Half Of The World Is Revolting, Million Poet Finale

David Ignatius
Ben-Dror Yemini

Wow, so much going on in the world today, it seems as if half of the world is in protest... It may be quiet in Iran, and the tea partyers are gearing up for April 15th, but the situation is getting worse in Thailand. Beginning as a peaceful protest, Red Shirt demonstrators stormed Paliament and government buildings., forcing ministers to flee by helicopter. Yes, they have an overly sense of the dramatic... The: "announcement came after nearly a month of street demonstrations by the red-shirted protesters, who have paralyzed the city’s commercial district and paraded through the city in defiance of government restrictions. They are demanding that Mr. Abhisit dissolve Parliament and call new elections.

The declaration of a state of emergency gives the military the power to suspend certain civil liberties and ban public gatherings of more than five people. It creates a Crisis Solution Center under joint civilian and military control." Will there be new elections? Will Thai iced tea be served among the protesters? We'll know by the end of the week.

More rare, was a reform protest in Cairo, Egypt: "Down, down, Hosni Mubarak," a group of more than 200 chanted as they tried to gather in central Cairo's Tahrir Square. Police hauled away a group of about a dozen protesters, shouting "freedom, freedom" near parliament, minutes later.

Hundreds of riot police were also stationed across the capital, encircling small groups of protesters as they gathered to converge on the centre. Police beat some with sticks and dragged dozens away, witnesses said. They also chased off reporters and seized cameras being used by media trying to cover the protest. Such demonstrations are rare in Egypt, an important U.S. ally in the region, and are usually swiftly quashed by security forces." The protest was timed to coincide with an international antiquities meeting being held, and they were hoping for maximum exposure. At the same time, in the north of Egypt: "Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, has issued a public call for political change in Egypt ahead of presidential elections planned for next year."

Of course, the protests could have been sparked by the surge in energy and intellectual activity due to the current shortage of hashish. Or, because of the hashish, the protesters were all released later today...

"I got dizzy looking for it. Everyone now says there's nothing,"

The threat of violence had the UN observers pull out of Darfur and go home, now the election is up for sale, even though the oposition has pulled out of some of the polls. They think it is easier to pull off a military coup than win an honest election...

In the most dramatic development, what began as a massive protest grew until it actually overthrew the government in Kyrgystan, with the incredibly corrupt president leaving by plane to save his butt...: "Tensions had been growing in Kyrgyzstan over what human rights groups contended were the increasingly repressive policies of President Bakiyev, but it appeared that the immediate catalyst for the violence was anger over a reported quadrupling in the prices for utilities.


Mr. Bakiyev made no public comment on Wednesday, and an official at the airport in Bishkek said in a telephone interview that Mr. Bakiyev took off from the airport in the early evening. The airport official said Mr. Bakiyev was flying to Osh, a major city in the southern part of the country, but that could not be confirmed."

The US operates Manas Air Force Base there, and uses it to send fuel and supplies to troops in Afghanistan. Supposedly, the president was a friend of ours, but he is seen as a cruel leader, treating everyone like indentured serfs. Journalists and human rights activists who criticized him were routinely lured outside of the country, then assassinated.

It's not clear what will happen during the next few days. The opposition, which has taken over the television stations, are demanding that the government resign. Russia may intervene and reinstate the ousted president, though they appear to have their attention diverted elsewhere right now. Will truth and justice prevail? Will Ahmadinejad say nasty things to bait the American president? Will China allow the free flow of information over the Internet? Most important of all, who will win the Million Poet competition tonight...


In Britain and America we have television shows like American Idol, where contestants sing for their supper and a chance at fame, be it so fleeting. There are lots of other, more weird and creepy shows that try to mine the fringes of reality and talent, shows that distort regional cultures and the roles women play in them, scripted so that we can mock and make fun of them.

Very few shows these days try to promote art and creativity. The lone exception this season comes from the country of Abu Dhabi, where they have been showing a poetry competition on Wednesday evenings.. Tonight is the final, with the winner receiving $1.3 million. The contest is in the Nabati style, which is the free verse of the Arabic Peninsula, and an estimated 18 million people are expected to tune in. Sheikh Mohammed, the ruler of Dubai and also a Nabati poet, explains the style: "Nabati poetry is also known as "the people's poetry" and "Bedouin poetry". It is considered the richest form of popular literature, and seen to reflect the reality of everyday life.


Nabati poetry is a great literary treasure, and a phenomenon unique to the Arabian Peninsula. Its form and content, literary significance, social function and historical value also make it a unique style of poetry. It is the document on which one can catch a glimpse of the past, or even get a more precise idea of historical customs. It depicts the situations faced by the countries of the Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula before their modern-day renaissance."

One of the finalists Hissa Hillal, created controversy by reciting her poem about some of the Saudi fatwas that had been issued which were demeaning and cruel:

I have seen evil in the eyes of fatwas,

at a time when the permitted

is being twisted into the forbidden.

The clerics are vicious in voice,

barbaric, angry and blind,

wearing death as a robe cinched with a belt.

Hissa is one of tonight's finalists, and is considered a longshot because of her controversy. But I am rooting for her, GO HISSA!

US and Tehran - Dual Nuclear Summits, Axis of Cyberevil, Heritage's Economic Freedom Index

Dana Milbank
Mary Dejevsky
Reza Pahlavi

"You know, 30,000 people showed up for the annual Easter Egg Roll at the White House today. Or as Fox News calls it, a 'socialist free food giveaway.'" – Jay Leno

"And last week, Sarah Palin gave a speech in Nevada, where she criticized President Barack Obama for being a constitutional law professor. The problem with that statement is Sarah Palin thinks that's an insult. Only in America, you want to insult someone, call them a teacher." – Jay Leno

"Today, President Obama threw out the first pitch at the Washington Nationals' game. Obama took a short windup and threw a high-arcing pitch. Of course, Democrats saw the pitch as moderately close to the middle, while Republicans are calling it 'way to the left and possibly socialist.'" – Jimmy Fallon

One of the links above is to an opinion piece by Reza Pahlavi, the former Crown Prince and son of the Shah of Iran. The Huffington Post just lists him as a human rights activist, but you should  know who he is and what his roots are if you read his column. Mary Dejevsky writes a column for the Independent in Britain. I always like people's takes on our foreign policy who live outside the US, it's like using a different pair of glasses.

Sometimes world politics reminds me of an Andy Hardy movie, when you don't have a solution to a problem, put on a show... Barack Obama came of age when the greatest source of anxiety facing young people 20-30 years ago was the threat of nuclear annihilation. It has formed his, and many other world leaders his age, feelings and policies concerning nuclear weaponry. Today he will formally announce how the recently negotiated nuclear non-proliferation treaty with Russia, will sign it in Prague, and how will change US policy towards the possible use of nuclear arms aimed at other nations. At that time there will be a nuclear summit come April, where a whopping 22 countries, including China, will attend.

China will also then go to Iran, which has, in the best Andy Hardy tradition, announced that it too, host a nuclear summit: "Iranian officials announced the two-day conference, entitled "Nuclear energy for everyone, nuclear arms for no one", on Sunday.


Officials said that 60 countries had been invited to attend the meeting, which will run from April 17-18. Saeed Jalili, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, said the conference aims to show that Tehran wants to promote nuclear disarmament while encouraging peaceful nuclear energy production. "Iran, as a country supporting global disarmament, invites the world to disarm and prevent proliferation," he told the state-run Irna news agency." Its too bad that Iran can't come to the US conference, and vice versa. Even better if they could join together and host one huge conference, it would be the first time that there is actual communication between Iran and the US on this issue. As it stands now, it looks like Iran is staging a piece of theater for the world audience, take no notice of that man standing behind the curtain... To really prove that Iran has no intentions of making nuclear weapons, all they have to do is let the UN inspectors in and watch them on a full-time basis, to dispel our fears. As it is, nobody trusts them at their word, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is never taken seriously because he has acted like such a clown in the past. But, why not send Hillary and Robert Gates to Tehran in April, send them uninvited if we have to. We need to engage these people, confront them at a personal level and Hillary is someone who would talk honestly, forcefully, and pull no punches.

In a court ruling against the FCC a federal appeals court said that: "the agency lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks."

The FCC actually was trying to set rules regarding the Internet that would make all sources equally free, and not let businesses like Comcast restrict them for its customers. It wanted information to have equal freedom for all of us, and we get to have the liberty to access it (this last metaphor is for the tea party crowd). "The ruling would allow Comcast and other Internet service providers to restrict consumers’ ability to access certain kinds of Internet content, such as video sites like Hulu.com or Google’s YouTube service, or charge certain heavy users of their networks more money for access. Google, Microsoft and other big producers of Web content have argued that such controls or pricing policies would thwart innovation and customer choice."

On the other hand, the appeals court ruling is a stab at the FFC's attempt to establish its authority over the Internet, and it leaves it free of oversight, in the wonderful realm of chaos...

Part of that chaos is the art of cyber-warfare, such as the recent flap that Google had, tracing some hackers back into China. Yet another report on Chinese spying was released Monday, that: "... provided a detailed account of how a spy operation it called the Shadow Network systematically hacked into personal computers in government offices on several continents.


The Toronto spy hunters not only learned what kinds of material had been stolen, but were able to see some of the documents, including classified assessments about security in several Indian states, and confidential embassy documents about India’s relationships in West Africa, Russia and the Middle East. The intruders breached the systems of independent analysts, taking reports on several Indian missile systems. They also obtained a year’s worth of the Dalai Lama’s personal e-mail messages.


The intruders even stole documents related to the travel of NATO forces in Afghanistan, illustrating that even though the Indian government was the primary target of the attacks, one chink in computer security can leave many nations exposed."

“We snuck around behind the backs of the attackers and picked their pockets. I’ve not seen anything remotely close to the depth and the sensitivity of the documents that we’ve recovered.”

Of course, when the Chinese government was asked to comment, they angrily denied any knowledge: "When asked about the new report on Monday, a propaganda official in Sichuan’s capital, Chengdu, said “it’s ridiculous” to suggest that the Chinese government might have played a role. “The Chinese government considers hacking a cancer to the whole society,” said the official, Ye Lao." So, this is another case of computer hackings into "friends" of the Chinese government, obtaining sensitive and personal information, with the trail leading back into the interior of China. There certainly are a lot of pranks being pulled by Chinese professors of computer technology... Couple them up with the Iranian government's hackers that put up a firewall and slowed down transmissions into the country from satellites, violating the contracts it had with the makers of those satellites, and we have the makings for a new axis of cyberevil...


Here is a link to the newly released Heritage Foundation's Economic Freedom Index, where the US has landed in 8th place. It's interesting to note that it ranked a Communist country in first place, and blamed the Obama administration for all of the US's lower rankings. And, as TPM noted: "Among the countries now ranked higher than the U.S. are Canada (where health care is universal), Singapore (where spitting is forbidden) and Ireland (whose economy was free to experience a near collapse)." The Heritage Foundation is the most influential conservative think tank, based in Washington DC. It's stated goals are: "... to "formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense."[3] So, if you are not an establishment conservative, take it with a grain of salt...

On Suicide Bombers, Boer Me To Death, I Am Not a Maverick, Either...

Paul Krugman
Marc Thiessen
E J Dionne Jr
Judith Miller

"The message for the GOP establishment is clear -- be careful what you wish for. For too long, it turned up its nose at the grassroots activism of social conservatives and said they should focus on fiscal issues that unite the party. Now, the grassroots activism of fiscal conservatives is driving the debate in races across the country." - Marc Thiessen

"But between now and then lies an election season likely to be characterized more by anger than reason, and in which the opposition has the advantage of not being in charge at a moment of great discontent. " - E J Dionne Jr

"You guys hear about this? Sarah Palin has a new Fox News series, which is being described as a show about people with real-life tales of overcoming adversity. Hey, she should do a story about that guy who became the first black president. That would be a good story. Think about that one." - Jimmy Fallon

In the links above, two are about politics, blah, blah, blah. The real dirt is in Judith Miller's piece about a case that is soon coming to trial in Israel, dealing with bad behavior in the Israeli Defense Force's top brass, and the woman who photocopied the documents on them and turned them over to the press. The come-on is Israel becoming just like Iran in censoring the press and hounding journalists?... One thing that has happened in the aftermath of the Israeli - US flap, is that the Palestinian Authority and Hamas are negotiating a truce and finding a way to present a united front towards Israel.

But the focus in the news has been on Bagdad, where another round of suicide bombers attacked areas near foreign embassies: "Two were suicide attacks against the Egyptian and Iranian embassies, Iraqi security forces said, while the third struck close to the German, Spanish and Syrian missions. No deaths were reported among any of the embassies' foreign staff, although several Iraqi guards at the German and Egyptian missions were killed." Al Qaeda in Iraq has been credited with the bombings, and two other would be bombers were captured. One was a 17 year old boy who was stoned out of his mind, strapped into a van full of dynamite. One bomber had to cross four checkpoints without being searched, so he must have had a good story, or the guards are just as lazy as anywhere else...

Suicide bombs are used to create chaos; the destruction, noise, and fear they create sends an unmistakable message to those in power. The targets here pose more questions than give answers. Why Egypt? Germany is a foreign power, but has had little to do in Iraq except let their forces sit around and drink beer. Maybe send a message to Iran and Syria not to meddle with their affairs, but they are more allied to al Qaeda in terms of support,the bombs were probably made with material from Iran, so it doesn't make sense. I guess the real meaning lies in the vast amount of conspiracy theories that spring up after an act of callous destruction... The ease of obtaining the materials to build the bombs in Iraq is what bothers me. Why haven't the borders been sealed off more, or do smugglers cross the deserts like Mexican immigrants? Maybe criminal cartels smuggle this stuff in because it is more popular than drugs, sells better than Disney DVD's or Pakistani porn...

But this was probably in retaliation for the government capturing and killing some top al Qaeda officials in Mosul a few days ago. We'll soon see how strong the al Qaeda organization is, if Osama bin Laden takes up the invitation of the Somali rebels and travels to Somalia to help their fight in Africa. We'll see if he stops in Tehran along the way to pick up members of his family that have been held hostage for at least 8 years...

boer me to death...
One interesting or frightening fact came to light in the aftermath of the killing of the acknowledged White Supremacist is that over 900 white farmers have been killed in South Africa since 2001... Will the upcoming South African race wars spark ones here in the US? Especially if global warming is taking effect and we will have another long, hot Summer, with the heat setting everyone's nerves on edge... Riots never happen in the Winter...

I often confuse the terms White Supremacist with Christian Extremist, the two often having overlapping beliefs and premises. David Kurtz, in TPM, had this amusing ditty that was revealed about one of the Hutaree, the comic-book fantasy parading as a Christian Militia in Michigan: "It's not easy being a Christian militiaman.


One of the nine alleged Hutaree militia members charged in Michigan for plotting to kill police there reportedly became irate at police in Ohio police last year when they refused to press charges against his mother, who had confiscated his AK-47 and pistol -- which he said he desperately needed to protect himself from an Ohio crime family whose bad side he was on because he had tried to marry a Macedonian woman who was supposedly held captive on an island in Lake Erie by another crime family.


Got all that?


His mom, god bless her, took his guns away because she thought he was mentally unstable." If only we would listen more to our mothers, this worl might be a safer, saner place. Unless mom is a founding member of one of these groups...

dear john...

John McCain seems to be living in his Winter of discontent. I don't know if it's just a function of old age, but he is forgetting things more often, and publicly embarrassing himself during his re-election campaign in Arizona. Newsweek just published an article following him around, where: "Maverick" is a mantle McCain no longer claims; in fact, he now denies he ever was one. "I never considered myself a maverick," he told me. "I consider myself a person who serves the people of Arizona to the best of his abilities." Yet here was Palin, urging her fans four times in 15 minutes to send McCain the Maverick back to Washington."

If I lived in Arizona, I would probably vote for him and send him back to the Senate, even if I think it's better if he retired. His opponent is a slick, corrupt, and intolerant person, who claims that McCain isn't conservative enough for Arizona. I would vote for him hoping that he could bounce back and become the moderate maverick that he once was, despite the short temper and often vicious backbiting he displays. "With no prominent Democrats in the race, a win in the Republican primary will almost certainly return McCain to Washington. But which McCain? On that, Hayworth and McCain agree. "It'll be a lead-pipe cinch that John will go back to being John, and taking delight at poking conservatives in the eye," says Hayworth. "He'd like to have that status that a Ted Kennedy had as 'lion of the Senate,' doing those things that win him praise in the eyes of the Washington press corps." "The fundamentals of my character were formed a long, long time ago under sometimes difficult circumstances," says McCain. "I'm not going to fundamentally change."


But, of course, that's what they'd both say. Others believe it's simply too early to tell. McCain always goes with his gut, they note, and he's too intent now on surviving to know what he'll do once he has. Others wonder whether, after all this hyperpartisanship, he could snap back into being a maverick, even if he wanted to. Still others point to his ambitions. McCain himself says he'd love to serve as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. But that can happen only with a Republican majority. And that won't come from crossing any aisles."

HAPPY EASTER

Every year the Washington Post hosts a Peeps Diorama competition, where folks use the Peeps marshmallow bunnies to make artistic scenes. Here is the link to this year's show, they really are quite clever. Below are some peepshows from years past:

Happy Easter, see you tomorrow...

Defusing Gaza, Defriending Hamid

David Ignatius
Marwan Bishara
Reihan Salam

"This is my favorite story of the week. The Republican National Committee is in trouble after spending nearly $2,000 at a bondage club in Hollywood. You know what I call a Republican that spends a lot of money in a strip club? A Democrat." – Jay Leno

"In fact, one eyewitness said 'some of the things going on in the club were almost too masochistic for the Republicans to watch.' Like in one room, there was a video being played over and over of President Obama signing the healthcare bill." – Jay Leno

"President Obama announced this week that he is opening more sites for offshore oil drilling. Do you know what that means? If we find enough oil, we could one day invade ourselves." – Jay Leno

There is a good article in the Christian Science Monitor on Egypt's role in maintaining the blockade of Gaza. Like all things in the Middle East, the reasons are complex; "Egypt doesn’t want to take the pressure off Israel, which it holds responsible for running Gaza. At the same time, Egypt has an interest in weakening militant Islamist group Hamas, which rules the territory. And many suspect that US pressure plays into Egypt's participation in the blockade, though Egypt denies this.


Emad Gad, an analyst at the government-funded Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, boils the issue down to Egypt’s opposition to Hamas. “Hamas is part of another coalition in the region – the Iran, Syria, Hezbollah coalition,” he says. “Hamas is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. And Hamas is trying to minimize the Egyptian role in the Palestinian cause... Egypt’s main line of defense for closing the border is to pass responsibility to Israel. Egypt considers Gaza under Israeli occupation, and therefore under international law it is Israel’s duty to provide Gazans with their basic needs – not Egypt’s. Allowing goods through Rafah would take the pressure off Israel to end the blockade."

From the Jerusalem Post: "On Thursday night the IAF carried out several air strikes in the Gaza Strip, targeting four weapons factories and warehouses targets. The attacks were a response to the firing of a Kassam rocket earlier that evening, which fell near Ashkelon causing no casualties or damage." Hamas is having trouble stopping the Kassam missiles from being launched from within Gaza, and there are several newer groups within Gaza that are agitating for another violent intifada. I think they are tired of running a place that is so depressed, both economically and emotionally. Gaza is dependent on Israel for most of its food supply, and every time another rocket is fired, Israel retaliates by bombing some tunnel sites, causing less goods to be smuggled inside. Hamas has already determined that they don't need any more guns inside of Gaza, that building materials would now suit them better. And if Hamas is acting more reasonable and responsible, then the Palestinian Authority has to kick it up a notch and be the unreasonable one. The question is, who can keep a lid on this cauldron and how do you defuse the situation? Getting rid of the blockade would go a long way to help.

The US State Department is freaking out, seeing all of their good work during this last year come unraveling, and they are trying to cool both sides down and get their indirect peace talks restarted: "State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters there was no “military solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.


"The Israelis have a right to self-defense. At the same, as we've said many times, we don't ultimately think there is a military solution to this. Our message remains to the Israelis and Palestinians that we need to get the proximity talks going, focus on the substance, move to direct negotiations and ultimately arrive at a settlement that ends the conflict once and for all." Welcome to the Mid-East three-step, grab your partner, now take one step forward and two steps back...

Back in Afghanistan, poor Hamid Karzai got taped ranting about those damned Americans, then called Hillary Clinton afterwards to apologize, saying that he was ranting about the American press, who keeps on demonizing him. Its true that we have more reporters in Afghanistan than any other foreign country right now, and they have to report on something. And its true that Hamid is caught up between a rock and a hard place, trying to reconcilliate with the Taliban and have the American military swarming all over the place.

Half of the civilian deaths so far have come from night raids into private homes; "Since he took over as top commander in Afghanistan, McChrystal has not only refused to curb those raids but has increased them dramatically. Even after they triggered a new round of angry protests from villagers, students and Afghan President Hamid Karzai himself, he has given no signal of reducing his support for them. " Even General McChrystal has acknowledged that he is pissing off Afghan villagers:

"Nearly every Afghan I talk to mentions them as the single greatest irritant".

So why is the General continuing, and increasing the number of night raids? Gareth Porter thinks the reason is statistics, statistics, statistics: "McChrystal has only a brief period before President Barack Obama's exit strategy comes into play in mid-2011. He desperately needs to be able to convince the American public during that period that he is making progress.


Like General David Petraeus in Iraq in 2007-08, he needs to be able to cite statistical trends, such as a reduction in Taliban IED attacks, that would demonstrate such progress to congress and the news media.


He evidently hopes that night raids, by weakening the Taliban military organization, might influence those statistical trends. Reducing the level of Afghan hatred of Americans by eliminating night raids wouldn't figure in those statistics." Welcome to the modern military counterinsurgent policy, it's a brave new world...

Internet Suicide Bombers, Obama Hits New Low, Rush is bin Laden's Disciple

Paul Krugman
Dan Quayle
John Avlon

"A close look at the tea party membership will find many of those independents who went for Obama but now regret it." - Dan Quayle

“I used to get some pretty nasty hate mail from radical Islamists, but the stuff I’m getting right now from right wingers is an order of magnitude worse.” - Charles Johnson

I know that security experts have been saying how much the Internet has influenced people who are susceptible to terrorist ideology. We have some examples in America of two women who trolled Islamic sites for new boyfriends and ended up arrested in Ireland for plotting to kill a cartoonist. It seems comical only because they were caught before the plot could become successful.

More damaging and horrific is the fact that one of the women suicide bombers who attacked in the Moscow metro system is a seventeen year old widow named: "Dzhanet Abdullayeva, she was born in 1992 and lived in the Khasavyurtsky region of Dagestan... "Police said that they had identified an apartment building that had been rented out by two suspected accomplices of the female suicide bombers. They say these two men may have accompanied the woman to a metro station in the southwest of the city where they handed them the bomb belts.


The men are then believed to have gone back to the apartment building, as the female suicide bombers went on to their final destination. It was the men in the apartment building, at a distance, that then detonated the explosives by remote [control]"

Dzhanet met her husband when she was 16 and living in a small village. She had contacted him through the Internet, then married him after they had met in person. Her husband was: "Umalat Magomedov, a high-ranking Dagestani anti-government fighter, who was killed by Russian security forces last year." A few months later she volunteered to wear the suicide belt in Moscow, with devastating effect.

This girl, and the one who volunteered with her, were children, caught up in an ugly, violent, and cruel reality. Just like thug life is made out to be romantic and cool in music videos by poseur musicians, the world of jihad beckons to poor, bored, rural Islamic youth. The romantic fantasies come crashing down when someone you love dies, and you are left to grieve, despair, and angrily call out for justice. Even more unfortunate, there always will be someone willing to take advantage of your fragile emotional state, and voila - a Black Widow is born. Born to cause even more grieving and despair by killing more innocent people, the same way her innocence was lost.

Also unfortunate, is that there are many more like her in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, whose families have met up with CIA mercenaries, or the impersonal firebomb from a drone. President Medvedev channeled his inner Putin by saying that Russia will get tougher on these bombers, but how do you stop their grief or give them a future? How do you heal a person, a village, or a country that has seen such devastation? The Chechens say that if they had their own country they could heal...

The Palestinians are getting ready for the next intifada, claiming that it will be a non-violent one. If a Palestinian state were created right now, about 40-50,000 people would have to be evacuated from the West Bank. Instead of finding ways to sabotage negotiations, the Israeli government needs to do this in exchange for an armistice. This should be the beginning point of any further negotiations, and Israel is loath to do it, certainly will never happen as long as Benjamin Netanyahu and the right wing faction is in charge. After all, the Israelis were given their land, and their terrorists were forgiven, after WW11, and they had the opportunity to heal from the devastation visited on them. Now, its time to do the same for the Palestinian people, give them the same chance and break the cycle that will reverberate throughout the Middle East and throughout the world...

While Obama's approval rating hit a new low in a CBS poll, he also gave an interesting interview with Harry Smith this morning. Here is the link to the full video. During the interview, Harry told Obama that the kindest thing he had heard about him from the right was that he was a Socialist, and the worst that he was Hitler. Obama responded: "Well, I think that when you listen to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, it's pretty apparent, and it's troublesome, but keep in mind that there have been periods in American history where this kind of vitriol comes out," Obama said in an interview with CBS News that aired this morning. "It happens often when you've got an economy that is making people more anxious and people are feeling like there is a lot of change that needs to take place. But that's not the vast majority of Americans. I think the vast majority of Americans know that we're trying hard, that I want what's best for the country."

In an emailed response to Politico, Rush snarkily replied: "I have yet to have a down year at the EIB Network... I and most Americans do not believe President Obama is trying to do what's best for the country," he wrote. "Never in my life have I seen a regime like this, governing against the will of the people, purposely. I have never seen the media so supportive of a regime amassing so much power. And I have never known as many people who literally fear for the future of the country."


Rush is on the radio for three hours per day, five days per week, Glen Beck is also on the radio and on Fox News. There are no moderate or liberal equivalents, nobody willing to even go on the record to challenge the mean-spirited, vitriol-laden speech flowing from their mouths. I used to like listening to Rush, back when he had a sense of humor. But since he was addicted to pain medications, he has become more callous and arrogant. He is content to be a negative force in our society instead of a constructive one. Bored folks, depressed from having lost their jobs, senior citizens depressed from growing older and their bodies failing them, listen to Rush and Glenn and can give in to their frustrations and anger for a brief while. But it creates a knee-jerk, emotional response that becomes an all-day attitude, and soon you have some pretty pissed-off people who now listen in to feed their emotional addiction. This is how ex-addicts like Rush and Glenn spread their behavior without taking any responsibility.

I can sit here and laugh at them. I know that they are only trying to dish out the same kind of attitude they felt that George W Bush received, but these nattering nabobs of negativity are creating a dangerous situation. Doctors have been murdered, people are intimidating others by wearing guns openly, and wackos living comic book fantasies are creating militias, willing to die to bring on Armageddon. If it doesn't tone down, as Obama suggests, we will become what Rush describes us as, and I, too, will fear for our nation. Then, Osama bin Laden will have won, his disciples Glenn and Rush can sit at his right, while we tear each other apart in the streets.  Damn, that does sound Apocalyptic...

Pirate Season Beginning, Angry Arab, RNC and Phone Sex

Gail Collins
David Broder
John Avlon

"Did you hear about this? President Obama, big surprise visit to see the folks in Afghanistan. Did you read all about that? That's kind of exciting. It turns out he was shooting an episode of 'Undercover Boss.'" –David Letterman

"This was an important meeting. Both presidents agreed that we have to work to wipe out terror networks. Get rid of terror networks, like Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Fox News." –David Letterman

"Obama demanded more accountability. He said we got to have more accountability, we got to have a crackdown on corruption; we have to have a better government. And he said if it works in Afghanistan, we're going to try it back home in the United States." –David Letterman

Now that spring is here, it means good sailing in the waters of the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, which brings the dreaded Somali pirates out swarming the seas like a hive of infuriated wasps. Since January they already have attacked 37 ships and have hijacked 7 of them, and are holding 143 crewmen hostage. Recently, an American warship captured a pirate mothership and skiff in the Indian Ocean, and a Turkish Navy ship captured a skiff with 9 Somali pirates out on a raid.

One result of this very real paranoia is the drastic rise in expenditures on maritime security by the Arabic Gulf states. Added concerns over the future security of offshore oil platforms, especially by Saudi Arabia, is causing them to: "spend billions of dollars on naval equipment, ranging from ships to unmanned drones." Yes, the boys are shopping for new toys...

"In terms of percentage growth, the Middle East and North Africa actually leads the world naval market. The focus is on capabilities that can give you the anti-piracy, anti-terrorism sorts of missions."

In addition to buying up smaller, maneuverable Corvette type ships, as built by the British Navy. Many countries are now trying to manufacture their own, and we may soon see a spike in Arabic armaments beyond the infamous IED explosive devices. India has its own navy, and South Korea sees a market niche where they can excel. Of course, there is always the danger that some extremist groups will end up with their own manufacturing base and make their own arms like they do in other parts of the world, but then they would be in competition with Iran...

Congratulations to my friend the Angry Arab for being in the top twenty rated pro-Islamic sites by Britain's anti-terrorist service. The implication is that they are also pro-terrorism, anti-Western, jihad-promoting sites as well. I have linked to his site for over a year, and he is certainly not pro-terrorist at all. Like any secular Muslim who lives and teaches in the United States and once was married to a Jewish woman, his relationship with both the East and the West is complex. He is against corruption, politicians who lie and spread their own agenda no matter what country or religion they belong to. He angrily points out the hypocrisy in the news, and passionately cares what goes on in his native Lebanon and surrounding areas. To think that he is pro-terrorist is laughable, and this was pointed out in a blog published in al Jazeera:. "The third blog on the list also raised some eyebrows, if not led to laughter of irony. The Angry Arab blog is written by As'ad Abukhalil, a Lebanese-American professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus, and visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley.


According to statements he has made on his blog, he is a self-proclaimed atheist and secularist. Abukhalil, who has regularly written for Al Jazeera, said that the Ricu study "shows the ignorance of Western government and their media standards". "Arabs and Muslims are treated like a monolith with no distinctions and delineations permitted to categorise them," he said. Just as the colonial powers treated them as a lump of people, they are still seen that way."

"Designating Angry Arab as a leading Islamist site full of incitement to would-be jihadists would have been laughable had the subject not been one of life and death for so many of Britain's targets in this one-sided war,"

Personally, I love it that there are people out there who are grumpier than I am, and I value their differing opinions that make me think. Keep up the good work, As'ad...

phone sex with michael steele...

The Republican National Committee just can't get a break, they continue on making stupid. As related in Politico: "The Republican National Committee sent a fundraising mail piece earlier this month with a return number that leads to a phone-sex line offering "live, one-on-one talk with a nasty girl who will do anything you want for just $2.99 per minute." At the bottom of a piece designed to resemble a census form, a toll-free number is listed next to the national party's address.


A voter in Minnesota received the mailer and called the number intending to complain about the attempt to raise money with a form that looks like a government document.


But the Minnesotan was instead directed to a second toll-free number that greets callers as "sexy guy" before offering them the chance to talk with "real local students, housewives and working girls from all over the country."

Fallout from this and recent fiscal revelations that the RNC approved $2000 for a visit to an upscale bondage-themed strip club last month, has had Sarah Palin asking that they take her name off of an upcoming fund-raiser, and Tony Perkins, head of the anti-gay Family Research Council, telling its members not to donate any money to them. Bummer, dudes...

china, china...
China has a lot worse problems than fake bribery trials, recycled cooking oil in its restaurants, and illegal manufacturing short cuts. Recently, the bodies of 21 babies were found in bags labeled as medical waste and dumped into a river. From the NY Times: "The bodies of 21 babies were found in plastic bags in a river in northeast China, state media reported Tuesday. The bodies, some in bags marked “medical waste,” others with hospital identification tags on their toes, were recovered Sunday and Monday from a river in Jining, a city in Shandong Province. The authorities said at least 15 bodies appeared to be of aborted fetuses or infants who had died at Jining Medical College Hospital, state media said. Hospital officials could not be reached for comment."

I will also bet that that most of the aborted were girls, adhering to a long held tradition that girls are worthless to a family. In rural areas of China many families still will kill their firstborn if it is a girl... I remember a few years ago when it was a scandal in the US, finding medical waste bags with used syringes and actual medical waste that had washed up on the beach, and were traced back to individual doctors, but this kind of incident is obviously much worse, and will probably be buried by the Chinese government, even if an investigation is actively pursued... thank God I don't have any pictures for this, and yet it is stories like this that will be censored by the authorities if people try to look for it in their homegrown search engines...