I have been slack...in so many ways. Posting, responding to comments...sorry...and it's not just because I am practicing for the new law...akh the new law...There is no business like monkey business, and there are no monkeys like ours...Could we get them in these getups and let them find somewhere far away for them to trash and degrade...Because there is so little left to love here...especially when yellow sky days like these dim that much more of it. The plants on the windowsill are roasted and crispy, and no amount of water will salvage them...So that's one less thing that depends on me being here...But I stay I stay...for a little longer.
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In news from other failed states... Christie Whitman got a belated orchestra of hisses and boos at a hearing about poisoned air at ground zero... back in the first weeks of the cleanup she said "I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, D.C. that their air is safe to breath and their water is safe to drink" (EPA) ... except, well... Lots of people knew it wasn't and said so...Medical Aftershocks December 2001.. And the EPA seems to have known that "some of the World Trade Center dust was as caustic as drain cleaner, but that neither the EPA nor FEMA, both of which were informed of the results, ever released the findings" (Fair) And it gets creepier... if you can imagine that.
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Venezuela is preparing to defend itself againt a US invasion...I guess Chavez recognises it as the new American pastime...
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The UK may need a new Noah...
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And I need an early lunch...Bye.

Anyone who has been on these flights should get checked for TB..
-
Michael Moore's new film Sicko tackles the health industry...
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"Colony Collapse Disorder" anyone?

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We would like to congratulate Kuwait on recognizing the danger posed by ozone depletion, almost a whopping twenty years after the Montreal Protocol made it more than obvious... It's like suddenly getting all excited about bell bottoms and polyester...
We ratified the Protocol in 1992...
We are still trying to replace ozone depleting products with safer alternatives...
And now I must get back to more behind the times reading...
----
I leave you with Mary Oliver once again:

"Plus, too,
it's love almost too fierce to endure, the bee
nuzzling like that into the blouse
of the rose. And the fragrance, and the honey, and of course
the sun, the purely pure sun, shining, all the while, over
all of us."

From the poem Hum

Been a bit out of the loop lately, but hey we made international news today... We are one of the countries arming the criminal regime of Sudan, despite a UN embargo...
And we thought we were plum out of reasons to be proud of this little troublemaker state of ours...
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The Republicans are still insisting on filling the office at the top with donkeys...
Which might be why so many are defecting...
But they're not worried, they have Diebold on their side...
---
I don't know about you but I am looking forward to candlelight and star gazing during our coming summer blackouts...
Thanks to terrible planning, ignoring the fact that we have an abundance of renewable energy sources like the sun, and constantly being on our knees before our major non-renewable national oil gods, we can expect our gluttonous consumption and the rising planetary heat to result in a series of power cuts in our hottest months...with all the accompanying health hazards..

"The effect of global warming appears to be with us already... The consequences could be water-rationing and the threat of blackouts, as demand for air-conditioning and refrigeration soars in the summer, disrupting economic activity and potentially costing business millions"Observer

But don't worry, the country that bought you oil spills and fires in gas pipes on oil fields is thinking newkulur... Did someone say one way ticket out?

Holy, Holy
Since we are hurtling to yet another barbaric stage of human conflict...
History is a good teacher, who is a good pupil?

All flights out of Dubai Airport have been grounded indefinitely...
So far due to a Bangladesh bound plane having an incident that injured 14 people...
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Today at 5pm this film will be showing at Layla Gallery cinema as part of this week's French Film Fest.
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The sky is really pretty..
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Tomorrow at Shaab cinema at 4:30 this film will be showing as part of an independent film fest...
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Wednesday there will be a Brazilian short film fest at Beit Lothan...
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Next week will be dry and barren as always..
Thank you.

Some articles about the first Arabic production to be staged at the Royal Shakespeare Company... By a Kwti theater company with a pan-Arab cast.
From The Financial Times--- The Guardian--- The BBC
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As a special gift for National Day, Kuwait confirmed 20 cases of bird flu in falcons, chickens and turkeys...Then they confirmed 5-7 more cases today. We can trust that our efficient and responsible authorities will be working day and night to keep us safe.
And now onto news I don't have to have a gun to my head to write...
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Your choice of coffee could help heal the scars of genocide... While taking some vitamins could increase your chances of dying... and eating ice-cream could help you get pregnant

---
An Egyptian blogger is jailed...
Some suggest:

"Contrary to the optimism of the Nineties, that it would allow oppressed peoples to escape censors and read forbidden opinions, the net is proving surprisingly easy for dictatorships to control."The Guardian

Really?
--

And Iran Iran Iran...akh, that disease Iraq had a few years ago, the one where they were responsible for everything bad in the world, seems to have infected Iran... So if you feel a bit under the weather, if your car won't start, or your marriage is on the rocks or that raw meat you had last night just didn't sit too, well...it's probably all Iran's fault. Those busy Iranians seem to be responsible for everything from arming Iraqi militants to planning to partition Iraq, to kidnapping Yemeni Jewish children...And they are apparently doing all those pesky things (and we are hearing about them) right when the US plans to attack Iran...

You know what they say about comedy, it's all in the timing.

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Seymour Hersh has a new article about US plans to attack Iran ... He warned us a year ago and even long before that...but we were all too busy, eh?
Fisk says Lebanon will be the First Victim of the Iran Crisis
Kucinich says: "The justification chosen by the Administration is the one circumstance in which a President could bypass Congress and still wage a military conflict" The Nation
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"Russia's president accused Washington of seeking world domination, undermining the UN and other international institutions, monopolizing world energy resources, destabilizing the Mideast by its bungled occupation of Iraq, and unleashing a new nuclear arms race by planning to deploy anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe." Toronto Sun ...News to anyone?

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You have probably heard all the hoopla about Al Gore's whopping electricity bill...a day after he was celebrating his popularity at the Oscars came the 'scandalous' news that his electricity bill should shame the eco-warrior... Kieth Olbermann responds.
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And tonight, look up at around 11:18pm (20:18 GMT) to watch the moon start to move into the earth's shadow...for the best lunar eclipse in a couple of years.

Today there is only a poem...

Sulayman Al-Bassam is in Stratford, the birthplace of Shakespeare to put on an Arabic production of Richard III at the Royal Shakespeare Company...

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mmmmm...mmmm..we have GM crops on our shelves...
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A new Islamophonic podcast at the Guardian...have a listen.
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A study from the University of Chicago says that you can help fight Global warming by going vegetarian...because eating meat is worse than driving a car... That's also what the UN said a while ago...go easy on the carcass munching.
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Speaking of eating dead bodies, my years of decimating the cow population of England might not make my brain go spongy if doctors have indeed started to reverse vCJD
They better be quick about it though...I feel it galloping behind me on the ghost of what became my beef burgers.
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Gotta run...

Sore, sore throat...maybe from screaming over the music at a wedding... or from being too cold because I said no to fur...and will keep saying hell no! to it...or maybe it's the suppressed yelps at being in this sometimes not so hopeful place...

---

كلام الناس. الوسطية والنحاسة الكويتية

He keeps helping us breathe again...

and also laugh again:

بعد اكتشاف خلو الكويت من التطرف"

"(!!)

--

It's one of those things I avoid thinking of because it scares the bejeezuz out of me...but really, where do you think all the millions of phones and pc's and electronics we just toss out end up? With all their toxic insides leaking out into the soil and water? The EU is going to try to make it safer but really, maybe we also need to stop falling for having to buy the latest pretty phone everytime...a duck is a duck is a duck...even if it has a few feathers more or less...

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Photo Essay

That's all I have to say...

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"Saddam Hussein has vowed to go the gallows as a "martyr" ready and willing to sacrifice himself"...That was last week...and this morning, on the festival of sacrifice, they gave him what he wanted...Robert Fisk is disgusted at the idea that in the shadow of over 400,000 dead now, a criminal invasion, a country torn to shreds, Abu Ghraib and on and on... that "we are supposed to forget these terrible crimes as we applaud the swinging corpse of the dictator we created."...Human Rights Watch writes of Iraq's Shallow Justice and it's worth a read for its summary of how the trial was a mockery of justice.

Experts on Iraq react to the execution of Saddam Hussein

Saddam trial verdict tarnished by Iraqi court's failings

The Obituary

The finger pointed at Saddam the criminal comes so many years late, so many lives too late, and yet just in time for no more files to be opened up on any of the people who made him who he was...the puppet is dead, the puppeteers are toasting to it. And what good is it all now for anyone in burning Iraq?

--

And the Global Warming News of the day:

A giant ice shelf the size of 11,000 football fields has snapped free from Canada's Arctic

snocone tagged me...supposed to grab the closest book, look at page 123 and write down the 5th sentence and the following couple of sentences....

ok..
Page 123 in Bukowski's 'Love is a Dog from Hell' has only these lines...
.

"a single dog

walking alone on a hot sidewalk of

summer

appears to have the power

of ten thousand gods

why is this?"

-

How's that?

And How's about i don't tag anyone?

----

And how's about we really teach anthropology of religion, comparative religions and cultural studies in universities and even schools here?

---

And how's about we revoke everyone's driver's licence and make everyone get tested again?Especially me.

---

And how's about i figure out where i got the idea that 'how's about' is correct English?

---

And how's about someone get me a little fleece blankie for christmas?

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And how's about everyone keeps building up the courage to be who they are and not who they think people who don't give a damn about them think they should be?

Really How about that?

---

And how's about y'all read this

and this

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How's about the season make up it's mind, winter or summer...

---

And how's about we read and remember things like this?

.

"Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world...

And some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. " M.L. King

A tale of two serial killers:
One has molested and killed over 30 children in 2 weeks the other kills 5 sex workers in 10 days- which story is all over the front pages from the start and is in a country that respects all its victims and its public?
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George Clooney (for president) spoke about Darfur here he is in Egypt on youtube...

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Congratulations to the less than 1% of people in the Emirates who will be voting this week.

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Pinochet is dead...what a whimper of an end for the man that ruined Chile and murdered so many...
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When there are sidewalks, how come people here insist on strolling in the middle of the road? At a reaaallly slow pace, even when you are headed right for them...

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Texas apparently thinks there aren't enough people running around with weapons that blow you to bits...Really?
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Fisk on who's in power in Lebanon and on some people's weird obsession with trying to erase a past when they can't solve issues in the present...

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Yet more documents that reveal the lies that took everyone to war...

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A study shows that the smarter you are the more likely you are to become a vegetarian :)

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Ahhh, drama at La Scala, where it should be...The star tenor gets booed off the stage (and hires lawyers), then an unsuspecting understudy has to finish off the scene and does it sooooo well he gets a 9 minute ovation...and the story goes on...

===

Arundhati Roy has an article titled India's Shame in the Guardian...it includes information like this:"

"The Indian government declared that Pakistan - America's closest ally in the "war on terror" - was a terrorist state"...."moved more than half a million troops to the Pakistan border. Foreign embassies evacuated their staff and citizens, and tourists travelling to India were issued cautionary travel advisories. The world watched with bated breath as the subcontinent was taken to the brink of nuclear war. All this cost India an estimated pounds 1.1bn of public money. About 800 soldiers died in the panicky process of mobilisation alone."

That happened in 2001.

Another Russian is poisoned.... radiation is found in 12 sites linked to the poisoning of Litvinenko... it's World AIDS day...and it's a beautiful grey out...

====

Signora says that today's protests are a threat to democracy and Sama7a says, on Al-Manar, that Nasrallah wants nothing but democracy and an end to sectarianism...and in related flights of fancy, apparently ahl il-kahf could sleep for centuries because they got a massive ear trauma from the Almighty...which a 'scientist' has proved is possible to send one into a state between sleep and death...for hundreds of years...wawawewa..

مؤكدا انه توصل في بحثه الى امكان استخدام الضرب على الاذن كوسيلة من وسائل التخدير الحديث

How God-like of this scientist to be able to do that...and if you can prove a miracle is actually science, ain't it no longer a miracle?

====

And it would really be lovely if we could stop buying the myth about being against citizenship rights for Palestinians in the Arab countries they live in because 'we care about them and want Palestine back'...Are we supposed to think that some countries are against التوطين because if it happened Palestine would not exist?? Why, because 60 years of Palestinians being refugee 'guests' has really been great for that dream? The one chance we all get at being alive on this planet has for many Palestinians meant being hostages in a rhetorical game hung around their necks for half a century. No one did anything to make a realistic and functioning homeland for the Palestinians a reality but can still find it absurdly appropriate to use the idea of it as reason to NOT consider their citizenship. The countries that did give them nationalities didn't do it in some big plot to eliminate the chance that there will be a Palestinian state, despite what our epic seething paranoia about conspiracies might whisper in our ears...They did it because there are laws about citizenship that are applied if you give a damn about the people being born in and living in your country...and when they are not applied it is not 'for the sake' of the person not getting those benefits but for economic, political and social reasons particular to the country that doesn't want the Palestinians as citizens...so the angel wings can be retired when it comes to any talk about Palestinians and citizenship or the lack of it, enough already.

--

The day gets better when this man has something to say...

Olbermann: "What a dark place your world must be, Mr Gingrich. Where the way to save America is to destroy America. I will awaken every day of my life thankful I am not with you in that dark place. And I will awaken every day of my life thankful that you are entitled to tell me about it. And that you are entitled to show me what an evil idea lurks there and what a cynical mind. And that you entitled to do all that thanks to the very freedoms you seek to suffocate."

wow it was kinda hot this morning, and now i need gloves to type...great great stuff to be confused by the weather...
Where is that thing once known as winter?
And where is that online kwti site where people sell their cars?

There doesn't really need to be any relationship between the things i say...
==
Here are a few pardons:
1- Pardon?
2- Pardon?
3- Pardon?

And there's also a but of course...
An interesting...
And finally, a well, well...
==
The Russian spy poisoned with radiation wrote some final words before he died this week...Radiation was found in the Millennium Hotel, in london and the Itsu sushi bar in Leicester Square which he visited on Nov 1st...and people who were in contact with him are being offered free radiation tests...Here's an article about who killed him? He was investigating the death of the celebrated Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya who was shot last month...

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The Guardian has writers tell you what their favourite books of the year are...

Also there's money and blogging...

Bahraini elections drahhhma...

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It's lovely to welcome someone to the Galactica fan universe...there is good news in this world after all..

Here is a song for you...

There is a contest to name a new batch of 7 wonders...anyone want to nominate this deal with the devil-maker?... Then Lonely Planet suggest Belfast and Beirut are 'must see' cities...anyone want to nominate this other town of tears as a tourist destination?
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Germanwatch says that the US and Saudi are among the top five worst countries dealing with climate change...ahh good to know who our best friends are...good to know they are always helping to set an example in transparency, progress, rule of law, justice...and other fancy things.
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Shorts:
Al-Jazeera launches their new English channel---Because turning Darfur into the hell on earth is apparently not grisly fun enough, Sudan has decided to invade Chad---Ethiopia got arms from over 10 countries and counting, but the ones in the headlines are Iran and Syria---Pakistan has decided it's finally time to change rape laws, to now help the victim and not the rapist---O.J. Simpson writes a book about how he would have done it, if he hadn't done it, and wanted to pretend to have done it...erm...if he hadn't...yeah, what he would have done if he had killed his wife and her lover...cuz he did, no, didn't...a book...don't buy it, unless of course you have had Tamiflu recently and are experiencing one of the many documented cases of delirium and 'other unusual psychiatric behaviour'---If you wait long enough however, Global Warming, that thing everyone sucks at avoiding, will wipe out birds and you won't need to take Tamiflu no more...
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It's a lovely blue out again and there is one bird left chirping all on it's own...must feel sort of like all the lonely souls trying to make a difference in this place...keep chirping, someone will join you and then you'll realise it's suddenly springtime...
And then the typical kwti summer will come and singe your wings...but that's just me being cranky...

• Today there is Keith Olbermann...as there should be everyday
• But also there is Iran mad at Google
• And there is of course more Salon love for Battlestar G.
• There is also Jack Straw getting questions he wished he never got.
• Will the democrats make a difference? Larry Elliott thinks, not so much.
• There is a Scary new US court case that could affect the kind of news you get.
• And Lebanon, Lebanon...

Today there is only a poem..

Watching too many cooking shows...and not doing any cooking. Oh Tamasin why am I obsessed with your kitchen? So let's try to look at the news a little...They admit Iraq is chaos, isn't that big of them? oh no wait the word isn't 'big', is it?...Iraq is also said to be disintegrating and, well, a whole hell of a lot of hell is up north of us...quick, quick, look somewhere else, the US says there is a plot to 'topple the Lebanese government'...a plot...how sneaky, and distracting...and in other news of catchy ancient words for headlines, Egypt has a new major 'foe'...I have a new major disappointment, just when I was thinking about a flat screen tv I have to read that they increase global warming...which by the way, in case you haven't been on the globe for a week, is getting pretty bad...and if you want to know more about how bad it is, because you are morbid like me or just concerned look here...you know what else is bad? Life for women in the new Afghanistan, so bad that women are setting fire to themeselves to end their despair...let's get more depressed shall we? The same poisonous weapons used on our soil and in Iraq have most likely been used on Lebanon...Here is a list of the scarrriest people in America, and here is something that scares me to death, even though I'm not a fish.

Bloggers, internet users, everyone there is hope...I think...see I leave you with hope...even after I've bashed it on a rock.
Goodnight...

When you wake up in the morning and read that a nukulur power is saying that it will "deal merciless blows" to anyone that messes with it, you know it's going to be one of those days...and maybe that's why I have been wanting to crawl back under the covers...the no-sky-all day thing we have going here doesn't help either...and neither does the fact that the Antarctic just told us, again, that it's our fault... and then of course there's the news that the worst in Iraq is yet to come...which should sound pretty bloody scary to our northern neighbours who have had worse and worse for years now...especially since the Lancet just published another study saying that 650,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the occupation and war...
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October must be the month for sexual predators getting bit back...at least as far as awful Moshe Katsav and icky old Foley are concerned...and it was a little blog that got the Foley scandal out there..
====
The BBC has a piece on Saudi blogging
====
South Africa's fastest growing paper runs stories like 'girls who pee spoons' and 'boyfriends who eat mothers'...yeah I don't know what the hell is going on either..but there you are.
====
I'm too sleepy to remember what else I read...but this is today's poem.

• Muslims angry and insulted again, which I am sure will do a lot of good...
• Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for more than 4,000 days...
• Thirteen journalists killed since Putin came to power...
• Holy War between Somalia and Ethiopia? We haven't had enough of those it seems.
• While everyone is looking here, look what's happening here...
• What will they need to reverse this Foley induced fall?
• Phrase of the day- October Surprise:"a stunning news event with the potential to influence the outcome of an election"
• Tom Segev writes of Olmert's True Colors
• In Liberated Iraq: Sunnis change names to avoid Shia death squads
• mmm Joseph Stiglitz answers 9 questions
• This is the poem for today..

Salon has an article about Battlestar Galactica's "intoxicating darkness"...and about season three's storyline which includes Caprica being invaded and occupied by the Cylons and the humans having to fight back, like insurgents...or like that other word with a 'T'...I keep tellin ya, scifi is 'the real world'.

========

mmmmm mmm...this news just deserves a direct quote:

"Food from a Lancashire dairy has been banned from sale across Europe after it was found to contain out-of-date ingredients, milk with traces of detergent and dyes, and mouldy and contaminated cheese including "floor waste". The Independent

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When the Pope made those remarks about Islam a couple of weeks ago, it apparently didn't provoke quite as much Islamic rage as one would have wanted...so this week Jack Straw decided to try his luck..bless them for trying and trying again...

========

And speaking of trying to start a war...What is up with the US navy issuing “Prepare to Deploy Orders”, Rice's visit to the ME being a front for building a coalition against Iran, the news running with stories of Iran defying, ignoring and dissapointing all them folks who just want it to stop having what they have, the US planning to 'punish' Iran, and that pesky letter...anyone smell the November elections?...

Mother Jones invites you to Meet the "Whack Iran" Lobby as well as 'the talented Mr. Fakhravar': Has Washington found its Iranian Chalabi?

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And just in case the disaster in Iraq is not enough to turn your stomach against US flavoured intervention , here is what it looks like in Afghanistan:

"In recent months the Taliban has seized control of entire regions of the country. The security situation has worsened as suicide bombings are up 600 percent this year. Opium and poppy cultivation are at record highs." Watch the whole show on Democracy Now!

Then take a look at Afghanistan, Inc.: A CorpWatch Investigative Report October 6th, 2006

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Thanks to Shemsi and Andy I have a new show to watch religiously, The Show with zefrank...Gotta do something religiously after all.

=======

And in short:

Bahrain's 'Bandargate'---The Daily Show asks what prez Bush's Job really is?---Shocker: KTV programs called 'sub-standard'...oh no wait, they meant 'immoral'---More fights with Elisabeth on The View---Ban Ki Moon, know him?

=======

The weather is really pretty...so are the two noisy birds on the tree outside the window...so is the cat that is watching them very very closely...

This retirement business is growing on me...but then who would give you too many links to articles you wish I hadn't found?...There is a responsibility on my weak little shoulders that has been nagging and nagging...so here it goes:

• Wonder Woman...Joss Whedon...woweee.

Ok, here it goes:

• When you have oil wealth overflowing like it was a heavenly river...you could go the way of Venezuela or...well, you could futz around a lot and then give people 200KD every so often. Plane to Caracas anyone?
• The best documentary I have ever seen was showing at the Beirut Film Festival...I can't even begin to describe the look on all our faces when the lights went up at the end...Iraq in Fragments, see it, see it, see it...stunning in every way.
• Yet another study tells us that our apocalypse is coming dressed as climate change for the big bash-ing. Between now and 2100 one third of the planet will be desert. Think wars for water, drought, starvation in the millions, struggles over limited resources...and other pretty things.
• Did you think that was the only mention of climate change I would include? Sorry, you know me better than that. The ice in the arctic, yeah, it's vanishing.
• What are these two up to?
• And really, what are these two up to? Here is the Daily Show on the issue.
• If King George's power grab didn't scare you before...I think it's time you got really terrified. Why? Here's a list:

Bizarro President

Detainee bill lifts Bush's power to new heights

Lincoln Weeps
by Bill Moyers

And finally...can't leave my first post in ages without the loveliest voice to come out of the Supreme Court on there...Shemsi I know this creeps you out...so look away now.

.

And on October 20 a meteor shower near Orion will say hi to us all..

16th September

10am-1pm and 5pm-9pm

Charity Bazaar

Zahra Complex

Mezzanine Level

Proceeds will all go to the IMC's work in Lebanon

I need to come out of retirement to make sure you see this

About bloody time...

-

And watch this if you haven't already

-

"Tony Blair will be served notice to quit Downing Street at a meeting of the Cabinet next week" and he was called 'deluded' and 'self indulgent'...He might be competing with Bush on who can get called enough names by British politicians..

=

Iraq and numbers...how much can we feel for numbers? Nothing that makes us ready to say 'enough', apparently...

=

This country of ours is hot and dusty and full of so much piled up wrong that it's almost impossible to remember what is right anymore...I watch its stifled children try to lift the weight of everything in their way here, and they get tired and lonely and they go into hiding behind bank logos and business cards and paths set up by default...and they forget so many things, because it hurts like hell to battle and beg for crumbs when your head has already known magic....every move takes on its Sisyphean hue and how heavy it all becomes...especially waking up and especially falling asleep....but I love this country, I love it like a dream that keeps breaking everytime you touch it...like a painful fever that makes you lucid and strange..and now it's late at night and I prattle on like this just because I don't know how you can have hate and love so very close that they disappear into each other...but here they are, twinned and teasing...waiting, as ever, for us to do something about it all.

Goodbye now.

Thanks to everyone who has been by here...this blog is now on hold...see you around.

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..

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Enjoy Kibbeh, kufta, lamb shanks and any other sheep meat dish? Live in Kuwait?

PETA wants your attention...you've seen the ads right?

"Before They’re Cooked in Yoghurt and Spices, They’re Marinated in Urine and Faeces”

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...

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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Robert Fisk: As the 6am ceasefire takes effect... the real war begins

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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"

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:

"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

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

"Lebanon campaign expanded, as general is replaced by commander with more aggressive reputation"

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It is Lebanon, not Israel, that faces a threat to its existence in this war

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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Evil that proves our leaders are worse than donkeys

"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.

"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."

Lebanese envoy, Tarek Mitri at the UNSC meeting yesterday

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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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Robert Fisk: What do you say to a man whose family is buried under the rubble?

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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While the UN fiddles... the Middle East burns

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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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Text of the Draft Resolution

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Israel also has problems with the draft..

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Robert Fisk: This draft shows who is running America's policy... Israel

"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?

"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"

The UK Ambassador to Iraq

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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France's nuclear tests in Pacific 'gave islanders cancer'

After 30 years of testing, it's finally out...

How long will it take to 'scientifically' prove this, this and this..

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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

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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:

Communications/Information Officer, Lebanon
Country Director, Lebanon
Finance Director, Lebanon
Logistics Officer, Lebanon
Medical Director, Lebanon
Mental Health Specialist, Lebanon
Program Support Officer, Lebanon
Security Officer, Lebanon
Water & Sanitation Officer, Lebanon

Roundup

• The Atlantic has an interesting piece on the strange investigation of The Monster of Florence
• Ari Berman has a Nation piece on the lobby of lobbies.
• Human Rights Watch accuses Israel and Hezbullah of war crimes.
• A tale of two ways to use veto power..To prevent and to encourage war crimes..
• And the green lights keep coming..
• Democracy Now! interviews to watch with Robert Fisk on Qana, and a with Guantanamo ex-inmate.
• Millions are in the streets in Mexico to demand a recount, oh Gore, if only....
• Sri Lanka is back into civil war
• Halliburton's legacy in Iraq
• The body count of Iraqi civilians killed as of today: at least-39,696 probably-44,185
• California/ UK team up on carbon trading, challenging Bush's moronic stance on the issue.
• Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts
• Oliver Stone's own requiem..
• A curious show will be aired on C-Span today and you can watch it online.
• For my birthday, I want one of these.

And that's it..

A 48 hour pause in aerial bombardment...it's that easy, isn't it...just to stop...one wonders why we can't do it more often...

Hope eveyone gave as much as they could, just for an opportunity like this where the supplies can actually get to those suffering...

The buttons on the right need pressing..

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Some headlines make it a victory for Condi, maybe so that everyone that has been highlighting her talent for being a criminally incompetent excuse for a diplomat, might also put a pause on the critiques...though I wouldn't let that stop me, she got a pause and lost the ceasefire...as planned.

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As usual, it isn't Israel's fault that they target civilian communities with 'smart bombs'...because Hezbollah either fires from there or if that tale doesn't pass the test of truth, then it's because it's a hotbed of Hezbollah supporters (we all know how much children are known for that)...the same laws of illogic don't apply to Hezbollah strikes though...everytime their rockets land in Israel officials can't hurry fast enough to say the Hizb are targetting civilians on purpose, despite the fact that Hezbullah bombs are not as 'smart' as Israeli bombs, and have been murdering less civilians than the Israelis have...and despite the fact that Hezbullah could use the equally idiotic excuse that the civilian areas were a hotbed of support for the Israeli military invasion and bloodbaths in Lebanon and Gaza (with over 90% support by the civilian population that would be a hotbed indeed) But we are capable of seeing the vicious cynicism of that argumant only if one side uses it.

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A magazine that is always interesting is Salon, and it gives you Watching Beirut die as well as :

"The "hiding among civilians" myth Israel claims it's justified in bombing civilians because Hezbollah mingles with them. In fact, the militant group doesn't trust its civilians and stays as far away from them as possible" By Mitch Prothero

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"It was supposed to be a routine trip across the Lebanese killing fields for the brave men and women of the International Red Cross. Sylvie Thoral was the "team leader" of our two vehicles, a 38-year-old Frenchwoman with dark brown hair and eyes like steel. The Israelis had been informed and had given what the ICRC likes to call its "green light" to the route. And, of course, we almost died. " Fisk

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Conservative pundits made wildly wrong claims about how Iraq would turn out -- what are they saying now about the Middle East?

There should be a safety warning when reading this...your sanity might not survive the onslaught of criminal and fanatic conservative fantasies..

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Here is an article you will need a strong drink and some time to get through...

Mindless in Iraq By Peter W. Galbraith

It's a NYRB article that reviews 4 books about Iraq, and like any NYRB article it's a feast of information.

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And in tales of other wars that continue to claim victims long after they are 'over'...

Vanity Fair has a photo essay and an article about the victims of America's use of Agent Orange in Vietnam...

"In the 1960s, the United States blanketed the Mekong River delta with Agent Orange, a chemical defoliant more devastating than napalm. Thirty years after the end of the Vietnam War, the poisoned legacy lives on in the children whose deformities it is said to have caused"
By CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

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And more from news of how this world is a better place since freedom and liberty became fightin' words:

Sergeant Tells of Plot to Kill Iraqi Detainees

Somali government close to collapse as Islamists take palace

Six Are Shot at Seattle Jewish Center