Archive for December 2014
Stats helper monkeys: 2014 Annual Report
WordPress.com presents
Adonis Diaries
Since Sept. 18, 2008, I posted about 4,000 articles that generated half a million hits so far. WordPress.com missed 2013 Stats and I posted my own for that year.
Crunchy numbers
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 180,000 times in 2014. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 8 days for that many people to see it.
There were 62 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 7 MB. That’s about a picture per week. (I never post pictures of my own: I lack the tools and know-how)
The busiest day of the year was February 13th with 4,406 views.
The most popular post that day was Viva in the nude ski Lebanon. Jackie Chamoun photo shoot: Before heading to Sochi Olympics. (Posts with nude pictures or keywords of nude, naked and sex generate plenty of visits)
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Posting Patterns
In 2014, there were 965 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 4,933 posts.
Longest Streak
91 days (25 September – 24 December)
Best Day
Friday with 146 posts total
Attractions in 2014
These are the posts that got the most views in 2014. You can see all of the year’s most-viewed posts in your Site Stats.
- 1 Nude dancing in Louvre Museum Square: Proud “Arab” women atheists? 3 comments March 2014
- 2 Sex Preparations before wedding night 1 comment December 2010
- 3 Viva in the nude ski Lebanon. Jackie Chamoun photo shoot: Before heading to Sochi Olympics 0 comments February 2014
- 4 MALAYSIAN Airliner Found in Saudi Arabia? Hijacked by a PRINCE in Jeddah? 0 comments March 2014
- 5 Proper fasting is a cure-it-all medicine: No food, plain water. What’s your protocol? 0 comments April 2012
Some of your most popular posts were written before 2014. Your writing has staying power! Consider writing about those topics again.
How did they find you?
The top referring sites in 2014 were:
Where did they come from?
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That’s 211 countries in all!
Most visitors came from The United States. India & U.K. were not far behind.
See you in 2015
Note: Indication is that the Malaysian plane was shot down by the US forces over their Base in Indian Ocean island
Most hateful murderous Israeli politicians
Naomi Wolf posted on FB this Dec.30, 2014
I am often criticized here for being a ‘traitor’ to my fellow Jews.
Which leads me to wonder — what is the right definition of family? Of neighbor, of brother and sister? Surely those to whom we are morally accountable, yes?
Surely those with whom we choose to have a relationship of justice and compassion, not a matter mere proximity, mere ethnicity?
This may annoy the people I am already annoying even more, but I can’t avoid referencing that rabble rousing paradigm-inverting marginalized-people-identified rabbi Jesus (many scholars today portray the historical Jesus as a radical egalitarian rabbi firmly in the Jewish social justice tradition).
So Jesus is talking to a lawyer (or as a lawyer and in fact he taught jurisprudence in Saida, Lebanon).
Remember that’s a certain man’ who was beaten would have been Jewish to this Jewish audience and the Samaritan would have been a member of a despised, marginalized, one-down, untouchable “other” out-group at that time:
`”But [the lawyer], desiring to justify himself, asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”‘…
Jesus answered, “A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who both stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. By chance a certain priest was going down that way. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. In the same way a Levite also, when he came to the place, and saw him, passed by on the other side.
But a certain Samaritan, as he travelled, came where he was. When he saw him, he was moved with compassion, came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. He set him on his own animal, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, and gave them to the host, and said to him, ‘Take care of him. Whatever you spend beyond that, I will repay you when I return.’
Now which of these three do you think seemed to be a neighbour to him who fell among the robbers?”
He said, “He who showed mercy on him.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”‘
To me this Jewish radical teacher was saying, your neighbor and your brother or sister are those who treat you with humanity, and vice versa.
Which seems not a betrayal of Judaism — for me to agree with this — but a fulfillment of the kind of Jewish ethics I was taught growing up — also universal ethics.
Rayyan Adam‘s photo. on FB
Rayyan Adam with Becky Dent
The Zionist systematic assassination policy is very well known.
“Israel” has been using Death Squads even before it was established. The Zionist movement had several terrorist organization during the British mandated power over Palestine such as Lehi, Irgun, and Stern. They blew up the King David Hotel that was the headquarter of the British secret agency and terrorized many British officers.
The State of Israel assassinated the Swedish Count and diplomat Bernadotte .
It’s a Zionist systematic policy that was established on the assassination mentality, and the assassins mostly become the top leaders (war criminals) like Menuhin Begin, Shamir, Sharon, Barak, Livni, Bennett, Shaked and the list is endless.
@
http://samibedouin.wordpress.com/…/death-penalty-a-state-o…/
Naomi Wolf also posted on FB today
An exchange I consider extraordinarily meaningful and precious:
Amal Abdallah:
“Naomi, each time I read your posts and the accompanying comments I feel as though I’ve been given a tall glass of chilled water after a century of walking in the desert, tired, thirsty, lonely & scared. I’m still lost but I’m not scared and you’ve quenched a little of my thirst. Thank you.”
Naomi Wolf:” Thank you. Very eloquent. I would love to understand more about this. By ‘walking in the desert’ do you mean because we were cognitively so far apart? Or do you mean something else?”
Amal Abdallah: “Yes Naomi Wolf, because for so long, too long, my people, their suffering, their loss, their humiliation, their tragedy has been and continues to be silenced and if spoken of, blamed on them. The only thing worse than having to go through the disaster of dispossession, exile and oppression is for no one to acknowledge what has been done to you and instead to view YOU as the dispossessed or the exiled
and the oppressor, the terrorists.
It’s completely Kafkaesque. This is not limited to Israel or Jews, their propaganda machine has been so effective, the world over including some newer generations of Arabs hold this view.
It is incredibly isolating for Palestinians.
Palestinians have felt deserted, that we walk alone in a surreal reality. When Israel talks about the threat of being pushed into the sea, it is the Palestinians that WERE literally pushed into the sea in the hundreds of thousands in 1947-48 ending up in refugee camps in Lebanon, Gaza and Egypt.
When Israel talks about the threat to their existence, it’s the Palestinians whose very existence has been threatened since the advent of Zionism and they’re not just threatened, 89 whole families in Gaza this past summer no longer exist. When Israel says, ‘they want to wipe us from the map’.
It is Palestine that HAS been wiped from the map. Israel claims Palestinians use their children as human shields, yet not a single shred of evidence exists to substantiate this claim (everyone has looked everywhere), instead evidence abound of Israel using Palestinian children and adults as human shields.
There’s reality and there’s the lie.
Although I do not seek to fulfill Godwin’s law but it’s hard not see the Israeli narrative as the Big Lie, so huge, told so often, everyone the world over believes it and Palestinians – a small nation – scattered in the desert, tired, thirsty, lonely, scared without the funds or the reach, has been trying to counter this lie and million other lies that followed for nearly a hundred years.
We are tired and many times driven to the point of a break in our sanity. Consequently, we appreciate the help, which has quenched our thirst for truth and justice just a little bit.
The best article written about this phenomenon is entitled, Why Israel Lies, Chris Hedges, Aug 3, 2014. http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/why_israel_lies_20140803
Assyrian myths transformed into Religious sacred Stories in the Bibles and the Quran
Posted on: December 30, 2014
Assyrian myths transformed into Religious Stories in the Bibles and the Quran
The stories and myths in Assyrian and Sumerian mythologies were transformed into Jewish and Islamic sanctified stories.
These legends emerged in current Iraq (Assyria, Babylon and Ur) before 3500 BC or around 4000 years before the era of Islam.
The stories spread and moved into Jewish religious books, and deployed from Iraq to Palestine and then to Mecca, Medinah, Yemen and the Mashreq countries.
There was presence of many foreign immigrants in the Arabian Peninsula. For example, the young Iraqi from Mosul who served water and grapes to the Prophet Muhammad at Taif as its inhabitants were stoning Muhammad, and the Persian Salman, Suhaib and Bilal the Abyssinian…
These are some of the myths of ancient Iraq and corresponding in Islam.
1. The legend of the flood:
In an Assyrian mythology the gods determined to annihilate mankind and they warned Uttonbshtm and his wife and sons. He was to build a great ship and put a couple of each kind of animal. In the Koran the same story and details with the one difference is that the hero is Nou7 (Noah).
Archaeological excavations uncovered that the flood covered 300 miles in the old city of Ur.
Details of the flood are identical between Iraqi and Jewish mythology, and in the Islamic text the flood was intended to punish humans who have rotted in the ground except a good man, his family and a number of animal-build ship and resort group are excluded from it.
Send birds to explore the Earth after the flood recedes.
The Prophet Abraham came from Ur old Iraqi city in the South and brought with him the story of the flood.
2. Trip to heaven: gods Adaba corresponding story of ISRA ‘ and mi’raj.
3. Journey to the sky: gods Etana, the bird Eagle offset in the Quran the Prophet Muhammad’s journey to the bright sky in Ascension.
4. The journey of Gilgamesh to paradise.
5. Paradise in the legends of Iraq in the Pharaonic monuments mentioned paradise and their descriptions. In both cases where the rivers and trees and eternal life, a garden of Eden.
Eden is a word derived from the word Eden Sumerian and means easy and flat ground and the location of the garden of Eden in the South of Mesopotamia.
The idea of paradise appeared and was invented by the Sumerians in Iraq and then moved to the Canaanites and then the Pharaohs then moved to Jews and Muslims.
6. The underworld of floors: in Islam the 7 earths.
7. Demons and goblins appeared in legends of the old Iraq as set out in the Qur’an and Hadith.
8. The story of the beginning of the creation of the universe when Iraqi veterans (the sea was the first in the creation of the universe): in the Qur’an (the throne over the water).
The journey to the underworld = Islam shake them down low.
Seven days seven nights – using the number seven is repeated seven earths skies in Islam, seven 7 days.
9. Expulsion from paradise and eternity: God’s wrath on the ethics for refusing his food and the expulsion of immortality and paradise to land in Islam expelled Adam from paradise for he ate of the tree was the same story in Jewish books (Torah) before Islam the same meaning of the Qur’an.
10. Hell-the seven gates of the underworld.
Big doormen in the underworld: equivalent in Islam there is paradise Ranger Rizwan guard fire.
Eternity of God is only matched in the Qur’an God live and not die.
Gilgamesh is grappling with the divine bull that represents seven years lean-lean in the Qur’an in seven years.
Repetition in speech when the Assyrians – Kan Muhammad repeats certain phrases a lot.
Cleansing, washing the God Oruro = offset ablution in Islam.
The God Enki restored life to the goddess Inanna after death = ISA Hayat returned the dead.
The God Enki eat eight plants and fuck that befell it because of that = offset in Islam and Judaism the Adam ate from the tree and was cursed and the anger and the expulsion from paradise.
The God Enki became ill in his rib and Lady of the gods were invited to his recovery = corresponding create women’s rib.
11. The God Enlil sending plagues to kill humans in the story of Moses, = and in the Qur’an God take revenge from the people of Egypt sent a plague on them.
12. Eternity is obedience to God = Islam to obey human beings to God their intervention paradise eternity.
13. Was thought in ancient Iraq that the kindness of God and satisfaction of human disease and saves lengthens age = and the same belief in Islam.
14. Babylonian goddess Ishtar Arabic versions were called LAT and ‘ Uzza and Manat (warrior goddesses in the Arabic Peninsula).
15. The rise of the goddess Inanna of death = in Islam Jesus resurrects the dead and God limit people and then animates them.
16. The separation of the soul from the body = Islam out of the spirit of death.
17. Pad in legends of Assyria and Babylon = palette and fatalism in Islam.
18. The legend of ancient Iraqi culture similar to the story of Adam and Eve and take out them from paradise.
19. A person must die when the Assyrian gods that = in Islam God decides when a human dies.
Note 1: What the author mentions as Assyrian mythology is a direct hand me down transcript from one Empire to another in Iraq and Greater Syria that I call The Land (countries west of the Euphrates River and including south west Turkey, current Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan).
The Assyrian Empire is one of the latest that conquered other empires in the Land. These mythologies go as far back as 4,000 years before Christian calendar, and span the Empires of Akkad, Sumer, Babylon, Canaan…
Note 2: What the western countries label as the 3 monolithic religions are in fact a single one in 3 main versions.
The Old Testament or Bible was written in Alexandria two centuries before the coming of Christ. The New testament was written in several languages: Byzantine Empire selected 4 Books that happened to be written in popular Greek (not the elite formal Greek).
All the many dozens of Books were labelled Heretics, burned, discarded, and lost for lack of heretic Christian sects to transcribe and disseminate.
The Quran was written in many Arabic slang languages (which are derived from the Aramaic, the language of the people in the Land. The third caliph Ibn Affan decided to rewrite the Quran in the Mecca slang of the tribe of Quraish.
Note 3: Actually, besides the mythical or typical stories of the Land, the Old Testament is a description of the customs and traditions of The Land, and everything else is pure historical falsification, kind of extending a history to roaming tribes.
For over a century now, Israel and the Zionist movement couldn’t locate a single archaeological finding that prove the existence of the Kingdoms of David or Solomon or any Jewish artefact: The Jews remained mostly bedouin tribes in the land of Canaan (current Palestine and southern parts of Syria and Lebanon) and never reached the seashore at any moment in their existence in Palestine
https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2009/09/19/complete-story-of-jesus-visit-to-jerusalem/
Note 4: References: book flight to paradise and hell in the legends of the old Iraq – a Ministry of culture and information, 1998-book mythology in Mesopotamia-Baghdad 1984 book of Ishtar and Tammuz and tragedy book epic of Gilgamesh – Beirut and many Arabic and translated books on religion and mythology in ancient Iraq Sumer, Assyria and Babylon Sami dj_jigga civilized dialogue-number: 2354-7/26/2008
Note 5: The Arabic text posted on FB by Zahrat Al Mandella
أساطير أشورية صارت مقدسات إسلاميةالأساطير والقصص ظهرت في العراق القديم في أشور وبابل قبل 3500 عام قبل الميلاد أي حوالي 4000 عام قبل عصر ظهور الإسلام.
وانتشرت وانتقلت إلى اليهود وادخلوها ضمن كتبهم الدينية والذين انتشروا وانتقلوا من العراق إلى فلسطين ومنها إلى المدينة المنورة وبلدان المشرق.
…
وكان هناك وجود للعراقيين في مكة وما جاورها فالشاب الذي قدم الماء والعنب للنبي محمد في الطائف عندما زارها للدعوة لدينه وقابله أهلها بالرجم بالحجارة كان شابا عراقيا مسيحيا من الموصل وكان في مكة والمدينة أشخاص من بلدان عديدة مثل صهيب الرومي وسلمان الفارسي وبلال الحبشي مما يعنى وجود مهاجرين وانتقال ثقافات وتلاقى وانتقال أفكار.
وهذه بعض الأساطير العراقية القديمة وما يقابلها في الإسلام:– أسطورة الطوفان : في أساطير أشورية أن الآلهة عزمت على محق البشر وأنها أنذرت أوتونبشتم وزوجته بذلك فبنو سفينة عظيمة ووضعوا ا فيها زوجين من كل نوع من الحيوانات ونجو من الطوفان وفى القران نفس القصة والتفاصيل مع فارق واحد هو أن بطلها نوح بدل أوتو نبشتم وجود دلائل على وقوع طوفان نهرى حقيقي في مناطق من العراق في الألف الثالث قبل الميلاد.
من خلال الحفريات الأثرية وغطى الطوفان 300 ميل ووجدت في الحفريات آثار الطمي في مدينة أور من أثار الطوفان.
تفاصيل الطوفان متطابقة بين الأساطير العراقية واليهودية والنص الإسلامي الهدف من الطوفان عقاب البشر الذين افسدوا في الأرض باستثناء رجل صالح وعائلته وعدد من الحيوانات – بناء السفينة ولجوء المجموعة المستثناة من العقاب إليها.
إرسال طيور لاستطلاع الأرض بعد انحسار الطوفان.
– إبراهيم النبي جاء من أور المدينة العراقية القديمة في الجنوب وجلب معه قصة الطوفان.
وانتشرت وانتقلت إلى اليهود وادخلوها ضمن كتبهم الدينية والذين انتشروا وانتقلوا من العراق إلى فلسطين ومنها إلى المدينة المنورة وبلدان المشرق.
…
وكان هناك وجود للعراقيين في مكة وما جاورها فالشاب الذي قدم الماء والعنب للنبي محمد في الطائف عندما زارها للدعوة لدينه وقابله أهلها بالرجم بالحجارة كان شابا عراقيا مسيحيا من الموصل وكان في مكة والمدينة أشخاص من بلدان عديدة مثل صهيب الرومي وسلمان الفارسي وبلال الحبشي مما يعنى وجود مهاجرين وانتقال ثقافات وتلاقى وانتقال أفكار.
وهذه بعض الأساطير العراقية القديمة وما يقابلها في الإسلام:– أسطورة الطوفان : في أساطير أشورية أن الآلهة عزمت على محق البشر وأنها أنذرت أوتونبشتم وزوجته بذلك فبنو سفينة عظيمة ووضعوا ا فيها زوجين من كل نوع من الحيوانات ونجو من الطوفان وفى القران نفس القصة والتفاصيل مع فارق واحد هو أن بطلها نوح بدل أوتو نبشتم وجود دلائل على وقوع طوفان نهرى حقيقي في مناطق من العراق في الألف الثالث قبل الميلاد.
من خلال الحفريات الأثرية وغطى الطوفان 300 ميل ووجدت في الحفريات آثار الطمي في مدينة أور من أثار الطوفان.
تفاصيل الطوفان متطابقة بين الأساطير العراقية واليهودية والنص الإسلامي الهدف من الطوفان عقاب البشر الذين افسدوا في الأرض باستثناء رجل صالح وعائلته وعدد من الحيوانات – بناء السفينة ولجوء المجموعة المستثناة من العقاب إليها.
إرسال طيور لاستطلاع الأرض بعد انحسار الطوفان.
– إبراهيم النبي جاء من أور المدينة العراقية القديمة في الجنوب وجلب معه قصة الطوفان.
– رحلة الإلهة إيتانا إلى السماء على طائر النسر يقابلها في القران رحلة النبي محمد على البراق إلى السماء في الإسراء والمعراج.
– رحلة جلجامش إلى الفردوس الأرضي.
– الجنة وردت في أساطير العراق ووردت في الآثار الفرعونية ذكر الجنة وأوصافها وفى كلتا الحالتين ذكر أن فيها انهار وأشجار وحياة أبدية كلمة جنة عدن – عدن كلمة عدن مشتقة من كلمة إيدن السومرية وتعنى سهل وارض منبسطة وموقع جنة عدن في جنوب وادي الرافدين وفكرة الفردوس والجنة ظهرت واخترعها السومريون في العراق ثم انتقلت إلى الكنعانيين ثم الفراعنة ثم انتقلت إلى اليهود والمسلمين.
– العالم السفلى مكون من طوابق = في الإسلام الأرضون السبع.
– الشياطين والعفاريت وردت في أساطير العراق القديم كما وردت في القرآن والحديث.
– في قصة بداية إنشاء الكون عند العراقيين القدماء (كان البحر الأول في خلق الكون) = في القرآن (كان عرشه على الماء).
الرحلة إلى العالم السفلى = في الإسلام يخسف بهم أسفل سافلين.
سبعة أيام سبعة ليال – استخدام الرقم سبعة يتكرر في الإسلام سموات سبع أرضون سبع سبعة أيام.
الطرد من الجنة والخلود: غضب الإله على آدابا لأنه رفض الطعام المقدم له وطرد من الخلود والجنة إلى ارض وفى الإسلام طرد ادم من الجنة لأنه أكل من الشجرة ووردت نفس القصة في كتب اليهود ( التوراة) قبل الإسلام بنفس المعنى الوارد في القرآن.
الجحيم – البوابات السبع للعالم السفلي.
الرحلة إلى العالم السفلى = في الإسلام يخسف بهم أسفل سافلين.
سبعة أيام سبعة ليال – استخدام الرقم سبعة يتكرر في الإسلام سموات سبع أرضون سبع سبعة أيام.
الطرد من الجنة والخلود: غضب الإله على آدابا لأنه رفض الطعام المقدم له وطرد من الخلود والجنة إلى ارض وفى الإسلام طرد ادم من الجنة لأنه أكل من الشجرة ووردت نفس القصة في كتب اليهود ( التوراة) قبل الإسلام بنفس المعنى الوارد في القرآن.
الجحيم – البوابات السبع للعالم السفلي.
كبير البوابين في العالم السفلى يقابله في الإسلام رضوان حارس الجنة وهناك حارس النار.
الخلود من نصيب الآلهة فقط يقابله في القران الله حي لا يموت.
جلجامش يصارع الثور الإلهي الذي يمثل سبع سنوات عجاف – في القرآن سبع سنوات عجاف.
التكرار في الكلام عند الأشوريين – كان النبي محمد يكرر بعض العبارات كثيرا.
التطهير بغسل اليدين الإلهة أورورو = يقابله الوضوء في الإسلام.
الإله أنكي أعاد الحياة إلى الإلهة أنانا بعد موتها = عيسى أعاد الحياة للأموات.
الإله أنكي أكل من النباتات الثمانية واللعنة التي حلت عليه بسبب ذلك = يقابل ذلك في الإسلام واليهودية قصة ادم الذي أكل من الشجرة وحلت عليه اللعنة والغضب وطرد من الجنة.
الإله أنكي أصيب بمرض في ضلعه ودعيت سيدة من الآلهة لشفائه = يقابل ذلك خلق المرأة من الضلع.
– الإله إنليل يرسل الأوبئة لقتل البشر= وفي قصة موسى في القران الله ينتقم من أهل مصر بإرسال الوباء عليهم.
– الخلود مرتبط بطاعة البشر للآلهة = وفى الإسلام طاعة البشر لله تدخلهم الجنة دار الخلود.
– ساد الاعتقاد في العراق القديم أن عطف الآلهة ورضاها ينقذ البشر من الأمراض ويطيل أعمارهم = ونفس الاعتقاد في الإسلام.
– الإلهة البابلية عشتار كانت لها نسخ عربية تسمى اللات والعزى ومناة.
– نهوض الإلهة أنانا من الموت = في الإسلام عيسى أحيا الموتى والله يميت الناس ثم يحييهم.
– انفصال الروح عن الجسد = في الإسلام خروج الروح من الجسد علامة الموت.
– لوح القدر في أساطير أشور وبابل = لوح القدر والقضاء والقدر في الإسلام.
– أسطورة أدابا العراقية القديمة تشابه قصة ادم وحواء وخرجهما من الجنة.
– لا بد للإنسان أن يموت عندما تقرر الآلهة الأشورية ذلك = في الإسلام الله يقرر متى يموت الإنسان.
المراجع:
كتاب الرحلة إلى الفردوس والجحيم في أساطير العراق القديم – إصدار وزارة الثقافة والإعلام العراقية 1998 –
وكتاب الأساطير في بلاد مابين النهرين – بغداد 1984
وكتاب عشتار ومأساة تموز وكتاب ملحمة جلجامش – بيروت وكثير من الكتب العربية والمترجمة عن الدين والأساطير في العراق القديم سومر وأشور وبابل
سامي كوكابي الحوار المتمدن – العدد: 2354 – 2008 / 7 / 26
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Do you miss Your Suffering? Try the Airlines price gimmicks and total discomfort
Posted on: December 30, 2014
Do you miss Your Suffering? Try the Airlines price gimmicks and total discomfort
This fall, JetBlue airline finally threw in the towel.
For years, the company was among the last holdouts in the face of an industry trend toward smaller seats, higher fees, and other forms of unpleasantness.
JetBlue distinguished itself by providing decent, fee-free service for everyone, an approach that seemed to be working.
Passengers liked the airline, and it made a consistent profit.
Wall Street analysts accused JetBlue of being “overly brand-conscious and customer-focussed.”
In November, the airline, under new management, announced that it would follow United, Delta, and the other major carriers by cramming more seats into economy, shrinking leg room, and charging a range of new fees for things like bags and WiFi.
Tim Wu published this December 26, 2014
Why Airlines Want to Make You Suffer
It seems that the money was just too good to resist.
In 2013, the major airlines combined made about $31.5 billion in income from fees, as well as other ancillaries, such as redeeming credit-card points.
United pulled in more than $5.7 billion in fees and other ancillary income in 2013, while Delta scored more than $2.5 billion.
That’s income derived in large part from services, such as baggage carriage, that were once included in ticket prices. Today, as anyone who travels knows well, you can pay fees ranging from $40 to $300 for things like boarding in a “fast lane,” sitting in slightly better economy-class seats, bringing along the family dog, or sending an unaccompanied minor on a plane.
Loyal fliers, or people willing to pay a giant annual fee, can avoid some of these charges; others are unavoidable.
The fees have proved a boon to the U.S. airlines, which will post a projected twenty-billion-dollar profit in 2014. To be fair, airlines are not just profiting because of fee income.
Reduced competition, thanks to mergers, helps. There is also the plummet in the price of oil, which the airlines seem to have collectively agreed is no reason to reduce fares or even remove “fuel surcharges.” But for the past decade it is fees that have been the fastest-growing source of income for the main airlines, having increased by twelve hundred per cent since 2007.
If fees are great for airlines, what about for us? Does it make any difference if an airline collects its cash in fees as opposed to through ticket sales? The airlines, and some economists, argue that the rise of the fee model is good for travellers.
You only pay for what you want, and you can therefore save money if you, for instance, don’t mind sitting in middle seats in the back, waiting in line to board, or bringing your own food. That’s why American Airlines calls its fees program “Your Choice” and suggests that it makes the “travel experience even more convenient, cost-effective, flexible and personalized.”
But the fee model comes with systematic costs that are not immediately obvious. Here’s the thing: in order for fees to work, there needs be something worth paying to avoid.
That necessitates, at some level, a strategy that can be described as “calculated misery.” Basic service, without fees, must be sufficiently degraded in order to make people want to pay to escape it. And that’s where the suffering begins.
The necessity of degrading basic service provides a partial explanation for the fact that, in the past decade, the major airlines have done what they can to make flying basic economy, particularly on longer flights, an intolerable experience. For one thing, as the Wall Street Journal has documented, airlines have crammed more seats into the basic economy section of the airplane, even on long-haul flights.
The seats, meanwhile, have gotten smaller—they are narrower and set closer together. Bill McGee, a contributing editor to Consumer Reports who worked in the airline industry for many years, studied seat sizes and summarized his findings this way: “The roomiest economy seats you can book on the nation’s four largest airlines are narrower than the tightest economy seats offered in the 1990s.”
Boarding for non-élite flyers has also become a miserable experience. There are far more efficient ways to load planes than the current back-to-front method, which is actually slower than random boarding. The process takes longer still thanks to the practice of letting flyers with status board out of turn and thanks to luggage charges, which compel fee-avoiders to cram their bags into overhead compartments.
Airlines lack a real incentive to fundamentally improve boarding for everyone—by, for example, investing in methods such as filling both ends of an airplane at once. It would make life better and also defeat the status racket.
Fee models also lead most people to spend unwarranted time and energy calculating, agonizing, and repacking in the hope of avoiding paying more. The various fees make prices hard to compare, as a ticket can now represent just a fraction of the total expense.
These are real costs, and they are compounded by ticketing practices, which demand perfect timing. When customers miscalculate their schedules or their plans change, the airline is ready with its punishment: the notorious two-hundred-dollar rebooking and change fee.
Those change fees are particularly lucrative: in 2014, Delta and United are projected to collect nearly a billion dollars each. And the greater social cost comes from those who didn’t change their tickets even though they wanted to.
The fee model isn’t the only reason air travel has become more miserable in recent years. Airlines also benefit directly by throwing more seats into economy, because they have more to sell. But as mergers reduce competition airlines can more safely collude to provide poorer levels of service, and everything that adds to and increases differential experiences drives fee income, which is the most lucrative side of the business.
Perhaps that’s why Delta’s new cabin plan offers five different classes of service, and why one unnamed major airline is reportedly considering introducing a level called “economy minus,” with even smaller seats than basic economy.
The various costs described here will not appear on any bottom line but can be easily witnessed in angry families, exhausted flight attendants, and the general sense of defeat emanating from passengers exiting coach. At best, it can be said that more people are able to fly for less.
But, as JetBlue demonstrated, there need not be so much misery along the way. Ultimately, the fee models and the distinctions they draw make class inequality, which may be felt less in other places, painfully obvious. The conditions of carriage may lack the importance of other, more pressing social issues.
But when an airline like JetBlue is punished for merely trying to treat all of its passengers decently, something isn’t right.
What happened in Lebanon this year 2014?
It’s been a long, difficult and weird year for Lebanon. We’ve had our share of abductions, bombings, food contamination and corruption, but it’s time we put all that behind us and turn a new page… yeah right.
Via Beirut.com this Dec. 29, 2014
Lebanese Mafia Services for Hire
(Image via MTV)
In Lebanon we don’t need Craigslist, we just advertise our mafia services on Facebook.
In August, MTV News reported that a group of “mafia professionals” were putting up Facebook ads offering their services. These services included kidnapping, threatening, and beating people up for money. The ads have since been removed from the social media site, and the numbers originally listed are now out of service.
Education Minister: Everyone To Pass Final Exams
(Image via Annahar)
The Lebanese education system hit rock bottom this past year.
The last time the government let everyone pass their final exams was during the war in 1975. But Education Minister Elias Bou Saab said in August that he would let all students who took the exam receive a certificate. The minister said his decision came after the UCC’s continued boycott to grade the exams until Parliament passed a new salary scale for teachers.
Armed “Vigilantes” Break into Syrian Homes
(Image via Lebanese Forces)
With the mafia advertising its services on Facebook, Amal party militants thought they had to step up their game, so gunmen belonging to the Amal party were spotted breaking into Syrian homes in Msaytbeh and Mar Elias in broad daylight over the summer.
The gunmen, acting as self-dubbed vigilantes, were allegedly aiming to “help” the Lebanese Armed Forces by seeking out “terrorists”… their own way.
Nicolas Fattoush Punches Office Worker in Throat
(Image via Lebanese Memes)
Nicolas Fattoush assaulted an office worker identified as Manal Daou at the Baabda Justice Palace after she refused to give him special treatment in October. According to reports, he told her to file a complaint immediately but she politely told him he would have to wait his turn.
Nicolas shouted: “I am Nicolas Fattoush, I can’t wait!” and boom, smack. Sounds like a poorly written sitcom, like “Fattoush the Barbarian” or “Beauty and the Fattoush”.
Nicolas Fattoush then proved to everyone that he’s a gentleman. How? Well he told everyone that Tourism Minister Michel Pharaon was cheating on his wife during a press conference… I’m not kidding.
THERE’S MORE to the Fattoush family misbehavior!
After Zahle residents complained to the media about a new factory being built near their houses under a plan organized by MP Nicolas Fattoush’s brother, Pierre, an Al-Jadeed news crew decided to go investigate, grab some footage and conduct an interview.
Al-Jadeed claims its crew was met with hostility by men related to Fattoush and say they were later attacked by his men who were said to be heavily armed.
Read more here.
Tripoli Police Raid Food Vendor Cart
(Images via Facebook)
Vegetable and fruit carts are a regular part of Lebanese street life. Many people prefer waiting for these street vendors to pass by their homes to purchase fresh produce rather than visit the supermarket.
According to activists who posted the incident to Facebook, a patrol in Tripoli made up of two police cars raided a grape wagon, took all the fruit, and left the owner crying. Activists say bystanders who witnessed the aggressive raid in August pitched in and collected about 100,000 LL for the cart’s owner in lieu of the stolen goods.
Syrian Refugees Face Horrors in Lebanon
(Image via An-Nahar)
In Baalbeck in September, An-Nahar reported that Syrian refugee tents were set on fire and shot at in the villages of Hermel and Mashari3 El-Kaa.
One man, identified as Mohammad Al-Salem Ahmad, was injured by a bullet and taken to Hermel Hospital. The army was dispatched to help return the area to calm.
In Tyre, Syrian refugees were given 48 hours to evacuate from Tyre’s Burj al-Shemali Municipality according to notices from the police. The reason: concerns over health problems and security. Police handed out letters to the refugees in the village saying they had 48 hours to evacuate or be held accountable.
Meanwhile, a group of anonymous Bourj Hammoud residents put up flyers throughout the neighborhood that read: “We ask all Syrian residents of Bourj Hammoud to evacuate the area and that’s to sympathize with the Lebanese Army martyrs. You have been warned.”
The paper was signed by the “Men of Bourj Hammoud.” The municipality said they had idea who these people were, and promised security precautions were taken to protect all the residents of Bourj Hammoud, regardless of nationality.
Angry Man’s Gun-Toting Friends Open Fire on Hospital
(Stock image of hairy man via Elite Daily)
A patient in Baalbek called his friends to open fire on a Baalbek hospital in November. Did the doctor hurt the patient? No. What he did was even worse: the doctor wanted to shave the patient’s hair to prepare him for an operation. After the patient saw that his masculinity was at stake, he dialed up his friends to save him.
Read more here.
Ashraf Rifi (Minister of Justice) Tries to Ban Binaural Beats, Calls Them “Digital Drugs”
(Image via Clear Mind Meditation Techniques)
For those of you who don’t know what Binaural Beats are, they’re sounds that have certain effects on your brain. That’s it. They’re just audible soundwaves. Some claim that these beats can be used to simulate drug-like effects, and so Ashraf Rifi wanted to ban them in October. That’s right, he wanted to ban sound frequencies.
In other news, the old man who lives next door to me was heard screaming: “Turn down that goddamn garbage you kids call rock ‘n roll!” out his balcony earlier today.
Lebanese Child Urged to Beat Syrian Child in Video
In a video posted to YouTube on July 18, adults can be heard prodding a Lebanese child to beat a Syrian boy. “Hit him Abbas, hit him on the head with the stick,” says a voice in the background believed to be a family member.
During the nearly two-minute assault, a number of adult voices can be heard instructing the child to engage in specific acts against the victim, including: beating him with a stack, slapping him in the face, punching him and kicking him.
Last Piece of Public Beach in Beirut Sold and Privatized
(Image via Sietske in Beirut)
Wissam Ali Ashour, a former member of the government and real estate investor, was announced the new owner of Ramlet el Bayda beach in November after a deal had been quietly completed a few months earlier.
Ashour purchased the 28,000 square meters of land from the Beirut municipality. According to reports, he is going to have a large wall built around the purchased land to demarcate it as a private area.
Read the full story in Arabic here.
Six Porn Websites Banned in Lebanon
(Image via Annahar)
Abdel Moneim Youssef, director general of state network owner Ogero, blocked six porn websites based on a decision from the Telecommunications Ministry.
While one source told The Daily Star newspaper in September that the decision to block the sites was made after complaints were issued by concerned family members of the “content” and “impact on society decency,” a report in An-Nahar tells a different story.
The news site reported that the decision was made after a Lebanese man in the UK was arrested by Interpol for allegedly molesting a child. The investigation found that the six porn sites being banned by the Telecom Ministry are the same six sites the man admitted to frequenting on the web.
Parliament Raise Request Denied
(Image via Moulahazat)
According to a report in Lebanon Debate, some members of parliament had the audacity to demand a raise after they elected themselves to a new term earlier this year. Had Speaker Nabih Berri named the extension a “new” term, every MP would have received a 65% increase in their long term pay.
That means every parliament member would be getting an extra 7,000,000 LL per month. Multiply that by the number of MPs and you get 10,750,000,000 LL.
Lebanon Ranked 10th Unhappiest Country in the World
(Photo via NOW Media)
International pollster Gallup released its latest edition of the “Negative Emotion Index,” and ranked Lebanon as tenth in the world in June, reported NOW Lebanon. The Index measures the frequency of negative emotions in countries around the world by asking 1,000 adults in each country if they experienced any anger, sadness, stress, physical pain, or worry the previous day.
Woman Refuses to Sell House, Crane Plows Into It
(Photo via Facebook)
According the group, Save Beirut Heritage, in June a construction crew plowed through a Mar Mikhael woman’s home after she refused to sell it to a developer and move out.
Despite two walls on the upper floor of her house being torn down, the woman remains in the building, according to the Beirut Report blog.
Jumblatt Supports Legalization of Medical Marijuana
In May, Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt said he supported the cultivation of cannabis for medical purposes. In an interview with Al-Jadeed TV he said he never smoked marijuana in his life, “but I support growing cannabis for medical use and to improve the living conditions of farmers in North Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.”
Pregnant Woman Delivers Baby on Zalkaa Road
LBC News obtained footage of a pregnant Lebanese woman giving birth on the side of the road in the region of Zalkaa. Footage posted in April to the popular video-sharing website You Tube showed the woman lying on the ground and wrapped in a blanket as members of the Red Cross helped her deliver the baby.
Teenager Kicks His Mother in The Face on Lebanese TV
On March 31, a Lebanese teen identified only as Ahmad appeared on the Lebanese talk show, Al Akeed with Zaven Kouyoumdjian.
Ahmad shocked viewers with his disgraceful manner, at one point approaching his mother, Dunya Al-Asaad, kicking her in the face and calling her names.
Dunya explained that she hadn’t seen her children since her divorce 4 years ago. She also mentioned on the show that her ex-husband was verbally and physically abusive, and her son was apparently following the example of his father.
Abu Faour Publishes List of Tainted Food at Restaurants and Markets
(Image via Blog Baladi)
You know what’s worse than the guy who walks up to your kid and crushes his childhood by telling him that neither Santa Clause nor Darth Vader exists? The guy who says all your favorite restaurants are violating health regulations. Don’t get me wrong: I’m still going to eat a cheeseburger at CBJ this weekend… but I’m going to feel guilty about devouring that juicy, allegedly feces-laden goodness.
I’m not even going to type the list because of how large it is, almost every restaurant has shit-contaminated food, according to Health Minister Wael Abu Faour after a series of press conferences he made in November.
Note: On Dec. 24, my dad Georges Bouhatab passed away at 2 pm in the afternoon. He was to be 90 on January 18. It happened that all his grandchildren were present for the Christmas vacation.
Hot posts this week (Dec. 14/2014)
Implicit Association Test (IAT)? Does it actually measure Racial Prejudices?
- A few Badass women
- All Time top posts
- Palestinian non-violent activists, and a minister in the government, killed by Israel
- Dream in white, totally besieged by cascading small white pools of water
- West of Eden? What’s going on in Jerusalem and the West Bank?
- People-centred research? Testing Subjects or design meant for the health and safety of people and users?
- How White people in USA demonstrate their biases?
- Replacing cement: New technology in devastated and needy Gaza
Martian meteorite: chemical analysis provides clues to planet’s history of habitability
Posted on: December 29, 2014
Martian meteorite: chemical analysis provides clues to planet’s history of habitability
A new analysis of a Martian rock that meteorite hunters plucked from an Antarctic ice field 30 years ago this month reveals a record of the planet’s climate billions of years ago, back when water likely washed across its surface and any life that ever formed there might have emerged.
Scientists from the University of California, San Diego, NASA and the Smithsonian Institution report detailed measurements of minerals within the meteorite in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week.
“Minerals within the meteorite hold a snapshot of the planet’s ancient chemistry, of interactions between water and atmosphere,” said Robina Shaheen, a project scientist at UC San Diego and the lead author of the report.
The unlovely stone, which fell to Earth 13 thousand years ago, looked a lot like a potato and has quite a history. Designated ALH84001, it is the oldest meteorite we have from Mars, a chunk of solidified magma from a volcano that erupted 4 billion years ago.
Since then something liquid, probably water, seeped through pores in the rock and deposited globules of carbonates and other minerals.
The carbonates vary subtly depending on the sources of their carbon and oxygen atoms.
Both carbon and oxygen occur in heavier and lighter versions, or isotopes. The relative abundances of isotopes forms a chemical signature that careful analysis and sensitive measurements can uncover.
Mars’s atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide but contains some ozone.
The balance of oxygen isotopes within ozone are strikingly weird with enrichment of heavy isotopes through a physical chemical phenomenon first described by co-author Mark Thiemens, a professor of chemistry at UC San Diego, and colleagues 25 years ago.
“When ozone reacts with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it transfers its isotopic weirdness to the new molecule,” said Shaheen, who investigated this process of oxygen isotope exchange as a graduate student at the University of Heidelberg in Germany.
When carbon dioxide reacts with water to make carbonates, the isotopic signature continues to be preserved.
The degree of isotopic weirdness in the carbonates reflects how much water and ozone was present when they formed. It’s a record of climate 3.9 billion years ago, locked in a stable mineral. The more water, the smaller the weird ozone signal.
This team measured a pronounced ozone signal in the carbonates within the meteorite, suggesting that although Mars had water back then, vast oceans were unlikely. Instead, the early Martian landscape probably held smaller seas.
“What’s also new is our simultaneous measurements of carbon isotopes on the same samples. The mix of carbon isotopes suggest that the different minerals within the meteorite had separate origins,” Shaheen said. “They tell us the story of the chemical and isotopic compositions of the atmospheric carbon dioxide.”
ALH84001 held tiny tubes of carbonate that some scientists saw as potential evidence of microbial life, though a biological origin for the structures has been discarded.
On December 16, NASA announced another potential whiff of Martian life in the form of methane sniffed by the rover Curiosity.
Carbonates can be deposited by living things that scavenge the minerals to build their skeletons, but that is not the case for the minerals measured by this team.”The carbonate we see is not from living things,” Shaheen said. “It has anomalous oxygen isotopes that tell us this carbonate is abiotic.”
By measuring the isotopes in multiple ways, the chemists found carbonates depleted in carbon-13 and enriched in oxygen-18. That is, Mars’s atmosphere in this era, a period of great bombardment, had much less carbon-13 than it does today.
The change in relative abundances of carbon and oxygen isotopes may have occurred through extensive loss of Martian atmosphere. A thicker atmosphere would likely have been required for liquid water to flow on the planet’s chilly surface.
“We now have a much deeper and specific insight into the earliest oxygen-water system in the solar system,” Thiemens said. “The question that remains is when did planets, Earth and Mars, get water, and in the case of Mars, where did it go? We’ve made great progress, but still deep mysteries remain.”
Are you still wondering if God do exist? Does Stephen Hawking make it any clearer?
Posted on: December 28, 2014
Are you still wondering if God do exist? Does Stephen Hawking make it any clearer?
If I were a scientist, I’d stick to the Goldman Sachs principle: bet on both sides.
“Believe in science, believe in God” seems to cover all the possibilities and gives you the best chance for a cheery afterlife.
Stephen Hawking comes right out and says it. He is an atheist.
Stephen Hawking makes it clear: There is no God
The physicist explains that science now offers more convincing explanations for existence. He is therefore an atheist
Chris Matyszczyk posted this September 26, 2014
For a time, it was thought that astrophysicist Stephen Hawking had also left a tiny gap in his credo window for a magical deity. However, he has now come out and declared that there is No God.
He gave an interview to Spain’s El Mundo in which he expressed his firm belief that el mundo (the world) was the work of scientifically explainable phenomena, not of a supreme being.
Hawking said: “Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe. But now science offers a more convincing explanation.”
I’m not sure whether there was a specific moment in which science overtook the deistic explanation of existence. However, El Mundo pressed him on the suggestion in “A Brief History of Time” that a unifying theory of science would help mankind “know the mind of God.”
Hawking now explained: “What I meant by ‘we would know the mind of God’ is, we would know everything that God would know, if there were a God. Which there isn’t. I’m an atheist.”
He added: “Religion believes in miracles, but these aren’t compatible with science.”
Some look at, for example, the human eye and wonder how that exciting ball of jelly could have come about scientifically.
Hawking’s been tending toward such an absolute pronouncement for a while.
In a speech last year, he offered an explanation of how the world came to being without God.
He mused: “What was God doing before the divine creation? Was he preparing hell for people who asked such questions?”
I do worry, though, about Hawking’s sweetly divine faith in humanity. He told El Mundo: “In my opinion, there is no aspect of reality beyond the reach of the human mind.” (Still, reality does exist even for people whose brain are handicapped and cannot discriminate the real from the fiction)
If that’s true, the human mind still has to develop exponentially to explain everyday phenomena, such as social networking.
And then there’s Hawking’s insistence that his speech synthesizer, which gives him a curiously American accent, has had this consequence: “With the American accent, I’ve had far more success with women.”
We definitely need some serious research to explain that.
Note: Who cares for a definite answer except those who have vested interest in all these discussions that have no serious resolutions? Give mankind a break from illusory myths and all these manipulations working on his fears and weaknesses.
Adonis Diaries 
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Your most commented on post in 2014 was Natural Gas agreement among Israel-Egypt-Jordan
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