This has nothing to do with Hamas.

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Jennifer Loewenstein: If Hamas Did Not Exist
The state terror unleashed from the skies and on the ground against the Gaza Strip as we speak has nothing to do with Hamas. It has nothing to do with “Terror”. It has nothing to do with the long-term “security” of the Jewish State or with Hizbullah or Syria or Iran except insofar as it is aggravating the conditions that have led up to this crisis today. It has nothing to do with some conjured-up “war” – a cynical and overused euphemism that amounts to little more the wholesale enslavement of any nation that dares claim its sovereign rights; that dares assert that its resources are its own; that doesn’t want one of the Empire’s obscene military bases sitting on its cherished land.
Do yourself a favour and read the whole thing


Mad Mel: Bonkers as ever

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MELANIE PHILLIPS: Yes, the war in Gaza is terrible. But the alternative was worse - for all of us
The often-made comparison with IRA terrorism spectacularly misses the point. Hamas actually run Gaza. The equivalent would have been the Irish government firing 6,000 rockets at England.
Only if the UK had blockaded Ireland, controlled its water and power supplies, prevented its inhabitants from seeking urgent medical treatment and controlled the movement of its citizens in and out of the country (and that's just for starters).

Gormless.


Dubyama?

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Foreign Policy: The Making of George W. Obama
The 2008 U.S. election was all about change. But that’s not what we’re going to get on foreign policy, says the longtime speechwriter for Condoleezza Rice. Instead of a radical departure from Bush, we’re likely to end up with a lot more of the same. And that may be just what we need.

On December 1, Barack Obama, who won theU.S. presidency as the candidate of “change,” announced his nationalsecurity team: President George W. Bush’s secretary of defense (RobertGates), Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s special envoy for MiddleEast security (James Jones), and the doyenne of Democratic centrism(Hillary Clinton). Some saw this as the political cover Obama needs tolead U.S. foreign policy in an entirely different direction after Bush.Perhaps. But I doubt it. My hunch, and my hope, is that Obama will be asuccessful president, not because he’ll totally change the foreignpolicy he’ll inherit from Bush, but because he’ll largely continue it.

Dangerbird

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Rod Liddle: 'I've never had a go at Muslims, only Islam'
"I'm interested in the BNP tendency within Britain's conservationists – 'It's a foreign animal, kill it!' We exterminated the coypu in East Anglia, a very ugly rodent which was introduced from South America for its fur, escaped and set up base in East Anglia where it caused damage to riverbanks. So they shot 'em all. The RSPB said recently shall we shoot all those parakeets because they're not British. 'They come over here with their green wings...'"
I like Liddle. There, I've said it. He's good at what he does and what he does is write entertaining, readable columns. I often disagree with him. He's sometimes offensive but in a straightforward way, rather than in the heavily disguised, mealy-mouthed way that many other columnists are. Other columnists Liddle regards as mostly "self-obsessed, narcissistic and not especially good at what they do". I agree.


One born every minute?

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Sand of Christ™ - Cherish your faith in a brand new way


What exactly is Sand of Christ?

Sand of Christ is a keepsake that has been blessed and made holy by an ordained minister. It is a vial of sand that has been filtered, cleaned and purified, then anointed and blessed through a long and expensive process. The vial is secured in a waterproof metal capsule that has been highly polished by hand. Each one has the cross laser engraved.

But isn’t this just regular sand?

This is regular sand, just as your place of worship is made of regular bricks, and your bible is made of regular paper. The sand itself is not the important part. The sand carries and represents the hours of work, love, blessing, tradition and emotion that have gone into each piece, much like your church or place of worship. And, just like the feeling you get when you go to worship, carrying Sand of Christ with you will extend that feeling of faith and closeness.
Look out, backing in with another gift from the Lord...



Via J-Walk

An idiot in Wolff's clothing

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Invasion a Monstrosity, Says UN Leader
Hamas must stop smuggling arms into Gaza and cease its rocket attacks on Israel, which were the "root cause" of violence in the region, said the US deputy permanent representative to the UN, Alejandro Wolff.





So that's the root cause of all the trouble in the middle-east. Well, why didn't you say so? And there's silly old me thinking it was a whole series of complex problems going back sixty years. Tut!



Gaza: In Perspective

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William Bowles: The Obscenity That is The State of Israel

The Gaza strip is 360 square kilometers in size with a population approaching 1.5 million people, over 60% of whom are under the age of fourteen.

Since 27 December, 2008 the Gaza Strip has been subjected to intense aerial bombardment with the most powerful weapons on the planet, all of which have been supplied by the United States: F-16s, Apache helicopter gunships, thermobaric bombs, remote-guided missile equipped drones. Hundreds of tons of bombs and missiles have been dropped on the most densely packed place on Earth.

And this on top of the complete blockade that has denied the Palestinians the most basic of necessities of life. And now, in an attempt to finish off Palestinian resistance following an intense artillery bombardment, this benighted land has been invaded.


The war, if that’s what it can be called as in reality it’s remote-controlled slaughter, is as much a propaganda war in true Goebellian fashion, a war that is being conducted in the homes of the so-called developed world through the electronic and print media. For without the complicity of our political class and state/corporate media in this atrocity, surely we as a people would not permit the genocide of an entire people in our name.

Thinking outside the box

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Gaza… surviving inside the tiny box
The Gaza strip sits inside a tiny box some 25 miles long and, for the most part, less than five miles wide. At its widest it is well under eight miles wide.

Inside this box live more than 1.4 million people, probably the sixth most densely populated area in the world. Certainly it is the most densely populated area to be surrounded on three sides by barbed wire. Most are descended from refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Almost half the population is 14 or under.

Getting in and out of Gaza is entirely governed by the whims of those who live on the other side of the barbed wire.

This is how it has been for most of the time since 1967 — more than 40 years.