07/18/13

Marching to Sanford

Note at the 6:30 min mark they arrive at a gas station – watch what happens, and watch in front of your own eyes how Thomas Battles uses a Sheriff Officer to pressure the gas station owner. [*note the gas station is privately owned]

Note at the 3:30 mark what AME Church they use as their rally point. Also at 6:16 you might see a familiar face (dreadlocked). Yes, that is Francis Oliver, the mother of Trayvon Martin family attorney, Natalie Jackson.

Federally Approved DOJ CRS Extortion – Dream Defenders and Thomas Battles Turn “Justice” into “Just Us”…

07/18/13

If he isn’t Black, it didn’t happen

Blasted Fools

Some racial murders are less equal than others. This one, of little 13 month Antonio, elicits a collectivist yawn.

Some stories are best told by the people who lived them. This one needs little additional comment from me, other than it is a matter of curiosity to me and to many others who have looked at it, how Antonio West’s death elicits a shrug of the shoulders when the question is asked “Is this a racial crime?”. Crickets. But to everyone of the screaming Jack-In-The-Boxes that have popped up since the death of Trayvon Martin, there can be no doubt as to the racial motive – because the victim is Black. Well, as I said – the mother’s impassioned lament, and the evidence of the case, speak – no, shout for themselves.

The following, could have been authored by the mother of Antonio, but might also have been written by a friend of the family – I’m not certain, therefore I’m unable to provide attribution. Snopes, for as much as they are worth, takes a dim view of the correlation between this event and the Trayvon Martin killing. They didn’t get the point, evidently. In any event, they don’t challenge the provenance of the memo, nor do they know of its exact origins either. HuffPo gets grudging credit from me for re-posting the news report itself.

You won’t recognize me. My name was Antonio West and I was the 13-month old child who was shot at point blank range by two teens who were attempting to rob my mother, who was also shot. A Grand Jury of my mommy’s peers from Brunswick GA determined the teens who murdered me will not face the death penalty…too bad I was given a death sentence for being innocent and defenseless.

My family made the mistake of being white in a 73% non-white neighborhood, but my murder was not ruled a Hate Crime. Nor did President Obama take so much as a single moment to acknowledge my murder. I am one of the youngest murder victims in our great Nation’s history, but the media doesn’t care to cover the story of my tragic demise, President Obama has no children who could possibly look like me – so he doesn’t care and the media doesn’t care because my story is not interesting enough to bring them ratings so they can sell commercial time slots.

There is not a white equivalent of Al Sharpton because if there was he would be declared racist, so there is no one rushing to Brunswick GA to demand justice for me. There is no White Panther party to put a bounty on the lives of those who murdered me. I have no voice, I have no representation and unlike those who shot me in the face while I sat innocently in my stroller – I no longer have my life.

So while you are seeking justice for Treyvon, please remember to seek justice for me too. Tell your friends about me, tell you families, get tee shirts with my face on them and make the world pay attention, just like you did for Treyvon. Thank you.

Below, is the original news story reporting the horrific ordeal and loss of Sherry West, from some punks that were the ultimate product of the decimation of Blacks, by the proponents of Racial Identity Politics and the Democrat Party:

BRUNSWICK, Ga. — A Georgia woman said Friday a teenager trying to rob her at gunpoint asked “Do you want me to kill your baby?” before he fatally shot her 13-month-old son in the head. Sherry West wept while she told The Associated Press that she pleaded with the gunman and a younger accomplice who approached her Thursday morning while she walked near their home in coastal Brunswick.

“He asked me for money and I said I didn’t have it,” she said. “When you have a baby, you spend all your money on babies. They’re expensive. And he kept asking and I just said `I don’t have it.’ And he said, `Do you want me to kill your baby?’ And I said, `No, don’t kill my baby!’”

Police were combing school records and canvassing neighborhoods searching for the pair. While police have said the two boys were between the ages of 10 and 15, the mother says she believes the younger boy was as young as 5 years old.

She said the teen fired four shots, the first into the ground. West didn’t see a shell casing ejected, and said she assumed the gun wasn’t real. Then he fired at her head and the bullet grazed her left ear – she has a small scab and bruising there. He fired again and shot her in the left leg above the knee. “I didn’t know I was hurt.”

“The boy proceeded to go around to the stroller and he shot my baby in the face,” she said. “And then he just shoved me when I started screaming and he ran down London Street with the little boy.”

Police spokesman Todd Rhodes gave few details about the investigation Friday, but said no weapon has been found and that investigators were checking school attendance records for leads.

Several people in the neighborhood called 911 after they heard the gunshots fired, but Rhodes said investigators believed that the mother was the only witness to what happened. “Understand this: There is no clear motive right now,” he said.

He urged anyone with information to call Brunswick police. There is a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction. The mother lives in a rented house in the city’s Old Town historic district. Beverly Anderson’s husband owns the property and she said West has lived there for six or seven years.

“We’re just very sorry about what happened and very aghast that something could happen in our little neighborhood,” Anderson said. “It’s a quiet, safe little neighborhood.” Anderson said people walk up and down the street, children walk to school and families are frequently outdoors. “It’s scared everybody,” she said. “They don’t feel so safe outside.”

She said West stayed home to care for her baby, who was often spotted in his mother’s arms.

“The house has a front porch with a swing and we’d see him out on the swing with his mother,” Anderson said. “He was a happy, cheerful baby.”

___

Associated Press Writer Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta and news researcher Monika Mathur in New York contributed to this report.

UPDATE 4:24 p.m. — BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — Police have arrested two teenagers suspected in the shooting death of a baby in a stroller and the wounding of the baby’s mother.

Brunswick Police Chief Tobe Green said Friday that 17-year-old De’Marquis Elkins is charged with first-degree murder as an adult.

The 14-year-old is also charged with murder, but he was not identified because he is a juvenile.

The chief said police were still investigating the motive and searching for a weapon.

07/18/13

Six Tech Advancements Changing the Fossil Fuels Game

By: OilPrice.com Premium Analysts

Oil and gas is getting bigger, deeper, faster and more efficient, with new technology chipping away at “peak oil” concerns. While hydraulic fracturing has been the most visible revolutionary advancement, other high-tech developments are keeping the ball rolling—from the next generation of ultra-deepwater drillships, subsea oil and gas infrastructure and multi-well-pad drilling to M2M networking, floating LNG facilities, new dimensions in seismic imagery and supercomputing for analog exploration.

ADVANCED SEMI-SUBMERSIBLES & 6TH GENERATION DRILLSHIPS

Rig advancements are coming online in tandem with the significantly increased momentum to drill in deeper waters as shallower reserves run out. For 2012, 49% of new offshore discoveries were in ultra-deepwater plays, while 28% were in deepwater plays. What we’re looking at now are amazing advancements in deepwater rigs, with new semi-submersibles capable of drilling to depths of 5,000 feet or deeper. Beyond that, though, new sixth generation enterprise-class drillships can go to depths of 12,000 feet! From a global perspective, there are 120 ultra-deepwater rigs in existence—and demand is on the steep rise.

SUBSEA PROCESSING

Subsea processing can turn marginal fields into major producers.

Subsea production systems are wells located on the sea floor rather than the surface. Petroleum is extracted at the seafloor, and then ‘tied-back’ to an already existing production platform. The well is drilled by a moveable rig and the extracted oil and natural gas is transported by riser or undersea pipeline to a nearby production platform. Subsea systems are typically in use at depths of 7,000 feet or more. They don’t drill, they just extract and transport.

The real advantage of subsea production systems is that they allow you to use one platform—strategically placed—to service many well areas. And as the cost of offshore production rises, this could represent significant savings.

Subsea production could rival traditional offshore production in less than 15-20 years, and we’re looking at expected market growth for subsea facilities of around $27 billion in 2011 to an amazing $130 billion in 2020. Analysts expect E&P companies to invest more than $19 billion in subsea production equipment in 2013 alone–and up to $33 billion by 2017.

Subsea processing can handle everything from water removal and re-injection or disposal, to single-phase and multi-phase boosting of well fluids, sand and solid separation and gas/liquid separation and boosting to gas treatment and compression.

Subsea processing allows producers to separate the unwanted elements right on the seafloor, without using complicated and expensive flowlines to bring these elements up to the above-water processing facility to remove them and then send them back down to the seafloor to be re-injected. We’re cutting out the middle man here. The middle man in this case is the process known as “subsea boosting”.

What we’re talking about, essentially, is saving space and time (which means money) by performing processing activities on the seafloor rather than sending fluids back and forth between the seafloor and the processing facilities above water.

We are particularly interested in a new subsea rotating device that promises to enhance dual-gradient drilling (DGD). This is a system being developed by Chevron, which is hoping to deploy the system is the Gulf of Mexico later this year. What the DGD system will do is render the thousands of feet of mud that is bearing down on the wellbore … well … weightless.

And then we have subsea power grid plans, which have been making progressive leaps since 2010 towards the advancement of electric grids installed on the floor of the sea to run processing systems at the site of underwater wells. It reduces the need for so many platforms on the water surface, and makes the entire process much less complicated. The ultimate goal here is to be able to operate offshore wells remotely from land—saving countless billions.

MULTI-WELL-PAD DRILLING: OCTPUS IN THE HOUSE

One of the greatest drilling developments of the last decade is multiple well pads, which some like to refer to as “Octopus” technology.

Imagine gaining access to multiple buried wells at the same time, from a single pad site. This is what “Octopus” technology is doing, first in a canyon in northwestern Colorado in the Piceance Shale Formation and then in the Marcellus shale. It’s definitely not your traditional horizontal drilling.

Traditionally, to drill a single well, a company needs a pad or land site for each well drilled. Each of these pads covers an average of 7 acres. The Octopus allows for multiple well drilling from a single pad, which can handle between 4 and 18 wells. So, a single pad on 7 acres can now be used to drill on up to 2,000 acres of reserves. More than anything, it means that drilling will be faster, faster, faster … And less expensive in the long run once it renders it unnecessary to break down rigs and put them together again at the next drilling location. It’s simple math: 4 pads usually equals 4 wells; now 1 pad can equal between 4 and 18 wells.

Here’s how the technology works: A well pad is set up and the first well is drilled, then the rig literally “crawls” on its hydraulic tentacles to another drill location from the same pad, repeatedly. And it’s multi-directional. It takes about two hours between each well drilling. With traditional horizontal drilling methods, it takes about five days to move from pad to pad and start drilling a new well.

Last year, Devon Energy (DVN) drilled 36 wells from a single pad site using Octopus technology in the Marcellus Shale. More recently, Encana (ECA) drilled 51 wells covering 640 underground acres from a single pad site with a surface area of only 4.6 acres in Colorado. Multi-well pad drilling is also revolutionizing drilling in Bakken, and this is definitely the long-term outlook for shale. It will become the norm.

It’s also good (or at least slightly better) news for the environment because it means less drilling disturbance on the surface as we render more of the process underground.

SUPERCOMPUTING & SEISMIC DIMENSIONS EINSTEIN WOULD APPRECIATE

Oil majors are second only to the US Defense Department in terms of the use of supercomputing systems. That’s because supercomputing is the key to determining where to explore next—and to finding the sweet spots based on analog geology.

What these supercomputing systems do is analyze vast amounts of seismic imaging data collected by geologists using sound waves. What’s changed most recently is the dimension: When the oil and gas industry first caught on to seismic data collection for exploration efforts, the capabilities were limited to 2-dimensional imaging. Now we have 3-dimensional imaging that tells a much more accurate story.

But it doesn’t stop here. There is 4-dimensional imaging as well. What is the 4th dimension, you ask: Time (and Einstein’s theory of relativity). This 4th dimension unlocks a variable that allows oil and gas companies not only to determine the geological characteristics of a potential play, but also gives us a look at the how a reservoir is changing LIVE, in real time. The sound waves rumbling through a reservoir predict how its geology is changing over time.

The pioneer of geological supercomputing was MIT, whose post-World War II Whirlwind system was tasked with seismic data processing. Since then, Big Oil has caught on to the potential here and there is no finish line to this race—it’s constantly metamorphosing. What would have taken decades with supercomputing technology in the 1990s, now can be accomplished in a matter of weeks.

In this continual evolution, the important thing is how many calculations a computer can make per second and how much data it can store. The fastest computer will get a company to the next drilling hole before its competitors.

We are talking about MASSIVE amounts of data from constant signal loops from below the Earth’s surface. For example, geologists generate sound waves using explosives or other methods that dig deep into the Earth’s surface and then are sample 500 times per second. Only a supercomputer could possibly process all this complex data and make sense of it.

We’ve moved beyond geographical interpretations, such as pursuing exploration based on geological proximity, like Tullow’s Ethiopia play is on trend with its massive Kenya finds. This is child’s play. What we’re talking about is using supercomputing to tell us that standing in prolific Brazil is pretty much the same as standing in Angola; or that Ghana is analog to French Guiana.

Supercomputing advances remove a great deal of the risk involved in undertaking expensive drilling when you’re not sure what’s there. Supercomputing essentially puts the idea of peak oil to bed for the foreseeable future.

LNG TECHNOLOGY: FLOATING IS NOT A FANTASY

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) technology—from LNG seaborne tankers and LNG trains to floating LNG facilities have quickly gone from concept to commercialization, opening up new possibilities in new frontiers and rendering the remote—well, much less remote.

Liquefaction of natural gas is the process of super-cooling natural gas to minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 162 degrees Celsius) at which point it becomes much safer and easier to transport. After shipped to its destination, regasification plants at importing or receiving terminals return the fuel to a gaseous state.

Floating LNG production, storage and offloading concepts are revolutionary because they have the ability to station a vessel directly over distant fields, removing the need for offshore pipelines and adding the advantage of mobility—these floating facilities can be moved to a new location once existing fields are depleted.

Floating liquefaction technology can bring additional LNG supply by accessing stranded gas reserves that were previously thought to be too remote, small or otherwise challenging for conventional land-based LNG development.

Shell’s most prized LNG project is its Prelude Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) Project in Australia, which is moored some 200 kilometers out to sea and will produce gas from offshore fields and liquefy it onboard. This vessel will be six times bigger than the biggest aircraft carrier and will cost between $10.8 and $12.6 billion to build—but it also means that Shell won’t have to pay rising prices in Australia’s onshore LNG plants. The facility will produce about 3.6 million metric tons of LNG and 1.3 million tons of gas condensate a year.

M2M FOR OIL & GAS: GETTING SMARTER AND MORE CONNECTED

The hottest arena in the smart grid world is machine-to-machine (M2M) technology—an industry worth $1 trillion. It’s relevance to the oil and gas industry should not be underestimated. Now it’s about to get even bigger because the cost of sensors used to make M2M possible has fallen so much that they are BEYOND commercially viable; and wireless networks are now cheap and everywhere. This is the next frontier in cross-sector technology.

M2M device use in the oil and gas industry is set to more than double, as these technologies (including SCADA Telemetry– supervisory control and data acquisition) emerge as key differentiators in expediting oil and gas exploration and accelerating operational efficiencies.

Adopting M2M early on enables remote monitoring and allows for more flexible control of assets from wellhead to pipeline. It also enables fiscal metering, drilling monitoring and fleet management, as well as worker safety and accident response.

It means higher productivity and eventually, lower costs for the oil and gas industry.

This is the important part: The number of devices with cellular or satellite connectivity deployed in oil and gas applications worldwide is expected to rise more than 20% over the next several years.

The top two applications for M2M in the oil and gas sector are in-land pipeline monitoring and onshore well-field-equipment monitoring.

The drivers are new regulations, rising operating costs (think unconventional drilling) and increasing competition (a lot more players on the field, and the rising ranks of the juniors).

WHO TO WATCH (AND OWN)

In the high-tech hydrocarbons game these are our four picks: General Electric (GE) for subsea infrastructure; Transocean (RIG) for deep and ultra-deepwater rigs, Schlumberger for 3D seismic, and FMC Technologies.

As upward pressure pushes up day rates for deep-water (especially ultra-deep) rigs, it’s Transocean (NYSE:RIG) all the way. This year’s already been a pretty good year for Transocean, despite some rather serious legal problems, and it’s got a nice backlog of contracts. But we’re also looking at Ensco and SeaDrill.

But hands down, it’s GE Oil & Gas, General Electric’s fastest-growing segment, with annual 16% revenue growth over the last three years. GE is one of the most diverse companies out there, and it has carved itself a nice niche in the oil and gas sector. And it’s impressively forward-thinking—from massive LNG projects to subsea drilling equipment. GE is positioned to experience significant growth.

This year has been an amazing year for GE Oil & Gas, with a list of contracts that would impress the biggest skeptic. Since January, GE has sealed a $620 million, 22-year contract for QGC’s Queensland Curtis LNG plant offshore Australia; a $333 million 16-year contract extension for Russia’s Sakhalin-2 LNG plant; a $500 million contract Petrobras for new pre-salt projects in Brazil; $600 million in multiple-customer propulsion system contracts; and most recently, a $147 million deal with Statoil for carbon dioxide injection. Adding to GE Oil & Gas’ market share here is the recent acquisition of Lufkin Industries. Though it had a very rough time of things during the financial crisis, GE has turned around—and quickly. Downsizing GE’s Capital Division has been fortuitous, and we see huge things ahead for this company.

By: OilPrice.com Premium Analysts

This report is part of Oilprice.com’s premium publication Oil & Energy Insider. Oil & Energy Insider gives subscribers an information advantage when investing, trading or doing business in the energy sectors. Successful investors, hedge funds and senior executives, have access to high level intelligence and power in ways that you, as an individual investor, are locked out of (the game is and never has been fair.) Let us help you level the playing field by using our network of traders, intelligence assets and high level partnerships to ensure you are making the right investment decisions.

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07/18/13

Will the EU Reverse?

Arlene from Israel

Let’s wait and see…

Prime Minister Netanyahu delivered a satisfactorily firm response to the EU announcement of new “guidelines” on areas past the Green Line (emphasis added):

“I would expect those who truly want peace and stability in the region would discuss this issue after solving more urgent regional problems such as the civil war in Syria or Iran’s race to achieve nuclear weapons. As the Prime Minister of Israel, I will not allow the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who live in Judea and Samaria, on the Golan Heights and in Jerusalem, our united capital, to be harmed. We will not accept any outside diktat about our borders. This issue will be decided only in direct negotiations between the sides.”

http://imra.org.il/story.php3?id=61529

~~~~~~~~~~

In a subsequent interview, Netanyahu said more. Calling the guidelines “wrong,” he indicated that they were “an attempt to force on Israel the final borders through economic pressure rather than through negotiations.

“It hardens the Palestinian positions, it causes Israelis to lose confidence in the impartiality of Europe. I think for years the Europeans have been whining about the fact that the Americans are not involved enough. Now that they are involved, this action actually undermines the American effort. It undermines the negotiations.”

As to “European impartiality,” don’t worry, the prime minister knew exactly what he was saying.

http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Netanyahu-slams-new-EU-settlement-directives-320026

~~~~~~~~~~

Netanyahu has been calling his counterparts in various EU states today, urging that the new guidelines not be implemented. The hook he is using is that the new EU policy will compromise efforts at restarting negotiations. Undoubtedly he considers this is the best approach he has, the only one he thinks might succeed.

But Israel Hayom is reporting that Netanyahu is “urging EU officials to defer implementing the decision…until after peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians are exhausted.” (Emphasis added)

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=10767

And that causes a niggling unease. It’s quite likely that he assumes those attempts will drag on indefinitely, or that the situation will change by the time the US calls it quits, or that he’ll deal with it when that happens. But this argument carries the implication, however unintended, that once attempts to restart negotiations have failed, well, then it’s OK for the EU to say they won’t have any dealings with Israel past the Green Line.

Further clarifications will be needed.

~~~~~~~~~~

Israeli Foreign Ministry officials are saying that they were given only two days notice about this change in EU policy. The accusation in some quarters is that the European Commission pushed this through with inordinate speed. This makes it sound as if it’s on shaky ground, but there are conflicting reports on this.

~~~~~~~~~~

But we should also note this (emphasis added):

“A senior Palestinian Authority official confirmed to Israel Hayom on Tuesday that many in Ramallah were dissatisfied with the European Union’s decision to withhold economic grants and incentives to Israeli companies situated in Judea and Samaria.

“‘For our part, we approached a number of [European] Union officials, in the [Palestinian] Authority and also in Israel, to try and prevent the decision or at least to keep it unofficial,’ said the official, who declined to give his name. ‘It’s not just Israeli companies that are going to be hit economically, it’s also going to be disastrous economically and socially for the Palestinian community.’

“According to the Palestinian official, the European move will freeze joint projects, force employers to stop hiring Palestinians to work on joint projects with Israelis and lead to widespread layoffs of Palestinians laborers working in Judea and Samaria industrial zones.

“Sammer Darawsha, who works in a hothouse that is a part of a joint Israeli-Palestinian agricultural project funded by members of the EU and situated near the Halamish settlement, said the decision will ‘affect everyone, whether Jew or Palestinian. If they take away our livelihoods and food, exactly what kind of peace will be here?‘”

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=10765

And this, my friends, is what is most likely to effect a pullback in the EU policy stance. We don’t matter to the Europeans. But hurt Palestinian Arabs? That’s a whole other kettle of fish.

~~~~~~~~~~

I rather like what AFSI (Americans for a Safe Israel) had to say about the EU guidelines:

“These are the new Nuremberg Laws. Europe has once again shown its virulent anti-Semitism, and it is urgent that Israel not capitulate…We, as Americans, can re-invigorate our BUY ISRAEL programs, concentrating on products like AHAVA and SODA-STREAM that come from the controversial areas. Let’s remind the world of the great contributions Israel has made to our computerized world today, as well as to the remarkable advances in medicine and in every field one examines. Perhaps Israel should threaten to withhold all its research and development discoveries from the EU. There would be an uproar from the populace.”

~~~~~~~~~~

I will add here, before turning away from the EU, that it has staunchly resisted all appeals to list Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. This, perhaps, tells us all we need to know.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s a long standing outrage and the situation must improve:

Jews are barely tolerated on the Temple Mount, the holiest place in Judaism. The hours during which they can ascend are limited and they are forbidden to pray.

Every time there is “unrest” exhibited by the Muslims on the Mount — or a threat of unrest, Jews are moved out so as to avoid confrontation. This is an easier solution for the Israeli police than trying to control Muslim mobs. Never mind that Jewish rights are subverted in the process.

~~~~~~~~~~

At any time, this is a deeply distressing, an unacceptable, situation. But this was particularly the case yesterday: For it was Tisha B’Av, the day of mourning for the destruction of the Temple.

Israeli authorities decided to ban entry to the Mount by Jews because of fear of Muslim rioting. Hundreds of Jews, who had come — some from a considerable distance — in order to enter the Mount in commemoration of the day, were prevented from doing so. The day prior there had been trouble on the Mount and the police were eager to avoid a repeat.

And so the terrorists have been winning — they act up, and keep the Jews out. An extraordinarily perverse situation that threatens Israeli sovereignty.

See the story here: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/169965

~~~~~~~~~~

But there is good news with regard to this situation, too, as Jewish consciousness is being raised regarding Jewish rights, and more people are speaking out.

We see members of the Knesset and government ministers getting involved. Members of Knesset Shuli Mualem-Rafaeli (HaBayit HaYehudi) and Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin (Likud). were there yesterday and among those turned away.

MK Moshe Feiglin (Likud) has long been a fighter for Jewish rights on the Mount. See the story of the storm that erupted in the Knesset today about what happened on Tisha B’Av and Feiglin’s role in it:

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/170005

You can see Feiglin on one of his visits to the Mount here:

Credit: Jewishpress

~~~~~~~~~~

Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon (Likud) has begun an even more significant fight. Not only must Jews be allowed up on the Mount, he say, they must have an equal right to pray there.

“We are in favor of freedom of religion on the Temple Mount, and that means freedom for all religions. That includes Jews.”

It cannot continue any longer, that Arabs riot whenever a Jew begins to pray, he said.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/169953

~~~~~~~~~~

Well, it’s an important start, and bravo! to all those taking on this fight.

We can all play a role: When you come to Jerusalem, arrange to visit the Mount with a guide. We need to see more Jews up there.

~~~~~~~~~~

Do I have this correct: I’m reading now that Kerry, who met Abbas in Amman, will not be coming to Jerusalem this time around, after all.

What this tells us is that he did not make sufficient progress with Abbas so that he has anything to bring to Netanyahu.

Do you want to know how bad it is? Instead of pulling back on its demands, the PA has just added new ones. Abbas wants permission granted to build an airport in Ramallah, and to build hotels on the edge of the Dead Sea in Area C. This before coming to the table. Oh, and permission to search for gas in the territorial waters off of Gaza.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4406567,00.html

No wonder Kerry is not coming. How could he face us with all of those requests?

~~~~~~~~~~

But never mind, Kerry is insisting that he’s “narrowing the gaps between Israel and the PA.” And he met with representatives of the Arab League in Jordan, who have endorsed Kerry’s efforts.

Said the secretary of state:

“Israel needs to look hard at this initiative, which promises Israel peace with 22 Arab nations and 35 Muslim nations – a total of 57 nations that are standing and waiting for the possibility of making peace with Israel.”

http://www.timesofisrael.com/arab-league-endorses-kerrys-mideast-peace-effort/

“standing and waiting for the possibility of making peace with Israel.” The man’s a clown. Those Muslim nations are “standing and waiting” for a chance to destroy Israel via diplomatic game-playing. Is this Kerry’s “new” initiative?