Who Are the Druze? Why is Israel Protecting Them?

I confess that until I read the article below, I thought they were an Islamic splinter group outside the Sunni/Shia split, like the Whirling Dervishes.  Apparently,  they are not Muslims and have a pretty unique theology. 

Anyway, Israel has announced its intent to defend them from the new government in Syria.  

"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz instructed the Israel Defense Forces on Saturday to “prepare to defend” the Druze-majority city of Jaramana on the outskirts of Damascus in Syria.

"A statement issued by Katz’s office said the Damascus suburb was “currently under attack by the forces of the Syrian regime.”

"According to reports from Syria, authorities from the new Syrian government have been clashing with local Druze gunmen during a security campaign in Jaramana. At least one Syrian officer was killed, while another was captured and later released, the reports said.

“We will not allow the extreme Islamic regime in Syria to harm the Druze. If the regime harms the Druze, it will be struck by us,” Katz said."

From the rest of the report, it sounds more like one idiot member of the new government being stupid than a concerted effort.   It is a strong way to let the new government know, "Hands of the Kurds."

Threre is no strong reason that i can see for Israel to care about the Kurds except that they will act as a constraint on the more radical Islamic factions of the new Syrian government. 

Foreign "Aid"

When you think of foreign aid, what do you imagine?  Food, drilling wells, disease prevention,  vaccines?  How about sex reassignment?  3/1/25 Times of India:

"Responding to the reports on X, Musk wrote: “That’s what American tax dollars were funding”

"This comes after India’s first dedicated transgender healthcare clinic in Hyderabad was reportedly closed after the President Donald Trump’s administration recently froze USAID funding, leaving staff unemployed and patients without care."

Yes, this is foreign aid, helping to mutilate people in India.  Whatever the merits of this procedure (and I think none), this is hardly in the same category as food, vaccines,  malaria prevention, and digging wells.  It is a luxury that should be paid for by Indians, who I suspect see this as positively as most Americans. 

Taiwan's Nuclear Weapons Program

3/1/25 CNN World:

"Taipei, TaiwanCNN — 

In January 1988, one of Taiwan’s most senior nuclear engineers defected to the United States after passing crucial intelligence on a top-secret program that would alter the course of Taiwan’s history.

"Colonel Chang Hsien-yi was a leading figure in Taiwan’s nuclear weapons project, a closely guarded secret between the 1960s and ‘80s, as Taipei raced to develop its first nuclear bomb to keep pace with China.

"He was also a CIA informant.

"Chang exposed Taiwan’s secret nuclear program to the United States, its closest ally, passing intelligence that ultimately led the US to pressure Taiwan into shutting down the program – which proliferation experts say was near completion."

Our government's desire to stop the spread of nuclear weapons made perfect sense, especially because Taiwan was still far from a functioning democracy at the time.  Unlike Chang, I think a nuclear armed Taiwan would be a deterrent to PRC invasion.  The possibility of invasion leading to even a small nuclear weapon on Three Gorges dam would be a powerful deterrent.  It would be suicidal for Taiwsn to do that,  buy this is in the nature of MAD: neither side wants to do something that might provoke such an action. 

I suspect that whatever our suppression of their effort caused,  they have probably returned to where they were.   As someone I know described Japan's nuclear weapons capability relative to the same problem: a screwdrivers's turn away.

Bash Question

There seem to be no simple explanations that I can find.  All add more brackets and parentheses to accomplish what?

    if [[ ($yremaining+$millradius \> $yend) ]]; then

I want to see if yremaining + millradius is greater than yend.\

Conditional binary operator expected.

The answer seems to be

Corrected version (as text):

if (( yremaining + millradius > yend )); then

    echo "Condition met"

fi

I cannot believe how much I have forgotten.   My first three years at HP was maintaining, optimizing, and then factoring a 6000 line bash script.

If 6000 lines in one script sounds stupid,  yes it was. It was test tool that verified the functionality of the LaserJet firmware before we loaded into test mules.  Eventually, I factored it into several scripts each of which was still too large, but were at least comprehensible as to function.

Doing the Jobs Americans Won't Do

 2/28/25 Daily Mail:

When immigration agents were first ordered to deport Ivan Oramas and Santos Maradiaga-Villalta, President George W. Bush was in the White House and the iPhone was a distant dream.

That was over two decades ago—yet both men were arrested this week, according to federal data reviewed by DailyMail.com. 

They were among over 50,000 illegal immigrants removed so far, a Department of Homeland Security official revealed to DailyMail.com.

News of their arrest was circulated Thursday in an internal immigration memo noting recent enforcement actions made by President Donald Trump's administration. 

Oramas, 61, is a citizen of Cuba with a rap sheet including convictions for sexual battery and aggravated assault.

His sexual battery case caused serious injury, according to his charges in the file. 

ICE Houston nabbed Oramas this week, enforcing a deportation order first handed down in October 2003—21 years overdue. 

Maradiaga-Villalta, a 40-year-old alien from Honduras, has convictions for smuggling aliens into the U.S. He was arrested recently by ICE in Phoenix. His first deportation order dates back to January 2006, a 19-year lapse in action.  ...

Among the other criminals that surfaced in this week's federal data were Guatemalan national Alexis Aquirre-Velasquez, 37, who was ordered out of the U.S. 12 years ago in February 2013. 

He was charged with four counts of indecent liberty with a child and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.