only 45 trucks have been prepped and loaded, it is still a great amount of aid. Unfortunately, Hamas is currently refusing entry to trucks which are waiting at the Kerem Shalom border crossing. As Hamas has a history of hijacking aid, it is vital that Israel is assured that construction materials are going to be used for peaceful, civilian purposes. To that end, we are working with the humanitarian organizations in Gaza that can insure that all cement, construction materials, and other aid will go to humanitarian projects. The rumors that Israel is not letting in cement are categorically false. Our goal is to make sure the aid is distributed to the people. While distribution would normally be the role of the government, the “government” of Gaza is a terrorist organization whose declared mission is the destruction of the State of Israel. While we will not let Hamas build bunkers and military sites, we will also not allow the people of Gaza to go without adequate supplies. With our partners in the international community, we will make sure that the goods are distributed to the people of Gaza. We are working as hard as we can to offload all supplies and send them to Gaza. Please stay tuned for future updates. (emphasis mine) Source: http://www.israelpolitik.org/2010/06/07/status-update-aid-prepped-for-delivery-to-gazans/ So, all aid will get into Gaza, it just takes time to unload 7 fairly large ships onto trucks. And, Hamas is apparently stopping the shipments into the strip. I hope that the humanitarian organizations will take control here - the cement will be sent to their hands, if they state they are able to control it. ~moo

Yea... no. We're a science forum, not a religious dogma forum. If you have an actual scientific idea to suggest, feel free. If your intention is to start religious argument in disguise, then go elsewhere. Please read our rules. Thread closed. ~moo Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedFine, people seem to beg to waste their time with this. I will repeat the request, however, that Clipper avoid from *lecturing* to people and instead practice proper scientific discussion with evidence, reference and substantiation. Have fun.

Reopening a closed thread is against the rules. If you want to complain, you can do so by reporting and the moderators and administrators will see it. We're a science forum, and we have rules and etiquette. We have quitre a large number of threads talking about theories that are non-mainstream, so it's not like we erase any and all of those, but we don't waste our time with people whose sole purpose is to lecture nonscience nonsense and pretend it has any scientific meaning. If someone wants to vent, they can open their own blog. ~moo

Yes,here's another source http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3899584,00.html I will try to see if there's any proof to this, or at least why Netanyahu claims this.

If that's supposed to be a comparison to the Israeli-Palestinian history, it's not very accurate and doesn't quite fit the historical facts of the area. That said, I'm not entirely sure how this is connected specifically to the flotilla events? Go back into any country's history and you will find the current inhabitants probably took it by force, at some point. Either biblical times or during the recolonization of the new world. That might be a historical discussion, but I'm not sure how that helps us with the current discussion about this *current* event with the so-called peace flotilla and Israel's response to them.. ~moo

I don't know. I will try to check this out.

I have a feeling this is also due to very harsh criticism from inside Israel as well. The Citizens, while seeing the point of stopping the flotilla in principle, are - in general - not very happy about how it was handled. Israel is a democracy, and inside-pressure still affects the government. I'm not sure which was bigger effect here - the inside one or the outside one, but either way, the resulting intention to change the way Israel deals with these ships is most welcome. Yeah but the point is that the reasons for 1 and 3 are different and the way to deal with 1 and 3 are different, so they should probably be two different arguments. They both need to be dealt with and fixed, but I don't know if it's useful to combine the two when the reasons are different. ~moo

This is interesting, a communication between the 7th ship that arrived this morning ("Rachel Corrie") and the IDF: (transcript here: http://idfspokesperson.com/2010/06/05/radio-exchange-between-israeli-navy-and-7th-flotilla-ship-regarding-transfer-of-aid-to-gaza-5-june-2010/) 0pU5HPudACE The Irish government has arranged with Israel that the ship sails to Ashdod port and the cargo be checked by a third party. The ship itself, though, requested permission to continue straight to Gaza. As you can hear, the request was denied, but the two sides tried to reach some sort of compromise. Cap'n, I have to say I was happy to hear the IDF side stating that all the cement in the shipment will go to Gaza - this was part of what we discussed before, and it seems they are making a big exception, which is good to see/hear. The ship was boarded quietly, and escorted to Ashdod port where the cargo is going to go through the inspection and continue to Gaza. You can see a video and pictures of the activists disembarking the ship here: http://idfspokesperson.com/2010/06/05/photos-of-passengers-disembarking-from-ship-at-ashdod-port-5-june-2010/ It appears these things can be solved without resorting to violence, if both sides agree to talk. ~moo

Please don't use it anymore, then. Offensive or inoffensive, it's irrelevant. Let's all judge our claims rather than our personalities. ~moo Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged I agree with all your post, Cap'n, specially with the above. I disagree with the claim that the blockade doesn't work at all - I think it does - but I also think that Israel should work towards finding a better solution. My whole point, though, was that it isn't as simple as others seemed to have put it. This situation is frustrating - I wish there was a solution but it's often hard to think or imagine one available. On the other hand, putting the blame solely on one side (or majorly on one side, or just looking at the blame that is on the one side) is not helpful in finding a solution to this situation, and if nothing else, I have a personal vested interest in having peace in this area. Real peace. The type that lasts forever. I hope very much that this would not happen. It could have quite horrible political repercussions. ~moo