Until the world recognises that Hamas is committing three war crimes - targeting Israeli civilians, using Palestinian civilians as human shields, and seeking the destruction of a member-state of the UN - and that Israel is acting in self-defence and out of military necessity, the conflict will continue.
In fact, the president-elect may not know himself. He's a babe in the woods, and the woods are full of wolves. Fighting political rivals doesn't prepare you for fighting terrorist fanatics.
...
As for our president-elect, his all-too-coy insistence that "we have only one president at a time" has been selective from the start. Glad to pontificate on stimulus packages and union benefits, Obama has used the one-president mantra to avoid taking stands on difficult issues that bedevil or bewilder him.
Our president-elect needed to make a clear, prompt statement in support of Israel. He didn't. If I were an Israeli leader, I'd be worried, too.
Obama's notorious for avoiding firm stands that might alienate any important constituency. But you can't have it both ways in the Middle East. He needs to stand up in support of Israel. Now.
And finally, when the cowardly, treacherous and hideous beast that is ex-rep. mckinne
y was on a boat, she met the Israeli Navy. The Israeli craft justifiably rammed the boat carrying the dirty cohort of evil to prevent it from providing comfort to those who wish to recreate the Holocaust morals be damned. 
or her to lay a hand on one of these lovelies who may not have shown the restraint that handcuffed a Capitol Police Officer?
Both President and Sen. Clinton, while in office, made it obvious to foreign powers that they and their relatives were wide open to suggestions from lobbyists and middlemen.
Just to give the most salient examples from the Clinton fundraising scandals of the late 1990s: The House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight published a list of witnesses called before it who had either "fled or pled"—in other words, who had left the country to avoid testifying or invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid self-incrimination. Some Democratic members of the committee said that this was unfair to, say, the Buddhist nuns who raised the unlawful California temple dough for then-Vice President Al Gore, but however fair you want to be, the number of those who found it highly inconvenient to testify fluctuates between 94 and 120. If you recall the names John Huang, James Riady, Johnny Chung, Charlie Trie, and others, you will remember the pattern of acquired amnesia syndrome and stubborn reluctance to testify, followed by sudden willingness on the part of the Democratic National Committee to return quite large sums of money from foreign sources.
Soon after Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, the former president and I had a brief telephone conversation. I had been downright heated about the pardon, a lot angrier than I had ever been about Monica Lewinsky. Clinton implied that I had things historically backward. Long after the Rich pardon had been forgotten, he said, the Lewinsky scandal would remain a vivid memory. That day is yet to come. The Rich pardon is back.
The vehicle for this lingering echo from the year 2001 is the choice of Eric Holder as Barack Obama's attorney general. Holder was Clinton's deputy attorney general and he played a significant role in the pardon. When asked by the White House what he thought about a pardon for Rich, Holder replied, "Neutral, leaning towards favorable." These four words have stalked him ever since.
(Newser) – Despite his stated desire to the contrary, President Bush and his most hawkish aides are determined to keep prison facilities operating at Guantánamo Bay, reports the New York Times. Bush made up his mind following a Supreme Court ruling in the summer granting 250 detainees the right to challenge their incarceration, and never seriously considered State Department or Pentagon proposals to shut down prison operations, according to sources.
Gulag (from the Russian ГУЛАГ: Главное Управление Исправительно— Трудовых Лагерей, "Glavnoye Upravleniye Ispravitelno-trudovykh Lagerey", "The Chief Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps") was the branch of the Soviet internal police and security service that operated the penal system of forced labor camps. While these camps were intended for criminals of all types, the Gulag system has become primarily known as a means of repression of political opponents of the Soviet state.
A colloquial name for a Soviet Gulag inmate was "zeka", "zek". In Russian language, "inmate", "incarcerated" is "заключённый", zaklyuchonny, usually abbreviated to 'з/к' in paperwork, pronounced as 'зэка' (zeh-KA), gradually transformed into 'зэк' and to 'зек'. "zaklyuchonny kanalostroitel'" (incarcerated canal-builder), originating to the Volga-Don Canal slave workforce members. Later the term was backronymed to mean just "zaklyuchonny". sharashka (шарашка, the goofing-off place) were in fact secret research laboratories, where the arrested and convicted scientists, some of them prominent, were anonymously developing new technologies, and also conducting basic research. Psikhushka (психушка, the nut house), the forced medical treatment in psychiatric imprisonment was used, in lieu of camps, to isolate and break down political prisoners. Special camps or zones for children (Gulag jargon: "малолетки", maloletki, underaged), for disabled (in Spassk ), and for mothers ("мамки", mamki) with babies. These categories were considered as not producing any useful outcome and often subjected to more abuse. Camps for "wifes of traitors of Motherland" (there was a special category of repressed: " Traitor of Motherland Family Member" (ЧСИР, член семьи изменника Родины)).
Indianapolis - Metro Police say a father killed an intruder in his daughter's bedroom in an apparent act of self-defense.
According to police, 52-year-old David Meyers broke into a home in the 3500 block of West 79th Street early Sunday morning and entered the bedroom of a 17-year-old girl. He was carrying condoms, a rope and a knife, wearing nothing but a mask and a pair of latex gloves.
"He had come in, apparently, with the objective of raping her," IMPD Sgt. Matt Mount said.
She was screaming as her father ran into the bedroom and fought off the attacker. When police arrived, the father had his arm around the intruder's throat and was holding him.
North Korea has blown a major element in the effort to show the world it has ceased the development and pursuit of atomic bombs.
I just find it hard to believe. Hopefully I am wrong and we can start helping the oppressed people under Kim Jung Il. That wee man in power.
CARDENAS, Cuba -- Loraicys is 27 years old, has never worked, and refuses to
take just any job. She is not alone.
As Raúl Castro embarks on an
ambitious plan to kick-start the communist nation's economy, he faces daunting
challenges: Many Cubans simply do not work.
Decades of measly salaries
and vast government subsidies have kept many young people off the labor rolls
because it's more lucrative to hustle on the street. Others live comfortably
enough off remittances from Miami and elsewhere.
Nineteen sixty-eight was one exciting moment in a much larger movement. It spawned a whole range of movements. There wouldn't have been an international global solidarity movement, for instance, without the events of 1968. It was enormous, in terms of human rights, ethnic rights, a concern for the environment, too.
France puts great stock in anniversaries. On your Paris map, you’ll find streets named “8 Mai 1945” and “4 Septembre” and squares called “8 Novembre 1942,” “18 Juin 1940,” “19 Mars 1962,” and, most recently, “Place du 8 Février 1962” — this one so christened last year on the anniversary of a protest for peace in Algeria. Flags come out, like the mammoth Tricouleur under the Arc de Triomphe for today’s Victory Day; newspapers groan under weighty ruminations; officials don sashes.
Before we had our long national nightmare (Watergate), we had our long national temper tantrum. In America, student protests were an indulgence of the privileged, a wail by baby boomer kids raised in unprecedented affluence against their parents' authority.As the establishment that is the Media starts to look forty years into the past in fond memories, some of us will cringe. It isn't that they used their freedom of speech legally, it is the consequences and lack of awareness.
To accuse of "fascism" a generation that bled in the mud of Normandy fighting the Axis took a massive historical ignorance and overweening self-regard. The New Left had both.
Anyone can shout from the mountaintop for justice, I get it. But to be caught up in the moment and commit crimes then never reconcile. In fact drag a Presidential candidate into your web of hate, is immoral. And if that candidate cannot acknowledge a crime against the US in the manner of Weathermen was treason, he needs not take the Oval Office. At least Bubba somewhat got it.
This may be the last post for sometime and I'll come around to visit when time allows. I have three weeks left of school and I'm in free agency.
The pictures are from that "other" disturbance they had in China in 1989.
Crowds were lining the route across the city, waving Tibetan flags and "Free Tibet" banners. Others carried signs reading: "Stop the killing in Tibet", "No Olympic torch in Tibet" and "China talk to Dalai Lama," the UK's Press Association reported.
Amid chaotic scenes, police officers grabbed a man in west London as he tried to snatch the flame from torchbearers. Moments afterwards, a second man attempted to douse the torch with a fire extinguisher.
The authorities have still not commented in any detail on the incident, in which villagers said as many as 20 residents of Dongzhou were shot and killed by security forces on Tuesday night as they protested plans for a power plant, in the deadliest use of force by Chinese authorities against ordinary citizens since the Tiananmen massacre in 1989. Residents of Dongzhou said at least 42 people were missing.
Reached by telephone, the deputy propaganda chief of Shanwei, which is 15 miles to the north and has jurisdiction over the village, said the national government would issue its first statement about the incident no later than Sunday. “We will soon have a response to this, very soon — no later than tomorrow,” said the official, Liu Jingmao. “By then, this thing will be made public in the mainstream media and within the province.” Asked what he meant by “this thing,” the official cut short the conversation, saying: “I can’t say now. Anyway, it will be very soon, no later than tomorrow. That’s it.”
Later, a local television bulletin here said that three people had been killed in Dongzhou, and eight injured, describing them as “criminals” and giving no other details. This was the first known mention of the violence in China’s state-controlled media, and Beijing’s silence on the events underscored the vulnerability of a system that still practices heavy censorship in an age when sources of information beyond the government’s control are readily available.
Mount Zao is whipped every year by wet winds from across the Sea of Japan that form layers of ice and snow that shine like crystals. The Japanese call them juhyo, or ice trees.
Looking at satellite data, he and another professor, Junichi Kudo of Tohoku University, concluded that the acid in the trees came from sulfur produced at factories in China's Shanxi Province.
In southern Iraq and east Baghdad, Sadr once again lost street face. Despite the predictable media umbrage, this translates into political deterioration.
Not doing it will be catastrophic. We'll be eight degrees hottest in ten, not ten but 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow. Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals.
Sources close to the NBA commissioner say David Stern may yet succumb to the powerfully intoxicating sexual advances of Miami head coach Pat Riley and, in so doing, be convinced to allow the 12-57 Heat to enter the playoffs.
Al Andalus
(or Al-Andalus; AlAndalus, pronounced 'al-an-da-loose') This is the name given to Spain by the Moors who conquered most of the Iberian Peninsula, beginning in 711 AD and lasting until 1492. The origins of the name remain unclear to this day. The most common interpretation is that it derives in some way from the Vandals who controlled Iberia before the arrival of the Moors or from their name for the lands they inhabited. The Moors' Al-Andalus encompassed all of the Iberian Peninsula except for the extreme north-west. As their territory shrank over the centuries, the name was retained and the last area of Moorish occupation became Andalucía. We offer for your enjoyment the following legend: According to Moslem legend, when Allah was creating the earth and dealing out good and bad, each place was given five wishes. The land of Al-Andalus asked for a clear sky, a beautiful sea full of fishes, ripe fruit and fair women. All these were granted, but a fifth wish ? for good government ? was not granted because to have done so would have created heaven on earth.
Hillary's disdain for masculinity fits right into the classic feminazi package, which is why Hillary acts on Gloria Steinem like catnip. Steinem's fawning, gaseous New York Times op-ed about her pal Hillary this week speaks volumes about the snobby clubbiness and reactionary sentimentality of the fossilized feminist establishment, which has blessedly fallen off the cultural map in the 21st century. History will judge Steinem and company very severely for their ethically obtuse indifference to the stream of working-class women and female subordinates whom Bill Clinton sexually harassed and abused, enabled by look-the-other-way and trash-the-victims Hillary.
Employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants could lose their right to do business in Indiana under proposed legislation that would make the state’s penalties among the stiffest in the country.
The bill, authored by Sen. Mike Delph, R-Carmel, gained support from Republicans and Democrats alike Friday but was criticized by Hispanic leaders, business officials and civil rights experts who say cracking down on illegal immigration should be left to the federal government.Bill at a glance
The illegal- immigration bill Sen. Mike Delph, R-Carmel, plans to file next week would:
• Subject an employer to three years of probation if it’s found to have knowingly hired illegal immigrants.
• Revoke a business’s licenses to operate in Indiana if it is found guilty a second time during the probation period.
• Force employers to verify employment eligibility through the federal E-Verify program after Dec. 31, 2008.
• Make it a Class A misdemeanor to transport, shield from detection, conceal or harbor an illegal immigrant. Subsequent offenses would become felonies.
• Puts the attorney general in charge of investigating complaints of businesses violating the law.
• Requires the Superintendent of the State Police to work with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement division to obtain training in assisting with the enforcement of federal immigration law.
• Prohibits any unit of government from entering into a contract with a firm that employs an illegal immigrant.
• Requires all hospitals to report total costs of care for illegal immigrants to the Indiana State Department of Health.— Star report
Sydney Rieckhoff, a Cedar Rapids fourth grader and "kid reporter" for Scholastic News, has posed questions to seven Republican and Democratic presidential hopefuls as they've campaigned across Iowa this year. But when she approached the 27-year-old Chelsea after a campaign event Sunday, she got a different response.
"Do you think your dad would be a good 'first man' in the White House?" Sydney asked, but Chelsea brushed her question aside.
"I'm sorry, I don't talk to the press and that applies to you, unfortunately. Even though I think you're cute," Chelsea told the pint-sized journalist.
this morning and we had a clean up in aisle 5. Throw in some Resolve, taken out like a mob witness. 
Twenty years of crawlin was bottled up inside him.
He wasnt holdin nothin back; he let em have it all.
When tommy left the barroom not a gatlin boy was standin.
He said, this ones for becky, as he watched the last one fall.
"At 6:16 p.m. she expired," said Wasif Ali Khan, a member of Bhutto's party who was at Rawalpindi General Hospital where she was taken after the attack.
“She has been martyred,” added party official Rehman Malik. Bhutto was 54.
1. Paris loses out: Hilton fortune pledged to charity
2. Pakistan's Bhutto assassinated
Democratic presidential candidate and Ohio congressman Rep. Dennis Kucinich formally introduced articles of impeachment against Vice-President Dick Cheney that narrowly missed receiving a full House vote Tuesday afternoon.
Kucinich’s 18-page resolution charged that Cheney had “purposefully manipulated intelligence” in the run-up to the war in Iraq and had “fabricated a threat of weapons of mass destruction.”
Last week, Kucinich raised eyebrows when he admitted during a televised Democratic presidential debate that he been witness to a UFO.
There's the rub: Governing can be hard. One of the few bright spots for the Republicans -- other than the widely expected re-election of Gov. Haley Barbour in Mississippi -- was the startling upset of Indianapolis' Democratic mayor, Bart Peterson, by Republican Greg Ballard.
Peterson was generally seen as a success in office, and Ballard was so much the underdog that he got little help from Indiana's Republican governor, Mitch Daniels. But the establishment's coolness may have only underscored Ballard's outsider status, and he rode voter unhappiness with tax increases and crime to victory.
