Here is Part 2:
Tuesday, 31 August 2010
Monday, 30 August 2010
Checkpoint: 1
This week, I'm going to be featuring the reality of life in Occupied Palestine, beyond the 'Green Line':
Punishment for performance in front of "mixed audience."
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
27/08/2010
A singer who performed in front of a “mixed audience” of men and women was lashed 39 times to make him “repent,” after a ruling by a self-described rabbinic court on Wednesday.
Rabbi Amnon Yitzhak, founder of the Shofar organization aimed at bringing Jews “back to religion” (hazara betshuva), has made it his recent mission to fight against musical performances for both men and women.
His “judicial panel,” with Rabbi Ben Zion Mutsafi and another member, sentenced Erez Yechiel to 39 lashes in order to “rid him of his sins.”
27/08/2010
A singer who performed in front of a “mixed audience” of men and women was lashed 39 times to make him “repent,” after a ruling by a self-described rabbinic court on Wednesday.
Rabbi Amnon Yitzhak, founder of the Shofar organization aimed at bringing Jews “back to religion” (hazara betshuva), has made it his recent mission to fight against musical performances for both men and women.
His “judicial panel,” with Rabbi Ben Zion Mutsafi and another member, sentenced Erez Yechiel to 39 lashes in order to “rid him of his sins.”
Friday, 27 August 2010
Reconciliation With Taliban is ‘Ultimate Goal’ - Petraeus:
This is very nearly the 'Saigon moment' in Afghanistan
by Jason Ditz, August 25, 2010
Speaking today to Fox News, US Commander in Afghanistan Gen. David Petraeus insisted that the “ultimate goal” of the nearly nine year long war is to enable the “reconciliation”of the Karzai government with the Taliban.
And while such talks have actually taken place (mostly with official US ambivalence), Gen. Petraeus says the war must continue until it “creates conditions” for a more favorable reconciliation.
According to Petraeus, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has laid out a number of “redline” demands, including that they accept the constitution and disarm, and that the war will have to continue until the insurgency meets those demands.
The Taliban has demands of their own, of course, and has repeatedly said that they would only accept a reconciliation deal if the international troops were to leave Afghanistan. In both cases the demands appear unlikely to be met.
Of course the failure of the peace talks so far has not happened in a vacuum, and earlier this week officials with the Pakistani government confirmed that they had sabotaged a previous peace deal involving Taliban moderates by arresting them en masse. Pakistani officials say they were worried that the deal was happening “behind their backs” and that the deal would hand Afghanistan over to pro-India interests
by Jason Ditz, August 25, 2010
Speaking today to Fox News, US Commander in Afghanistan Gen. David Petraeus insisted that the “ultimate goal” of the nearly nine year long war is to enable the “reconciliation”of the Karzai government with the Taliban.
And while such talks have actually taken place (mostly with official US ambivalence), Gen. Petraeus says the war must continue until it “creates conditions” for a more favorable reconciliation.
According to Petraeus, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has laid out a number of “redline” demands, including that they accept the constitution and disarm, and that the war will have to continue until the insurgency meets those demands.
The Taliban has demands of their own, of course, and has repeatedly said that they would only accept a reconciliation deal if the international troops were to leave Afghanistan. In both cases the demands appear unlikely to be met.
Of course the failure of the peace talks so far has not happened in a vacuum, and earlier this week officials with the Pakistani government confirmed that they had sabotaged a previous peace deal involving Taliban moderates by arresting them en masse. Pakistani officials say they were worried that the deal was happening “behind their backs” and that the deal would hand Afghanistan over to pro-India interests
Thursday, 26 August 2010
A People That Shall Dwell Alone - Israel-Palestine: A Condensed View
A People That Shall Dwell Alone – Israel’s Attack On The Gaza Flotilla
August 25, 2010 posted by Niall Bradley · 14 Comments
By Joe Quinn, Editor of SOTT.nethttp://www.sott.net/
Originally published in the July-August 2010 issue of The Dot Connector Magazine.
Spyros Fragias/SOTT.net
At approximately 4am on May 31st 2010, a group of vessels attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza were attacked by the Israeli navy in international waters off the coast of the occupied Palestinian territories. Nine civilians aboard the largest vessel, the Mavi Marmara, were shot dead by Israeli soldiers and dozens more were wounded. The Israeli government claimed it was exercising its right to self defence. Flotilla members, and much of the international community, saw it as an act of piracy and murder on the high seas that has exposed deep flaws in the Israeli mentality and further alienated it from the rest of the world.
August 25, 2010 posted by Niall Bradley · 14 Comments
By Joe Quinn, Editor of SOTT.nethttp://www.sott.net/
Originally published in the July-August 2010 issue of The Dot Connector Magazine.
Spyros Fragias/SOTT.net
At approximately 4am on May 31st 2010, a group of vessels attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza were attacked by the Israeli navy in international waters off the coast of the occupied Palestinian territories. Nine civilians aboard the largest vessel, the Mavi Marmara, were shot dead by Israeli soldiers and dozens more were wounded. The Israeli government claimed it was exercising its right to self defence. Flotilla members, and much of the international community, saw it as an act of piracy and murder on the high seas that has exposed deep flaws in the Israeli mentality and further alienated it from the rest of the world.
Albert Einstein: Plagiarist and Fraud ?
Ian Moseley – Altermedia August 17, 2010
Albert Einstein is today revered as “the Father of Modern Science”. His wrinkled face and wild hair has become a symbol for scientific genius and “his” famous E = mc^2 equation is repeatedly used as the symbol for something scientific and intellectual. And yet there has for years been mounting evidence that this “Father of Modern Science” was nothing but a con man, lying about his ideas and achievements, and stealing the work and the research of others.
Albert Einstein is today revered as “the Father of Modern Science”. His wrinkled face and wild hair has become a symbol for scientific genius and “his” famous E = mc^2 equation is repeatedly used as the symbol for something scientific and intellectual. And yet there has for years been mounting evidence that this “Father of Modern Science” was nothing but a con man, lying about his ideas and achievements, and stealing the work and the research of others.Israel Penetrating Lebanese Institutions
WMR has learned from its Lebanese intelligence sources that the Lebanese government is coming to realize that Israeli intelligence penetration of all political groups in the country is worse than originally believed.
Israel’s Mossad, once content on penetrating the Christian and Druze parties in the country, has now thoroughly infiltrated the top echelons of Sunni and Shi’a parties, as well. Recently, Lebanon charged retired General Fayez Karam, a senior member of retired General Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, which is allied with Hezbollah, with spying for Mossad.
Israel’s Mossad, once content on penetrating the Christian and Druze parties in the country, has now thoroughly infiltrated the top echelons of Sunni and Shi’a parties, as well. Recently, Lebanon charged retired General Fayez Karam, a senior member of retired General Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, which is allied with Hezbollah, with spying for Mossad.
What I learned from Jared Diamond - Stephen M. Walt
Posted By Stephen M. Walt Wednesday, August 25, 2010 - 12:38 PM Share
Earlier this summer I mentioned that I was reading Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, and I promised to sum up the insights that I had gleaned from it. The book is well-worth reading -- if not quite on a par with his earlier Guns, Germs, and Steel -- and you'll learn an enormous amount about a diverse set of past societies and the range of scientific knowledge (geology, botany, forensic archaeology, etc.) that is enabling us to understand why they prospered and/or declined.
Earlier this summer I mentioned that I was reading Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, and I promised to sum up the insights that I had gleaned from it. The book is well-worth reading -- if not quite on a par with his earlier Guns, Germs, and Steel -- and you'll learn an enormous amount about a diverse set of past societies and the range of scientific knowledge (geology, botany, forensic archaeology, etc.) that is enabling us to understand why they prospered and/or declined. Wednesday, 25 August 2010
Bread
I've started out making my own bread (Or rather, Tata does the basic mixing, and I finish it off)Bread is one of my very basic foods, and I haven't yet got it quite right, but I'm getting there slowly. It's as much a question of cosmetics as anything else.
I can get a beautiful semi baguette (like this one) or a total collapsed mess, and I don't understand yet why the same starter dough produces such different results
Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Back Into the Water
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Note to Gaza Flotilla activists: you may be able to buy your IDF impounded laptop on Ebay if you're lucky.
Ynet has a lengthy expose in Hebrew here about the arrest of Israeli soldiers for trafficking in stolen laptops – with the high possibility that the laptops came from one of the ships of the Gaza Flotilla. If true, then "the most moral army of the world" will soon be prosecuting soldiers for stealing laptops from human rights activists. Of course, nothing new here; if you can steal from Gazans, you should be able to steal credit cards and laptops from folks who are coming to help the Gazans.
You can read a short version in Haaretz here.
Pity the poor folks in the IDF Spokesperson's office. After running around telling foreign journalists that Eden Abergil's Facebook posting was disgusting and atypical (a view not, apparently, shared by the majority of Israelis, or at least those who answer polls, in the Jerusalem Post), they now have to deal with this.
It's not easy advocating for the IDF nowadays.
Update: Captain Renault of the IDF once again reacts: "I'm shocked, shocked to find gambling going on in this establishment!" Read about it here
Update: Now the supporters and detractors of Eden Abergil are running neck-in-neck in the Jerusalem Post poll. Great going, hasbaraniks! (In fairness, the poll is open to readers outside of Israel, so presumably there are still leftwing readers outside of Israel disgusted by Edn Abergil's Facebook page.)
Note to Gaza Flotilla activists: you may be able to buy your IDF impounded laptop on Ebay if you're lucky.
Ynet has a lengthy expose in Hebrew here about the arrest of Israeli soldiers for trafficking in stolen laptops – with the high possibility that the laptops came from one of the ships of the Gaza Flotilla. If true, then "the most moral army of the world" will soon be prosecuting soldiers for stealing laptops from human rights activists. Of course, nothing new here; if you can steal from Gazans, you should be able to steal credit cards and laptops from folks who are coming to help the Gazans.
You can read a short version in Haaretz here.
Pity the poor folks in the IDF Spokesperson's office. After running around telling foreign journalists that Eden Abergil's Facebook posting was disgusting and atypical (a view not, apparently, shared by the majority of Israelis, or at least those who answer polls, in the Jerusalem Post), they now have to deal with this.
It's not easy advocating for the IDF nowadays.
Update: Captain Renault of the IDF once again reacts: "I'm shocked, shocked to find gambling going on in this establishment!" Read about it here
Update: Now the supporters and detractors of Eden Abergil are running neck-in-neck in the Jerusalem Post poll. Great going, hasbaraniks! (In fairness, the poll is open to readers outside of Israel, so presumably there are still leftwing readers outside of Israel disgusted by Edn Abergil's Facebook page.)
Islamophobia as the New Antisemitism
Magnes Zionist
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Daniel Luban has written a timely and well-researched article in Tablet on what he calls, the "New Antisemitism," the anti-Islamic bigotry that is on the rise in the United States. Using the term "New Antisemitism" to describe this bigotry is much more appropriate than using it to describe anti-Zionism or anti-Israelism; the latter often have nothing to do with anti-Semitism, and when they do, it is with the old anti-Semitism. While it is true that the term "anti-Semitism" originally arose in Germany as an explanatory euphemism for anti-Judaism, the exclusion of an "alien semitic and oriental religion" goes quite nicely with current Islamophobia, although, of course, there are important and fundamental differences. (For both similarities and differences see Luban's article.)
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Daniel Luban has written a timely and well-researched article in Tablet on what he calls, the "New Antisemitism," the anti-Islamic bigotry that is on the rise in the United States. Using the term "New Antisemitism" to describe this bigotry is much more appropriate than using it to describe anti-Zionism or anti-Israelism; the latter often have nothing to do with anti-Semitism, and when they do, it is with the old anti-Semitism. While it is true that the term "anti-Semitism" originally arose in Germany as an explanatory euphemism for anti-Judaism, the exclusion of an "alien semitic and oriental religion" goes quite nicely with current Islamophobia, although, of course, there are important and fundamental differences. (For both similarities and differences see Luban's article.)
Start Out Yet Again
I'm starting out yet again on my 'Paradise Island' blog; about life in a small tropical paradise.
It's a great place, but with one major problem; Food.
Filipino cooking is terrible. It is almost worse than Nigerian food.
So the next few posts will be about what you can do with simple Filipino ingredients
It's a great place, but with one major problem; Food.
Filipino cooking is terrible. It is almost worse than Nigerian food.
So the next few posts will be about what you can do with simple Filipino ingredients
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