January 2009 Archives

Eve's version of the story... 

After three weeks in the Garden of Eden, God came to visit Eve. 'So, how is everything going?' inquired God. 

'It is all so beautiful, God,' she replied. 'The sunrises and sunsets are breathtaking, the smells, the sights, everything is wonderful, but I have just one problem.' 

'It's these breasts you have given me. The middle one pushes the other two out and I am constantly knocking them with my arms, catching them on branches and snagging them on bushes. They're a real pain,' reported Eve. 

And Eve went on to tell God that since many other parts of her body came in pairs; her limbs, eyes, ears, etc...she felt that having only two breasts might leave her body more "symmetrically balanced." 

'That's a fair point,' replied God, 'But it was my first shot at this, you know. I gave the animals six breasts, so I figured that you needed only half of those, but I see that you are right. I will fix it up right away.' 

And God reached down, removed the middle breast and tossed it into the bushes. 

Three weeks passed and God once again visited Eve in the Garden of Eden. 

'Well, Eve, how is my favorite creation?' 

'Just fantastic,' she replied, 'But for one oversight. You see, all the animals are paired off. The ewe has a ram and the cow has her bull. All the animals have a mate except me. I feel so alone.' 

God thought for a moment and said, 'You know, Eve, you are right. How could I have overlooked this? You do need a mate and I will immediately create a man from a part of you. '

'Let's see...where did I put That Useless Boob?'

Now doesn't THAT make more sense than that story about the rib?

Forty Years Ago Today

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The Beatles let it be.

'The Trials of Ted Haggard': Alexandra Pelosi talks about her HBO documentary

Jan 29, 2009, 11:39 AM | by Whitney Pastorek

Categories: Film

TedHaggard_l

Despite the screamingly liberal bona fides that come with being the daughter of the Democratic Speaker of the House, documentarian Alexandra Pelosi has carved out a niche for herself as one of America's best-known chroniclers of the conservative/evangelical half of this country -- in part because she's the kind of liberal who was taught that it's nice to listen to everyone. It was while shooting 2007's Friends of God that she first met Ted Haggard, who was at the time pastor of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, as well as the leader of the National Association of Evangelicals. Sadly, there is no quicker way to get yourself fired from your gig at the pulpit of a megachurch than admitting to doing crystal meth/having sex with a male prostitute, and in 2006, Haggard was exiled -- not just from the New Life Church, but from the entire state of Colorado. Pelosi's latest doc, The Trials of Ted Haggard, premiering tonight at 8 p.m. on HBO, is the story of this very disgraced man's attempts to keep his family together, to find a job, to live without the church he founded in his basement, and ultimately, to find a way back home.

Pelosi was reticent to do much press for the movie --  "I don't really need to talk about Ted to anybody because Ted can talk about Ted and I don't have anything to add to that," she says -- but she did us the favor of calling in anyway. Read on for how the doc came into being, her thoughts on the problems that exist on both sides of the gays vs. evangelicals divide (at least w/r/t Haggard), and why she is now, as she puts it "prescribing the Bible"...

To most of her gay friends, says Pelosi, this documentary counts as "giving sympathy to the devil." But she seems to genuinely like Haggard, and explains, "He didn't give really anti-gay sermons. I'm telling you this because I made a movie about evangelical Christians, and I had to sit through the sermons. The most anti-gay things that I found [Haggard said] were basically jokes. He makes jokes about gays. But he's not Pat Robertson saying, 'The gays caused 9/11.'" When Pelosi found out Haggard was living in Scottsdale, Ariz., after his fall from grace, she gave him a ring when she came to town to visit her sister; lo and behold, he answered the phone. "This guy is down and out," she says. "He has no work, his family is falling apart, he's got nothing. And I called. I think he was just lonely." Pelosi and her husband stopped by for lunch, and ended up staying for nine hours. "And the day he was moving, he had no one there," she says. "The cynical New Yorkers were the only ones there to help him move. I was just filming my husband moving boxes, not because I thought it was going to be a movie someday. Most documentaries shoot like 200 hours. In this case, what you see in the movie is what I filmed. It all happened by accident." And fairly quickly: the footage that makes up the movie was approved by Haggard only about a month ago.

The Trials of Ted Haggard is, according to Pelosi, "really anti-church" -- and seriously, church? you're allowed to kick someone out of a state?? -- but she emphasizes that on the flip side, it actually turned out to be very pro-Bible and very pro-Jesus. "I was there for a lot of times when they'd sit down as a family and read the Bible, and it really seemed to give them some hope," she says. In the end, Pelosi became so enamored with the "greatest hits" of scripture that she went out and got herself a Bible, too. "I had to," she laughs. "Ted would be reading these passages... it was like hearing a song on the radio. Like, 'That was good!'" Most of all, Pelosi saw the benefit the book had in the life of "the real victim in all of this," Haggard's wife, Gayle. "She's one of those women who says, 'The Bible says you have to forgive, so I forgive.' It's like, 'Honey, your husband has been messing around with other men...' and she'd say, 'Yeah, but the Bible says forgive.' Isn't that inspirational?" Pelosi asks. "Jesus would say everybody deserves forgiveness. Even though you're gay. Even if they gave anti-gay sermons.'"

By the way, it's not just the church who Pelosi views as being unnecessarily harsh towards her unlikely friend. "I hate how the gays want Ted to say, 'I'm gay and I'm out and I'm proud,'" she says. "He's not. He's conflicted. I think there's more than 'I'm gay,' 'I'm straight.' I'm satisfied with him saying, 'I'm confused, I have a wife and five kids but I struggle with my sexuality, I have these attractions, these urges.' I feel like that's sort of honest. And his wife and his kids are the only things he has left."

[She's a lightning talker, this lady, and there's really no sense interrupting. Take us to the comments, Alexandra! Let's hope everyone stays respectful in them!]

"Gay. What is gay? Ted Haggard doesn't think he's gay, because he doesn't live in Chelsea, he doesn't have a timeshare on Fire Island, and he doesn't dance in his Speedo in the Gay Pride parade. To him, that's what 'gay' is. So he's not lying when he says he's not gay. It's an identity thing. When you say, 'Are you gay?' you're not talking about his sex life. You're talking about identity. And the gay of Chelsea is totally different than the gay of Colorado Springs. There is this culture war going on in America between gays and evangelicals. It's not just happening in Colorado, it's happening in California with Prop 8. When Rick Warren was selected to pray at the inauguration, it happened. Gays versus evangelicals. And Ted has fallen right in between. He's fallen in the crack. He wants to be an evangelical. He wants to go back to church. Before he dies, I think all he wants is a call from the church saying, 'Can you please come give a sermon? We'd love to have you.'"

 
Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan stormed out of a Davos forum after a heated debate with Israel's President Shimon Peres and slamming moderator David Ignatius. 

Erdogan walked off in front of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other panel members complaining that his comments on the conflict were cut short by the Washington Post's moderator David Ignatius. 

The Turkish premier noted to reporters following the incident that he was treated unfairly by the moderator who allowed him only 12 minutes to make his points while giving Peres a full 25 minutes to deliver an impassioned defense of Israel's 22-day offensive that devastated Gaza. Arab League chief, Egypt's Amr Moussa rose to shake his hand as the prime minister made his exit. 

"I do not think I will be coming back to Davos after this because you do not let me speak," the prime minister shouted as he left, though he said later he could reconsider. 

Erdogan criticized the audience of international officials and corporate chiefs for applauding Peres' emotional defense of Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza, which left more than 1,300 Palestinians dead. 

Erdogan, who leads one of the few Muslim countries to have diplomatic ties with Israel and who has sought a peacemaker's role in the Middle East conflict, said Israel had carried out "barbaric" actions in Gaza. 

"I find it very sad that people applaud what you have said because many people have been killed," he shouted at Peres before being cut off by Ignatius. 

Erdogan and Peres spoke by telephone after the debate and the 85-year-old Israeli president apologized for the events, Turkey's Anatolia news agency reported.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

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from the wiki

Melody

Many think that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was the original composer of this melody, a misconception[4] reinforced by its appearance as a "correct answer" in the original edition of Trivial Pursuit. However, Mozart wrote twelve variations for piano on the melody (Variations on "Ah vous dirai-je, Maman"), now catalogued as K. 265/300e in theKöchel-Verzeichnis.


Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky!

When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

Then the traveller in the dark,
Thanks you for your tiny spark,
He could not see which way to go,
If you did not twinkle so.

In the dark blue sky you keep,
And often through my curtains peep,
For you never shut your eye,
Till the sun is in the sky.

As your bright and tiny spark,
Lights the traveller in the dark,--
Though I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

Appearances of the melody

Many songs in various languages have been based on the "Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman" melody. In English, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" shares its melody with the "Alphabet Song" from 1834, and "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep".

The German Christmas carol "Morgen kommt der Weihnachtsmann", with words by Hoffmann von Fallersleben, also uses the melody, as does the Hungarian Christmas carol "Hull a pelyhes fehér hó", and the Dutch "Altijd is Kortjakje ziek".

"Mad as a Hatter"

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Although name 'Mad Hatter' was undoubtedly inspired by the phrase "as mad as a hatter," there is some uncertainty as to the origins of this phrase. As mercury was used in the process of curing felt used in some hats, it was impossible for hatters to avoid inhaling the mercury fumes given off during the hat making process. Hatters and mill workers often suffered mercury poisoning as residual mercury vapor caused neurological damage including confused speech and distorted vision. It was not unusual then for hatters to appear disturbed or mentally confused, many died early as a result of mercury poisoning. However, the Mad Hatter does not exhibit the symptoms of mercury poisoning. Principal symptoms of mercury poisoning are "excessive timidity, diffidence, increasing shyness, loss of self-confidence, anxiety, and a desire to remain unobserved and unobtrusive."[1]

Touch of Dead, Gratefully

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From Chicago in 1978, we have music from two of the three shows that started a short six show tour of the Midwest (the other three shows being Madison, Milwaukee and Cedar Falls; more on those shows next week...). From the first night in Chicago, on 1/30/78, we have this very nifty Estimated Prophet>Eyes of the World pairing, always played well in 1978.

Finally this week, from the aforementioned at-times excellent tour of (mostly) California in January 1978, we have some great music from 1/15/78 in Fresno, California. From a very good audience tape source, we have the second set's big jam featuring Terrapin Station>Playing In The Band. Unfortunately, the entire January 1978 tour of (mostly) California is not in the vault, but fortunately the tapers were out there recording the shows.
http://gigapan.org

Check out the detail on Obama's face (and the guy behind him who's head is stitched together).

And what's the USHE corps?  Looks like some kind of Navy group.

Barry Kriger

(WWLP) - Major news in the deadly salmonella outbreak involving a south georgia peanut processing plant. 

Georgia agriculture officials dropped a bombshell this morning when they were grilled by state lawmakers at the capitol. 

The FDA revealed that officials with the Peanut Corporation of America in Blakely, Georgia knew they had products contaminated with salmonella and yet shipped them out to consumers anyway. 

On 12 separate occasions during the past two years testing done by the company found salmonella in their peanut products but instead of pulling the products the company had them retested by an outside lab and those tests came back negative. 

"I'm angry about the company hiding these results we do what we can during our food safety inspections out there with the staff that we've got, 60 employees for 16-thousand facilities across the state and then you have a company that actually knows that they have a problem and doesn't make us aware of it," said Oscar Garrison, Georgia Deputy Agriculture Commissioner. 

The FDA has expanded its recall to all peanut products containing peanut paste or peanut oil from the peanut company. 

From The Friendly Atheist

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Stephan Glock sent this this morning (it's from the 'Friendly Atheist'):

You'll love this one.

In honor of Inauguration Day, Krispy Kreme is giving away a free doughnut on Tuesday.

Here's what they say in their press release:

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc... is honoring American's sense of pride and freedom of choice on Inauguration Day, by offering a free doughnut of choice to every customer on this historic day, Jan. 20. By doing so, participating Krispy Kreme stores nationwide are making an oath to tasty goodies -- just another reminder of how oh-so-sweet "free" can be.

Cutesy, opportunistic, whatever. If there's a Krispy Kreme nearby, you know you'll want to take them up on the offer.

A Catholic pro-life group sees things differently.

They think Krispy Kreme is telling you to abort babies.

No, really.

The headline of the American Life League's press release is "KRISPY KREME CELEBRATES OBAMA WITH PRO-ABORTION DOUGHNUTS."

It seems they don't like the use of the word "choice"...:

Just an unfortunate choice of words? For the sake of our Wednesday morning doughnut runs, we hope so. The unfortunate reality of a post Roe v. Wade America is that "choice" is synonymous with abortion access and celebration of 'freedom of choice' is a tacit endorsement of abortion rights on demand.

President-elect Barack Obama promises to be the most virulently pro-abortion president in history. Millions more children will be endangered by his radical abortion agenda.

Celebrating his inauguration with "Freedom of Choice" doughnuts -- only two days before the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision to decriminalize abortion -- is not only extremely tacky, it's disrespectful and insensitive and makes a mockery of a national tragedy.

Yes. Krispy Kreme was just trying to be subtle about their baby-killing agenda.

At least we now know why their doughnuts taste so delicious...

doughnut_lomo_acid

Maybe I should be worried. I gave my students a multiple-choice exam last week. Clearly, I was telling them to go have several abortions... Now, I'll have to respond to angry parent phone calls...


January 28, 2009 01:20 PM ET | Maura Judkis | Permanent Link 

Quantities of mercury have been found in high fructose corn syrup, the ingredient that has replaced sugar in many of our processed foods. Reports have also come out that the FDA knew about traces of the toxic substance in food, and sat on the information. This news comes out just as we've learned that the peanut butter factory responsible for the salmonella outbreak has a storied history of health violations. What a week for food safety.

Mercury in high fructose corn syrup affects many of the most popular foods in America, including yogurt, soda, candy, juice and jelly. Even a small amount of it can be seriously unhealthy.

"Mercury is toxic in all its forms," said IATP's David Wallinga, M.D., and a co-author in both studies. "Given how much high fructose corn syrup is consumed by children, it could be a significant additional source of mercury never before considered. We are calling for immediate changes by industry and the FDA to help stop this avoidable mercury contamination of the food supply."

The Corn Refiners Association is disputing the results of the study, but a watchdog group's study turned up similar results. More research is needed to determine exactly which foods are affected, but some of the foods tested were from the brands Hershey's, Quaker, Hunt's, Manwich, Smucker's, Kraft, Nutri-Grain, and Yoplait. We've already read that high fructose corn syrup can contribute to obesity and diabetes. With this recent scare, will people take a turn away from processed foods to more natural eating habits? Or have processed foods become an irreplacable part of the American diet?

Formal Complaint

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Free Press and Public Knowledge file this complaint regarding Comcast's practices of

secretly degrading applications on its broadband network. Comcast, the nation's number two

provider of high-speed Internet access, is blatantly violating the FCC's Internet Policy Statement

by degrading a range of peer-to-peer applications. Comcast has also engaged in deceptive

practices and continues to do so. It falsely denied degrading peer-to-peer applications and now

continues to degrade applications without informing users and while advertising access to the

"Internet." The FCC should immediately enjoin this discrimination and impose forfeitures on

Comcast.


I. Facts


Comcast is secretly degrading peer-to-peer protocols, threatening to undermine the

Internet's open and interconnected character, discourage broadband use, and crippling the

innovation the Internet has made possible.


http://www.publicknowledge.org/issues/comcastcomplaint

by Julian Borger

The head of the UN"s nuclear watchdog has cancelled planned interviews with the BBC in protest at the corporation's decision not to air an emergency appeal for Gaza on behalf of the Disasters Emergency Committee.

In a statement to the Guardian, Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel peace prize winner, unleashed a stinging denunciation of the BBC, deepening the damage already caused by the controversy. The statement, from his office at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the BBC decision not to air the aid appeal for victims of the conflict "violates the rules of basic human decency which are there to help vulnerable people, irrespective of who is right or wrong".

It said the IAEA director had cancelled interviews with BBC World Service television and radio, which had been scheduled to take place at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Saturday.

A BBC spokesman said: "We regret that Mr ElBaradei was not able to participate in an interview with the BBC while he is at Davos.

"Our audience around the world remains interested in what he has to say about a range of topics, and we hope he will accept an invitation at another time."

ElBaradei is due to leave his post as the IAEA director general in November.

He won acclaim for his scepticism over western claims that Saddam Hussein was attempting to develop nuclear weapons and his public opposition to the invasion of Iraq.

ElBaradei and the IAEA were awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2005.

Officials in ElBaradei's office said it was unclear how long his boycott of the BBC would last.

A spokeswoman said she expected him to review his position in light of how the corporation eventually resolved the row.

Both the BBC and Sky decided not to air the appeal by the DEC, an umbrella group of non-governmental humanitarian agencies, for aid for Gaza victims.

The appeal was broadcast by ITV, Channel 4, and Channel Five last night, and was watched by a combined audience of 4.5 million.

A voiceover at the beginning of the broadcast said: "This is not about the rights and wrongs of the conflict - these people simply need your help."

The BBC director general, Mark Thompson, said the appeal was not broadcast by the corporation because it would have damaged the impartiality of its coverage of the conflict.

ABQ Rocks

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Posted By:
Tobyriffic


Hosted By:
Tobyriffic



When:
Saturday, Jan 31, 2009 9:30 PM


Where:
Misty's Hideaway
1522 Eubank NE
Albuquerque
View Map

The awesome rock band "The Chupacabras" will be playi​ng at Misty​s Hidea​way 1522 Euban​k NE Albuq​uerqu​e,​​ New Mexic​o - 505-​​271-​​9839.​​ The Show start​s at 930pm​ to 2 am this Saturday Jan 31. Who is comin​g with me to check​ them out?​

I Think She Might Be Real

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Real enough that I should give her a name, at least.  Zolushka.

If she is a scam artist, she's better than the Nigerian one.  She's at least replying to my email (the Nigerian--who said she was in Sacramento, BTW, never did).

But I think she is real, even if my neighbor was absolutely incredulous (she's just stunningly beautiful, and the photos do look professional).  

Золушка

via Andres
 
 
Barack Obama is recognized to be a person of acute intelligence, a legal scholar, careful with his choice of words. He deserves to be taken seriously - both what he says, and what he omits. Particularly significant is his first substantive statement on foreign affairs, on January 22, at the State Department, when introducing George Mitchell to serve as his special envoy for Middle East peace.
 
Mitchell is to focus his attention on the Israel-Palestine problem, in the wake of the recent US-Israeli invasion of Gaza. During the murderous assault, Obama remained silent apart from a few platitudes, because, he said, there is only one president - a fact that did not silence him on many other issues. His campaign did, however, repeat his statement that "if missiles were falling where my two daughters sleep, I would do everything in order to stop that." He was referring to Israeli children, not the hundreds of Palestinian children being butchered by US arms, about whom he could not speak, because there was only one president.
 
On January 22, however, the one president was Barack Obama, so he could speak freely about these matters - avoiding, however, the attack on Gaza, which had, conveniently, been called off just before the inauguration.
 
Obama's talk emphasized his commitment to a peaceful settlement. He left its contours vague, apart from one specific proposal: "the Arab peace initiative," Obama said, "contains constructive elements that could help advance these efforts.  Now is the time for Arab states to act on the initiative's promise by supporting the Palestinian government under President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad, taking steps towards normalizing relations with Israel, and by standing up to extremism that threatens us all."
 
Obama is not directly falsifying the Arab League proposal, but the carefully framed deceit is instructive.
 
The Arab League peace proposal does indeed call for normalization of relations with Israel - in the context - repeat, in the context of a two-state settlement in terms of the longstanding international consensus, which the US and Israel have blocked for over 30 years, in international isolation, and still do. The core of the Arab League proposal, as Obama and his Mideast advisers know very well, is its call for a peaceful political settlement in these terms, which are well-known, and recognized to be the only basis for the peaceful settlement to which Obama professes to be committed. The omission of that crucial fact can hardly be accidental, and signals clearly that Obama envisions no departure from US rejectionism. His call for the Arab states to act on a corollary to their proposal, while the US ignores even the existence of its central content, which is the precondition for the corollary, surpasses cynicism.
 
The most significant acts to undermine a peaceful settlement are the daily US-backed actions in the occupied territories, all recognized to be criminal: taking over valuable land and resources and constructing what the leading architect of the plan, Ariel Sharon, called "Bantustans" for Palestinians - an unfair comparison because the Bantustans were far more viable than the fragments left to Palestinians under Sharon's conception, now being realized. But the US and Israel even continue to oppose a political settlement in words, most recently in December 2008, when the US and Israel (and a few Pacific islands) voted against a UN resolution supporting "the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination" (passed 173 to 5, US-Israel opposed, with evasive pretexts).
 
Obama had not one word to say about the settlement and infrastructure developments in the West Bank, and the complex measures to control Palestinian existence, designed to undermine the prospects for a peaceful two-state settlement.   His silence is a grim refutation of his oratorical flourishes about how "I will sustain an active commitment to seek two states living side by side in peace and security."
 
Also unmentioned is Israel's use of US arms in Gaza, in violation not only of international but also US law. Or Washington's shipment of new arms to Israel right at the peak of the US-Israeli attack, surely not unknown to Obama's Middle East advisers.
 
Obama was firm, however, that smuggling of arms to Gaza must be stopped. He endorses the agreement of Condoleeza Rice and Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni that the Egyptian-Gaza border must be closed - a remarkable exercise of imperial arrogance, as the Financial Times observed: "as they stood in Washington congratulating each other, both officials seemed oblivious to the fact that they were making a deal about an illegal trade on someone else's border - Egypt in this case. The next day, an Egyptian official described the memorandum as `fictional'." Egypt's objections were ignored.
 
Returning to Obama's reference to the "constructive" Arab League proposal, as the wording indicates, Obama persists in restricting support to the defeated party in the January 2006 election, the only free election in the Arab world, to which the US and Israel reacted, instantly and overtly, by severely punishing Palestinians for opposing the will of the masters. A minor technicality is that Abbas's term ran out on January 9, and that Fayyad was appointed without confirmation by the Palestinian parliament (many of them kidnapped and in Israeli prisons). Ha'aretz describes Fayyad as "a strange bird in Palestinian politics. On the one hand, he is the Palestinian politician most esteemed by Israel and the West.  However, on the other hand, he has no electoral power whatsoever in Gaza or the West Bank." The report also notes Fayyad's "close relationship with the Israeli establishment," notably his friendship with Sharon's extremist adviser Dov Weiglass.  Though lacking popular support, he is regarded as competent and honest, not the norm in the US-backed political sectors.
 
Obama's insistence that only Abbas and Fayyad exist conforms to the consistent Western contempt for democracy unless it is under control.
 
Obama provided the usual reasons for ignoring the elected government led by Hamas. "To be a genuine party to peace," Obama declared, "the quartet [US, EU, Russia, UN] has made it clear that Hamas must meet clear conditions: recognize Israel's right to exist; renounce violence; and abide by past agreements." Unmentioned, also as usual, is the inconvenient fact that the US and Israel firmly reject all three conditions. In international isolation, they bar a two-state settlement including a Palestinian state; they of course do not renounce violence; and they reject the quartet's central proposal, the "road map." Israel formally accepted it, but with 14 reservations that effectively eliminate its contents (tacitly backed by the US). It is the great merit of Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace not Apartheid, to have brought these facts to public attention for the first time - and in the mainstream, the only time.
 
It follows, by elementary reasoning, that neither the US nor Israel is a "genuine party to peace." But that cannot be. It is not even a phrase in the English language.
 
It is perhaps unfair to criticize Obama for this further exercise of cynicism, because it is close to universal, unlike his scrupulous evisceration of the core component of the Arab League proposal, which is his own novel contribution.
 
Also near universal are the standard references to Hamas: a terrorist organization, dedicated to the destruction of Israel (or maybe all Jews). Omitted are the inconvenient facts that the US-Israel are not only dedicated to the destruction of any viable Palestinian state, but are steadily implementing those policies. Or that unlike the two rejectionist states, Hamas has called for a two-state settlement in terms of the international consensus: publicly, repeatedly, explicitly.
 
 Obama began his remarks by saying: "Let me be clear: America is committed to Israel's security. And we will always support Israel's right to defend itself against legitimate threats."
 
There was nothing about the right of Palestinians to defend themselves against far more extreme threats, such as those occurring daily, with US support, in the occupied territories. But that again is the norm.
 
Also normal is the enunciation of the principle that Israel has the right to defend itself. That is correct, but vacuous: so does everyone. But in the context the cliche is worse than vacuous: it is more cynical deceit.
 
The issue is not whether Israel has the right to defend itself, like everyone else, but whether it has the right to do soby force. No one, including Obama, believes that states enjoy a general right to defend themselves by force: it is first necessary to demonstrate that there are no peaceful alternatives that can be tried. In this case, there surely are.
 
A narrow alternative would be for Israel to abide by a cease-fire, for example, the cease-fire proposed by Hamas political leader Khaled Mishal a few days before Israel launched its attack on December 27. Mishal called for restoring the 2005 agreement. That agreement called for an end to violence and uninterrupted opening of the borders, along with an Israeli guarantee that goods and people could move freely between the two parts of occupied Palestine, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The agreement was rejected by the US and Israel a few months later, after the free election of January 2006 turned out "the wrong way." There are many other highly relevant cases.
 
The broader and more significant alternative would be for the US and Israel to abandon their extreme rejectionism, and join the rest of the world - including the Arab states and Hamas - in supporting a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus. It should be noted that in the past 30 years there has been one departure from US-Israeli rejectionism: the negotiations at Taba in January 2001, which appeared to be close to a peaceful resolution when Israel prematurely called them off. It would not, then, be outlandish for Obama to agree to join the world, even within the framework of US policy, if he were interested in doing so.
 
In short, Obama's forceful reiteration of Israel's right to defend itself is another exercise of cynical deceit - though, it must be admitted, not unique to him, but virtually universal.
 
The deceit is particularly striking in this case because the occasion was the appointment of Mitchell as special envoy. Mitchell's primary achievement was his leading role in the peaceful settlement in northern Ireland. It called for an end to IRA terror and British violence. Implicit is the recognition that while Britain had the right to defend itself from terror, it had no right to do so by force, because there was a peaceful alternative: recognition of the legitimate grievances of the Irish Catholic community that were the roots of IRA terror. When Britain adopted that sensible course, the terror ended. The implications for Mitchell's mission with regard to Israel-Palestine are so obvious that they need not be spelled out. And omission of them is, again, a striking indication of the commitment of the Obama administration to traditional US rejectionism and opposition to peace, except on its extremist terms.
 
Obama also praised Jordan for its "constructive role in training Palestinian security forces and nurturing its relations with Israel" - which contrasts strikingly with US-Israeli refusal to deal with the freely elected government of Palestine, while savagely punishing Palestinians for electing it with pretexts which, as noted, do not withstand a moment's scrutiny.   It is true that Jordan joined the US in arming and training Palestinian security forces, so that they could violently suppress any manifestation of support for the miserable victims of US-Israeli assault in Gaza, also arresting supporters of Hamas and the prominent journalist Khaled Amayreh, while organizing their own demonstrations in support of Abbas and Fatah, in which most participants "were civil servants and school children who were instructed by the PA to attend the rally," according to the Jerusalem Post.  Our kind of democracy.
 
Obama made one further substantive comment: "As part of a lasting cease-fire, Gaza's border crossings should be open to allow the flow of aid and commerce, with an appropriate monitoring regime..." He did not, of course, mention that the US-Israel had rejected much the same agreement after the January 2006 election, and that Israel had never observed similar subsequent agreements on borders.
 
Also missing is any reaction to Israel's announcement that it rejected the cease-fire agreement, so that the prospects for it to be "lasting" are not auspicious. As reported at once in the press, "Israeli Cabinet Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who takes part in security deliberations, told Army Radio on Thursday that Israel wouldn't let border crossings with Gaza reopen without a deal to free [Gilad] Schalit" (AP, Jan 22); 'Israel to keep Gaza crossings closed...An official said the government planned to use the issue to bargain for the release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held by the Islamist group since 2006 (Financial Times, Jan. 23); "Earlier this week, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said that progress on Corporal Shalit's release would be a precondition to opening up the border crossings that have been mostly closed since Hamas wrested control of Gaza from the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority in 2007" (Christian Science Monitor, Jan. 23); "an Israeli official said there would be tough conditions for any lifting of the blockade, which he linked with the release of Gilad Shalit" (FT, Jan. 23); among many others.
 
Shalit's capture is a prominent issue in the West, another indication of Hamas's criminality. Whatever one thinks about it, it is uncontroversial that capture of a soldier of an attacking army is far less of a crime than kidnapping of civilians, exactly what Israeli forces did the day before the capture of Shalit, invading Gaza city and kidnapping two brothers, then spiriting them across the border where they disappeared into Israel's prison complex. Unlike the much lesser case of Shalit, that crime was virtually unreported and has been forgotten, along with Israel's regular practice for decades of kidnapping civilians in Lebanon and on the high seas and dispatching them to Israeli prisons, often held for many years as hostages. But the capture of Shalit bars a cease-fire.
 
Obama's State Department talk about the Middle East continued with "the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan... the central front in our enduring struggle against terrorism and extremism." A few hours later, US planes attacked a remote village in Afghanistan, intending to kill a Taliban commander. "Village elders, though, told provincial officials there were no Taliban in the area, which they described as a hamlet populated mainly by shepherds. Women and children were among the 22 dead, they said, according to Hamididan Abdul Rahmzai, the head of the provincial council" (LA Times, Jan. 24).
 
Afghan president Karzai's first message to Obama after he was elected in November was a plea to end the bombing of Afghan civilians, reiterated a few hours before Obama was sworn in. This was considered as significant as Karzai's call for a timetable for departure of US and other foreign forces. The rich and powerful have their "responsibilities." Among them, the New York Times reported, is to "provide security" in southern Afghanistan, where "the insurgency is homegrown and self-sustaining." All familiar. From Pravda in the 1980s, for example.

Obama and Medical Marijuana

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Less than two days. That's how long it took ex-President Bush's cronies inside the federal government to strike out at President Obama and use taxpayer money to undermine him.

Last Thursday the DEA raided a medical marijuana dispensary in California, putting the lives of cancer, HIV/AIDS and other patients at risk.

But we can show President Obama that the American people will stand with him in this fight and hold him accountable for his campaign promise to end these raids.

As you may know, President Obama promised to end the Bush administration's cruel and costly raids on medical marijuana patients and caregivers in states where marijuana is legal for medical use. He's in the process of replacing Bush officials who are the source of the problem, but that takes time.

Quite frankly, what the Bush loyalists inside the DEA did in South Lake Tahoe is the equivalent of giving President Obama the finger. 

Now is our chance to urge President Obama to protect at-risk patients. If he doesn't stand up forcefully to Bush's cronies, they will continue to undermine his presidency. And terminally ill patients will suffer.

My letter to Obama

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CNBC's poll today, and Change.org's listing of ideas both put legalization flat on the table as what the American people want. Change.org shows that idea leading the next most popular by a full thirty-three percent. While I agree with DPA that jailing sick people is itself sick, I have to point out that destroying the lives of otherwise healthy individuals (and their families) is ghastly as well. True peace begins at home. We can't wage peace 'out there' if we are still having a civil war here. Please, for God's sake, just STOP this madness. It's just a weed. It's not toxic, and the worst it seems to do is make people fat (munchies), and that, only for the ones who don't need it for that reason. This war has made this country an awful place to live for my whole life. I've watched countless good people's lives destroyed for the sake of some sanctimonious puritans. If you can't turn off the war on pot, then at least let the medical users get their supplies without jailing them. In my case (since I moved to CA and found that I could get it for my arthritis), it's really helping a lot. I'd even volunteer to grow it for other folks if I thought I wasn't going to go to jail for it.

SHOULD MARIJUANA USE BE LEGAL?

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As I noted earlier, while 'change.org' downplayed the MASSIVE first place showing of this issue, 'wearechange.org' doesn't mince words (it's all the same 'war' yano?  the war on US, by US).

From CNBC.com:

Currently, 13 states have laws on the books stating it's not a crime to possess small amounts of marijuana. Internationally, other countries have similar legislation. A number of studies reveal legalization of pot does not necessarily lead to increased usage. 

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/10/neanderthals/hall-text

http://ebbolles.typepad.com/babels_dawn/2006/10/the_human_foxp2.html

Safe Harbor

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_harbor#Broadcasting

Broadcasting

Main article: Watershed (television)
In broadcasting, particularly in the United States of America, the term safe harbor can refer to the hours during which broadcasters may transmit material deemed indecent for children. This "safe harbor", enforced by the Federal Communications Commission, extends -- legally -- from 10PM to 6 AM.

From the actual text of the decision:

The Commission's holding does not prevent willing adults from purchasing Carlin's record, from attending his performances, or, indeed, from reading the transcript reprinted as an appendix to the Court's opinion. On its face, it does not prevent respondent Pacifica Foundation from broadcasting the monologue during late evening hours, when fewer children are likely to be in the audience, nor from broadcasting discussions of the contemporary use of language at any time during the day. 

Where Principles Go to Die

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In America, Speaking the Truth is a Career-Ending Event

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS 

"The evidence is sitting on the table. There is no avoiding the fact that this was torture."

These are the words of Manfred Nowak, the UN official appointed by the Commission on Human Rights to examine cases of torture. Nowak has concluded that President Obama is legally obligated to prosecute former President George W. Bush and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. 
If President Obama's bankster economic team finishes off what remains of the US economy, Obama, to deflect the public's attention from his own failures and Americans' growing hardships, might fulfill his responsibility to prosecute Bush and Rumsfeld. But for now the interesting question is why did the US military succumb to illegal orders?

In the December 2008 issue of CounterPunch, Alexander Cockburn, in his report on an inglorious chapter in the history of the Harvard Law School, provides the answer. Two brothers, Jonathan and David Lubell, both Harvard law students, were politically active against the Korean War. It was the McCarthy era, and the brothers were subpoenaed. They refused to cooperate on the grounds that the subpoena was a violation of the First Amendment.
 
Harvard Law School immediately began pressuring the students to cooperate with Congress. The other students ostracized them. Pressures from the Dean and faculty turned into threats. Although the Lubells graduated magna cum laude, they were kept off the Harvard Law Review. Their scholarships were terminated. A majority of the Harvard Law faculty voted for their expulsion (expulsion required a two-thirds vote).

Why did Harvard Law School betray two honor students who stood up for the US Constitution? Cockburn concludes that the Harvard law faculty sacrificed constitutional principle in order not to jeopardize their own self-advancement by displeasing the government (and no doubt donors).

We see such acts of personal cowardice every day. Recently we had the case of Jewish scholar and Israel critic Norman Finkelstein, whose tenure was blocked by the cowardly president of DePaul University, a man afraid to stand up for his own faculty against the Israel Lobby, which successfully imposed on a Catholic university the principle that no critic of Israel can gain academic tenure.

The same calculation of self-interest causes American journalists to serve as shills for Israeli and US government propaganda and the US Congress to endorse Israeli war crimes that the rest of the world condemns.

When US military officers saw that torture was a policy coming down from the top, they knew that doing the right thing would cost them their careers. They trimmed their sails. One who did not was Major General Antonio Taguba. Instead of covering up the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal, General Taguba wrote an honest report that terminated his career.

Despite legislation that protects whistleblowers, it is always the whistleblower, not the wrongdoer, who suffers. When it finally became public that the Bush regime was committing felonies under US law by using the NSA to spy on Americans, the Justice (sic) Department went after the whistleblower. Nothing was done about the felonies.
 
Yet Bush and the Justice (sic) Department continued to assert that "we are a nation of law."

The Bush regime was a lawless regime. This makes it difficult for the Obama regime to be a lawful one. A torture inquiry would lead naturally into a war crimes inquiry. General Taguba said that the Bush regime committed war crimes. President Obama was a war criminal by his third day in office when he ordered illegal cross-border drone attacks on Pakistan that murdered 20 people, including 3 children. The bombing and strafing of homes and villages in Afghanistan by US forces and America's NATO puppets are also war crimes. Obama cannot enforce the law, because he himself has already violated it. 

For decades the US government has taken the position that Israel's territorial expansion is not constrained by any international law. The US government is complicit in Israel's war crimes in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank.

The entire world knows that Israel is guilty of war crimes and that the US government made the crimes possible by providing the weapons and diplomatic support. What Israel and the US did in Lebanon and Gaza is no different from crimes for which Nazis were tried at Nuremberg. Israel understands this, and the Israeli government is currently preparing its defense, which will be led by Israeli Justice (sic) Minister Daniel Friedman. UN war crimes official Richard Falk has compared Israel's massacre of Gazans to the Nazi starvation and massacre of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. Amnesty International and the Red Cross have demanded Israel be held accountable for war crimes. Even eight Israeli human rights groups have called for an investigation into Israel's war crimes.

Obama's order to close Guantanamo Prison means very little. Essentially, Obama's order is a public relations event. The tribunal process had already been shut down by US courts and by military lawyers, who refused to prosecute the fabricated cases. The vast majority of the prisoners were hapless individuals captured by Afghan warlords and sold for money to the stupid Americans as "terrorists." Most of the prisoners, people the Bush regime told us were "the most dangerous people alive," have already been released.

Obama's order said nothing about closing the CIA's secret prisons or halting the illegal practice of rendition in which the CIA kidnaps people and sends them to third world countries, such as Egypt, to be tortured.

Obama would have to take risks that opportunistic politicians never take in order for the US to become a nation of law instead of a nation in which the agendas of special interests override the law.

Truth cannot be spoken in America. It cannot be spoken in universities. It cannot be spoken in the media. It cannot be spoken in courts, which is why defendants and defense attorneys have given up on trials and cop pleas to lesser offenses that never occurred.
 
Truth is never spoken by government. As Jonathan Turley said recently, Washington "is where principles go to die."
 
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
 

http://afewsmallnips.wordpress.com/porns-bad-mkay/

Gee, I don't really know where to start.  Let's go with quoting a bit for an appetizer:

Porn is not sexuality. Porn is not freedom. Porn is not original. It is the same shit, over and over, it's boring, it's uninventive. It is NOT art, and yes, I feel perfectly qualified to make that statement.

Ok, that's accurate, for the most part. I mean there's some well-done films, a cinematic few, and some that are worth watching simply for historical/entertainment purposes, but overall, it's basically a fast-food sort of product.

But:

I believe that the vast majority of women who work in the sex-industrial complex do it because they have to do it, and would do something else if they felt like they had the option.

This is *absolutely* ABSOLUTELY not true.  There are plenty of women who get off on turning men on, and they do it intentionally, and the few who are both driven in this way and can work in front of a camera well are rewarded by being compensated not just with money, but with the attention they seek.

I know this because I've dated at least two (that I know of), and one that I at least suspect.

I know this because my ballet partner in college was a dancer at a strip bar.

But it is true that most people work because they have to.  I think that's a really good thing, personally, since it keeps them busy. If they decide that on camera sex is more fun than flipping burgers, it's their choice.

So, when she goes off onto:

That is, this industry promotes imprisonment and rape of women and our continued, collective treatment as sub-human beings by our government, by men, and perhaps most unfortunately, by each other. I believe that if you are a vegetarian and support animal rights, or if you refuse to shop at places like Wal-Mart which utilize child labor and make their goods in sweatshops-and you continue to support the porn industry- you commit an act of outright hypocrisy, and you can't give yourself that little moral pat on the back that you want to- well, at least not in my world.

I have to note that this rather sanctimonious stance is based on delusion, at least in part.

I suspect the individuals she is really thinking about are the porn "wanna be's" (you know, the girls who think that it's a 'fast track to riches').  But really, what's the difference between a bunch of girls who don't get rich and are treated like garbage by their employers, and a bunch of guys who don't get rich and are treated like garbage by THEIR employers?

If they are doing something they enjoy doing, what's the problem?

Really, if you want to look at that industry and see the *mistreated* individuals, look at the men.  The women are stars, and all they have to do is show up.  The men make barely anything, have to be able to keep an erection for sometimes HOURS of shooting, and have to be able to have an orgasm not just on camera, but FOR the camera.

Of course, they are also doing it willingly.  Something about being able to say, "What do I do?  Well, I screw porn stars for money.  I did Jenna Jameson for eight hours yesterday."

Anyway, I'm always amazed at people's ability to extend their myopia to others and find others inability to constrict themselves as they do a 'fault'.  

I'm pretty certain that the plethora of homemade porn sites, and I mean homemade, I watched a few of them grow from web-cams to full blown (pardon the pun) porn sites over the years.  In fact, one of my new MySpace 'buds' (a 420 bud) is a late-night porn queen.  She sends me semi-erotic greetings from time to time.  She likes some rather rough play (not my type, but she's still fun).

I don't know whether the other MySpace friend who is of that exhibitionistic bent does porn too, but I suspect she might.

International Journal of Psychophysiology : Human exposure to 60 ...

Chronic exposure of primates to 60-Hz electric and magnetic fields: III. ... A double-blind evaluation of 60-Hz field effects on human performance, ...

60Hz Magnetic field effects on in vivo pineal melatonin

Mar 11, 1999 ... (The Yellon paradigm is the exposure of experimental animals to 60Hzmagnetic fields (MF) with a field strength of 1G for 15 min beginning ...

60 Hz electric field upregulates cytosolic Ca2+ level in mouse ...

The 60 Hz field strength was determined by measuring the current density within the cell culture spaceofthefieldexposuredish.Thecurrentdensitywas ...

Physiology & Behavior : Weak 50-Hz electromagnetic fields activate ...

Rats were tested in an open field after previous exposure to a weak, 50-Hz electromagneticfield of the same order of magnitude as the earth's magnetic ...

50-Hz magnetic field exposure influences DNA repair and ...

density of the 50-Hz field was adjusted to 1 mT (root mean square) at the center of the coils by variation of the coils' current. Directly at ...

Effects of a 50 Hz electric field on plasma lipid peroxide level ...

Effects of a 50 Hz electric field on plasma lipid peroxide level and antioxidant activity in rats. Harakawa S, Inoue N, Hori T, Tochio K, Kariya T, ...

Effects Of 50 Hz Magnetic Field On Some Factors Of The Immune ...

The capacity of 50 Hz Electromagnetic Fields (EMF) to interfere in the weakness of endocrine system has been a relevant fact into the scientific community, ...

Effects of 50Hz Electromagnetic Field Exposure on Protein Tyrosine ...

Exposure to 50Hz Electromagnetic Fields: Induced the Phosphorylation and Activity of Stress-activated Protein Kinase in Cultured Cells ...

915 MHz microwaves and 50 Hz magnetic field affect chromatin ...

induced by exposure to 50 Hz and 915 MHz microwaves. In conclusion, 50 Hz magnetic fieldand. 915 MHz microwaves under specified conditions of exposure ...

Bloodthirsty Lesbians

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Posted Today - 1:35pm

As a lesbian and an omnivore, I've always been somewhat baffled/distressed by the disproportionate number of lesbians who are either vegetarian or vegan. Not that I have anything against those diets, because I don't. It would just be nice every once in a while to find a girl that I could go to say, McDonalds with and not risk a lecture about the cruelty of slaughterhouses or the superiority of soy-based meat substitutes. Any thoughts on this phenomenon?

Posted 53 minutes ago

Oh my god I was literally having this conversation on Friday with a good friend of mine...I feel like maybe I didnt get the memo! Or maybe that secton of my how to be a good lesbian handbook was missing.

Posted 51 minutes ago

Living in Portland, I assume there is no correlation. Straight, Lesbian, Gay, I get dirty looks whenever I say "MMMM...I LOVE ME SOME FRIED COW". :D

Posted 50 minutes ago

I know exactly what you mean! I just made the decision to become a vegetarian about a week ago, and one of the major drawbacks was the stigma of being a gay vegetarian. I don't get it! Now that I am a vegetarian, I feel like I tell people one or the other - I never identify myself as a lesbian and a vegetarian at the same time. It's kind of disappointing, really, especially since I have no problem with people who do eat meat. I wonder if it has something to do with some kind of feeling of being targeted - gay women receive very little recognition in society (arguably even less than gay men) and are often made to feel ostracized. Perhaps a lot of people see themselves reflected in animals who can't defend themselves either? That's the only reasoning I have for it. But even so, when I look at who's more militant about vegetarianism, it always seems to be my lesbian friends. I sympathize!

Posted 47 minutes ago

That's an interesting point. I'm a lesbian and an omnivore as well, and I've also noticed this strange trend. My mother, sister, and brother are all three vegetarians (although only one of them is a lesbian), so I don't have a problem with it, but I too can feel the burning, judgmental stares of my dates across the dinner table while I munch my fried chicken and they eat their soy salad with spinach sauce (or something equally healthy sounding). I think it's not an issue with lesbians in particular; I think it's that coming out of the closet is something that's hard to do for people of certain political ideologies and backgrounds. By the sheer law of averages, there HAVE to be as many lesbians per capita born in the mountains of West Virginia as there are born in the Castro in San Francisco. Lesbians are about 10% of the female population, and that's just genetics (sorry, Bible thumpers), but people who have a more wealthy, urban, or liberal background are more likely to come into contact with homosexuality at an early age and they're also more likely to be readily accepted by friends and family if and when they come out, so they can come to terms with themselves, avoid those pesky hetero camps, and put themselves out there to start dating other women, and this demographic happens to also be the one most likely to be vegetarian or vegan. I grew up in the south, and I've bumped into several older lesbians over the years who were married with children before they 'discovered' they were attracted to other women, and I don't recall a single vegetarian amongst them. I suppose this question is much like that of the tootsie pop: The world may never know (484 licks to the center, by the way; I DID actually count).

Posted 44 minutes ago

I've often wondered the same thing. The two actual girlfriends I've had were both vegetarians. One of them actually ended up having bad reactions to dairy and eggs later on. Your guess is as good as mine.

Turnout Estimated at 3.8 Million, With at Least 60 Percent in Favor

By Erin Rosa
Special to The Narco News Bulletin

http://narconews.com/Issue55/article3363.html


Cochabamba, Bolivia; January 25, 2009
: A majority of Bolivians have approved a new constitution giving indigenous groups greater autonomy rights and also a referendum limiting the size of future purchases of land in the Andean nation, according to projected results from late Sunday evening.

The campaign supporting the constitution has declared victory with a total of 60 percent of the vote. Four departments in the central and western region of the country, where support is strong for Bolivian president Evo Morales, approved the new constitutional text, while five remaining departments with a history of opposing the president's policies in the eastern region voted against the measure. Majorities in the La Paz, Cochabamba, Oruro and Potosí departments voted yes, while those in Santa Cruz, Tarija, Beni, Pando and Chuquisaca voted no.

Voters also approved a ballot question to limit future purchases of land in the country to 5,000 hectares, results show, although most large plots of land that were privately-owned before the passage of the constitution will remain untouched by the national government.

Morales, the country's first indigenous president, voted Sunday morning in the rural Chapare providence located in northern Cochabamba, an area where he lead a union of coca leaf growers before being elected in 2005. It is the third major electoral victory for Morales following a recall vote in August last year where he was given more than two-thirds of the popular vote.

At least 300 observers from a wide array of organizations in Latin America, Europe and the United States monitored voting during the election.
 
An anti-war group has occupied the Glasgow offices of the BBC in protest at the broadcaster's decision not to air a Gaza fundraising appeal. 

The British Stop the War Coalition said it had about 100 people in the foyer of the BBC's Glasgow offices on Sunday, occupying the place for nearly two hours. 

The occupation follows criticism from lawmakers, celebrities and religious leaders. 

They believe the BBC's decision not to air an advertisement from the Disasters Emergency Committee, a group of charities that includes the Red Cross, Oxfam, and Save the Children, was wrong. 

British actress Samantha Morton, who joined several celebrities at a central London fundraiser for the British Aid Agency Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), said she was embarrassed to earn money from a corporation that would take such a "disgusting" decision. 

"I'm so appalled. It's a public service. People have the right to raise money in this way, on the television for people that are in need. It's not a political thing," the 31-year-old Golden Globe winner and Oscar nominee said on Sunday. 

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and another senior church leader have also called on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to air the charity appeal. 

Meanwhile a parliamentary petition signed by more than 50 lawmakers -- which is to be introduced in the House of Commons on Monday -- seemed likely to add more pressure on the broadcaster to run the ad. 

The BBC claims it rejected the advertisement because of concerns that showing it might harm its reputation for "impartiality". 

The corporation also added that it is unsure the money raised would reach those in need in the impoverished Palestinian enclave. 

However, rival channels ITV, Channel 4 and Five have said they will show the DEC charity appeal. Sky said it had yet to decide. 

The BBC, which is funded by an obligatory license fee paid by every British household with a television set, has previously given airtime to the Disasters Emergency Committee. 

Appeals have raised millions of US dollars for people affected by war and natural disasters in Congo, Myanmar and elsewhere.

Gee, I'm flattered.

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She made me one of her favorites.

Kind of looks like the Patti D'Arbanville character, Sherri Nugil, from Real Genius.

I am attractive, smart, and serious

An image of youngandbrightAn image of youngandbrightAn image of youngandbright

youngandbright

24 / f / straight / Single

Mykolayiv, Ukraine (6300 miles)

Last login Yesterday - 12:32am Join Date Dec










Just in case you didn't recall that one, here's some of her exit from the movie.  It's an original script, apparently, since it's got Hollyfield named Hopsfield--heh, and (earlier) has a pretty steamy sex scene with her in it that I don't recall. 



SHERRY

(kissing Hopsfield)

Hi. Isn't it wonderful. I finally found him. Number One. I've been looking for him for ten years.

HOPSFIELD

What can I do? She loves me.

CHRIS

Right. Congratulations.

HOPSFIELD

Thanks. Anyway, we probably won't ever get to see you again, so, bye.

CHRIS

What do you mean? Where are you going?

SHERRY

I've got a little survival place in Wyoming. We're going to live there.

HOPSFIELD

Yeah, it's getting too weird around here. See ya.

They climb into the Winnebago and it pulls away. The others watch it go.


Anyway, I thought she kept better than Val.  Whaddya think?

Patti D'Arbanville

¿Geez, He's Still Alive?

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When the 'Frost/Nixon' movie came out, I assumed he was dead, too, since I've not seen/heard a show of his for years.  Now, I know why:


David Frost

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

David Frost

David Frost during an interview with Donald Rumsfeld
Born7 April 1939 (age 69)
Kent, England
NationalityBritish
OccupationTelevision presenter
Known forThat Was The Week That Was
Breakfast with Frost , Frost On Sunday,(TV-am)

Sir David Paradine FrostOBE (born 7 April 1939) is an English satirist, writer,journalist and television presenter, best known as a pioneer of political satire on television and for his serious interviews of political figures. As of 2008, he hosts the weekly programme Frost Over The World, on Al Jazeera English.

Contents

 [hide]




January 13, 2009


In January 2006, Hamas won a legislative majority, giving it control of the Palestinian cabinet, while Mahmoud Abbas remained the chief executive, controlling overall security. In June 2007, Hamas challenged Abbas' security forces, overthrowing the Palestinian Authority government (PA) in Gaza, which led to division with the West Bank. Following a year-long blockade of Gaza and ongoing rocket attacks into Israel, Israel and Hamas agreed to an Egyptian-brokered six-month ceasefire in June 2008. By agreeing to the deal, Israel hoped to end the rocket attacks from Gaza, freeze Hamas' military buildup in Gaza and begin a process that could lead to the release of captured Israeli solider Gilad Shalit. Hamas hoped to end Israeli air strikes and incursions into Gaza and ease the closure of the territory. On December 27, following intensified rocket fire after the ceasefire expired, Israel launched an extensive military operation in Gaza.

June
• The ceasefire began on June 19. At the time, PA officials expressed concern that an agreement with Hamas would undermine the PA.


• On June 29, Hamas arrested a spokesman of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade after the group claimed responsibility for launching two rockets into Israel.

July


• On July 2, Israeli authorities said they had closed the Gaza border six times in response to rocket fire since the truce began.


• In late July, Abbas called for renewed talks with Hamas with the help of Egyptian mediation.

• Israeli and UN figures reported between 10 to 20 rockets fired into Israel from Gaza.

August


• In early August, following a bombing in Gaza, 11 people died in a Hamas crackdown on a clan supportive of Fatah. In response, Israel, in consultations with the PA, allowed 88 Fatah supporters to seek asylum in Jericho.


• In late August Egypt held meetings with representatives from Islamic Jihad as part of a series of bilateral meetings with Palestinian factions.


• Between 10 to 30 rockets were fired into Israel in August.

September


• On September 17, Israeli negotiator Ofer Dekel met with Egyptian officials to discuss the release of Shalit in exchange for Hamas prisoners in Israel.


• Between 5 to 10 rockets were fired into Israel in September.


• In meetings with Egyptian officials in September, PLO/Fatah representatives acceptedEgyptian proposals to end inter-Palestinian rifts.

October


• On October 6, Hamas officials said they would not recognize Abbas' presidency after January 8, 2009.


• On October 8, Hamas representatives met with Egyptian officials in preparation for a future joint meeting of various Palestinian factions.


• The Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet) reported two rocket and mortar attacks during October.

November


• Egypt announced that reconciliation talks between different factions had been postponed due to Hamas' decision not to take part. A Hamas official cited Fatah's refusal to free Hamas prisoners in the West Bank as the group's reason for not participating. Hamas had also previously taken issue with Cairo's unwillingness to hold talks regarding the opening of the Rafah border crossing. Hamas later cited additional reasons for not joining the talks, leading to the impression it feared being pressured into an agreement.


On November 4, in the course of Israel's first incursion into Gaza since the ceasefire-a mission intended to destroy a tunnel built to capture Israeli soldiers-six gunmen were killed and militants fired 35 rockets. In the following days, Palestinians fired dozens of rockets and mortars at Israel and Israel closed commercial crossings into Gaza, allowing in limited amounts of fuel.


• On November 12, Israel killed four Hamas members that the military said were attempting to put an explosive device near the border fence. Hamas also launched rockets into Israel and the Israeli military carried out two air strikes in Gaza.

December


• On December 14, during the celebration of Hamas' 21st anniversary, Hamas leaders in Gaza left open the possibility of extending the truce while the exiled political leadership in Damascus, Syria said it would end December 19. A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that Israel was willing to continue the ceasefire if Hamas stopped militants from firing rockets into Israel. Major General Amos Gilad, a high-ranking Israeli defense official, traveled to Egypt to discuss the truce.


• By mid-December, Israeli military cited 250 rockets and mortars had been fired at Israel since November 4 and Israeli operations had killed at least 10 more Palestinians.


• On December 18, Hamas declared an end to the ceasefire.


• By the end of the ceasefire, the daily average number of trucks allowed into Gaza had increased from 70 to approximately 90. Before the Hamas takeover of Gaza and the closing of the crossings, 500 to 600 truckloads entered Gaza daily. The Israeli government also reported 362 rocket and mortar shells fired at Israel during the ceasefire.

Center for American Progress

Hamas for Kids

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شعر:وائل عبد الغني

ضـحك  الورد وحلا الشهد      يـا أقـصى واقترب الوعد
وعـلا  الصبر ودنى النصر      ومـضى  الليل وبان الفجر
Poetry: Wael Abdel-Ghani
Rose laughed, and a maximum Alchd you approached promise Ola and the patience and lower victory and went on that night and dawn * * * I cub me love my faith in my heart homelands Love is my veins between national living in arterial * * * Fig tree in our village and olive tree Bhkulai Yearns to the ground and the soil of Al Palestine * * * Far Mahtla forget and I saw Bassaanh shaver generation creeping towards victory Rihana published or not * * * Club crowds cry Alemsry Qtza sang life Where the nation where you remove Salah Ktara * * * My blood is filled Jerusalem Love Tvdy money and self - Love grows in Vwadi fill emotional, mental, sensory * * * You maximum Oahdik peace Ruyt Bhabay Alohlama And painted and Sahbi map and made the key Hussama * * * And Rana nice nice follow Imm towards the shores of Haifa Tangier sent greetings rose rough and took Alatifa * * * Mecca the event of Isra and cried a good cry over You called Mecca AMARI of combining ground Basmaii * * * The maximum you first Qubltna Bnasrk still busy In درسي at home, fields regulate poems and chapters * * * Baltehr lives up and move forward, such as the dawn breeze Certainly carried the Koran and nostalgic about Hawwasal Khadr * * * Oqsana you, we will return to the religion of Allah soldiers Nohll victory following sword and kill Jews

Numb-erology

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(from Ai):

Here is a little something someone sent me that is indisputable mathematical logic. It also made me Laugh Out Loud.
This is a strictly mathematical viewpoint...it goes like this: What Makes 100%? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%? Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been to those meetings where someone wants you to give over 100%. How about achieving 103%? What makes up 100% in life? Here's a little mathematical formula that might help you answer these questions: If:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z is represented as:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26. Then: H - A - R - D - W - O - R - K 8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98% and K - N - O - W - L - E - D - G - E 11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96% But , A - T - T - I - T - U - D - E 1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100% And, B - U - L - L - S - H - I - T 2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 = 103% AND, look how far ass kissing will take you. A - S - S - K - I - S - S - I - N - G 1+19+19+11+9+19+19+9+14+7 = 118%
So, one can conclude with mathematical certainty, that while Hard Work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, it's the Bullshit and Ass Kissing that will put you over the top.

Amy Pointed Out

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On Democracy Now! that the incoming Obama Administration signed an Executive Order formally closing all the foreign 'detention centers'.


Obamasignsweb

Obama Orders Closure of Guantanamo Prison, Interrogations Must Follow Army Field Manual

In a break from the Bush administration, President Barack Obama yesterday ordered the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison within a year, the immediate closure of secret overseas CIA prisons and for all agencies, including the CIA to abide by the Army Field Manual's acceptable interrogation tactics. Obama also nullified every legal order and opinion on interrogations issued by any lawyer in the executive branch after Sept. 11, 2001. We speak with Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. [includes rush transcript-partial]

Now, I have to point out that Juan noted that since Bush had already supposedly closed these centers, the fact that Obama closed them *again* meant that Bush had lied about closing them.

But I have to ask, why we might actually believe they are closed now?

I retain my skepticism, however, I must note this bright spot:


US President Barack Obama, in his first full day in office, revoked a controversial executive order signed by President Bush in 2001 that limited release of former presidents' records. Or did he? 

The White House website trumpeted the new Executive Order at 5:04 AM on Thursday. At first everyone thought the new executive order would expand public access to records of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Many hoped it would open up Vice President Cheney's records on the past administration's controversial early meetings with the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG). 


Now, personally, I say, "Screw the Energy Task Force" and get back to Iran-Contra.  If the 'October Surprise' has any valid proof living there in the files, we need to put Bush senior in jail for that first (before the World Court gets him for what he did later).

Wilde War Words

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AUTHOR: Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
QUOTATION:  As long as war is regarded as wicked it will always have its fascinations. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.

 | Tribune correspondent

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/01/nsa-whistleblow.html


Just one day after George W. Bush left office, an NSA whistleblower has revealed that the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program targeted U.S. journalists, and vacuumed in all domestic communications of Americans, including, faxes, phone calls and network traffic.

Russell Tice, a former NSA analyst, spoke on Wednesday to MSNBC host Keith Olbermann. Tice has acknowledged in the past being one of the anonymous sources that spoke with The New York Times for its 2005 story on the government's warrantless wiretapping program.

After that story was published, President Bush said in a statement that only people in the United States who were talking with terrorists overseas would have been targeted for surveillance.

But Tice says, in truth, the spying involved a dragnet of all communications, confirming what critics have long assumed.

"The National Security Agency had access to all Americans' communications," he said. "Faxes, phone calls and their computer communications. ... They monitored all communications."

Tice said the NSA analyzed metadata to determine which communication would be collected. Offering a hypothetical example, he said if the agency determined that terrorists communicate in brief, two-minute phone calls, the NSA might program its systems to record all such calls, invading the privacy of anyone prone to telephonic succinctness.

Tice was involved in only a small part of the project, that involved trying to "harpoon fish from an airplane."

He said he was told to monitor certain groups in order to eliminate them as suspects for more intense targeting. Those groups, he said, were U.S. journalists and news agencies. But rather than excluding the news organizations from monitoring, he discovered that the NSA was collecting the organizations' communications 24 hours a day year round. 

"It made no sense," he said.

Tice did not identify the reporters or organizations allegedly targeted.
Olbermann asked if this means there's a file somewhere containing every e-mail and phone conversation these reporters ever had with sources, editors and family members.

"If it was involved in this specific avenue of collection, it would be everything, yes." Tice answered.

From Andres

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Michael Heart - Worldwide Gaza Protests
 
 
 
+++++
 
Petition for the Creation of a Special Tribunal to try Israeli War Criminals

THE INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR THE ELIMINATION OF ALL FORMS OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION (EAFORD)

5 route des Morillons, CP 2100.  1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland

Telephone: (022) 788.62.33 Fax: (022) 788.62.45  e-mail: info@eaford.org

www.eaford.org

 

PETITION

 

To President and Member States of UN General Assembly

The Creation of a Special Tribunal to try Israeli War Criminals

 

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/EAFORD09/petition.html

SIPPING VODKA

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(via Troll, and she's right, it does go round in Catholic circles a bit)

A new priest at his first mass was so nervous he could hardly speak.  After mass he asked the monsignor how he had done.

The monsignor replied, "When I am worried about getting nervous On the pulpit, I put a glass of vodka next to the water glass. If I start to get nervous, I take a sip."

So next Sunday he took the monsignor's advice.  At the beginning of the sermon, he got nervous and took a drink.  He proceeded to talk up a storm.

Upon his return to his office after the mass, he found the following note on the door:

1) Sip the vodka, don't gulp.

2) There are 10 commandments, not 12.

3) There are 12 disciples, not 10.

4) Jesus was consecrated, not constipated.

5) Jacob wagered his donkey, he did not bet his ass.

6) We do not refer to Jesus Christ as the late J.C.

7) The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are not referred to as Daddy, Junior and the spook.

8) David slew Goliath, he did not kick the shit out of him.

9) When David was hit by a rock and was knocked off his donkey, don't say he was stoned off his ass.

10) We do not refer to the cross as the "Big T."

11) When Jesus broke the bread at the last supper he said, "Take this and eat it for it is my body," He did not say "Eat me."

12) The Virgin Mary is not called 'Mary with the Cherry.'

13) The recommended grace before a meal is not: Rub-A-Dub-Dub thanks for the grub, Yeah God.

14) Next Sunday there will be a taffy pulling contest at St. Peter's not a peter pulling contest at St. Taffy's.
To:             Lord High Administrator, Malcolm Clinton
                  Ministry of Administration
From:         J. Stonewall Lee, Intelligence Analyst, 3G,
                  Information Ministry
Report:      On the Current State of the Most Recent Five-Year Plan
Security:    Classified (eyes only--no copies)
Shred-by:   Today

Since we have adopted the two-state solution to the problem, we have seen difficulties, and experienced some minor failures, but overall, the two-state solution is a fully functional system, and projections for not only the next year, but the five-year, and final goals are on target.

csa_1.pngAfter the "Great Divorce" of the former United States of America into the God-Fearing "Christian States of America" (CSA) and the baby-killing heathens in the "Unsaved States of Atheism" (USA, or 'Democratic Authority' in their eyes), the populations were roughly equivalent, but God's great plan has shown us that this was never supposed to have been the case.

If it had not been for our Jewish brethren in Israel, the Russian Orthodox, and our good friends, the Chinese, we would have long ago been the victim of that slanderous press from the USA refugees about our 'inhumanity' in dealing with the deviants, perverts, and other sinners.  In the EU, the press is divided, but we are working on that front feverishly.

Thank the Lord that even though some stories about our biological and nuclear weapons programs got out, they didn't get out too soon, or too fast, or too far.  Our covert operatives have become quite adept at identifying and eliminating the 'wrong' kinds of journalists (sinners).  Internally, we call it the 'God Squad'.

They have also been eliminating various USA apologists in Europe and Australia, posing as visiting students on a post-college world tour.  One of our most deadly assassins is actually in 'Girls Gone Wild: Sydney' (the one who silenced Noam Chomsky).

Through this attention to detail in the media, we were always ready to be able to counter the terrorist statements at the outset and make it look as if the refugees always were a USA, rather than a CSA problem.

And thank the Lord, too, that after the initial war with the USA, our friends in those three countries were able to keep the Canadians from dealing in the weapons that would allow the lost souls in the USA to re-mount an offensive and possibly take back what was left of California.   

csa_2.pngThe original California Crossings, north and south (marked in pink on Map #2, were as much a PR as a military campaign.  The most difficult acquisition was Hawaii, which we had strategic need of, but which the native Hawaiians still resent, as they now view the CSA as their second overlord in a row.  Although the world press accepts the need to cut off the weapons flow from the east, most of the governments know we did it for the real estate value alone.

The desert southwest is working out much better as the state of Aztlán, too, since those Spanish-only speakers needed a place of their own, and they do seem far more resilient to the radiation than most other races.  

It's a pity that so many of them are Catholic, since they seem so nice, and one hates to see them burn for eternity, but they are somewhat intransigent on that point.  Many of us in Intelligence, who were in the field, remember them in our own prayers nightly.

Militarily, Aztlán is serving as a secure buffer zone, and the Mexican government is thrilled to have the completely open market and exchange.  They believe the Russian/Chinese environmental assessment of the post-war San Diego area, and have no trouble supplying workers for the docks.


csa_4.pngOther than the residents of Aztlán, the Roman Catholic re-education and assimilation project is working out splendidly, per reports from all field locations.  It seems that English speakers are far more likely to accept re-religiofication than non-English speakers.  Most Romans are reluctant as a group, but the English speaking ones have shown nearly a sixty percent rate of adherence to the true faith.  Offering them jobs in remote locations where there are no longer any priests to say mass seems to be the key to turning them.

Now, other Catholics, notably Russian and Greek Orthodox, are being retrained, too, but that is a classified matter, given the sensitive nature of our support by the Russians, and our hope to extend that to the EU from the south through the Greek Orthodox.

All the homosexuals (that we know of) and almost all of the former 'counter-culture' left on the 'Night of the Long Lines' just after the Great Divorce.  It's amazing what a few dead bodies will do to inspire a mob to move.  While some former counter-culturists adopted a more Christian lifestyle afterwards in order to blend in, the truth-squads have brought most of them to the attention of the authorities, and they've been deported for violating the commandment against bearing false witness.  It's true that the current presidential palace is in actuality the former property of a very high ranking CNN executive who turned out to be a closeted gay man.  The EU press' accusations that we killed him in order to 'steal his house' is incorrect, since it was a completely judicial killing in accordance with the law.

Since homosexuality is again a death penalty offense, as was pointed out above, it simply doesn't exist any more here (that we know of).  God be praised.  

All non-Christian religions have been counseled (though most, if not all, of the remaining Jews, Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus, Atheists, etc. that attempted to stay on their former property were deported for treason after failing to swear allegiance to Christ).  During the last few years, we have seen the non-Christian population dwindle down to merely a quarter of the population, and that is mostly Mormons and Catholics of some sort.

Those former CSA residents who claimed to be Christian but still left for the USA are being effectively maligned in most of the world's press, and our 'Black', 'Asian' and 'Latin American' true Christian Churches are (except for Aztlán) showcase examples of how diverse our culture is within the one true faith.  There's no 'voodoo' Christians here, no matter what their color.

We were able to entirely suppress both the reports of the building and the sinking of the Amish' "Arks" through strategic timing of our move to wake the Canadians up to the new order and prevent their collusion with the West Coasters.  The news feed bandwidth didn't have the space to cover the destruction of a few boats along with a major city, and what little information remains on the story of the Amish Ark is fast being erased by our agents in the field.

The USA, though they still insist on the 'Right of Return' for refugees, are a paper tiger, having been effectively neutered by lack of supplies and destruction of their two main weapons manufacturing bases in San Diego and Seattle.

CSA refugees mass near the borderlands of their former homes, in camps set up by the remaining government of the USA for the sinning heathens that couldn't stand the light of God shining on them.  Though the USA government insists that these refugees are due the 'right of return' (and ownership of their former property, now confiscated and consecrated by the CSA).  It would be an affront to God Himself to give this land won in war in His Holy Name against the heathen back to them.

There is little chance the USA will ever be able to effectively enforce their 'demands'.

Our Ministry of State has been providing well crafted responses to these USA phrases such as 'State Sponsored Terrorism', and we indicate that any attempt to take this now 'abandoned' property by force will be considered an act of war.  There's a reason that the original owners won't stay on that land, and they know it.  World public opinion is still on our side on this point at this time.  The world still sides with the righteous over the lost.

Some of the refugees have taken matters into their own hands and are bringing the war back home from time to time, but our casualties have been light, and every incursion has proven an opportunity to force them back further, where they can no longer possibly harm anyone.  The best they've been able to really manage since the war is to strike at our settlements, for the most part.

Our response to their naked aggression has been swift and merciless.  For example, when that makeshift missile was sent over the mountains from Bakersfield at the Aztlán City Dock Complex, our response showed that we meant business.  A crater that can be seen from the Space Station itself is a public relations statement of immense magnitude.  And it gave us a great reason to clear out the entire security zone (for the safety of rail, road, and utility traffic).

Our Special Ops teams have also made incursions into the occupied territories' refugee camps, which have extracted various CSA refugees from the USA zones back to the CSA, where we have gleaned great amounts of information interrogating them, in addition to having the opportunity to witness The Christ to them (that they might be saved upon death), which has occurred on a number of occasions now (this is also classified).

Through our tests of their 'defenses', we have, in addition, tested a great many of our own new offensive weapons, and left no witness alive to describe them.  Our friends in Russia, China and Israel have helped greatly to quash reports of the peculiar nature of the injuries as well.

Since the war of the Great Divorce, our steady eradication of 'the agitators' has both decimated the population, and it has given us plenty of replacement agitators to continue the decimation against.  This is good because as we wipe out the current crop of agitators, things start getting peaceful again until a new set ripens
.
Since they are decreasing in number, it's easy to push the frontier over towards the enclaves from time to time.  It helps when the targets are residents of the border, but only if you kill the whole family.

At this point, due to the completely defensive nature of our response to USA aggression, we have subdivided the former three western states of Washington, Oregon, and California into 14,928 'administrative' units, and taken over what was the Interstate Highway system, and all railroads, in order to prevent the free movement of the infidels' weapons.  While certain of the sinners are allowed transit rights from enclave to enclave, most of them are deemed too dangerous to allow egress into secure areas.

emerald_triangle2a.gifThe breakaway 'Republic' of the Emerald Triangle was effectively dealt with by a simple armored bulldozer sent in to take out their water supplies.  All of the heretic Rastafarians were shot on sight, and the pot-growers who sided with them were hung for treason.  The remaining population is quiescent now.

In addition, we have been able to secure all of the water, oil and gas pipelines, and the electrical transmission grid.  There should be no further threats on those fronts.  Our 'Water of Life' program has been amazingly successful in slaking the thirst of the mid-western states that have exhausted their aquifers, and since there aren't any former residents of the USA in those parts where it comes from anymore, it'll never be missed.

In short, we look pretty good to most of the world, and we are likely to be perceived as the underdog as long as we keep on track.  It helps to have friends in high places, and the Russians and Chinese are doing a good job at the UN, keeping anyone from censuring us.  It's important to keep on point about how this is 'defensive' work, since that sets the tone.

We in Intelligence awarded the medal of The Holy Cross to one of our own, who must remain nameless of course, for planting that story about how the French and Germans were plotting secretly with the Canadians to supply weapons across the border to the former 'Rust Belt' rebels.  That one story gave us both the rationale to start moving individuals away from that occupied area for our own safety, and ultimately the 'big stick' which took out the USA Terrorist cell in Toronto.

It's clear that God has given us dominion over the land.  This is how we are doing on the schedule:

At last census, the original CSA population of 150 million had swelled to almost 300 million, but that still includes a subclass of non-Christians of approximately 75 million population (mostly Catholics and Mormons).

The USA's population, on the other hand, has been reduced to merely the 'West Coast' (which really is just some minor cities and areas of northern forests, as most of the arable land in the west has been confiscated for defensive purposes and resettled).  The West Coast has a population of approximately 100 million people, but this includes nearly 70 million former CSA residents.  There are also nearly 10 million CSA 'settlers' located in various strategic (and attractive) locations on the West Coast, for example, St. Peters' City (the former den of depravity known as 'San Francisco'), which controls the access to the CSA settler's strategic food supply in the Robert E. Lee Valley, and access to the defense industry center of Salt Lake City.  In fact, the only remaining USA residents in the former San Joaquin valley live in the former state's former capital (and the only city in that valley allowed to keep it's former name), Sacramento.

And in the 'Cape Cod Strip' (what was southern New England and the offshore islands), the remaining refugees number nearly eighty million, and they are packed like sardines onto strips of land with little or no food production capacity, no import or export facilities, and prohibitions on using most boats and all planes.  Of the eighty million, a full sixty million of them are former CSA residents and/or former residents of what is now the 'occupied USA'.

Residents of the city formerly known as Boston (New Jackson) living in camps on Long Island banded together to form the 'Sons of Sam' last year to take action against the CSA settlers who've cleansed the land of their filth.  Though Sub-Commandante Zed has yet to be photographed, rumors are that he's at least half Jewish, and bears the 'Mark of Cain' as well (which proves the point we've been making in the press).  This 'New Tea Party' rebellion is surly a short-lived affair, and their affiliated 'John Adams Congress Party', though it controls Long Island, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket, has little support in either the Cape itself, or in Providence Plantation East.

Zed's forces haven't managed to make much headway, using makeshift weapons, and thus affecting only minor damage to the Statue of Liberty Under God in their assault on New Jerusalem, and the sinking of one ferryboat with all aboard (which earned as our retribution the vaporization of the city of Provincetown).

However, the refugees in the West Coast, being more in number, and having the large expanse of the north to hide in, have managed to lob a number of small (1-1.3 megaton) nuclear devices across the Canadian border over the years, mostly failing due to lack of adequate guidance systems, which they lost in the war.

We have been able to inflate the number of actual hits in the press, but the classified information is that outside of the two major strikes, which we know were not ballistic, but briefcase delivery, the damage to what we suspect was the intended target was incidental.  In other words, if these items are aimed, there's not any apparent correlation with any known military target on our side.

We have kept the destruction of Minneapolis/St. Paul out of the press as much as possible, but Detroit was almost unavoidable, since it delayed CM's release of the 'Bullrusher' model by almost a full year.

However, Atlanta's aforementioned use of a 2 gigaton hydrogen device over Toronto realigned the Canadian government's thinking in this matter effectively, and the attacks across that border have ceased entirely.  We have since made complete reparations to the Canadians by giving them Michigan.

We in Intelligence Analysis consider the loss of these cities a mixed blessing, since they were originally USA territory, and thus the refugees really only attacked their own homes, but we had resettled a great many of the reformed Catholics in St. Paul, so that program was set back a bit.  Still, it gave us a great deal of weight in dealing with the full implementation of the plan internationally, as we'd 'lost' two cities (we still have one to spare).

In short, the sinner problem on the North American continent seems to be all well in hand, and the infidels will not be a problem in the future, as we here at the ministry of Intelligence see it.

We project that within five years, the total space owned by the former USA residents (and former CSA refugees), will be down to merely Long Island in the East from starvation on both the Cape and East Providence due to their extremity from the only valid port of entry in Brooklyn and the privation of supplies.

In the west, we may need to affect a more 'dramatic' solution, as the landscape tends to be more difficult to scour effectively.  The homeopathic antidote in baptismal font water is nearly complete, however, and the plague is nearly 100% fatal without it, with a four month vector of transmission before illness sets in.

We expect to be testing an instant delivery method in the Federal Prison District of Columbia in the next month, disguised as a water facilities malfunction.

From my Brother

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These hilarious exchanges are from a book called 'Disorder in the Court: Great Fractured Moments in Courtroom History'. They were recorded verbatim and published by Court Reporters that had the torment of staying calm and remaining professional while these exchanges were actually taking place. ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all? WITNESS: Yes. ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory? WITNESS: I forget. ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot? ___________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning? WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam? _________________________ ___________ ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he? WITNESS: He's twenty, much like your IQ. ___________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken? WITNESS: Are you shitting me? _________________________________________ ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th? WITNESS: Yes. ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time? WITNESS: getting laid ____________________________________________ ATTORNEY: She had three children, right? WITNESS: Yes. ATTORNEY: How many were boys? WITNESS: None. ATTORNEY: Were there any girls? W ITNESS : Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney? ____________________________________________ ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated? WITNESS: By death. ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated? WITNESS: Take a guess. ____________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual? WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard. ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female? WITNESS: Unless the Circus was in town I'm going with male. _____________________________________ ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney? WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work. ______________________________________ ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people? WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight. _________________________________________ ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to? WITNESS: Oral. _________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body? WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m. ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time? WITNESS: If not, he was by the time I finished. ____________________________________________ ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample? WITNESS: Are you qualified to ask that question? ______________________________________ And the best for last: ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse? WITNESS: No. ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure? WITNESS: No. ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing? WITNESS: No. ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy? WITNESS: No. ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor? WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar. ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless? WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.
Three​ Death​ Sente​nces in Chine​se Milk Scand​al 
By DAVID​ BARBO​ZA
Publi​shed:​ Janua​ry 22, 2009

BEIJI​NG -- A group​ of high-​ranki​ng dairy​ compa​ny execu​tives​ and middl​emen were sente​nced by a Chine​se court​ on Thurs​day to long jail terms​,​ life in priso​n and, for three​ indiv​idual​s,​ the death​ penal​ty for endan​gerin​g publi​c safet​y last year by selli​ng and produ​cing taint​ed milk produ​cts,​ accor​ding to the state​-​run news media​.​

The court​ said membe​rs of the group​ had inten​tiona​lly produ​ced and sold fake or subst​andar​d dairy​ produ​cts laced​ with a toxic​ chemi​cal calle​d melam​ine,​ which​ the gover​nment​ says sicke​ned about​ 300,​000 child​ren and cause​d the death​ of at least​ six in one of the worst​ food safet​y scand​als in China​ in decad​es.​

The harsh​est sente​nces were given​ to Zhang​ Yujun​,​ a dairy​ middl​eman who the gover​nment​ calle​d one of the "prin​cipal​ crimi​nals"​ in the scand​al.​ He was sente​nced to death​ after​ being​ convi​cted of selli​ng 600 tons of melam​ine-​taint​ed "prot​ein powde​r" to dairy​ compa​nies.​

Anoth​er dairy​ produ​cer,​ Geng Jinpi​n,​ was also sente​nced to death​.​ A third​ man recei​ved the death​ penal​ty with a two-​year repri​eve,​ which​ means​ he could​ be spare​d execu​tion.​

Tian Wenhu​a,​ the 66-​year-​old forme​r chair​woman​ of the Sanlu​ Group​,​ one of China​'s bigge​st dairy​ compa​nies,​ was sente​nced to life in priso​n for her failu​re to stop produ​cing and selli​ng the taint​ed goods​ even after​ her compa​ny learn​ed that the produ​cts were flawe​d.​ She was the highe​st-​ranki​ng corpo​rate execu​tive broug​ht to trial​ last year.​ She plead​ed guilt​y to the charg​e of faili​ng to act prope​rly in the case.​ She was also fined​ about​ $3 milli​on.​

Three​ other​ forme​r execu​tives​ at Sanlu​,​ once the natio​n's leadi​ng produ​cer of baby formu​la,​ were sente​nced to five to 15 years​ in priso​n for their​ roles​ in the scand​al.​

One of those​ execu​tives​ appea​red at the Inter​media​te Peopl​e's Court​ in Shiji​azhua​ng late last year in a wheel​chair​ after​ what the Chine​se state​-​contr​olled​ media​ said was a faile​d suici​de attem​pt.​

The tough​ sente​nces were the gover​nment​'s lates​t effor​t to deal with a scand​al that erupt​ed last Septe​mber,​ trigg​ering​ a globa​l recal​l of Chine​se-​made dairy​ produ​cts,​ shaki​ng consu​mer confi​dence​ and devas​tatin​g the natio​n's fast-​growi​ng dairy​ indus​try.​

But paren​ts of some victi​ms of the scand​al prote​sted Thurs​day after​noon outsi​de the court​house​ in the north​ern Chine​se city of Shiji​azhua​ng,​ where​ Sanlu​ is headq​uarte​red,​ sayin​g they were dissa​tisfi​ed with the verdi​ct.​

"I feel sorry​ for them,​ but they are just scape​goats​,​" said Liu Dongl​in,​ 28, who says his 21-​month​ old son suffe​red from kidne​y stone​s after​ drink​ing taint​ed milk powde​r.​ "The ones who shoul​d take the respo​nsibi​lity are the gover​nment​,​ like the quali​ty super​visio​n burea​u and the Healt​h Minis​try.​ I spent​ nearl​y $​3,​000 takin​g care of my son and the gover​nment​ only compe​nsate​d me with $​300.​"

Some lawye​rs and victi​ms of the scand​al have accus​ed Beiji​ng of faili​ng to prope​rly regul​ate the natio​n's dairy​ indus​try and some belie​ve the gover​nment​ cover​ed up the scand​al befor​e the Beiji​ng Olymp​ics last Augus​t,​ discl​osing​ the news in Septe​mber.​

Forme​r Sanlu​ offic​ials ackno​wledg​ed in testi​mony last month​ that they knew there​ were compl​aints​ and serio​us probl​ems with their​ dairy​ produ​cts as early​ as May of last year.​

But the gover​nment​ has place​d the blame​ on a group​ of unscr​upulo​us dairy​ compa​ny execu​tives​,​ farme​rs and middl​emen who prose​cutor​s say inten​tiona​lly sold goods​ spike​d with melam​ine to save money​ and incre​ase profi​ts.​ Melam​ine,​ which​ is used to produ​ce plast​ics and ferti​lizer​,​ was often​ added​ as a cheap​ fille​r or repla​cemen​t for prote​in powde​r.​

The dairy​ scand​al has anger​ed many consu​mers here and is so sensi​tive in China​ that the gover​nment​ has tried​ to calm angry​ prote​sters​ and paren​ts.​ On Thurs​day,​ polic​e in Beiji​ng even attem​pted to detai​n or block​ paren​ts from trave​ling to Shiji​azhua​ng to liste​n to the verdi​cts.​ Forei​gn journ​alist​s have also been barre​d from atten​ding some of the court​ sessi​ons.​

A group​ of China​'s bigge​st dairy​ compa​nies agree​d late last year to compe​nsate​ victi​ms of the scand​al,​ but some paren​ts have rejec​ted the settl​ement​ offer​,​ sayin​g it was too littl​e and that their​ child​ren face long-​term healt​h probl​ems.​

Many child​ren suffe​red from kidne​y stone​s and other​ ailme​nts after​ consu​ming formu​la conta​minat​ed with extre​mely high level​s of melam​ine.​

The Sanlu​ Group​,​ which​ was joint​ly owned​ by the Fonte​rra Group​ of New Zeala​nd,​ filed​ for bankr​uptcy​ prote​ction​ late last year.​ But Thurs​day,​ the court​ in Shiji​azhua​ng fined​ the compa​ny $7.3 milli​on for its role in the scand​al.​

Chen Yang contr​ibute​d resea​rch from Shang​hai and Xie Qing from Beiji​ng.​

http:​/​/​www.​ rinf.​ com/​forum​/​showt​hread​.​ php?​t=​7122

Chief Justice John Roberts couldn't quite get the oath of office administered correctly.

It was like listening to the Abbott and Costello skit, Who's on First.

Obama took it again, since it was fudged in the public presentation.

Of course, he's the first Chief Justice in history to administer the oath to a President who'd voted against his confirmation in the Senate.

Obama was actually getting it right, when Roberts sent him off track.  The actual text is:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Roberts left out the word 'faithfully' and then inserted it at the end.

Morning Joke

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On MSNBC this morning, Morning Joke Scarborough ranted about how the crowd at the inauguration booed Bush, and held up signs saying 'Arrest Bush'.

Now, given that we've already admitted torturing our prisoners, we are REQUIRED to arrest Bush, since we are signatories to the Convention Against Torture.

And really, if he's a war criminal, what would Joke want us to do, cheer him?

Mika looked great, as always.  I have to wonder why she puts up with so much from him.


Mika Brzezinski

Mika Brzezinski is a co-host of "Morning Joe" and an MSNBC anchor.  Bio  |  MySpace



From the admission article:

Judge Susan Crawford, who was in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees -- beginning with Australian David Hicks -- to trial, has concluded that the US military tortured a Saudi Arabian who allegedly planned to take part in the September 11, 2001, attacks.

She said Mohammed al-Qahtani was interrogated with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, public nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a "life-threatening condition".

"We tortured Qahtani," Judge Crawford said in her first interview since her appointment by Defence Secretary Robert Gates in February 2007. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case (for prosecution)."

Monda​y,​ Janua​ry 19th,​ 2009

Plast​ic was one of the great​ innov​ation​s of the 20th centu​ry,​ but Germa​n scien​tists​ belie​ve a new inven​tion,​ liqui​d wood,​ could​ soon suppl​ant the chemi​cal in terms​ of every​day usefu​lness​.​

Thoug​h it has prove​n to be extre​mely usefu​l in the moder​n world​,​ plast​ic still​ has a numbe​r of negat​ive selli​ng point​s.​ It is non-​biode​grada​ble and can conta​in carci​nogen​s and other​ toxic​ subst​ances​ that can cause​ cance​r.​

It is also based​ on petro​leum,​ a non-​renew​able resou​rce that will soon be harde​r to come by. Incre​ases in the price​ of crude​ oil leads​ to paral​lel rises​ in the price​ of plast​ics.​

But there​ is a new chemi​cal inven​tion that could​ do away with these​ long-​stand​ing conce​rns.​

Norbe​rt Eisen​reich​,​ a senio​r resea​rcher​ and deput​y of direc​tors at the Fraun​hofer​ Insti​tute for Chemi​cal Techn​ology​ (​ICT)​ in Pfinz​tal,​ Germa​ny,​ said his team of scien​tists​ have come up with a subst​ance that could​ repla​ce plast​ic:​ Arbof​orm -- basic​ally,​ liqui​d wood.​

It is deriv​ed from wood pulp-​based​ ligni​n and can be mixed​ with a numbe​r of other​ mater​ials to creat​e a stron​g,​ non-​toxic​ alter​nativ​e to petro​leum-​based​ plast​ics,​ Eisen​reich​ said,​ as repor​ted by DPA news agenc​y.​

Paper​ by-​produ​ct

This begs the quest​ion:​ What exact​ly is liqui​d wood?​

"The cellu​lose indus​try separ​ates wood into its three​ main compo​nents​ -- ligni​n,​ cellu​lose and hemic​ellul​ose,​" ICT team leade​r Emili​a Regin​a Inone​-​Kauff​mann told DPA.

"The ligni​n is not neede​d in paper​makin​g,​ howev​er.​ Our colle​agues​ mix that ligni​n with fine natur​al fiber​s made of wood,​ hemp or flax and natur​al addit​ives such as wax. From this,​ they produ​ce plast​ic granu​late that can be melte​d and injec​tion-​mould​ed.​"

The final​ produ​ct can resem​ble highl​y polis​hed wood or have a more matte​d finis​h and look like the plast​ic used in most house​hold items​.​

Reduc​ed sulph​ur conte​nt

Car parts​ and other​ durab​le items​ made of this bio-​plast​ic alrea​dy exist​,​ but the chemi​cal hadn'​t been suita​ble for house​hold use until​ now, due to the high conte​nt of sulph​urous​ subst​ances​ used in separ​ating​ the ligni​n from the cell fiber​s.​ 

The Germa​n resea​rcher​s were able to reduc​e the sulph​ur conte​nt in Arbor​form by about​ 90 perce​nt,​ makin​g it much safer​ for use in every​day items​.​

Bolst​ering​ Arbof​orm's​ envir​onmen​tal crede​ntial​s,​ Eisen​reich​'s team also disco​vered​ that the subst​ance was highl​y recyc​lable​.​

"To find that out, we produ​ced compo​nents​,​ broke​ them up into small​ piece​s,​ and re-​proce​ssed the broke​n piece​s -- 10 times​ in all. We did not detec​t any chang​e in the mater​ial prope​rties​ of the low-​sulph​ur bio-​plast​ic,​ so that means​ it can be recyc​led,​" said Inone​-​Kauff​mann.​

© 2009 Deuts​che Welle​
http:​/​/​rinf.​ com/​alt-​news/​contr​ibuti​ons/​hemp-​could​-​be-​the-​plast​ic-​of-​tomor​row/​5118/​

http:​/​/​www.​ citru​stree​sonli​ne.​ com/​image​s/​orang​es.​ jpg

MKZDK​ - 9 Novem​ber 1998

A Flori​da Bioch​emist​ desig​ns a citru​s tree with THC.

DATEL​INE-​-​Talla​hasse​e,​ Fla.

In the summe​r of 1984,​ 10th-​grade​r Irwin​ Nanof​sky and a frien​d were drivi​ng down the Apala​chee Parkw​ay on the way home from baseb​all pract​ice when they were pulle​d over by a polic​e offic​er for a minor​ traff​ic infra​ction​.​

After​ Nanof​sky produ​ced his drive​r'​s licen​se the polic​e offic​er asked​ permi​ssion​ to searc​h the vehic​le.​ In less than two minut​es,​ the offic​er found​ a homem​ade pipe under​neath​ the passe​nger'​s seat of the Ford Aeros​tar belon​ging to the teena​ge drive​r'​s paren​ts.​ The miniv​an was seize​d,​ and the two youth​s were taken​ into custo​dy on suspi​cion of drug posse​ssion​.​

Illeg​al posse​ssion​ of drug parap​herna​lia ranks​ secon​d only to open conta​iner viola​tions​ on the crime​ blott​er of this Flori​da colle​ge town.​ And yet the routi​ne arres​t of 16 year-​old Nanof​sky and the seizu​re of his famil​y'​s miniv​an would​ inspi​re one of the most contr​overs​ial drug-​relat​ed scien​tific​ disco​verie​s of the centu​ry.​

Meet Hugo Nanof​sky,​ bioch​emist​,​ Flori​da State​ Unive​rsity​ tenur​ed profe​ssor,​ and the paren​tal autho​rity who poste​d bail for Irwin​ Nanof​sky the night​ of July 8, 1984.​ The elder​ Nanof​sky wasn'​t pleas​ed that his son had been arres​ted for posse​ssion​ of drug parap​herna​lia,​ and he becam​e livid​ when Talla​hasse​e polic​e infor​med him that the Aeros​tar miniv​an would​ be perma​nentl​y reman​ded to polic​e custo​dy.​

Over the cours​e of the next three​ weeks​,​ Nanof​sky penne​d dozen​s of irate​ lette​rs to the local​ polic​e chief​,​ the Talla​hasse​e City Counc​il,​ the State​ Distr​ict Attor​ney and, final​ly,​ even to area newsp​apers​.​ But it was all to no avail​.​

Under​ advis​ement​ of the famil​y lawye​r,​ Irwin​ Nanof​sky pled guilt​y to posse​ssion​ of drug parap​herna​lia in order​ to recei​ve a suspe​nded sente​nce and have his juven​ile court​ recor​d seale​d.​ But in doing​ so, the famil​y miniv​an becam​e "an acces​sory to the crime​.​"​ Accor​ding to Flori​da State​ law, it also becam​e the prope​rty of the Talla​hasse​e Polic​e Depar​tment​ Drug Task Force​.​ In time,​ the adult​ Nanof​sky would​ learn​ that there​ was nothi​ng he could​ do legal​ly to wrest​ the vehic​le from the hands​ of the state​.​

It was in the fall of 1984 that the John Chapm​an Profe​ssor of Bioch​emist​ry at Flori​da State​ Unive​rsity​,​ now drivi​ng to work behin​d the wheel​ of a used Ponti​ac Bonne​ville​,​ first​ set on a pet proje​ct that he hoped​ would​ "​disso​lve irrat​ional​ legis​latio​n with a solid​ dose of reaso​n.​"​ Nanof​sky knew he would​ never​ get his famil​y'​s car back,​ but he had plans​ to make sure that no one else would​ be pulle​d throu​gh the gears​ of what he consi​ders a Kafka​-​esque​ drug enfor​cemen​t burea​ucrac​y.​

"​It'​s quite​ simpl​e,​ reall​y,​"​ Nanof​sky expla​ins,​ "I wante​d to combi​ne Citru​s sines​is with Delta​ 9-​tetra​hydro​canna​binol​.​"​ In layma​n'​s terms​,​ the respe​cted colle​ge profe​ssor propo​sed to grow orang​es that would​ conta​in THC, the activ​e ingre​dient​ in marij​uana.​ Fourt​een years​ later​,​ that proje​ct is compl​ete,​ and Nanof​sky has succe​eded where​ his lette​r writi​ng campa​ign of yore faile​d:​ he has the undiv​ided atten​tion of the natio​n'​s top drug enfor​cemen​t agenc​ies,​ polit​ical figur​es,​ and media​ outle​ts.​

The turni​ng point​ in the Nanof​sky saga came when the strai​ght-​laced​ profe​ssor poste​d a messa​ge to Inter​net newsg​roups​ annou​ncing​ that he was offer​ing "​canna​bis-​equiv​alent​ orang​e tree seeds​"​ at no cost via the U.S. mail.​ Sever​al weeks​ later​,​ U.S. Justi​ce Depar​tment​ offic​ials showe​d up at the maili​ng addre​ss used in the Inter​net annou​nceme​nt:​ a tiny offic​e on the secon​d floor​ of the Dittm​er Labor​atory​ of Chemi​stry build​ing on the FSU campu​s.​ There​ they would​ wait for anoth​er 40 minut​es befor​e Prof.​ Nanof​sky finis​hed deliv​ering​ a lectu​re to gradu​ate stude​nts on his recen​t resea​rch into the "​cis-​trans​ photo​isome​rizat​ion of olefi​ns.​"

"I knew it was only a matte​r of time befor​e someo​ne sent me more than just a self-​addre​ssed stamp​ed envel​ope,​"​ Nanof​sky quips​,​ "but I was surpr​ised to see Janet​ Reno'​s speci​al assis​tant at my door.​"​ After​ a serie​s of close​d door discu​ssion​s,​ Nanof​sky agree​d to cease​ distr​ibuti​on of the THC-​orang​e seeds​ until​ the legal​ statu​s of the possi​bly narco​tic plant​ speci​es is estab​lishe​d.​

Much to the chagr​in of autho​ritie​s,​ the effor​t to regul​ate Nanof​sky'​s inven​tion may be too littl​e too late.​ Sever​al hundr​ed packe​ts conta​ining​ 40 to 50 seeds​ each have alrea​dy been sent to those​ who'​ve reque​sted them,​ and Nanof​sky is not oblig​ed to produ​ce his maili​ng recor​ds.​ Under​ curre​nt law, no crime​ has been commi​tted and it is unlik​ely that charg​es will be broug​ht again​st the fruit​'​s inven​tor.​

Now it is feder​al autho​ritie​s who must confr​ont the natio​n'​s unwie​ldy body of incon​siste​nt drug laws.​ Accor​ding to a sourc​e at the Drug Enfor​cemen​t Agenc​y,​ it may be month​s if not years​ befor​e all the issue​s invol​ved are sorte​d out, leavi​ng a gapin​g hole in U.S. drug polic​y in the meant​ime.​ At the heart​ of the confu​sion is the fact that THC now natur​ally occur​s in a new speci​es of citru​s fruit​.​

As polic​y analy​sts and hemp advoc​ates alike​ have been quick​ to point​ out, the appar​ent legal​ity (for now) of Nanof​sky'​s "pot orang​e"​ may rende​r debat​es over the legal​izati​on of marij​uana moot.​ In fact,​ Flori​da'​s top law enfor​cemen​t offic​ials admit​ that even if the culti​vatio​n of Nanof​sky'​s orang​e were to be outla​wed,​ it would​ be excee​dingl​y diffi​cult to ident​ify the prese​nce of outla​wed fruit​ among​ the state​'​s large​st agric​ultur​al crop.​

Amids​t all of the hubbu​b surro​undin​g his fathe​r'​s exper​iment​,​ Irwin​ Nanof​sky exude​s calm indif​feren​ce.​ Now 30-​years​-​old and a succe​ssful​ envir​onmen​tal photo​graph​er,​ the young​er Nanof​sky can'​t under​stand​ what all of the fuss is about​.​ "My dad'​s a chemi​st.​ He makes​ polym​ers.​ I doubt​ it ever cross​ed his mind that as a resul​t of his work tomor​row'​s kids will be able to get high off of half an orang​e.​"

**

Bioch​em 101:
How to desig​n a canna​bis equiv​ilent​ [​sic]​ citru​s plant​

Step One:
Bioch​emica​lly isola​te all the requi​red enzym​es for the produ​ction​ of THC.

Step Two:
Perfo​rm N-​termi​nal seque​ncing​ on isola​ted enzym​es,​ desig​n degen​erate​ PCR (​polym​erase​ chain​ react​ion)​ prime​rs and ampli​fy the genes​.​

Step Three​:​
Clone​ genes​ into an agrob​acter​ial vecto​r by intro​ducin​g the desir​ed piece​s of DNA into a plasm​id conta​ining​ a trans​fer or T-​DNA.​ The mixtu​re is trans​forme​d into Agrob​acter​ium tumef​acien​s,​ a gram negat​ive bacte​rium.​

Step Four:​
Use the Agrob​acter​ium tumef​acien​s to infec​t citru​s plant​s after​ wound​ing.​ The trans​fer DNA will proce​ed to host cells​ by a mecha​nism simil​ar to conju​gatio​n.​ The DNA is rando​mly integ​rated​ into the host genom​e and will be inher​ited.​

**

- San Franc​isco Bay Guard​ian.​

Grieving Palestinian father says children were killed after family obeyed order from troops to leave Gaza home


By Donald Macintyre in Gaza City



A Palestinian father has claimed that he saw two of his young daughters shot dead and another critically injured by an Israeli soldier who emerged from a stationary tank and opened fire as the family obeyed an order from the Israeli forces to leave their home. 

Khaled Abed Rabbo said Amal, aged two and Suad, seven, were killed by fire from the soldier's semi-automatic rifle. His third daughter, Samer, four, has been evacuated to intensive care in a Belgian hospital after suffering critical spinal injuries which he said were inflicted in the attack early in Israel's ground offensive. 
Mr Abed Rabbo stood near the wreckage off his subsequently destroyed home on the eastern edge of the northern Gaza town of Jabalya yesterday and described how a tank had parked outside the building at 12.50pm on 7 January and ordered the family in Arabic through a megaphone to leave building. He said his 60-year-old mother had also been shot at as she left waving her white headscarf with her son, daughter in law and her three grandchildren. 

"Two soldiers were on the tank eating chips, then one man came out of the tank with a rifle and started shooting the kids," Mr Abed Rabbo, who receives a salary as a policeman from the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority in Ramallah said. The family say they think the weapon used by the soldier was an M16 and that the first to be shot was Amal. Mr Abed Rabbo said that Suad was then shot with what he claimed were 12 bullets, and then Samer.

The soldier who fired the rifle had what Mr Abed Rabbo thought were ringlets visible below his helmet, he said. The small minority of ultra-Orthodox Jews who serve in the army are in a unit which did not take part in the Gaza offensive and only a very small number of settlers who also favour that hairstyle serve in other units.

It has so far been impossible independently to verify Mr Abed Rabbo's claim and the military said last night Israeli Defence Forces "does not target civilians, only Hamas terrorists and infrastructure". It added: "The IDF is investigating various claims made with regard to Operation Cast Lead and at the end of its investigation will respond accordingly." 

The district is named Abed Rabbo after the clan who live in most of it. The dense concrete roof of the house now hangs at more at more than a 45-degree angle, and at least three other substantial buildings have been flattened in the agricultural, semi-rural immediate neighbourhood. Khaled Abed Rabbo said that there had been a delay before the ambulance could reach the building because the road from the west had been made impassable by the churning of the tanks. 
The soldiers had in the end let the family leave on foot, he said. He added that they walked two kilometres before finding a vehicle to take them to Kamal Adwan Hospital. He said: "I carried Suad, who was dead, my wife carried Amal and my brother Ibrahim carried Samer." 

He added: "We are not Hamas. My children were not Hamas. And if they were going to shoot anyone it should have been me." He added: "I want the international community and the International Red Cross to ask Israel why it has done this to us. They talk about democracy but is it democracy to kill children? What did the kids do to them? What did my house do to them? They destroyed my life? 

Gaza City is showing signs of returning to a form of normality as more shops reopen. The offices of the main Palestinian telephone company Jawwal reopened though this has not eased severe problems of connectivity on the Palestinian mobile network. 

Some Hamas policemen were back directing traffic, though in smaller numbers than before the offensive. Unconfirmed figures are that 270 Hamas policemen were killed, mainly in the air attacks during the first week. In a victory rally in Gaza city yesterday, Hamas supporters converged on a square near the remains of the bombed parliament building.. 

'Heartbreaking': The ugly face of war

The UN secretary general, looking distressed, described the devastation of Gaza as "heartbreaking" on a visit to the area yesterday after the 22-day Israeli assault.

"I have seen only a fraction of the destruction," said Ban Ki-moon, as he stood in front of a UN warehouse set on fire by Israeli shells last Thursday. "This is shocking and alarming. These are heartbreaking scenes I have seen and I am deeply grieved by what I have seen today." he said.

Mr Ban demanded a full investigation into the Israeli shelling of the UN Relief and Works Agency compound. UN officials say the compound, still smouldering yesterday, was targeted by white phosphorus munitions which are not supposed to be used in densely populated areas because of the harm to civilians. Mr Ban said the Israeli attacks on UNRWA headquarters and two UN schools in Gaza, one of which killed 40 sheltering Palestinians, were "outrageous".

Amnesty International said Israel's repeated use of the munitions despite evidence of their indiscriminate effects and harm to civilians "is a war crime". The Israeli army has launched an investigation but says Hamas fighters operate from densely populated areas, and used UN buildings as cover for attacks.

Mr Ban said: "It has been especially troubling and heartbreaking for me as 
secretary general that I couldn't end this faster," he said. He urged Israel and Hamas to "exercise maximum restraint and nurture the ceasefire".

Anne Penketh

The Israeli military came close to acknowledging for the first time yesterday its use of white phosphorus munitions during the war in Gaza, but continued to insist that it did not breach international law.

As fresh evidence emerged of Gazan civilians being burned by phosphorus, Avital Leibovich, the army spokeswoman, said its use was "legal according to international law...All the munitions we were using were legal, like the French, American and British armies. We used munitions according to international law.
"They [Hamas] were committing war crimes by putting the civilians in the front line," she said. "If Hamas chooses to locate training camps, command centres...in the middle of the [civilian population]...look how populated it is...naturally they are endangering the lives of civilians. Hamas is accountable for the loss of the civilians." 

Major-General Amir Eshel, the army's head of strategic planning, said that firing shells to provide a smoke screen was legal. "It is the most nonlethal kind of weapon we used. I don't see any issue with that," he said.

The Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv reported that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) had privately admitted using phosphorus bombs, and that the Judge Advocate General's Office and Southern Command were investigating. 

The Times first accused Israeli forces of using white phosphorus on January 5, but the IDF has denied the charge repeatedly. Phosphorus bombs can be used to create smoke screens, but their use as weapons of war in civilian areas is banned by the Geneva Conventions.

Yesterday reports emerged from Gaza about the killing of five members of the Halima family, when a single white phosphorus shell dropped on their house in the town of Atatra on January 3. Two others were in a coma and three were seriously wounded, according to doctors and survivors.

Salima Halima, 44, who is in Gaza City's Shifa hospital, said that the chemical burst in all directions after hitting her living room. 

Nafiz Abu Shahbah, a doctor who trained in Britain and America, said he was sure white phosphorus was responsible. Her wounds at first appeared superficial "but it eats at the flesh, it digs deeper and gets to the bone...The whole body becomes toxic," he said.

In the Jabaliya refugee camp, the Associated Press found a crater that was still producing acrid smoke days after the war ended, and in the town of Beit Lahiya a lump of white phosphorus burst into flames after some boys dug it up from beneath some sand.

Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, expressed outrage at Israel's destruction of Gaza yesterday, when he became the first world leader to visit the Palestinian territory since the end of the war. "This is shocking and alarming," he declared while visiting a UN warehouse that was still smouldering after being hit on Thursday, allegedly by white phosphorus shells. "I'm just appalled."

Visibly angry, he condemned Israel's "excessive" use of force, and demanded that those responsible for shelling schools and other facilities run by the UN Relief and Works Agency during the 22-day offensive should be held to account. "It is an outrageous and totally unacceptable attack on the United Nations," he said.

Israel has apologised for attacks on UN facilities but insisted in almost every case that Hamas fighters were using the buildings for cover.

Obama On Rushmore

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For the 'audio only' version, the first two speakers are George and Teddy.

DSLReports.com

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Google's positions on things like network neutrality and wireless competition have made them a serious target for Comcast, Microsoft, AT&T and other lobbyists, who've been on a tear the last year trying to smear the search giant's public image. Efforts have ranged from Comcast and Microsoft lobbyists' use of corn farmers to attack Google on privacy issues -- to telco-industry talking head Scott Cleland's recent argument that Google was an Internet bandwidth freeloader that failed to contribute to Internet infrastructure. Wired News has an interesting read on Google's 2008 crash course on lobbying, with their biggest critic (particularly on privacy issues) now being AT&T.

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Fresh off of being busted for paying people to post fake positive reviews to Amazon, an anonymous employee tells Gizmodo that Belkin's bag of tricks goes much deeper. According to the post, Belkin has consistently told employees to do whatever's necessary to get good reviews -- from sending routers with specially tweaked firmware to reviewers, to actually paying magazines for good reviews. "In the past there have even monthly awards given to Business Units who achieved the most positive reviews, regardless as to the products rate of customer returns," says the poster.

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Last week we noted that Verizon was opposed to Congressional plans to delay the digital TV transition from February to June, saying that any delay could seriously impact their plan to deploy 700Mhz LTE wireless broadband technology in 2009. It looks like Verizon has since had a change of heart, and now supports a delay provided it's short, and isn't followed by subsequent delays. Verizon's deployment of LTE in 2009 was to be in only one small test market, with serious delivery of the technology not expected until late 2010 or later. The telco spent $9.63 billion on 700Mhz spectrum last year they can't use until the transition is complete.

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The FCC recently began investigating the ever-increasing TV pricing of several large cable operators and Verizon (but not AT&T). An initial inquiry sent to companies demanded information on how and why carriers were bumping channels into costlier digital tiers, and whether they were using the DTV transition to push more expensive services.
story continues..

Rescue Me on 911 Truth

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I hadn't really considered how scary a boat is for a non-swimmer, and Cynthia reaffirms the odd fact that "black folks don't swim."

And linking through, I found the REAL change site: wearechange.org


Excerpt from a column by Molly Hall at astrology.about.com:

Georgian and former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (March 15th) truly ventured into harm's way for a cause. How many of us are heartsick over the nightmarish images coming out of Palestine? Well, here's a woman willing to set sail, literally put her life in danger, on a ship called Dignity, with medical supplies for the Gaza Strip. Her father, a former Georgia State Representative, Billy McKinney, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, She's a determined woman...this isn't the first civil right and human rights mission that she's been on. She explains what happened, and what helps her overcome her fears in a video called What is Dignity? made earlier this week in NYC.

The warrior spirit in Aries has the life force, to be able to catalyze people out of the trance of fear. The Aries mind is direct, and burns away distortions, making it less susceptible to the powerful collective spell we're under. McKinney names that trance of fear, saying, the wall of silence is crumbling. There is a very real disconnect between our values and the values that have captured Washington D.C. Her use of that word captured is a simple, but powerful insight, and intuitively it rings true. Aries love to rescue, and she's on a mission to rescue a nation that has been overtaken by....something. We may not know how to name it, but it's palpable, and apparent with every decision "Washington" makes.

As Americans find their voice and passion for justice again, and feminine warrior energy rises, I predict we'll see more Aries women doing remarkable things. When the revolutionary planet Uranus moves into this sign next year (May, 2010), the sparks we're seeing now will catch on, and before she knows it, she's started a movement.

The study involved 13 women and 10 men. Both women and men said that the inhibition technique previously learned (cognitive inhibition) did decrease their hunger, but women's brains stayed stimulated while men's brain activity went down. This might be the reason for which women have a hard time losing weight compared to men.
 
Dr. Wang said: "This decreased inhibitory control in women could be a major factor contributing to the observed differences in the prevalence rates of obesity and eating disorders...and may also underline women's lower success in losing weight while dieting when compared with men."
 
Clinical studies have shown that men who follow a diet are able to lose about 10 percent of their weight on average over a three-month period. Women, on the other hand, manage a decrease of only about 5 percent, Dr. Wang said.
 
The findings of the study might explain why there are more obese women than men but several factors still need to be considered when it comes to obesity. They include cultural differences, stress and body chemistry, which are known to influence men and women's brains differently.
 
"There is something going on in the female, the signal is so much different," Dr. Wang said.

(efluxmedia.com)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- When it comes to favorite foods, women have a hard time saying no -- a much harder time than men, scientists have discovered.

Gene-Jack Wang, who chairs the medical department at Brookhaven National Laboratory, and his colleagues were trying to figure out why some people overeat and gain weight while others don't. They were surprised at the difference between the sexes in brain response to controlling food intake. The discovery may explain the higher obesity rate for women and girls. They report their findings in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In the study, 13 women and 10 men were quizzed about their favorite foods, which ranged from pizza to cinnamon buns and burgers to chocolate cake, and then were asked to fast overnight.

The next day they underwent brain scans while being presented with their favorite foods. In addition, they used a technique called cognitive inhibition, which they had been taught, to suppress thoughts of hunger and eating.

While both men and women said the inhibition technique decreased their hunger, the brain scans showed that men's brain activity actually decreased, while the part of women's brains that responds to food remained active.

"Even though the women said they were less hungry when trying to inhibit their response to the food, their brains were still firing away in the regions that control the drive to eat," Wang, the study's lead author, said in a telephone interview.


New research suggests that there's "something going on" in the female brain that makes women less able to control their eating urges. Further research may find the answer to why women have higher obesity rates than men.

The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, performed brain scans on women and men to see how they responded to their favorite foods after fasting overnight.

"There is something going on in the female. The signal is so much different," Gene-Jack Wang of Brookhaven National Laboratory told The Associated Press. "Even though the women said they were less hungry when trying to inhibit their response to the food, their brains were still firing away in the regions that control the drive to eat."

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that 35.3% of American women and 33.3% of men were considered obese in 2006.

Separately, a 10-year study of Europeans has found three new genetic variations that increase the obesity risk for children, Medical News Today reports.

(USA Today)


Iran's Intelligence Ministry has disclosed details about a 'US-backed' spy ring which had plans to topple the Tehran government. 

Following the arrest of four Iranian nationals on charges of plotting to overthrow the government with Washington's support, head of the counterespionage department in the Intelligence Ministry said Monday that the group intended to build social and political tension in the country. 

The intelligence official said "organizing anti-government public rallies and creating ethnic division in the country" were among the tactics to be employed by the network. 

The official, who did not reveal his name, added that the group had even been successful in luring a number of Azeri people in Azerbaijan Province into joining voices of political dissent in the country. 

Earlier on Saturday, Tehran's Islamic Revolution Court sentenced the four suspects without announcing the length of their sentence. 

"They have confessed to trying to distance the people of Iran from the government and introduce the United States as their sole savior," the court said in a statement. 

Two of the detainees are internationally renowned doctors Arash and Kamyar Alaei, who specialize in HIV/AIDS. 

In the Monday press conference, the top Iranian counterespionage official said that the US intelligence agencies had resorted to "soft overthrow projects" over the past decade, as there is no international statute law against such measures. 

The official added that the United States, which had spent $32 million on the project, intended to infiltrate elite and expert circles and was seeking to obtain "information on the country's infrastructure, microbiological achievements and defensive capacity." 

People such as Under Secretary of State William Burns, "Goli Ameri (Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs), Ramin Asgar (US official) and some other people linked with the US intelligence service in the region had a direct involvement in this project," the official said. 

He also accused American institutions such as the Wilson Centre, Soros's Open Society Institute and the US-based International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) of being involved in the plot. 

Earlier in 2007, Iran arrested Haleh Esfandiari, Head of the Wilson Center's Middle East program, and Kian Tajbakhsh, with links to the Soros institute, on suspicions of endangering the country's national security. The two suspects were released after spending three months in detention. 

The unnamed official said the Iranian intelligence operatives had been able to infiltrate the network and "launch an intelligence war with the CIA by leaking false information." 

According to the official, the United Kingdom and Israel were also involved in anti-Iranian efforts which would soon be disclosed by the Intelligence Ministry. 

The report of the new arrests comes shortly after Mohammad-Javad Zarif, the former Iranian ambassador to the United Nations, claimed in November that the White House is taking essential measures to orchestrate a "Velvet Revolution" in Iran. 

"American officials have been inviting Iranian figures to so-called scientific seminars over the past few years. However, when the Iranians attend these sessions, they realize they have gathered to discuss measures to topple the Iranian government," Zarif was quoted by Fars news agency as saying. 

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh revealed in July that US Congressional leaders had secretly agreed to President George W. Bush's $400-million funding request for a major escalation in covert operations inside Iran. 

Only days before the arrests, the New York Times disclosed that President George W. Bush had denied a request by Israel for specialized bunker-busting bombs to attack Iran's nuclear facilities. Instead, the US president declared that he had authorized new covert actions intended to sabotage the country's nuclear program. 

Earlier in April, a blast rocked a religious center in the southwestern Iranian city of Shiraz, killing 14 people and injuring at least 200 others. 

Iran held Britain, Israel and the US responsible for the deadly blast. Officials suggested that Tehran may press charges against the US and UK over their involvement in the attack. 

Seven people who were charged over the fatal bombing confessed to "being brainwashed into launching a terrorist attack in the country", adding that their other targets included "Iran's oil pipelines, Tehran's international book fair as well as other crowded locations in different cities such as scientific, religious and educational centers". 

The Iranian counterespionage director warned the incoming government of US President-elect Barack Obama against "going down the same path of the previous administration" with regards to their relations with the Islamic Republic. 

While Iran charges the US government with supporting the espionage activities, the US State Department denied the report last Wednesday, saying, "Any charge against an Iranian that he or she is working with the United States to overthrow the Iranian government is baseless."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence

Delivered 4 April 1967, at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City

Audio mp3 of Address


[excerpt]

In 1957, a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. During the past ten years, we have seen emerge a pattern of suppression which has now justified the presence of U.S. military advisors in Venezuela. This need to maintain social stability for our investments accounts for the counterrevolutionary action of American forces in Guatemala. It tells why American helicopters are being used against guerrillas in Cambodia and why American napalm and Green Beret forces have already been active against rebels in Peru.

It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."


[full text]

BTW, he was shot EXACTLY one year from the day of this speech.

Contact Your Government Reps

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You can write to Senator Boxer at any of the addresses listed below. However, please note that mail sent to Congressional offices in Washington, DC must go through a very lengthy screening process. Letters are not only irradiated but are also vacuumed for possible contaminated substances. Because this process often delays letters for weeks, you may prefer to write to one of our California offices to ensure that your letter is delivered in a timely fashion.

TTY: 202-224-4264

San Francisco
1700 Montgomery Street,
Suite 240
San Francisco, CA 94111
(415) 403-0100
(202) 224-0454 fax


How to . . . Contact Dianne Feinstein's State offices 

My four state offices play a key role in gathering information about issues affecting Californians. Field representatives attend meetings and public events in the state, work with other branches of the federal government, and spend a good deal of their time in the counties they monitor. 

The state offices can also help you resolve problems you may be having with a federal agency. For more information, please visit the Casework Assistance page. 

Please feel free to call or write the office nearest you, or you can visit one of the offices between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. We are here to serve you. 

San Francisco 
One Post Street, Suite 2450 
San Francisco, CA 94104 
Phone: (415) 393-0707 
Fax: (415) 393-0710 


Contact

I welcome your comments about this Web site, how I'm doing in Congress, or any other issue of importance to you.

Please note that all mail sent to the Washington, D.C. office experiences delays of 1-3 weeks due to the additional security screening. For a faster response, please call, email, or fax instead.

E-Mail Mike Thompson

WASHINGTON, DC OFFICE
231 Cannon Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-3311
Fax: (202) 225-4335

MENDOCINO DISTRICT OFFICE
430 North Franklin Street
PO Box 2208
Fort Bragg, CA 95437
Phone: (707) 962-0933
Fax: (707) 962-0934

The war on Gaza has been devastating on lives and properties; almost all sectors of Gaza's civil infrastructure have been destroyed. Since many of us feel helpless these days, it might make you feel better to donate whatever you can to any of the following reputable charitable organizations:

  1. United Nations Relief and Works Agency: UNRWA is the primary institution which has been helping Palestinian refugees for the past 60 years, it provides educational, healthcare, and food distributions in all refugee camps in the Middle East. Although the organization is affiliated with the United Nations, it's mostly being funded from none UN sources.

  2. Palestine Children's Relief Fund: PCRF is one of the most active organizations on the ground who specializes in helping injured Palestinian and Iraqi children; their work has directly affected thousands of lives in occupied Gaza Strip, occupied W. Bank, Iraq, and Lebanon, click here to see news coverage for PCRF's activities.
     
  3. American Near East Refugee Aid: ANERA is a leading provider of development, health, education and employment programs to Palestinian communities and impoverished families throughout the Middle East.

It should be NOTED that all of these charitable organizations

  • are not affiliated whatsoever with any political group,
  • have been faithfully serving the Palestinian people (especially the refugees) for generations, and
  • your donation will be tax deductible and completely legal, especially here in the United States.

-Video on day 9 of shelling, whole families obliterated
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpKhxocn_EE

-Norwegian doctor report from Gaza
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev6ojm62qwA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYKmA_o4lAE


-Israel shelled UN school compound killing 40 people
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=NvOZ301vbEs


-Father loses his parents, four children and other members of his family after the Israelis gather neighbors in one house and then shell it  
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=mLEEEKCpSJ0

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Axy1cMWUxkg


-Another father who lost three children speaks in Hebrew to Ehud Barak
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2009/01/06/to-israel-with-love/


-Video: the world lost its conscience?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHYjpOhcB2k


-Israel experimenting on civilians with new types of weapons:
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=oyFnE2Z5bpk


-Norwegian Dr. Mads Gilbert testimony in Gaza
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/dime.htm


-Use of white phosphorus over Gaza http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVY4NUKowzg


-Direct reports from Gaza by an International in Gaza: http://ingaza.wordpress.com/


-A haunting photo montage http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2009/01/16/war-on-gaza-surat-al-rahman/


-UK Telegraph Newspaper:  "They said that after the Israeli army first took the town on Saturday night soldiers had ordered about 100 members of the clan to gather in a single house owned by Wael Samouni around dawn on Sunday.  At 6.35am on Monday the house was repeatedly shelled with appalling loss of civilian life [killing 70]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/4162193/Gaza-medics-describe-horror-of-strike-which-killed-70.html


Facts on Gaza not well known

-Factsheet on Gaza
http://www.endtheoccupation.org/downloads/gaza_us_weapons.pdf


-Israel spokesperson admits Israel broke the cease fire agreement
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=SILJxPTqjAM

CNN confirmed this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAhfDa0smsc


-Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions "reframing" Gaza
http://icahd.org/eng/news.asp?menu=5&submenu=1&item=655


-Gaza Website http://gazasiege.org


-Vanity Fair reported in April last year: "After failing to anticipate Hamas's victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, the author reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams [Zionist] backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever."
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804


-An inside story of how the US magnified Palestinian suffering. The covert push to empower Fatah failed. And isolating Hamas just made things worse. But it's not too late to change course.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0112/p09s01-coop.html


- Gaza invasion: Powered by the U.S.: Taxpayers are spending over $1 billion to send refined fuel to the Israeli military -- at a time when Israel doesn't need it and America does.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/01/16/gaza_invasion/index.html


- Still breathing, a report from Gaza by Caoimhe Butterly
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=35030


- Sderot Residents Contradict Israeli Government Propaganda
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2009/01/15/500-citizens-of-sderot-contradict-the-is


DECLARATIONS

UN High commissioner for Human Rights report on Gaza (Rauthor Richard Falk is himself Jewish)
http://gazasiege.org/docs/gaza_crisis_08/GazaCrisis_UN_Falk_Pressrelease_12_27_08.pdf


Red Cross: Israel breaking Int'l law, letting children starve in Gaza
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1053877.html


International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said that the situation in Gaza was "completely and utterly unacceptable based on every known standard of international law and universal humanitarian principles and values.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gjiqWO2pxDjmb0u29sn4O5e8LC0w


Israeli Human Rights groups: Clear and present danger to the lives and well-being of tens of thousands of civilians: An Israeli Call For Urgent Humanitarian Action In Gaza
http://www.btselem.org/English/Press_Releases/20090114.asp


Human Rights Watch demands Israel stop using White Phosphorus incendiary shells on civilian populations
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/01/10/israel-stop-unlawful-use-white-phosphorus-gaza


World Health Organization condemns Israeli attacks on hospitals
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/2009/Gaza-health-20090115/en/index.html


Journalists group condemns strike on Gaza media
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090115/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_gaza_media_1


The Press Emblem Campaign (PEC) and the International Covenant for the Protection of Journalists (ICPJ) condemn shelling of building hosting media offices.http://www.mediacovenant.org/


British Academics Call for Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/16/gaza-israel-petitions


Gush Shalom, Israel Peace Block, January 7, 2009: "The government dooms a whole generation of young Israelis to become, quite literally, war criminals"

Analysis

- Video:Israeli speaks to the BBC and asks Obama to change (instead of being a "slave" of the lobby) http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=rfnPjzOGB5s


- A 14 year old in Gaza asks on question: why?
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/01/11/a_14_year_old_in_gaza_has_one_question_why/


- Bob Simon, a life-long Zionist interviewed by Charlie Rose lets out the facts
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/9900


- The Israeli Human Shield
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Articles/General/Story12098.html


- Zionist FAQs
http://www.palestineremembered.com/ZionistFAQ.html#Relevant


- Rethinking Zionism
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/philip-weiss/rethinking-zionism_b_156955.htm


- Norman Finkelstein on Gaza
http://www.counterpunch.org/finkelstein01132009.html


- The Gaza Ghetto Uprising January 20 The Star Newspaper
http://star.com.jo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14276&Itemid=57


- The humiliation of America
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21755.htm


- Documentary: John Pilger's "Palestine is Still the issue"
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21692.htm


25 Actions to do
http://www.pcr.ps/activities/actions-gaza.htm


Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
http://qumsiyeh.org

http://www.pcr.ps



Xcruz Turns the Screws

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From one of my more radical friends:

Despite his invocations of "change," his appeals to antiwar sentiment and to young people in the course of nearly two years of campaigning, there is not a single figure in the leading personnel of the Obama administration drawn from the more liberal elements of the Democratic Party, let alone anyone representative of the broad masses of working people and youth. 

The right-wing character of Obama's nominees is described by the media under the approving labels of "centrist", "moderate", and--most of all--"pragmatic." This terminology signifies that the incoming Obama team consists entirely of individuals who pass muster with the corporate-financial elite. There is not a whiff of genuine oppositional sentiment, let alone political radicalism, among the lot of them... 

Obama postured as the most antiwar of the major candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, and owed his narrow victory over Hillary Clinton in large measure to the support among youth and students mobilized on the basis of opposition to the war in Iraq. He has now decided, however, to retain the chief administrator of Bush's war policies. [Robert] Gates was installed at the Pentagon in December 2006 and oversaw the Bush "surge" of 30,000 troops into Iraq, as well as a continuation of the war in Afghanistan. 

Geithner is moving up from the number three position in the Bush administration's financial bailout squad, where he served as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and worked with outgoing Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Geithner's reward for the collapse on Wall Street, where he was the chief day-to-day government monitor of the financial markets, is to be promoted to the topmost policy-making position... 

The bipartisan consensus driving the approval of the Obama cabinet was summed up aptly enough in a satirical column by Dana Milbank of the Washington Post, who described Geithner's appearance before the Senate Finance Committee under the headline, "The Nomination That's Too Big to Fail." 

Under conditions of a mounting financial crisis which has shocked and frightened the corporate elite, nothing must stand in the way of putting in place the personnel and policies needed to provide an ever-expanding government bailout to Wall Street. 

Full: 

http://wsws.org/articles/2009/jan2009/obma-j19.shtml

The guys at Amnesty International, though reprehensible for their collusion with the US drug 'war' (imprisonment and torture campaign), occasionally still say things of note about OTHER countries that have no human rights.  Though I won't give them any more money till they stand up to the Feds HERE, I'll still give them some attention:




Created in 1948 the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) set forth the basic rights of every human being, yet 60 years later in places the world over, violence, poverty and oppression hold sway.

To commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the UDHR, and to remind the world that violations of Human Rights are unacceptable anywhere, at any time, Link TV has produced a video, "The Price of Silence" for Amnesty International.

Set in the United Nations, the artists appear on the stage of the General Assembly, flanked by huge screens whose images reflect the lyrics, or project performances from foreign locations. Starting with just Stephen Marley, the performance grows until a full band occupies the stage, singing and rapping, and the delegates are out of their chairs, cheering and dancing. 

"The Price of Silence" is a true labor of love, the result of generous donations of time and talent on both sides of the camera. The song is based on "Cancion Protesta" which was donated by Aterciopelados and Nacional Records, produced by Andres Levin through Music Has No Enemies, and performed by an all star cast of international artists who have added their own lyrics. All of them are human rights activists and several are refugees. The video was directed by Joshua Atesh Litle, and although everyone looks like they are performing at the U.N., in fact all the artists and delegates were composited in through the visual effects wizardry of The Syndicate in L.A., Phoenix Editorial | Designs in San Francisco, and a team of NY-based artists.

 

My suggestion for them is that they list the actual results.  I think they are afraid of them, personally.  Here's how they shook out (final tallies w/percentages of the highest tally):

Legalize Marijuana was in 1st place with 19,530 votes (100%)
Department of Peace was 2nd with 14,994 votes (77%)
Single Payer Health was 3rd with 13,928 votes (71%)
Green Grid in 10 Years was 4th with 12,913 votes (66%)
Repeal the PATRIOT act was 5th with 12,285 votes (63%)
Save Small Business from the CPSIA was 6th with 12,280 votes (63%)
Health Freedom was 7th with 12,062 votes (62%)
8th place was the DREAM act, with 12,010 votes (61%)
9th place was LGBT rights, with 11,889 votes (61%)
and 10th place was Sustainability with 9,644 votes (49%)

I think they just don't want to acknowledge JUST HOW MUCH legalization of marijuana is a priority compared to the other items on their list.  I mean, it's over forty-five hundred votes ahead of the next contender, and over double the votes for the bottom rung.

I still think that revoking corporate 'personhood' is the HIGHEST priority, myself.  I might add that 'full-liability' corporations need to be brought back in play, too.
 

Bryan Krumm

An Albuquerque nurse is suing the government to be able to prescribe medical marijuana to his patients.

Psychiatric nurse practitioner Bryan Krumm said he's afraid he'll be raided by the Drug Enforcement Administration if he prescribes the drug. The DEA has made such raids at California clinics, where state law makes medicinal marijuana usage legal.

Recently, New Mexico's health department finalized rules for non-profits to grow medical pot. But so far, no group has been cleared by the state to start growing.

Under the law, patients can grow marijuana for personal medical use, but it does not protect them from federal prosecution.

Krumm filed a lawsuit in federal court as the lone plaintiff. He hopes to convince the courts to change marijuana's classification as a dangerous drug to a drug with medical value.

"Marijuana has very unique therapeutic properties," Krumm said. "It also has the potential to treat many diseases."

Krumm said he would like to prescribe marijuana, but fears the heavy hand of the US government, even though state law okays pot's medical usage.

"I haven't been able to ethically refer my patients into the medical marijuana program at this point. I can not put them in that jeopardy of facing those federal charges," he said.

Krumm filed the suit pro se, meaning he will do the legal work and pay the court fees himself.

The local DEA has not said if it would prosecute any New Mexicans qualified to smoke medical marijuana.



Who is Mordechai Vanunu?

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Exclusive: Israeli Nuclear Whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu Risks Jail To Speak to Democracy Now! in First Nat'l U.S. Interview

Vanunu4

Risking prison again, nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu (wiki) defies Israeli government restrictions and speaks for the first time to a national audience in this country.

Mordechai Vanunu worked as a nuclear technician at Dimona, Israel's secret nuclear installation from 1976 to 1985. He worked there at a time when Israel was insisting it would not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East. What Vanunu discovered is that Israel had secretly developed an extensive nuclear program, hiding its existence from the Israeli people and parliament, and the world.

Vanunu leaked information and photos of Israel's nuclear weapons program to the Sunday Times in London. He was subsequently kidnapped by Israeli spy agency Mossad in Italy and then jailed. He would go on to spend 18 years behind bars including 11 in solitary confinement.

He was released on April 21 under strict government restrictions.

Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman reached Vanunu on his cell phone in East Jerusalem where he has been staying since his release in April. He defied the Israeli government's restriction on speaking with foreigners to talk with us.

Part II of Democracy Now!'s Conversation with Israeli Nuclear Whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu

Vanunumordechai

We hear the conclusion of our conversation with Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu who defied Israeli government restrictions to speak to us. He discusses his views on Ariel Sharon, the Israeli-Palestinian situation, and his feelings on suicide bombings.

We end today's program with Part II of Democracy Now!'s national broadcast exclusive conversation with Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu.

May 01, 2007

Headlines for May 01, 2007

Israeli Whistleblower Vanunu Convicted For Speaking to Media

The Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu might be heading back to jail soon for speaking to the international media. In 2004 Israel released Vanunu after he spent 18 years in jail for disclosing information that proved Israel had a stockpile of nuclear weapons. After he was released, Israel barred Vanunu from speaking to the foreign press but Vanunu defied the order. He spoke to several foreign outlets including Democracy Now. [Listen to 2004 interview: Pt. 1 || Pt. 2] On Monday an Israeli court convicted him of violating the terms of his release from jail. This is Vanunu's attorney Michael Sfard.


  • Michael Sfard: "Today, in 2007, a person was found guilty of being in contact with other people, not for the content of what he said to them, but for the mere fact that he was talking to other people. This is not something that a liberal democracy in the 21st century should be doing and this is a very frightening situation, almost Orwellian situation, every Israeli has to fear."

Vanunu will be sentenced in two weeks. After the court's ruling, Vanunu spoke with reporters outside the courtroom.


  • Mordechai Vanunu: "Today we have heard the verdict, says that Israel has atomic weapons. Everything is published here. And now the Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Shimon Peres can say to the world that Israel have atomic weapons producing plutonium, neutron and hydrogen bomb. All the bomb that Israel refusing to accept and to admit that they have the bomb is here. But Israeli state, but Israeli court, this judge today say that I say that Israel has atomic weapons and he's finding me guilty of saying this is true so you and everyone in the world can say that Israel have atomic weapons, they have plutonium, neutron bomb and hydrogen bomb, it is writing here."

Israeli Nuclear Whistleblower Sentenced to 6-Month Term

The Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu has been sentenced to another six-months in prison for speaking to the international media. Vanunu was released in 2004 after spending18 years in jail for disclosing information that proved Israel had a stockpile of nuclear weapons. Israel barred Vanunu from speaking to the foreign press but he defied the order--speaking to several foreign outlets including Democracy Now. Earlier this year an Israeli court convicted him of violating the terms of his release. On Monday, Vanunu attorney Avigdor Feldman denounced the new sentence.


Avigdor Feldman: "Vanunu was convicted for violating a rule that does not exist in any other democratic world that forbids speaking to foreigners, regardless of the contents of the conversation. The court convicted him, sentenced him to six months in prison. This sentence is not acceptable and not imaginable."

In addition to his foreign media ban, Vanunu is also barred from leaving Israel. Speaking to reporters outside the courtroom, Vanunu urged Israel to let him leave.


Mordechai Vanunu: "My target is to be free, to leave this country, I don't want to live here. I have 18 years in prison now another three years. I want to leave and to start my life. I have the right to be free. I am a free man, I want to be free and I want to leave...I am not answering any questions now. Thank you."

Who IS Mordechai Vanunu?

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So, I didn't sleep all of last night. Serendipity woke me up, and I was 'insomniac' for a short while, and I turned on the TV, but FSTV wasn't running anything of interest, so I checked over on LinkTV  (wiki) to see what was on there.

This documentary was just about to start.  You have no idea how hard it is to stay awake for an hour an a half listening to narration in Hebrew.  It was worth it, though.


Airdates: No airdates currently scheduled.


Regions: Middle East

On April 21, 2004, Mordechai Vanunu was released from prison after serving an eighteen-year prison sentence for revealing Israel's nuclear secrets. Director Nissim Mossek has documented the Vanunu story for the last seventeen years. Now, using exclusive information and material, Mossek recounts the true story of Mordechai Vanunu - the nuclear technician who became one of the most controversial figures in Israel's history. 

To purchase the film, visit Biblical Productions.

 

From alternet.org

1. The worst recession since the 1930s. The current recession will be the deepest and longest downturn since the Great Depression. And unlike other recessions, this one was directly caused by conservative anti-regulatory policy. In fact, recent evaluations show that Bush policies never created any real growth -- the ephemeral financial upswings of the past eight years were based on market bubbles and economic Band-Aids.

2. The worst financial crisis since the 1930s. The Bush administration, flacking an "ownership society," helped manufacture the housing bubble. When it burst, Americans lost $6 trillion in housing wealth (so far), fueling a market crash that has cost Americans $8 trillion of stock wealth, according to economist Dean Baker. On a grand scale, we've been mugged.

3. The worst foreign policy mistake in the history of this country. That's what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., correctly called the Iraq war. This pre-emptive war -- based on phony pretenses -- is now the second longest in our nation's history (after Vietnam). Some 35,000 Americans are dead or wounded, as well as an enormous number of innocent Iraqis. And even today, more than five years later, can anyone explain why Bush marched us into this quagmire?

4. Unprecedented rejection of human rights. Recently, a Bush administration official finally admitted that the U.S. government engaged in torture at Guantanamo Bay detention center. Bush admitted that he personally authorized waterboarding. While these clear violations of the Geneva Conventions would have been unthinkable a few years ago, today we're not surprised. From Abu Ghraib and extraordinary rendition, to years-long detention of innocents and the unrestrained killing of civilians by U.S.-paid mercenaries, this administration has systematically squandered our nation's moral standing in the world, making us less able to protect Americans and American interests worldwide.

5. Watergate-style abuses of power. As the House Judiciary Committee staff has documented, Bush used the politics of fear and division to justify warrantless wiretapping of innocent Americans (including U.S. soldiers fighting overseas), spying on peaceful domestic groups and the use of national security letters to pry into the private records of millions of Americans. He also presided over illegal politicization of the Justice Department and retribution against critics. In fact, Bush claimed the authority to disobey hundreds of laws -- as if Richard Nixon were right when he famously said: "When the president does it, that means it's not illegal."

6. Unprecedented increases in inequality. The Economic Policy Institute reports, "For the first time since the Census Bureau began tracking such data back in the mid-1940s, the real incomes of middle-class families are lower at the end of this business cycle than they were when it started." That's because Bush policy was designed to increase economic inequality. The richest 1 percent of the population received 36 percent of the Bush tax cuts; the least-affluent 40 percent received only 9 percent. While the rich got exponentially richer, the poverty rate and the percentage of uninsured dramatically increased.

7. A culture of sleaze. This was an administration without shame. Kicked off by Vice President Dick Cheney's secret energy task force, the administration fostered a "greed is good" culture. The subsequent conservative money scandals (Jack Abramoff; White House officials J. Steven Griles and David Safavian;  Republicans Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, Rep. Duke Cunningham of California and Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska) and other lawlessness (Cheney's Chief of Staff O. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho) have toppled the conservative "moral values" façade into the gutter, where it belongs.

8. Blind rejection of science. The Bush administration thumbed its nose at scientific evidence that contradicted conservative political goals. The resulting lies about global warming, endangered species, toxic chemicals and consumer products threaten the health and safety of every American. And the virtual outlawing of stem cell research has delayed important medical advances by years, causing immeasurable suffering and loss of life.

9. Utter refusal to protect the health, safety and legal rights of Americans. Following the conservative business-is-always-right philosophy, Bush dismantled the agencies and rules designed to protect consumers from unscrupulous businessesworkers from reckless employers and small companies from anti-competitive large companies. If conservatives didn't like a federal law, they blocked, hindered or defunded agency enforcement.

10. Presiding over our nation's worst natural disaster, and not caring. Hurricane Katrina was transformed from a calamity into a national disgrace by the sheer incompetence and indifference of the Bush administration. Before the hurricane struck, Bush had downsized the Federal Emergency Management Agency and placed in charge a political crony with no relevant experience. When Katrina ripped through Mississippi and Louisiana and inflicted nearly $100 billion in damages in New Orleans to become the costliest hurricane in U.S. history, FEMA was unprepared to help, and thousands of Americans suffered the consequences. More than three years later, New Orleans still has not recovered.

So, congratulations for being the worst president in American history. That's not just my personal opinion; that's the opinion of 109 historians polled by the History News Network. Fully 61 percent ranked Bush as the "worst ever;" 98 percent labeled his presidency a "failure." And this poll, taken in early 2008, predated the cataclysmic housing and banking crashes. Bye-bye W -- history will not be kind.

Call for a cease fire now!

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Call Congress

Don't stop at the phone: 
Email them too!

Tell Obama: ceasefirenow.org

Almost three weeks into "Operation Cast Lead," we call once more on Jews and others to speak out for a cease fire and against the siege of Gaza.

At Jewish Voice for Peace, we echo the report issued on January 14 by 9 Israeli human rights organizations: Israel's military operations in Gaza pose a "clear and present danger to the lives and well-being of tens of thousands of civilians." In Gaza, "the level of harm to the civilian population is unprecedented" while "military forces are making wanton use of lethal force." 

We condemn Israel's assault on Gaza. As of today, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli assault, including at least 335 children and many more civilians. Nearly 5,000 have been wounded, many paralyzed for life. Tens of thousands have fled their homes - but Gaza is entirely sealed off, so there is nowhere to hide, no safe haven for civilians, no escape corridor for civilians to flee the air, sea and land attacks. Electricity and running water are scarce, the health system has collapsed and sewage is running through the streets in some areas. Inside of Israel, rockets continue to rain down, hitting population centers like Beer Sheba and Ashkelon and causing widespread fear. We condemn these ongoing rocket attacks, which indiscriminately target civilians. 13 Israelis have been killed, 3 of them civilians, with over 82 civilians injured.

Jewish Voice for Peace:

* Calls on all Americans to support Rep. Dennis Kucinich's resolution calling for an "immediate and unconditional ceasefire" and "unrestricted humanitarian access" to Gaza. 
Call your congressperson or write them today.

* Joins the call from Human Rights Watch (and others) for Israel to stop using white phosphorous, an incendiary tool permissable in the laws of war as an "obscurant" - but when used in densely populated Gaza, causes widespread, horrific burning of the skin.

* Demands an end to the vicious siege on Gaza, which brought the population to the brink of humanitarian disaster with extreme shortages of food, water, fuel and medical supplies.

* Calls for an end to the 41 years of occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, including an immediate end to the ongoing expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Only when Palestinians and Israelis are both equally free to decide their own sovereignty will there be peace. 

One bright spot in the midst of this terrible darkness is the explosion of dissent in all corners of the globe. We are especially moved by the Israelis who refuse to fall in line with the drumbeat of war: those like Nomika Zion in southern Gaza who, despite living terrified under rocket fire, stand up to say "Not in my name...The bloodbath in Gaza is not in my name nor for my security." or the group "Other Voice", made up of Israelis living under the threat of qassams, who call for Israel to end the attack and strike a truce with Hamas.

We are inspired by those Israeli soldiers who refuse to fight this civilian population, some of whom are already in jail for their refusal; those Israelis who gather every week to demand their country halt its assault and end the siege, or protest everyday at countless intersections throughout the country; and especially those Israelis who stand outside Sde Dov airforce base in Tel Aviv every morning to remind the pilots that every day they drop their bombs, they drop them on civilians

In North America, we are inspired by the thousands of people who have gone into the streets for protests, in New YorkLos AngelesSan Francisco, and elsewhere, and especially the Jewish women who held a sit-in the Israeli consulate in Toronto, telling the Israeli authorities that "we'll end our occupation when you end yours." 

And we are motivated by the tens of thousands who have signed petitions and sent letters calling for Congress to work for an immediate ceasefire and end the siege, and by the tens of thousands who have signed up on JVP's email list and sent thank-you letters to Jon Stewart (www.thankyoujonstewart.com). We are hopeful that more journalists and op-ed page editors will tell the truth about Gaza and Israel (here are examples from the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.)

And we are grateful to our friends at Jewish Peace News for bringing us insightful analysis and timely reports on dissent against the war.



Video

"The Palestinian People Will Never Surrender" 

Meeting: Palestine Solidarity Campaign - STOP THE WAR ISRAEL OUT OF GAZA - at Friends Meeting House, 173 Euston Road London NW1 2 BJ

 http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21709.htm



PFLP: "Urgent call to Block the shipment of US arms to Israel through Greek port!" 

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine 

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine calls upon the Greek movement, the Greek people and all international progressive forces to halt the planned shipment of U.S. arms to Israel from the Greek port of Astakos. International media reports have revealed that the U.S. Navy is attempting to ship 325 20-foot containers of ammunition, over 3000 tons, in an emergency shipment of arms to aid the occupation in its ongoing war crimes against the Palestinian people in Gaza. The PFLP is calling upon the people of the world, and particularly the Greek movement to act to stop this shipment of arms. The U.S. has been attempting to hire a merchant ship to transport the weaponry to the Israelis at Asdud port in mid- to late January. This weaponry must not be allowed to enter the hands of the Israelis, where it will be used to massacre our people in Gaza! It must be stopped by all means!... 


Prone to Error?

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On the topic of the 'fifth' personality type, which I find named atrociously (almost as bad as the proton's charge), I have to beg to differ.

They redefined 'phlegmatic' as 'supine', and recast the new 'phlegmatic' as the fifth type.

Now, naming convention confusion aside, it's just WRONG.

Phlegmatic is a perfectly fine description for the 'supine'. 

The opposite of 'supine' is 'prone'.

And, in fact, the new 'fifth' personality type is very prone.  Prone to damn near anything.

I bet the sky-car guys (below) are 'prone'.

He had a bit of a lisp ...

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But I'm pretty sure he said that the way he knew the crash was coming is that he saw 'Dot com before debt storm.'

Ai says, ¡I'll Drink To That!

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Theory of Intelligence


I don't think I've ever heard the concept explained any better than this ...

ATT00000.jpeg'Well you see, Norm, it's like this . . . 

A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. 

And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. 

This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. 

In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Now, as we know, excessive intake of alcohol kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. 

And that, Norm, is why you always feel smarter after a few beers.'
Michael Meade is noted (apparently) for having been an author who hung out with one of my old profs and his friends.  He appears to have nearly caught the lingo of shrinkdom, but seems to have mis-connected some of the vocabulary (like a great many mythic shamen, trancemade or not):

To wit, this is pretty much what I just heard him describing on the radio as 'the shadow' (er, Jung's shadow, to be specific).  He was talking about that 'dark force' that kept you from doing what you could be doing by criticizing you, etc.  I believe he meant this:

The [Freudian] Super-ego aims for perfection.[13]  It comprises that organized part of the personality structure, mainly but not entirely unconscious, that includes the individual's ego ideals, spiritual goals, and the psychic agency (commonly called 'conscience') that criticizes and prohibits his or her drives, fantasies, feelings, and actions.


In Jungian psychology, the shadow or "shadow aspect" is a part of the unconscious mind consisting of repressed weaknesses, shortcomings, and instincts. It is one of the three most recognizable archetypes, the others being the anima and animus and the persona. "Everyone carries a shadow," Jung wrote, "and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is." [1]

Now, this is *nearly* the mirror opposite (one being that which represses, and the other being that which is repressed).

But then again, none of his books had to be peer-reviewed.  And Hillman is all about 're-visioning' things (basically, you re-write something else using the wrong words, or change the 'right' words into 'knew ones' and he loves it).  The UD shrinks were really big on the concept of 'paradox' (on this we differed--I pointed out that it was lovely when you got there because you KNOW that one of the 'givens' isn't really 'given' at all--but they all got gaga and mystical instead).  In other words, "Zeno's Paradox" is really Zeno's Incompetence (or perhaps his sadism), if you take it to mean, "Imagine a continuity, that is also discontinuous."

They really weren't very interested in furthering 'understanding' very much at all, actually (and if they really gave a degree, even honorary, to this guy, I have to note that their 'standards' seem to have dropped considerably since they denied me mine--but it looks like Hillman isn't even there anymore, just his papers, though Romanyshyn is).


Meade's bio on Amazon says (my bold):

About the Author

Michael Meade, born and raised in New York City, is a renowned storyteller, author, and scholar of mythology, anthropology, and psychology. He combines hypnotic and fiery storytelling, street savvy perceptiveness, and spellbinding interpretations of ancient myths with a deep knowledge of cross-cultural rituals. His ability to tap into ancestral sources of wisdom to help people of today heal their communities inspires thousands of men and women throughout the United States, Canada, and the British Isles. His unique translations of age-old myths and symbols into culturally relevant, everyday language earned him an honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Pacifica Graduate Institute. Michael is also the founder of Mosaic Multicultural Foundation, author of The World Behind the World, The Water of Life, co-editor of The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, and editor of the cross-cultural anthology on rites of passage: Crossroads: A Quest for Contemporary Rites of Passage.

Neverending Stories

Local Nurse Brings the Medicinal Cannabis Fight to the Feds


Psychiatric nurse Bryan Krumm's opinion of the state's 
medical marijuana program is not an uncommon one. "Until they can keep the federal government out of the program, they are not going to be able to make our program functional." 
The Department of Health established regulations regarding the growth and distribution of medical marijuana last week. The department accepting applications from nonprofit businesses interested in producing medical marijuana. 
Krumm filed suit against the U.S. attorney and others general in District Court to combat federal interference, and he's using a stipulation in the 
Controlled Substances Act to do it. 
The act is broken into "schedules," which are classifications for various drugs. Marijuana is listed in the most restrictive category, Schedule I. According to the act, these drugs have no medical uses. Cocaine and opiates are listed as Schedule II drugs, because they have medical applications.
 
Krumm works at Sage Neuroscience Center in Albuquerque. He argues that once California created a medical marijuana program in 1996, cannabis should have been bumped to a less restrictive schedule. "Once it has accepted medical use," says Krumm, "it no longer meets criteria for placement in Schedule I." Krumm says his is the first lawsuit in the country that is using the Controlled Substances Act itself to justify the removal of marijuana from Schedule I. 
He tried asking the state to move marijuana to a lower schedule in the state's Controlled Substances Act, but the 
New Mexico Pharmacy Board refused. "It was just an attempt to get it out of this arbitrary placement," he says. "Right now in the state of New Mexico, it's listed both in Schedule I and Schedule II."
 
William Harvey, executive director of the Pharmacy Board, says it's not up to the board to move a drug from one schedule to another. It's up the the Legislature, he says. "The Legislature has given the board the ability to schedule substances that aren't recognized yet--like there's always chemicals or drugs that are invented. But the board can't take something that's already in a schedule and move it to another one unless the Legislature has given us the authority. And it hasn't."
 
But Harvey added there's no doubt state law permits medicinal marijuana through the Department of Health. Marijuana is listed in Schedule I under the state's Controlled Substances Act. It's also part of Schedule II, but only for use by certified patients in the state's medical cannabis program. Marinol, which is synthetic THC, is categorized in Schedule III.
 
Krumm will argue his case against the federal government in a couple of months. If he succeeds in proving the Drug Enforcement Administration has been illegally maintaining Schedule I placement of marijuana, it would open options for people around the country.
 
Rescheduling would prevent the federal government from saying it's against federal law for these state programs to operate, he says. "There are so many people who are suffering needlessly for lack of a needed medication," Krumm adds. "Marijuana has unique therapeutic value that can't be mimicked by any other class of medication. It's one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man."'

The state's Medical Advisory Board will hold a hearing Thursday, Jan. 15, to consider adding illnesses to the list of those that qualify patients for the state's medical cannabis program. Go to Los Griegos Community Center at 1231 Candelaria NW at 9 a.m.

Geez, What a Bunch of Maroons

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http://www.mnvoters.org/


The Minnesota Voters Alliance is a citizens' group formed in the interest of liberty, transparency in government and a well-informed electorate.

Our main goals are to:

  1. Stop the undemocratic and unconstitutional Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) scheme.

  2. We are planning a petition in St. Paul (and Duluth) to require photo I.D. at the polls. 

  3. Work to restore the partisan-basis election format to Cities of the First Class. (i.e. Minneapolis & St. Paul)

  4. Promote the preservation of our right to elect our Judges, which is now being threatened.


Gee.  One might get the uninformed idea that IRV was a BAD thing, listening to them.  But their logic is irrefutable.  If one votes IRV, and one happens to pick the winner, one's first vote is the ONLY one counted, unlike those people who might have picked the winner as their fifth choice out of six (or so).

But the fact that their logic is correct doesn't imply that the results aren't better than the two-hundred year old system that we came up with at first.

For more info about IRV, see http://www.fairvote.org/

BTW, the judge understood their logic, but also thought that this wasn't a BAD thing.

Some people just view change as bad, yano?

Skycar embarks on epic journey

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A British team has invented a flying car which is setting off from London to Timbuktu today
The four humors mentioned below are classical. I saw a lot of modeling in shrink school. My psych prof advocated for a 'field' view of the soul, in which the likely response wasn't a dot, but a large cloud of potential.

In that model, it was easier to imagine a person who had all the qualities of all the humors, but wasn't dominated by one.

Unfortunately, there's wasn't really an accepted model at the time.

Looks like there is, now. Phlegmatic has been redefined as 'Supine' and that former label is now used in the new model to describe that 'all qualities' personality.

Supine is one who is essentially a passive (non expressive) Artisan type (Sangine). It's also called passive-sangine, or introverted-sangine.

It took a while for the others to notice that there was a difference between the bump on the log that offered help and the bitchy one.

And, as a phlegmatic, I need to point out that the 'Low Energy Level' is wholly a subjective judgment on the part of the others. My energy level is just fine when I want to expend energy. 

Most of the time, I'll just sit and watch you people tire yourselves out so that you'll stop long enough for me to tell you how to accomplish what you want. I'll likely help then, and I'll have plenty of energy (since I didn't waste mine tilting at windmills).

It's only arrogance when it's wrong, yano. Otherwise, it's talent.

I knew it all along. I just didn't know I knew.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Temperaments

Repost (Myers-Briggs)

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This is a combo of two types (which naturally go together). The Myers-Briggs personality type is the four-letter code, while the text version is named by David Keirsey.

he percentages are that of current US population. I'm showing up today as an ENTP (Inventor). I hover about a bit on that, though.

Guardian
Melancholic
46.4%
Artisan
Sanguine
27%
Idealist
Choleric
16.3%
Rational
Phlegmatic
10.4%
ISTJ
11.6%
ISTP
5.4%
INFJ
1.5%
INTJ
2.1%
InspectorCrafterCounselorMastermind
ISFJ
13.8%
ISFP
8.8%
INFP
4.3%
INTP
3.3%
ProtectorComposerHealerArchitect
ESFJ
12.3%
ESFP
8.5%
ENFP
8.1%
ENTP
3.2%
ProviderPerformerChampionInventor
ESTJ
8.7%
ESTP
4.3%
ENFJ
2.4%
ENTJ
1.8%
SupervisorPromoterTeacherField Marshal

(via Andres) by Yaakov Katz and AP

The Navy intercepted an Iranian ship loaded with medicine, food and clothing destined for Gaza, the IDF said Wednesday.

On Tuesday, the boat docked in port Sayid, Egypt, but the Egyptians refused to allow it to unload its cargo. Nevertheless, at midnight Tuesday, the boat left port Sayid and tried to go to Gaza. A Navy Sa'ar 4.5 class ship intercepted the Iranian boat and transmitted a clear message on Channel 16 - the international communication line for ships - that it would not allow it to enter the waters around Gaza.

On Wednesday morning, when it was 30 miles off the Gaza coast, the Iranian boat again tried to move towards the Strip, and the Navy again intercepted it, the army said. It then returned to el-Arish, in Egypt, and two Egyptian boats prevented it from docking there.

Since that time, the boat has been sitting 30 miles off the coast of Gaza and has been closely tracked by the Israeli navy.

Israel has been coordinating all activity regarding the Iranian boat with the Egyptians.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that Iran would do what it can to get the ship to Gaza, state television reported.

The head of the humanitarian aid group sponsoring the ship, Ahmad Navabi, said in comments aired on television Wednesday that the Israeli navy approached the cargo ship, Shahed, just 20 miles off the coast of Gaza at dawn and ordered it to turn back.

"An Israeli warship approached our cargo ship and warned us not to approach Gaza. We could see the lights at Gaza coast. We were forced to change route toward an Egyptian port," Navabi said.

Iranian state television broadcast what they said was a radio exchange between the Israeli navy and the Iranian ship in which the Israelis said: "Gaza is closed. Leave the area immediately."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday Iran has stepped up diplomatic efforts to push for an end to the Israeli assault on Gaza, state television reported.

"In short term, the most important measures are to end (Israeli) assault on Gaza, end the Gaza blockade and recognize the rights of the Gaza people," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying.

Navabi said his group may try to send the humanitarian aid to Gaza through Egypt to Gaza. The ship left the Iran two weeks ago.

Iran has already sent a cargo plane filled with 50 tons of aid to Egypt to be sent on to Gaza.

This is the first Iranian boat to try to reach Gaza during the siege. On Dec. 30, a boat carrying activists and medical supplies to Gaza was turned back after an altercation with the Israeli navy. Israeli officials said the boat tried to outmaneuver an Israeli navy ship and crashed into it, lightly damaging both vessels.

But activists on the ship said the Israeli vessel rammed the ship, which returned to Lebanon.

That trip was organized by the Free Gaza Movement, which previously made five deliveries of aid by boat to Gaza since August, defying a blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt when Hamas won control of the territory in June 2007. The activist group on Wednesday sent another boat loaded with supplies to Gaza from Cyprus after a previous effort Monday was aborted due to rough weather and engine trouble.

The navy said it was prepared to prevent the Free Gaza boat from entering Gaza waters.

Meanwhile, in a gesture of support with the Palestinians in Gaza, Iran's top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a religious opinion, or fatwa, declaring the purchase of any Israeli goods or trade with Israeli companies to be forbidden.

Iranian authorities issued an order last week banning international companies from working in Iran if they are found to have any shares owned by Israelis. And on Sunday, the Iranian government said it plans to impose sanctions on foreign companies in Iran who also deal with Israel. It is not clear how or when the ban might be carried out, and no details were given regarding the sanctions.
In the fatwa posted on his Web site, Khamenei said Muslims throughout the world must avoid the purchase, import, and promotion of any products Israelis may profit from.

"All Muslims are required to avoid purchase and use of goods that bring profit to Zionists who are at war with Islam and Muslims," Khamenei said.

A fatwa is a religious opinion Muslims obey if they revere the person issuing it, which in the case of Khamenei would be restricted largely to Shi'ites in Iran and other parts of the world.
 

 
President Evo Morales announced on Wednesday that Bolivia has broken diplomatic relations with Israel, in protest of Israeli attacks on the Gaza strip that have caused the death of over a thousand Palestinians.
....
Morales also said that he will denounce Israel before the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity....
...
Under the circumstances, I propose to "reform the Security Council" which I accuse of having demonstrated "an attitude of indifference" in the face of Israel's political aggression.
........

My Change.org Top Ten

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In other words, just exactly HOW sure are you that Osama Bin Laden is *real*?

People in 1984 thought Emmanuel Goldstein was real.

It's in the best interests of the 'Powers that Be' for you to think he's real, anyway.  But if you should have your doubts, here's some links to explore.  Here's some alternate takes on what might be happening (from the man who Greg Palast replaced at the Guardian).


The Theory and Practice Of Oligarchical Collectivism is a fictional book which is an important element in both the plot and the overall theme of George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, first published in 1949.

Orwell's novel describes a totalitarian society ruled by the all-powerful Party. Emmanuel Goldstein figures in state propaganda as the chief enemy of the state--a former Party member who conspires against the "wise" leadership of Big Brother. Early in the novel, Orwell introduces the concept of the book supposedly written by Goldstein: "There were...whispered stories of a terrible book, a compendium of all the heresies, of which Goldstein was the author and which circulated clandestinely here and there. It was a book without a title. People referred to it, if at all, simply as The Book." In the text of the novel, The Book is usually written in italics, although there are exceptions such as occurs in the Signet Classic Centennial Edition print of Nineteen Eighty-Four, where The Book is simply in a different font.

Chapter 1: Ignorance is Strength

The first chapter, Ignorance is Strength details the perpetual class struggle of the fictional world of Nineteen Eighty-Four.[2] It begins with the observation that throughout history, all societies have been divided into a caste system of three groups or classes: the High, who are the rulers; the Middle, who yearn to take over the position of the High; and the Low, who are typically so suppressed that in their drudgery they have no goals beyond day-to-day survival (if they are at all able to formulate any political agenda, it is to establish a society where all people are equal). Time and time again down the ages, the Middle have overthrown the High by enlisting the Low on their side, pretending to the Low that after the revolution a just society will emerge. However, once the Middle have taken over, they simply become the new High and thrust the Low back into servitude, and as a new Middle group eventually splits off, the pattern repeats. The Middle only speak of justice and human brotherhood as long as they are seeking power; once they are in power, they simply become the new oppressors of the Law.

Chapter 3: War is Peace

Winston reads Chapter 3War is Peace before he reads the first chapter. Chapter 3 explains the full meaning of the Party slogan after which it is named. The author reviews how the three superstates of the world came into being: The United States absorbed the British Empire to form Oceania, Russia absorbed Europe to form Eurasia, and "after a decade of confused fighting" Eastasia emerged as the third superstate; it comprises ChinaJapanKorea and some other adjacent areas. In various combinations, these superstates have been at war for twenty-five years. No concrete years are mentioned, but since the present is supposed to be 1984, the implication is that the war began at the end of the fifties--and to make room for the "decade of confused fighting", Oceania and Eurasia must have come into being virtually immediately after Orwell published his novel in 1949. However, it is unlikely that The Book was written in 1984. Thus, it is possible that the war could have started as early as 1939, in which case World War II would have been the beginning of the war.

The never-ending war between the superstates is seemingly pointless--"it is a warfare of limited aims between combatants who are unable to destroy one another, have no material cause for fighting and are not divided by any genuine ideological difference". (As this chapter of The Book reveals, all three superstates are based on very much the same totalitarian ideology as Big Brother's Oceania.) However, the Party and its counterparts in the rival superstates have excellent reasons to keep the war going.


Osama bin Laden has been a staunch critic of both the United States and Israel [EPA]

Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, is reported to have issued a video recording calling on Muslims to wage jihad against Israel over its offensive in Gaza.

The recording, which was dated to the current month in the Islamic calendar and called "A Call for Jihad to Stop the Aggression against Gaza", was posted on websites on Wednesday.

"God has bestowed us with the patience to continue the path of jihad for another seven years, and seven and seven years," the voice on the tape, purported to be that of bin Laden, said.

"The question is, can America continue its war with us for several more decades to come? Reports and evidence would suggest otherwise."

It was not possible to independently identify the voice on the tape.

Angry protests

The 22-minute audio statement said jihad was necessary to restore "Jerusalem and Palestine".

It criticised the way Arab governments have handled the war Israel has been waging in Gaza for 19 days.

Nearly 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the onslaught, and more than 4,000 others injured over the last three weeks. Israel says 13 Israelis have been killed.

Thousands of people have taken to the streets across the Arab world in anger and protest against the attacks, but Arab government have responded with little concrete action against Israel.

The speaker on Wednesday's tape hailed the global financial crisis as a decline in US influence around the world and said it would, in turn, weaken Israel - one of Washington's closest allies.

Turning on a D.I.M.E.

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Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME) is an experimental type of explosive that has a relatively small but effective blast radius. It is manufactured by producing a homogeneous mixture of an explosive material (such as HMX or RDX) and small particles of a chemically inert material such as tungsten. It is intended to limit the distance at which the explosion causes damage, to avoid collateral damage in warfare.

The phrase 'inert metal' refers to a chemically inert metal that is not chemically active and therefore not part of the chemical reaction that causes the explosion, as opposed to some metals, such as aluminium that form part of the chemical reaction. An emerging criticism of DIME weapons is that they might turn out to have have strong biological effects in those who are hit by the micro-shrapnel from these explosives.

DIME weapons consist of a carbon fiber casing filled with mixture of explosive and a very dense powder of a heavy metal tungsten alloy (HMTA) composed of tungsten and other metals such as cobalt and nickel or iron.

Two common HMTA alloys are:

  • rWNiCo: tungsten (91-93%), nickel (3-5%) and cobalt (2-4%)
  • rWNiFe: tungsten (91-93%), nickel (3-5%) and iron (2-4%)

Upon detonation of the explosive, the casing disintegrates into extremely small particles, as opposed to the shrapnel which results from the fragmentation of a metal shell casing. The HMTA powder acts as micro-shrapnel which is very lethal at close range (about 4 meters or 13 feet), but loses momentum very quickly due to air resistance, coming to a halt within approximately 40 times the diameter of the charge. This increases the probability of killing people within a few meters of the explosion while reducing the probability of causing death and injuries or damage farther away. Survivors close to the lethal zone may have their limbs amputated (as the micro shrapnel can slice through soft tissue and bone) and may subsequently contract cancer (rhabdomyosarcoma) from the HMTA micro-shrapnel embedded in their body tissue.[2]

The Free Press
by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman 
January 14, 2009

The parallels between the 1933 coming of Franklin Roosevelt and the upcoming inauguration of Barack Obama must include the issue of Prohibition: alcohol in 1933, and marijuana today. As FDR did back then, Obama must now help end an utterly failed, socially destructive, reactionary crusade. 

Marijuana prohibition is a core cause of many of the nation's economic problems. It now costs the U.S. tens of billions per year to track, arrest, try, defend and imprison marijuana consumers who pose little, if any, harm to society. The social toll soars even higher when we account for social violence, lost work, ruined careers and damaged families. In 2007, 775,137 people were arrested in the U.S. for mere possession of this ancient crop, according to the FBI's uniform crime report. 

How old is your brain?

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(via my sister):

The site instructions are in Japanese, so read below! 
1. Touch 'start'
2. Wait for 3, 2, 1
3. Memorize the number's position on the screen, then click the circles from the smallest to the biggest number in sequence.

4. At the end of game, computer will tell you the age of your brain.  


BTW, she was thirty-five, and I'm thirty-six.

How To Say "I Love You."

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"Economic Meltdown Funnies"

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economicfunnies.png
Learn the complicated issues in a fun way! DC Jobs with Justice and the Institute for Policy Studies put together a comic book about the recent economic crisis, Economic Meltdown Funnies.  To read the 16-page comic and get a more humorous perspective on the crisis, click here.

The primary function of the independent juror is not, as many think, to dispense punishment to fellow citizens accused of breaking various laws, but rather to protect fellow citizens from tyrannical abuses of power by government.


Juror's Guide
 




Ring in the New Year and the New Congress! 
NATIONAL CALL-IN DAY FOR HR 676
Single-Payer Healthcare
Thursday, January 15, 2009


Dear Single Payer Supporter,

The Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Healthcare--National Single Payer Coalition Steering Committee wishes to thank everyone who made the December 22nd call-in day a huge success. By 11:00 a.m. that day, Senator Kennedy's office reported to have already received over 1000 phone calls! Many congressional offices across the country were flooded with the message to support HR 676 and stop Massachusetts style healthcare reform from being used as a national model.  We will escalate our efforts for the call-in action on January 15 by targeting the Washington DC offices.

HR 676 has been reintroduced in the 111th Congress--with the same bill number, and there are 86 cosponsors of HR 676 from the 110th Congress who have been sworn into the 111th session. This number will quickly grow because of the extensive lobby efforts already in motion. Our goal is to effectively double the number of cosponsors in the House by making sure elected officials hear from their constituents to cosponsor HR 676 again, and help find new co-sponsors.

Please urge your Congress member to attend the HR 676 briefing on January 28th from 3-5:00 p.m. in the halls of Congress.

In addition, encourage your Senators to sponsor companion legislation to HR 676 in the Senate.

Please take this urgent and important action! Click here for details and talking points.

Yours in the movement,

Tim Carpenter,
National Director


P.S. This van, pulling a trailer, will be seen throughout D.C. during inauguration week! Please make a contribution to keep the Single-Payer Health Mobile on the road after the inauguration! Click here--enter "Health Mobile" in the special funds drive box near the bottom of the form.




OMFG!!!--Crab Canon!!!

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With APOLOGIES to Douglas Hofstadter (big time, in advance, thank you).

Pearls Before Breakfast

Can one of the nation's great musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour? Let's find out.

Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 8, 2007; Page W10

HE EMERGED FROM THE METRO AT THE L'ENFANT PLAZA STATION AND POSITIONED HIMSELF AGAINST A WALL BESIDE A TRASH BASKET. By most measures, he was nondescript: a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money, swiveled it to face pedestrian traffic, and began to play.

It was 7:51 a.m. on Friday, January 12, the middle of the morning rush hour. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by. Almost all of them were on the way to work, which meant, for almost all of them, a government job. L'Enfant Plaza is at the nucleus of federal Washington, and these were mostly mid-level bureaucrats with those indeterminate, oddly fungible titles: policy analyst, project manager, budget officer, specialist, facilitator, consultant.

Each passerby had a quick choice to make, one familiar to commuters in any urban area where the occasional street performer is part of the cityscape: Do you stop and listen? Do you hurry past with a blend of guilt and irritation, aware of your cupidity but annoyed by the unbidden demand on your time and your wallet? Do you throw in a buck, just to be polite? Does your decision change if he's really bad? What if he's really good? Do you have time for beauty? Shouldn't you? What's the moral mathematics of the moment?

On that Friday in January, those private questions would be answered in an unusually public way. No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities -- as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?

The musician did not play popular tunes whose familiarity alone might have drawn interest. That was not the test. These were masterpieces that have endured for centuries on their brilliance alone, soaring music befitting the grandeur of cathedrals and concert halls.

The acoustics proved surprisingly kind. Though the arcade is of utilitarian design, a buffer between the Metro escalator and the outdoors, it somehow caught the sound and bounced it back round and resonant. The violin is an instrument that is said to be much like the human voice, and in this musician's masterly hands, it sobbed and laughed and sang -- ecstatic, sorrowful, importuning, adoring, flirtatious, castigating, playful, romancing, merry, triumphal, sumptuous.

So, what do you think happened?

HANG ON, WE'LL GET YOU SOME EXPERT HELP.

Leonard Slatkin, music director of the National Symphony Orchestra, was asked the same question. What did he think would occur, hypothetically, if one of the world's great violinists had performed incognito before a traveling rush-hour audience of 1,000-odd people?

"Let's assume," Slatkin said, "that he is not recognized and just taken for granted as a street musician . . . Still, I don't think that if he's really good, he's going to go unnoticed. He'd get a larger audience in Europe . . . but, okay, out of 1,000 people, my guess is there might be 35 or 40 who will recognize the quality for what it is. Maybe 75 to 100 will stop and spend some time listening."

So, a crowd would gather?

"Oh, yes."

And how much will he make?

"About $150."

Thanks, Maestro. As it happens, this is not hypothetical. It really happened.

"How'd I do?"

We'll tell you in a minute.

"Well, who was the musician?"

Joshua Bell.

"NO!!!"

A onetime child prodigy, at 39 Joshua Bell has arrived as an internationally acclaimed virtuoso. Three days before he appeared at the Metro station, Bell had filled the house at Boston's stately Symphony Hall, where merely pretty good seats went for $100. Two weeks later, at the Music Center at Strathmore, in North Bethesda, he would play to a standing-room-only audience so respectful of his artistry that they stifled their coughs until the silence between movements. But on that Friday in January, Joshua Bell was just another mendicant, competing for the attention of busy people on their way to work.

Bell was first pitched this idea shortly before Christmas, over coffee at a sandwich shop on Capitol Hill. A New Yorker, he was in town to perform at the Library of Congress and to visit the library's vaults to examine an unusual treasure: an 18th-century violin that once belonged to the great Austrian-born virtuoso and composer Fritz Kreisler. The curators invited Bell to play it; good sound, still.

"Here's what I'm thinking," Bell confided, as he sipped his coffee. "I'm thinking that I could do a tour where I'd play Kreisler's music . . ."

He smiled.

". . . on Kreisler's violin."

It was a snazzy, sequined idea -- part inspiration and part gimmick -- and it was typical of Bell, who has unapologetically embraced showmanship even as his concert career has become more and more august. He's soloed with the finest orchestras here and abroad, but he's also appeared on "Sesame Street," done late-night talk TV and performed in feature films. That was Bell playing the soundtrack on the 1998 movie "The Red Violin." (He body-doubled, too, playing to a naked Greta Scacchi.) As composer John Corigliano accepted the Oscar for Best Original Dramatic Score, he credited Bell, who, he said, "plays like a god."

When Bell was asked if he'd be willing to don street clothes and perform at rush hour, he said:

"Uh, a stunt?"

Well, yes. A stunt. Would he think it . . . unseemly?

Bell drained his cup.

"Sounds like fun," he said.

Bell's a heartthrob. Tall and handsome, he's got a Donny Osmond-like dose of the cutes, and, onstage, cute elides into hott. When he performs, he is usually the only man under the lights who is not in white tie and tails -- he walks out to a standing O, looking like Zorro, in black pants and an untucked black dress shirt, shirttail dangling. That cute Beatles-style mop top is also a strategic asset: Because his technique is full of body -- athletic and passionate -- he's almost dancing with the instrument, and his hair flies.

He's single and straight, a fact not lost on some of his fans. In Boston, as he performed Max Bruch's dour Violin Concerto in G Minor, the very few young women in the audience nearly disappeared in the deep sea of silver heads. But seemingly every single one of them -- a distillate of the young and pretty -- coalesced at the stage door after the performance, seeking an autograph. It's like that always, with Bell.

Bell's been accepting over-the-top accolades since puberty: Interview magazine once said his playing "does nothing less than tell human beings why they bother to live." He's learned to field these things graciously, with a bashful duck of the head and a modified "pshaw."

For this incognito performance, Bell had only one condition for participating. The event had been described to him as a test of whether, in an incongruous context, ordinary people would recognize genius. His condition: "I'm not comfortable if you call this genius." "Genius" is an overused word, he said: It can be applied to some of the composers whose work he plays, but not to him. His skills are largely interpretive, he said, and to imply otherwise would be unseemly and inaccurate.

It was an interesting request, and under the circumstances, one that will be honored. The word will not again appear in this article.

It would be breaking no rules, however, to note that the term in question, particularly as applied in the field of music, refers to a congenital brilliance -- an elite, innate, preternatural ability that manifests itself early, and often in dramatic fashion.

One biographically intriguing fact about Bell is that he got his first music lessons when he was a 4-year-old in Bloomington, Ind. His parents, both psychologists, decided formal training might be a good idea after they saw that their son had strung rubber bands across his dresser drawers and was replicating classical tunes by ear, moving drawers in and out to vary the pitch.

TO GET TO THE METRO FROM HIS HOTEL, a distance of three blocks, Bell took a taxi. He's neither lame nor lazy: He did it for his violin.

Bell always performs on the same instrument, and he ruled out using another for this gig. Called the Gibson ex Huberman, it was handcrafted in 1713 by Antonio Stradivari during the Italian master's "golden period," toward the end of his career, when he had access to the finest spruce, maple and willow, and when his technique had been refined to perfection.

"Our knowledge of acoustics is still incomplete," Bell said, "but he, he just . . . knew."

Bell doesn't mention Stradivari by name. Just "he." When the violinist shows his Strad to people, he holds the instrument gingerly by its neck, resting it on a knee. "He made this to perfect thickness at all parts," Bell says, pivoting it. "If you shaved off a millimeter of wood at any point, it would totally imbalance the sound." No violins sound as wonderful as Strads from the 1710s, still.

The front of Bell's violin is in nearly perfect condition, with a deep, rich grain and luster. The back is a mess, its dark reddish finish bleeding away into a flatter, lighter shade and finally, in one section, to bare wood.

"This has never been refinished," Bell said. "That's his original varnish. People attribute aspects of the sound to the varnish. Each maker had his own secret formula." Stradivari is thought to have made his from an ingeniously balanced cocktail of honey, egg whites and gum arabic from sub-Saharan trees.

Like the instrument in "The Red Violin," this one has a past filled with mystery and malice. Twice, it was stolen from its illustrious prior owner, the Polish virtuoso Bronislaw Huberman. The first time, in 1919, it disappeared from Huberman's hotel room in Vienna but was quickly returned. The second time, nearly 20 years later, it was pinched from his dressing room in Carnegie Hall. He never got it back. It was not until 1985 that the thief -- a minor New York violinist -- made a deathbed confession to his wife, and produced the instrument.

Bell bought it a few years ago. He had to sell his own Strad and borrow much of the rest. The price tag was reported to be about $3.5 million.

All of which is a long explanation for why, in the early morning chill of a day in January, Josh Bell took a three-block cab ride to the Orange Line, and rode one stop to L'Enfant.

AS METRO STATIONS GO, L'ENFANT PLAZA IS MORE PLEBEIAN THAN MOST. Even before you arrive, it gets no respect. Metro conductors never seem to get it right: "Leh-fahn." "Layfont." "El'phant."

At the top of the escalators are a shoeshine stand and a busy kiosk that sells newspapers, lottery tickets and a wallfull of magazines with titles such as Mammazons and Girls of Barely Legal. The skin mags move, but it's that lottery ticket dispenser that stays the busiest, with customers queuing up for Daily 6 lotto and Powerball and the ultimate suckers' bait, those pamphlets that sell random number combinations purporting to be "hot." They sell briskly. There's also a quick-check machine to slide in your lotto ticket, post-drawing, to see if you've won. Beneath it is a forlorn pile of crumpled slips.

On Friday, January 12, the people waiting in the lottery line looking for a long shot would get a lucky break -- a free, close-up ticket to a concert by one of the world's most famous musicians -- but only if they were of a mind to take note.

Bell decided to begin with "Chaconne" from Johann Sebastian Bach's Partita No. 2 in D Minor. Bell calls it "not just one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, but one of the greatest achievements of any man in history. It's a spiritually powerful piece, emotionally powerful, structurally perfect. Plus, it was written for a solo violin, so I won't be cheating with some half-assed version."

Bell didn't say it, but Bach's "Chaconne" is also considered one of the most difficult violin pieces to master. Many try; few succeed. It's exhaustingly long -- 14 minutes -- and consists entirely of a single, succinct musical progression repeated in dozens of variations to create a dauntingly complex architecture of sound. Composed around 1720, on the eve of the European Enlightenment, it is said to be a celebration of the breadth of human possibility.

If Bell's encomium to "Chaconne" seems overly effusive, consider this from the 19th-century composer Johannes Brahms, in a letter to Clara Schumann: "On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind."

So, that's the piece Bell started with.

He'd clearly meant it when he promised not to cheap out this performance: He played with acrobatic enthusiasm, his body leaning into the music and arching on tiptoes at the high notes. The sound was nearly symphonic, carrying to all parts of the homely arcade as the pedestrian traffic filed past.

Three minutes went by before something happened. Sixty-three people had already passed when, finally, there was a breakthrough of sorts. A middle-age man altered his gait for a split second, turning his head to notice that there seemed to be some guy playing music. Yes, the man kept walking, but it was something.

A half-minute later, Bell got his first donation. A woman threw in a buck and scooted off. It was not until six minutes into the performance that someone actually stood against a wall, and listened.

Things never got much better. In the three-quarters of an hour that Joshua Bell played, seven people stopped what they were doing to hang around and take in the performance, at least for a minute. Twenty-seven gave money, most of them on the run -- for a total of $32 and change. That leaves the 1,070 people who hurried by, oblivious, many only three feet away, few even turning to look.

No, Mr. Slatkin, there was never a crowd, not even for a second.

It was all videotaped by a hidden camera. You can play the recording once or 15 times, and it never gets any easier to watch. Try speeding it up, and it becomes one of those herky-jerky World War I-era silent newsreels. The people scurry by in comical little hops and starts, cups of coffee in their hands, cellphones at their ears, ID tags slapping at their bellies, a grimdanse macabre to indifference, inertia and the dingy, gray rush of modernity.

Even at this accelerated pace, though, the fiddler's movements remain fluid and graceful; he seems so apart from his audience -- unseen, unheard, otherworldly -- that you find yourself thinking that he's not really there. A ghost.

Only then do you see it: He is the one who is real. They are the ghosts.

IF A GREAT MUSICIAN PLAYS GREAT MUSIC BUT NO ONE HEARS . . . WAS HE REALLY ANY GOOD?

It's an old epistemological debate, older, actually, than the koan about the tree in the forest. Plato weighed in on it, and philosophers for two millennia afterward: What is beauty? Is it a measurable fact (Gottfried Leibniz), or merely an opinion (David Hume), or is it a little of each, colored by the immediate state of mind of the observer (Immanuel Kant)?

We'll go with Kant, because he's obviously right, and because he brings us pretty directly to Joshua Bell, sitting there in a hotel restaurant, picking at his breakfast, wryly trying to figure out what the hell had just happened back there at the Metro.

"At the beginning," Bell says, "I was just concentrating on playing the music. I wasn't really watching what was happening around me . . ."

Playing the violin looks all-consuming, mentally and physically, but Bell says that for him the mechanics of it are partly second nature, cemented by practice and muscle memory: It's like a juggler, he says, who can keep those balls in play while interacting with a crowd. What he's mostly thinking about as he plays, Bell says, is capturing emotion as a narrative: "When you play a violin piece, you are a storyteller, and you're telling a story."

With "Chaconne," the opening is filled with a building sense of awe. That kept him busy for a while. Eventually, though, he began to steal a sidelong glance.

"It was a strange feeling, that people were actually, ah . . ."

The word doesn't come easily.

". . . ignoring me."

Bell is laughing. It's at himself.

"At a music hall, I'll get upset if someone coughs or if someone's cellphone goes off. But here, my expectations quickly diminished. I started to appreciate any acknowledgment, even a slight glance up. I was oddly grateful when someone threw in a dollar instead of change." This is from a man whose talents can command $1,000 a minute.

Before he began, Bell hadn't known what to expect. What he does know is that, for some reason, he was nervous.

"It wasn't exactly stage fright, but there were butterflies," he says. "I was stressing a little."

Bell has played, literally, before crowned heads of Europe. Why the anxiety at the Washington Metro?

"When you play for ticket-holders," Bell explains, "you are already validated. I have no sense that I need to be accepted. I'm already accepted. Here, there was this thought: What if they don't like me? What if they resent my presence . . ."

He was, in short, art without a frame. Which, it turns out, may have a lot to do with what happened -- or, more precisely, what didn't happen -- on January 12.

MARK LEITHAUSER HAS HELD IN HIS HANDS MORE GREAT WORKS OF ART THAN ANY KING OR POPE OR MEDICI EVER DID. A senior curator at the National Gallery, he oversees the framing of the paintings. Leithauser thinks he has some idea of what happened at that Metro station.

"Let's say I took one of our more abstract masterpieces, say an Ellsworth Kelly, and removed it from its frame, marched it down the 52 steps that people walk up to get to the National Gallery, past the giant columns, and brought it into a restaurant. It's a $5 million painting. And it's one of those restaurants where there are pieces of original art for sale, by some industrious kids from the Corcoran School, and I hang that Kelly on the wall with a price tag of $150. No one is going to notice it. An art curator might look up and say: 'Hey, that looks a little like an Ellsworth Kelly. Please pass the salt.'"

Leithauser's point is that we shouldn't be too ready to label the Metro passersby unsophisticated boobs. Context matters.

Kant said the same thing. He took beauty seriously: In his Critique of Aesthetic Judgment, Kant argued that one's ability to appreciate beauty is related to one's ability to make moral judgments. But there was a caveat. Paul Guyer of the University of Pennsylvania, one of America's most prominent Kantian scholars, says the 18th-century German philosopher felt that to properly appreciate beauty, the viewing conditions must be optimal.

"Optimal," Guyer said, "doesn't mean heading to work, focusing on your report to the boss, maybe your shoes don't fit right."

So, if Kant had been at the Metro watching as Joshua Bell play to a thousand unimpressed passersby?

"He would have inferred about them," Guyer said, "absolutely nothing."

And that's that.

Except it isn't. To really understand what happened, you have to rewind that video and play it back from the beginning, from the moment Bell's bow first touched the strings.

White guy, khakis, leather jacket, briefcase. Early 30s. John David Mortensen is on the final leg of his daily bus-to-Metro commute from Reston. He's heading up the escalator. It's a long ride -- 1 minute and 15 seconds if you don't walk. So, like most everyone who passes Bell this day, Mortensen gets a good earful of music before he has his first look at the musician. Like most of them, he notes that it sounds pretty good. But like very few of them, when he gets to the top, he doesn't race past as though Bell were some nuisance to be avoided. Mortensen is that first person to stop, that guy at the six-minute mark.

It's not that he has nothing else to do. He's a project manager for an international program at the Department of Energy; on this day, Mortensen has to participate in a monthly budget exercise, not the most exciting part of his job: "You review the past month's expenditures," he says, "forecast spending for the next month, if you have X dollars, where will it go, that sort of thing."

On the video, you can see Mortensen get off the escalator and look around. He locates the violinist, stops, walks away but then is drawn back. He checks the time on his cellphone -- he's three minutes early for work -- then settles against a wall to listen.

Mortensen doesn't know classical music at all; classic rock is as close as he comes. But there's something about what he's hearing that he really likes.

As it happens, he's arrived at the moment that Bell slides into the second section of "Chaconne." ("It's the point," Bell says, "where it moves from a darker, minor key into a major key. There's a religious, exalted feeling to it.") The violinist's bow begins to dance; the music becomes upbeat, playful, theatrical, big.

Mortensen doesn't know about major or minor keys: "Whatever it was," he says, "it made me feel at peace."

So, for the first time in his life, Mortensen lingers to listen to a street musician. He stays his allotted three minutes as 94 more people pass briskly by. When he leaves to help plan contingency budgets for the Department of Energy, there's another first. For the first time in his life, not quite knowing what had just happened but sensing it was special, John David Mortensen gives a street musician money.

THERE ARE SIX MOMENTS IN THE VIDEO THAT BELL FINDS PARTICULARLY PAINFUL TO RELIVE: "The awkward times," he calls them. It's what happens right after each piece ends: nothing. The music stops. The same people who hadn't noticed him playing don't notice that he has finished. No applause, no acknowledgment. So Bell just saws out a small, nervous chord -- the embarrassed musician's equivalent of, "Er, okay, moving right along . . ." -- and begins the next piece.

After "Chaconne," it is Franz Schubert's "Ave Maria," which surprised some music critics when it debuted in 1825: Schubert seldom showed religious feeling in his compositions, yet "Ave Maria" is a breathtaking work of adoration of the Virgin Mary. What was with the sudden piety? Schubert dryly answered: "I think this is due to the fact that I never forced devotion in myself and never compose hymns or prayers of that kind unless it overcomes me unawares; but then it is usually the right and true devotion." This musical prayer became among the most familiar and enduring religious pieces in history.

A couple of minutes into it, something revealing happens. A woman and her preschooler emerge from the escalator. The woman is walking briskly and, therefore, so is the child. She's got his hand.

"I had a time crunch," recalls Sheron Parker, an IT director for a federal agency. "I had an 8:30 training class, and first I had to rush Evvie off to his teacher, then rush back to work, then to the training facility in the basement."

Evvie is her son, Evan. Evan is 3.

You can see Evan clearly on the video. He's the cute black kid in the parka who keeps twisting around to look at Joshua Bell, as he is being propelled toward the door.

"There was a musician," Parker says, "and my son was intrigued. He wanted to pull over and listen, but I was rushed for time."

So Parker does what she has to do. She deftly moves her body between Evan's and Bell's, cutting off her son's line of sight. As they exit the arcade, Evan can still be seen craning to look. When Parker is told what she walked out on, she laughs.

"Evan is very smart!"

The poet Billy Collins once laughingly observed that all babies are born with a knowledge of poetry, because the lub-dub of the mother's heart is in iambic meter. Then, Collins said, life slowly starts to choke the poetry out of us. It may be true with music, too.

There was no ethnic or demographic pattern to distinguish the people who stayed to watch Bell, or the ones who gave money, from that vast majority who hurried on past, unheeding. Whites, blacks and Asians, young and old, men and women, were represented in all three groups. But the behavior of one demographic remained absolutely consistent. Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away.

IF THERE WAS ONE PERSON ON THAT DAY WHO WAS TOO BUSY TO PAY ATTENTION TO THE VIOLINIST, it was George Tindley. Tindley wasn't hurrying to get to work. He was at work.

The glass doors through which most people exit the L'Enfant station lead into an indoor shopping mall, from which there are exits to the street and elevators to office buildings. The first store in the mall is an Au Bon Pain, the croissant and coffee shop where Tindley, in his 40s, works in a white uniform busing the tables, restocking the salt and pepper packets, taking out the garbage. Tindley labors under the watchful eye of his bosses, and he's supposed to be hopping, and he was.

But every minute or so, as though drawn by something not entirely within his control, Tindley would walk to the very edge of the Au Bon Pain property, keeping his toes inside the line, still on the job. Then he'd lean forward, as far out into the hallway as he could, watching the fiddler on the other side of the glass doors. The foot traffic was steady, so the doors were usually open. The sound came through pretty well.

"You could tell in one second that this guy was good, that he was clearly a professional," Tindley says. He plays the guitar, loves the sound of strings, and has no respect for a certain kind of musician.

"Most people, they play music; they don't feel it," Tindley says. "Well, that man was feeling it. That man was moving. Moving into the sound."

A hundred feet away, across the arcade, was the lottery line, sometimes five or six people long. They had a much better view of Bell than Tindley did, if they had just turned around. But no one did. Not in the entire 43 minutes. They just shuffled forward toward that machine spitting out numbers. Eyes on the prize.

J.T. Tillman was in that line. A computer specialist for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, he remembers every single number he played that day -- 10 of them, $2 apiece, for a total of $20. He doesn't recall what the violinist was playing, though. He says it sounded like generic classical music, the kind the ship's band was playing in "Titanic," before the iceberg.

"I didn't think nothing of it," Tillman says, "just a guy trying to make a couple of bucks." Tillman would have given him one or two, he said, but he spent all his cash on lotto.

When he is told that he stiffed one of the best musicians in the world, he laughs.

"Is he ever going to play around here again?"

"Yeah, but you're going to have to pay a lot to hear him."

"Damn."

Tillman didn't win the lottery, either.

BELL ENDS "AVE MARIA" TO ANOTHER THUNDEROUS SILENCE, plays Manuel Ponce's sentimental "Estrellita," then a piece by Jules Massenet, and then begins a Bach gavotte, a joyful, frolicsome, lyrical dance. It's got an Old World delicacy to it; you can imagine it entertaining bewigged dancers at a Versailles ball, or -- in a lute, fiddle and fife version -- the boot-kicking peasants of a Pieter Bruegel painting.

Watching the video weeks later, Bell finds himself mystified by one thing only. He understands why he's not drawing a crowd, in the rush of a morning workday. But: "I'm surprised at the number of people who don't pay attention at all, as if I'm invisible. Because, you know what? I'm makin' a lot of noise!"

He is. You don't need to know music at all to appreciate the simple fact that there's a guy there, playing a violin that's throwing out a whole bucket of sound; at times, Bell's bowing is so intricate that you seem to be hearing two instruments playing in harmony. So those head-forward, quick-stepping passersby are a remarkable phenomenon.

Bell wonders whether their inattention may be deliberate: If you don't take visible note of the musician, you don't have to feel guilty about not forking over money; you're not complicit in a rip-off.

It may be true, but no one gave that explanation. People just said they were busy, had other things on their mind. Some who were on cellphones spoke louder as they passed Bell, to compete with that infernal racket.

And then there was Calvin Myint. Myint works for the General Services Administration. He got to the top of the escalator, turned right and headed out a door to the street. A few hours later, he had no memory that there had been a musician anywhere in sight.

"Where was he, in relation to me?"

"About four feet away."

"Oh."

There's nothing wrong with Myint's hearing. He had buds in his ear. He was listening to his iPod.

For many of us, the explosion in technology has perversely limited, not expanded, our exposure to new experiences. Increasingly, we get our news from sources that think as we already do. And with iPods, we hear what we already know; we program our own playlists.

The song that Calvin Myint was listening to was "Just Like Heaven," by the British rock band The Cure. It's a terrific song, actually. The meaning is a little opaque, and the Web is filled with earnest efforts to deconstruct it. Many are far-fetched, but some are right on point: It's about a tragic emotional disconnect. A man has found the woman of his dreams but can't express the depth of his feeling for her until she's gone. It's about failing to see the beauty of what's plainly in front of your eyes.

"YES, I SAW THE VIOLINIST," Jackie Hessian says, "but nothing about him struck me as much of anything."

You couldn't tell that by watching her. Hessian was one of those people who gave Bell a long, hard look before walking on. It turns out that she wasn't noticing the music at all.

"I really didn't hear that much," she said. "I was just trying to figure out what he was doing there, how does this work for him, can he make much money, would it be better to start with some money in the case, or for it to be empty, so people feel sorry for you? I was analyzing it financially."

What do you do, Jackie?

"I'm a lawyer in labor relations with the United States Postal Service. I just negotiated a national contract."

THE BEST SEATS IN THE HOUSE WERE UPHOLSTERED. In the balcony, more or less. On that day, for $5, you'd get a lot more than just a nice shine on your shoes.

Only one person occupied one of those seats when Bell played. Terence Holmes is a consultant for the Department of Transportation, and he liked the music just fine, but it was really about a shoeshine: "My father told me never to wear a suit with your shoes not cleaned and shined."

Holmes wears suits often, so he is up in that perch a lot, and he's got a good relationship with the shoeshine lady. Holmes is a good tipper and a good talker, which is a skill that came in handy that day. The shoeshine lady was upset about something, and the music got her more upset. She complained, Holmes said, that the music was too loud, and he tried to calm her down.

Edna Souza is from Brazil. She's been shining shoes at L'Enfant Plaza for six years, and she's had her fill of street musicians there; when they play, she can't hear her customers, and that's bad for business. So she fights.

Souza points to the dividing line between the Metro property, at the top of the escalator, and the arcade, which is under control of the management company that runs the mall. Sometimes, Souza says, a musician will stand on the Metro side, sometimes on the mall side. Either way, she's got him. On her speed dial, she has phone numbers for both the mall cops and the Metro cops. The musicians seldom last long.

What about Joshua Bell?

He was too loud, too, Souza says. Then she looks down at her rag, sniffs. She hates to say anything positive about these damned musicians, but: "He was pretty good, that guy. It was the first time I didn't call the police."

Souza was surprised to learn he was a famous musician, but not that people rushed blindly by him. That, she said, was predictable. "If something like this happened in Brazil, everyone would stand around to see. Not here."

Souza nods sourly toward a spot near the top of the escalator: "Couple of years ago, a homeless guy died right there. He just lay down there and died. The police came, an ambulance came, and no one even stopped to see or slowed down to look.

"People walk up the escalator, they look straight ahead. Mind your own business, eyes forward. Everyone is stressed. Do you know what I mean?"

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

-- from "Leisure," by W.H. Davies

Let's say Kant is right. Let's accept that we can't look at what happened on January 12 and make any judgment whatever about people's sophistication or their ability to appreciate beauty. But what about their ability to appreciate life?

We're busy. Americans have been busy, as a people, since at least 1831, when a young French sociologist named Alexis de Tocqueville visited the States and found himself impressed, bemused and slightly dismayed at the degree to which people were driven, to the exclusion of everything else, by hard work and the accumulation of wealth.

Not much has changed. Pop in a DVD of "Koyaanisqatsi," the wordless, darkly brilliant, avant-garde 1982 film about the frenetic speed of modern life. Backed by the minimalist music of Philip Glass, director Godfrey Reggio takes film clips of Americans going about their daily business, but speeds them up until they resemble assembly-line machines, robots marching lockstep to nowhere. Now look at the video from L'Enfant Plaza, in fast-forward. The Philip Glass soundtrack fits it perfectly.

"Koyaanisqatsi" is a Hopi word. It means "life out of balance."

In his 2003 book, Timeless Beauty: In the Arts and Everyday Life, British author John Lane writes about the loss of the appreciation for beauty in the modern world. The experiment at L'Enfant Plaza may be symptomatic of that, he said -- not because people didn't have the capacity to understand beauty, but because it was irrelevant to them.

"This is about having the wrong priorities," Lane said.

If we can't take the time out of our lives to stay a moment and listen to one of the best musicians on Earth play some of the best music ever written; if the surge of modern life so overpowers us that we are deaf and blind to something like that -- then what else are we missing?

That's what the Welsh poet W.H. Davies meant in 1911 when he published those two lines that begin this section. They made him famous. The thought was simple, even primitive, but somehow no one had put it quite that way before.

Of course, Davies had an advantage -- an advantage of perception. He wasn't a tradesman or a laborer or a bureaucrat or a consultant or a policy analyst or a labor lawyer or a program manager. He was a hobo.

THE CULTURAL HERO OF THE DAY ARRIVED AT L'ENFANT PLAZA PRETTY LATE, in the unprepossessing figure of one John Picarello, a smallish man with a baldish head.

Picarello hit the top of the escalator just after Bell began his final piece, a reprise of "Chaconne." In the video, you see Picarello stop dead in his tracks, locate the source of the music, and then retreat to the other end of the arcade. He takes up a position past the shoeshine stand, across from that lottery line, and he will not budge for the next nine minutes.

Like all the passersby interviewed for this article, Picarello was stopped by a reporter after he left the building, and was asked for his phone number. Like everyone, he was told only that this was to be an article about commuting. When he was called later in the day, like everyone else, he was first asked if anything unusual had happened to him on his trip into work. Of the more than 40 people contacted, Picarello was the only one who immediately mentioned the violinist.

"There was a musician playing at the top of the escalator at L'Enfant Plaza."

Haven't you seen musicians there before?

"Not like this one."

What do you mean?

"This was a superb violinist. I've never heard anyone of that caliber. He was technically proficient, with very good phrasing. He had a good fiddle, too, with a big, lush sound. I walked a distance away, to hear him. I didn't want to be intrusive on his space."

Really?

"Really. It was that kind of experience. It was a treat, just a brilliant, incredible way to start the day."

Picarello knows classical music. He is a fan of Joshua Bell but didn't recognize him; he hadn't seen a recent photo, and besides, for most of the time Picarello was pretty far away. But he knew this was not a run-of-the-mill guy out there, performing. On the video, you can see Picarello look around him now and then, almost bewildered.

"Yeah, other people just were not getting it. It just wasn't registering. That was baffling to me."

When Picarello was growing up in New York, he studied violin seriously, intending to be a concert musician. But he gave it up at 18, when he decided he'd never be good enough to make it pay. Life does that to you sometimes. Sometimes, you have to do the prudent thing. So he went into another line of work. He's a supervisor at the U.S. Postal Service. Doesn't play the violin much, anymore.

When he left, Picarello says, "I humbly threw in $5." It was humble: You can actually see that on the video. Picarello walks up, barely looking at Bell, and tosses in the money. Then, as if embarrassed, he quickly walks away from the man he once wanted to be.

Does he have regrets about how things worked out?

The postal supervisor considers this.

"No. If you love something but choose not to do it professionally, it's not a waste. Because, you know, you still have it. You have it forever."

BELL THINKS HE DID HIS BEST WORK OF THE DAY IN THOSE FINAL FEW MINUTES, in the second "Chaconne." And that also was the first time more than one person at a time was listening. As Picarello stood in the back, Janice Olu arrived and took up a position a few feet away from Bell. Olu, a public trust officer with HUD, also played the violin as a kid. She didn't know the name of the piece she was hearing, but she knew the man playing it has a gift.

Olu was on a coffee break and stayed as long as she dared. As she turned to go, she whispered to the stranger next to her, "Ireally don't want to leave." The stranger standing next to her happened to be working for The Washington Post.

In preparing for this event, editors at The Post Magazine discussed how to deal with likely outcomes. The most widely held assumption was that there could well be a problem with crowd control: In a demographic as sophisticated as Washington, the thinking went, several people would surely recognize Bell. Nervous "what-if" scenarios abounded. As people gathered, what if others stopped just to see what the attraction was? Word would spread through the crowd. Cameras would flash. More people flock to the scene; rush-hour pedestrian traffic backs up; tempers flare; the National Guard is called; tear gas, rubber bullets, etc.

As it happens, exactly one person recognized Bell, and she didn't arrive until near the very end. For Stacy Furukawa, a demographer at the Commerce Department, there was no doubt. She doesn't know much about classical music, but she had been in the audience three weeks earlier, at Bell's free concert at the Library of Congress. And here he was, the international virtuoso, sawing away, begging for money. She had no idea what the heck was going on, but whatever it was, she wasn't about to miss it.

Furukawa positioned herself 10 feet away from Bell, front row, center. She had a huge grin on her face. The grin, and Furukawa, remained planted in that spot until the end.

"It was the most astonishing thing I've ever seen in Washington," Furukawa says. "Joshua Bell was standing there playing at rush hour, and people were not stopping, and not even looking, and some were flipping quarters at him! Quarters! I wouldn't do that to anybody. I was thinking, Omigosh, what kind of a city do I live in that this could happen?"

When it was over, Furukawa introduced herself to Bell, and tossed in a twenty. Not counting that -- it was tainted by recognition -- the final haul for his 43 minutes of playing was $32.17. Yes, some people gave pennies.

"Actually," Bell said with a laugh, "that's not so bad, considering. That's 40 bucks an hour. I could make an okay living doing this, and I wouldn't have to pay an agent."

These days, at L'Enfant Plaza, lotto ticket sales remain brisk. Musicians still show up from time to time, and they still tick off Edna Souza. Joshua Bell's latest album, "The Voice of the Violin," has received the usual critical acclaim. ("Delicate urgency." "Masterful intimacy." "Unfailingly exquisite." "A musical summit." ". . . will make your heart thump and weep at the same time.")

Bell headed off on a concert tour of European capitals. But he is back in the States this week. He has to be. On Tuesday, he will be accepting the Avery Fisher prize, recognizing the Flop of L'Enfant Plaza as the best classical musician in America.

Emily Shroder, Rachel Manteuffel, John W. Poole and Magazine Editor Tom Shroder contributed to this report. Gene Weingarten, a Magazine staff writer, can be reached at weingarten@washpost.com. He will be fielding questions and comments about this article Monday at 1 p.m.


Point, Counterpoint

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Frank S.ent a Doozey

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Image.jpg
 
On a cold January morning in 2007, a man at a metro station in Washington DC started to play the violin.  During that time of day (it was rush hour), thousands of people go through the station - most of them on their way to work.  He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. 
 
Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule
 
A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip (a woman threw the money in the till and, without stopping, continued to walk by).
 
A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.
 
The one who paid the most attention was a 3-year old boy. His mother hurried him along, but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally, the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents (without exception) forced them to move on too.
 
In the 45 minutes the man played, 1,097 travelers passed by.  A couple of dozen gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace.  Far less (only 7) stopped and listened for a while.  When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded; there was no recognition.
 
The man was world-renowned violinist Joshua Bell.  He played some of the most intricate pieces ever written on a violin worth 3.5 million dollars. Three days before his subway performance, Joshua Bell sold out Boston's Symphony Hall where the fairly good seats went for $100 each.  But, on this day, he collected just over $32 for his virtuosity.
 
This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post (they won a Pulitzer for it) done as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and the priorities of people. The questions were - in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate time - Do we perceive beauty?  Do we stop to appreciate it?  Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?
 
One of the possible conclusions from this experiment could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing some of the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?

(a repost from a few years ago).

Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris:

These are the three characteristics of a great programmer listed in the PERL (Programmable Extraction and Report Language or Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister) manual. As most computer science is actually a work of psychology (essentially sculpture of the mind), this is really the listing of what it is to be an accomplished human.

They have their antitheses as well. Let me explain.

Laziness vs. False Laziness

Replacing the horse drawn cart with the automobile is a good example of how the drive to Laziness improves life. Early attempts to make general purpose vehicle frames which were adapted to every conceivable use, rather than specialty products designed for that purpose, are an example of 'False Laziness' and were replaced over the years.

Avoiding work is good, but avoiding work which results in more work later is bad.

Hubris vs. False Hubris

Improvements on the automobile, such as self-reinflating tires, voice-activated GPS, micro-environments, flex-fuels, hybrid technology, off-road capabilities are great, and show off the skills of the artisan (this is Hubris at its best), but trying to put them all in one vehicle, or worse, making them standard equipment on all vehicles, isn't going to improve sales (Hubris at its worst).

Improvements show off your skills, but not all clients need your full set of skills.

Impatience vs. False Impatience

Impatience makes people work late at night improving things. It makes them want things to work faster. Wanting the new designs to come out faster is good old Impatience. Prematurely deciding that one of the new designs is the holy grail and holding it above all others without adequate proof is 'False Impatience.'

Watched pots will, in fact, boil (under the correct conditions), and the watching itself doesn't appear to alter the circumstances.

Debris Hut Construction

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The new host on KMEC was talking about these.  I got this from the guy that runs this site.

Here is a fun project that you can get the kids to do.  It will help them to get into the "survival spirit" and there isn't much danger. It can also help take the edge off of fear and give them some experience.

 
A strong ridge pole and a good location are the first steps to the debris hut. Make sure the area is high and dry to avoid any problems with water drainage during a storm. The area was checked for abundance of material and possible hazards. (i.e. poisonous plants, insets, deadfalls, widow-makers, etc.) Direction is noted for the door. Look closely; you may find my tracks in a thin layer of debris under the ridgepole.
 
Next, sticks are placed as ribbing along both sides of the ridge pole. This is done after I have laid down and measured the interior. Note the door opening near the sapling facing east or slightly southeast.
 
Still more sticks are placed to hold the debris up. More dry debris is also stuffed in the interior for comfortable bedding that lifts you off the cold ground. This is also a good time to roof off your entryway by placing four forked sticks into the ground at the desired height, and ribbing the top with a network of sticks.
 
Start piling on debris thick and high. Note the steep walls for shedding water.
 
The finished product! The walls are about 2 feet thick, good for a 20 degree night. This was probably my 10th debris hut. It took about 2 hours from start to finish. The rather speedy time (for me anyway) was no doubt due to the extraordinary abundance of material in this beautiful transition forest.
 

 

PalestineRemembered.com The Home of Ethnically Cleansed & Occupied PalestiniansSatellite ViewSearchDonateContact Usالنسخة العربية
 Home   Pictures    Maps  Oral History  Zionist FAQ Zionist Quotes   The Conflict 101  R.O.R. 101  Zionism 101  About Us
What will you do if you were born a Palestinian?

  
النسخة العربية تلي الإنجليزية

By Abu al-Sous (Salah Mansour)*

After doing lots of research on the internet, I was shocked to find that the most candid answer to this question comes from Israelis; most importantly from Israeli leaders who gained political notoriety as a result of crushing Palestinians. This question started to interest me several years ago when I read a eulogy written by Moshe Dayan (a former Israeli  Defense Minister) to his Israeli friend who was killed by a Palestinian from the Gaza Strip in 1955:

". . . Let us not today fling accusation at the murderers. What cause have we to complain about their fierce hatred to us? For eight years now, they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we turn into our homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived.

We should demand his blood not from the [Palestinian] Arabs of Gaza but from ourselves. . . . Let us make our reckoning today. We are a generation of settlers, and without the steel helmet and gun barrel, we shall not be able to plant a tree or build a house. . . . Let us not be afraid to see the hatred that accompanies and consumes the lives of hundreds of thousands of [Palestinian] Arabs who sit all around us and wait for the moment when their hands will be able to reach our blood." (Iron Wall, p. 101)

Similarly, Ehud Barak (the current Israeli Defense Minister) was asked this question, and his reply was:

"If I were a Palestinian of the right age, I'd eventually join one of the terrorist organizations." (interviewed by Ha'aretz's Gideon Levy in March 1998)

Here in America, we're a brought up to believe in our sacred right to bare arms because the right of self-defense is enshrined in our American constitution. As an American, I have the right to defend my home and family here in Chicago by all possible means, even if my defense results in the death or injury of the assailant. However, as a Palestinian defending my home and family in Palestine, that makes me automatically the "terrorist" in the eyes of many in the Western world. It should be noted that when Palestinians rocket Israeli towns, they are rocketing their own homes and farms which have been usurped by Jews who recently escaped European anti-Semitism and pogroms, here are the names of a few of the usurped Palestinian towns which are located in what is now southern Israel: al-Majdal AsqalanFalujaYibnaHuj & Najd.

The more I research Israeli history, the more I discover that Israelis have a hidden empathy to what Palestinians have experienced for the past 60 years. In my opinion, this is a proof that this conflict isn't only a colonial conflict over lands, but most importantly it's a conflict about the national identity which is connected to the land. Deep at heart, every Israeli Jew suspects that the Zionist narrative to be farce. However, because Israel was created by usurping Palestinian rights, Israelis and most Jews find it necessary to deny Palestinians of their national rights and identity. This Israeli insecurity (or paranoia) increases whenever Palestinians assert their national identity (i.e. resistance to colonialism, demanding the right of return, ..etc) because it reaffirms that this is a conflict that will transcend generations.

Marijuana Radio

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The first two or three digits of an EAN-13 barcode identify the country in which the manufacturer's identification code was assigned.  They do not necessarily indicate the country in which the goods were manufactured.   Many countries have EAN coding authorities which regulate the use of retail barcodes. For names, addresses, and telephone numbers, click here to view our list of Standards Organizations.  In the United States the UPC-A and UPC-E symbologies are used for marking retail products; the administering authority is the Uniform Code Council in Dayton, Ohio (tel. 937-435-3870).

EAN•UCC PrefixesCountryISO country code
00 to 13UCC (USA & Canada)us/ca
20 to 29In-store numbers
30 to 37GENCOD-EAN Francefr
380BCCI (Bulgaria)bg
383EAN Slovenijasi
385EAN Croatiahr
387EAN-BIH (Bosnia-Herzegovina)ba
400 to 440CCG (Germany)de
45 + 49Distribution Code Center DCC (Japan)jp
460 to 469UNISCAN - EAN Russia (Russian Federation)ru
471EAN Taiwantw
474EAN Estoniaee
475EAN Latvialv
476EAN Azerbaijanaz
477EAN Lithuanialt
478EAN Uzbekistanuz
479EAN Sri Lankalk
480PANC (Philippines)ph
481EAN Belarusby
482EAN Ukraineua
484EAN Moldovamd
485EAN Armeniaam
486EAN Georgiage
487EAN Kazakhstankz
489HKANA (Hong-Kong)hk
50e.centregb
520EAN HELLAS (Greece)gr
528EAN Lebanonlb
529EAN Cypruscy
531EAN-MAC (FYR Macedonia)mk
535EAN Maltamt
539EAN Irelandie
54EAN Belgium.Luxembourgbe/lu
560CODIPOR (Portugal)pt
569EAN Icelandis
57EAN Danmarkdk
590EAN Polandpl
594EAN Romaniaro
599EAN Hungaryhu
600 - 601EAN South Africaza
      608EAN Bahrain

bh 048

609EAN Mauritiusmu
611EAN Maroc (Morocco)ma
613EAN Algerie (Algeria)dz
616EAN Kenyake
619Tunicode (Tunisia)tn
621EAN Syriasy
622EAN Egypteg
624EAN Libyaly
625EAN Jordanjo
626EAN Iranir
627EAN Kuwaitkw
628EAN Saudi Arabiasa
629EAN Emiratesae
64EAN Finlandfi
690 - 695Article Numbering Centre of China - ANCCcn
70EAN Norge (Norway)no
729Israeli Bar Code Association - EAN Israelil
73EAN Swedense
740EAN Guatemalagt
741EAN El Salvadorsv
742EAN Hondurashn
743EAN Nicaraguani
744EAN Costa Ricacr
745EAN Panamapa
746EAN Republica Dominicanado
750AMECE (Mexico)mx
759EAN Venezuelave
76EAN Switzerlandch
770IAC (Colombia)co
773EAN Uruguayuy
775EAN Perupe
777EAN Boliviabo
779CODIGO - EAN Argentinaar
780EAN Chilecl
784EAN Paraguaypy
786ECOP (Ecuador)ec
789 - 790EAN Brasilbr
80 to 83INDICOD (Italy)it
84AECOC (Spain)es
850Camera de Comercio de la Republica de Cubacu
858EAN Slovakiask
859EAN Czechcz
860EAN YU (Yugoslavia)yu
867EAN DPR Korea (North Korea)kp
869UCCET (Turkey)tr
87EAN Nederlandnl
880EAN Korea (South Korea)kr
885EAN Thailandth
888SANC (Singapore)sg
890EAN Indiain
893EAN Vietnamvn
899EAN Indonesiaid
90 - 91EAN Austriaat
93EAN Australiaau
94EAN New Zealandnz
955EAN Malaysiamy
958EAN Macaumo
977Periodicals (ISSN)
978 - 979Books (ISBN)
980Refund receipts
981 - 982Common currency coupons
99Coupons

Cute Graphic

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Who's Minding the Knesset?

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This is weird, since there's a bit of drama going on in a country that has a parliamentary system (which is always a problem in and of itself, in 'who' is in charge?  The PM or the President?).

Of course, we routinely ignore these points (like in Iran, where we quote their President a great deal w/o indicating that he's in basically an impotent office in that country's political power grid).

So, with that in mind, the President of Israel is Shimon Peres:

Shimon Peres  GCMG (Hebrewשמעון פרס‎, born Szymon Perski on 2 August 1923[1]) is the ninth and current President of the State of Israel. Peres served twice as Prime Minister of Israel and once as Acting Prime Minister, and has been a member of 12 cabinets in a political career spanning over 66 years.[2]Peres was elected to the Knesset in November 1959 and, except for a three-month-long hiatus in early 2006, served continuously until 2007, when he became President.

The current Prime Minister of Israel is Ehud Olmert:

Ehud Olmert (Hebrewאהוד אולמרט‎ Ehud olmert.ogg (audio) IPA[ɛˈhud ˈolmeʁt], born 30 September 1945) is the 12th and current Prime Minister of Israel and the former leader of Kadima. Olmert began exercising the powers of the office as Acting Prime Minister [1] on 4 January 2006, after Ariel Sharon suffered a severe hemorrhagic stroke, during election season, while Sharon was still legally in office. Kadima won the March 2006 elections, enabling Olmert to continue as Acting Prime Minister. On 14 April 2006, days after the election, the length of Sharon's legal incapacitation reached 100 days, allowing Olmert to legally become Interim Prime Minister in office, just days before Olmert formed his own new Government, in the aftermath of the elections, on 4 May 2006, the 31st government, to become Israel's official Prime Minister.[2]

On 30 July 2008, Olmert announced that he would not participate in his party's September 2008 leadership elections and would resign from his position as Prime Minister immediately thereafter[3] (due to public suspicion that he was involved in allegedly corrupt activities). Four days after Tzipi Livni won the ballot, Olmert formally resigned from office in a letter submitted to President Shimon Peres, who asked Livni to form a new government.[4] As Livni failed to form a new government, general elections will be held on February 102009 and Olmert will remain an Interim prime minister until after the elections,[5] as required by the law to remain in office, after resignation, until a new Prime Minister is sworn in.[1]

On 26 November 2008, the Attorney General of IsraelMeni Mazuz, had informed Olmert that he decided to file an indictment against him in what became to be known as "Rishontours" affair, pending a hearing at the attorney general.[6] However, legally, he is presumed innocent until the trial's final verdict is in, and thus may continue to perform his duties as Prime Minister until a new Prime Minister is sworn in.[1]


Now, he's the *official* PM, but the acting one is Tzipi Livni:

Tzipora Malka "Tzipi" Livni (Hebrewציפורה מלכה "ציפי" לבני‎, born 5 July 1958 in Tel AvivIsrael) is Foreign Affairs Minister and the designated Acting Prime Minister of Israel.[1][2]

On 17 September 2008, Livni was elected leader of the Kadima party, giving her the opportunity to seek to form a government that would gain support from a majority of the Knesset.[3][4] After failing to reach agreement with various parties, Livni called for a new election, which has been scheduled for February 2009. In the interim, resigned Prime Minister and former Kadima head Ehud Olmert continues to lead a caretaker government.

Amy S' Birthday Party Notice

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Holocaust in Gaza (my BOLD)

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by Rohini Hensman / January 10th, 2009


In February 2008, Israel's Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai warned that if Hamas continued firing rockets, they would bring upon themselves a 'bigger shoah,' the word used by Israelis to refer to the Nazi genocide or holocaust. This statement came in the wake of attacks on Gaza which left 32 Palestinians dead, including eight children, the youngest a six-month-old baby. These regular attacks, combined with a blockade which deprived Palestinians in Gaza of food, fuel, potable water, medicines and educational materials, was the slow-motion shoah which had been taking place up to December 27. The full-scale bombing which began on that date is surely the 'bigger shoah' promised by Vilnai, and, according to Israeli reports, it was being planned as long back as February.1 

There were demonstrations against the Israeli bombing by outraged protestors throughout the world as the Palestinian death toll climbed to more than 300 in three days, but Palestinians in Gaza felt that the international community were acting as mere spectators to the massacre. They were right. Protest demonstrations are not enough to stop a holocaust. Even less effective are sanctimonious statements by the UN and EU equating one Israeli life to more than a hundred Palestinian lives, which make the outright support for the massacre by George W. Bush almost attractive in its honesty. So what can we do?

Debunking Myths

The first necessity is to debunk myths that have successfully been used to vitiate all previous actions against Israel. Firstly, the myth that the founding of the Zionist state has anything to do with the Nazi genocide. In fact, the project was conceived decades before the Nazi holocaust, and was a straightforward colonial agenda in which European settlers would evict indigenous Third World people from their land and take it over. Gandhi saw this very clearly, which is why he refused to give the Zionists his support when they approached him, despite his sympathy for persecuted Jews.2 

The second myth is that criticism of or opposition to the Zionist state of Israel constitutes anti-Semitism, and is an attack on all Jews. This is not true; indeed, Jews are among the most trenchant critics not only of Israeli atrocities, but also of the whole idea of a Zionist state. The notion that Judaism and Zionism are one and the same is shared by anti-Semites and Zionists; the former assume that all Jews are responsible for the crimes of the Zionists, while the latter assume that all condemnation of Zionist crimes constitutes an attack on Jews. These assumptions, equally reprehensible, are simply two sides of the same coin.

The third myth is that there was ever a possibility of a two-state solution. There were two models of settler-colonialism debated by the Zionists. One model, supported by very few, was the South African one, where the indigenous Palestinians, though evicted from their land and herded into Bantustans, would be allowed to remain in the country. The majority view was that the indigenous population should be eliminated, like the indigenous peoples of North America and Australia. To this end, massacres were carried out to terrorise the population into leaving, a process then known as 'transfer of population' and now as 'ethnic cleansing', and ever since the Nuremburg trials considered to be a crime against humanity.3 Both sides saw Israel as swallowing up the whole of Palestine, and one look at a map of Palestine/Israel today shows that this has now been achieved, with the Apartheid wall carving up the West Bank into ghettos, while the very fact that Israel could blockade the Gaza strip so effectively shows that it, too, is nothing more than a ghetto.

If Israel controls the non-contiguous borders, the coastal waters, the ground water and air space of the proposed 'Palestinian state', if the people of Gaza can be starved and bombed simply because they exercised their franchise to elect a government which the Israeli state did not approve of, there could be no clearer proof that Palestinian self-determination is not an option so long as the Zionist regime remains. The struggle, therefore, is not for a separate Palestinian state but, as in Apartheid South Africa, for one democratic state with equal rights for all in the whole of historical Palestine. This would solve the problem of the second-class status of Palestinian citizens of Israel, the need for self-determination for Palestinians in the territories occupied in 1967, and the right of return of Palestinian refugees, all without driving Israeli Jews out of the country. It is the only possible solution.4 

The fourth myth is that Israel attacks Palestinians in self-defence. Take the most recent massacre, for example: it is claimed by Israel, and repeated by other politicians and the media, that it was Hamas which broke the ceasefire. Yet a careful scrutiny of ceasefire violations shows that once Hamas defeated Fatah and took control of the Gaza strip, violations from its side dropped almost to zero, until Israel broke the ceasefire by an air attack and ground invasion on November 4. Furthermore, throughout the ceasefire Israel implemented a siege and naval blockade of Gaza, defined as acts of war in international law. So it was Israel which broke the ceasefire in an act of aggression, and the legally elected Hamas government of Palestine which was acting in self-defence.5 This means that in international law, the murder of each one of the over 550 Palestinians killed in the most recent massacre, whether the vast majority of civilians or the small minority of guerrilla fighters, is a crime equivalent to the crime of killing one Israeli civilian.

Indeed, even before the December onslaught, it was clear that what Israel was doing in Gaza amounted to genocide according to the Genocide Convention (1948), reiterated in the Rome Charter of the International Criminal Court (2002), which includes: '(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.'6 The launching of rockets into Israel by Hamas was, like the Warsaw ghetto uprising of 1943, a response to impending extermination: a desperate bid for survival. The Zionists' hostility to anyone standing up for the rights of Palestinians led them in 1948 to murder Count Folke Bernadotte, who had negotiated the release of tens of thousands of prisoners from German concentration camps and was subsequently appointed UN Security Council mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict. More recently, their shameful abuse of Richard Falk, UNHRC Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestine (himself an American Jew), who in December 2008 was denied entry, ill-treated and deported, suggests that only pragmatic considerations prevented them from assassinating him too.7 

What Needs to be Done? 

According to twenty-one human rights activists (including Jews) from South Africa visiting the West Bank in July 2008, the situation in Palestine/Israel was 'worse, worse, worse than everything we endured. The level of the apartheid, the racism and the brutality, are worse than the worst period of apartheid;' 'What we went through was terrible, terrible, terrible - and yet there is no comparison. Here it is more terrible.'8 An international response at least as strong as the response to Apartheid South Africa therefore seems to be appropriate, and this is constituted by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel called for by Palestinian civil society groups on 9 July 2005, to be continued until the apartheid regime is replaced by a democratic one. This includes cultural, academic and sports boycotts, and a consumer boycott of Israeli goods (barcode starting with 729), as well as a boycott of companies investing in, sourcing from, or otherwise supporting Israel, and pressure on them to change their policies. It would also include pressure on governments to break off diplomatic, economic and military ties with Israel, pointing out that these constitute complicity with Israel's crimes.9 
There should be extra pressure on openly collaborationist regimes, like those of Mahmoud Abbas, Hosni Mubarak, and the Arab allies of Israel, which ought to be made to feel that their people will reject them unless they cease their complicity in Israeli crimes. Enormous pressure would also have to be brought to bear on the US, which assists Israel with billions of dollars annually as well as other forms of support. Given the indications that no change in US policy towards Palestine and Israel is planned by Barack Obama's administration, the pressure should begin immediately, before his inauguration. And pressure from within the US should be augmented by international pressure.

The US economy is in deep crisis, with more than $ 10 trillion of national debt, and the only reason it can keep bankrolling Israel is that the US dollar is treated as world currency and oil sales are denominated in it, so the US has been getting more or less unlimited credit from the rest of the world. Russia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries must be pressurised into supporting the rights of Palestinians by immediately denominating their oil sales in euro, in preparation for moving to roubles in the case of Russia, and a common Gulf currency in the case of the GCC countries. Countries like China and Japan, with their massive US dollar reserves, should make the extension of further credit conditional on the US ceasing to fund Israel as well as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and countries with smaller dollar reserves should shift their reserves to other currencies. Such a move is required not only by ethical considerations, but also by pragmatic ones: if the credit extended is used to rebuild the US economy, there is a chance that it might be returned, whereas if it is used to fund aggression against Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan, it will never be returned. In this campaign, very little individual action is possible, and success would depend on putting collective pressure on governments to boycott the US dollar until the US ceases to engage in and support imperialist aggression. With very few exceptions, governments of the world are complicit in the atrocities being committed in Gaza, just as they were in the crushing of the Warsaw ghetto uprising,See Joseph Massad, 'The Gaza Ghetto Uprising,' Electronic Intifada, 4 January 2009. and strong public pressure would be needed to expose, condemn and end their complicity.

The myths enumerated above need to challenged in every forum, along with the more diffuse racism that constitutes their premise. We may disagree with the politics of Hamas, just as we may disagree with the politics of the British Labour Party, but it does not follow that we should condone the slaughter of all leaders and members of Hamas, their families, government employees, and random members of the Palestinian population which elected them to power, any more than we would condone the slaughter of all leaders and members of the Labour Party, their families, government employees, and random members of the British population which elected them to power. The fact that the US and EU cannot see this equivalence demonstrates that they are dominated by the same racism which allowed slavery to flourish and the indigenous peoples of North America and Australia to be exterminated. Where Black people are killing Black people, as in Rwanda, or White people are killing White people, as in Bosnia, there is a chance that the UN may take action, however weak and belated. But where White people are killing Third World peoples, as in Palestine, there is no hope that it will take any action unless citizens of the world put massive pressure on their governments to support a solution which can bring justice and peace to Palestine/Israel. It is good that there have been worldwide protests against the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza, but a ceasefire would be no better than putting a sticking plaster over a festering wound, which will only erupt again sooner or later. The wound cannot heal until the infection has been eliminated by replacing the Apartheid state with a democratic one, and long-term, concerted action is required to achieve that goal.

  1. 'Israeli minister warns of Palestinian 'holocaust'Guardian, 29 February 2008. []
  2. A.K.Ramakrishnan, 'Mahatma Gandhi Rejected Zionism,' The Wisdom Fund, 15 August 2001. []
  3. The debates as well as the methods by which the ethnic cleansing of Palestine was achieved are meticulously recorded in Ilan Pappe's The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Oneworld Publications, Oxford, 2007. []
  4. See the One Democratic State Group website. []
  5. 'On Sderot and Ashkelon,' Jews sans Frontiers, 30 December 2008. []
  6. For this argument see Ilan Pappe, 'Genocide in Gaza, Ethnic Cleansing In the West Bank,'Countercurrents, 28 January 2008. []
  7. Stephen Lendman, 'Obama v. Richard Falk on Israel and Occupied Palestine,' Countercurrents, 24 December 2008. []
  8. Gideon Levy, 'Twilight Zone / "Worse than Apartheid",' Haaretz, 12 July 2008. []
  9. For details of the BDS campaign, see Global BDS Movement - Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions for Palestine. The website of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) also has suggestions for action, including signing a petition in support of UN General Assembly President Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann, who has spoken out to condemn Israeli apartheid and called for boycott, divestment and sanctions. Information about companies linked to Israel can also be found in the Boycott Apartheid Israel leaflet published by the Friends of Al Aqsa. []

Rohini Hensman is an an idependent scholar, writer and activist based in India and Sri Lanka. Rohini can be reached at: rohinihensman@yahoo.co.uk.

This is the results of searching in Google News for Navi Pillay's recent call for war crimes trials.
Note the dearth of US sources listed.  I think the most curious thing is that VOA is carrying it, but the REAL VOA (CNN, FOX, MSNBC) aren't (I guess we want the foreigners to think it's a news article here at home):

ABC News
Call for Immediate Truce Fails to Halt Fighting in Gaza
Voice of America - Jan 10, 2009
Friday, the top UN human rights official called for an independent investigation into possible war crimes by both sides in the conflict. Navi Pillay ...
Video: Israel targets Gaza tunnels - 11 Jan 09 AlJazeeraEnglish
UN rights chief wants investigation of Gaza abuses The Associated Press
UN rights head calls for investigation of Gaza violations JURIST
Xinhua - Chicago Tribune
all 19,500 news articles »
UPI NewsTrack TopNews
United Press International - Jan 9, 2009
Navy Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights, urged independent investigationsto determine if there were such violations in the Gaza conflict ...
Civilians put in 'safe' house by Israelis attacked by war plane
Irish Times, Ireland - Jan 9, 2009
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillai called for "credible and independent"investigations into violations of human rights during the conflict. ...
Canada wants 'durable' ceasefire in Gaza
Vancouver Sun,  Canada - Jan 9, 2009
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called Friday for an independent investigation into violations of international humanitarian law, ...
Belgium demands independent probe into Gaza casualties
Zawya, United Arab Emirates - Jan 9, 2009
Earlier Friday, United Nations human rights chief Navi Pillay called for an independent investigation into the violence and warned that some reported ...
Pro-Palestinian marchers in massive London demo
The Herald, UK - Jan 10, 2009
The fresh waves of violence on Friday came as the UN called for an independent war crimes investigation into reports that Israeli soldiers shelled a house ...

PRESS TV
Israeli massacre at UN school exposed
PRESS TV, Iran - Jan 10, 2009
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, pointing to the mass killing of Gazan civilians, has demanded that echelons in Tel Aviv be tried for war ...

Who's Minding the Mint?

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Who's Minding the Mint?

1967 movie poster
Directed byHoward Morris
Produced byNorman Maurer
StarringJim Hutton
Dorothy Provine
Milton Berle
Joey Bishop
Bob Denver
Jamie Farr
Walter Brennan
Music byLalo Schifrin
CinematographyJoseph F. Biroc
Editing byAdrienne Fazan
Distributed byColumbia Pictures (1967) (USA) (theatrical)
GoodTimes Home Video (video/VHS)
Release date(s)September 261967 (US)
Running time97 min.
CountryUSA
LanguageEnglish
IMDb  Allmovie

Who's Minding the Mint? is a comedy movie from 1967. It was produced by Norman Maurer for Columbia Pictures. A comic book version of this movie appeared as a tie-in. It is available on VHS tape, but at this writing, is not out on DVD.

[edit]Synopsis

Harry Lucas (Jim Hutton) works at the U.S. Mint in Washington, D.C. He is loved by Verna Baxter (Dorothy Provine), who tries to woo him by giving him home-cooked (but nearly inedible) fudge. Lucas accidentally brushes $50,000 in currency into the bag with the fudge, and walks out with it. Before he realizes his mistake, he's destroyed the currency, and there will be an audit at work shortly.

In desperation, he assembles a group of people who are willing to help him get into the Mint after hours and print up replacement currency, if he'll print them a million dollars apiece. The time for the operation is moved up unexpectedly, forcing the group to go in wearing a wild variety of clothing, from a ballet costume (on Verna) to a full set of Revolutionary War clothes worn by Milton Berle, he was called out of a lodge meeting.

By Michael Evans and Sheera Frenkel


JERUSALEM - Photographic evidence has emerged that proves that Israel has been using controversial white phosphorus shells during its offensive in Gaza, despite official denials by the Israel Defence Forces.

There is also evidence that the rounds have injured Palestinian civilians, causing severe burns. The use of white phosphorus against civilians is prohibited under international law. The Times has identified stockpiles of white phosphorus (WP) shells from high-resolution images taken of Israel Defence Forces (IDF) artillery units on the Israeli-Gaza border this week. The pale blue 155mm rounds are clearly marked with the designation M825A1, an American-made WP munition.

[The pale blue 155mm rounds are clearly marked with the designation M825A1, an American-made white phosphorus munition]









 
The shell is an improved version with a more limited dispersion of the phosphorus, which ignites on contact with oxygen, and is being used by the Israeli gunners to create a smoke screen on the ground.

The pale blue 155mm rounds are clearly marked with the designation M825A1, an American-made white phosphorus munition.

The rounds, which explode into a shower of burning white streaks, were first identified by The Times at the weekend when they were fired over Gaza at the start of Israel's ground offensive. Artillery experts said that the Israeli troops would be in trouble if they were banned from using WP because it is the simplest way of creating smoke to protect them from enemy fire.

There were indications last night that Palestinian civilians have been injured by the bombs, which burn intensely. Hassan Khalass, a doctor at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, told The Times that he had been dealing with patients who he suspected had been burnt by white phosphorus. Muhammad Azayzeh, 28, an emergency medical technician in the city, said: "The burns are very unusual. They don't look like burns we have normally seen. They are third-level burns that we can't seem to control."

Victims with embedded WP particles in their flesh have to have the affected areas flushed with water. Particles that cannot be removed with tweezers are covered with a saline-soaked dressing.

Nafez Abu Shaban, the head of the burns unit at al-Shifa hospital, said: "I am not familiar with phosphorus but many of the patients wounded in the past weeks have strange burns. They are very deep and not like burns we used to see."

When The Times reported on Monday that the Israeli troops appeared to be firing WP shells to create a thick smoke camouflage for units advancing into Gaza, an IDF spokesman denied the use of phosphorus and said that Israel was using only the weapons that were allowed under international law.

Rows of the pale blue M825A1 WP shells were photographed on January 4 on the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border. Another picture showed the same munitions stacked up behind an Israeli self-propelled howitzer.

Confronted with the latest evidence, an IDF spokeswoman insisted that the M825A1 shell was not a WP type. "This is what we call a quiet shell - it is empty, it has no explosives and no white phosphorus. There is nothing inside it," she said.

"We shoot it to mark the target before we launch a real shell. We launch two or three of the quiet shells which are empty so that the real shells will be accurate. It's not for killing people," she said.

Asked what shell was being used to create the smokescreen effect seen so clearly on television images, she said: "We're using what other armies use and we're not using any weapons that are banned under international law."

Neil Gibson, technical adviser to Jane's Missiles and Rockets, insisted that the M825A1 was a WP round. "The M825A1 is an improved model. The WP does not fill the shell but is impregnated into 116 felt wedges which, once dispersed [by a high-explosive charge], start to burn within four to five seconds. They then burn for five to ten minutes. The smoke screen produced is extremely effective," he said.

The shell is not defined as an incendiary weapon by the Third Protocol to the Convention on Conventional Weapons because its principal use is to produce smoke to protect troops. However, Marc Galasco, of Human Rights Watch, said: "Recognising the significant incidental incendiary effect that white phosphorus creates, there is great concern that Israel is failing to take all feasible steps to avoid civilian loss of life and property by using WP in densely populated urban areas. This concern is amplified given the technique evidenced in media photographs of air-bursting WP projectiles at relatively low levels, seemingly to maximise its incendiary effect."

He added, however, that Human Rights Watch had no evidence that Israel was using incendiaries as weapons.

British and American artillery units have stocks of white phosphorus munitions but they are banned as anti-personnel weapons. "These munitions are not unlawful as their purpose is to provide obscuration and not cause injury by burning," a Ministry of Defence source said.

Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian war surgery specialist working in Gaza, told The Times that he had seen injuries believed to have resulted from Israel's use of a new "dense inert metal explosive" that caused "extreme explosions". He said: "Those inside the perimeter of this weapon's power zone will be torn completely apart. We have seen numerous amputations that we suspect have been caused by this." 

  

But when I see this image, the idea of 'Transjordan' doesn't immediately spring to mind.
File:Pantani.jpg

On the other hand, it does look like some kind of weird mix of a swastika and a cross.

It might look like a KKKlansman waving a friendly 'hello'.

In any case, it's not something I think I'd like to see anyone I know wear.

Is it just me, or does the whole idea of Jews acting like Nazis seem reminiscent of Clayton Bigsby?

Deir Yassin Remembered

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Deir Yassin RememberedEarly in the morning of Friday, April 9, 1948, commandos of the Irgun, headed by Menachem Begin, and the Stern Gang attacked Deir Yassin, a village with about 750 Palestinian residents. It was several weeks before the end of the British Mandate. The village lay outside of the area that the United Nations recommended be included in a future Jewish State. Deir Yassin had a peaceful reputation and was even said by a Jewish newspaper to have driven out some Arab militants. But it was located on high ground in the corridor between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and one plan, kept secret until years afterwards, called for it to be destroyed and the residents evacuated to make way for a small airfield that would supply the beleaguered Jewish residents of Jerusalem.

By noon over 100 people, half of them women and children, had been systematically murdered. Four commandos died at the hands of resisting Palestinians using old Mausers and muskets. Twenty-five male villagers were loaded into trucks, paraded through the Zakhron Yosef quarter in Jerusalem, and then taken to a stone quarry along the road between Givat Shaul and Deir Yassin and shot to death. The remaining residents were driven to Arab East Jerusalem. 

That evening the Irgunists and the Sternists escorted a party of foreign correspondents to a house at Givat Shaul, a nearby Jewish settlement founded in 1906. Over tea and cookies they amplified the details of the operation and justified it, saying Deir Yassin had become a concentration point for Arabs, including Syrians and Iraqis, planning to attack the western suburbs of Jerusalem. They said that 25 members of the Haganah militia had reinforced the attack and claimed that an Arabic-speaking Jew had warned the villagers over a loudspeaker from an armored car. This was duly reported in The New York Times on April 10. 

The conscientious objectors who object to being drafted are sometimes called "Sarvanim" (סרבנים) in Hebrew which is sometimes translated into the word "refuseniks".





Contrary to Israeli war party propaganda in the US, not all Jews and not all Israelis support Israel's Nazi-like conduct in the Occupied Territories. 

This simple fact is probably the single most censored piece of news in the United States. 

Here are some young people heading to prison because they won't join the genocide.

You can support these brave kids here:

Write: http://december18th.org

One of their stories...

Name: Tamar Katz
Age: 19
Location: Tel-Aviv

Why I am one of the Shministim:

"I refuse to enlist in the Israeli military on conscientious grounds. I am not willing to become part of an occupying army, that has been an invader of foreign lands for decades, which perpetuates a racist regime of robbery in these lands, tyrannizes civilians and makes life difficult for millions under a false pretext of security."

First Sentence: 28th Sept. - 10th Oct. 2008 (12 days)
Second Sentence: 12th - 30th Oct. 2008 (18 days) 
Third Sentence: 1st - 22nd Dec. 2008 (21 days) 

Write: http://december18th.org

Please pass this video on to friends and colleagues. 

I'd like to see us generate tens of thousands of letters.

Where Will It Stop?

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I posit that if good people do NOTHING to stop evil, it will continue.  I found a lovely sequence of images (Canadian, of course), and I'll extrapolate (and quote).  You might want to look at the wiki, too.


Faisal-Weizmann_map.png
Here's what the original Zionist conference proposed, give or take a pixel, superimposed over the current map:





MAP1.jpg
Here's the map showing Palestinian land (brown) vs. Jewish land (white) as it was before the first day of 'Israel' (preceded by the last, bloody, frightful night of the 'Single State' solution).


The white areas above are land owned by Jews in Palestine. About 1,845,000 people live in Palestine. 1,237,000 are Arabs, 608,000 are Jews. Most Jews in Palestine are refugees recently arriving from to escape the WW II and the Holocaust. Nearly all Arabs in Palestine were born in Palestine.








MAP2.jpg

Here's how it looked the next day (except that the browner population that lived in the former brown area had moved to the remaining brown area, in large part in fear for their lives)

IN 1947, the UN divided Palestine between recent Jewish refugees/immigrants and resident Arabs. 325,000 Arabs find themselves in a Jewish state. The Arab side has 10,000 Jews and is disorganized. Neither side is happy. The Arabs believe the partition unfairly awards most of Palestine including most of the arable land and water to the Jewish refugees/immigrants. The Zionists want a pure Jewish state consisting of all Palestine regardless of how many Arabs they have to remove/kill. As a result the Zionists started an ethnic cleansing war in late 1947.


MAPS3.jpg
This is after the first war (that the Arabs waged in part on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of homeless Palestinian refugees.

Alas, the Arabs had no rich friends with big guns like the Israelis had.

The better armed and trained Zionists defeated the Arabs by the end of 1948. During the war, about 800,000 Arabs were cleansed from the Israeli side. About 10,000 Jews were cleansed from the Arab side. The UN awards Israel statehood describing it as a peace loving nation on condition that all refugees be allowed to return home or recieve compensation. What remains of Arab Palestine is occupied by Jordan and Egypt. In violation of international law, Israel prevents Arab refugees from returning home, seizes their property (Land, homes, bank accounts, furniture, family portraits...) and awards it to Jews. 





MAPS4.jpg
After the 1967 War, Israel cemented it's hold on Jerusalem, started 'settling' (illegally taking land from their victims) and restricting Palestinian rights.

During the 1967 war, Israel seizes and occupies the West Bank and Gaza from Jordan and Egypt. After the 1967 war, Israel begins annexing land in the "occupied territories" and settling them with Jewish only settlements in violation of international law.



MAPS5.jpg
Since then, 'settlement' and 'security zones' have restricted Palestinian real estate to the brown areas shown, while the large wall (in black) has been wrapped around them like a pen for animals.

Israel has never stopped illegally razing Palestinian homes, seizing Palestinian land and building illegal Jewish only settlements in the West Bank. Israel did pull Israeli settlements from Gaza, but only after the people in Gaza became so hostile and violent toward the Jewish settlers, that defending them became impractical. Israel pulled out of Gaza and put a wall around Gaza, turning it into the world's largest prison. Effectively Gaza's 1.5 million inhabitants live in a concentration camp where Israel controls how much food and medicine they get. Over the last two years, Israel has reduced the amount of food and medicine. Lately Israel has reduced Gaza's food imports to the point where 50,000 Gaza children are malnourished, two-thirds suffer vitamin A deficiency and almost 50% are anemic.


MAPS6.jpg
The future of Palestinian youth seems to be reflecting 'Pink' from The Wall.


On the last map,Palestine no longer exists. It has been wiped off the map. Its now Israel and the Occupied Territories. About 4.6 million Palestinians now live a series of concentration camps and prisons.

About 2 years ago Democratically elected Hamas has lost contol of the West Bank as a result of a US/Israeli backed coup. They were able to hang on to control in Gaza. Since then Israel has been slowly starving 1.5 million Palestinians to death in Gaza.

As evidence of Israeli war crimes mounted and amid signs that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are launching a new and even bloodier phase of the two-week war against the embattled people of Gaza, the Democratic leadership of the US Senate Thursday led the passage of a bipartisan resolution endorsing Israel's actions. The resolution passed by an unanimous voice vote. The resolution begins by "recognizing the right of Israel to defend itself against attacks from Gaza and reaffirming the United States' strong support for Israel in its battle with Hamas." The preamble of the document contains 12 paragraphs vilifying Hamas as a "terrorist" organization and blaming it entirely for the ongoing war in Gaza. It includes one brief mention of the "humanitarian situation in Gaza," but quickly adds that Israel has "facilitated humanitarian aid." It goes on to declare "vigorous support and unwavering commitment to the welfare, security and survival of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state with secure borders" and to recognize Israel's "right to act in self-defense to protect its citizens against acts of terrorism."

Palestinians carry the bodies of three children

Palestinians carry the bodies of three children Ahmed, Mohamed, and Issa Samouni, who according to Palestinian medical sources, were killed by Israel. The Israeli army denied involvement

More than 100 members of one extended Gazan family were allegedly herded by Israeli soldiers into a house that was subsequently shelled, killing up to 30 people and leaving others wounded and living with the corpses for three days.


 


It said that "according to several testimonies, on 4 January Israeli foot soldiers evacuated approximately the people into a single-residence house in Zeitun, half of whom were children, warning them to stay indoors.

But 24-hours later, Israeli forces shelled the home repeatedly, killing between 30 and 60 people.


13 hours ago

JERUSALEM (AFP) -- The United Nations on Friday cited witnesses saying Israeli forces moved about 110 Palestinians into a house, told them to stay inside, and later shelled it repeatedly, killing about 30 people.

The Israeli army said it had no knowledge of such an incident but was investigating.


Israel 'shelled Gaza civilians'

The Red Cross has criticised Israel for allegedly preventing access to the wounded [AFP]

The United Nations has said it has received reports that about 30 Palestinians were killed when Israeli forces shelled a house after they had moved about 110 civilians inside it.

"According to several testimonies, on 4 January Israeli foot soldiers evacuated approximately 110 Palestinians into a single-residence house in Zeitun, warning them to stay indoors," the UN report said on Friday.

"Twenty-four hours later, Israeli forces shelled the home repeatedly, killing approximately 30."

The incident took place on Monday in the Zeitun neighbourhood of Gaza City on Monday, the report said.


 -  - 

Israeli forces bomb Gaza safe house, survivors say

FRIDAY 09 JANUARY 2009

According to eyewitness accounts, Israeli forces bombed a safe house where they had evacuated dozens of Palestinians, killing 30. The Israeli foreign ministry denies the incident took place.

SPECIAL REPORT   GAZA UNDER ATTACK

Flags for Tomorrow

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I realized that not many of you may have flags to use.  Here's some graphics to print out:

palestinea.gif
palestineb.gif

Our New Spook-In-Chief

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Admiral Dennis Cutler BlairUnited States Navy (Ret.) (born 1947), is the John M. Shalikashvili Chair in National Security Studies at The National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR)[1] and the General of the Army Omar N. Bradley Chair of Strategic Leadership at Dickinson College[2] and the U.S. Army War College[3]. He is the immediate past President of the Institute for Defense Analyses, a U.S. Government think tank in the Washington D.C. area focused on national security. On 9 January 2009, Blair was nominated for the post of Director of National Intelligence in the Obama administration.[4][5]

Dennis C. Blair
Born 1947

Admiral Dennis C. Blair
Place of birthKittery, Maine
AllegianceUnited States of America
Service/branchUnited States Navy
Years of service1968-2002
RankAdmiral
Commands heldPacific Command
AwardsDefense Distinguished Service Medal (4)
Other workPresident, Institute for Defense Analyses
Blair reportedly disobeyed orders from civilians in the Clinton Administration during the 1999 East Timorese crisis during his tenure as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Pacific Command. Amid growing international concern over violence against the independence movement in Indonesian-occupied East Timor, Blair was reportedly ordered to meet with General Wiranto, the commander of the Indonesian military, and to tell him to shut down the pro-Indonesia militia. Blair reportedly failed to deliver this message during his meeting with Wiranto, and instead gave Wiranto an offer of military assistance and a personal invitation to be Blair's guest in Hawaii.[6] Months later, after killings of independence supporters had grown, Blair was sent back to Indonesia, and -- this time following civilian orders -- cut off all American ties to the Indonesian military.[7]
Now, granted, this is showing up as fresh footage when it's from 2005, BUT, if you think about it, how different could this look from what we'd see today if the IDF wasn't murdering reporters?


Circumcised Banana Republic

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Now, granted, it's a screed (and the guy sounds like he's associating ALL Jews together, which IS the mistake that people always make--'us and them'), but a lot of the facts are correct, in spite of the interpretation, and it does make you think a great deal about why these companies support this country (cheap land).

I particularly noted that the disputed city in question I posted on already (Najd/Sderot) is listed as a new Nestles chocolate site.  Another good reason to pick Hershey's or M&M/Mars products (I still have some issues with their 'free' milk for babies to get mom's teats to dry up--first one's free, the next one'll cost you ten, yano?). 

BTW, PressTV.com has live streams of real reports (mostly calling for war crimes trials, but I PROTEST!!! as Bush/Cheney were here first, and we still need to prosecute Kissenger for Laos/Cambodia/Thailand before he checks out).  He needs to be 'fast-tracked'.



Sorry, guys, but you have a LONG line to wait in here.  

Anyway, here's the list from the Aztlan.net site:


KIMBERLY-CLARK 
In 1998 Mr. Robert P. Van der Merwe, chairman of Kimberly-Clark Europe received the Jubilee Award by the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. This is the highest tribute ever awarded by the "State of Israel" in recognition of those individuals and organizations, that through their investments and trade relationships, have done the most to strengthen the Israeli economy. 

COCA-COLA 
From 1966 onward Coca-Cola has been a staunch supporter of Israel. Recently the Government of Israel Economic Mission honored Coca-Cola at the Israel Trade Award Dinner for its continued support of Israel for the last 30 years and for refusing to abide by the Arab League boycott of Israel. 

NESTLE 
Swiss food giant Nestle will set up a global research and development center for snack foods next year in Sderot, a town in Israel's Negev desert, the Maariv newspaper reported on Sunday. Nestle owns 50.1 percent of Israeli food maker Osem Investments and the two together produce snack foods at a plant in Sderot. 

INTEL 
Intel is one of the biggest supporters of Israel. Their very first development center outside the US was opened in Haifa in 1974. Since then they have continued pouring investment in to Israel. By year 2000 they employed over 4000 Israelis. Exports from their Lachish-Qiryat Gat plant in israel total $3 million a day at peak capacity - approximately $ 1 billion a year. The Intel plant at "Qiryat Gat" is built on land Israel confiscated from the Palestinian villages of Iraq al Manshiya. Iraq al Manshiya was a village of 2000 people living in 300 houses with two mosques and one school. The original Palestinian inhabitants were terrorized out of the village and then the whole village was razed to the ground to prepare the way for the new Israeli settlement of Qiryat Gat. Today the remaining population from Iraq al Manshiya is still not allowed to return. 

SARA LEE 
In 1998, Mr. Lucien Nessim of Sara Lee Personal Products received the Jubilee Award by the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. This is the highest tribute ever awarded by the "State of Israel" in recognition of those individuals and organizations, that through their investments and trade relationships, have done the most to strengthen the Israeli economy 

DISNEY 
The Disney Company is owned by Jewish Mogul Michael Eisner. He owns a vast media empire that includes the ABC television network, numerous news dailies, national magazines, Hollywood film companies and a large number of radio stations. One radio station in Los Angeles, KABC 790 AM recently broadcast comments by Jewess Gloria Alred to the effect that the Islamic prisoners at Guantanamo should be tortured by having their "balls" extracted with pliers in order to make them talk. The news and commentaries made through Michael Eisner's media octopus are extremely Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian. 

Little List

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Just to make it easier.  Here's the obvious tally of the dead since the problems began with the Second Intifada (well, westerners since then, the local dead news are fresh dead):

Palestinians:
257 children dead (but they were all *bad*, right?)
According to the UN Office for the Coodrination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 257 children have died so far with an increase of 250 percent since the ground operation began. Children constitute 56 percent of the Gazan population. Overall deaths have reached 758 with more than 3,000 injured.

Israelis:
Well, there are ten dead soldiers at this point, but four of them were definitely killed by IDF (friendly fire).  One was killed by a 'Hamas' anti-tank missile, but given that these items tend to come more in 'packs', the fact that one, but ONLY one of these missiles seems to have been in the possession of Hamas makes it look like ANOTHER Israeli subterfuge, just like that staged raid on Entebbe.  I might reconsider this opinion if Hamas uses another twenty-three of them or so.

Western Peacekeepers/Journalists:
Dead
Disfigured
  • Brian Avery - American ISM volunteer shot and severely disfigured in Jenin, April 5, 2003.
I point this out because of what Billy Bragg says below: 

"And the horrible math of the awful equation

That brought Rachel Corrie into this confrontation
Is that the spilt blood of a single American
Is worth more than the blood of a hundred Palestinians"

Brian Avery

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Brian was an Albuquerque resident who went over with the same bunch as Rachel Corrie, funded in part by the Albuquerque Peace & Justice Coalition.  In his own words:

[W]e weren't two blocks from our apartment when an Israeli convoy of two vehicles, a tank and an armored personnel carrier, drove up the street from the direction that we were walking from. And so as we heard them coming closer, we stepped off to the side of the road to let them pass by, which was again, you know, a very, very typical situation for us to encounter the soldiers, even during the curfew, and for them just to pass on by ... And so we stood to the side of the road, we put our hands out to show we didn't have any weapons and weren't, you know, threatening them in any way. And I was wearing a fluorescent vest to, you know, try to make ourselves as visible as possible. And once they drove within about 30 meters of where we were standing, they opened fire with their machine guns and continued shooting for a very long time, probably shooting about, you know, 30 rounds of ammunition, which is quite a lot when you see them in action. And I was struck in the face with one of the bullets and, you know, was knocked to the ground immediately.


Brian's face was quite disfigured by the assault. His tongue was cut nearly into two tongues.

I suppose that would have put him in line to be the next Israeli Press Secretary, since having two tongues appears to be a requirement for that post, but really, all he got was $600K in compensation.

His lawyer pointed out that he was one of the FEW recipients of this 'honor'.

Billy on Rachel

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From the Guardian (of course), a personal article by Billy Bragg, himself. 

Picture of Billy Bragg


Rachel Corrie went to Gaza to draw attention to the plight of the Palestinians, whose voice is seldom heard in her country, the US. That she herself should be silenced - first by an Israeli bulldozer, next by a New York theatre cancelling a play created from her words - is a testimony to the power of her message. This song was written on a plane on March 20 and recorded at Big Sky Recordings, Ann Arbor, Michigan on March 22. The tune is borrowed from Bob Dylan.

An Israeli bulldozer killed poor Rachel Corrie
As she stood in its path in the town of Rafah
She lost her young life in an act of compassion
Trying to protect the poor people of Gaza
Whose homes are destroyed by tank shells and bulldozers
And whose plight is exploited by suicide bombers
Who kill in the name of the people of Gaza
But Rachel Corrie believed in non-violent resistance
Put herself in harm's way as a shield of the people
And paid with her life in a manner most brutal

But you who philosophise disgrace and criticise all fears,
Take the rag away from your face.
Now ain't the time for your tears.

Rachel Corrie had 23 years
She was born in the town of Olympia, Washington
A skinny, messy, list-making chain-smoker
Who volunteered to protect the Palestinian people
Who had become non-persons in the eyes of the media
So that people were suffering and no one was seeing
Or hearing or talking or caring or acting
And the horrible math of the awful equation
That brought Rachel Corrie into this confrontation
Is that the spilt blood of a single American
Is worth more than the blood of a hundred Palestinians

But you who philosophise disgrace and criticise all fears,
Take the rag away from your face.
Now ain't the time for your tears.

The artistic director of a New York theatre
Cancelled a play based on Rachel's writings
But she wasn't a bomber or a killer or fighter
But one who acted in the spirit of the Freedom Riders
Is there no place for a voice in America
That doesn't conform to the Fox News agenda?
Who believes in non-violence instead of brute force
Who is willing to confront the might of an army
Whose passionate beliefs were matched by her bravery
The question she asked rings out round the world
If America is truly the beacon of freedom
Then how can it stand by while they bring down the curtain
And turn Rachel Corrie into a non-person?

Oh, but you who philosophise disgrace and criticise all fears,
Bury the rag deep in your face
For now's the time for your tears.

· My Name Is Rachel Corrie, co-edited by Alan Rickman and Guardian features editor Katharine Viner, opens at the Playhouse theatre tonight. Telephone 0870 060 6631. Listen to an exclusive download (MP3) of the song here.


Alan Rickman as Severus Snape

Rickman as Hans Gruber in Die Hard


Just in case you need to dispose of a body, the Gambino family's main murderer has released his secret method.

Acid.

He says it's the surest and fastest way of eliminating all possible evidence.  

And he's backed up by serial killer John George Haigh (who follows that weird 'three name' rule for serial killers).  He claims that sulphuric works best, but there are folks who claim that hydrofluoric works as well.  People who claim that lye works omit the fact that the bones remain.

If you don't care that the bones remain, you can use beetles (I kid you not).  The bones supposedly end up much prettier than if the flesh were cooked off (no greasy fat spots).

These guys will send you the beetles, and even bronze/silver/nickel plate your bones when you are done.

Now, that's a funeral plan.  How many people plan to spend eternity as a silver plated standing ossuary?


BTW, plating a full size skull is over two hundred.  If you plan on your whole body, it'll likely run a few grand.
http://www.snopes.com/critters/malice/elephant.asp

A man was on holiday in Kenya. While he was walking through the bush, he came across an elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed so the man approached it very carefully. He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's foot. There was a large thorn deeply embedded in the bottom of the foot.

As carefully and as gently as he could he removed the thorn and the elephant gingerly put down its foot. The elephant turned to face the man and, with a rather stern look on its face, stared at him. For a good ten minutes the man stood frozen - thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away.

For years after, the man remembered the elephant and the events of that day.

One day the man was walking through the zoo with his son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to where they were standing at the rail. It stared at him and the man couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant.

After a while it trumpeted loudly; then it continued to stare at him. The man summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder.

Suddenly the elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of the man's legs and swung him wildly back and forth along the railing, killing him.

Probably wasn't the same elephant.

FALSE

The original was about Mkele Mbembe and his son Tapu, but I got it today as Dan Harrison and his son, Dan Jr. (this one, with a picture of the two together before their relationship went bad).

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http://angryindian.blogspot.com/2008/09/help-for-obama-shack-living-brother.html

Help for Obama's Shack-Living Brother - Washington Whispers (usnews.com) 

It was only a matter of time: A website has been created to provide donations to Sen. Barack Obama's half brother, who lives on $12 a year in a shack in Kenya. Called Help Obama's Brother, the site draws attention to George Hussein Onyango Obama, living in a hut in the "tough" town of Huruma on the outskirts of Nairobi. "If Barack Obama won't send his brother a few bucks for rent, we can step up and help a brother out," headlines the site. Of course, the site is a jab at Obama by his critics, but it's surprising that the Republican Party didn't do this as soon as the original story appeared. There were indications that a GOP move was afoot, but no one within the party acted.

Sderot is a lie (like everything else) 

Sderot, the Israeli township on which Hamas rockets have been "raining down", is the main plank of the Israelis' attempt to justify the bloodshed they have inflicted on the people of Gaza. 

They use it ad nauseam to brainwash the media and their own people. They have studiously counted and broadcast the number of erratic, home-made Qassam rockets coming into Israel, without ever admitting to the huge number of missiles, bombs and shells that Israel's high-tech military fires into Gaza with much more deadly effect. 

Those sympathetic to Israel - can there really be any who still wish to be associated with such appalling crimes? - will be mortified to know that Sderot has no business being where it is. It is built on the lands of a Palestinian village called Najd, which was ethnically cleansed by Jewish terrorists in May 1948, before Israel was declared a state and before any Arab armies entered Palestine. The 600+ villagers, were forced to flee for their lives. Britain was on watch as the mandated government, while this and many other atrocities were committed by terrorists.

And the Rockets' Red Glare

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Rocket design and specifications

Remnants of several types of rockets

The aim of the Qassam rocket design appears to be ease and speed of manufacture, using common tools and components. To this end, the rockets are propelled by a solid mixture of sugar and a widely available fertilizerpotassium nitrate. The warhead is filled with smuggled or scavenged TNT and another common fertilizer, urea nitrate.[7]

The rocket consists of a steel cylinder, containing a rectangular block of the propellant. A steel plate which forms and supports the nozzles is spot-welded to the base of the cylinder. The warhead consists of a simple metal shell surrounding the explosives, and is triggered by a fuze constructed using a simple firearm cartridge, a spring and a nail.[7]

Qassam 1Qassam 2Qassam 3
Length79 cm (2 ft 7 in)180 cm (5 ft 11 in)over 200 cm (6 ft 7 in)
Diameter6 cm (2.4 in)15 cm (5.9 in)17 cm (6.7 in)
Weight5.5 kg (12 lb)32 kg (71 lb)90 kg (198 lb)
Explosives Payload0.5 kg (1.1 lb)5-7 kg (11-15 lb)10 kg (22 lb)
Maximum Range3 km (1.9 mi)8-10 km (5.0-6.2 mi)10 km (6.2 mi)

Katyusha

TypeMultiple rocket launcher
Place of origin Soviet Union
Service history
In service1939-
Used bySoviet Union, Russian Federation, and others
WarsWorld War II, 2006 Lebanon War
Production history
VariantsBM-13, BM-8, BM-31, BM-14BM-21BM-24BM-25BM-27BM-30

The media generally refer to all Palestinian high-trajectory rockets as "Qassam rockets" or "Qassam missiles", while they call most rockets fired from Lebanon "Katyushas", as a Katyusha is not a specific model but rather a generic class of rocket.





(REH note) THESE are the things that most people consider "rockets" in my judgment.


Not these:



Hamas militants preparing to launch deceptively festive looking Qassam rockets


Read more?

Eyad Sarraj is a psychiatrist at the Gaza Community Mental Health Program and Nour Kharma is his 14 year-old step-daughter. They live (currently) in Gaza City.

Read more about the psychology of war.

This is apparently some therapy assigned to Nour by Eyad. He said to the BBC:

"She was in such turmoil, in a depressive mood, in really bad shape. She was always in tears," he says. "In the end I asked her to write about it."

Report from GAZA by a 9th-grader via email from (flybynews.com) via Faculty for Peace and Justice-Faculty for Israeli Palestinian Peace-Harvard Today is the eighth day of this horrible war. To me yesterday was the worst day of all. When I woke up in the morning one of my friends called, his voice was very weird and when I asked how was he. He was like "fine, but have you got any news about some of your friends?" I was really scared, and asked him what's wrong? He told me Christine died. I was in a big shock, and till now I don't believe it. I threw the phone and started crying. I called some of my friends to make sure, and all of them were sad about her. She has been my friend for almost four years and we used to go to school and to the YMCA together. I'm sad, afraid, and worried at the same time, because she would've been my sister. I feel very sorry for her and her family. Her parents did the best they can do, but it wasn't enough so the result was dying. What if my parents couldn't protect me and give me the support I need...will I die too? What I can say now is that my future is almost destroyed. An Israeli rocket hit my school this morning, and the school was destroyed completely. I really can't imagine how come they're bombing religious and educational places such as mosques, schools, and universities (etc.) In every explosion we feel our house shaking and about to be destroyed; what about the people that already lost their homes? I'm crying for the loss of one of my friends... what about the people that lost at least five of their relatives? Depression and fear are filling our souls and surrounding our homes.what's next? I actually don't wish for anything as much as I wish that this war will end soon and that the Palestinian people can live like any other people and Palestinian children can enjoy their childhood like any children in the world. HELP US BECAUSE WE'RE ALL HUMAN BEINGS!! Nour Kharma,
9th Grade

CBC did an objective journalistic bit:

Listen to Part One:  

From My Brother

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Be sure to scroll all the way down. Haha
 
 
THE COST OF LOOKING GOOD
 
Earrings   $2
 
Make Up    $60
 
Tattoo $150
 
Boob Job $6000


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Forgetting To Tuck In Your Nuts... Priceless

Analogies

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One keeps hearing these phrases like, "If it were happening here."

Now, let's consider that.

I'll pick Santa Fe, since it's handy for the example.

Taos Pueblo is just up the road, so to speak.  So are a bunch of other 'reservations', so the idea of the Santa Fe residents being exposed to 'rockets' fired from one of the Native lands would be a pretty close approximation.

But the difference here is that Santa Fe was desert when the Spanish first settled it.

The real situation would be something more akin to the concept of the Californians 'settling' Dallas by moving all the Dallas residents to Fort Worth, and taking their houses (perhaps as reparations for that Enron scam that cost us $9B).  The idea that Californians might then have to build a wall to keep indignant Texans from taking pot-shots at the 'thieves'/'setters' would be more in line with the facts.

And though the original deal would involve Dallas (leaving the Park Cities independent), after one or two 'incidents' it would become a much more all encompassing approach, with the Park Cities residents being put into 'camps', and DFW airport secured as a 'frontier'. 

ACLU: Busted!

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I told Barry I'd run it this AM.

This is the story of Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American student at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, she took a semester off to be a peace activist, shielding Palestinians from Jewish aggression in Gaza. She was murdered by an Israeli soldier on 16 March 2003.

Before the killing, the IDF soldier had already menaced the activists by using the Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozer (serial number 949623) to press huge piles of dirt and rubble against them, pushing Rachel back against a fence on one occasion and pushing another activist (Will) into some coils of razor wire.

In doing this, the bulldozer driver was intimidating the activists by demonstrating his disregard of their safety. "Don't get in my way, or I'll hurt you!" is what he was conveying with his actions.

The peace activists refused to be intimidated, so the Israeli bulldozer driver became murderously resolute. He aimed his bulldozer at Rachel Corrie, who was initially sitting in between the bulldozer and a house belonging to Dr. Samir, a Palestinian physician. The IDF soldier wanted to knock down the doctor's home. Rachel Corrie was determined to protect that house. She would either move or she would die, decided the bulldozer driver.

As the bulldozer approached Rachel, she stood up and climbed a pile of dirt that the bulldozer had shoveled up, in order to remain in the driver's direct view. She was the most visible object in the driver's forward direction, since not only was she in plain sight, she was also wearing a high-contrast fluorescent orange jacket.

Rachel got so high onto the mound of dirt that she was at eye-level with the cab of the bulldozer. Her head and upper torso were above the bulldozer's blade, and the bulldozer driver and co-operator could clearly see her. Despite this, he continued forward, which pulled her legs into the pile of rubble, and pulled her down out of view of the driver. If he'd stopped at this point, he may have only broken her legs, but he continued forward, which pulled her underneath the bulldozer.

We ran towards him, and waved our arms and shouted, one activist with the megaphone. But the bulldozer driver continued forward, until Rachel was underneath the central section of the bulldozer. At this point, it was more than clear that she was nowhere but underneath the bulldozer, there was simply nowhere else she could have been, as she had not appeared on either side of the bulldozer, and could not have stayed in front of it that long without being crushed. Despite the obviousness of her position, the bulldozer began to reverse, without lifting its blade, and drug the blade over her body again. He continued to reverse until he was on the boarder strip, about 100 meters away, and left her crushed body in the sand.

http://www.rachelcorrie.org/

59 and Counting

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Assuming that Al Franken is really seated (likely) and the appointee from Illinois is a Dem (likely), that will be 59 votes (almost filibuster-proof).

So, what would have to happen would be a GOP senator changing stripes (unlikely) or one of them leaving office in a state with a Dem governor.

So, here's the GOP senators in Dem governor states (anyone starting with a '3' is up for reelection next go-round, BTW):

3ArizonaMcCain, John[16]RepublicanBaptist[17]military, U.S. House (AZ-1)U.S. Naval Academy[16]19871936
1ArizonaKyl, Jon[16]RepublicanPresbyterianattorney, U.S. House (AZ-4)Arizona (BA, JD)19951942
3IowaGrassley, ChuckRepublicanBaptistIowa House of Representatives, U.S. House (IA-3)Northern Iowa (BA, MA)19811933
3KansasBrownback, SamRepublicanRoman CatholicU.S. House (KS-2)Kansas StateKansas19961956
2KansasRoberts, PatRepublicanMethodistU.S. House (KS-1)Kansas State19971936
2KentuckyMcConnell, MitchRepublicanBaptistJefferson County ExecutiveLouisvilleKentucky19851942
3KentuckyBunning, JimRepublicanRoman CatholicFort Thomas City Council, Kentucky State Senate, U.S. House (KY-4)Xavier19991931
1MaineSnowe, OlympiaRepublicanEastern OrthodoxMaine House of Representatives;Maine Senate; U.S. House (ME-2)Maine19951947
2MaineCollins, SusanRepublicanRoman CatholicDeputy State TreasurerSt. Lawrence19971952
3New HampshireGregg, JuddRepublicanCongregationalistGovernor, U.S. House (NH-2)ColumbiaBoston University19931947
3North CarolinaBurr, RichardRepublicanMethodistU.S. House (NC-5)Wake Forest20051955
3OhioVoinovich, GeorgeRepublicanRoman CatholicMayor of Cleveland; GovernorOhioOhio State19991936
2OklahomaInhofe, JimRepublicanPresbyterianOklahoma House of Rep; Oklahoma Senate; Mayor of Tulsa; U.S. House (OK-1)Tulsa19951934
3OklahomaCoburn, TomRepublicanBaptistPhysician, U.S. House (OK-2)Oklahoma StateOklahoma20051948
3PennsylvaniaSpecter, ArlenRepublicanJewishPhiladelphia District AttorneyPennsylvaniaYale19811930
2TennesseeAlexander, LamarRepublicanPresbyterianGovernor; U.S. Secretary of EducationVanderbiltNew York University20031940
1TennesseeCorker, BobRepublicanPresbyterianMayor of ChattanoogaTennessee20071952
2WyomingEnzi, MikeRepublicanPresbyterianMayor of Gillette; Wyoming House of Representatives; State SenateGeorge WashingtonDenver19971944
1WyomingBarrasso, John[A]RepublicanPresbyterianState SenateGeorgetown (BS, MD)20071952

Love in Babylon

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I joined a number of dating services (most well before I'd even considered divorce, actually, for a client, trying to determine which one was sending him so much SPAM).

Today, eHarmony sent me some advice about how to 'end' a conversation.  It's much longer in the original, but here's the Cliff's Notes version:

1) don't lie
2) don't be rude
3) don't lie like a rug, make up a simpler lie instead
4) don't go along with a conversation looking for an escape
5) don't be mean

The underlying reasoning behind these behaviors?

Even if the conversation has lost its spark, you never know if this meeting may be beneficial in the future.
 
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has ordered the Israeli ambassador to leave the country in a show of solidarity with the besieged Gazans. 

The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the government "has decided to expel the Israeli ambassador and part of the personnel of the Israeli embassy" to protest Israel's hostilities against the Palestinians in Gaza, AP reported. 

Chavez had earlier condemned the attacks on Gaza and called on Venezuelan Jews to take a stand against the 'murderers' in Tel Aviv. 

"Now I hope that the Venezuelan Jewish community speaks out against this barbarism. Do it. Don't you strongly reject all acts of persecution?" he stated. 

In a televised speech on Tuesday, Chavez said "How far will this barbarism go?" 

"The president of Israel should be taken before an international court together with the president of the United States, if the world had any conscience," he added. 

Chavez also urged the people of Israel to 'stand up' against Tel Aviv's 'new holocaust'. 

He derided the Israeli military, saying, "They are cowards... bombing innocent people. What great soldiers they are, how brave the soldiers of Israel are.'' 

Mauritania, Jordan, and Egypt have also summoned their ambassadors to Israel to express discontent with the ongoing Israeli strike on Gaza. 

Medics say at least 660 Palestinians, including 215 children and 98 women, have been killed so far in the Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip. 

Merry Christmas

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As I understand it, Joshua MacJoseph (Yeshua bar Yosuf: Jesus, the Son of Joseph), if he were here, would be 2001 today.

You see, the Ethiopian branch of the Xian church was founded almost immediately, and since they were Jewish, they used the same calendar system, so any dates would be common.

You can see it all at the ZZCO web site (the whole history, as far as we've gone to report it).


Nearly Plagiarized

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Lucky Today from the Cloud Cult (eSurance Commercial tune):


Midnight Rider, by the Allman Brothers:


Well, I've got to run to keep from hiding,
And I'm bound to keep on riding.
And I've got one more silver dollar,
But I'm not gonna let them catch me, no,
Not gonna let 'em catch the midnight rider.

And I don't own the clothes I'm wearing,
And the road goes on forever,
And I've got one more silver dollar,
But I'm not gonna let them catch me, no
Not gonna let 'em catch the midnight rider.

And I've gone by the point of caring,
Some old bed I'll soon be sharing,
And I've got one more silver dollar,

But I'm not gonna let 'em catch me, no
Not gonna let them catch the midnight rider.

Curious Anniversary

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This week marks the 74th anniversary of the conclusion of hearings regarding the attempted military takeover of the United States by a fascist cabal of Wall Street Businessmen.

What?  You never heard of that in school?  Smedley Butler?

Well, Congress never actually did anything about the coup, and the report issued by the committee was heavily redacted so that barely a shell of the report was provided.

What little was produced was downplayed by the media (from the wiki):

Reaction to Butler's testimony by the media and business elite was dismissive or hostile. The majority of media outlets, including The New York Times,Philadelphia Post,[33] and Time Magazine ridiculed or downplayed his claims, saying they lacked evidence. After the committee concluded, The New York Times and Time Magazine downplayed the conclusions of the committee.[34]



A man named Spivak wrote an article detailing the actual stenographer's notes.

This article was downplayed as a screed and a personal vendetta, but if you look at WHAT the screed was about, it's just *fascinating*.

How often do you come across a reliable source that claims there exists a 'class' of people outside of definition (not taught in school) that treats the rest of the population as a resource to be manipulated and plied against itself for profit.  When you find that the members of this 'class' include both the 'Jewish Bankers' and the 'Nazi Fascists' and they are *JOINTLY* funding associations that antagonize one another (as if they were writing a play), it's past fascinating.

It's fascistnating. 

Now the main 'association' deserves a visit, since it's a curious tie-in with modern days:

The American Liberty League was a U.S. organization formed in 1934 by conservative Democrats such as Al Smith (the 1928 Democratic presidential nominee), Jouett Shouse (former high party official and U.S. Representative), John W. Davis (the 1924 Democratic presidential nominee), and John Jacob Raskob (former Democratic National Chairman and the foremost opponent of prohibition), Dean Acheson (future Secretary of State under Harry Truman), along with many industrialists, notably Prescott Bush and members of the Du Pont family.

The du Ponts were going to give free credit to the Remingtons so that their little army could get guns.  I dunno why the Remingtons needed credit.  They had plenty to splurge on the big house in Santa Clara.

So, I came across the most curious correlation for a historical association between fascists and Jewish bankers in looking into Prescott Bush's history (his dad, Samuel Bush):

In the spring of 1918, banker Bernard Baruch was asked to reorganize the War Industries Board as the U.S. prepared to enter World War I, and placed several prominent businessmen to key posts. Bush became chief of the Ordnance, Small Arms, and Ammunition Section, with national responsibility for government assistance to and relations with munitions companies.

Bush served on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland (as well as of the Huntington National Bank of Columbus).[2]. In 1931, he was appointed toHerbert Hoover's President's Committee for Unemployment Relief, chaired by Walter S. Gifford, then-President of AT&T.[4] He was once recommended to serve on the board of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, but Hoover did not feel he was sufficiently nationally known.[2]


It is fascinating.  But, back on point:

So, the general who testified (and was ignored), Butler, ultimately wrote a book called "War Is a Racket".   In it, he describes (in detail) how wars are promulgated for profit.  

The link above is for the wiki.  You can buy the book at Amazon, or you can just read it online.  Here's the meat of it:

CHAPTER FOUR: How To Smash This Racket! 

Well, it's a racket, all right. A few profit - and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You can't end it by disarmament conferences. You can't eliminate it by peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical groups can't wipe it out by resolutions. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war.

The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labor before the nations manhood can be conscripted. One month before the Government can conscript the young men of the nation - it must conscript capital and industry and labor. Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our munitions makers and our shipbuilders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all the other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted - to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get.

Let the workers in these plants get the same wages - all the workers, all presidents, all executives, all directors, all managers, all bankers - yes, and all generals and all admirals and all officers and all politicians and all government office holders - everyone in the nation be restricted to a total monthly income not to exceed that paid to the soldier in the trenches!

Let all these kings and tycoons and masters of business and all those workers in industry and all our senators and governors and majors pay half of their monthly $30 wage to their families and pay war risk insurance and buy Liberty Bonds. Why shouldn't they? They aren't running any risk of being killed or of having their bodies mangled or their minds shattered. They aren't sleeping in muddy trenches. They aren't hungry. The soldiers are! Give capital and industry and labor thirty days to think it over and you will find, by that time, there will be no war. That will smash the war racket - that and nothing else.

Maybe I am a little too optimistic. Capital still has some say. So capital won't permit the taking of the profit out of war until the people - those who do the suffering and still pay the price - make up their minds that those they elect to office shall do their bidding, and not that of the profiteers.

Another step necessary in this fight to smash the war racket is the limited plebiscite to determine whether a war should be declared. A plebiscite not of all the voters but merely of those who would be called upon to do the fighting and dying. There wouldn't be very much sense in having a 76-year-old president of a munitions factory or the flat-footed head of an international banking firm or the cross-eyed manager of a uniform manufacturing plant - all of whom see visions of tremendous profits in the event of war - voting on whether the nation should go to war or not. They never would be called upon to shoulder arms - to sleep in a trench and to be shot. Only those who would be called upon to risk their lives for their country should have the privilege of voting to determine whether the nation should go to war.

It would be a simple matter each year for the men coming of military age to register in their communities as they did in the draft during the World War and be examined physically. Those who could pass and who would therefore be called upon to bear arms in the event of war would be eligible to vote in a limited plebiscite. They should be the ones to have the power to decide - and not a Congress few of whose members are within the age limit and fewer still of whom are in physical condition to bear arms. Only those who must suffer should have the right to vote.

A third step in this business of smashing the war racket is to make certain that our military forces are truly forces for defense only.

At each session of Congress the question of further naval appropriations comes up. The swivel-chair admirals of Washington (and there are always a lot of them) are very adroit lobbyists. And they are smart. They don't shout that "We need a lot of battleships to war on this nation or that nation." Oh no. First of all, they let it be known that America is menaced by a great naval power. Almost any day, these admirals will tell you, the great fleet of this supposed enemy will strike suddenly and annihilate 125,000,000 people. Just like that. Then they begin to cry for a larger navy. For what? To fight the enemy? Oh my, no. Oh, no. For defense purposes only.

Then, incidentally, they announce maneuvers in the Pacific. For defense. Uh, huh. The Pacific is a great big ocean. We have a tremendous coastline on the Pacific. Will the maneuvers be off the coast, two or three hundred miles? Oh, no. The maneuvers will be two thousand, yes, perhaps even thirty-five hundred miles, off the coast. The Japanese, a proud people, of course will be pleased beyond expression to see the United States fleet so close to Nippon's shores. Even as pleased as would be the residents of California were they to dimly discern through the morning mist, the Japanese fleet playing at war games off Los Angeles.

The ships of our navy, it can be seen, should be specifically limited, by law, to within 200 miles of our coastline. Had that been the law in 1898 the Maine would never have gone to Havana Harbor. She never would have been blown up. There would have been no war with Spain with its attendant loss of life. Two hundred miles is ample, in the opinion of experts, for defense purposes. Our nation cannot start an offensive war if its ships can't go further than 200 miles from the coastline. Planes might be permitted to go as far as 500 miles from the coast for purposes of reconnaissance. And the army should never leave the territorial limits of our nation.

To summarize: Three steps must be taken to smash the war racket: 1.) We must take the profit out of war; 2.) We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war; 3.) We must limit our military forces to home defense purposes. 



It's a neat book, but his *SOLUTION* is the part that's really remarkable.  I like it:

There's a 'Society' too.

The Queer Thirties?

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Husband Store

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Via Paul K:

A store that sells new husbands has opened in New York City , where a woman may go to choose a husband. Among the instructions at the entrance is a description of how the store operates: 

You may visit this store ONLY ONCE! There are six floors and the value of the products increase as the shopper ascends the flights. The shopper may choose any item from a particular floor, or may choose to go up to the next floor, but you cannot go back down except to exit the building! 

So, a woman goes to the Husband Store to find a husband. On the first floor the sign on the door reads: 

Floor 1 - These men Have Jobs 

She is intrigued, but continues to the second floor, where the sign reads: 

Floor 2 - These men Have Jobs and Love Kids. 

'That's nice,' she thinks, 'but I want more.' 

So she continues upward. The third floor sign reads: 

Floor 3 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, and are Extremely Good Looking. 

'Wow,' she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going. 

She goes to the fourth floor and the sign reads: 

Floor 4 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Good Looking and Help With Housework. 

'Oh, mercy me!' she exclaims, 'I can hardly stand it!' 

Still, she goes to the fifth floor and the sign reads: 

Floor 5 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Gorgeous, Help with Housework, and Have a Strong Romantic Streak. 

She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth floor, where the sign reads: 

Floor 6 - You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please. Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store. 

PLEASE NOTE: 

To avoid gender bias charges, the store's owner opened a New Wives store just across the street. 

The first floor has wives that love sex. 

The second floor has wives that love sex and have money and like beer. 

The third, fourth, fifth and sixth floors have never been visited.

More Non-Scientific Hysteria

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There is a natural sweetener out on the market, called 'HFCS' (High-Fructose Corn Syrup) which has been receiving a great deal of attention from the NON-mainstream market.  There's a lot of fear being spread around.

Personally, I don't like HFCS.  I think it tastes sticky.  This is actually a 'feature' of the sweetener, per the manufacturers.  It makes the products more moist and pliable (in their minds).

I still buy the Mexican Coca-Cola whenever I really want a Coke.  It's got sucrose in it instead of HFCS.  But this is a personal preference, not some kind of fear-induced behavior.

Let me explain why:

Sucrose is a molecule consisting of TWO basic sugar molecules: dextrose (glucose) and fructose.

Your body starts breaking that down into the 50/50 mix of these two constituent molecules almost immediately.

The glucose (blood sugar) is immediately available to the cells, and remains in circulation.

The fructose needs to be either broken down by the liver in the blood or by the flora and fauna in the colon.  In any event, the breakdown product is ultimately glucose (the ONLY sugar directly usable by the body).

Now, the fact that HFCS is normally a 45/55 mix means there's SLIGHTLY more fructose than a normal dose of sugar would break down to.

If you read the fear-mongers, this is TERRIBLE!!!  The liver has to work more than normal, and that (per their reading) causes a 'fatty liver' and increases your chances of cirrhosis. 

So, if getting that extra little bit of fructose frightens you, you'd best steer clear of these DANGEROUS foods (numbers from the USDA):

Apples

Sugars, total
g
18.91
Sucrose
g
3.77
Glucose (dextrose)
g
4.42
Fructose
g
10.74

Pears 
Sugars, total
g
17.44
Sucrose
g
1.39
Glucose (dextrose)
g
4.91
Fructose
g
11.09

Stick to Oranges and stuff, they are at least *near* HFCS in fructose percentage:

Sugars, total
g
11.90
Sucrose
g
5.99
Glucose (dextrose)
g
2.76
Fructose
g
3.15

One has to wonder about those 'old wives' and their tales.  Obviously, they don't keep up with current standards of worry about one's health, since their advice is not only to eat apples, but to DO IT EVERY DAY.

Thank god we have concerned bloggers like JoLynn Braley to keep us abreast of what we should be scared of.  I rarely run across such succinct statements, like:

HFCS inhibits the production of ghrelin (the hormone of hunger) and increases the production of leptin (the hormone of satisfaction).

You see, most people would think that decreasing a hunger hormone would make you less hungry, and increasing the satisfaction one would make you more satisfied, but that's MOST people (not the keen intellect of Ms. Braley).

Here's what she notes from that seemingly positive text:

HFCS contributes to weight gain since it stops our brain from getting the signal that we are full.

I kid you not.  See the full article, or perhaps the one about being on a diet, or maybe the one about what is HFCS, and why is it so bad for you?

Honestly, if it weren't for concerned bloggers like her, we might ALL be eating apples, or pears, or (shades of horrors!) drinking CIDER!

If you'd like to find out more about HFCS, you can check out this site.

If you'd like to find out more about the 'dangers' of HFCS, just check your local morons.  I'm sure you'll find some that don't have enough blood-sugar to think effectively milling about near the natural-foods stores.

These guys have absolutely gotten it.  It's amazing.  The inventor simply imagined a horizontally opposed engine's actual movement and built a funny shaped gear set to take advantage of it.

The net result is an engine that has two cylinders bound together by essentially a solid connection (no moving parts in the middle except the driveshaft).  It's like two pistons and a rounded lozenge shape gear.  There is no longer a 'crank' shaft as there are no longer any cranks.

Very much like the innovation some years back allowing for easy four-wheel steering, actually.

http://www.powerengine.com/


Technology Breakthrough

"3 times the mileage"

24 U.S. Patents Granted - New Patents Pending (08)

Tests Indicate a Three-fold Increase



by Evan Blass, posted Apr 28th 2006 at 5:54PM

Besides learning to use the toilet properly, the ability to ride a bicycle is one of the most important early-childhood accomplishments, but unfortunately, the current use of training wheels for practice does little to prepare kids for life on two wheels. Well a start-up using technology developed at Dartmouth College is aiming to eliminate the rolling crutches that are training wheels, and replace them with a gyroscopic flywheel that attaches to the front wheel and helps a bike steady itself whenever the rider loses his/her balance. Expected to retail for around $40 when it hits the market, the GyroBike by the company of the same name works by spinning in conjunction with the wheel it's attached to, using natural physical properties to turn the handlebars towards the direction of an impending fall. GyroBike also claims to be in talks with the top six manufacturers of kids' bikes, so you may soon be able to buy a model with this technology built-in instead of retrofitting one you already own.

Still Waiting on Ecotopia

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In Ecotopia: The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston, one of the plot points is the development of a fairly low-tech way to take out an attack helicopter.

In short, it's a can of guywire.  

You shoot it up under compressed air, and the guywire uncoils in transit.

When it gets to the helicopter, it gets all tangled in the propeller.

The helicopter needs the propeller to go round and round to keep it up.

Ergo, it falls.

I'd sure like to see the Palestinians try that out on the Israelis.

I bet those 'ants' would like to feast on a grasshopper.
It's on broadcast TV (well, Wing Commander is).

It's not bad TV, as TV goes.

It's kind of fun to watch part of your own history on TV, too.

Here's something you can only get from me, or maybe about twenty or so other people on earth:


It was a 'gimme' CD for employees.  WC II was the 'premier' product, but it has Ultima, Savage Empire, Bad Blood, and Martian Dreams music on it, too.

BTW, this is 26 minutes of music (30 megs).  Not for the feint of bandwidth.
by Cynthia McKinney / January 2nd, 2009 http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2009/01/we-lived-to-tell-the-story-lebanon-rescued-us/ Yesterday, we met with the President of Lebanon, the Chief of the Military, and the Interior Minister who all thanked us for responding and risking our lives on a mission of mercy; we profusely thanked them for rescuing us. What would we have done, stranded out at sea, prohibited from reaching our destination, low on fuel, with a badly damaged boat if Lebanon had not accepted us? Lebanon sent their ships to find us. Lebanon rescued us. Lebanon welcomed us. And we are truly thankful. It's official now. We've been told that the sturdy, wood construction of our boat, Dignity, is the reason we are still alive. Fiberglass would probably not have withstood the impact of the Israeli attack and under different circumstances, we might not be here to tell the story. Even at that, the report that came to us yesterday after the Captain and First Mate went back to Sour (Tyre) to inspect the boat was that it was sinking, the damage is extensive, and the boat will take, in their estimation, at least one month to repair. Tomorrow, we will bring the Dignity from Sour to Beirut. And now, we must decide what to do and from where we will do it and how we are to get back to wherever that might be. My personal, and I know the group's, thanks must go to Al Jazeera, that allowed three of their reporters to be onboard with us on our voyage. As a result, Al Jazeera carried the story of the Dignity live, from castoff in Cyprus when our spirits were high, right up through the menacing maneuvers of the huge, super fast Israeli ships before they rammed us, the Israeli calls on the ship phone after the ramming calling us terrorists and subversives and telling us to return to Cyprus (even though the Israelis later claimed that they didn't know who we were, they knew enough about us to tell us where we had come from), and the fact that we didn't have enough fuel to follow their instructions, right up to their threat to fire at us if we didn't turn around, ending with our beaten-up boat limping into Sour harbor in Lebanon. Al Jazeera carried our story as "breaking news" and performed a real service to its audience and to us. Al Jazeera called the Israelis to inquire about the incident right as it was happening and I am sure the Israelis were prepared to leave none to tell the story. Al Jazeera told the story and documented it as it was happening. One of those Al Jazeera reporters with us was Sami El-Haj, who was detained in Guantanamo by the United States for six incredibly long years. What an honor to even exchange glances with such a humble man who had endured so much pain at the hands of the U.S. government. I apologized to him that my tax dollars were being used in such a despicable way. And Sami's crime according to the U.S.? Born in Sudan, and reporting for Al Jazeera in Afghanistan, Sami was the wrong color, the wrong nationality, the wrong religion, reporting for the wrong news outfit, telling us the truth about a wrong war. And for that he survived incarceration for six long years. Sami El-Haj, Guantanamo prisoner number 345.
Another incredibly committed journalist who was with us was CNN's Karl Penhaul. Karl reported the truth even when his own station was repeating Israeli disinformation. The fact that we were traveling with these alert journalists added to the flat-footedness and obvious crudeness of the Israeli response. Sadly, Israel has changed its story too many times to count, and that's because they are not telling the truth. We lived to tell the story. Karl's incredible reporting, just a portion of our story, can be seen on CNN where there's also video and a photo of our damaged boat. A little more of the story and film of the extensive damage can be seen.
This video and the photos of Karl's report is particularly interesting given that Israel claims that our boat was only scratched and that, in actuality, our captain, while trying to outmaneuver them, damaged their warship.
I'm told that CNN only played my full statement once-and that's the time that it aired live. Of course, they cut the reference to the U.S.S. Liberty. What are they afraid of? Last night I was on PressTV.com, along with others who were on the Dignity, and we debated a representative from WINEP, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. I reminded the audience that the Palestinians don't have nuclear weapons, depleted uranium munitions, white phosphorous, or F-16s, but the Israelis do. The facts, however, tend to get garbled after being processed by the "Grand Wurlitzer" organ of state-sponsored disinformation utilizing the world's press.
With the truth clearly on our side, Israel has been reduced to releasing the ridiculous bombast below, given to me by a reporter who came to our hotel in Beirut for a visit. With their multiple, conflicting stories, it is clear that the Israelis did not expect us to live to tell the truth. On the drive from Sour through Saida to Beirut, we were welcomed like heroes because our ordeal had been seen by everyone on Al Jazeera. The mayor of Sour came to welcome us. The mayor of Saida insisted that we stop there, on our way to Beirut, for a special ceremony. But there was something else that was visible along our drive, and that is the devastation that Lebanon, itself, has received as a result of the Israeli war machine. The scars of the war are still evident everywhere. I will write more on that tomorrow. And one final note, President-elect Obama roared like a mighty lion onto the political scene, but now he is as silent as a lamb in the face of the death and destruction that is happening in Gaza. As we approach the birthday celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. let us remember what Dr. King said: "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." And after five days of aerial bombardment by Israel, the carnage in Gaza continues. Here is the palaver that the Israelis put out for public consumption. It is pitiful that a powerful and mighty country like Israel would be reduced to publishing something so petty and weak as the following press release dated December 30, 2008: seal Consulate General of Israel to the Southeast Press Release Office of Media Affairs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 12.30.2008 Israel continues to take its humanitarian relief efforts in Gaza seriously. Border crossings into Gaza remain open, and every effort is being made to deliver aid to the Palestinian people. Nearly 100 trucks carrying relief supplies entered Gaza on the 28th & 29th of December and additional shipments are arriving. Israel is working closely with UNSCO, UNRWA, the Red Cross, and WHO to ensure the entry of the required aid, especially food and medical equipment. Unfortunately, former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has taken it upon herself to commit an act of provocation, leading a small boat of supposed assistants into the conflict zone. She endangered herself, her assistants, and the vessel's crew. The Israeli navy hailed Ms. McKinney but the former Congresswoman failed to respond, thereby leading to the incident. We regret that during this time of crisis, while Israel is battling with the terrorist organization of Hamas and defending its citizens, that we are forced to deal with Ms. McKinney's irresponsible behavior. Consulate General of Israel to the Southeast 1100 Spring St NW, Ste 440 Atlanta, GA 30309-2823 Michael Printy Arthur Director of Media Affairs 404.487.6511 media@atlanta.mfa.gov.il

Alignments

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No, not stellar, character.

In a classical gaming system, one can have one of two alignments on one plane: 

Good, or evil.

One can have an alignment on a plane describing the way that one effects such ends, and that can be 'ordered' or 'chaotic' (that being the distinction between whether a character can do 'evil' to effect 'good' or vice-versa).

In a mutated gaming system, one can have 'neutral' characters, in both alignment and order, so that the net (normal) result for a game setup includes characters of neutral good, neutral neutral, neutral evil, etc.

It's only complex in a couple of dimensions.

My Brother Sent Me Jokes

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Now, I might get around to posting them, but really, I want to make a point.

I use a Mac because I'm CHEAP, not because I have a lot of cash.  I am a PROFESSIONAL coper with the standard PC BS, and I know (KNOW) how much a 'simple' problem can cost in terms of lost time and data.

My first, and best advice has been to buy a Mac, since about year after I bought one (to tell the truth, I was damn near sold on telling you to do it within a week, but I always try to wait for the other shoe to drop).

So, that's my 'best' advice.  My 'second' best advice (and one that at least for this go-round, I'll be stupid enough to offer the same support for) is to go to SuSE and get the free Linux for your platform (chances are it will be the 32-bit version).

It ROCKS.  Absolutely.  It was amazingly easy to install (I even did the network version, which was the hardest, supposedly).

Now, given the potential 'cost' (time) and the potential benefit (a Mac secure OS, if it's a bit unfriendlier--almost as bad as Windoze itself), I think that's a no-brainer.

Be sure that the machine you are on is in a network that supplies DHCP (if you have an external router, it's a likely setup) and download the network version (50-150mb, depending on platform).  Burn the ISO into a disk, and boot the disk.  It takes over from there (asks you questions and such).

If you aren't sure about the DHCP, get the full version instead.

If you have an old Mac, there's even a G4 version!  I'm still pondering doing that one, though, so I can't give you solid results on it yet.

Oh, my brother's jokes:

Category: Microsoft Jokes

xplanation of Microsoft computer messages

It says: "Press Any Key"
It means: "Press any key you like but I'm not moving."

It says: "Press A Key"
(This one's a programmers joke. Nothing happens unless you press the "A" key.)

It says: "Fatal Error. Please contact technical support quoting error
no. 1A4-2546512430E" It means: "... where you will be kept on hold for 10 minutes, only to be told that it's a hardware problem."

It says: "Installing program to C:\...."
It means: "... And I'll also be writing a few files into c:\windows and c:\windows\system where you'll NEVER find them."

It says: "Please insert disk 11"
It means: "Because I know darn well there are only 10 disks."

It says: "Not enough memory"
It means: "I don't CARE if you've got 64MB of RAM, I want to use the bit below 640K."

It says: "Cannot read from drive D:...."
It means: "... However, if you put the CD in correct side up..."

It says: "Please Wait...."
It means: "... Indefinitely."

It says: "Directory does not exist...."
It means: ".... any more. Whoops."

It says: "The application caused an error. Choose Ignore or Close." 
It means: ".... Makes no difference to me, you're still not getting your work back."

Ragging on shit

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I might do that, but I only really remark on the things that have fascinated me.  It's not like I just remark on religion because I hate it, yano?  I've loved God my whole life.  I'm pretty sure that He talks to me (and no, I don't think I'm the least bit insane).

I would NEVER want anyone to even think for a moment that I don't hold Judaism in the highest regard.  Muslims would do good to pay attention to the way that Jews inculcate their children.  It's a superior system (and transferred intact to the Romans, if you note, which often provide schooling to Jewish children).

The Rastafarians improved on this just a whit (adding linguistic programming) but they haven't adopted the 'book' in the same way (leastways, the fundies didn't--Zen rastas, OTOH...).

But really, what we need to look at is the Hopi (at least, today).  

In looking into the Mayan BS marketing hype that has enveloped our culture (see the post on morons who can't count, below), I have to go back to a REAL prophecy (one I've been talking with Mark Watts about recently, in fact, who should have some interesting tidbits to add shortly).

The Hopi had a 'prophecy rock'.  It has pictures on it.  It talks about how the 'white brother' will come and fuck shit up and it tells the Hopi elders SPECIFICALLY when to inform the 'white brother' that he was about to fuck up.

Now, I'd taken this stuff as apocryphal, since I know that a lot of this text that floats around is embellished.

However, I didn't take into account Mark Watts.

Mark was there.   He knows these people.  This is a TRUE STORY.

When the Hopi elders were given the rock, they were supposed to keep it secret until the 'Eagle flew to the moon and brought back a rock."

When Apollo 11 came back (remember, "The Eagle has Landed!"?), the Hopi elders knew it was time to let White Brother in on the story.

You see, Hopi and White brother will follow a parallel path, but White Brother's path will be 'amplified' (much higher level than Hopi brother's path).

Hopi are to tell White Brother that the amplified path is going to become unstable and collapse, and all the Whites will go with it.

Now, Mark is looking into ANOTHER rock, about the 'twins'.

However, he doesn't know that I've found indications that new scientific data shows that we are likely part of a binary star system.

The other star has been on the outward path for the last few thousand years or so.  

It looks to have gotten to aphelion, and has turned back inward (as has Sol).

So, we are now possibly rushing back to meet our Sun's 'twin'.

And, yano?  The color of an approaching body, as it gets to be approaching faster and faster?

Blue.

Innumeracy

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Rather than meaning 'without number', I'm looking for the equivalent to illiteracy.

People can't really count very well. 

If they could, there wouldn't be any hype around 2012.

This is why:

The only real 'date' in question is the end of the Mayan 'Long Count', but it's CLEAR upon even mild examination that this date has nothing in common with a GREAT many other, seemingly unrelated, dates/schemes.

I posit this is because they aren't seemingly, but ACTUALLY unrelated, and it takes a moron to put them together, since they have to put it together wrong in order to put it together at all, and even the mildest intelligence could see that it's wrong on even distant inspection. 

The Ha'ab (365) and Tzolkin (260) day calendars don't count long time.  Neither of them is suitable for counting the days in a year reliably and predictably, and neither of them is the basis for any useful calendar at this point.

The calendar in question cycles (in one view) every 5,122 years.  It was last cycled in 3,114 BC per that one account.

Obviously, the 'world' didn't come to an end then, right?  It's a natural extrapolation that it won't do it this time, either.  All it is is the next day on a BIG calendar.  In order to make it the '0.0.0.0.0' date, they have to ignore that the real format for the numbers on that date is 'n.n.n.n.0.0.0.0.0' (where 'n' is an unknown number and signifies piktunkalabtunk'inchiltun, and alautun).  The numbers we know are the lower-order ones, k'in, winal, tun, k'atun, and b'ak'tun. 

So the fact that we are rolling over at the thirteenth b'ak'tun means that we increase the piktun by one. 

Ok, that said, there's a walking, talking, farce by the name of José Argüelles who is one of the most amazing scam artists on earth.  He's repackaged Isaac Asimov's thirteen moon calendar as Mayan.  It's an interesting calendar, as long as you want your birthday on the same day of the week forever.

But the Mayan calendar was absolutely NOTHING like his calendar.  Not even close.  The Ha'ab was eighteen months of twenty days (with a five day little month).  Actually, his BS Mayan calendar is REALLY almost a dupe of the Ethiopian calendar, but not quite.

He even has a fortune-telling scheme hooked to the Mayan calendar, and there was a radio show here that used the color and the day name and made up crap about what that meant for today.

Sort of a Jungian archetypal projection show, of sorts.

Moreover, the precession of the pole (or the precession of the binary star's orbit, depending on which theory you favor there) which makes the sun traverse the zodiac every 27,500 years is apparently unrelated to ANYTHING.

NOTHING.

The easy test is just long division.  It's roughly 2,292 years per sign (assuming twelve equal divisions).  This number is not directly related to the 5,135 years of the 13 b'ak'tun cycle, or the 7,900 of the 20 b'ak'tun cycle (since nobody is really sure what the turnover point is there, as it's never happened), or even a possible 7,110 year 18 b'ak'tun cycle.

2,292, 4,584, 6,876, and 9,168 are the 1, 2, 3, and 4 sign year lengths.

Not only that, but if the 'Age of Pisces' really did start on Jesus birthday, and it really was in 0 AD, then the 'Age of Aquarius' will start in 2,292, not 2,012.

I live in a sea of morons.  I can deal with not really being able to put stories next to each other and do critique, but these, these are NUMBERS.

It's not like there's some 'interpretation' going on.

It's arithmetic.

It's the same for ALL of us.

Well, at least for those of us who can actually count.

Adding Up Bush's Damage

By Bob Herbert, The New York Times. Posted January 2, 2009.


Bush's catalog of his transgressions against the nation's interests would keep him in a confessional for the rest of his life.

Does anyone know where George W. Bush is?

You don't hear much from him anymore. The last image most of us remember is of the president ducking a pair of size 10s that were hurled at him in Baghdad.

We're still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel is thrashing the Palestinians in Gaza. And the U.S. economy is about as vibrant as the 0-16 Detroit Lions.

But hardly a peep have we heard from George, the 43rd.

When Mr. Bush officially takes his leave in three weeks (in reality, he checked out long ago), most Americans will be content to sigh good riddance. I disagree. I don't think he should be allowed to slip quietly out of town. There should be a great hue and cry -- a loud, collective angry howl, demonstrations with signs and bullhorns and fiery speeches -- over the damage he's done to this country.

This is the man who gave us the war in Iraq and Guantánamo and torture and rendition; who turned the Clinton economy and the budget surplus into fool's gold; who dithered while New Orleans drowned; who trampled our civil liberties at home and ruined our reputation abroad; who let Dick Cheney run hog wild and thought Brownie was doing a heckuva job.

The Bush administration specialized in deceit. How else could you get the public (and a feckless Congress) to go along with an invasion of Iraq as an absolutely essential response to the Sept. 11 attacks, when Iraq had had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks?

Exploiting the public's understandable fears, Mr. Bush made it sound as if Iraq was about to nuke us: "We cannot wait," he said, "for the final proof -- the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."

From Andres

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My brief Response to Zionist disinformation
Khaled Amayreh
 
29 December, 2008
 
 

Zionist Hasbara operatives have been claiming that the current Israeli genocidal onslaught in Gaza is a "war against Hamas" and that it was only necessitated by the firing of Palestinian rockets on Israel.
 
This is a big lie. Read the following:
 
"Hamas had repeatedly said it was willing and ready to stop "all" firing of projectiles from Gaza if only Israel would lift the deadly blockade. And Israel repeatedly said "No."
 
Israel has been saying ad nauseam that it ended its occupation of Gaza. Well, why does Israel then retain its control of Gaza skies, Gaza shores, Gaza sea, Gaza border crossings (even with Egypt). Why does Israel retain its control of Gaza life? Why?
 
Hence, the issue of firing "rockets" on Israel (they are homemade projectiles that make more noise than damage), should be viewed largely as a red herring.
 
Effectively, Israel has been giving Palestinians in Gaza either of two choices, to die of starvation as a result of the blockade or be exterminated by the Israeli war machine.
 
Indeed, these so-called "rockets" are nothing more than a desperate outcry for justice, for lifting the deadly blockade. Gaza has simply been reduced to a modern-day Auschwitz. The only difference is that Jews are now playing the role of the SS.
 
Hamas did meticulously observe a six-month ceasefire, despite the persistence of the Nazi-like blockade which very much resembled the Ghetto Warsaw siege in 1942-43. However, Israel on 13 November, Israel carried out a foray into Gaza, killing 6 people.
 
More to the point, Israel killed 49 Palestinians during the ceasefire. Not a single Israeli was killed.
 
Besides, hundreds of Palestinians have perished because Israel would not allow them to access medical care or medicine. I saw many Palestinians die an agonizing death because the "light upon the nations" wouldn't allow them to reach hospital a few blocks away. In short, we are talking about a Judeo-Nazi state. I am saying this because when Jews think, behave and act like Nazis, they become Nazis. We must call the spade a spade, especially when it happens to be in the hands of our gravediggers.
 
Therefore, it is a big lie to call this war a war against Hamas. This is a Nazi-like war of extermination against the people of Palestine.
 
If the war were against Hamas, as the war criminals of Tel Aviv keep claiming, Israel wouldn't have targeted market places, drug stores, college buildings, private homes, mosques, cultural institutions, roads, businesses, etc.
Only a state with a Hitlerian mindset would target an entire society and then claim that it is fighting Hamas! It is simply a big lie.
 
So, Israel is simply carrying out a real genocide...and an indiscriminate one for that matter.
 
Today, even a Jewish rabbi of imminence used the term "genocide" to describe what Israel is doing in Gaza."
 
See also Amira Hass's article in the Ha'aretz newspaper "Israel's war is not against Hamas, it's against all the Palestinians."

Down the Psycho Path

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I had fun last night.  I went to the brewpub for the first New Year's Eve party I've gone to in YEARS (almost decades).  I think I understand a bit more about my previous relationship, and about some recent interactions I've had as a result.

You see, sociopaths have two main enemies: time, and themselves.

Time will show most lies as such.

Themselves can be a fatal trap, if, for instance, they were to get drunk and actually speak their mind.

My ex, when I met her, wasn't a *lush* but she was a pretty heavy drinker when she partied.

At about the same point that everything else changed in that relationship (which I now assume, given that I have more facts, was when the man she had been stalking with the intent of retrieving actually married his wife), she stopped drinking (for the most part--after that, she rarely had more than one drink in an evening).

Loose lips sink ships, yano?

Anyway, one of the hallmarks of these psycho/socio/path personalities is that they *don't* really remember the past, since it's not real, anyway.

Two of the most egregious lying women I've met this year were at the party last night.  I don't think either of them had a clue (well, maybe the one, slightly sharper one might have had an inkling that I'm onto her).

The other one blithely came up to me as if I *wasn't* the 'tool of the devil' (yeah, that one, the 'gnostic gnun').  She had another young man draped over her, and this one looked as clueless as the last (boy, did I feel sorry for the last one).

Her mom was there with her, but I think her mom's old enough to at least try to keep track of the BS, and knows better than to ever approach me again as anything like a 'friend'.  

So I didn't speak to the third of four weird women of the year.

I wonder if I'll ever run across the Anderson Valley girl again?  

I think of all of them, she was the one that depressed me the most.  I really thought that I might have someone to hang with from time to time and talk about Jung and Leary and Watts and stuff (she was going for her Ph.D in psych, and studying under my former dept. chair).  

I actually invited her to come over and check out my brain-damaged brother in vivo, since he was here, and it seemed like fun (he's usually in pretty good spirits about his condition, at least he was, until I started noticing that nobody else had noticed exactly how messed up he actually was).  

I was a bit confused at our parting, as I had considered us 'friends' but the way she was dressed when she arrived, and the way she hugged me goodbye when she left were inconsistent with that concept.

I think it wasn't the later lie, but the absolute transparency of it, that was so rude in her case.  I'm used to people lying for convenience, but I'm used to a higher quality lie (at least mildly believable).  It's not so much an affront to my honesty as to my intelligence, frankly.

I'm pretty sure that a great many men simply DON'T listen to women at all (or else there would be a much higher standard of deception on their part).

Of course, this isn't surprising, given that we still haven't caught on to the Israeli/Palestinian issue yet.

I think that Americans, for the most part, simply don't pay attention to damn near anything for long enough to understand it.

It's like some kind of cultural attention-deficit disorder.

hometop

GreenStream

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Mentionables ...

It's been days since Israel broke the truce and started murdering Palestinians again.

Pres. Barack Obama
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962-0933

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(916) 651-4002

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