Thanks to everyone who has been by here...this blog is now on hold...see you around.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Chinese airlines are recruiting airline attendants 'with martial arts skills' in their attempt to make planes more secure...
Ernesto is heading to the Gulf Coast...
It's really hot in this country..
========Enjoy Kibbeh, kufta, lamb shanks and any other sheep meat dish? Live in Kuwait?
PETA wants your attention...you've seen the ads right?
Though PETA often shoot themselves in the foot with the melodrama..it is important to realise that the inhumane transport conditions that sheep endure are not only ethically unnacceptable but are pretty unhealthy for anyone eating the meat..not only is it swimming in filth but the torture endured under these conditions releases carcinogenic chemicals into the meat which are then transferred to us...just a thought to take with us to the dining table...
after watching this video, I for one am finally saying no to the only meat I still eat...
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Iran, Iran, Iran...Can't you just hear the Darth Vader theme playing everytime you read the news? I don't even feel like linking to any of the scare-mongering, the drama and the obsession preparing us for the next front of the War On Whateverism...you know it already..
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And in news that I like to hear...the Buffy goes to yet another interesting show...The first year the prize for most underappreciated tv show went to The Wire (get out and get it if you haven't seen it, now)...and the next year it went to the great Veronica Mars and this year the Buffy goes to....Battlestar Galactica...Yup it's a good show...it ain't perfect, but it is bittersweet and haunting at times and just good ol' sci fi adventure at others...
Monday, August 14, 2006
Seymour Hersh writes in the New Yorker about Washington's joint planning with Israel and it's hope that Isreal's attack on Hizbullah will "serve as a prelude to a potential American preëmptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations"
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"It may well be that a war neurosis stirred up by propaganda of fear and hatred is the prelude to destruction."
John B. Orr
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The Israeli writer Yitzhak Laor writes in the LRB about "The power of the army to produce meanings, values, desire". Of "the cheapness of Arab blood" he says "Our usual way of looking at them is borrowed from our intelligence corps, who ‘translate’ them and interpret them, but cannot recognise them as human beings"
An important moment should be taken here to think how we all are guilty of dehumanising 'the enemy'...And how we can come to terms with our own worship of stereotypes and ingrained beliefs about Israelis...Or else we are just playing games...and the time for games is long past.
Laor goes further to say "We must remember the crimes of Olmert, and of our minister of justice, Haim Ramon, who championed the destruction of Lebanese villages after the ambush at Bint Jbeil, and of the army chief of staff, Dan Halutz. Their names should be submitted to The Hague so they can be held accountable." Who else should join them?
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A creepy opinion from a creepy man...With people like this in positions of power, there will never be peace...
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Gideon Levy writes in Ha'aretz that "there is the danger the IDF will want to restore its lost honor on the backs of the helpless Palestinians. It didn't work in Bint Jbail, so we'll show them in Nablus." He does however hope that because of the difficulties faced in Lebanon that "Seared by failure, maybe the IDF will be less enthusiastic to rush into battle." and that maybe they will finally (and we keep saying finally) come to understand the true power of negotiation and a just peace. But we will believe it when we see it, the Masters of War on all sides have gotten too used to their treats.
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Rami Khouri says: "On the two occasions that it has made resolutions on the basis of law and equal rights - the peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt - Israel has found calm, official acceptance and some normal contacts with citizens in those Arab lands. But in Lebanon, Syria and Palestine, where Israel has acted unilaterally and in a predatory and violent way, it has reaped only resistance, ever more fierce and proficient with the years."
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Norway disinvests from Walmart for it's involvement in human and labour rights abuses, and does the same to Freeport because of it's terrible environmental record...not only that...here are all the Companies excluded from the investment universe :) They can use all the super-hero language they want, they earned it..anyone else Got Ethics?
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South Africa has an obesity epidemic because people don't want to look like they are HIV+...
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The Huffington Post says Bush Administration Knew About Liquid Explosive Threat, Yet Bush Still Calls It "New"
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Updates
Heathrow on Red Alert
Incoming Flights stoped, but outgoing flights are still on though extreme delays are expected. The tv news is saying don't bother to turn up at Heathrow unless your trip is extremely important to you.
Passengers will not be allowed hand luggage and mothers with babies will be required to drink the milk they bring on the plane to prove it is in fact, milk.
Wallets and purses, money, credit cards, baby milk, keys that are not electrical, sanitary items.All will be placed in a plastic bag.
No liquids will be allowed.
Every Passenger will be hand searched.
All other airports in the UK are on High alert.
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6 Planes were targetted, 20 people have been arrested so far-9:30am GMT
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John Reid:
Incoming Flights stoped, but outgoing flights are still on though extreme delays are expected. The tv news is saying don't bother to turn up at Heathrow unless your trip is extremely important to you.
Passengers will not be allowed hand luggage and mothers with babies will be required to drink the milk they bring on the plane to prove it is in fact, milk.
Wallets and purses, money, credit cards, baby milk, keys that are not electrical, sanitary items.All will be placed in a plastic bag.
No liquids will be allowed.
Every Passenger will be hand searched.
All other airports in the UK are on High alert.
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6 Planes were targetted, 20 people have been arrested so far-9:30am GMT
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John Reid:
"The police, acting with the Security Service MI5, are investigating an alleged plot to bring down a number of aircraft through mid-flight explosions, causing a considerable loss of life. "
"This will mean major disruption at all UK airports from today. But as far as is possible we want people to go about their business as normal."Independent
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Threats on Liberties again voiced :
"The home secretary yesterday gave the thinktank Demos his strongest hint yet that a new round of anti-terror legislation is on the way this autumn ...
"Sometimes we may have to modify some of our own freedoms in the short term in order to prevent their misuse and abuse by those who oppose our fundamental values and would destroy all of our freedoms in the modern world," Guardian
"Sometimes we may have to modify some of our own freedoms in the short term in order to prevent their misuse and abuse by those who oppose our fundamental values and would destroy all of our freedoms in the modern world," Guardian
When we give up our freedoms in the short term, we can forget that we had them at all...And how short is short-term?? The short-term could be someone's entire lifetime...What's the difference between someone blowing your freedom away (if indeed it's your freedom they give a damn about, and that has yet to be convincingly argued) and between you giving your freedom up?
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Apparently PM Blair was aware of his threat for some time and even spoke to Prez. Bush about it on the last trip...and yet he is currently on vacation in the Caribbean...or maybe just somewhere he knows is not under threat..
Blair to work on tan and Lebanon solution
Blair takes leave of reality Gulf News
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The metopolitan police describe it as a plan to cause 'mass murder on an unimaginable scale'
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So that this news does not divert all attention away from crimes committed elsewhere:
Israel plans further invasion
So that this news does not divert all attention away from crimes committed elsewhere:
Israel plans further invasion
"Lebanon campaign expanded, as general is replaced by commander with more aggressive reputation"
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The Franco-US resolution is an absurdity: it would give Israel immunity while denying Lebanon the right to defend itself
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"A member of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour Party quit his defense post Wednesday to protest the government's handling of the Mideast crisis and its close alignment with the United States." Guardian
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"More than 150 MPs, including a fifth of Labour's parliamentary party, yesterday joined forces with 17 charities, including Oxfam and Amnesty International, to urge the recall of parliament to discuss the crisis in Lebanon" Guardian
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"There is an urgent need for a recall of parliament, but not to debate the crisis in Lebanon, desperately serious as that is. Even more serious is the escalating emergency in Iraq"
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Then and now: Requiem for Baghdad Independent
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The Iraq Body Count so far- At least 40,069 civilians /probably 44,596 civilians
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This week was the 61st Anniversary of the murderous Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings...Those killed 200,000 people in a flash...mass murder on a grand scale indeed.
Wednesday, August 9, 2006
"More than 900 lives ago, we asked for an immediate ceasefire. More than 3,000 injured civilians ago, we asked for an immediate ceasefire.
"We asked for a ceasefire when the 1 million Lebanese now sleeping on the floors of our schools and public buildings and welcoming homes were still sleeping in their own homes - homes that for many no longer exist."
"We asked for a ceasefire when the 1 million Lebanese now sleeping on the floors of our schools and public buildings and welcoming homes were still sleeping in their own homes - homes that for many no longer exist."
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The head of Médecins Sans Frontières' (MSF) mission in Lebanon, Chris topher Stokes, described Israeli assurances of protected aid corridors as delusional. "For many days, the concept of humanitarian corridors has been used to mask the reality," The Independent
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Doctors Without Borders have details of what it takes to get aid through:
"Four tonnes of supplies were carried by hand on a distance of 500 metres thanks to a huge human chain. A tree trunk spanning across the river was used as a makeshift bridge..."
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"Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets over Tyre yesterday morning, warning people not to use vehicles south of the Litani river....The travel ban had no time limit and mentioned no exceptions, even for ambulances and humanitarian convoys"...
.."it said: "Read this carefully and follow its instructions. The Israeli Defence Forces will escalate their operations and will strike with force against terrorist elements who are using you as human shields and firing rockets from inside your homes against Israel..." All vehicles would be bombed the letter said. It was signed "State of Israel". Guardian
Imagine that letter fell from the sky in London, Boston, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Sydney, Paris, Barcelona, Hong Kong, Salmiya, Tel Aviv...or anywhere else you call home...How would it feel? How terrorized would you feel picking that up and reading it?
Let alone how you would feel about the bombs and missiles that come with it...Monsters of fire that dwarf the katyushas that we know are also condemnable murderous weapons.
How must it feel to be told that the enemy they are aiming for is 'inside your home', and so your home is fair game...despite the fact that you look around and see your children, your pictures your glass of water, your bed and your breakfast table...the everyday things that make up your life inside your home...The people you love...but someone is convinced, against any protestation, that your home is a viable target, as is any escape from your home. Despite the fact that they have no problem understanding that when Israeli homes are hit, it is a war crime, it is a tragedy, people are lost, lives are damaged, belongings and sacred objects are extinguished forever...
From Y. Amichai again there are simple words that might reach across this abyss we form between our suffering and our enemy's..
הגאולה תבוא רק אם יגידו להם
"Redemption will only come if they tell them"
You see that house of your enemy? You see the rubble, the loss the hatred?
"Next to that, a little to the left and below it, sits
A man who has bought fruits and vegetables for his family"
לידה, קצת שמאלה ולמטה ממנה,יושב
אדם שקנה פֵּרות וירקות לבית
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...but who now must bury his dead...
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Monday, August 7, 2006
Took a few days off to get over an attack of hopelessness...
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Smokers should not expect to be protected by anti-discrimination laws in employment. The Financial Times had a piece that quoted an employer who said 'smokers need not apply' explaining that smokers 'stink', they take more sick leave and suggested that if they were ignoring all the health warnings and facts about smoking then they "haven't got the level of intelligence" needed for the job..
Which is another excuse for me to link you to a piece by Stephen Colbert
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The 'Condi Rice Show' is doing very badly...
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"In addition to regular deadly raids on Gaza, where 1.4 million Palestinians are trapped by an economic blockade, the Israelis have arrested a third of the Hamas government and 36 members of the Palestinian parliament since 26 June." By Anne Penketh
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Lebanon has rejected the UN draft proposal because as Nabih Berri says: " the draft resolution legitimised Israel's occupation, adding that it would "open the door to never-ending war"
Syria and Iran made fun of the US pretending to be mediator while being the biggest backer, arms dealer and apologist for Israel all these years..It's like asking Iran or Syria to be mediators in a Hezbullah dispute..
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Israel also has problems with the draft..
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"a document of such bias and mendacity that a close Lebanese friend read carefully through it yesterday, cursed and uttered the immortal question: "Don't these bastards learn anything from history?"
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How do some Israelis and victims of Hizbullah attacks feel about the debate between using military might or Diplomacy?
Kibbutz mourners call for diplomacy
By Eli Ashkenazi
"Based on the conclusion that the military operations of the past 31 years have not brought quiet to the north, but only more and more bereaved families and graves, what will you do, from today, to stop the chain of wars and victims within the borders of the state where our kibbutz lies?" Baumel asked. "Will you find the diplomatic path, which exists and which we all know what it is, or will you continue to stick, with blind faith, to the gods of killing and bereavement?"
Kol HaKavod to voices like this...we are all tired of this insatiable thirst for blood.
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The Kibbutz can add its voice to that of the father of hostage soldier Gilad Shalit, who has been calling for negotiations to free his son from the begining...They can also add their names to the over 100 Israeli intellectuals who signed a petition accusing the Israeli government of war crimes...also there are the refuseniks and 5,000 protesters in Tel Aviv...yet PeaceNow is silent...In the New York Times, Tikkun put in an ad for "an end to the slaughter in Lebanon, Israel and the Occupied Territories" ...and yet, Peace Now is silent... Gush Shalom is protesting....And yet Aviv Gefen the poster boy for peace...says this war is justified..the tide is all over the place..
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Yitzhak Laor (The writer who initiated the petition mentioned above) writes in Ha'aretz:
"That is the great trap of military thinking, the Israelis' only way of thought regarding the conflict: not only belief in the need to be superior, right or wrong, able or not able, but especially the inability to think in terms of the other side, not as an object translated and interpreted by the Intelligence Corps, but as human beings."
Many Arabs need to think about how they also fall into this type of thinking...
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Ha'aretz's Danny Rubenstein writes:
"Those in power in Israel are portrayed now, more than ever, like foreign agents striving to serve American interests. They are striking Hezbollah in order to hurt the Iranian "patron."
"The Palestinian media highlighted an item in which lawyers in Morocco are suing Amir Peretz - who, according to them, holds a Moroccan passport - for war crimes."
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"Shulamit Aloni, a human rights activist and former minister of education, said, “This is a reckless war… The army introduced its ready-made plan while the government didn’t have any plans. In our country, the army is a sacred cow, [people] believe in it blindly, on the pretext that it understands security issues better than anyone else does." Asharq Al-Awsat
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Enough...Kafa...yesh gvul, lo?
Saturday, August 5, 2006
"Of the 615 people so far confirmed dead, Save The Children says that almost half are children. They make up one third of the 3,225 injured, and about 45 per cent of the nearly one million Lebanese refugees are under the age of 18, according to Unicef." The Independent
Donate by visiting www.savethechildren.org.uk/independent
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"The prospect of a low intensity civil war and a de facto division of Iraq is probably more likely at this stage than a successful and substantial transition to a stable democracy."
"Iraq will remain "messy and difficult" for the next five to 10 years"
Lucky Iraq...
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The headline in Haaretz is this:
Iranian President: Solution to Middle East crisis is to destroy Israel- and it's a headline because it is an appalling statement to make (ok not shocking for Ahmadinejad, but in general)...
The fact that Israel is not saying but doing the very same thing to Lebanon doesn't seem so appalling to the 90% of Israelis that support this campaign. Go figure, in death and destruction some are 'more equal than others'..
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After 30 years of testing, it's finally out...
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Against the advice, against the facts
"Tony Blair's unthinking oversimplifications about the Middle East belong in an army recruitment pamphlet - not an adult conversation." Oliver Miles
"Tony Blair's unthinking oversimplifications about the Middle East belong in an army recruitment pamphlet - not an adult conversation." Oliver Miles
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Thursday, August 3, 2006
International Medical Corps is helping out in Lebanon and Iraq...as well as in many other worthy places in the world...
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Donate here, every penny counts..
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Positions they anticipate will open for those who want to help/work/volunteer:
Tuesday, August 1, 2006
Roundup
- The Atlantic has an interesting piece on the strange investigation of The Monster of Florence
- Sri Lanka is back into civil war
- Halliburton's legacy in Iraq
- Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts
And that's it..
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