ISRAEL Comments turned off

The cost of assumptions: Iran, Oct. 7 and the power of a ‘conceptzia’ By David Isaac

Posted By on July 14th, 2025

https://www.jns.org/the-cost-of-assumptions-iran-october-7-and-the-power-of-a-conceptzia/

The IDF’s performance against Iran throws into sharp relief the difference a conceptzia can make. The same military that reeled against a Hamas onslaught on Oct. 7, 2023, acted with jaw-dropping efficiency 20 months later.

It was, in large part, due to the way the Israel Defense Forces viewed the threat from Iran vs. that from Gaza. Clear-eyed about the dangers from one, it was blinded by misconceptions about the other.

“When your enemies say something, they usually mean what they say. In Iran’s case, we understood that. In Hamas’s case, we did not,” Or Yissachar, director of research at the Israel Defense and Security Forum (IDSF), told JNS.

The conceptzia that misled the IDF about Hamas consisted of a series of governing assumptions: 1) Hamas had been deterred, particularly after 2021’s “Operation Guardian of the Walls”; 2) Hamas was contained—its rockets by the Iron Dome, its invasion tunnels by the “Iron Wall,” and 3) Hamas, preoccupied with governing Gaza, could be bought off.

“Hamas exploited that belief to conduct a years-long deception campaign, not only misleading Israel’s strategic planners but reinforcing the … conceptzia …, the outdated and unfounded assumptions that Hamas sought calm in exchange for economic relief,” John Spencer, chairman of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, told JNS.

Compounding these assumptions was the belief that Hamas wasn’t capable of a major offensive. Israel believed it could mount a small raiding party at most. “It was a failure of imagination as much as it was a failure of preparation,” Spencer said.

HOMELAND SECURITY, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A Cybersecurity Primer For Businesses In 2025 By Chuck Brooks,

Posted By on July 14th, 2025

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckbrooks/2025/07/13/a-cybersecurity-primer-for-businesses-in-2025/

Key perspectives and strategies to defend against the ever-growing tide of cyber risks.

Understanding the fundamentals of cybersecurity is increasingly important in our digital age. Cybersecurity, at its core, involves protecting computer systems, networks, and data from attacks, damage, or unauthorized access.

As society becomes increasingly reliant on technologies, the risks associated with cyberattacks grow exponentially. In today’s interconnected world, common threats such as malware, phishing, and ransomware have become more prevalent. Cybercriminals exploit vulnerabilities in software and human behavior to gain access to valuable data.

And cyber threats are not limited to high-profile incidents against government entities or large corporations; they pose a direct risk to small and medium companies, individuals, infrastructure, and the economy as a whole.

Cybersecurity is essential for the digital age: cybersecurity is not just a technological issue but a security problem. It is crucial for survival and thriving in the digital age, not just a business cost item.

Moreover, the implications of neglecting cybersecurity can be severe, affecting a company’s reputation, financial standing, and legal compliance. This reality makes it clear that a solid cybersecurity strategy is necessary for success.

Understanding The Rapidly Evolving Threat Landscape

The landscape of cybersecurity is a complex environment that is changing rapidly, driven by persistent threats like ransomware and state-sponsored cyber warfare. Ransomware attacks have surged, targeting organizations of all sizes. These attacks often involve encrypting critical data, rendering it inaccessible until a ransom is paid. The financial implications can be severe, forcing many companies to reconsider their cybersecurity strategies and invest in advanced protection measures.

Hackers’ use of AI tools has increased the risks that businesses face from cyberattacks. They use AI to create advanced malware and automated phishing efforts that may evade traditional security measures in order to create adaptable threats. Cybercriminals are currently employing AI to generate phony company profiles and counterfeit identities and using large language models to craft more convincing spear-phishing messages.

The proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices adds another layer of complexity to this threat landscape.

BOOKS Comments turned off

I Seek a Kind Person: My Father, Seven Children, and the Adverts that Helped Them Escape the Holocaust: Julian Borger

Posted By on July 13th, 2025

This gripping family memoir of grief, courage, and hope tells the hidden stories of children who escaped the Holocaust, building connections across generations and continents.

In 1938, Jewish families are scrambling to flee Vienna. Desperate, they take out advertisements offering their children into the safe keeping of readers of a British newspaper, the Manchester Guardian. The right words in the right order could mean the difference between life and death.

83 years later, Guardian journalist Julian Borger comes across the ad that saved his father, Robert, from the Nazis. Robert had kept this a secret, like almost everything else about his traumatic Viennese childhood, until he took his own life. Drawn to the shadows of his family’s past and starting with nothing but a page of newspaper ads, Borger traces the remarkable stories of his father, the other advertised children, and their families, each thrown into the maelstrom of a world at war.

From a Viennese radio shop to the Shanghai ghetto, internment camps and family homes across Britain, the deep forests and concentration camps of Nazi Germany, smugglers saving Jewish lives in Holland, an improbable French Resistance cell, and a redemptive story of survival in New York, Borger unearths the astonishing journeys of the children at the hands of fate, their stories of trauma and the kindness of strangers.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The Dismal Science of Doom Peter Smith

Posted By on July 13th, 2025

https://quadrant.org.au/news-opinions/economics/the-dismal-science-of-doom/

Floods, droughts, hurricanes, bushfires, coral bleaching, algae blooms off South Australia, you name it, rascally climate change is behind it. It is now established science that almost all extreme weather-related events in recent decades are due to climate change which, in turn, is due to burning fossil fuels and other human and bovine activity.

There were very few extreme weather-related events before climate change. There will be few extreme weather-related events once we have achieved net zero and beyond. We are living through a unique era of multitudinous extreme weather-related events, proving without doubt that achieving and then bettering net zero is the greatest moral challenge of our time. We don’t meet it, we’re dead. Quod erat demonstrandum.

I was thinking about how this modern delusion, only modestly caricatured, has infected minds when perusing the results of a poll of 40 so-called “top economists” conducted by The Economics Society of Australia. The economists were given a menu of answers to choose from in response to some loaded questions on the power supply. As follows:

♦ What do you believe is the most important and second most important of three goals in transforming Australia’s energy system? Achieving net zero by 2050 or ensuring reliability of the power supply or minimising the cost of generation and distribution.

♦ What would be the optimal mix of energy resources in 2040 among coal, gas, renewables and nuclear?

♦ What should be the policy instrument employed to achieve the optimal energy mix? Cap and trade carbon pricing or firm commitments not to extend the life of coal plants or subsidies for preferred forms of energy or an extension of the safeguard mechanism to most industries and firms or tax concessions for preferred forms of energy or direct government funding of preferred forms of energy.

It is without surprise, in these weather-threatening times, that 18 of the 40 economists polled put achieving Net Zero as the most important goal. Fifteen have no coal at all in the optimal mix by 2040. Over half have renewables accounting for 75% or more generation. Risibly, Professor John Quiggin (Queensland Uni) has 95% renewables. On average, across all of those polled, renewables contribute 69% to the optimal mix by 2040. Forget about the reliability of supply if that average came about, never mind the outliers. On my count only 8 contemplate nuclear in the optimal mix.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Guess Which Crazy Place Just Criminalized WALKING THE DOG Robert Spencer

Posted By on July 13th, 2025

https://pjmedia.com/robert-spencer/2025/07/12/in-iran-walking-the-dog-is-now-a-crime-n4941703

The ruling elites of the Islamic Republic of Iran are not known worldwide for their friendly, sunny dispositions; in fact, they have a long and ever-growing list of pet hates, including America, Israel, women (at least if their heads are uncovered and they’re out in public), and man’s other best friend, dogs. The ruling Iranian mullahs have now extended a ban that was already in effect in over twenty Iranian cities to the entire country: it is now against the law to walk the dog. That means, of course, that while private ownership of dogs as pets is ostensibly permitted in Iran, it has for all intents and purposes been outlawed.

Wamiz, a French-language site devoted to news of our four-legged friends, reported on Tuesday that anyone walking a dog “on the streets of Iran now risks more than just a fine – and it’s all down to deeply religious reasons.” Walking a dog has been illegal for years in Tehran and many other cities, and now there is nowhere in the entire Islamic Republic that you can take your dog for a walk and not risk running afoul of the nation’s feared morality police. 

The ban is designed, according to Iranian authorities, to “maintain public order, ensure security and protect public health.” Wamiz, however, notes that “critics suspect a cultural-political message behind the crackdown.” This because for many Islamic hardliners in Iran, having a dog as a pet is not just unclean, but also shows that the dog owner has succumbed to the Satanic lure of the Western lifestyle. There are few things one can do to arouse more suspicion among Iranian authorities.

Owning a dog is such a bad thing to do in the Islamic Republic of Iran that the Ayatollah Khamenei himself has emphasized that “keeping dogs for reasons other than herding, hunting, and guard dogs is to be considered reprehensible.” He explained that “walking dogs damages Islamic culture as well as hygiene and the peace of others.”

Why would walking a dog damage Islamic culture? Quite simply, because Islam hates dogs. This goes for Shi’ite Islam, the dominant religion of Islam, as well as Sunni Islam, to which the overwhelming majority of Muslims worldwide adhere. Shi’ite collections of Muhammad’s words and deeds attribute quotes to him including “It is detestable for a Muslim to allow a dog to live in his house” (Al-Kafi H 12735, ch. 12, h 1); “Whoever keeps a dog, every day one qirat (a certain unit of measurement) is reduced from the (good) deeds of his owner” (Al-Kafi H 12736, ch. 12, h 2); and “There is nothing good in dogs except hunting dogs or that which guards cattle.” (Al-Kafi 12738, Ch. 12, h 4)

BOOKS Comments turned off

Michel Houellebecq: the prophet of Europe’s decay No other author has chronicled the nihilistic spirit of our times with such pitiless clarity. Hugo Timms

Posted By on July 13th, 2025

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/07/13/michel-houellebecq-the-prophet-of-europes-decay/

Whether Michel Houellebecq is a great writer will be debated for as long as his books are read. What few will deny is his status as one of the early 21st century’s most challenging and original artists.

That might not be saying a great deal. After all, the first 25 years of the new millennium – at least in the West – are unlikely to be remembered as a time of great artistic or intellectual originality. Just look at recent winners of the Turner Prize, or read one of Sally Rooney’s novels.

Still, Houellebecq stands out thanks to his willingness to say the things other writers don’t dare to. In an era when artists and authors tend to share the same ‘progressive’ worldview, Houellebecq has consistently refused to bend the knee to fashionable orthodoxies. He remains a critical figure for those who still believe in a writer’s ability to capture the unique ‘spirit’ of the age they live in. Taken together, his works chronicle and explore the creeping sense of decline shared by many in the West.

Born in 1956, Houellebecq’s journey from young dilettante to literary fame was far from orthodox. By all accounts, he enjoyed an unpleasant childhood, taking the surname ‘Houellebecq’ from his paternal grandmother, who raised him in place of his indifferent parents. After school, he studied agronomy at university in Paris, before working as a computer programmer. He published his first novel, Whatever, in 1994, when he was 38, and has had seven more novels published in the roughly three decades since.

While Houellebecq’s literary journey has been unusual, there was one familiar aspect: the repeated rejections he received from French publishers. It is easy to see why. What he was writing simply didn’t chime with the era. It was the 1990s. Sexual liberation and multiculturalism were seen as unequivocally good, and capitalism was viewed as triumphant. Sensible writers accepted all this. Houellebecq did not.

It was not until 1998 that Houellebecq eventually broke through, with the publication of his second novel, Atomised. In the finest French tradition, it provoked disgust and awe in equal measure. According to the New York Times, Atomised was ‘bilious, hysterical and oddly juvenile’. The judges of the Dublin Literary Award, which the novel won in 2002, described it as ‘extraordinary’. A fair-minded reader might find it hard to fault either response.

MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

James Gunn’s Superman Doesn’t Fly—It Falls Flat James Gunn’s Superman isn’t a parable—it’s a lecture, and audiences aren’t buying tickets to be scolded by a Hollywood director who thinks he’s smarter than they are. By Stephen Soukup

Posted By on July 13th, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/07/12/superman/

The good news for Warner Bros./DC Studios is that its new Superman movie is quickly becoming a cultural touchstone, the standard by which all future superhero movies will be judged. The bad news is that it’s the low-end benchmark, representing the absolute worst that a superhero movie can be while not going straight to streaming. Director James Gunn is suddenly the Mario Mendoza of action filmmaking, and his Superman denotes the Mendoza Line, the trough of superhero futility. Or, as political commentator Ben Domenech put it, “This movie absolutely, totally sucks. The CGI sucks. The writing sucks. The cast, which is, for the most part, much higher quality than the material, sucks…. I’ve seen a lot of superhero movies, and this one—given the level of investment involved, the promotional push, the iconic nature of the character, and the importance to the future of DC and Warner Bros.—is by far the worst.”

That’s unfortunate, but it’s not exactly surprising. Gunn had been dropping hints for some time that he was worried the movie would be poorly received and would tank as a result, possibly taking DC Studios down with it. A couple of weeks ago, Gunn, apparently fearing that his Superman would be ignored, did what any self-important movie director would do in such circumstances: he decided to gin up some controversy by insulting his audience. Any publicity is good publicity in the film business, after all, and so Gunn went full “Hollywood liberal,” telling The Times of London that “Yes, [Superman is] about politics.” Moreover, he continued, it’s about politics that are likely to ruffle some feathers in the nation’s culturally and politically conservative heartland. “Superman is the story of America—an immigrant that came from other places and populated the country, but for me it is mostly a story that says basic human kindness is a value and is something we have lost.” Ah, yes. There you have it. Caring about national borders or wanting immigration law enforced makes one unkind—or even inhuman. Take that, Trumpers and ICE!

Conservatives are likely to gloat about the results of Gunn’s publicity stunt. “Go woke, go broke,” many will chortle at the movie’s failure. If the guy had focused more on making a good film and less on injecting politics into it and abusing his customers, he might have created something that didn’t “absolutely, totally suck.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

No List, No Revelations, No Plot—Just Epstein The only real mystery left in the Epstein saga is why so many refuse to believe there’s no mystery left. By Roger Kimball

Posted By on July 13th, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/07/13/no-list-no-revelations-no-plot-just-epstein/

In the moderately large compendium of things I do not care about, details of the depravity of the late Jeffrey Epstein occupy a random page or two.

I had never heard of the “financier” and sex-trafficking impresario until shortly before his final encounters with the law in 2019. Like many, I received the news that he committed suicide in a New York jail in August of that year with a dollop of incredulity. Where were the jailers? Why was there a missing spot on the videotape just when the deed was done? Had Epstein threatened Hillary Clinton? What about that picture of Bill Clinton in a blue dress that was found in Epstein’s New York home?

There was plenty of food for doubt.

Unlike many, however, my incredulity was seasoned with indifference.

Okay, Epstein was a creep of the first order. He had attracted a bunch of famous men to his Caribbean island for sex romps with (mostly) underage girls. He apparently liked to videotape the proceedings. Why? In order to blackmail those stars of stage and screen was the consensus, natch. But did he?

I was glad that Epstein was nabbed by the law. I hoped his victims found recompense. But in the scheme of things, The Saga of Jeffrey Epstein was a narrative I was pleased to absorb in a highly distilled, cheat-sheet version. I’d lived through such entertainments as the anatomies of Bill Clinton’s odd taste in cigars. Epstein was worse, but from the point of view of the spectator’s interest, it seemed cut from the same bolt of cloth.

I understand that the public’s appetite for scandal is a hardy perennial. The story of who is doing what to whom—especially if the “who”s are celebrities—is calculated to give prurient interest the gratifying cover of “the public’s right to know,” not to mention an opportunity to indulge in a little tongue-clucking moral outrage.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Iran Ceasefire: A Dicey Intermission by Amir Taheri

Posted By on July 13th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21748/iran-ceasefire-dicey-intermission

[T]he recent flare-up has deeper reason than a concern about Iran building a nuclear arsenal, something which all directors general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from Hans Blix to Muhammad Al-Baradei and Rafael Grossi have repeatedly said they cannot confirm.

Tehran’s fourth demand may be the hardest for any American administration to even contemplate accepting: Accepting the Islamic Republic’s right to “export” its model of governance, its Islamic values and its campaign for “global justice” just as the US does by propagating its values. In other words, Tehran says: Let us do what we please and we promise not to make the bomb that we have always said we never intended to build.

[M]id-term election in the US… could transform Trump into a lame-duck president if Elon Musk’s new political Tesla manages to rob the Republicans of just six seats in the Congress and two or three in the Senate. At the same time, Israeli Prim Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s numerous political enemies may eventually manage to bring him down.

Thus, regime insiders believe it is imperative to prolong the current ceasefire, even through negotiations, until the two big clouds shaped like Trump and Netanyahu disappear like morning mist.

The current political situation doesn’t have only two sides: steadfastness and surrender. The third side is change, of course. which means giving the enemy a victory it didn’t win with war.

The recent attack by Israel and the US on parts of Iran’s nuclear project has already been dubbed by some commentators as the Twelve Day War.

However, that cut-off time was chosen by Tehran to back a claim that Iran managed to fight twice as long as Arab states led by Egypt did in the Six Days War of 1967.

In fact, with varying degrees of intensity and a diversity of locations, this war started more than four decades ago when the new revolutionary authorities raided the Israeli diplomatic mission in Tehran and handed it over to PLO leader Yasser Arafat on a visit as special guest of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. A few months later, the new revolutionary regime repeated the exercise by raiding the US Embassy and seizing its diplomats as hostages.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Iran’s New Trap vs. Trump’s Once-in-a-Lifetime Chance to Transform the Middle East by Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on July 13th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21736/trump-iran-transform-middle-east

President Donald J. Trump, through a bold and unapologetic foreign policy, has emerged in just a few short months, as the only leader in recent history capable of reshaping the region and challenging Iran’s theocratic dictatorship with real consequences. His actions have already produced historic results…

If Trump settles into believing that setting back Iran’s nuclear program by a few years is enough, the world will soon fall into the very trap that Tehran has set. The regime will rebuild, rearm, and reemerge stronger, angrier, and even nearer to having its bomb. The world will then once again face the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran—with perhaps no leader to stop it.

Now is not the time to offer the regime a lifeline in the form of negotiations or sanctions relief. The regime will doubtless try its old tricks—sending diplomats to Western capitals, promising temporary compliance, and begging for centrifuges for “peaceful energy” and a new “deal.” This is a trap

Any deal now will not benefit the United States. It will only help the Iranian regime recover, rebuild its economy, and ultimately return to its path of terror. The time has come to “finish the job.”

The Iranian regime must not be allowed to survive long enough to recover. The goal is not to delay the problem but to solve it.

It took decades — across multiple presidencies, wars, and failed negotiations — before the United States finally had a president who understood, with both clarity and conviction, how to confront the Iranian regime and transform the trajectory of the Middle East.

President Donald J. Trump, through a bold and unapologetic foreign policy, has emerged in just a few short months, as the only leader in recent history capable of reshaping the region and challenging Iran’s theocratic dictatorship with real consequences. His actions have already produced historic results — from crippling the regime’s nuclear infrastructure to fostering unprecedented peace deals.