Opuscula Japanese Did it first

HAMAS, THE RULERS OF GAZA, are not satisfied sending civilians before their fighters as shields.

Now they are flying kites over the fence with incendiary devices to set fire to Israeli land.

As King Solomon is alleged to have opined: There is nothing new under the sun.

DURING WORLD WAR 2, the Japanese floated balloons with incendiary and anti-personnel bombs over the coasts the U.S. (a few landed in Canada and Mexico) with the same intent: Set fire of America’s forests and kill anyone nearby with shrapnel.

How that would have helped the Japanese war effort escapes me.

If anything, that would be like poking a sleeping bear with a sharp stick; the response would not be pretty.

The balloon bombs killed 6 people in Bly OR on May 5, 1945, and fell on at least 17 U.S. states. A number of balloon evidence also was found in Canada’s western provinces.

According to Wikipedia¹, From late 1944 until early 1945, the Japanese launched more than 9,300 fire balloons, of which 300 were found or observed in the U.S. Despite the high hopes of their designers, the balloons were ineffective as weapons, causing only six deaths (from one single incident) and a small amount of damage.

The Japanese designed two balloon types.

The first was called the "Type B Balloon" and was designed by the Japanese Navy. It was 9 m (30 ft) in diameter and consisted of rubberized silk. The type B balloons were sent first and mainly used for meteorological purposes. The Japanese used them to determine the possibility of the bomb-carrying balloons reaching North America.

The second type was the bomb-carrying balloon. Japanese bomb-carrying balloons were 10 m (33 ft) in diameter and, when fully inflated, held about 540 m3 (19,000 cu ft) of hydrogen. Their launch sites were located on the east coast of the main Japanese island of Honshū.

Studies by Wasaburo Oishi, credited with the discovery of the high-altitude air currents, enabled Japan to attack North America during World War II with at least 9,000 incendiary bombs carried by stratospheric balloons and then dropped by a timer mechanism on U.S. forests. Very few bombs in this bombing campaign, called Project Fu-Go, actually reached their targets. "

Guided by Oishi's wind charts, 9,000 fire balloon bombs, called Fu-go, were unleashed by Japan between November 1944 and April 1945." Oishi's wind calculations were wrong, and instead of taking 65 hours to reach the US from Japan, it took 96 hours on average. As a result, most of the fire balloons fell harmlessly into the Pacific Ocean, instead of on the American mainland.

Fortunately, the rulers of Hamastan (Gaza) focus most of their attention on tunnels.

Likewise, the rulers so willing to sacrifice non-combatants, apparently lack either hydrogen or helium to float balloons into Israel. Both are commercially available so Israel must assure the gases are not imported into Gaza or PA-controlled areas of Israel.

(Hydrogen is explosive and it is likely – based on history – that Hamas balloon makers would blow themselves up before any balloon was launched.)

The problem for the Japanese – and it would be a problem for Hamas – is that the balloons are slaves to the wind; the direction in which thy float cannot be controlled from the ground.

Unlike the Japanese balloons that traveled at about 30,000 feet (9,144 meters), Hamas balloons would be low flying and easy targets for Israelis with “two-two” (.22 caliber) rifles – good for target practice as the gas bags floated near the border.

Sources

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_balloon

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

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Opuscula Flip and flop: Kashrut agencies Want if both ways

CAVEAT: I AM NOT A POSEK AND I do not play one on tv.

The other day a young rabbi was offended when I told him in some things I don’t trust on the major kashrut certifying agencies in the U.S. and UK when it comes to potent potables: Canadian, Irish, and scotch whisk(e)ys.¹

Check the liquor lists for cRc, Star-K, OU, and London Bet Din. Note the differences.

My problem with the kashrut organizations is that they allow – some more grudgingly than others – whiskeys that have spent time in casks that once contained non-kosher wine.

Almost all Irish and scotch whiskeys are initially aged in either ex-Bourbon barrels or “virgin” oak barrels. Some are then aged a little longer in wine casks specifically to add wine flavor to the liquid.

Some kashrut agencies contend that as long as the “wine connection” is not listed on the bottle’s label, the consumer can “assume” that the potable is “acceptable.”

Chivas Regal, a blend of several scotches, does not admit to wine cask aging on the bottle, but to its credit, when asked, I was told that some of the scotch in a Chivas blend DID spend time in a wine cask. Chivas and Johnny Walker blended scotches are synagogue favorites, albeit both have some liquid aged in a ex-wine cask.

That might suggest why the poskim² are so accepting of liquors aged in non-kosher wine casks. The same reason none have come out and forbidden smoking. The latter may eventually be prohibited.

Some Irish and scotch distillers DO advertise that products spend time in a ex-wine cask and even provide the type wine, e.g., sherries, sauterne, chardonnay, even zinfandel, pinot noir, syrah, merlot, and cabernet sauvignon.

Arran Sauternes Cask Finish and Benriach 21 Year Old Tawny Port Finish 46% are examples of scotch whiskeys that clearly state the product was aged, at least for awhile, in ex-wine casks. (The information was provided by The Celtic Whiskey Shop and Wines on the Green³.)

A WORD ABOUT BOURBON

Real Bourbon – Bourbon sans flavors – must be aged in new barrels. U.S. law specifies what may constitute “Bourbon.”⁴

There are beginning to be pseudo-Bourbons that are aged in ex-wine casks, and there are many flavored Bourbons and blends.

“Real” Bourbons – sans flavorings and aging in wine casks – generally are considered kosher.

IF YOU WANT A WINE FINISH

Distillers who want to produce a strictly kosher wine-finished potable should look to the growing number of vintners in Israel. Assuming the Israeli wine is kosher – not everything that is Israeli is kosher – then there would be no problem with wine-finished products as long as the ex-wine casks contained kosher wines.

Meanwhile, Israel is developing its own whiskey industry. When exports will begin to my area is any ones guess. (Hopefully it won’t be priced out of sight.)

Meanwhile, I keep checking to see what affordable whiskeys are suitable for my consumption.

Sources

1. Canadian and scotch spell “whisky” sans the “e”; Bourbon and Irish spell “whiskey” with an “e.” Scotland is the country, Scots are the people, and scotch is the drink.

2. Poskim, פוסקים‬ is the term in Jewish law for "decisor"—a legal scholar who decides the Halakha in cases of law where previous authorities are inconclusive or in those situations where no halakhic precedent exists. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posek)

3. https://www.celticwhiskeyshop.com/

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourbon_whiskey#Legal_requirements

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

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Opuscula I’m sorry, but W T F ?

I try to keep this “G” rated, but when a talking head criticizes Israel for not having parity with dead and injured Hamas invaders, there IS only one reaction.

It’s not pretty. It’s not polite.

But there is no other succinct response.

I JUST WATCHED A “SKY NEWS” video on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/StandWithUs/videos/10155585464647689/) where a so-called “journalist” complained to an Israeli spokesperson “Where is proportion?”(-4:00 of the video). Hamas’ invaders are killed or injured but not Israelis. How rude.

To the obviously blind, prejudiced Sky talking head, Israel should kill and injure an equal number of Israeli soldiers to maintain “proportion.”

Since Hamas is sending children – one was a seven-year-old girl – to face the Israelis, perhaps the Sky employee would like the IDF to take a child out of first grade and put her in the line of fire for “proportionality.”

Not satisfied with that, the mental deficient asked if the Israeli– Netanyahu spokesman David Keyes – doesn’t think “that everybody in the process today are criminals?” (-3:11)

Did the Israelis attempt to invade Gaza behind women and children?

No.

Did the Israelis brings guns, knives, axes, and other weapons to the border to indiscriminately kill every Gazan or every Muslim or even every Arab in Gaza?

Again, no.

Then, in a ludicrous display of lack of historical knowledge, the guy with his head in the sky, tells Keyes that the Gazans simply were “protesting for their right of return.”

RIGHT OF RETURN?

Obviously the bigoted Brit failed to understand that these “protesters” WERE at home; Israel pulled out of Gaza in August, 2005, leaving behind a fully functioning export business which the Gazans quickly destroyed … along with a chance of prosperity.

The people of Gaza, primarily Egyptians, have no NEED of a “right of return”; they are in their own space.

As a matter of fact, Gaza in the 1948 UN partition, was NOT part of Israel. Israel took control of Gaza after Egypt lost it in an Arab-Israel war.

With his head firmly in the “sky,” the Brit ignored Keyes repeated references to Hamas’ publicly stated goal to kill all Israelis. (Presumably that means Israeli Muslims, Christians, Druze, and workers who are in Israel for jobs, not for philosophy: religious or political.)

To his credit, the Sky whatever his job, stuck to his anti-Israel screed and allowed Keyes to respond to the loaded questions and, for the most part, he did not interrupt Keyes.

The really sad thing is that the world is far too ready to believe what the Sky writers apparently believe: the poor Gazans just want “the right of return” and they were trying to exercise that right by sending women and children to taunt the Israelis into shooting them.

If the Gazans want a “right of return,” they should turn around and face Hamas’ guns and demand their freedom from oppression; they should demand that the millions of dollars used to build tunnels and to build or buy missiles to target Israel be used to restore Gaza’s infrastructure, to building electrical generating plants so the people can have power more than an hour or two a day; to develop water supply systems so everyone can drink their fill and bathe regularly. Imagine, instead of paying martyrs and filling the pockets of their despotic “leadership,” they could buy desalinization systems . . . from Israel.

If the Gazans insist on a “right of return,” since most are Egyptians, they should mass at the border with Egypt – not Israel.

THAT apparently skipped the anti-Israel minds at Sky.

The fact that Egypt keeps its border with Gaza tightly sealed also was ignored by Sky.

BY THE WAY, who dreamed up this “parity in war” thing. Is it something out of Star Trek or Star Wars where one combatant world sends a theoretical “bomb” to another combatant’s world and both agree that had the bomb been real “n” billion citizens would have perished. The “victims” are then rounded up by the rulers of the “bombed” world and executed; assuring that the “leaderships” survives another day as the war continues. THAT is the sense of “parity.” It is beneath contempt.

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PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

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