NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Tiny Planet System

WASHINGTON — NASA’s Kepler mission scientists have discovered a new planetary system that is home to the smallest planet yet found around a star similar to our sun.

The planets are located in a system called Kepler-37, about 210 light-years from Earth in the constellation Lyra. The smallest planet, Kepler-37b, is slightly larger than our moon, measuring about one-third the size of Earth. It is smaller than Mercury, which made its detection a challenge.

And for the average Joe, here’s an artist’s illustration

The line up compares artist’s concepts of the planets in the Kepler-37 system to the moon and planets in the solar system. The smallest planet, Kepler-37b, is slightly larger than our moon, measuring about one-third the size of Earth. Kepler-37c, the second planet, is slightly smaller than Venus, measuring almost three-quarters the size of Earth. Kepler-37d, the third planet, is twice the size of Earth.

Truly fascinating stuff, which Ynet just have to ruin with moronic captions and below average reporting.

The caption translates to:

Kepler 37b in comparison to the planets in our solar system (Photography: AFP)

Apparently, our solar system now includes Kepler 37b, 37c and 37d, and our moon is now a planet. This sure as hell isn’t a photograph, and crediting AFP for it (reminder, it’s NASA’s), while translating a Reuters article verbatim, is retarded.

The first one, Beitar Illit man suspected of molesting children:

A 26-year-old resident of Beitar Illit was arrested Tuesday on suspicion he molested children multiple times. The suspect, an educator employed at one of the town’s institutions, confessed to some of the allegations and has been remanded in custody.

The details given: age, location and crime.

And the proverbial out of context filler:

Earlier this week, the Judea and Samaria District Police closed the case involving suspicions of rape of a five-year-old girl in the haredi settlement of Modiin Illit.

The story for which Ynet published this article comprises just 61% of the 148 word article, with the rest being filled up by another unrelated case that has been closed due to false charges. The only connection being the place where it happened, which Ynet emphasize as “haredi settlement of Modiin Illit”

The other appalling event a couple of days back, Man arrested for pouring acid on 16-year-old’s face.

A 50-year-old Nazareth resident was arrested Tuesday morning for allegedly pouring acid on a 16-year-old girl’s face after she refused to be betrothed to a man of his family. He was remanded in custody for five additional days.

Once again we get the same details in the first paragraph: age, location and crime.

Sex Offenders

However this article is different, it neglects to mention the demographics. You see, everyone knows Modi’in Illit is a Haredi town, and everyone knows Nazareth is an Arab town, yet the writers only mentioned it in the first case, as an oh-by-the-way kind of reporting on the specific demographics of Modi’in Illit.

I staunchly condemn every kind of violence and assault on minors, including under-age marriage, by any section of the population. I may not agree with the Haredi way of life, but I won’t claim they are all offenders by the actions of a few.

I’m also not advocating to shame the entire Arab population of Israel with banners pronouncing such acid throwing cases, the likes of we’ve seen in despotic regimes like Iran and Pakistan and the UK.

Youths

The overt mentioning of the demographics of events that have to do with Arabs, as opposed to the up front “Haredi”, must stop. Israeli media in general, and Ynet specifically, have conjured quite a few words to describe Arabs, like “youths”, “adolescents”, “minorities” and my personal favourite, “resident of the north”.

Here’s another example, Teen arrested for pelting Iron Dome battery with stones.

A 14-year-old youth from the Nazareth area was arrested on Wednesday for throwing a stone at an Iron Dome battery deployed in the Jezreel Valley.

Other news sites, like ToI, did report he was Arab.

If Ynet wants to be balanced, they have two options; either drop the demography altogether, or specify it every time. Otherwise, they’re just hypocrites.

One such event caught my eye yesterday when Ma’an news site published this piece:

Syrian prisoner due for release from Israeli jail

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — A Syrian man detained in Israel for 27 years is due for release on Thursday, prisoner affairs researcher Abdul Nasser Farwana said Tuesday.

Israeli forces detained Sadki al-Makt, 45, from the Golan Heights on Aug. 23, 1985. He was charged with establishing a resistance movement against Israel’s occupation of the Syrian territory and participating in anti-occupation activities, Farwana said in a statement.

An Israeli military court sentenced al-Makt to 27 years, and he has served his sentence in various jails in Israel, Farwana added.

Syrian SANA adds a few details:

QUNEITRA, (SANA)- After 27 years of imprisonment on charge of resisting the Israeli occupation and belonging to homeland Syria, long-time prisoner Sudqi al-Maqt has been released to embrace freedom and be back in occupied Golan.

Al-Maqt was arrested on August 23, 1985 and was sentenced to 27 years in jail on the charge of resisting occupation. He moved into several jails throughout the period of his imprisonment.

The released prisoner is from Majdal Shams in the occupied Syrian Golan. He was born in April 17, 1967 and was brought up within a family known for its struggle against the occupation in the Golan.

Obviously, this is the Arab narrative. Al-Maqt is a Druze from Majdal Shams, and as we’ve seen last year, some in the village are openly hostile to Israel, while others are reluctant to take sides while their relatives are within Assad’s crosshairs. So it comes as no surprise that Israel arrested Al-Maqt for “resistance”.

Cue Ynet, who having seen the Arab sources, report on the release by parroting the Syrian and Palestinian narratives without even blinking.

Report: Israel to release Syrian convict after 27 years

Sadki al-Makt, a 45-year-old Syrian convicted of taking part in anti-Israeli activity, is to be released on Thursday after spending 27 years in Israeli prison, the Palestinian Maan News Agency reported. A similar report was published by the official Syrian Arab News Agency. (Ynet)

Al-Maqt (the correct transliteration is with a Q) was Syrian for exactly 54 days in 1967, before it was won by Israel. The insistence of Arab sources in calling him a “Syrian” is the same as said sources calling Israeli-Arabs “Palestinians.” So while it is clear to me why he’s called a Syrian, it wouldn’t be inconceivable that the Ynet “reporter” thought he was an actual Syrian. The omission by Ynet of him being a Druze or residing in Majdal Shams certainly doesn’t help their case.

As an added bonus, the Hebrew version of the news flash got his name wrong.

Update: It appears that the Times of Israel have also fallen for the Arab narrative.

Israel released a Syrian citizen Wednesday after spending 27 years in prison for actions against the state. Sidqi Suleiman, 45, was originally from Majdal Shams, near the border with Syria. Druze towns in the Golan were preparing celebrations to welcome him back, Army Radio reported.

One would think that if you’re a “Syrian citizen” imprisoned for “actions against the state”, you would be released from a Syrian prison.

A revised Hebrew Ynet version now states:

Majdal Shams resident convicted of terrorist activity released from prison after 27 years.
Sudqi Al-makt, 45 ,from Majdal Shams who was sentenced to 27 years in prison after being convicted of terrorist activities against Israel, was released from prison after having served his full sentence.

Even Haaret’z Hebrew news flash gets it right:

The oldest prisoner from the Golan Heights, Sudqi Al-Makt from Majdal Shams, was released after serving 27 years in prison for security offences

So you can have an impartial news report in a few sentences. I guess we have idiots everywhere.

At the time, I alerted Ynet to their error via their comment form. Ynet’s response was to refuse to publish my comments.

Oh, and to remove all evidence of their report.

Forget supposed Most Beautiful Stewardesses in the World awards. Let’s have a Most Unprofessional Media Outlet in Israel awards.

I’m sure Ynet would be right up there.

Update: Thanks to Challah, here’s a link to the cache of the now removed post.

And a screenshot:

Over a week later, Ynet reports the story as fact.

The Association of Flight Attendants, the world’s largest labor union for flight attendants announced on Saturday that Israeli airline El Al is first place of the ten airlines with most beautiful flight attendants in the world.

The selection was first reported in China over the weekend, where it was explained that the sweet smile of Israeli flight attendants made them the first choice for many travelers.

El Al did not receive an official announcement on its win yet. The company’s response stated that El Al is “proud of its flight attendants around the world, and the service it offers its passengers.”

The airline in the second place is the Aerolineas Argentinas, and third is Shanghai Airlines. Asian airlines dominate the list of the top 10 most beautiful flight attendants of the world by AFA, occupying seven places.

Last year a similar survey was made by an airline review website, where Singapore airlines flight attendants were crowned first place.

Let’s look at all the Ynet fails here.

• Reporting a story over a week late and well after blogs? Check
• Reporting a story without doing any due diligence? Check
• Changing the name of the non-existent “World Air Hostesses Association” mentioned in the original Chinese report to “Association of Flight Attendants”? Check 
• Reporting the announcement date as Saturday (July 7th), over a week after the announcement was supposedly made? Check
• Ignoring El Al’s lack of an official announcement as a strong indicator the story is a hoax? Check

With sloppy reporting like this, it is no wonder Ynet has been caught plagiarizing and committing other heinous sins.

As I pointed out at the time (and subsequently others, like the IDF Spokesperson), the girl died over 5 years ago, in an accident totally unrelated to Israel. According to the original retraction by AP, she “apparently died after sustaining head injuries during a fall from a swing.”

Unfortunately, Ynet’s report may only muddy the waters, as it contains this statement:

The Twitter message, which was a huge hit, claimed that the Palestinian girl had died from an Israeli airstrike the day before, but an Israeli examination of this claim found that the girl was killed in a car accident in 2006.

Is this a case of Ynet sloppiness or has the IDF changed its tune? I believe it is the former, especially considering the fact the IDF blog linked above repeats the “death by swing” reason.

While this does not change the facts that the girl’s photo was cynically exploited by a UN employee with a clear anti-Israel agenda, I am bothered by the inconsistency – not just because of my desire for the truth, but also because it is this kind of sloppy error that can be exploited by the other side.

In short, Levy and Katz are right, they are just using different spellings. Cohen is simply wrong.

Here’s the story.

Earlier today, Avital Leibovitch, official Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson to the international press, tweeted:

IDF arresteda palestinian-Iman Alshrona Ismael Salama-was one of the people released for the return of #GiladShalit.#terror #defense

— Avital Leibovich (@AvitalLeibovich) January 31, 2012

From Ynet and The Jerusalem Post we learn that the arrested terrorist is 36 years old, first arrested in 2002 and sentenced to 38 years in prison “for his involvement in a 2002 bomb attack in Beersheba which wounded 18 people as well as for a series of shooting attacks during the Second Intifada.” In addition, we learn that he was released around Hebron in the first wave of the Shalit release.

Yet, the ONLY terrorist that matches that description on the Israel Prison Services (IPS) ENGLISH list is Mahmud Abdallah Abd al-Rahman Abu Sariya.

So, who is Iman (Ayman) Alshrona (Sharona) Ismael Salama?

Well, Iman Alshrona Ismael Salama is Mahmud Abdallah Abd al-Rahman Abu Sariya.

Iman Alshrona is his name on the IPS Hebrew list, while Mahmud Abdallah Abd al-Rahman Abu Sariya is his English name. Levy and Katz are simply writing his name in different forms.

Earlier I wrote that Gili Cohen of Haaretz is simply wrong in her report. Here’s why. According to Cohen’s report:

The Israel Defense Forces arrested Mamun Ismyail Salame Stut, a Palestinian man who was released from Israeli prison in October as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal. Stut’s arrest makes him the first released prisoner to be recaptured since the prisoner swap.

In short, Israel DID NOT rearrest Mamun Ismyail Salame Stut. According to the IPS list Mamun Ismyail Salame Stut was only serving 25 years, not 38 years, as Levy, Katz and Cohen all reported. More importantly, Mamun Ismyail Salame Stut was RELEASED to Gaza, and Levy, Katz and Cohen all reported that the terrorist had been captured near Hebron.

Update: It appears that the Haaretz Hebrew version of the article does list the arrested terrorist as Ayman Sharona, the English edition still says it was Mamun Ismyail Salame Stut.

Update: As you can tell and as Jim noted in the comments, Cohen says her information was provided by the IDF. I contacted the IDF and received the following response.

We don’t elaborate on reporters who turn to us for comment, but we can safely confirm that we only put out two versions of his name–first the Hebrew version, then the English one. The name ‘Mamun Ismyail Salame Stut’ was never in our files.

Update: Israel Hayom made the same mistake as Haaretz.

The Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday arrested a Palestinian man released as part of the Gilad Schalit prisoner swap, calling him a “security threat.” Mamun Ismyail Salame, 36, was taken into custody after the IDF received intelligence concerning alleged terrorist activities on behalf of Hamas in Judea and Samaria.

I contacted Amir Mizroch, the English editor of Israel Hayom, and he said that he would make the change and within minutes he did. I have been unable to find a email for Gili Cohen to let her know of the mistake, anyone have?

A massive explosion rocked a Hezbollah stronghold near Siddiqin in the southern coastal city of Tyre in southern Lebanon overnight Wednesday, a security source told The Daily Star. There were no reports of injuries.

Local media said the explosion likely took place at a Hezbollah arms cache. 

The source told the Lebanese newspaper that the cause of the blast could not be determined because Hezbollah cordoned off the area.

American blogger Richard Silverstein claimed Israel was behind the explosion. Quoting an Israeli official with “considerable military experience,” the blogger wrote “IDF military intelligence (Aman) has out foxed Hezbollah by deliberately crash-landing a booby-trapped Trojan Horse drone in southern Lebanon.

“For over a year, Hezbollah has been attempting to discover how to jam the ground signals commanding the drone so as to disable them in flight. When it discovered the downed craft, its operatives must’ve crowed that they’d finally discovered the key to success. This bit of hubris is how Aman drew Hezbollah into its net. Its soldiers dutifully collected the imagined intelligence trophy and brought it to a large weapons depot it controlled in the area. Once inside the arms cache, Aman detonated the drone causing a massive explosion,” Silverstein claimed.

I am not sure if this propensity to quote Silverstein as a trustworthy source is a general problem at Ynet, or has afflicted only Dudi Cohen, who wrote the previous piece and contributed to this latest one. Either way, it makes me want to ignore Ynet altogether.

Meanwhile, Ynet has conveniently left out the following quote from El Doucherino’s post:

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2011/11/23/exclusive-israeli-military-intelligence-caused-massive-explosion-in-hezbollah-south-lebanon-arms-cache/

Given the size of the explosion, we should expect that a good deal of its weapons cache in the south has been destroyed.

—-

At any rate, as soldiers, even brilliant ones, often do, Hezbollah made a fatal error which the IDF exploited.  And before Israel’s supporters jump for joy at another Israeli victory in the unending war on terror, remember that in 1999, a Hezbollah cell phone was brought to the vaunted IDF Unit 8200 headquarters for examination.  The soldiers preparing to view it joked “If it explodes, we’ll know.”  It did indeed explode seriously wounding the two senior Israeli intelligence officers.  Not to mention the major amount of egg it splattered on the face of Israel’s renowned intelligence agency.

The moral being, in this dirty game called asymmetrical warfare, you and your enemy circle each other warily seeking to exploit any weakness.  And you will make mistakes because you are only human.  The fatal assumption is that your opponent is the only dumb one who will make them, and you never will.

In other words, Silverstein considers Hizbullah to be an army of soldiers – not a terror organization – and considers their attacks on Israel to be part of legitimate warfare. And despite acknowledging that the explosion likely took out “a good deal of its weapons cache in the south” – reducing the number of rockets to be fired at innocent Israeli civilians – he doesn’t seem overly happy about it, and considers it part of a “dirty game.”

Just so you realize, this is the scum Ynet has chosen as their go-to guy.

US blogger Richard Silverstein said Saturday that Israel was the mastermind behind the blast the killed at least 17 people at an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps base near Tehran.

In his blog, Tikun Olam, Silverstein quotes an Israeli expert as saying that the Mossad was responsible for the explosion, in collaboration with the Iranian militant opposition group Mojahedin-e-Khalq. 

“It is widely known within intelligence circles that the Israelis use the MEK for varied acts of espionage and terror ranging from fraudulent Iranian memos alleging work on nuclear trigger devices to assassinations of nuclear scientists and bombings of sensitive military installations,” Silverstein said.

He attributed an incident similar to Saturday’s explosion which occurred at a different IRGC missile base last year to Mossad sabotage.

Silverstein noted that his source “has never been wrong so far in the reports he’s offered.”

‘External sabotage unlikely’
Meanwhile, a former IRGC soldier said that the explosion occurred at military storage facility where Shihab missiles are stored. Hamed Ebrahimi, who served at the base for two months, told the Iranian online daily Rooz that the tough security at the facility makes it highly unlikely that the blast was caused by an act of external interference.

The soldier said that the base is split into two divisions; one stores missiles, while the other serves as an air force training center.

A senior IRGC officer was among the massive blast’s victims. The officer, identified as Hassan Tehrani Moqaddam, held a rank parallel to brigadier general, the Fars news agency said. He reportedly served as a researcher at a Tehran university and headed the “Jihad Self-Reliance” unit, mostly tasked with developing arms and missiles following the embargo imposed on Iran since 1979.

The explosion occurred 40 km (25 miles) outside Tehran, and was felt in the capital.

The IRGC ruled out the possibility that deliberate sabotage was behind the flare-up. On Saturday, it was reported that the blast occurred while munitions were being moved.

“The primary cause for the explosion is being determined, and will be made public at a later date,” IRGC spokesman Ramezan Sharif said, stressing that the 17 people who died in the incident and the 16 who were injured were all IRGC operatives, and not civilians.

The funeral procession for the victims has been scheduled for Monday, and is to leave the IRGC’s headquarters in Tehran.

In other words, Ynet has quoted Silverstein – who has a track record in either outright lying or otherwise getting things completely wrong (see here, here, here, and here for more examples of his dishonesty) – as if he is a valid source.

What makes this worse is Silverstein has a track record in doing things to undermine and harm Israel, so such stories put out by him should be treated as if they are designed to do exactly this.

Sure, Israeli television is also guilty of giving him way too much air time, but they at least acknowledge he is not the most reliable source. Plus I don’t recall them doing any puff pieces on him as Ynet did earlier this year.

Shame on you Ynet. 

Update: The palestinian Pal Today website has used the Ynet article as a source in reporting that the Mossad was behind the blast in Iran (hat tip: EoZ).

"Welcome to my lair"

There is no place farther from the Israeli experience than the old wooden house in Seattle, and yet, the room that is used as a home office has been the source of several exclusive news stories that stirred the Israeli media into a frenzy in recent months.

Every day at 5 pm local time, Richard Silverstein puts up a new post on his blog, Tikun Olam. The website has become one of the Israeli censorship’s biggest problems recently when it featured news items that were under a gag order in the Jewish state. Silverstein revealed the names of the Mossad and Shin Bet chief candidates long before the Israeli media did, and was the one who broke the news of the the Anat Kam affair – the IDF soldier who leaked confidential documents to a Ha’aretz reporter.

In one of his latest posts, Silverstein claimed that ships belonging to the Ofer Brothers’ Group, an Israeli company sanctioned by the United States for trade with Iran, were used to take Mossad agents to the Islamic Republic.

The reverberation of his revelations across the Israeli media is something that he finds pleasing, Silverstein told Yediot Ahronot in a recent interview, but not all of the responses are positive. He said that some critics slammed his report for putting Mossad agents in danger.

So how does he come upon the exclusive information on Israeli issues from his perch thousands of miles away? Silverstein says he has many sources. Some are political and human rights elements, while others are Israeli bloggers and activists. He got the scoop on the Ofer Brothers affair, for example, from a retired politician.

Silverstein was one of the first to expose the case of Palestinian engineer Dirar Abu Sisi, who was reportedly kidnapped in the Ukraine and brought to Israel to be indicted for alleged ties to Hamas. The blogger says that an Israeli journalist sent him a link to a Ukrainian media report on the abduction, and once he began working on the story, he got another tip that Abu Sisi was in Israel.

The report snowballed, Silverstein says. He later received information from Russian bloggers, human rights activists, and finally, he got to Abu Sisi’s brother in the Netherlands. Silverstein has worldwide connections.

But one element that has yet to contact Silverstein is the Israeli Censor. Silverstein said that one Israeli reporter had asked the body why Tikun Olam is allowed to publish restricted information, and was answered that blogs do not interest the censor. Regardless, Silverstein notes that his freedom of expression is protected under the First Amendment to the US constitution; he does not fear the Israeli government’s response – he is not an Israeli citizen.

‘Bin Laden should have been tried’

The blogger, who defines himself as a liberal Zionist, was born in 1952 in the Hudson River Valley region. He studied at the Jewish Theological Seminary and Colombia University, where he earned a Bachelor of Hebrew Literature degree. He completed his Masters in Comparative Literature at UCLA. While he speaks and reads Hebrew and Yiddish, he prefers conversing in English.

Silverstein does not hide his left-wing tendencies. In addition to news items, he also publishes posts where he oppugns Israel’s policies on various issues, particularly on political and security matters. Many readers accuse him of intentionally harming Israel’s security, but he says they do not stop him from doing what he believes is right: Fighting against gag orders and protecting security prisoners. He claims that Israel has made too many compromises about its defense. Above all, he declares that he loves Israel, and wants it to prosper; he does not wish to harm it.

When it comes to information that touches upon US security issues, Silverstein says that he would not chase any exclusive that comes his way; even if he had any information leading up to the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, for example, he would not have pursued it for the sake of getting a scoop.

But when asked what would happen if he received information that Israeli forces are planning to assassinate say, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, Silverstein says that hypothetically, he would publish it. But he qualifies the statements by noting that he if he had a story that endangers a life – the life of an Israeli soldier, for example – he would be cautious about publishing it.

Silverstein notes that he opposes assassination operations by principle, and would have preferred Bin Laden to be brought before the International Court of Justice at The Hague. He adds that he believes that while Israel has the justification for carrying out anti-terrorist operations, it should be done in accordance with international law.

Threats on his kids’ lives

According to Silverstein, the bulk of the criticism directed at him comes from American Jews. A recent attempt to take him down aimed at character assassination; some elements released fake documents claiming that Silverstein had been arrested by the FBI for pedophilia.

Other strategies to discourage his activity include the oldest tactic in the book – threats. At the end of his June 1 post, Silverstein published a personal note slamming those who resort to this form of deterrence.

“If there are any degenerate individuals who think that by threatening the lives of my children that this will scare me, intimidate me, or cause me to change what I do, how I write or what I write about…think again,” he wrote. “On the contrary, it will convince me that anyone so threatened that he must resort to this sort of aberrant behavior – means I am on precisely the right track. It will only make me redouble my efforts to cover the stories I do, to expose wrongdoing and injustice.”

Despite the ample media attention that his blog has been getting recently, Silverstein notes that it has brought him no profit: His blog is political, not commercial. He has donors and features some ads, but his blog does not support him financially. His main goal is not to make money – but to influence. For the future, he says he want to see a secular, liberal democracy in Israel, one that respects both the human rights and the religious beliefs of its citizens.

Comments from my side:

1. Why does the report state as fact that Silverstein speaks Hebrew? As I have pointed out on here before, he has demonstrated a profound lack of knowledge of the language.
2. Why is there no mention of all the times Silverstein has proven to be wrong with his so-called “scoops”?
3. Why is Silverstein not questioned regarding his claim that he loves Israel, given he dedicates so much time to damaging her?
4. Notice how Silverstein says he would be cautious about publishing a story that endangers a life of an Israeli soldier. He does not say he would refrain from publishing it.
5. If his goal is influence, not money, then why has he gone to great (dishonest) lengths to make money?