Tuesday, January 01, 2008

2008, I Wonder What Was Happening in 1008?


A new year. This is a day to start fresh, a new dawn, a new day, a time to refresh. Shall we empty the cache and let the party for 2008 begin?

After all, one of the criticisms thrown at the chair of this august establishment is that old Whit and Deuce may be a tad pessimistic, perhaps a little over-salted with cynicism, and not ebullient, especially Whit. We do not walk on the bright side enough as DR may be wont to point out. All worthy and constructive and well received criticisms for sure. For sure. 

I got thinking, 2008, how will things change and how will they be different? 2007 was what, Muslims, Sunnis, Pakis, Shiites, Iraq, Iran, Darfur, mosques, terror, destruction....you get it.

Maybe 2008 will be the year where we can help make things better in the Muslim world?

Let us take a look and see how things were one thousand years ago. What was going on  in 1008? Who was born and what happened?

Back to the future, meet Al-Muizz ibn Badis, born in 1008. 


Al-Muizz ibn Badis

Wikipedia
Al-Muizz ibn Badis (Arabic: المعز بن باديس)‎ (1008 - 1062) was the fourth ruler of the Zirids in Ifriqiya and reigned from 1016 to 1062.

Al-Muizz ascended the throne as a minor following the death of his father Badis ibn Mansur (995-1016), with his aunt acting as regent. In 1016 there was a bloody revolt in Ifriqiya in which the Fatimid residence Al-Mansuriya was completely destroyed and 20,000 Shiites were massacred. The unrest forced a ceasefire in the conflict with the Hammadids of Algeria, and their independence was finally recognised in 1018.

Al-Muizz took over the government in 1022 following the overthrow of his aunt. The relationship with the Fatimids was strained, when in 1027 they supported a revolt of the Zanatas in Tripolitania which resulted in permanent loss of control of the region. His son Abdallah shortly ruled Sicily in 1038-1040, after intervening with a Zirid army in the civil war that broke out in the island.

The political turmoil notwithstanding, the general economic wellbeing initially made possible an extensive building programme. However, the kingdom found itself in economic crisis in the 1040s, reflected in currency devaluation, epidemic and famine. This may have been related to the high level of tribute which the Zirids were compelled to pay annually to the Fatimids (one million gold dinars a year).

When al-Muizz, under the influence of Sunni jurists in Kairouan, recognised the Abbasids in Baghdad as rightful Caliphs in 1045, the break with the Fatimids was complete.

The Fatimids then deported the Bedouin tribes of the Banu Hilal and the Banu Sulaym from Egypt to Ifriqiya. The invasion of the Bedouin (1051-1052) led to great hardship after the defeat at Jabal Haydaran, severely impacting agriculture in Ifriqiya. The conquest of Kairouan in 1057 resulted in further anarchy. The Zirids lost control over the hinterland and were only able to retain the coastal areas, the capital being moved to Mahdia. With the growth of Bedouin Emirates and the continuing insecurity inland, the economy of Ifriqiya looked increasingly towards the Mediterranean, with the result the coastal cities grew in importance through maritime trade and piracy.

Al-Muizz was succeeded by his son Tamim ibn Muizz.


HAPPY NEW YEAR ONE AND ALL

145 comments:

  1. 1008 Egyptian Caliph Hakkim, who claimed to be divine, pressured all non-Muslims to convert and forced all Jews to wear a "golden calf" around their necks.

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  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. Walkin' on the Sunny Side
    1,008 in Arizona means ...
    1,008 Square feet of casual living.
    Without discrimination, available to any and all regardless of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, per the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

    Lancer Doublewide in Citrus Gardens
    Lancer - 24' x 42' - 2/2 -
    ( 1,008 Sq Ft )
    Model Year - 1979
    Roofing - Shingle, Coated in 2007
    Siding - Vinyl
    Skirting - Yes.
    Utilities Required - All Electric

    INTERIOR DESCRIPTION

    Floor Plan - 2 Bedroom / 2 Bath
    Square Footage - 1,008 Sq Ft
    Water Heater - Electric
    Heater & A/C - Electric A/C & Heat, NEW 2007
    Telephone - Available
    Pay TV - Available
    Internet Access - Available

    EXTERIOR DESCRIPTION

    Lanai Room - SCREEN PORCH, 7' x 23'
    Porch # 1 - Covered Patio, 7' x 14'
    Carport - 11' x 30'
    Landscaping - Desert
    Storage Shed # 1 - 8' 6' x 11'
    Hot Tub - Available at the club house
    Pool - Available at the club house

    Asking Price - $23,500

    Home is - Unfurnished
    Lot Rental Fee - $426
    Average Electric Bill - $100
    Last Tax Bill - $119.90

    STRAND MANUFACTURED HOMES
    7149 E. Main
    Mesa, AZ - 85207
    Photos available for viewing, click it!

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  4. That's cheap living, Rat. How's the neighborhood?

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  5. That's right near Brentwood West!
    ...unfortunately, I'm not 55.

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  6. Puke all over the wife in the morning,
    Sailor, take warning.

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  7. Unfortunately, I am starting the new year with a bad case of Iowa Caucus fatigue.

    This long drawn out election is weaing thin and we haven't had the first vote.

    I heard this morning that the Unions are pouring big bucks into Iowa with the Breck girl being the biggest beneficiary.

    Now we hear that Bloomberg is stirring the pot.

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  8. Talk about puking!

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  9. A separate reality

    The Press Trust of India reports Pakistan's government has backed off from an earlier claim Benazir Bhutto died from a concussion.

    In a dramatic U-turn, Pakistan government has "apologised" for claiming that former premier Benazir Bhutto died of a skull fracture after hitting the sunroof of her car during a suicide attack.
    Caretaker Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz Khan has asked the media and people to "forgive and ignore" comments made by his ministry's spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema which were slammed by her Pakistan People's Party as "lies" and led to an uproar at home and abroad.

    The Interior Minister made the apology during a briefing for Pakistani newspaper editors on Monday. Punjab province on Tuesday issued a front-page advertisement in newspapers that offered a reward of Rs 1 crore for information about a gunman and a suspected suicide bomber seen in the photos and video footage of the assassination.
    - BC

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  10. Just like the MSM Here:
    Blame it on the Military!

    "During the briefing, an editor asked why spokesman Cheema had said that a lever on the sun-roof had caused a fatal injury when the manufacturers of the car and Bhutto's husband Asif Ali Zardari had stated that there was no metallic lever that could have caused the wound.

    Khan said the spokesman's comments may have been a mistake as "we are faujis (soldiers) and we are not so articulate to present our views as you journalists can". Both the interior minister and spokesman Cheema are retired army officers.
    "

    Probly had no other options than signing up, just like the inarticulate ones here.

    PBUArticulate Journalists!

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  11. "Meanwhile, the advertisement issued by Punjab's Home Ministry included two photos of the suspected assailant and the severed head of the suspected bomber."
    ---
    Severed Head in the Morning,
    Jihadi Take Warning.
    A Tylenol just won't do.

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  12. Walkin' on the Sunny Side
    1,008 in Arizona means ...
    1,008 Square feet of casual living.
    Without discrimination, available to any and all regardless of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, per the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

    Lancer Doublewide in Citrus Gardens
    Lancer - 24' x 42' - 2/2 -
    ( 1,008 Sq Ft )
    Model Year - 1979
    Roofing - Shingle, Coated in 2007
    Siding - Vinyl
    Skirting - Yes.
    Utilities Required - All Electric




    sounds like about the same thing Israel buys from the USA to HOUSE jews... oh I mean "racist settlers"

    after all, putting a trailer on your own historic lands is a war crime, most of those trailers in Israel sit on lots of sand too... barren sand...

    but I forget, that's a warcrime...

    but to recap 2007 - freedom fighters report: Palestinians mounted a total of 2,946 Palestinian terrorist attacks, 9 less than 2006!

    Progress!

    Hamas AVERAGED 8.2 Missiles and or Mortars a day in 2007 from the Gaza Strip

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  13. felix said...
    The correction to the "actual truth" is a welcome development. We should not be so cynical.

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  14. Condi's gonna have her State Dept buy Trailers for Joos to put on Shiite and Sunni Lands.
    Part of an innovative, new,
    PEACE PROCESS.

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  15. WIO speaks "Yinglish"

    Linguistics
    "Ethnologue sometimes goes against general linguistic community consensus (and the opinion of the majority of the speakers themselves in some cases) as to what constitutes a separate language (as opposed to a dialect). The designation of Irish dialects does not match that generally used by Irish linguists, with an otherwise unattested dialect called Munster-Leinster mentioned by Ethnologue. For Scottish Gaelic only two extinct or moribund dialects are listed; none of the main living dialects are mentioned. Ethnologue also attributes separate language status to "Yinglish", an English vernacular spoken by some Jewish Americans which is to some degree influenced by the Yiddish and Hebrew languages. Some of these classifications do not meet Ethnologue's own professed criteria for classification.[1]
    "

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  16. Sprechen Zie Munster-Leinster?

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  17. CRAIG'S NIGHTMARE:

    #4 – We never did quite figure out the toilets. There was the one that spun around after you flushed (mom was very frighted by this) and also the one that sounded like a large barking dog when you flushed (dad said something about flushing upwards…?). But by far the best was the toilet in St. Malo. You had to pay to use it – 30 cents. We tried the first door but it took our money without letting us in. So, we tried the next. Mom and I went in together in an attempt to save money (as if dad’s hotel wasn’t enough…) and just as I went to sit down, the toilet seat went down. Almost as if it were possessed. Honestly, I hadn’t even noticed it was up in the first place! So mom and I finish up but can’t for the life of us figure out how to flush. Whatever, we said. We go to the door and let dad in (that’s 30 more cents saved, you know). And no sooner does the door click shut when we hear the loudest sound of gushing water followed by the sound of Dad screaming. Mom and I frantically tried to open the door, but with no money, we were helpless. Personally, I figured dad had tried to flush the toilet by unscrewing some valve and now the bathroom was flooding! After a few seconds dad comes to the door. His look says it all. As do his soaking wet pant legs. Turns out it was an automatic cleaning bathroom.
    Dad described it as: water gushing out of the walls.

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  18. World Peace will come in 2008 by selling more F-16's to Pakistan.
    Trust Me,
    GWB

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  19. Pretty nice, whit.
    Mesa, AZ. is an old Mormon town, the big Temple is there, the genology library and all that.

    Historical property rights not withstanding, Israel limits the occupation of their modular housing, by Sectarian standards.

    Just another form of fascism.
    Free Societies deplore such rascism. No matter the name it is called.

    A ghetto by any other name is still a ghetto.
    Two wrongs not making a right, government imposed ghettos are wrong, morally.
    The Israelis not being "Enlightened" in how to run a free society, being socialists at heart. Even mat advocting mandates for housing in the US, a country he is neither resident nor citizen of. But would love to dictate mandates to, for our own good, he is sure.

    If one did not want to live in a historicly Mormon part of the Phoenix metro area, there are other localew with pretty much the same housing values, in old doublewides, or modular housing.

    A list of listings. Little subdivisions of modulars, behind a fence, if not a gate.

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  20. Protests and counter protest, the way it is done here, in the Valley of the Sun. The tit for tat, legal done, well within the lines.

    Rest assured, both sides have guns.
    But they are not used in political protests, unlike those sectarian societies. Where gunplay seems to be the first resort. People not wanting to reconcile their differences, not seeking equality under the Law, but group advantages, sanctioned by the Law

    Fight spreads over immigration protests at furniture store
    Daniel Gonz�lez
    The Arizona Republic
    Dec. 31, 2007 05:26 PM

    A contentious battle over day laborers and illegal immigration has spread from Pruitt's furniture store in east Phoenix to a day labor hiring site in north Phoenix.

    Since Saturday, about a dozen members of anti-illegal immigration groups have been staging protests outside the Macehuali Work Center on 25th Street near Bell Road in retaliation for the weekly protests at Pruitt's Home Furnishings.

    The work center is run by Salvador Reza, who for the past two months has organized weekly protests across from Pruitt's on Thomas Road near 35th Street. Reza is trying to pressure the furniture store from using off-duty sheriff's deputies to chase away day laborers in the area.

    In response, supporters of the furniture store said they plan to hold protests at the work center every day until Reza either backs off or the work center goes out of businesses.

    "We are going to hit Salvador in the pocketbook just like he's hitting Pruitt's in the pocketbook," said Buffalo Rick Galeener, a member of Riders USA, and United for a Sovereign America, two groups that want stricter enforcement of immigration laws.

    The protests at the work center have further upped the ante in what has turned into a volatile standoff between day labor advocates on one side and anti-illegal immigration groups on the other. For the past two months, the two sides have staged heated protests and counter-protests across from the furniture store over the owners' use of off-duty sheriff's deputies to chase away day laborers in the area. City officials had hoped the protests would end with the New Year, but the outbreak of protests at the work center shows the conflict is far from being resolved.

    Reza said he doubts the protests at the work site would be effective because this traditionally is a slow time of year.

    "They may scare some people off, but those who want to hire, will still hire," he added.

    He said his group had met on Monday and decided to continue the weekly protests at Pruitt's this Saturday indefinitely until the owners pull the sheriff's deputies. Store owners Roger and Michael Sensing could not be reached for comment.

    Meanwhile, Rusty Childress, founder of United for a Sovereign America, said he and his supporters will be photographing and writing down the license plate numbers of employers who show up at the work center to hire day laborers. They will turn the information over to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and County Attorney Andrew Thomas, who are in charge of enforcing a state law that takes effect Tuesday against employers that knowingly hire illegal workers.

    "We are definitely giving Reza a little bit of his own medicine," Childress said.

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  21. The Impotent Hegemon
    By Patrick Buchanan

    "Things are in the saddle, and ride mankind."

    Emerson's couplet comes to mind as the New Year opens with Pakistan, the second largest Muslim country on Earth, in social and political chaos, trending toward a failed state with nuclear weapons.
    ....
    What are the primary U.S. interests today in Pakistan? That its nuclear weapons remain in secure and friendly hands and that Pakistan remains an ally in the war against al-Qaeda.

    Whatever happens in the elections Jan. 8, or later, the United States should retain close ties to Pakistan's military. As Rome's emperor Septimus Severus counseled his sons on his deathbed, "Pay the soldiers. The rest do not matter."

    But the United States must begin now to look at the longer term.

    It seems clear that we are so hated in that country that any leader like Bhutto, seen as a friend and ally to the United States, is ever at mortal risk. Musharraf has himself been a repeated target of assassins.

    Second, our ability to influence events is severely limited. What does democracy mean in a country where 60 percent of the people are illiterate and parties are fiefdoms of families and political instruments of religious radicals?

    As Burke reminded us, "It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters."

    We need to ask ourselves hard questions. Has the blood we have shed in Afghanistan and Iraq, the hundreds of billions we have plunged into these wars, and into foreign aid, made us safer? Has it made us more friends than enemies? Perhaps, as is seen today in Anbar, locals are better at dealing with al-Qaeda than even our American soldiers.

    Russia, China, India, and Japan are closer to Pakistan than we. Yet, none of them feels the need we apparently do to be so deeply enmeshed in her internal affairs.

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  22. The Future Pakistan Deserves
    By Muhammad Nawaz Sharif
    Tuesday, January 1, 2008; Page A11

    LAHORE, Pakistan -- There is no law and certainly no order in my country. What happened this past week has shaken every Pakistani. Benazir Bhutto was no ordinary person. She served as prime minister twice and had returned to Pakistan in an effort to restore our country to the path of democracy. With her assassination I have lost a friend and a partner in democracy.

    It is too early to blame anybody for her death. One thing, however, is beyond any doubt: The country is paying a very heavy price for the many unpardonable actions of one man -- Pervez Musharraf.

    Musharraf alone is responsible for the chaos in Pakistan. Over the past eight years he has assiduously worked at demolishing institutions, subverting the constitution, dismantling the judiciary and gagging the media. Pakistan today is a military state in which a former prime minister can be gunned down in broad daylight. One of my own political rallies was fired upon the day Benazir Bhutto was killed.

    These are the darkest days in Pakistan's history. And such are the wages of dictatorship. ...

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  23. Crisis in Kenya
    The government's apparent manipulation of election results prompts a violent backlash.

    Tuesday, January 1, 2008

    KENYA APPEARED close over the weekend to successfully completing a groundbreaking democratic election that would have, for the first time, forced an incumbent president to leave office. Instead, eleventh-hour manipulations by President Mwai Kibaki and his ruling party have robbed the vote of credibility and plunged the country into near-chaos. By late yesterday, news services reported that more than 135 people had been killed in rioting, much of it involving fighting between members of Mr. Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe and the rival Luo group, which backed opposition candidate Raila Odinga. The Associated Press said that police had been ordered to shoot to kill to disperse mass demonstrations.

    The violent backlash by Mr. Odinga's supporters was indefensible. But most of the blame for the crisis should fall on Mr. Kibaki, 76, who has been a good steward of the Kenyan economy but apparently balked at the prospect that he would be voted out of office. ...

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  24. dr: Historical property rights not withstanding, Israel limits the occupation of their modular housing, by Sectarian standards.

    Just another form of fascism.
    Free Societies deplore such rascism. No matter the name it is called.


    very odd statement..

    i just dont know how to respond..

    i do know the the "fascists" israelis built more hospitals, plumbing, roads, universities & houses for the palestinians then ever in their history...

    I do know that israel has spent billions on infrastructure for the arabs of the disputed lands of the west bank and gaza.

    so how is resettling jews in mobil homes a form of facism? the lands these trailers sit on are barren and not being used by anyone...

    dr do you have a moral problem of JEWS owning land anywhere? or israel providing homes to jews?

    israel settles many a homeless jew and arab alike...

    israel provides social services, doctors, electricity & food supplies to hostile populations of the disputed lands all the while receiving 8.2 rocket attacks per day...

    and israel shows a form of fascism because she uses trailers on barren hilltops?

    wow...

    happy new year...

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  25. Because the modulars are not open to anyone, they are in restricted access areas, open only to a select sectarian few.

    The land empty, because the Israeli Government maintained it so. Until it used it, for it's own uses and Goals.

    Squatting, is what we call it here, moving onto lands that are not owned by the residents.

    Here in the West, most of the land is Federally controlled. The areas of the most abject poverty, where the Government mandates ghettos. We call the Indian Reservations, but they fit the old definition of a ghetto.

    Where the land is privately owned, regulated to maintain free and fair ownership and use, prosperity reigns.

    In Gaza, where Israel maintained a Palistinian ghetto, by force of arms since 1967, poverty and illiteracy are the fruits of it's labor. In the West Bank, Israel maintains it's armed presence, using check points, road blocks and squads of Russian enforcers to halt traffic and stymie economic progress.

    It does not project equality under the Law to all the residents of the Land under it's control.
    It fosters dual Standards, based upon sectarian geneology.
    It maintains ghettos, building ever more of them, not a free and open society.

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  26. dRat,

    Cheer up. Israel has the right to keep who she chooses and kick out who she chooses. It's called national sovereignty. Your ghetto argument is rather selectively applied, plus it is factually false.

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  27. Israel can do what it wants, that's afact.

    The ghetto argument is factual, those "Settlements" not open to one and all, but a sectarian few.

    That's a fact.

    That Israel maintains a sectarian apartheid, validated by the remarks of its' Prime Minister, after the Annapolis Conference.

    Ehud Olmert said Israel was "finished" if it forced the Palestinians into a struggle for equal rights.
    If the two-state solution collapsed, he said, Israel would "face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, and as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished". Israel's supporters abroad would quickly turn against such a state, he said.

    "The Jewish organisations, which were our power base in America, will be the first to come out against us because they will say they cannot support a state that does not support democracy and equal voting rights for all its residents," he said.


    The Israeli Prime Minister a better source of the truth than an expat and a never been.
    That's a fact.

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  28. My Government, has made it's decision clear, the Sec of State leaving little room for misunderstanding, as Ms Glick informs the world, by quoting US.

    "I know what it is like to hear that you cannot go on a road or through a checkpoint because you are a Palestinian. I understand the feeling of humiliation and powerlessness."

    Rice's remarks make clear that for the Secretary of State there is no difference between Israelis trying to defend themselves from a jihadist Palestinian society which supports the destruction of the Jewish state and bigoted white Southerners who oppressed African Americans because of the color of their skin.


    Racism, based upon color or creed, the US sees it the same.
    As does Mr Olmert.
    Zionists viewing their Sect as a Race apart.

    That's a fact.

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  29. "Russia, China, India, and Japan are closer to Pakistan than we. Yet, none of them feels the need we apparently do to be so deeply enmeshed in her internal affairs."

    Good question. I have another: Why have we not been able to split off AQ from the Taliban?

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  30. More from Ms Glick, as to realities

    The Israel-PLO joint statement at Annapolis contains a joint pledge "to propagate a culture of peace and nonviolence; to confront terrorism and incitement, whether committed by Palestinians or Israelis."
    ...
    Since the Olmert government accepts that Israel is morally indistinguishable from the Palestinian Authority, it is hard to foresee it preventing the criminalization of its political opponents. From now on, Israelis who oppose the diplomatic moves of the Olmert government can expect to be treated as the moral equivalents of Palestinian terrorists.


    Which they are.
    That's a fact, fully agreed to by the Israeli Government.

    No Illuminati involved.

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  31. "The ghetto argument is factual, those "Settlements" not open to one and all, but a sectarian few."

    ..
    These "settlements" were fought for paid for and developed by these "sectarian" few. It's their "sectarian" land. If you don't like it, tough. Israel is not America.

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  32. dRat,

    Your sophistry not withstanding, as Israelis we intend to remain an overwhelming majority on our land. We're not interested in Empire and we're not interested in absorbing a billion chinese or a billion indians or a billion Jihadis on our land so they can then erase our identity. You can go sell your "ghetto" argument to the Tibetans, see if they'll bite.

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  33. 2008 Prediction--1008--number of cockeyed hawkeyes that caucus for Kucinich on Thursday.

    Nice price on the doublewide. Lower than here for the same. By about 10k or more. Plus one could hire an illegal to keep the shrubs trimmed, lawn mowed. Not bad. Lock in that lot rent rate, if possible.

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  34. Main Stream Media bumps Ron Paul from program debate. Fred Thompson, however, who is polling about the same numbers as Ron Paul, receives a pass. Paul supporters infuriated. MSM claims there is not enough room on the bus for every Duncan and Ron come-lately. They need to rent a doublewide.

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  35. MSM--"No room on the bus, leave the voting to us"

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  36. Just read Mr Olmert, them's the facts on the ground. He's there, everyday.

    Ms Glick, who is there as well, seeing the realities, not liking them, but not in denial, either.

    Not likely that the both of them are wrong and that mat, in far-&-away Canada, knows the Israel of today better.
    Nope, have to doubt that he does, as he's far-&-away.


    The is no difference 'tween the Taliban and aQ, that's why they won't "Give 'em up"

    One and the same, intermarried ideologies, both figuratively and literally.

    Seems those irreconcilables have picked their sides, together. There being no payoff the US can offer that the "Golden Chain" cannot match.

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  37. Mr Paul must be doing better than expected, it being decided that, as he is coloring outside the lines, he must be silenced, his positions not being considered "Serious" by the Establishment.

    Mr Thompson, the K Street lobbiest, is well within the lines and can continue to participate, keeping the GOP splintered.
    Mr Paul developing a growing but uncontrolable constituency.

    Can't have that.

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  38. I think your analysis is right on target, Rat. Fairly, one would think, Ron Paul, the outsider making waves, most certainly ought to be included in the debate, in an open system, not to mention the political interest of it.

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  39. dRat,

    Mr Rice/Olmert, Heezzadeadtome.
    Mr Thompson, Heezzagoodman.

    :)

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  40. Maybe Paul ought to try and gate crash, hop on the bus without a ticket, raise hell, pound on the bus door, get some free publicity.

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  41. Ron Paul, at the head of a contingent of supporters, storms debate bus, says headline.

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  42. Ron Paul, commanding a brigade of insurgents, storms debate bus, sounds better.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Mr Olmert and Ms Rice both representitive of ruling Governments

    Mr Thompson, out in the cold, looking in.

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  44. Most likely the candidate to vote for, now.

    May as well join the revolution.
    As not.

    McCain will carry the State, more than likely, if he's still in the hunt on 5 Feb, it's a "winner take all" deal, may as well vote for Paul.

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  45. dRat,

    Mr Olmert doesn't represent the public's will. If he foolishly decides to push his luck, he'll get to keep his tombstone namesake on his tomb stone and that's about it. :)

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  46. He is the elected Prime Minister, mat.

    Legally so.
    As I said earlier Sectarian States resorting to the bullet, rather than the ballot. The minority feeling their "higher calling" is above the law

    As Fascists are historically apt to do.

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  47. dRat,

    Name calling don't frighten me. PC tactics is for the sheep. I'm a ram. :D

    As for Olmert, he's polling 2% in popular polls. Politicians are disposable. They come and go. Olmert is on his way out. It's up to him how he is to exit the scene.

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  48. Name calling?

    If Mr Olmert were so unpopular, his support would fade away, but it does not. The democratic process, which Israelis tout as their connection to the "West" gave us Mr Olmert.

    There are no calls for new elections or a Parlimentary "vote of confidence". Even after the Lebanonese debacle.

    Menachem Begin, assassinated by fascists, vindicated by subsequent events. His policies unaffected by an assassins bullet.

    Democracy is the best revenge.

    Mr Ariel Sharon, the "Lion of Judah", his policies of withdrawal and reconciliation well underway.

    Mr Olmert remains in his stead.

    How is it, that all these Israeli leaders operate against her interests, if they do at all?

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  49. "If Mr Olmert were so unpopular, his support would fade away, but it does not."

    Mr Olmert's support is that of politicians who know they will not be reelected. An early election means an early retirement to the whole bunch of them. This fraternity politicians should consider themselves lucky to still be drawing oxygen, let alone that they can still draw their salary at our expense.

    Begin (zl) died of natural causes.

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  50. "Youths" in France losing their touch,er, torch, only 372 Car b ques last night. They might gain a little sympathy if they claimed to be acting on environmental principles, attacking the dreaded petro fueled vehicles, demanding electric cars.

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  51. And I protest the use of the term "vandals" in describing such activity...it is insensitive and harmful to my sense of self, and self worth.

    ReplyDelete
  52. Which one was shot, wasn't Begin, you're right, as you should be.
    Mr Begin creating the enduring peace with Eygpt, another mile marker on the road to reconciliation. Good thing or Israel would have even more limited access to oil.

    Yitzhak Rabin he was the one, shot in the stomach and chest, on 4 November 1995, just over a decade ago. To be replaced by Mr Peres, who took over as Prime Minister.

    The Oslo Process continuiing, despite the bullet.

    Illustrates just how unimportant it is, who sits on the Israeli throne. No matter the Prime Minister, reconciliation continues.

    Even when Binyamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, who campaigned against the Rabin-Peres peace program became Prime Minister from 1996 to 1999, he could not turn the process around.

    Netanyahu negotiated with Yasser Arafat in the form of the Wye River Accords (1998). No progress was made in peace talks with the Palestinians, and although Netanyahu turned over most of Hebron to Palestinian jurisdiction, he failed to implement agreed-upon steps of the Oslo Accords

    But the Process did not die, did it? Mr Sharon taking Likud on the Nixon "Road to China".

    Mr Olmert is correct though, in his apartheid assessment, regardless of his popularity.

    ReplyDelete
  53. vandal |ˈvandl|

    2 a member of a Germanic people that ravaged Gaul, Spain, and North Africa in the 4th–5th centuries and sacked Rome in ad 455.

    ReplyDelete
  54. I think we ripped a new ass hole for some of the english too, Mat, don't forget that.

    ReplyDelete
  55. The land having been promised us by Odin :)

    ReplyDelete
  56. True! Credit must go where credit is due. Though, for his "apartheid" assessment, dRat insists on giving Mr Olmert the credit. One wonders why.

    ReplyDelete
  57. Learn what 2008 holds in store for the world, and , perhaps, for you personally tonight--

    Tue 01.01 >>
    Kicking off the New Year, Ian Punnett will host Coast to Coast AM's annual prediction show featuring psychics and futurists and what they see looming for the year 2008. The line-up: Gerald Celente, George Ure, Paul Guercio, Glynis McCants, Sean David Morton, Mark Lerner

    ReplyDelete
  58. How can you tell the difference between a Viking and a Vandal? By The Color of Their Eyes? Find out here, and much more too!

    ReplyDelete
  59. And if you're colorblind, it helps to know that Odin had one eye. :D

    ReplyDelete
  60. First you have to remember that Viking was a job title, and not a race of people. One of the great errors in history is to call all the Scandinavian people Vikings.

    Vikings Wanted--Low hourly wage, rude working conditions, physical stamina necessary, chance of great booty. No intelligence test neceassary. No GED required. To apply in person, contact Knarr at 1-800-Go-Viking for appointment.

    ReplyDelete
  61. Chance of great booty, Ha! Sounds like old Knarr is up to his old tricks running a brothel.

    ReplyDelete
  62. Odin

    There is a common numerology found in the architecture of Valhalla, and hidden in the the ancestor lists of (what we call) the Old Testament, deriving from Sumer. I will look it up in my Joseph Campbell and post it. It is interesting.

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  63. Mr Olmert gets the credit, mat, because he is the elected leader of Israel that admits that obvious truth, in public, with regards Israel and the Palistinians.

    ReplyDelete
  64. With the bow he could fire ten arrows at once each always hitting separate targets.

    Sounds like a MIRV. Or a volley of cruise missiles.

    ReplyDelete
  65. "They say they want to make peace. I hope they mean what they say," Olmert said.

    Olmert did not set preconditions to holding talks with Syria, but added, "There will not be peace with Syria if Syria is connected to Hamas, Hizbullah and Iran and continues to encourage the actions it is encouraging. That is perfectly clear.

    It's either-or."


    Message to Syria

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  66. When Ms Pelosi travels to Syria, "carrying a message" she was savaged, but Mr Specter takes a similar trip, for the same purpose ...

    Barely a word.

    Return of the Golan,
    "the core of the deal"

    ReplyDelete
  67. Another Example of the kind of thoughtless prejudice and slander my tribe is subject to.

    ReplyDelete
  68. ... the US could help "bridge the gap" between Israel and Syria.


    mat's puppetmaster, the kingmaker is going to Bridge the Gap

    Barbie Dolls will be bending on over for Unlce Sam, as mat says they always do. No reason for those trend lines to change now.

    No grand conspiracy though, just personal corruption, on the part of the Israeli political elites?

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  69. "Damascus has decided to pursue real peace with Israel which will give Syria its rights back," Syrian sources told the London-based Arabic daily, referring to Senator Arlen Specter's meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad earlier this week.

    Meanwhile, the sources also said that in order to motivate a real peace deal between the two countries, "Israel must guarantee the return of the entire Golan Heights to Syria."

    Al-Hayat's sources also implied that negotiations between Damascus and Jerusalem are currently underway via Turkish mediation and added that if the negotiations are successful, the US will be asked to participate in direct Israeli-Syrian talks.


    Israel and Syria

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  70. ah now i understand...

    but DF you miss the point..

    the JEWS have been DRIVEN INTO the ghetto of .5/650th of the middle east by the arabs...

    you fail to understand the BIG picture, you focus on the micro fake story..

    palestine...

    no you cannot look at israel and palestine WITHOUT looking at the bigger ghetto picture..

    the jews have been forced out of their homes, businesses by the majority racist peoples, the arabs into t a tiny sliver now called israel...

    yes a ghetto but you are not seeing the true story...

    jews ARE the indians of the middle east, not the arabs, this false construct you are arguing that some how Israel is the dominate power forgets the fact that the arabs now control 649.7/650th of the middle east and now control 20% of the .3/650th within israel

    the total land that israel is guilty of settling (according to your point of view) is 1/1000 of 1%..

    israel ALREADY has given back the sinai, gaza, lebanon in a sad attempt to make peace, now your claiming because israel refuses to commit national suicide somehow it's racist.

    Israel build BOTH arab and jewish towns, that is the middle east, israel resettles thousands of jews driven from arab countries STILL to this day, whereas the arab, who control the vast land & resources of the middle east finance war against israel.

    Your attempts to equate "jewish" settlement on barren PUBLIC lands as somehow theft forgets the fact that it is not theft to drive out thieves.

    but, as i have stated before, if jews have no rights to hebron & jerusalem, then no offense your a squatter 10 fold..

    Jews can and do own lands in west bank, I know that pisses you and the arabs off... but too bad..

    think of it.. the way you think, it is moral and good to make it illegal for jews to own and live on property in 649.87/650th of the middle east...

    jew should stay on their tiny sliver of lands and beg for mercy from the dominate arab populations..

    no offense, but nonsense...

    you want fairness?

    let's start with this:

    2 brother isaac & ishmael...

    ok, then the arab world OWES the jews 1/2 of all lands... from medina to damascus

    dont like that argument?

    how about this...

    arabs get 649/650th of the middle east and 21 nations and the jews get 1/650th and 1 country and the jews must take 20 % of their population as 5th columnists?

    Ghettos my ass...

    gaza & the west bank have poisoned not by israel, but by the death cult paid for by UNWA & EU and the arab league...

    ReplyDelete
  71. News of the day in Israel from Israel Matzav------------------

    Don't mess with Haredim

    For the first time, Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria have fought against 'Palestinian' thugs trying to prevent them from building in their town. This time, it happened in Modiin Ilit (Kiryat Sefer):

    Settlers from the Matityahu East neighborhood of Modi'in Illit broke through the perimeter fence surrounding their development and planted two mobile homes on land that residents of the neighboring Palestinian village of Bil'in claim is theirs, the spokesman for the Judea and Samaria police district said Tuesday.

    It marked the first time that haredim living in the West Bank have put up structures without permission from the authorities.

    The spokesman said police had detained two Palestinians and two settlers for taking part in fights that broke out between the sides. The police also detained the drivers of the truck and crane that were used to deliver the caravans and place them on the site.

    Meanwhile, three Palestinians who said they were badly beaten by settlers were taken by police to a checkpoint and driven from there by Palestinian ambulance to a hospital in Ramallah. They had rushed to the site of the building activity and tried to prevent the settlers from putting the caravans on the ground.

    "About 50 settlers started throwing stones and punching us," Abdullah Abu Rahme, one of the wounded Palestinians, told The Jerusalem Post.

    He said it had taken the police an hour to arrive and extricate them.
    You really didn't expect to hear the Haredi side of the story, did you? I'm glad you didn't because it's not there. Maybe when I get my weekly freebie of the Haredi paper Yated Ne'eman tomorrow it will have something about this.

    posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:17 AM 1 comments links to this post

    Shooting back ourselves

    Yisrael in Shilo sent me a link to a story about how B'Tselem, a Jewish, anti-Semitic 'human rights' NGO, has been giving video cameras to 'Palestinians' in Judea and Samaria so that they can 'document' their abuse by Jews. It's an appallingly biased story. Here's part of it with my comments interspersed:


    The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has given Palestinian families across the West Bank video cameras to document how they’re treated by Israeli soldiers and settlers. The project is called “Shooting Back.” Some of the videos depicting abuse by settlers sparked a national debate in Israel earlier this year after they were broadcast on Israeli television.

    Oren Yakobovich coordinates B’Tselem’s video department. He recently traveled to the United States, joined me here in the firehouse studio. I began by asking him to explain the project, “Shooting Back.”


    OREN YAKOBOVICH: “Shooting Back,” it’s basically giving a Palestinian that’s living in high-risk areas that’s probably going to suffer from human rights violation by the Israeli army and by settlers—we give them cameras, so they can film their life, and basically we can see the violation when it’s occurred.


    AMY GOODMAN: How did you come to do this?


    OREN YAKOBOVICH: Right. B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights, is documenting violation since ’89 [except that they only document 'violations' of 'Palestinian' rights and not of Jewish rights. You can bet that they did not and will not document the murder of Ahikam Amichai and Yehuda Levy HY"D on Friday. CiJ], and the aim is to bring to the Israeli public and to the public in the world and decision makers violation. And the aim is, of course, to advocate for the end of violation. I wish I would not be here speaking about violation, but it’s happening all the time.


    So, for many years, what we did, we did reports. We’re still doing them. And it’s a long-term report. We’re investigating the situation in the field. We had field researchers in every big city in the West Bank that—taking testimonies, written testimonies [which are for the most part unverified. CiJ]. And we did some films about the reports that we were taking out, but there was kind of frustration that I felt all the time, or we felt in B’Tselem, because we know from written testimony that a lot of things are happening, and we don’t really manage to see them. It was becoming hard, harder, more and more during the years, to bring new information or new visuals to the media and to grab public attention. And we looked for a different point of view, a new point of view, and this is how we decided to start giving cameras to these people that live in these places.


    AMY GOODMAN: Where do you get the cameras?


    OREN YAKOBOVICH: Where we get them from?


    AMY GOODMAN: You just—you buy them and then give them to—?


    OREN YAKOBOVICH: Yeah, we buy them.


    AMY GOODMAN: And so, do you have support of people in Israel?


    OREN YAKOBOVICH: We have support of people in Israel, also in the world. [The EU funds them to an extent that you and I can only dream about. . CiJ] B’Tselem is an NGO, and we—fund by contributions. So we take—we raise money, and we buy the cameras and give them.


    AMY GOODMAN: What does “B’Tselem” actually mean, the Hebrew word?


    OREN YAKOBOVICH: The word itself, OK, “B’Tselem” is come from the Bible, and the first sentence in Genesis is God created man in His shape [No, it's not the first sentence. It's the 27th sentence. But then, you wouldn't expect a moonbat like this one to know something as basic to Judaism as the first chapter of Genesis, would you? CiJ]. In His shape—


    AMY GOODMAN: In His image.


    OREN YAKOBOVICH: In image, yes. So, in His image, the Hebrew word for it would be “B’Tselem.” So that’s where it’s coming from. Even though we are not with this organization at all, but the aim is, of course, to point that everyone has been created in the shape of God, and everybody is equal.

    AMY GOODMAN: Oren, describe this first video we’re about to watch and listen to.


    OREN YAKOBOVICH: Alright. OK, well, this is basically the first video that we took out for the media. It’s happening in Hebron. Just to understand, Hebron is the only Palestinian city [Hebron has been a Jewish city for some 3000 years except between 1929 and 1967 when the Jews were expelled from it. CiJ] where Jewish settlers living in the heart of the city. Usually the settlements will be outside of the major city, around or close by, but not inside. In Hebron, basically because Abraham, the father of our religion, is buried there, it’s a very holy place to the Jews also, and there’s settlements in the heart of the city.


    The result of the settlements is a lot of restriction of movements on—that are being held on Palestinians. [No, that's not the result of the 'settlements.' It's the result of tens of 'Palestinian' terror attacks in and around Hebron. The most recent one was this past Friday. It showed yet again what happens when 'Palestinians' are allowed to roam free. CiJ] There are many streets that they cannot really walk. A Palestinian cannot drive cars in these areas. And there is a lot of violation that’s happening there from the settlers that are living there. There are very radical settlers, more radical even than the rest of the West Bank. And we know from a lot of years of watching the place or getting testimonies that a lot of violations is happening there.


    What you’re going to see is a clip from a settlement called Tel Rumeida in Hebron. What we will see is a settler from this settlement, from Tel Rumeida, pushing Palestinians that basically are living across the street, on the other side of the road, pushing her back to her home, calling her “whore,” cursing her very viciously. And all this time, you see the soldier standing next to the woman doing nothing, not interfering.


    AMY GOODMAN: Tell us about the Palestinian family, in particular the woman, both the Palestinian woman and the Jewish settler woman.


    OREN YAKOBOVICH: Yeah, OK. So the Palestinian is part of part of Abu Eisha family that’s living in the heart of Tel Rumeida. They’ve been there for years, a lot of lot of years. In ’84, if I’m not mistaken, or ’83—I don’t remember—the settlement started, the Jewish settlement started in Hebron. The street that was open all the time to the family and to the people to come to visit her was closed. And now, this is the only Palestinian family that can walk in the street, the people living in this house. And they have nowhere to—the only way out from this house is through this road. So basically every time they’re going out from the door, they’re confronting the settlement—the settlers. And you will see this clip, and after, you see more clips, because we get a lot of material from this family. They are being attacked on a regular basis. Every time they go out of the house, there’s a good chance they’re going to get stones from the children or from the people that are living across the street, from the settlers.


    AMY GOODMAN: And tell me about this particular settler woman.


    OREN YAKOBOVICH: Don’t say her name, but she is a radical settler [Note that the 'Palestinian' is a human being with a name while the Israeli is a 'radical settler' without one. Holy dehumanization Batman! You can't even tell she's a woman until Goodman refers to her as "this particular settler woman." CiJ], and she’s living on the other side of the street. And she’s kind of representing the settlers population living in Hebron. And I have to say that even for the Israeli audience, she seems extreme, like she’s very extreme. But what we know about her, this is not the first time she’s attacking, not her, not her friends. There’s attacks happening there regularly on a regular basis. And what we see, that the army and the police are not enforcing the law, or there is lack of enforcement there. [Who was injured in this 'attack'? No one. Jews 'attack' with words. 'Palestinians' attack with high-powered rifles and explosives. CiJ]

    'Nuff said.

    ReplyDelete
  72. You misunderstand wi"o"
    I make no excuse for past US genocide of the indigs.
    I was not there, the poverty that we, as a society, subjected the Indians to, alleviated in Arzona by legalized gambling operations, which provided seed money for a wide variety of other indig businesses.

    The local Indians pleased as punch, as compared to when I was High School. In those days Dan Quayle and I attended school in Scottsdale, while the Pima Indian kids were bused over twentyfive miles, to Mesa, while they lived just across Pima Road from both Scottsdale and Saguaro High. Walking distance.

    We long term locals making adjustments to the status que for the injustices we witnessed. Over the objections of the carpetbagging Governor, Fife Symington III, at the time.

    Size, measured by square miles, of the injustice that Israel participates in, no excuse for further injustice.

    Condi Rice states the US position. Israel is racist in its' application of justice. Just like was exemplified by Jim Crow laws in the United States.

    Since 1967 the US making amends for its' past, Israel compounding the injustice, since then.

    Mr Olmert sees the writing on the wall, I mean security fence, right or wrong.
    With even you now making the case for a Palistinian State, while denying the existence of the Palistinians.

    A real world problem for one of the last vestiges of British Imperialism in the Middle East.

    The economic betterment, under "western management" argument not carrying water in Rhodesia or South Africa, it will not in TransJordan, either.

    Sinai, Gaza, Lebanon, Golan Heights ... as you say, those set the trends.

    For Israel's death knell, as a sectarian State.

    There will not be a repetition of Russian immigration to Israel circa 1990-1993. There are not another million Jews wishing to immigrate, based upon the conditions in their present residences. mat is already an expat, are you about to emmigrate, take your family to the Levant?

    In early 2007 Haaretz reported that aliyah for the year of 2006 was down approximately 9% from 2005. They state that: "Only 19,264 people immigrated to Israel in 2006, down nine percent from 2005. It is the lowest number of immigrants recorded since 1988" [5].

    On 20th April 2007, the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported that 14,400 immigrants are expected in 2007 while 20,000 are expected to leave the country [6]. The reports also state that: "...approximately a quarter of the Israeli population was considering emigration" and that "Almost half of the country's young people were thinking of leaving the country."

    In 2007 The Jerusalem Post reported that: "For the first time in over two decades, it was reported last week, Israel will likely experience a net negative migration rate in 2007"


    Without immigration, Israel as a sectarian State is doomed, especially if the Two-State Solution is continually rejected by both sides.

    The Palistinians/Arabs will not accept a Bantustan solution that leaves Israel in control of the economics of the Levant.

    Without a War supplying an a military solution, Israel will not survive, as a sectarian State, without US supplies Israel will not win the war.

    Not against US F-16s and mussulman nukes, from Pakistan.
    As elijah's link of a few days past exemplified, Israel, even with greater throw wieghts inflicts massive damage on the mussulmen, but is not reconizable itself, post-war.

    Both sides lose, leaving whom to pick up the pieces, & control of the Temple Mount?

    ReplyDelete
  73. Thus, mathematics in that crucial moment of cultural mutation met the earlier-known mystery of biological death and generation, and the two joined. The lunar rhythm of the womb had already given notice of a correspondence between celestial and terrestial circumstance. The mathematical law now united both. And so it is that, in all of these mythologies, the principle of maat, me, dharma, and tao, which in the Greek tradition became moira, was mythologically felt and represented as female. The awesome, wonderfully mysterious Great Mother, whose form and support dominate all the ritual lore of the archaic world, whom we have seen as the cow-goddess Hathor at the four quarters of the festival palette of Narmer, and whose dairyland goddess of the cow, Nunhursag, was the nurse of the early Sumerian Kings, is equally present in the heavens above, in the earth beneath, in the waters under the earth, and in the womb. And the law of her generative rhythm was represented for the entire ancient world in those units and multiples of 60 of the old Sumerian sexagesimal arithmetic, which had caught the measure at once of time and space.

    Indeed, even The Book of Genesis may carry her secretly throughout, in the mathematics of the destiny of its People of God--as a comparison of the matched schedules of the Babylonian ten Kings and the Hebrew ten Patriarchs appears to suggest. There is, at first glance, of course, considerable difference between the sums of years given by Berossos and the Bible--respectively, 432,000 and 1656. However, as a distinguished Jewish scholar of the last century, the "Nestor of Assyriology," Julius Oppert (1825-1906), pointed out in a fascinating paper on "The Dates of Genesis," both sums contain 72 as a factor: 432,000 divded by 72 = 6000, and 1656 divided by 72 = 23; so that the relationship is of 6000 to 23. (It will be recalled that 72 is the number of years it takes for the precession to advance one degree.) Furthermore, in the Jewish calendar one year is reckoned as 365 days, which in 23 years, plus the 5 leap-year days contained in such a period, amounts to 8400days, or 1200 seven-day weeks; and the latter sum multiplied by 72, to find the number of Jewish seven-day weeks in 1656(23 X 72) years, yields 86,400 (1200 X 72). Whereas, on the other hand, in the Babylonian calendar the year was composed of 72 five-day weeks; so that, if now--following a practice normal to calculations of this kind--we count each Babylonian year as one day, and then reckon the number of Babylonian five-day weeks in 432,0000 days, the result is again 86,400 (432,000 didided by 5). But 86,400 = 86,400---Q.E.D. Clearly, a point-for-point correspondence of calendric systems is here implied: and since a mathematical order is antithetic to any doctine of free will, one can only wonder by what transcendant thought the two theologies were reconciled.

    Professor Oppert imagined, when he wrote his paper in 1877, before anything was known of Sumer, that the Hebrew figures had been the original and those of Berossos the "falsified"; however, the opposite now appears. Nor can there have been any "falsifications" either way, since there were no facts, properly speaking, anywhere in this pliant story to be falsified, but only a way of interpreting the universe--and who wants the other fellow's way? Just as Egypt, Indian and China, Crete, Greece, and Rome, the Germans and the Celts, inherited and restyled the civilizing legacy of the nuclear Near East, so too the authors of the Book of Genesis. And "re-creation," not "falsification", is the word to use when discussing the reconstruction of a myth. Joseph Campbell

    I can't find where he talks about Valhalla, but the point was the number of warriors exiting the number of doors of Valhalla at the last battle, indicated a correspondence with this system.

    ReplyDelete
  74. One can complain of biased news coverage, we often do, here in the US. Regardless of complaint, the messages are sent and recieved. Forming a basis of percieved reality for the viewers.

    The Ron Paul situation exemplifies the staus que of media spin management.
    Who owns the media, who controls the Bloomberg network?
    Who owns Columbia Broadcasting System?
    Who owns General Electric?
    Who owns The Walt Disney Company?
    Certainly not the Palistinians.

    The owners control the message, they are the messengers.

    ReplyDelete
  75. mats, elijah, and WiO, you three seem to be ardent defenders of Israel could you please explain why you think the US should continue its generous support of that nation?

    There are a number of reasons not to support it and I'm trying to figure out why the US should continue to make the sacrifices it has in the past well into the future.

    Reasons not to support the nation of Israel include:

    It has no OIL.

    It has instutionalized racism/sectarianism.

    It continually expands its borders.

    It violates the human rights of many.


    Please provide some upside for the US to continue its generous support of that nation.

    ReplyDelete
  76. The fact remains Israel is the only sane country in the region, the others all entrapped in a religious book that mandates such nonsense as to make the angels weep. For that reason Israel should be supported.

    ReplyDelete
  77. This WSJ Writer thinks Obama handled himself well in discussing his youthful transgressions. Maybe he is right.

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  78. The article you posted, bob, exemplifies Israeli insanity.

    They tear down the fence, to expand into Palistinian land, as agreed to and decided by the Israeli Government. Moving entire houses onto other folks property, expecting it to be accepted and defended by the Government whose Law they broke, in tearing the fence down and positioning the houses.

    Then complain that the incident is filmed and documented, by the abused party.
    Pure cultural insanity.
    On both sides.

    It is a historic three way battle for control of the Temple Mount.

    Remember the Knights Templar.
    Others do.

    ReplyDelete
  79. Most of those reasons you suggest, Ash, apply in spades to the muslim nations.

    ReplyDelete
  80. It's a murky situation, Rat, there on the 'front lines' no doubt about it. Frankly, I'm damned glad I'm in Idaho. I think it's a sad thing in human life that we all get born into a particular group, and have a hell of a hard time shaking the habit of identifying ourselves as 'this' or 'that'. In my case, when I'm embarrassed by the swedes I can mentally switch to the english, germans or french. But I'm locked into my skin color and sex I quess.:)

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  81. I won't argue with you there Bobal but that begs the question. In addition we spend way more on Israel then we do on the Arabs. Mats has been keen to point out that we should STOP SUPPORTING THEM. Welp, he's got a good point there.

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  82. and Bobal, the religious bull that also tags along with the Jews will also "make the angels weep". Try and follow the crap that the orthodox ordain, it truly is absurd.

    ReplyDelete
  83. You're not even locked into that anymore these days.

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  84. Without a doubt, the Sauds are guilty, too.

    But they do not make claims of cultural superiority, in the US press. They do it at home, in their own media.

    It's not even a matter of right or wrong, good or bad. It's a matter of what's happening, now.

    Then why is it happening.
    Happenstance? Could well be.

    The world governed by fools and knaves, the bankers, industrialists and elites, all blind to what we can see?

    I doubt that, I've been amongst those folk, they're not fools nor knaves. At lunch, yesterday, Gramp Rat and I were discussing his IBEC days, his staffing at the Tri-Lateral meetings.
    They were NEVER motivated by profit. Was not part of their business equation. Social and cultural change was their mission, others made money for Team Rockefeller, his squad spent it. Goals they had and achieved, business was surely done, but profit, never one of mission parameters.

    ReplyDelete
  85. ash said...
    I won't argue with you there Bobal but that begs the question. In addition we spend way more on Israel then we do on the Arabs.

    actually no...

    factor in the following:

    dollar for dollar since camp david peace accords for egypt based on what israel gets, plus egypt got an additional 11 BILLION as a gift during gulf war one..

    add in aid to jordan, sudan, palestinians, lebanon

    add in the protection we have given to the oil arabs

    add in gulf war 3 rebuilding dollars for iraq...

    any of these makes your point " In addition we spend way more on Israel then we do on the Arabs." utter bullshit

    ReplyDelete
  86. WiO, OK, Lets grant you the point that the Arabs get more for the sake of argument. It still begs the question of why the US should support Israel.

    ReplyDelete
  87. the religious bull that also tags along with the Jews

    Make that "fundamentalist" Jews and I'm with you, Ash, but there are fewer of them types than among the mooses and the civil law prevails in Israel. Israel actually is mostly a secular state, at least from what I've read. Mat, WiO, can correct me.

    ReplyDelete
  88. The Arabs do get more in gross dollars, but much less per capita, than the Israelis.

    ReplyDelete
  89. ash: There are a number of reasons not to support it and I'm trying to figure out why the US should continue to make the sacrifices it has in the past well into the future.


    ash, since 1783 when the moslems declared war on us the issue hasnt been the jews of zion, but rather the greed of the arabs. 2 billion a year on military aid is not much for america when whe can spend 110 billion a year on nato alone.

    ash" Reasons not to support the nation of Israel include:

    It has no OIL.

    so sell out israel for oil, america already has... if israel were destroyed tomorrow the islamic black rockers would still not give you peace........

    ash: It has instutionalized racism/sectarianism.

    wow big words... what nation is perfect? please show me one nation in the middle east that does better...

    ash: It continually expands its borders.

    does it? lets see in the last 30 years it has returned 99% of al disputed lands and a great deal of it without any peace treaty, so you seem to think that israel that now has .7/650th of the middle east is EXPANDING it's borders? the TOTAL disputed amount left is less than 20 square miles...

    the problem is that jews dare to want to live and live in hebron, jerusalem and tel aviv

    the issue is not land, its the right for israel to be a homeland for the jews. would be happier if israel kicked out the 20 % of arab citizens that way it would not oppress them?

    ash: It violates the human rights of many.

    deep thoughts..

    how about this. israel violates the human rights of many palestinians who seek to murder jews...

    ash: Please provide some upside for the US to continue its generous support of that nation.

    actual israel is the ONLY nation ever to ask for it's economic aid to be zero'd out, however it does get military aid to help protect it from the 21 arab nations and 87 islam nations committed to it's genocide.

    personally I advocate that israel should refuse american aid and kill more arabs...

    that way america is in the clear and those who wish my death are dealt with with a single human rights violation, death (once you KILL a terrorist, it limits the amount of violations you can incur)

    ReplyDelete
  90. Ash, how about, just because they have given a lot to the world, have suffered enough, and the vast majority are nice sane folk?

    ReplyDelete
  91. the solution to the arab israeli issue ( not the palio/israeli issue) is oil...

    oil must be destroyed as something of value

    and within 20 years it will be...

    ReplyDelete
  92. No the oil will not be without value, wi"o", in 20 years.

    The Indians, Chinese and Africans will all still need it. The US could wean itself off Arab oil in five years, if there was a demand for that. But there is none.

    Or the transition would already be underway, not just given lip service to, by the last Congress.

    Ethanol blends, using existing infrastructure, could be implemented either by mandate or volunteerily. But they are not.

    We use an ethonal blend in AZ, mandated by Federal air quality standards. rufus reports of improved performance using blended gasoline & ethonal in current technology automobiles. We just do not implement it's use on a national level.

    I see the need, you see it, rufus sees it, we all see it, yet it does not happen. The oil comanies would still profit, their margins would be secure, regardless of the fuel in their refineries, pipelines and distribution outlets.

    What really motivates the lack of action?

    ReplyDelete
  93. regarding borders, take a look at eh original '48 borders, the '67 borders and the current 'border' It is expanding, and no, the issue is not simply 20 sq mi. Jerusalem in its own right is one thorny issue not to mention the many many settlements outside the '67 borders.

    Your excuse for institutionalized racism is "what nation is perfect"? That is one heck of a weak argument and hardly worth rebutting.

    Again, on the violation of human rights you stoop to 'well compared to them we are better' which does nothing to absolve the Israelis of the ethical violations. Hitler was bad, does that the justify what I do? Of course not. In fact you trudge down his path with the notion that it is ok to violate the rights of palestinians because they are palestinians and you have ascribed to that group the idea that they all want to kill all jews or in your words "israel violates the human rights of many palestinians who seek to murder jews..." So what is it? Do only some palis want to kill jews or all of them? If not all how can you justify the denial of human rights to them all?

    and please, help me understand this notion of Israel for Jews. Does this not make Israel unique upon all the nations of the world? The only nation that defines itself by racial/sectarian boundries? I say racial/sectarian because I am truly perplexed as to what it means to be a jew. I cannot simply declare myself a jew and thus be allowed to immigrate to Israel. Is not the true definition of a jew determined by the jewishness of my mother?

    ReplyDelete
  94. Converting

    Did father Abraham have a Jewish mother? :)

    ReplyDelete
  95. The fact remains Israel is the only sane country in the region, the others all entrapped in a religious book that mandates such nonsense as to make the angels weep. For that reason Israel should be supported.

    Tue Jan 01, 09:26:00 PM EST

    Perpetual welfare's bad for the character, bob, whether of an individual or an entire people. (And then there are the moral hazards of it.) It retards or erodes strength and independence, which Israel would seem, still, to require plenty of. What Israel needs, bob, is to make a clean break from a debilitating dependency.

    (Milton) Friedman doesn't stop at the water's edge.

    Re-reading earlier today the Belmont threads pertaining to that sad little affair in Lebanon a year and a half ago, I am more convinced than ever that the "special relationship" is doing the "special friend" no real good at all.

    ReplyDelete
  96. Did we sign on to give Egypt and Israel X billions of dollars a year to keep the peace, in perpetuity? or does this largesse have an expiration date?

    ReplyDelete
  97. ON Duty Sheriffs should be arresting illegals in front of the store!
    ...and the work center.

    But that's rather pie-in-the-sky, I admit, when the current POTUS has probably overseen/enabled a Doubling in the number of illegals in the 7 short years he has disgraced the office.

    ...the better to speed the day when the problem has grown beyond reasonable resolution.

    Legacy:
    GWB gave away what generations of infinitely better men fought and died for.
    "Infinitely" meaning I don't even have to regard the lying SOB as a man.
    A Worthless Scumbucket that lies every time he opens his mouth about "immigration."

    ReplyDelete
  98. ash said...
    regarding borders, take a look at eh original '48 borders, the '67 borders and the current 'border' It is expanding, and no, the issue is not simply 20 sq mi. Jerusalem in its own right is one thorny issue not to mention the many many settlements outside the '67 borders.


    but ash, the ORIGINAL MODERN BORDER was Settled by the League of Nations and as Settled law would implies THAT is the solution should have been based on that. THUS the MODERN State of Israel has been SHRUNK from it's modern solution

    But if you are asking HOW israel's borders have increased from 1948 to 1967 to today, one MUST understand the 7 wars the ARABS started to genocidially destroy israel. But even after all those wars, israel RETURNED the sinai, left lebanon, left gaza and has offered 97% of the west bank and 1/2 of jerusalem, thus israel's borders are SHRINKING and is not growing by any measure.

    as for jerusalem, read what the arabs want, they want a return to PRE 1967 borders, thus giving back the JEWISH areas to the arabs... the arab want it all, israel has been in control of the Temple Mount since 1967 and guess what? the arabs do control it, they destroy jewish artifacts without regard, they stone jews from it, they preach jihad from it and israel CAN wipe it out in a nanosecond and never has... Israel has sought compromise whereas the palestinians/arabs have used terror and murder as a political weapon.

    Jerusalem is only a thorny issue to those seeking 100%, thus it is not an israeli issue, but rather a arab/islamic issue, they cannot stand the right of israel to BE... not the settlements, not the temple mount, israel being. this is the issue.

    ash: Your excuse for institutionalized racism is "what nation is perfect"? That is one heck of a weak argument and hardly worth rebutting.

    truthfully? your question was so full of shit i didnt want to waste a breath debating such a horseshit point of view..

    Israel has 20% arabs citizens, that own land, vote, serve in the government, supreme court, teach, go to university and are full citizens, but that is not good enough for you.


    ash: Again, on the violation of human rights you stoop to 'well compared to them we are better' which does nothing to absolve the Israelis of the ethical violations. Hitler was bad, does that the justify what I do? Of course not. In fact you trudge down his path with the notion that it is ok to violate the rights of palestinians because they are palestinians and you have ascribed to that group the idea that they all want to kill all jews or in your words "israel violates the human rights of many palestinians who seek to murder jews..." So what is it? Do only some palis want to kill jews or all of them? If not all how can you justify the denial of human rights to them all?

    again, your talking out your ass...

    say something with substance, make a point, but you make these broad sweeping bullshit statements like should believe them just because you say so...

    got an issue, be specific or shut the hell up...

    lay an example of these supposed "human rights violations"

    are you talking about israel? or are you speaking of the WAR ZONE called gaza and the west bank...

    and if you are speaking of the gaza strip and the west bank, please show me the standard IN A WAR ZONE that Israel should live up to. Decrying israel to live up tp some mythical standard practiced by no one is in fact a bullshit argument..

    so want to have a productive, get off your soap box and make a specific point....

    ash: and please, help me understand this notion of Israel for Jews. Does this not make Israel unique upon all the nations of the world? The only nation that defines itself by racial/sectarian boundries? I say racial/sectarian because I am truly perplexed as to what it means to be a jew. I cannot simply declare myself a jew and thus be allowed to immigrate to Israel. Is not the true definition of a jew determined by the jewishness of my mother?


    where do you get this shit from?

    yes only israel in the world is bound by a cultural/religious shared identity.

    Please dont look at the arabs, the europeans, the japanese, the koreans, the chinese or any other of the 100 or so countries based exactly on the same idea.


    ash: and please, help me understand this notion of Israel for Jews.


    read a book, google it

    ash: Does this not make Israel unique upon all the nations of the world?

    yes the world, has driven the jews from it's bordes, (including the arabs) causing them to congregate in their HISTORIC homeland of 3000 years, longer by many thousand years than almost every other peoples in the world.

    ash: The only nation that defines itself by racial/sectarian boundries? I say racial/sectarian because I am truly perplexed as to what it means to be a jew.

    dont sweat it, it's not your business, your not, and that's all you need to know...

    ash: I cannot simply declare myself a jew and thus be allowed to immigrate to Israel.


    correct, your not a Jew, and its NOT UP TO YOU to decide who is a JEW, that is OUR BUSINESS.

    ash: Is not the true definition of a jew determined by the jewishness of my mother

    go ask a rabbi

    ash your level of misunderstanding about israel is wide and complete, please go to barns and noble and read a few books about the JEWS, Israel and our history, you will find that we are well written about, small point, maybe it's because we have BEEN around for 3000 fucking years and have had OUR lands invaded and stolen by christians, assyrians, turks, moslems and many more. Maybe if you could actually UNDERSTAND that LONG before the arabs CRAWLED out or arabia (after murdering us and stealing our lands in medina) we WERE ALREADY in Jerusalem for a thousand years....

    rather than waste my time with your childish and inane questions I will post something for you to read...


    The following op-ed was adapted from one first written for the 'Times of Israel,' a fledgling weekly established shortly after the Six Day War. After the war, the Israeli government announced preparations to return all the captured territories except for Jerusalem, in exchange for peace.

    The response came at the Khartoum Arab Summit Conference that year, at which it was announced that there would be no negotiations and no recognition of Israel.

    Israel came under tremendous international pressure to re-divide Jerusalem, which caused the author to sit down in a "white heat of anger" and write this piece.



    I am not a creature from another planet, as you seem to believe. I am a Jerusalemite - like yourselves, a man of flesh and blood. I am a citizen of my city, an integral part of my people.

    I have a few things to get off my chest. Because I am not a diplomat, I do not have to mince words. I do not have to please you, or even persuade you. I owe you nothing. You did not build this city; you do not live in it; you did not defend it when they came to destroy it. And we will be damned if we will let you take it away.

    There was a Jerusalem before there was a New York. When Berlin, Moscow, London and Paris were forest and swamp, there was a thriving Jewish community here. It gave something to the world which you nations have rejected ever since you established yourselves - a humane moral code.

    Here the prophets walked, their words flashing like forked lightning. Here a people who wanted nothing more than to be left alone, fought off waves of heathen would-be conquerors, bled and died on the battlements, hurled themselves into the flames of their burning Temple rather than surrender; and when finally overwhelmed by sheer numbers and led away into captivity, swore that before they forgot Jerusalem, they would see their tongues cleave to their palates, their right arms wither.

    For two pain-filled millennia, while we were your unwelcome guests, we prayed daily to return to this city. Three times a day we petitioned the Almighty: "Gather us from the four corners of the world, bring us upright to our land; return in mercy to Jerusalem, Thy city, and dwell in it as Thou promised."

    On every Yom Kippur and Pessah we fervently voiced the hope that next year would find us in Jerusalem. Your inquisitions, pogroms, expulsions, the ghettos into which you jammed us, your forced baptisms, your quota systems, your genteel anti-Semitism, and the final unspeakable horror, the Holocaust (and worse, your terrifying disinterest in it) - all these have not broken us.

    They may have sapped what little moral strength you still possessed, but they forged us into steel. Do you think that you can break us now, after all we have been through? Do you really believe that after Auschwitz we are frightened of your threats and blockades and sanctions? We have been to hell and back - a hell of your making. What more could you possibly have in your arsenal that could scare us?

    I HAVE watched this city bombarded twice by nations calling themselves civilized. In 1948, while you looked on apathetically, I saw women and children blown to smithereens, this after we had agreed to your request to internationalize the city. It was a deadly combination that did the job: British officers, Arab gunners and American-made cannons.

    And then the savage sacking of the Old City; the willful slaughter, the wanton destruction of every synagogue and religious school; the desecration of Jewish cemeteries; the sale by a ghoulish government of tombstones for building materials, for poultry runs, army camps - even latrines.

    And you never said a word. You never breathed the slightest protest when the Jordanians shut off the holiest of our holy places, the Western Wall, in violation of the pledges they had made after the war - a war they waged, incidentally, against a decision of the UN. Not a murmur came from you whenever the legionares in their spiked helmets casually opened fire upon our citizens from behind the walls.

    Your hearts bled when Berlin came under siege. You rushed your airlift "to save the gallant Berliners." But you did not send one ounce of food when Jews starved in besieged Jerusalem. You thundered against the wall which the East Germans ran through the middle of the German capital - but not one peep out of you about the other wall, the one that tore through the heart of Jerusalem.

    And when the same thing happened 19 years later, and the Arabs unleashed a savage unprovoked bombardment of the Holy City again, did any of you do anything? The only time you came to life was when the city was at last reunited. Then you wrung your hands and spoke loftily of "justice" and the need for the "Christian" quality of turning the other cheek.

    The truth is - and you know it deep inside your gut - some would prefer the city to be destroyed rather than have it governed by Jews. No matter how diplomatically you phrase it, the old-age prejudices seep out of every word.

    If our return to the city has tied your theology in knots, perhaps you had better re-examine your catechisms.

    For the first time since the year 70 there is now complete religious freedom for all in Jerusalem. For the first time since the Romans put the torch to the Temple everyone has equal rights. (You preferred to have some more equal than others). We loathe the sword - but it was you who forced us to take it up. We crave peace - but we are not going back to the peace of 1948 as you would like us to.

    We are home. It has a lovely sound for a nation you have willed to wander over the face of the globe. We are not leaving. We have redeemed the pledge made by our forefathers; Jerusalem is being rebuilt. "Next year" - and the year after, and after, and after until the end of time - in Jerusalem!











    and bottom line?

    we will not commit suicide to please you

    ReplyDelete
  99. The killings capped a bloody year in Mexico’s brutal drug gang war, which claimed more than 2,200 lives in 2007, including scores of law enforcers.
    It is suspected that the Zetas, deserters from the U.S.-trained, Mexican special operations forces, are responsible for the attacks. Known to some as “Los Zetas,” they are the armed militia supporting the Gulf Cartel in this drug war.

    Narco-Terrorism Lurks South of the Border

    Just across the Texas border, the Sinaola and Gulf drug cartels are waging a bloody war. In Monterrey, a city of 3.5 million people, a city of wealth and a previously quiet city with a major university, over 100 murders occurred in 2007, with 31 law enforcement officers as victims.

    Not one 2007 cartel-related killing in the state of Nuevo León, where Monterrey is the capital, was solved as of the last week of December.
    Monterrey lies about 2 hours from Nuevo Laredo (136 miles), just across the U.S.-Mexico border from Laredo Texas. In Laredo, Interstate 35 begins its run up the center of the United States that goes to Duluth Minnesota.

    The narco-violence is not restricted to Nuevo Laredo, Monterrey or Acapulco. Recent reports detail the spread of the drug wars to Baja California, where on December 18th, at 1PM, ten cars approached the building where police chief of Playas de Rosarito, Jorge Eduardo Montero Alvarez were getting out of their cars, and opened fire. High caliber weapons were used on both sides of the battle.

    Just this past Friday, on December 29th, a police convoy in the central state of Zacatecas was attacked by heavily armed commandos, killing seven police officers and allowing two alleged kidnappers to escape. This attack was seemingly in retaliation for the capture of the kidnap suspects just hours earlier.

    Considering the porosity of the U.S.-Mexican border, and despite President Calderone’s efforts to quell the violence using Mexican federal troops, this continuing drug violence has to be considered seriously.

    ReplyDelete
  100. Lesser known Toby Keith masterpiece:

    Double Wide Paradise
    Artist(Band):Toby Keith

    (Paul Thorn/Billy Maddox)

    I don't want to cry
    I don't want to walk the floor
    This mobile home
    Don't feel like home no more
    Since you left tell me what else can I do
    Just come back home
    Forgive me and forget it
    This bed I made
    I'm tired of sleepin' in it
    It's freezin' cold, and baby that ain't cool
    I'm waitin' on you
    Here at the ponderosa trailer park
    There wasn't nothin' that could keep us apart
    Then I broke your heart, in our

    Double wide, double wide, double wide paradise
    Come on back to our double wide paradise
    Double wide, double wide paradise

    I bought a swimmin' pool
    From the man at sears
    He put it together
    I filled it up with tears
    Can't find no happiness no matter what I do
    Just 'cause I got
    The treasures of the world
    It don't mean nothin'
    If I ain't got you girl
    Inside my castle
    I got the king size blues
    I'm waitin' on you
    So baby when you get to feelin' alone
    You know I always leave my porch light on
    So you can come back home, to our

    Double wide, double wide, double wide paradise
    Come on back to our double wide paradise
    Double wide, double wide paradise

    We can have a second honeymoon
    We'll throw some ribs on the barbecue
    Just like we used to do

    Double wide, double wide, double wide paradise
    Come on back to our double wide paradise
    Double wide, double wide paradise

    ReplyDelete
  101. WiO,

    One specific instance of the institutionalized racism in Israel is the right to purchase land from the Israel government. Not all citizens of Israel are treated equally in this regard. Correct?

    ReplyDelete
  102. WiO wrote:

    "correct, your not a Jew, and its NOT UP TO YOU to decide who is a JEW, that is OUR BUSINESS."

    Correct and that is just my point - I cannot become a Jew and why should the US subsidized the land of Israel which is only for Jews.

    ReplyDelete
  103. WiO,

    Israel being Jewish - the right of all Jews to go to Israel ** that is a very sticky point and what makes Israel unique in the world. It also raises the problem of institutionalized sectarianism/racism. Are Jews a race or simply a sect?

    ReplyDelete
  104. Ash,

    You ask why support Israel. I would think the answer is obvious. Israel is modern and western in its outlook. The Jihadis are not.

    And that is precisely the problem. Why support the Jihadis? Why US support for Islamic expansionism all over the world? Why force Israel into a smaller and smaller piece of land?

    ReplyDelete
  105. Ash,

    Judaism is a religion, but it's also a nationalism. While many Israeli secularists like myself reject the religious trappings of Judaism we do recognize that the Hebrew Bible is an integral part of our national identity.

    ReplyDelete
  106. Our first crystal gazer on coast to coast said things are going to hell in 08. Beware the 'bank holiday'--when they close the banks and when they open you money ain't worth shit. I predict I'm falling asleep during the next gazer. Nite.

    Great double wide lyrics, Trish.

    We can have a second honeymoon
    We'll throw some ribs on the barbecue
    Just like we used to do
    Honeymoon of dreams!!

    ReplyDelete
  107. They are great lyrics,
    unfortunately, I'd almost rather sleep alone in a wooden cabin than exist in an aluminum and plastic paradise.
    Just Me.

    ReplyDelete
  108. Here's one way I hadn't thot of AlBob:
    ---
    Appraisal Fraud

    At a recent mortgage-fraud seminar in Orange County attended by scores of appraisers seeking to meet the new requirements, Smith said it was common for appraisers to seek comparative prices, or "comps," that match clients' price objectives rather than perform the objective analysis that they are required to do.

    If sales in an immediate area don't support the desired price, appraisers look elsewhere, perhaps to a higher-end neighborhood not much farther away, he said.

    "We have an army of appraisers that don't know they're wrong," Smith said in an interview. "If you are trained to search for comps based on price, that's what you will do."

    That won't change much until appraisers are allowed to take the time necessary for a proper evaluation -- typically a day or two -- rather than rush through two or three appraisals a day as companies often require them to do, he said.

    During the housing boom, inflated appraisals could remain undiscovered as rising home prices quickly caught up with puffed-up valuations. But flawed appraisals encouraged recklessness and in some cases fraud, experts say, exacerbating foreclosures and lenders' losses once prices began falling.

    The issue isn't new. Inflated appraisals were blamed for enabling savings and loans in the 1980s to make rash investments that ultimately cost taxpayers hundreds of billion of dollars.

    In an echo of that fiasco, bad appraisals have contributed to the current mortgage crisis by propping up loans made with little or no down payments and speculative home purchases, Smith said.

    "We literally have millions and millions of inflated appraisals," he said.

    Some may be more inflated than others. In a federal criminal case, two Orange County appraisers, Lila Rizk and L. Scott Robinson, are accused of fraudulently inflating appraisals on more than 20 homes in Beverly Hills and elsewhere

    ReplyDelete
  109. The answer, mat, is that the "powers that be" need and want Israel to each critical mass, then explode. Compressed until it pops.

    The "real" objective is the War that wi"o" pines for. The results not what he expects.

    One sided nuclear holocaust.

    Oh no, the world has moved beyond that, now. I've read estimates that the Pakistani have from 24 to 100 nuclear warheads. 48 was the number I've most often referenced, but that data set is four or five years old.

    If the actual number of warheads is in question, so then is their geographical distribution.
    Who really knows how many were transfered to the Sauds? Or could be, at a moments notice.

    The Israeli not the only folks with modern US attack aircraft or missile technolgies.

    Look to the objectives of the people that do not need the money, that do not care about taxes, that own the Federal Reserve, control GE and the Walt Disney Company.

    Well beyond the US politicos. Who are now shifting Israel into the position of racist bigots, referencing Ms Rice. No tasty pudding, indeed, if one reads Ms Glick's assessment of the situation Israel finds inself in

    wi"o" the League of Nations never wrote a Law, they had no jurisdiction. Just Woody Wilson's and the elites first attempt at World Government. Less binding than the Versailles Treaty, today.

    If the League of Nations is your basis of legality, your position is one of an outlaw. Better find better justification and authorization than that.

    Mr Olmert is right, once the debate, in the US, becomes one of "Equal Rights" and not "Two States", sectarian Israel is done for, ... is finished, he said. Popular in Israel, or not, he is correct about US.
    The trends portend

    Six million person on 20,000 square miles is not a viable Nation-State, barely a City-State, let alone a viable survivor in a nuclear exchange. Truth be told.

    Follow the religion of the folks with the money, it leads to a battle on the Plains of Armageddon, not a world wide war.

    Just a local dust up for control of Jerusalem.
    Which the faithful mean to win.

    ReplyDelete
  110. In a three way battle for control ...

    When two sides are targeted and mutually destructed, the third wins.

    Who is manipulating who, by beating the war drums?

    ReplyDelete
  111. The question oft asked, doug ...

    "What's the number need to be?"

    If the apraiser wanted any more appraisals, from that particular mortgage broker, in the future.

    ReplyDelete
  112. Before he returned to Illinois farming, Doug, my maternal grandfather was a pipeline worker. Hauled wife, child, and big-ass mobile home all over the country in the 50's - from Florida to North Dakota. A truly transient life.

    But they're 'manufactured homes' now and the wheels and hitches and propane tanks have long since disappeared.

    Funny how they seem to predominate wherever tornado sirens go off five times a week every June. Hard to claw your way through that concrete slab to safety. But Arizona (some stretches of which have the not infrequent sight of old school buses making do as casual desert living for those who never quite made it to Haight-Ashbury) seems a safe enough place for them as not.

    ReplyDelete
  113. ash said...
    WiO,

    One specific instance of the institutionalized racism in Israel is the right to purchase land from the Israel government. Not all citizens of Israel are treated equally in this regard. Correct?

    incorrect...

    even JEWISH NATIONAL FUND, a charity gives moneys to arabs of israel,,,

    try again

    ReplyDelete
  114. One of my neighbors, in Ash Fork, has a homemade double decker bus. He says that, back in the day, he and his wife would cruise the US in it. Changing the view out the picture window, as needed.

    They lived in it, in Ash Fork, for years, as they built a house. It's still parked, right in their yard. Well, on his forty acres.

    He is depressed, though. As prosperity has come to the area, real homes being built on ten acre lots, he fears rising property values and the increase in property taxes that is sure to follow.

    ReplyDelete
  115. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  116. Money and land, they're one and the same thing?

    The welfare payments of cash grant charities is not the same as transfering purchased titled property.

    Both your economics and venacular is a tad weak there, if that is the case you are trying to make, wi"o"

    Charity not amounting to property ownership.

    ReplyDelete
  117. In fact, charity is debilitating, property is empowering.

    Try, try again, wi"o"

    ReplyDelete
  118. but we do give 500 million a year to the palestinians and it's a death sentence for a jew to buy land there

    it's illegal in jordan for a jew to own land

    it's a crime in arabia for a jew to own land

    it's a crime in many an arab country for a Jew to work or own businesses

    in fact it's just down right illegal in 649.7/650th of the middle east for jews to live, work, own property , vote or BE

    ash, i think your and many people's problem is ignorance..

    you project what happens in the WAR ZONE of the disputed lands with the state of israel.

    Arabs IN Israel are FULL CITIZENS, end of story, israel is not perfect and within it's borders there is a non-prefect society, just like america...

    Now, old Condi was TRYING to appease the Palios by explaining she understood checkpoints and "racism", the difference was of course, at no time did the blacks of the south use the tools of modern terrorism such as murder with rockets, stabbings, ripping limbs off of little white boys, massive theft etc...

    the "checkpoints", the mass arrests are all BECAUSE of a hostile population that supports an armed murderous struggle against israel's being...

    israel has handed over several times these lands to the palestinians, only to have to re-enter and re-engage, israel also supplies millions rounds of ammo & thousand of rifles for the PA to control it uncontrollable populations...

    maybe you should ask yourself, is israel better or worse than the USA in iraq?

    ReplyDelete
  119. The discussion is not about the Arabs, it's about the Israelis.

    Are the two now morally equivalent?
    One and the same, morally?

    mat says not, that Israel needs support because it is modern and western. When that is not seem to be the case you are making.

    The Christian Science Monitor is the most current source I can find, but it's numbers are in line with previously published accounts, so seems accurate

    Israel gets about $420 per capita each year in aid from the US

    Why? Their per capita GDP $26,800.

    They can afford to get by without US charity.

    The "Jewish Voice for Peace" website tells US that:
    TOTAL AID FOR FY 2003 $14.82 billion
    Why?

    The US is withdrawing from Iraq, as Tony Blakey tells US today:

    "... Even as the number of people who think we are going to succeed or win approaches 50 percent or more, a majority of people don't want us to stay, and barely one out of three people thinks the war was worth the effort.

    We are leaving Iraq, Israel will be leaving the Golan Hieghts.

    Ask yourself, Why?
    Whose trap did the Jews that migrated to Israel fall into?

    You moving there, soon?

    ReplyDelete
  120. dr: Charity not amounting to property ownership.

    again you speak without loading the knowledge chamber of your mind...

    Arabs own land in israel, and the point I was making that even the JNF, the LAND charity of ISrael, is not exclusice to jews..

    dr, please take that stick out of your ass long enough to actually learn something, you might be surprised!

    Israel is not JEW only, as is the arab world is ARAB ONLY, Israel is 20% non-jewish, these non-jews are christian, b'hia, moslem, catholic, armenian, atheists, and surprise, surprise! they can work, vote, own land, serve in the government, sit on the supreme court, they even have a member of the knesset that is moslem and hates israel!

    dont confuse the israel state with that of the "disputed lands" those lands have NOT been a state in modern history.

    As for this nuke option you think I have wet dreams of, I do not have those, I think a nuke exchange could murder alot of israel, I just think that the arabs are on a path to explode... with or without israel...

    Oil from the middle east will be a memory in 20 years, because it will not be there....

    China and India's appetite for oil notwithstanding, you can use oil once it is radioactive...

    If the path continues most of israel will be destroyed, but the good news? so will almost all the arab world, pakistan & iran.

    it is bleak and it's not over who controls the temple mount...

    israel had HANDED back the keys to the mount in 1967, the issue is NOT a trailer on a hill, but the fact that the black rockers refuse to allow the CONCEPT of israel to BE.

    If you say, just withdraw to the PRE 1967 border and all will be fine your smoking dope...

    The fake national movement of Palestine is just that, fake...

    and the solution is not ONE state from the river to the sea, but 3... Egypt will have to absorb gaza BACK INTO it's fold as it has over the thousands of years it has been... and Jordan, where over 75% of the population ID themselves with the "palestinians" will have to take back control on majority areas of the west bank, ALONG WITH 78% OF ISRAELI ARABS that live in a concentrated area of Israel proper.

    the solution is clear, the arabs have provided it...

    population separation.

    the arabs have ethnically cleansed the jews into the ghetto of israel, a tiny space, (which is quite large enough for a state, thank you very much) and this GHETTO (btw, look up the word) is OURS and aint one....

    but dont bitch who we allow to live in our ghetto, or whether we allow casinos WITHIN OUR GHETTO, and dont bitch if we have to keep the squatters that live outside our ghetto from coming in and looting the profits from our cigs and gambling...

    dr, your warped concept of what is a legal title to lands of israel is comical...

    you dont accept the torah, you dont accept the quran, you dont accept the gospels, you dont accept the league of nations, you want israel to be based on what? the legal title issued by the most recent crook who stole it?

    Jews have a right to own land anywhere in the world, just like Blacks, arabs and even squatters like you in AZ...

    but JEWS have even more of a right to RESETTLE their historic barren, public lands of historic israel, fake title notwithstanding...

    in america, receiving stolen property is a crime..

    is it not funny that arabs squatting on historic jewish towns and religious sites claim ownership and yet if one looks back just 100 years you can see how the ottomans, and then the brits looted and stole properties that did not belong to them...

    dr, here is a small fact that will not change your mind...

    the jews? are the actual NATIVES of the lands of the west bank, including JERUSALEM, and the funny thing? the JEWS allow the arabs, christians & others to stay...

    you should say "thanks"

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  121. dr: The Christian Science Monitor is the most current source I can find, but it's numbers are in line with previously published accounts, so seems accurate

    Israel gets about $420 per capita each year in aid from the US

    Why? Their per capita GDP $26,800.


    it's called MILITARY AID, because the arabs seek israel destruction, and who gives a shit about per capita? want to open that can of worms, the world gives the palios more per capita as a % of their total income than any other in the world!

    dr: They can afford to get by without US charity.


    you are correct and late to the party, israel actually ASKED to have it's economic aid cut to zero, but the USA does help israel fight off the arab world (and their oil income of hundreds of billions) in supplying it with assistance against iran, the OIS, the arab states. and please understand that this aid, 70% of it is SPENT in the USA buying everything from trailers to uniforms keeping americans employed.

    dr: The "Jewish Voice for Peace" website tells US that:
    TOTAL AID FOR FY 2003 $14.82 billion
    Why?

    cause it's a lie? aid to israel (military and economic) is about 2.75 billion a year.

    dr: The US is withdrawing from Iraq, as Tony Blakey tells US today:
    "... Even as the number of people who think we are going to succeed or win approaches 50 percent or more, a majority of people don't want us to stay, and barely one out of three people thinks the war was worth the effort.
    We are leaving Iraq, Israel will be leaving the Golan Hieghts.


    dr, we have spent what? 700 billion in Iraq? and trust me we havent left yet nor are we anytime soon... israel will not leave the golan UNTIL syria pulls it's stick out of it's ass and promises NOT to use it to BOMB israel AGAIN, like syria did for years...


    DR: You moving there, soon?


    Nope, I am spreading my squatter seeds here in america, i am a settler in OHIO.

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  122. Nagasaki and Hiroshima were repopulated withi five years, the residual fallout, not a issue.

    Oil in the ground will not be radioactive. The above ground infrastructure, replaced quickly, if need be. Proof of that is in Japan.

    I am never going to the Middle East, I need not thank them for anything. I have no need for the Temple Mount, nor any of the Levant. Better to leave to those that want it. Those that have a plan to gain it, eliminating the other claiments in the process.

    Regardless of the reason, the Israeli are in crossharirs, put there by the British. At the request of Lord Rothchild, ask yourself, why?

    Why does the US continue to fund both sides of the conflict, if Peace were the Goal?

    Obviously, Peace is not the US goal.
    Conflict is. As was graphed and linked to some time ago, with greater funding comes greater conflict.
    The funding continually increases.
    Wonder shy?

    As to the Israeli charity, that is why I asked, is money and land the same thing?
    You said the Charity provided money, not land. I do not know better than what you said. Not worth my looking for it, when you know.
    As I wondered, it was your venacular that was inaccurate. No stick in my ass, just your poor choice of words.

    Besides, it has been the annexed and occupied territories we've been speaking of, as exemplified by bob's link of Israeli lawbreakers tearimg down the Israeli fence and stealing, sqatting, upon land taken from the Palistinians.

    You leave the moral equivalency on the table, again your choice of words. To compare the two population groups, finding the equivalence.

    Both sides are at fault, who will gain, but the third side of the triangle, the one not on the field.
    But for funding the conflict between the other two.

    Both the Jews and the Mussuls, being played for saps. Shortsighted, both of those groups are.

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  123. Forgiven loans, for military hardware. That is how most of the "Aid" gets to Israel.

    Even I know that, It's not direct, but viable none the less.
    Charity by any other name.
    It's still charity.

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  124. Forgiven commercial loans, picked up by Uncle Sugar, amounted to $11 BILLION USD, in 2003.

    $2 Billion in the budget process, #9 Billion requested in a supplemental

    TOTAL AID FOR FY 2003 $14.82 billion
    SOURCES: Clyde R. Mark, ?Israel: U.S. Foreign Assistance, Congressional Research Service, updated April 1, 2003; Clyde R. Mark, Middle East: U.S. Foreign Assistance, FY 2001, FY 2002, FY 2003 Congressional Research Service, March 28, 2002

    Find a better source.

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  125. Forgiven loans, for military hardware. That is how most of the "Aid" gets to Israel.


    actually forgiven loans is how egypt got it's 11 billion in extra aid during gw1

    the aid israel gets for military purchases is not loans, but grants, nothing to be forgiven.

    but you seem to have a problem with any aid to israel...

    fine...

    do you also have a problem with the exact same amount given to egypt?

    do you have a problem with aid to the palestinians totaling 550 million this year?

    do you have a problem with the 700 billion in iraq expense which is aid as well?

    or the 4.2 billion a year to the UN, that's aid

    or the 110 billion a year to nato?

    or the aid we give the world keeping the shipping lanes open?

    or the aid we give to korea, china?

    or is it just aid to the jews that is that pisser?

    like i have said before, military aid to israel is because the arabs, islam and iran seek its genocide.

    i guess you wish to cut that aid so that genocide can happen and then we would have peace?

    I can accept military aid to israel, but in the end unlike any other country, israel is not asking the usa to use it's blood to defend it'self, all israel is doing is accepting several billion out of a 50 billion a year budget.

    Yep israel spends 50 billion a year to DEFEND it'self...

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  126. Forgiven commercial loans, picked up by Uncle Sugar, amounted to $11 BILLION USD, in 2003.


    wow, 1st you say forgiven military loans, now you say commercial loans...

    what to believe?

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  127. TOTAL AID FOR FY 2003 $14.82 billion
    SOURCES: Clyde R. Mark, ?Israel: U.S. Foreign Assistance, Congressional Research Service, updated April 1, 2003; Clyde R. Mark, Middle East: U.S. Foreign Assistance, FY 2001, FY 2002, FY 2003 Congressional Research Service, March 28, 2002

    Find a better source.


    provide links

    provide actual facts...

    but really if it was a one cent you'd have an issue...

    how dare america give a penny to the jews is your point...............

    your point? let them die...

    thank god your not incharge

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  128. That is not accurate either, wi"O"

    Not according to the US State Dept
    The U.S. State Department determined in February 2001 that Israel has committed each of the acts that the law defines as "gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, including torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, prolonged detention without charges and trial, causing the disappearance of persons by the abduction and clandestine detention of those persons, and other flagrant denials of the right to life, liberty, or the security of person." It described Israeli army use of live ammunition against Palestinians when soldiers were not in impending danger as "excessive use of force."

    Which was but one reason the US cut off arms shipments during the 32 day Lebanon Conflict. Excessive use of sub-munitions in violation of it's use agreements with US.

    Defending itself against fruit pickers in Lebanonese apple orchards.

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  129. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  130. Chart the actions of those that are in charge, the Israeli and the Arabs, they're both gonna die.

    The trend lines are all there, I just see 'em, you're in denial, in Ohio.

    Suits me fine. I do not take it personal, as you seem to.

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  131. The good news is if the radiation from a couple hundred nuclear bombs is nothing to sweat then we certainly ought to be able to go ahead and build a nuclear power energy supply system in our country. What's a little containable nuclear waste compared to that?
    :)

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  132. dr states: Not according to the US State Dept
    The U.S. State Department determined in February 2001 that Israel has committed each of the acts that the law defines as "gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, including torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, prolonged detention without charges and trial, causing the disappearance of persons by the abduction and clandestine detention of those persons, and other flagrant denials of the right to life, liberty, or the security of person." It described Israeli army use of live ammunition against Palestinians when soldiers were not in impending danger as "excessive use of force."


    wow, the israelis used locked up terrorists without lawyers...

    such a broad sweeping load of shit I havent read for at least since your last post!

    Who knows what that really means, was it one instant? or was it systematic? was the "degrading behavior" really just insulting the palios or putting panties on their heads ( oh that was us), such bullshit broad statements actually mean nothing..

    Prolonged detention without trial?

    what does that mean, since when are captured terrorists allowed due process? it's war, oh that's right, israel has no rights...

    but again, you continue: It described Israeli army use of live ammunition against Palestinians when soldiers were not in impending danger as "excessive use of force.

    wow, and who is the judge by what is "impending danger"? oh that's right 800 rock throwing palestinians are considered a "peaceful" march...

    now if you could SHOW me an instant where Israel used live fire to mow down a crowd you might have a point, but since you cannot, it stems to reason you are quoting "state dept" snippets.

    amazing, your use of 2 standards, one for the israelis and one for the rest of the world is quite illuminating .

    dr: Which was but one reason the US cut off arms shipments during the 32 day Lebanon Conflict. Excessive use of sub-munitions in violation of it's use agreements with US.

    Defending itself against fruit pickers in Lebanonese apple orchards.

    see perfect example of distortion..

    It would have been quite the show to watch the 10's of thousands killed by the cluster bombs, but it did not happen! why BECAUSE israel did not drop cluster bombs on civilians, now if after these areas were evacuated they dropped these on hezbollah rocket positions hiding IN the orchards again, that is excessive against a rocket force shooting 4400 rockets into israel?

    either your a liar or a fool...

    if phoenix , new york or austin were being shelled by terrorist militias those areas would have been turned into glass..

    again, one standard for the fucking christ killers, another for the rest of the world

    hmmm....

    me thinks your a tad bit.......... full of crap?

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  133. "The discussion is not about the Arabs, it's about the Israelis."

    The discussion is about US support. Why should Arabs qualify, while Israel not?

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  134. "Are the two now morally equivalent? One and the same, morally?"

    The two are not morally equivalent, but they should be judged by the same moral standard. To single out Israel for higher scrutiny is plain racist.

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  135. I haven't followed this riveting debate, but have a question for 'Rat, Ash, and Trish:

    What is your answer for the argument that goes:

    Bubba and the Joos offered everything but the Kitchen Sink, but were rebuffed in the end, the Palis seemingly preferring Welfare and Warefare to Peace and Prosperity, that requiring productive use of their energies, not their strong point.

    Thanks,
    ME Non-Expert Doug

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  136. Doug,

    dRat already answered it:

    Demographic annihilation of sectarian Israel by the non sectarian Jihadis, or nuclear annihilation of sectarian Israel by the non sectarian Jihadis. It's just a matter of Joos choosing the poison and enough of them being concentrated in Israel.

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  137. State likes to show a map of Everything But the Kitchen Sink that puts paid to the very notion. "Expansionist state" goes with that map. (Or expansionist city-state, as Rat might say.)

    Netanyahu himself said Jersalem's a goner and laments that Israel hung onto the Territories. Or perhaps it was Dennis Ross who said the former and Netanyahu who in hindsight regretted the later.

    The Peace Process will keep on keeping on, because there's nothing else for it.

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  138. "One of my neighbors, in Ash Fork, has a homemade double decker bus. He says that, back in the day, he and his wife would cruise the US in it. Changing the view out the picture window, as needed."

    Enviable, to be sure. I never have to wonder what inspires people to do this. (And a bus out in the desert is infinitely more appealing than a box in the burbs.)

    "He is depressed, though. As prosperity has come to the area, real homes being built on ten acre lots, he fears rising property values and the increase in property taxes that is sure to follow."

    It's sad in that way and it happens anywhere and everywhere, each generation, as other locales decline. But the newly prosperous gotta have their new-won space and those seeking a true outpost, a cheap and uncultivated corner,
    do well to flee the irritating influx when they can.

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