Why Invade Gaza? So Israeli Kids Can Have A ‘Normal Summer’

Here’s the worst rationale I have seen for an Israeli invasio of Gaza: so Israeli kids can have a ‘normal summer’:

Jodi Rudoren, Israeli Invasion of Gaza Is Likely, Official Says; Brief Cease-Fire Is Set Mark Regev, Mr. Netanyahu’s spokesman, said an invasion of Gaza was “definitely an option.”

“It’s being discussed,” he said. “I can’t go beyond that.” Asked about the military official’s characterization of the likelihood as “very high,” Mr. Regev said, “That’s a professional opinion of the military.” Then he added, “But you can be assured that opinion was expressed by the military to the political wing.”

Mr. Netanyahu has been fending off demands for a ground operation from some members of his cabinet and party. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who has been at turns partner and rival to the prime minister, reiterated his call for a more substantial campaign against Hamas on Wednesday, as did Yuval Steinitz, the minister of strategic affairs, who has been a Netanyahu stalwart and frequent mouthpiece.

“It is not possible to ensure summer vacation, a normal summer for our kids, without a ground operation in Gaza,” Mr. Lieberman said during a visit to Ashkelon.

“We don’t need to rule Gaza or build settlements in Gaza,” he added. “We need to ensure that all Hamas terrorists run away, are imprisoned or die.”

But the Palestinian kids don’t get a normal summer, do they?

iStick: A USB Drive For The LIghtning Connector

Walt Mossberg, iStick Is a USB Thumb Drive for the Latest iPhones and iPads

I’ve been testing an early, pre-production version of iStick and its companion app of the same name, and found that it does indeed work as advertised for file transfers. It still has a few bugs to work out before shipping, and the process isn’t quite as simple as it is between two computers, due to the unusual file system used by iOS. But the product works, and I suspect it will be welcomed by many iPhone and iPad users.

The iStick is a small, rectangular plastic device with a light-up slider button in the middle. You slide the button one way to expose a standard USB jack you can use in a Mac or PC, and slide it the other way to expose a Lightning connector you can plug into a late-model iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.

It’s made by a company called Sanho, based in Fremont, Calif., whose mostly Apple-oriented hardware accessories go by the brand Hyper. And it’s much pricier than a simple, commodity USB thumb drive. It starts at $80 for an eight gigabyte model, and ranges up to $250 for 128GB of storage. The company says the higher prices are required to license the Lightning connector and to meet stringent Apple requirements.

Why do I need this, if I have Dropbox or iCloud Drive? The only use case that makes sense is wanting to carry around a bunch of videos or documents, and not wanting to use up a lot of storage on the devices.