khazen.org offers its full supports to the Lebanese authorities in the arrest of Bassel el Amin and his likes. Lebanon, the Lebanese …

by Bethan McKernan

Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have defended sharing an inaccurate map of Lebanon annotated with Hezbollah military positions and warehouses, saying the map was for “visual illustration” purposes. 

The official IDF Twitter account posted the map titled “Declassified map of Hezbollah’s military infrastructure in Lebanon” on Tuesday, highlighting more than 80 towns and villages and thousands of spots it said were home to sites such as rocket launchers and infantry positions.

“This is a war crime,” the tweet’s caption said, alongside the tagline “Hezbollah’s hiding behind Lebanon’s civilians.” 

It was shared hundreds of times before one Twitter user pointed out that the picture couldn’t be a declassified military map because the image’s history showed it been created using Google Maps by an IDF spokesperson account, and featured repetitive patterns. 

The map – which according to the Times of Israel was construed as an IDF attempt to build a case for future military action and demonstrate Israel’s sophisticated intelligence-gathering capabilities – was shown to foreign diplomats visiting Israel, local television reported.

When asked for comment, the IDF confirmed that the map is inaccurate, calling it in effect “an illustration of what is going on in Lebanon”.

By Reuters,

Hezbollah called on Friday for a Lebanese government to be formed as quickly as possible, weeks after the country elected a president and named a prime minister.

by Shana Lebowitz

Getting stronger, looking hotter, being less humiliated when climbing the stairs with spry colleagues — these are all solid reasons to work out.

And yet if you're having trouble mustering the motivation to hit the gym regularly, do yourself a favor and stop lecturing yourself about the myriad benefits of physical activity. It's hardly helping.

A better bet? Put a time on your calendar and do it, and trust that you'll like it.

That's according to Dan Ariely, a professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University and the author of the new book about human motivation, "Payoff." Ariely visited the Business Insider office in November and explained that too many people make the same mistake when trying to motivate themselves to do anything, whether that's working out or writing a report.

The mistake is anticipating that the workout will be awful the whole time and that the only reason to do it is to achieve those long-term goals mentioned above. The activity we're dreading is rarely as painful as we imagine it will be, Ariely said — in fact, there's a good chance we'll enjoy it.

Here's Ariely:

"When we think about running, it just seems like it's really going to be miserable and painful and unpleasant and so on. And we don't engage in it. But the fact is that once we're in the task, life changes. All of a sudden, we think less about the misery and we learn to enjoy things."

In other words, as you've probably heard before, the hardest part of working out is just getting started. Once you do, Ariely said, thoughts of getting stronger and looking better kind of melt away as you take in the sensation of your breath, the music coming through your headphones, and the sound of your feet hitting the ground.

In psychologist-speak, the mistake we're making here is placing too much value on extrinsic motivators, like long-term health goals, and too little on intrinsic motivators, like having fun right now.