Timmyhawk

Labels: humour etc., media, politics

Labels: blogging and the blogger, humour etc., music

Labels: blogging and the blogger, humour etc.

I've long, as a Jew, found a highly useful test for distinguishing legitimate commentary from hate; I take the noun of the statement in question, switch it to "Jew," or the adjective to "Jewish," and see how I think it stands up.
One can also switch out, say, one religious figure for another who did things, in a different religious tradition, we now would call horrible and despicable. Enjoy the game! "If the bastard wasn't a Jew they would have said so." "I'd just be satisfied with covering those Jews with pork chops and putting them in a pit full of rottweillers."
Feel free to use "Christian, " or "atheist," or "Hindu," or whatever works best for yourself.

Labels: Islam, nation, terrorism

After European representatives launched a campaign against Israel's separation fence, and voted against Israel at the UN general assembly, the EU is planning a separation fence of its own. The EU plans to build a fence to separate its new members - Poland and Hungary - from its new neighbors - Russia, Belarus and Ukraine - to prevent the free movement of migrants seeking to enter the EU.

President Bush has launched a drive to halt illegal immigration across America's porous southern border, amid growing fears that terrorists may be using Mexico as a base camp before heading to Arizona, Texas and California.
A string of alarming incidents has convinced Bush administration officials that lax immigration rules, designed to cope with the huge numbers of illegal entrants from Mexico, have become a significant loophole in the war on terror.
Over the past month, border agents from Arizona and Texas have anonymously reported recent encounters with dozens of Arab men, who have made their way across the 2,000-mile Mexican border

Maybe it will turn out that Israel's wall is there not only because we can't solve our security problem with the Palestinians but also because we are a middle-class society rubbing up against a poor one. That's a much more deeply rooted problem than even the intifada or the occupation.

The arab kids like to hang out with Dana

Labels: global affairs, Israel

Bishop Lowe is right to remind patriotic, right of centre, Christians (of whom I'm unashamedly one) that they aren't called to put country before God, although in fairness he should also have pointed out that they are called to give the state the things due to it, which certainly include a high degree of personal loyalty. I'm not convinced that I Vow to Thee my Country does call us to put country before God, just before "all earthly things", but he's probably right to remind us of the dangers of unquestioning nationalism. He's just wrong to condemn nationalism unquestioningly.

Labels: Church, nation, religion

An Anglican bishop wants to ban the hymn I Vow To Thee My Country - because it echoes Hitler's Germany and is "heretical".

To those who want to see the C of E recover its sanity I say this - please join the congregations, please challenge the vicars, but do so from within the fold. Outside it you are not heard by those hiding inside. Inside you can do some good.

The CoE has surrendered to Islam. They are more concerned about not upsetting Islamists than they are taking care of their own flock.

Labels: Church, Islam, nation, religion

The head of Iraq's nuclear programme under Saddam Hussein has said Iraq destroyed its nuclear weapons programme in 1991 and never restarted it.
Jafar Dhia Jafar told the BBC sanctions and inspections worked in stopping the reconstitution of the programme.
He also said Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programmes were destroyed after the first Gulf War and never reactivated.
. . .
But Mr Jafar, whom the former Iraqi leader originally asked to build the country's nuclear bomb, said all nuclear development stopped in July 1991, under the orders of Saddam Hussein.
Jafar Dhia Jafar
He said he was probably a few years away from producing a nuclear bomb. [timmyhawk's quick note: thank you, Israel]
. . .
He added the Iraqi leader had hoped that UN sanctions would be lifted soon, adding that Iraq's strategic aims became ineffective when the US and UK became its adversaries.
. . .
He said that everything was destroyed, such that the programme could not be restarted at the time - and that it never restarted.
Similarly, the country's chemical and biological weapons programmes were stopped and never reactivated, he said.
"There was no capability," he said. "There was no chemical or biological or any of what are called weapons of mass destruction." Some materials were never accounted for, giving weapons inspectors reason to believe that there were still some weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
But Mr Jafar said that production figures were exaggerated, and the inspectors' estimates merely reflected the difference between existing materials and the inflated figures.
"That doesn't mean the material actually exists," he said. [timmyhawk wonders: huh? But then how can there be a difference? Anyways. . .]

Labels: Iraq

The blast would partly destroy a much larger area, including the United Nations.

Thinness may have become synonymous with beauty in America, but it is decimating the erotic life of marriage. In multiple sexual surveys, one of the biggest complaints that husbands voice about their wives is that they rarely initiate sex and are far too reserved in the bedroom. But can we really expect the American wife to be sexually adventurous when she is permanently self-conscious about her weight? It makes sense that women who feel unattractive will choose to hide under the covers.

Labels: economy, global affairs, Iraq, nation, nuclear weapons, USA

You don't support Democrats.
Why should your ketchup?
W Ketchup(tm) is made in America, from ingredients grown in the USA.

A portion of every sale is donated to the Freedom Alliance Scholarship Fund, which provides scholarships for the children of active duty service members killed in the line of duty.

Labels: humour etc., USA

Iran has issued an extraordinary list of demands to Britain and other European countries, telling them to provide advanced nuclear technology, conventional weapons and a security guarantee against nuclear attack by Israel.

Teheran's request, said by British officials to have "gone down very badly", sharply raises the stakes in the crisis over Iran's nuclear programme, which Britain and America believe is aimed at making an atomic bomb.

The EU-3 are still debating over how to respond, but British officials said the Iranian letter was "extremely surprising, given the delicate state of process". Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, will have to decide whether to adopt a more confrontational policy.

Labels: Iran, Israel, nuclear weapons

Labels: global affairs, Iran, nuclear weapons

Labels: global affairs, media, politics

Labels: blogging and the blogger

American intelligence officials and outside nuclear experts have concluded that the Bush administration's diplomatic efforts with European and Asian allies have barely slowed the nuclear weapons programs in Iran and North Korea over the past year, and that both have made significant progress.

"It's a much harder thing to accomplish today," said one senior American intelligence official, "than it would have been in the '90s."

"It's very frustrating," said one former official who left the Bush administration recently and who believes that the administration has failed to draw clear "red lines" beyond which North Korea would not be allowed to expand its arsenal.
. . .
On July 31, Iran announced that it was resuming the production of centrifuges needed to produce highly enriched uranium, though it said it was still "suspending" actual enrichment activities. While the United States has threatened to take the issue to the UN Security Council, it has yet to win support from many allies.

These terrorists do not want our money or land or respect. They want our souls.

Why is it so hard for Arabs to act together to solve the region's manifold problems, from the humanitarian crisis in Sudan to the turmoil in Iraq and Palestine?

Transform estimates that drug prohibition has cost between £100bn and £200bn over the past 20 years. The government estimates that it currently costs £20bn a year.
. . .
There are 8 million heavy drinkers in the UK of whom 2 million are very heavy drinkers. The crime costs associated with the misuse of alcohol are £7.3bn a year - most of it violent crime. There is little property crime associated with alcohol use and none committed by the UK's 12 million tobacco users. Our million prescription tranquilliser addicts are not begging on street corners or breaking into houses. A far smaller population of heroin and crack users commit far more crimes, purely because their daily habit is prohibitively expensive.

. . .
Prohibition is a major cause of theft, is responsible for violent turf wars, contributes to urban degeneration and makes criminals of millions of otherwise law-abiding people.
. . . Prohibition also contributes significantly to the destabilisation of most of Latin America, Afghanistan and the Caribbean.

Problematic use is clearly linked to social deprivation and only tackling its root causes will significantly reduce the numbers of new problem users. It is no coincidence that Britain has some of the highest levels of problematic use in Europe and one of the widest gaps between rich and poor.

Unlike the Falklands and Argentina, the Rock is physically attached to Spain. Who can be surprised that its continued status as a bastion of British empire makes the Spanish very angry indeed?

At an Anglo-Spanish political conference a few years ago, I was impressed by the number of thoughtful liberal Spanish delegates who emphasised to the British that Gibraltar is not merely a jingo issue which their government occasionally makes a fuss about. It is a source of deep-seated resentment.

Yet a British Labour government thinks it politic to dispatch a warship and a cabinet minister to join the celebrations.

Perhaps Tony Blair is so cross about Spain's withdrawal of its soldiers from Iraq, and so despairing of any amiable colloquy about Europe with Spain's socialist government that he doesn't care any more.

Yet even many of those of us who have become sceptical about joining the euro or signing the European constitution want Britain to engage constructively with Europe. How likely are we to achieve this if we flaunt the union flag in the face of the Spanish in a manner worthy of the British National party?

It is emotional and nostalgic, protected by a figleaf of principle about the absolute rights of local populations, however tiny.
. . .
It is ludicrous to suggest that the populations of such places as the Falklands or Gibraltar should possess an absolute veto on all debate about their future.

Today, that same government has dispatched Hoon to add official glamour to the 300th anniversary celebrations, unless the choice of the defence secretary represents an elaborate joke by Downing Street.

Yet the fact that Britain cannot summon the will to extricate itself from Gibraltar suggests a nation - us, not them - which has not grown up.

The Blair administration wanted to sell Gibraltar down the river in exchange for Spanish friendship in Europe, to counterbalance the Franco-German axis. This scheme was upset in any case by Spain's election this year of a Socialist government, far less to Mr Blair's taste. Its first eager act was to order its troops out of Iraq, where they had been co-operating with British forces.
. . .
Spain will not be mollified by being reminded of its enclaves in Morocco: Ceuta and Melilla. The farce two years ago of Morocco's seizure and Spain's recapture of Perejil - goat-ridden Parsley Island - shows that reason does not touch territorial totems. But Gibraltar remains no more Spanish than Jersey is French. The Government must say so plainly, to establish Anglo-Spanish relations in reality, and for the sake of the people of Gibraltar, whose determination is unwavering.

If only more Americans had read more Hobbes maybe we would not be in the mess we are today. His predictions of the collapse of society are very apt.

IN PAST centuries, the rulers of Europe traded territories and their citizens like sheep. Gibraltar was one: by a treaty signed in Utrecht in 1713, the king of Spain-unwisely, but he did it-ceded the Rock to Britain. Though the British soon broke its terms, allowing, oh horror, Jews and "Moors" to live there, that treaty still stands. As for the now 28,000 Gibraltarians, today's British and Spanish governments seem to think that the princely disdain of 1713 stands with it. They are wrong.
Spaniards say their country has a "historic claim" to Gibraltar. The word is "claim"; history says they haven't a leg to stand on. Geography is little more help. Europe is dotted with spots- Greek islands next to Turkey, German and Italian enclaves in Switzerland, a Spanish one in France-which geography might allocate to other owners but law and common sense do not.
. . .
And that is the real scandal of this affair. The "problem" of Gibraltar is a Spanish invention. Spain's government has unleashed patriotic fervour over a bit of land lost three centuries ago for which it has no case in law and no practical need; and in rank defiance of the principle that people should, when possible, be governed as they choose. If Gibraltarians wanted joint sovereignty, or indeed to be Spanish, fine, let's do it at once. But they don't. Yet Britain's government has gone halfway along with the denial of democracy. Let it rediscover a spine, and Spain drop its claim, and there would be no Gibraltar affair. Some hope; but that's what both ought to do.

• Most parents were educated in the underfunded public school system, and so are not smart enough to homeschool their own children.
• Children who receive one-on-one homeschooling will learn more than others, giving them an unfair advantage in the marketplace. This is undemocratic.
• How can children learn to defend themselves unless they have to fight off bullies on a daily basis?
• Ridicule from other children is important to the socialization process.
• Children in public schools can get more practice "Just Saying No" to drugs, cigarettes and alcohol.
• Fluorescent lighting may have significant health benefits.
• Publicly asking permission to go to the bathroom teaches young people their place in society.
• The fashion industry depends upon the peer pressure that only public schools can generate.
• Public schools foster cultural literacy, passing on important traditions like the singing of "Jingle Bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg..."
• Homeschooled children may not learn important office career skills, like how to sit still for six hours straight.

1990: Iraq invades Kuwait
More than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers backed up by 700 tanks invaded the Gulf state of Kuwait in the early hours of this morning.
Iraqi forces have established a provisional government and their leader Saddam Hussein has threatened to turn Kuwait city into a "graveyard" if any other country dares to challenge the "take-over by force".

Sure, he says breezily: "Saddam gassed the Kurds. Yes, an unknown number of Iraqi citizens were tortured and slaughtered." But that -- with its casually "unknown number" -- apparently counts only against today's regime-change because Iraq was then being backed by Washington. (I interrupt myself to ask whether or not one might approve of Washington's change of policy here?)
. . .
Well, I am no friend of sanctimony. But when I stood on the mass grave at Hilla, near Babylon, about a year ago, I was upset not just by the huge number of cadavers, which by the way ran into the thousands. I was upset by the relatives who'd had to wait a decade to inspect the place, and who had found that the water table had washed a lot of the bodies away. A possible shred of clothing, or fragment of an identity card, is not much consolation in these circumstances. Indeed, many of the relatives had acted against their own interests, here as elsewhere, by rushing to the site as soon as the murderer had fallen, and by digging with their bare hands.

France is deploying 200 soldiers to help secure Chad's eastern border with Sudan's conflict-torn Darfur region.
The French Ambassador to Chad, Jean Pierre Bercot, said the troops would also bring humanitarian aid to tens of thousands of Darfur refugees in Chad.