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- He is already a real dictator.

So, you're thinking they couldn't do worse?

Nasser’s Biggest Crime - December 19, 2005

“In Egypt you can walk wherever you want,” he said. “There are no rules or laws here.”

Well, I thought. There are laws against involvement in politics. But I knew what he meant. The Egyptian government doesn’t micromanage its citizens. Good on Hosni Mubarak for that one, at least. Egypt may be a police state, but at any given moment it doesn’t feel like one......

Can we talk about politics out in the open?” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “We can say whatever we want.”

“Is it because we’re speaking in English?”

“No,” he said. “We could do it in Arabic, too.”

“You’re not worried about the secret police?”

“Not any more,” he said. “It is a real change from last year. Last year there was no way. But it’s better now, more open. Do you know why?”

“No,” I said. “Tell me.”

“Because of pressure from George W. Bush.”....

I wanted to know what he thought of the Muslim Brotherhood. Was it even possible that they are as moderate as they want everyone to believe?

“They are moderate because they don’t have guns,” he said. “They don’t kill people. It’s true. But most of the armed terrorist groups we see now were born out of the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

“At some point,” I said, “if you want to live in a democracy you’re going to have to accept the fact that conservative religious political parties exist. You may never like them, but they won’t always be a terrorist threat. Democracy has mellowed out the Islamists in Turkey, for example.”

“Yes,” he said. “But Turkey has a secular constitution. They want to enter the EU, so the Islamists are forced to play by the rules of the game. They cannot step on the freedoms that the Turkish people take for granted. The Egyptian people, though, since the time of the Pharaohs, have been a flock. They follow the shepherd.”

“My biggest fear,” he continued, “is that if the Muslim Brotherhood rules Egypt we will get Islamism-lite, that they won’t be quite bad enough that people will revolt against them. Take bars, for example. Most Egyptians don’t drink, so they won’t mind if alcohol is illegal. The same goes for banning books. Most Egyptians don’t read. So why should they care if books are banned? Most women wear a veil or a headscarf already, so if it becomes the law hardly anyone will resist.”

“How many people here think like you do?” I asked him.

“Few,” he said. “Very few. Less than ten percent probably.”

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood eyes unity gov't without Mubarak
The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest opposition group,is in talks with other anti-government figures to form a national unity government without President Hosni Mubarak, a group official told DPA on Sunday....

Gamal Nasser, a spokesman for the Brotherhood, told DPA that his group was in talks with Mohammed ElBaradei - the former UN nuclear watchdog chief - to form a national unity government without the National Democratic Party of Mubarak.

Nobody of the Jewish faith is allowed to pray on the temple mount.

To quote the fount of all knowledge: Although freedom of access was enshrined in the law, as a security measure, the Israeli government currently enforce a ban on non-Muslim prayer on the site.

So it's apparently not the Palestinians who have a problem with Jews praying there.

And while Palestinian settlers can pick any valley they want to to build houses in and they don't even have to pay taxes on them, it is illegal for Jewish settlers to do the same on barren, rocky hilltops.

Citation please? The way I keep hearing that story seems to be quite the opposite. Jewish settlers are offered financial incentives (source, source), while the majority of Palestinian building permits are turned down (source).

A friend of mine visited the West Bank last summer. She worked at a small Palestinian farm which was denied electricity and running water. She saw families who lived in caves because their houses had been torn down and they weren't allowed to build new ones. The village she worked in was ~10km away from the next. What would normally be a 10 minute drive had been turned into a 1 hour journey because the separation wall conveniently deviated from the 1949 border, along which it was supposed to be built, to include a Jewish settlement.

Yeah, I totally see the Israelis being oppressed here...

Don't waste your time really. Have a look at what I just found though.

"Certainly not for lack of trying. Also nice job trying to equate the two sides- most if not all Palestinians are killed trying to commit acts of terror (or are unfortunately nearby)"

Lie. Most Palestinian victims are now 'collateral damage'. During the last war with HAMAS, about 2/3 of killed were civilians, many of them children.

Total killed: 1,417 (PCHR),[29] 1,166 (IDF)[30]
Militants and police officers:
491* (PCHR),[29] 709 (IDF)[30]
700(Hamas)[31]
Civilians: 926 (PCHR),[29] 295 (IDF)[30][30]
Total wounded: 5,303(PCHR)[29]

"while most Israelis killed were civilians who were hit randomly by snipers, or victims of random shelling of civilian areas."

Total killed: 13
Soldiers: 10(friendly fire: 4[27])
Civilians: 3

So you see, HAMAS actually seems to inflict far less collateral damage.

"There are plenty of 'Palestinians' who are citizens of Israel- living in Israel. Are the Israelis supposed to give citizenship to people who don't live in Israel?"

When what the fuck Israel does in Palestine?

"If the Palestinians want their own country, they need to stop attacking Israel, and elect better leaders. Those two just might be connected..."

And who are you to judge which leader is better for their nation? Would it be OK if Israel was occupied by the League of Arab Nations and Arabs told you that you'll have your own country when you learn to elect good leaders?

"OK, show me a civilized country where you can build a house without permits? Arab houses build with permits are not demolished. The Israeli construction has the permission of the local government, which again is usually considered sufficient."

Aha, sure. Have you tried to do this?

"Israeli buildings without permits are also demolished."

Yes? So all these illegal settlements are being built with permissions from the Palestine Autonomy?

"Israel sabotages the peace talks?"

Yes, that's what it looks like.

"Are those actions (btw, wtf are you talking about, please provide reference) really more damaging than, say, shooting mortars and missiles randomly into civilian areas like the Palestinians have been doing for years?"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7794577.stm
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/hamas-declares-end-to-cease-fire-israeli-gov-t-sources-fear-violence-is-unavoidable-1.259846
etc.

That's proving a bit difficult, because there's just so much violence. It wasn't this attack I was thinking of. (It also definitely wasn't this one, or this, though both did involve the IDF standing by and doing nothing. This act of sabotage under the supervision of IDF troops is interesting but irrelevant.)

Note that Palestinians don't get off so lightly if they attack settlers; sometimes the whole messy business of trial and evidence is skipped and they're just shot in their beds.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll find the right link eventually, but it's a lot like searching for a needle in a haystack.

Jews in the US are actually mostly on the left, and antiwar.
 
Wrong. 75% of American Jews think (correctly) that the goal of Arabs is the destruction of Israel. Majority supports a US strike against Iran. Majority oppose calls on Israel to freeze settlement building. http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/news/poll-56-of-american-jews-think-u-s-should-strike-iran-1.6950

  This mistaken belief that 'Jews' support Israel doing whatever it wants is due to the Israeli lobby in US, which like to claim that all Jews think the way it does. Which isn't true in the US or Israeli.
 
Of course it is not true that ALL Jews support Israel policies but most do.
 
  The neocon right in the US, the hardliners in Israel, and fanatic Muslim leaders, all have incentive to present Israel, supported by the US, at war with the Muslim world.
 
I would add non-blind people to your list, because it is obvious to anyone with eyes that Israel is in fact at war with Arabs if not the entire "Muslim World".
 
  No, the leader of Iran doesn't want to wipe Israel off the map, he wishes it would, in an analogy he made in every speech except the one time he didn't further explain it, disappear like the USSR. Yet warmongers here distorted that into a threat of nuclear annihilation.
 
That's just semantics. A head of state saying that another state should disappear from the pages of history is as threatening as it gets. He also finances a variety of anti-Israel militant groups, denies holocaust and has said in numerous statements that any Arab country that accepts existence of Israel is a traitor to the Muslim world. Many more anti-Israel statements: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel
 
In any case, all this is argument over unimportant details. Do you really doubt that if the day comes when Arab countries and Iran have the power to destroy Israel that they will hesitate for even one second? It is Israel who is bending backwards for "peace" by returning land it won fairly in wars that it did not start. But that's a foolish idea because Israel will only have peace as long as it is militarily superior to all surrounding Arab countries combined even though population wise they outnumber it by at least 20 to 1. That's a pretty scary place to be for a civilized democracy surrounded by people mostly guided by a primitive medieval ideology and I am glad that the US is on the right side in that fight.

The Israel Defense Forces' chief rabbi told students in a pre-army yeshiva program last week that soldiers who "show mercy" toward the enemy in wartime will be "damned."

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/idf-chief-rabbi-troops-who-show-mercy-to-enemy-will-be-damned-1.4175

I know that the exhaust of falafel oil does smell like falafel. So it means that the exhaust of this "biodiesel" will probably smell like fried chicken.

As a vegetarian, it really disgusts me... (I wonder, though, if this smell is better than regular diesel).

PS: I am disappointed that the article is so short.

http://www.haaretz.com/grounds-for-disbelief-1.10757

Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus.

And, of course:

"We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq," Ma'ariv quoted the former prime minister as saying. He reportedly added that these events "swung American public opinion in our favor."
- Netanyahu reportedly made the comments during a conference at Bar-Ilan University on the division of Jerusalem as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/report-netanyahu-says-9-11-terror-attacks-good-for-israel-1.244044

But for the benefit of anybody happening upon this post, yes, they are Nazis:

It won't be long before Sweden Democrats show true anti-Semitic nature.

From your link:

The SD did not include any anti-Semitic messages in its platform. On the contrary, it has two Jewish members among its top ranks and has actually come out in support of Israel at times.

Seriously, that's the best you can manage to come up with? One would hope for some evidence of your claims since you apparently feel entitled to judge for others.

Hilarious. Right-wing xenophobic "ethnic nationalist" parties the world over love this fig leaf. "We support Israel! We can't be called Nazis!" Hahahahahaa!

You're a lost cause, obviously, as you've practiced the apologist talking points. But for the benefit of anybody happening upon this post, yes, they are Nazis:

It won't be long before Sweden Democrats show true anti-Semitic nature.

"attribute this phenomenon first and foremost to what is described as engineering thinking or an engineering mindset. The concept includes an assumption, which has been raised in psychological research, that engineering as a field of study and a profession tends to attract people who seek certainty, and their approach to the world is largely mechanistic. So they are characterized by a greater intolerance of uncertainty - a quality that is evident among extremists, both religious and secular.

Those with engineering mindsets are also characterized by an approach that requires society to operate "like clockwork" and abhors democratic politics, which requires compromises. It's clear that this is a cumulative tendency and not a stereotypical generalization."

From http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/why-are-so-many-would-be-terrorists-engineers-1.263214 earlier this year.

Hey, they work on vampires, too! Although maybe impaling the vicious little spit-monkeys on a wooden stake really would be more appropriate.

I can Karma-Whore and google for you, but you'll need to do the actual reading:

GP's Point 1 - http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/iran-inks-deal-to-send-enriched-uranium-to-turkey-20100517-v8uc.html
GP's Point 2 -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaiMjAULWn0&feature=player_embedded#!
http://libertypundits.net/article/paid-mercenaries-on-turkish-flotilla-ship-and-more-censored-footage-of-violence/
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/turkish-paper-releases-censored-photos-of-beaten-israeli-commandos-1.294443
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_O'Keefe
http://trueslant.com/charlesjohnson/2010/06/06/another-cropped-reuters-photo-deletes-another-knife-and-a-pool-of-blood/
GP's Point 3 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93Turkey_relations
GP's Point 4 - http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/columnists-164310-turkey-hamas-relations.html
GP's Point 5 - RTFA, what we're discussing in this /. post.

If you don't see Turkish Islamist policy driving this and the bigger picture this fits into (radical Islam, oppressive regimes vs new-internet-driven-world-order, middle-east mentality and its differences from western mentality, arab nation politics, Turkey's NATO/european membership, Turkish internal right-left struggle and dirty laundry, Turkish history (murder/slaughter of 1,000,000 armenians last decade, try mentioning that on Turkish media), you're just another one of those people who just can't get geopolitics and need an oversimplified model - namely, a little demonizing circle drawn around one of the participants of an equation (typically ends being one of Iran, Al-qaeda, USA, Israel, George W, etc) with an "evil" sign pointed at it. If only the world were that simple. Fox and Al-jazeera do it equally well, depending on direction the guys with the remote wants the arrow pointed in.

I have a demonizing-circle detector. Every time I get someone draw me one (whether Erdogan from Turkey, Benjamin Netanyahu from Israel, Ismail Hanniyeh from Hammas, Al Jazeera or Fox, I immediately know I'm being told a half-truth. Big problems don't fit in little circles, and the root causes are way more complex and way more distributed.
If complexity can be equated to pain with people who can't grasp it, I'll invoke the following:
"Life is pain, your highness. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something."

Since the troll you replied to brought up Israel it's only fair to make a joke about the school shooting holes in said laptops ;)

Egypt has opened their borders up, but only temporarily:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/egypt-opens-gaza-border-following-idf-raid-on-aid-flotilla-1.293560

And there are plenty of countries, and even the UN, who have called the embargo on Gaza to be illegal:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%80%932010_blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip#United_Nations

Israel doesn't care and the US routinely vetoes any and every UN resolution against Israel.

The Palestinians live essentially in a modern-day ghetto. Palestinian airspace is controlled by Israel, and they routinely fly drones and fighter jets over homes, causing people to panic. Israel also blocks the three-mile shore using their navy. There are only 80-some humanitarian items that are allowed in, and food / medical supplies typically expire by the time they make it into the region. Building supplies are always discarded by Israel, since all humanitarian aid goes through Israel first. Without building supplies, Palestinians cannot rebuild their homes that were destroyed by Israeli bombs or bulldozers, and can only use existing rubble from other destroyed buildings. Try living like that for the rest of your life.

Economic embargoes causes despair, and despair causes people to commit desperate acts. Israelis know this very well. If you recall, the state of Israel was founded through terrorism, with the Stern Gang leading the way with hotel bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations until the British gave them land. Back then, Israel did not have the modern, sophisticated military that they do today, and having suffered through the holocaust, they saw no other way.

Hamas may be crazy, but the only people Israel can blame for Hamas' existence are themselves. Israel supported Hamas during its infancy to undermine the secular Fatah movement of Yasser Arafat:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Hamas#Before_1987_.E2.80.94_Palestinian_Islamic_activities_prior_to_the_creation_of_Hamas

While I personally feel that the people of Palestine can do much, much better than Hamas, they're only going to cling to whoever is going to offer them support and protection. Even so, the actions of Israel are disgusting, and to think that the very same people who had to endure living in ghettos in Western Europe are now essentially doing the same thing to other people is mind-blowing. Israel hopes that by employing collective punishment against the people of Palestine, they can force them to overthrow Hamas. This hasn't worked, and it's caused even the moderate factions in Palestine to get angry at Israel.

I hope for a peaceful resolution to all of this so that both sides, Israel and Palestine, can live as neighbors.

There are 16 arab countries which don't allow israeli passport holders to enter their country: http://bigpassportandvisa.com/israel-passports/

Okay, so you were right. However I noticed on the page linked to above says that Israel doesn't allow Israelis to visit some countries too. See "Enemy States"
"The Israeli law dictates that Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen are considered "enemy states" or 'enemy countries.' If you're an Israeli citizen, you are not allowed to visit any of these countries unless you have a special permit issued by Israel's Ministry of Interior. Hence, if you visit this country, whether with an Israeli or a foreign passport, you may be prosecuted upon your return to Israel. Iran has been recently suggested as an addition to the list."

Even at the height of the Cold War US citizens were allowed to visit the Soviet Union and China. American Industrialist and Occidental Petroleum stockholder Armand Hammer was a friend to the SU.

There are also some arab airlines that won't allow boarding if they find out you are jewish, it doesn't matter if you are landing on an arab country or not.
Namely Kuwait Airways, Saudi Arabian Airlines, Emirates Airline, perhaps others.

Though it allows Arabs Israel's El Al airline has targeted Arabs. El Al ordered to compensate humiliated Israeli Arab passengers.

I wonder how many of those Arab airlines are state owned and not private or corporate businesses. Let's see... Kuwait Airways is state owned. Saudi Arabian Airlines started the process of privatization in 2006. And Emirates Airline is "a subsidiary of The Emirates Group, which has over 50,000 employees, and is wholly-owned by the Government of Dubai". I'd think that if these airlines were publicly traded corporations they would allow Israeli passengers.

Falcon

...then Israel should be confiscating all US made laptops at the border.

Or shooting them?

In bizarre move Israel Ministry of Truth... err Communications banned iPad. Custom officials already confiscating iPads at airport. Incompatibility with Wi-Fi standard given as the reason. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1162992.html

Yes and the zealots are in panic over that fact. That their attempt to build a racially pure state will finally be thwarted by natural demographic growth. But why would that solve the opression? The Arab Israels are the Zionists best friends. Arab Israelis can be taught to hate Palestinians just as well as regular Jews.

Token members are in the Knesset but Israel by over half admitted they want to deny rights to Israeli Arabs including the right to vote. This coming generation in Israel is leaning ever harder to the right and I would not be surprised if they start instituting Jim Crow laws.

    The average age of a Jew in Israel is over 40 and 10,000 under the age of 55 leave Israel every year. The average age of an Arab is under 20 and they have almost twice amount of children. There is simply no way for Israel to stay Jewish unless they have significant uptick in immigration because most of the Jewish population is past child-bearing age.

    Why should another state "want" the Palestinians, they deserve their own state and they will have both the Palestinian territories and Israel itself just by outbreeding the Jewish population within 30-40 years. That is of course as long as the Jewish population does not continue in their bid to delegitimize the claims of the Arabs to a full and open democratic system. In our lifetime there will be an Arab prime minister of Israel, let that sink in.

In Israel, where I presume there are no bike lanes

lmgtfu... wait... The [Israeli] government will allocate some NIS 145 million [40 million $] by 2013 for developing bicycle lanes in urban as well as undeveloped areas across the country.

The Jews who define death as "when the heart stops beating" are hardly a small minority. Ha'aretz has an article detailing the history of the dispute in Israel.

On one side of the dispute, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (the leader of Sephardic jewry, a group which comprises about half of the religious Jews in Israel) has ruled that according to Jewish law a person is considered dead at the time brain stem activity ceases.

On the other side of the dispute, Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv (the leader of Lithuanian jewry, also a very significant group in Israel, though I suspect it's smaller than the Sephardic jews) has ruled that according to Jewish law a person is considered dead when the heart stops beating.

It's also important to note that Israel has no requirement that the Chief Rabbinate agree to a bill in order for it to pass or become law. Israel's government is a secular parliamentary democracy (structured similarly to many European governments), and the Knesset (parliament) has unlimited legislating authority, without even the limitations or checks and balances provided by a written constitution. However becuase of the large population of religious Jews in Israel, it's good politics to listen to consider what their religious authorities have to say when drafting laws that may be affected by Jewish law.

i cant believe you dont know about this.

http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/04/27/cia.nazi.02/

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/908022.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/06/AR2006060601555.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1301306.stm

at the end of the war your country hauled in gestapo agents as well as ex nazi rocket scientists. gestapo was very successful in espionage tactics, and this was known by allies. employment of wernher in rocket research drew a lot of criticism and reaction, and your government spent a lot of effort in covering his ass up. in parallel, right after the end of the war, even before any wind of cold war in the air, the methods and practices of your newly founded intelligence agencies changed a lot. more secrecy, increased efficiency, less mercy, even less respect for civil institutions and principles. all this change doesnt happen by in 1-2 years' span by itself or only with taking an agency out of army's structure and making it independent. rest is history.

let me put it this way ; wernher von braun's employment in rocket research had drawn a lot of reaction. cia didnt have that reaction problem.

As I said earlier in a post further down this thread, Israel is not the only suspect. As a matter of fact, this report suggests that it was an Arab nation or two behind this assassination. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1153316.html

I think from what I've heard, Israel does the most ardous security check ever and they do it without being dicks about it.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1135243.html

Yes, Israeli security never invades anyone's personal space.

Iran called for the extermination of all Jews.

No, they didn't and the quote of Ahmadinejad that Israel should be wiped of the map was a
mistranslation that has been quote way too often. Specifically:

"The fact that he (Ahmadinejad) compared his desired option - the elimination of "the regime occupying Jerusalem" - with the fall of the Shah's regime in Iran makes it crystal clear that he is talking about regime change, not the end of Israel. As a schoolboy opponent of the Shah in the 1970's he surely did not favor Iran's removal from the page of time. He just wanted the Shah out,"

Besides:

Though Iran doesn't recognize Israel, and Iranian citizens are not legally authorized to travel to the Jewish state, ... Jews in Iran are not in danger.

Iran's Jewish community of about 25,000 people is protected by the country's constitution and remains the largest in the Muslim Middle East. Synagogues, Jewish schools and stores operate openly. Morsathegh said in Tehran there are 20 synagogues, eight butchers, five schools, four youth organizations and two restaurants.

Morsathegh said Iranians, including Jews, immigrated from Iran following the 1979 Islamic revolution that brought hard-line clerics to power but said there had not been an exodus of Jews from Iran in recent years.

"We are one of the oldest communities in Iran. We are free to practice our religion. Anti-Semitism is a Western phenomenon but Jews have never been in danger in Iran," said Morsathegh, who spoke in his office in the Sapir Charity Hospital, which is run by Iranian Jews.

Source

The anti-Israel hysteria here is appalling.

No kidding. Let's check out some other stories from the ME:

Insurgents kill 50 in car bombings in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq

Hmm, no outrage. Maybe if they listed the electronics also damaged, people would feel something.

Blast kills 33 near lawmaker's home in Pakistan

Well, Israel didn't do it, so apparently it's ok.

Iraq attacks kill more than 100...Insurgents strike in central Pakistan

Still no outrage... It's ok as long as Israel isn't killing them? Or is it that no laptop was involved?

Ok, one more:

Police shoot U.S. student's laptop upon entry to Israel

Wait, what? A story where an Israeli did something other than get blown up by a terrorist? OUTRAGE! Call out the nutjobs and crazies! Quick, before we read any details or facts!

Ok, maybe a tad dramatic. But these people flipping out because of this story really need to put this in perspective. If this story upsets you, and those others don't, you really ought to examine your priorities.

It was meant to be compulsory, but because of public outrage, it's only voluntary for the next 2 years, then it will be re-discussed. Thats how democracies work. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtVty.jhtml?sw=biometric&itemNo=1133498

Just wanted to let you all know about this article that is related to the issue posted in Carolyns blogg. IDF tells officers: Lose the PowerPoint presentations http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1090908.html

There is also the problem that a downed missile presents. What is a "downed missile" ? Well it's a large collection of very-high speed pieces of metal that have been heated up by a large explosion that's about to crash into the ground. So far so good.

So what is "the ground" in the case of a hizbullah or hamas missile launch ? Well it's the center of the city that's controlled by the terrorists. It's their human shields. Markets, schools, you name it. So a successfull missile intercept is reported in the press as "Israel fires a rocket into a palestinian kindergarten". That is, by the way, the literal truth, even if the rather important detail of a rocket's presence above said kindergarten is left out. In the deployed missile intercept installations "the ground" is chosen to be something else, like the ocean surface.

Insightful? He is actually claiming that an anti-rocket-missile started by the Israelis would intercept the rocket within seconds after the start, instead of a few seconds before the impact.

The real reason his beloved Iron Dome is useless is the very short flight time of the rockets.

What chaps my ass is that the healthcare bill making its way through Congress is supposed to make healthcare more accessible. Instead, you have the Senate health committee voting to extend patent protection for some drugs. And you've also got the White House cutting a deal with Big Pharma to prevent the government from negotiating lower drug prices.

But studies paid for by big pharma INSIST (and they've convinced the American Heart Association) that your blood pressure has to be UNDER 120/80.

Fine. I'll just get some $40/year generic diuretic or ACE inhibitor from Walmart.

At least, I would if I could afford the $200 visit to the doctor's office.

The above comment is my opinion as a 3rd world physician

"3rd world" medicine is all some Americans get. Wendell Potter, former VP at CIGNA, on the experience that made him quit:

But what I saw were doctors who were set up to provide care in animal stalls. I've got some pictures of people being treated on gurneys, on rain-soaked pavement. And I saw people lined up, standing in line or sitting in these long, long lines, waiting to get care. People drove from South Carolina and Georgia and Kentucky, Tennessee-- all over the region, because they knew that this was being done. A lot of them heard about it from word of mouth.

It was absolutely stunning. It was like being hit by lightning. It was almost-- what country am I in? I just it just didn't seem to be a possibility that I was in the United States. It was like a lightning bolt had hit me.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/875277.html http://t3.technion.ac.il/more_details.php?id=76

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=DAR20060821&articleId=3027

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1018815.html

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940CE6D7123AF933A15757C0A9659C8B63
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/1429096/British-cameraman-shot-dead-by-Israeli-soldiers.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jun/06/israel2
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/889281.html
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/cruises/item.aspx?type=photo&photo_id=0eY4akVfByfWH&tid=05YG14l3Yj8zn&pn=1
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=5480&Cr=unrwa&Cr1=

None of those are Reuters, none of those are BBC.

• 2000: Israel/Palestine: Armed Attacks on Civilians Condemned
• 2001: Israeli Missiles Kill Two Kids
• 2002: Panel to look into civilian deaths in 2002 IAF attack on Shehadeh
• 2003: Secrecy over shoot-to-kill fear in Gaza, Two journalists have been gunned down by Israeli troops
• 2004: TOTALS FOR 2004: Israelis: 8 Palestinians: 188
• 2005: Israeli troops say they were given shoot-to-kill order
• 2006: Teenager killed as missile explodes near school bus
• 2007: Israeli army says three children killed in Gaza were playing
• 2008: Palestinian group says Israelis killed 68 children in Gaza in year
• 2009: Israel Hits Second U.N. School, Blasts Way Into Southern Gaza

That's bullshit. Stating that "It's just the soldier's job" is the same nonsense that it was at the Nuremberg trials. Soldiers are people and they are expected to refuse both immoral and illegal orders.

maybe we shouldn't vote in bloodthirsty psychos

As opposed to the Israeli leadership?
Belgium bars Sharon war crimes trial
The man who would testify against Sharon is blown up. Was this another targeted killing?

I make no claims that the Hamas leadership is a bunch of nice guys, but you may want to do some more reseach on Israel. I'm sure you can find at least as many bad things to say about Hamas, but as the saying goes:
"Two wrongs don't make a right."

The IDF has always attacked military targets

I'm talking about private property previously owned by Palestinians in Israel and on the West Bank and Gaza, not the land of Israel itself. Both recent and slightly older. For some reason, Israel has a different policy on property stolen by the Nazis, even though that's even older.

I read a paper by some muslim cleric justifying the murdering of civilians in Israel. Jewish babies grow up and everybody is Israel is required to server time in the military.

However not all Israelis are Jews. Israel also has Arab, Christian, and Muslim citizens. There are Arab members of the Knesset, Israeli parliament. There are even Jews for Jesus and Jews for Allah.

Falcon

Now that's something that needs to be assessed, urgently, before Election Day. With her credentials she wouldn't even merit an advisory position to a secretary of state. But apparently it's Ok for her to be pushed into the VP seat without further notice, and possibly even the President's seat. The sheer contempt for the need for any sort of qualification for the office staggers me, even after having seen politics play out for decades.

As such things seem to work, putting her on the ticket is excellent political calculation. McCain is an elder male, so complement his ticket with a young female. McCain is a long-standing Senator, so complement him with a complete outsider. Makes sense from all perspectives but one. What has Palin done so far, and what is she likely to do in case she becomes VP or even President?

If this question is to be answered, then conventional sources are to be preferred of course. However, in this special case unconventional sources may have a role to play too.

Perhaps the best way I've seen my worries expressed (better than I can do it) is by Bradley Burston in this article here: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1021317.html.

Google have become far too big for their boots in recent years.

Indeed. Trying to get their crappy, browser-crashing "toolbar" included in every download (Adobe Reader, Sun Java, etc) was just the beginning.

But that was piddly, realplayer-style evil.

This? While they have a form (if you spend a ton of time hunting for them, not "readily available" as they claim) to try to remove an image, they still force you to go through a whole ton of paperwork just to assert your privacy rights. And there is no equivalent to remove your house from their satellite stuff if you so desire.

Plus, reviewing the photos makes it pretty obvious that whoever was taking the photos drove all the way up to the house.

People "love" Google for handing them free widgets - but then again, they can also be used for ridiculous false propaganda and Google's never corrected anything shown false on any of their tools, particularly when they can vilify Israel by keeping it up (see also the listing of the Temple Mount as "Palestinian", the listing of Gaza to this day as "Israeli Occupied" when it's run by Hamas terrorists after Israeli forces left years ago, and on and on).

Their "News service" is biased the same way - they'll run Hezbollah and Hamas "newspapers" but not western news organizations that catch those groups lying every day.

And then with Google owning YouTube, all of a sudden videos intended to counter Islamic Supremacist groups are being removed for "violation of terms of service", while videos of Jihadi nutcases put out by terror groups stay up for weeks on end.

Oh, and they'll put up all sorts of kitschy front page images for days in remembrance of canadian "Remembrance Day", and countless other days year-round, but they stuck the middle finger to US Veterans' Day and Memorial Day.

And of course, there was the torrent of anti-Bush ads at the same moment they rejected ads on a book which took Hillary down a peg or two.

Don't forget how in-bed they are with the Chinese "great firewall of China" in shutting down free speech over there.

I think Google long ago crossed the line. "Don't Be Evil"? They've moved past Vader all the way to Palpatine.

Tinfoil wallets make sense if you have a device to check like the RFID Privacy Guard that's been talked about here so often.

As for the "how to catch a thief" problem, you would hope the answer would be police work and a trial, but the grim reality is that all too often the answer it to throw a missile at the suspect in a crowd. Shamefully, some people think this kind of terrorism is a fine substitute for justice. Observation is only the first part of this kind of crime.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/948907.html

NRK (our equivalent of BBC) is no less critical towards the gov't than the independent channels.

A representative of Romanian President Traian Basescu gave a national medal in Israel on Friday to the family of a Romanian-born Virginia Tech professor who saved his students from a rampaging gunman Monday.

Witnesses to Monday's shooting said Librescu blocked the door to his classroom with his body so students could escape the assailant by jumping out windows. The 76-year-old professor was shot to death in the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history - which coincided with Holocaust Remembrance Day - and became one of 32 victims of gunman Cho Seung-Hui.

"He gave his life for his students," Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind told mourners at a Brooklyn funeral home during a memorial service Wednesday. "It is the ultimate sacrifice, and the ultimate goodness, after all that he went through in his life."

That doesn't seem to apply any more...

Sounds more like a tool to use on demonstrators who aren't armed, just pesky.

Correct. You would never deploy NLW in a situation where the target is armed with guns. This is meant to be used on peaceful protesters or, at worst, rock-throwers.

But, hey, maybe if we hand it to certain allies it might mean less children killed by stray stun grenades and rubber bullets.

Muwahahahahaha... Tell that to Mogadishu. Tell that to Beirut. Tell that to Baghdad, Paris, and Amsterdam. Tell that to Banda Aceh. Tell that to Indonesia. And oh yeah... remember to tell your grandkids when they get drafted to fight for Christendom, as it were. I'm sorry, but they will NOT be enforcing any kind of Sharia on this Redheaded Rebel.

And I'm allergic to bees, so my chances are pretty good. Especially since I'm 10 miles from Tijuana.

I don't watch Faux News... I read Das Interwebs... :P Where the hell did they come up with that anyways? A few of my favorites:

http://www.drudgereport.com/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/
http://news.google.com/
http://www.haaretz.com/
http://www.msnbc.com/
http://thehill.com/
http://www.iht.com/
http://my.yahoo.com/ - of course, customized for worldwide RSS.


Grow up and open your eyes to the world reality. Not just the one you see in your four walls. Try working with some people from different parts of the world. Especially men from the worker caste in India that don't know anything about how to work with Females. One peed all over the bathroom IN OUR OFFICE, because the young janitorial Mexican girl knocked on the door while he was taking a leak. He was offended, so he whizzed all over all of the porcelain. Oh, and he was Muslim too... he would accost any woman he saw wearing a crucifix... and since we have a lot of Filipinas here, it was awful. Needless to say, it STILL took us 2 months of protesting to get HR to do something about him. I particularly enjoyed bringing in bacon and egg muffin sammies and eating them right in front of him. Oh, did I mention that he was in the cube next to me.. this is how I know all this.

My favorite foreigners that I've ever worked were with practically brothers... we even shared an office. One was a Christian Iranian, the other a Sunni Iraqi, and they surfed (in the ocean) together daily. I miss them both so much... and they treated HUMANS with a dignity and respect I've never seen since. Sad. I learned a lot from them.

It's not the terrorism I worry about, it's the FORCED IMPOSITION of Sharia on societies that are too vulnerable to know better. Women are being beaten in the public square now in Banda Aceh, and no one cares... the UN let them take it over... and now, they are beaten to death for meeting with a man in public. FUCK THAT SHIT maynard. FUCK IT ALL... I will give MY rotten ass life to make sure that NO ONE must suffer under such injustice. *sigh* Even you. Especially you... too damned ignorant to know better.. either that, or you're blinded by decades of such imposition already.