uh-huh

In which the Angry Black Bitch brings it:

Pondering bridge building...

But it occurs to me that this may be a teachable moment…for the incoming administration and for those who support bridge building with Rick Warren for the sake of bridge building with Rick Warren.

Pause...sip exceptional cup of coffee (yum!)…continue.

Here’s the thing…the Rick Warrens of the world aren’t using the same raw materials as we are.

I can just imagine this project.

We’re hammering and connecting shit.

They’re hammering and connecting shit.

But we’re using solid and proven materials like comprehensive sex education, condoms and family planning.

They’re using the structurally unstable and known to fall apart materials of abstinence-only education held together with a mixture made up of one half ‘condoms are bad’ and one half ‘family planning isn’t sanctified’.

Oh, we can build away on our bridge and eventually we’ll meet in the middle…but then what?

How far do we take this shit?

Do we walk across from our side even though we know we’re doomed to tumble once we put some weight on their structurally unstable side of things?MORE

Preach it.

From Jon Swift's Best Blog Posts of 2008

Warfare Is What It Is

We live in an age of video and video games and our perceptions are skewed by this. We can see things with our own eyes and discount them because an 'expert' says something. We see the video image the bomb sees as it goes into its target and accept that as the reality. Reality happens after the video transmitter is exploded by the payload, that is what you do not see. Video games and TV sanitize the war experience while letting us think we are a part of the experience. The sounds, smells, and actual results are hidden away. The contents of a human body are spread everywhere, all the contents, and they are cooked. That body may have been a Saddam General or a kid walking home from a visit, you have no idea - you neither saw him nor the results. Our news organizations were roundly criticized at the time by other media, particularly Al Jazeera, for not showing civilian casualties. Whether that outlet's numbers were accurate or not is beside the question, they existed and you didn't see them.

There are issues of decency that our media adheres to, it is hypocritical in the extreme, but flatly Americans will not look at the results of a large explosion on a human body and not complain. The children, after all, might be watching and besides, we have some standards... We have illusion and garbage - not standards. That impressive fireball sent out from it a concussion wave of air and flying objects, the objects buildings are constructed of, moving at thousands of feet per second followed by heat. Anything in the path of that suffered damage, damage you do not want to think about. That shock wave compresses the human body, forcing what is inside, out.MORE

For those of you who watch Merlin

Go read this

via coffeeandink

Oops! SMACKDOWN!

Zbig to Joe: "You have a such stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on it's almost embarrassing to listen to you."

I bet Joe Scarborough NEVER invites Dr. Zbig on his show again.

(no subject)

*snickers* NOW is trying to sign me up as a member at the moment. On the phone.

Dilemma

triggered by this post on Americablog. Which I don't agree with, by the way. See how one commenter links to an answers his jackassitic assertions re: local economies

Damn. See, I want to buy books from Southend Press. But I don't buy new books anymore, stopped buying them years ago and started buying the used books on Amazon, cause I read too much and simply cannot afford teh quantity of books that I normally buy if they were new. And where a library is concerned, if I like the book, I'll end up buying it anyway, so that doesn't work out. So I find myself in a situation where a gift of $25 can buy me three books on Amazon used books rolls, but only one, if I'm lucky, at South end. And thats with the discount that I get as a Comm. Supporting Publisher subscriber. And that fucking sucks. The heart is very willing. But the wallet is not strong enough, unfortunately. Fuck.

From a commenter:Dammit!!!


commenters are suggesting an alternative. except that the books I like are not exactly mainstream fodder.

another commenter links to Amazon's 2008 Special Interest Donations


Bargain Hunting for Books, and Feeling Sheepish About It

a bit more on gaza

Hamas history tied to Israel

Israel and Hamas may currently be locked in deadly combat, but, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials, beginning in the late 1970s, Tel Aviv gave direct and indirect financial aid to Hamas over a period of years.

Israel "aided Hamas directly -- the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization)," said Tony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies.

Israel's support for Hamas "was a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative," said a former senior CIA official.


According to documents United Press International obtained from the Israel-based Institute for Counter Terrorism, Hamas evolved from cells of the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928. Islamic movements in Israel and Palestine were "weak and dormant" until after the 1967 Six Day War in which Israel scored a stunning victory over its Arab enemies.

After 1967, a great part of the success of the Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood was due to their activities among the refugees of the Gaza Strip. The cornerstone of the Islamic movements success was an impressive social, religious, educational and cultural infrastructure, called Da'wah, that worked to ease the hardship of large numbers of Palestinian refugees, confined to camps, and many who were living on the edge.

"Social influence grew into political influence," first in the Gaza Strip, then on the West Bank, said an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity.MORE

Funny how that scenario sounds so familiar. Soviet Union, American meddling in the Middle East, British meddling in the Middle East.

The Gaza Bombshell

After failing to anticipate Hamas’s victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, the author reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever.MORE

Those Who Don’t Learn From George Bush’s Mistakes Are Destined To Repeat Them

The lack of international support since the 2006 elections, followed by this rebuff to Gaza's only Arab neighbor, Egypt, compounded the deterioration of Hamas's internal support. By November, the survey showed, only 16.6 percent of Palestinians supported Hamas, compared with nearly 40 percent favoring Fatah. The decline in support for Hamas has been steady: A year earlier, the same pollster showed that Hamas's support was at 19.7 percent; in August 2007, it was at 21.6 percent; in March 2007, it was at 25.2 percent; and in September 2006, backing for the Islamists stood at 29.7 percent. I'll give you three guesses and the the first two don't count as to Hamas' position now

Al-Maliki's Party Calls for Boycott of Israel;Nasrallah Calls for Arab summit; Widespread Protests in Arab World

EWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!This is NOT recycling I can believe in!!

A former Beverly Hills doctor stands accused of using the fat he liposuctioned out of patients to fuel his car


*vomits*

gaza update

Gaza Update: Talking Peace or Not?

According to the latest count, 375 Gazans have died and 1720 are wounded – of whom at least 200 are critical. AFP reports that 39 of those killed were children and multiple sources say the number of women and children amongst the wounded is very high – more of them were impacted by building collapses and shrapnel rather than direct hits that would kill them outright. Four Israelis have been killed by rocket attacks and about 24 wounded.
Sameh Habeed of Gaza Today reports from Gaza that:

Medical sources announced a collapse in medical sector and Gaza hospitals. Muhamad El Khozndar a doctor at Al Sehfa' hospital said on a local radio station that Gaza hospitals are no longer working properly. Bandaging stuff, medical tools, medical machines and general cleaning unavailable at the hospitals. Additionally, windows of the hospitals crashed due to a nearby bombings hit a mosque.
All oil derivatives of fuel, gasoline and cocking gas unavailable in Gaza due to a siege imposed two years ago. Bread, milk, rice, sugar, cooking oil are not available and what is inside Gaza is limited quantities stored at homes.
Add to that, it is very dangerous for people to leave their house in search of food supplies. Any mobile car, bicycle or walking persons turned to targets for Israeli military machine.

...

And while the cabinet ministers are talking, Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai is as well. You may remember Mr Vilnai – last February "speaking on Israel Army Radio, Mr Vilnai said if Palestinians increased rocket fire, they would bring upon themselves a "shoah".
Today according to Ha’aretz breaking news at 1:13 he said that “Gaza funerals are biggest achievements of operation”
So much for the search for peace.

Also:

Gazans unsure where to flee violence

Borders with Egypt and Israel have been sealed for the most part since the militant group Hamas seized power of Gaza in June last year, confining 1.4 million residents in the coastal territory, 25 miles long and six to nine miles wide.

Even those who managed to flee to Egypt during a border breach on Sunday were returned to the coastal territory.

"Asylum (is) being totally denied to Gaza's population. They have to stay in this tiny, dangerous place," said Karen Abu Zayd, of the U.N. aid agency for Palestinian refugees.

On the Israeli side of the border, attacks by Hamas have killed four people since the weekend, and sent many more running for bomb shelters — some of them in cities under threat of attack for the first time, as the range of the rockets grows.A< href="

...

Abu Zayd, the U.N. official, said the agency is preparing to turn U.N.-run schools in Gaza into shelters. Already, 200 residents slept at a U.N. school close to Gaza's border with Egypt on Sunday after Israel bombed nearby tunnels.

She said the U.N. had informed Israeli officials of their locations and did not expect them to be targeted. MORE