Not a Celeb

http://news.yahoo.com/photo/060911/ids_pho...r1066002127.jpg Mister President, this is for you: Half a lifetime ago, I worked in this now-empty space. And for 40 days after the attacks, I worked here again, trying to make sense of what happened, and was yet to happen, as a reporter. All the time, I knew that the very air I breathed contained the remains of thousands of people, including four of my friends, two in the planes and -- as I discovered from those "missing posters" seared still into my soul -- two more in the Towers. And I knew too, that this was the pyre for hundreds of New York policemen and firemen, of whom my family can claim half a dozen or more, as our ancestors. I belabor this to emphasize that, for me this was, and is, and always shall be, personal. And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft,"or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante and at worst, an idiot whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President. However, of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast -- of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds -- none of us could have predicted this. Five years later this space is still empty. Five years later there is no memorial to the dead. Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals. Five years later this country's wound is still open. Five years later this country's mass grave is still unmarked. Five years later this is still just a background for a photo-op. It is beyond shameful. At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial -- barely four months after the last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania field -- Mr. Lincoln said, "we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract." Lincoln used those words to immortalize their sacrifice. Today our leaders could use those same words to rationalize their reprehensible inaction. "We cannot dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground." So we won't. Instead they bicker and buck pass. They thwart private efforts, and jostle to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere. They spend the money on irrelevant wars, and elaborate self-congratulations, and buying off columnists to write how good a job they're doing instead of doing any job at all. Five years later, Mr. Bush, we are still fighting the terrorists on these streets. And look carefully, sir, on these 16 empty acres. The terrorists are clearly, still winning. And, in a crime against every victim here and every patriotic sentiment you mouthed but did not enact, you have done nothing about it. And there is something worse still than this vast gaping hole in this city, and in the fabric of our nation. There is its symbolism of the promise unfulfilled, the urgent oath, reduced to lazy execution. The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the President in particular, was given every possible measure of support. Those who did not belong to his party -- tabled that. Those who doubted the mechanics of his election -- ignored that. Those who wondered of his qualifications -- forgot that. History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds, but to take political advantage. Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people. The President -- and those around him -- did that. They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice President's words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists." They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated al-Qaida as much as we did. The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is "lying by implication." The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense." Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space, and to this, the current, curdled, version of our beloved country. Still, there is a last snapping flame from a final candle of respect and fairness: even his most virulent critics have never suggested he alone bears the full brunt of the blame for 9/11. Half the time, in fact, this President has been so gently treated, that he has seemed not even to be the man most responsible for anything in his own administration. Yet what is happening this very night? A mini-series, created, influenced -- possibly financed by -- the most radical and cold of domestic political Machiavellis, continues to be televised into our homes. The documented truths of the last fifteen years are replaced by bald-faced lies; the talking points of the current regime parroted; the whole sorry story blurred, by spin, to make the party out of office seem vacillating and impotent, and the party in office, seem like the only option. How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death, after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections? How dare you -- or those around you -- ever "spin" 9/11? Just as the terrorists have succeeded -- are still succeeding -- as long as there is no memorial and no construction here at Ground Zero. So, too, have they succeeded, and are still succeeding as long as this government uses 9/11 as a wedge to pit Americans against Americans. This is an odd point to cite a television program, especially one from March of 1960. But as Disney's continuing sell-out of the truth (and this country) suggests, even television programs can be powerful things. And long ago, a series called "The Twilight Zone" broadcast a riveting episode entitled "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street." In brief: a meteor sparks rumors of an invasion by extra-terrestrials disguised as humans. The electricity goes out. A neighbor pleads for calm. Suddenly his car -- and only his car -- starts. Someone suggests he must be the alien. Then another man's lights go on. As charges and suspicion and panic overtake the street, guns are inevitably produced. An "alien" is shot -- but he turns out to be just another neighbor, returning from going for help. The camera pulls back to a near-by hill, where two extra-terrestrials are seen manipulating a small device that can jam electricity. The veteran tells his novice that there's no need to actually attack, that you just turn off a few of the human machines and then, "they pick the most dangerous enemy they can find, and it's themselves." And then, in perhaps his finest piece of writing, Rod Serling sums it up with words of remarkable prescience, given where we find ourselves tonight: "The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men. "For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own -- for the children, and the children yet unborn." When those who dissent are told time and time again -- as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus -- that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of it, we are somehow un-American...When we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11"... look into this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me: Who has left this hole in the ground? We have not forgotten, Mr. President. You have. May this country forgive you.

In case you didn't know the Pentagon shared a lot of information on Iraq with the Congress the other day, and may I say this report excites me. WE ARE WINNING AMERICA! Yes, our objective of wiping Iraq off of the map is coming true! We are showing the world that we are a heck of a lot worse than Saddam! Now the world will start to realized don't f*** with America! Pentagon report on rise in Iraq violence undermines Bush PR campaign Sheldon Alberts, CanWest News Service Published: Saturday, September 02, 2006 WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon on Friday delivered a stark assessment of deteriorating security conditions in Iraq, describing a cesspool of sectarian violence that has skyrocketed since the formation of the country's unity government. Warning of an "acute and disturbing" trend toward execution-style killings by Sunni and Shi'a death squads, the Pentagon reported a 51 per cent surge in the number of Iraqi civilian deaths in the last three months. The quarterly Iraq Progress Report, mandated by Congress, said "conditions that could lead to civil war exist in Iraq" and detailed increasing pessimism among ordinary Iraqis that security will improve. Moreover, the bombings, kidnappings and executions that have lately devastated Baghdad are again on the increase in major cities like Basra in southern Iraq, Kirkuk in the north and in outlying provinces, the Pentagon said. "Death squads and terrorists are locked in mutually reinforcing cycles of sectarian strife, with Sunni and Shi'a extremists each portraying themselves as the defenders of their respective sectarian groups," said the report. "The violence in Iraq cannot be categorized as the result of a single organized or unified opposition or insurgency: the security situation is currently at its most complex state since the initiation of Operation Iraqi Freedom." The grim outlook comes just a day after U.S. President George W. Bush launched a new public relations campaign seeking to halt the slide in public support for the war among American voters, now at its lowest level since the March 2003 invasion. With opposition to America's presence in Iraq threatening Republican majorities in congressional elections this fall, Bush on Thursday cast the war as an epic struggle akin to the Second World War. Securing peace in Iraq will be an "uphill and uneven" struggle, Bush said, but he warned America would be vulnerable to more domestic terror attacks if the U.S. withdraws. Earlier this week, U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld suggested critics of the war were guilty of "cynicism and moral confusion." The Pentagon, though, made little effort in its report to paper over the daily chaos in Baghdad, where 70 people were killed in a series of explosions on Thursday. American and coalition forces still face the majority of attacks, but the violence is increasingly directed at civilians, and is far more lethal. Since the U.S. military last reported on Iraqi security conditions in May, civilian deaths have jumped by more than 1,000 a month. In June, the Baghdad morgue reported 1,600 bodies. The number shot to 1,800 in July, "90 per cent of which were assessed to be the result of executions," the Pentagon said. A preliminary report from Iraq's Health Ministry on Friday said 715 civilians died in August, a reduction U.S. officials claim is due to an increase of American troops in Baghdad. An estimated 137,000 Iraqis -- more than 22,000 families -- have been displaced since February, when the bombing of a Shiite mosque in Samarra first triggered a surge in sectarian strife. "The last quarter has been rough," said Peter Rodman, the assistant secretary of defence for international security affairs. "The levels of violence are up and the sectarian quality of the violence is particularly acute and disturbing." U.S. officials had expressed confidence the violence would fall after the installation of a new Iraqi "unity" cabinet, including Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds in May. There was also hope that the June killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawa, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, would hamper terrorist activities, but "al-Qaida in Iraq remains able to conduct operations due to its resilient, semi-autonomous cellular structure of command and control," the Pentagon said. The report stressed that civil war can still be prevented in Iraq, although its U.S. authors said "there is no generally agreed upon definition of civil war among academics of defence analysts." U.S. military leaders remain encouraged because sectarian violence had not yet weakened Iraqi government institutions, but the Pentagon report cited polls showing that "optimism has eroded" among Iraqis about their future security. State Department research found that only 30 per cent of Iraqis believed life will be better in six months, down from 65 per cent in April 2005. ? CanWest News Service 2006 Don't listen to the libtards who ask "If this is winning, what is losing?", because hey, they are libtards.

Oh yes my arch enemy Keith O O O O Olbermann. He is the biggest source of man humping around. Published on Thursday, August 31, 2006 by MSNBC Feeling Morally, Intellectually Confused? by Keith Olbermann The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack. Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet. Mr. Rumsfeld?s remarkable speech to the American Legion yesterday demands the deep analysis?and the sober contemplation?of every American. For it did not merely serve to impugn the morality or intelligence -- indeed, the loyalty -- of the majority of Americans who oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land. Worse, still, it credits those same transient occupants -- our employees -- with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither common sense, nor this administration?s track record at home or abroad, suggests they deserve. Dissent and disagreement with government is the life?s blood of human freedom; and not merely because it is the first roadblock against the kind of tyranny the men Mr. Rumsfeld likes to think of as ?his? troops still fight, this very evening, in Iraq. It is also essential. Because just every once in awhile it is right and the power to which it speaks, is wrong. In a small irony, however, Mr. Rumsfeld?s speechwriter was adroit in invoking the memory of the appeasement of the Nazis. For in their time, there was another government faced with true peril?with a growing evil?powerful and remorseless. That government, like Mr. Rumsfeld?s, had a monopoly on all the facts. It, too, had the ?secret information.? It alone had the true picture of the threat. It too dismissed and insulted its critics in terms like Mr. Rumsfeld?s -- questioning their intellect and their morality. That government was England?s, in the 1930?s. It knew Hitler posed no true threat to Europe, let alone England. It knew Germany was not re-arming, in violation of all treaties and accords. It knew that the hard evidence it received, which contradicted its own policies, its own conclusions ? its own omniscience -- needed to be dismissed. The English government of Neville Chamberlain already knew the truth. Most relevant of all ? it ?knew? that its staunchest critics needed to be marginalized and isolated. In fact, it portrayed the foremost of them as a blood-thirsty war-monger who was, if not truly senile, at best morally or intellectually confused. That critic?s name was Winston Churchill. Sadly, we have no Winston Churchills evident among us this evening. We have only Donald Rumsfelds, demonizing disagreement, the way Neville Chamberlain demonized Winston Churchill. History ? and 163 million pounds of Luftwaffe bombs over England ? have taught us that all Mr. Chamberlain had was his certainty ? and his own confusion. A confusion that suggested that the office can not only make the man, but that the office can also make the facts. Thus, did Mr. Rumsfeld make an apt historical analogy. Excepting the fact, that he has the battery plugged in backwards. His government, absolute -- and exclusive -- in its knowledge, is not the modern version of the one which stood up to the Nazis. It is the modern version of the government of Neville Chamberlain. But back to today?s Omniscient ones. That, about which Mr. Rumsfeld is confused is simply this: This is a Democracy. Still. Sometimes just barely. And, as such, all voices count -- not just his. Had he or his president perhaps proven any of their prior claims of omniscience ? about Osama Bin Laden?s plans five years ago, about Saddam Hussein?s weapons four years ago, about Hurricane Katrina?s impact one year ago ? we all might be able to swallow hard, and accept their ?omniscience? as a bearable, even useful recipe, of fact, plus ego. But, to date, this government has proved little besides its own arrogance, and its own hubris. Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally or intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to Katrina, to the entire ?Fog of Fear? which continues to envelop this nation, he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies have ? inadvertently or intentionally ? profited and benefited, both personally, and politically. And yet he can stand up, in public, and question the morality and the intellect of those of us who dare ask just for the receipt for the Emporer?s New Clothes? In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised? As a child, of whose heroism did he read? On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one day to fight? With what country has he confused the United States of America? The confusion we -- as its citizens? must now address, is stark and forbidding. But variations of it have faced our forefathers, when men like Nixon and McCarthy and Curtis LeMay have darkened our skies and obscured our flag. Note -- with hope in your heart ? that those earlier Americans always found their way to the light, and we can, too. The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and this administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City, so valiantly fought. And about Mr. Rumsfeld?s other main assertion, that this country faces a ?new type of fascism.? As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he said that -- though probably not in the way he thought he meant it. This country faces a new type of fascism - indeed. Although I presumptuously use his sign-off each night, in feeble tribute, I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalist Edward R. Murrow. But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could I come close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew everything, and branded those who disagreed: ?confused? or ?immoral.? Thus, forgive me, for reading Murrow, in full: ?We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty,? he said, in 1954. ?We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. ?We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.? And so good night, and good luck.

No, I am talking about a city ordanance in Lawrence, MA which bans all knives over 2.5" in length that are capable of penetrating the vest of a police officer. There are similar laws in Salem, Saugus, Lynn, and several other north shore cities. This is just one of the countless examples of liberal faggotry in Massachusetts, it is embarassing what New England has become. But since you brought up the machetes though, the rational for banning them is absurd. Gang members are not going to turn in their machetes because there is a law that says they have to - that's why they're CRIMINALS. You have hit it on the nose my friend. Its the faggotry that leads to these libtards up north to be scared of everything. Personally for years I believed it was the bears that made them do it, but I have wised up since then. No no, it is their sexual preference that makes them do it, other men. First I am mortified at how the liberal rag The Boston Globe describes how ALL KNIVES OVER 2.5" will be taken away: Anyone found in Lawrence carrying a knife with a blade longer than 2 1/2 inches is subject to arrest and a fine of $100 to $300. Under the city ordinance, which was passed last week and will take affect next month, it is still legal to carry a knife to hunt, fish, or conduct work. Sounds like they went home to home and took up ever single knife and burned them to the ground. And if they see you with a 2 1/2" knife from now on, you will be shot on the spot. It is also amazing that these libtards even think knives have to do anything with crime: Late last year, the city had a rash of drug-related stabbings, Blanchard said. Lawrence Police Department statistics indicate that 39 percent, 157 cases, of all assaults in Lawrence in 2005 involved knives. And then for these libtards to go against what the pulbic and the police officers want! What gay idiots: News of the ordinance was well received at a number of businesses that have been robbed at knifepoint. Fred Whittington was behind the counter at a convenience store last summer when someone he thought wanted to buy a phone card was suddenly wearing a ski mask, brandishing a blade, and demanding that Whittington empty the register. ''I guess I wasn't moving fast enough, and he stuck me in the arm and in the side," Whittington said, adding that the cuts were superficial. ''I think this law is a good thing. Why should anyone carry that stuff around?" he said. The store he works at has been robbed numerous times, and employees say most of the robberies involved knives. Peabody, Lynn, Salem, and other cities have similar ordinances. In Salem, police said the bylaw was enacted more than 10 years ago. ''We enforce it heavily," said Salem police Lieutenant Conrad Prosniewski. ''Anyone who gets caught carrying a knife with more than a 2 1/2-inch blade does get charged. I see it in court two, three times a week." Blanchard said that Lawrence is one of the top drug source and destination areas in New England and that people who come to buy drugs in Lawrence or steal drugs from dealers often carry knives. Stupid men humping libtards. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachus...on_long_knives/

Good news America we did it! U.S. July Budget Deficit Narrows to $33.2 Bln, Treasury Says Aug. 10 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. budget deficit narrowed to $33.2 billion last month as tax collections rose and after some monthly outlays were moved to June, a U.S. Treasury report showed today. The gap compares with a $53.4 billion shortfall a year earlier and still leaves the government headed for the fourth- largest annual budget deficit on record, according to a White House estimate released July 11. No longer are we setting record deficit year after year. No! Now we are merely getting top 5 finishes. Hopefully next year our budget deficit will only be the tenth biggest ever, with any luck. Give your freedom loving selves big ol' pats on the backs because you all are what made this victory happen. Of course let us not forget our President, President Bush. He himself has been improving upon himself. In its mid-year budget review released July 11, the administration of President George W. Bush reduced its estimate for the fiscal 2006 budget deficit by 30 percent to $296 billion, down from the previous estimate of $423 billion. The deficit swelled to a record of almost $413 billion in fiscal 2004 and narrowed to $318.6 billion during fiscal 2005. Back to back years of a shrinking deficit! You have really outdone yourself this time Georgie! I bet liberals will be kicking themselves because with this rate of improvement if we allowed Dubya to stay President I am sure we would be talking about record setting surplusses by the end of the decade!

2. Not to criticize the dems, but to make a statement concerning the rights of voters Yeah you got off with a bang with that. The dems using legal loopholes to win a seat cheaply. Good work. How insightful! How concerned about the voters you seemed!

Valid points. However, my problem is an indictment is seen by public opinion in much the same way as a guilty verdict. Furthermore, it wont be good for Texas, IMO if delay does win and then gets convicted Thanks for the insightful stupidity. Because of how the public sees and understands indictments republicans should be able to pick and choose candidates as they want on a whim, despite what law and court dictates and that is a reflection on democrats? Forget the fact the voters of the district over look the indictments they wanted the guy and he left them in the dust. You sir is the type of person who has bears as friends.

The dems using legal loopholes to win a seat cheaply. Good work. Since when are republicans innocent? Hmmm. let me reread my post to where i said republicans were innocent. Both sides do it. And to talk objectively, i want to hear some of you guys saying how this type of thing takes away the voter's rights to choose the candidate they want, instead they are essentially being appointed someone by the supreme court Absolutely wrong. Delay won the primary and for that reason he was the candidate selected by the Republican voters to run. So first off, this isnt about voter's rights being taken away by anyone except the state Republican party. Second, it was Delay and the Texas Republicans who tried to pull a fast one by using a loophole. Delay decided he didn't want to run after he won the primary. So then he should have either withdrawn or stayed on the ballot as the rules mandate. But instead he tried to use another method of removal that wasnt meant for his type of case(ie the definition of a lopphole). The long time Texas resident fled to Virginia and tried to claim he wasnt eligible to run. Id say thats the Republicans using the loophole. Third, as far as the democrats and their diabolic strategy, a conservative federal appeals court ruled that the state officials had acted unconstitutionally by adding the additional residency requirement. Also, even if not unconstitutional, the issue of eligibility in this case was one interpreted by the same conservative federal appeals court as leaving Delay as still a possible resident of Texas. Yep, the dems knew that the conservative court would undemocratically appoint the candidate that the voters selected. Sorry, but youre wrong. i'm not disputing the legality of the democrats moves. The end result is that the dem candidate is going to win uncontested. And thats wrong, it isnt illegal but its wrong. So the democrats are suing in order to be able to win unconested. Thats def the dems using the loophole. Its a stupid law, and the represntation of those people in Texas is going to be seriously hindered by this ruling. Furthermore, it makes no difference if the court is conservative, i dont understand what difference that makes in my point. Again 1 candidtae running, the only real loser here is the people of Texas. 100% correct. Who cares in this situation if it is illegal for republicans to run another candidate, they have broken so many laws why not let them break another?! Leave it to the democrats to try and morally corrupt this nation and trying to surpress the vote. And not only should the republicans get to run a new candidate in DeLay's old district, DeLay should be appointed Grand Chancellor of whatever district he decides to seek refuge in. Because we all know he didn't willingly resign or pull out of the election, IT WAS THE COMMUNIST LOVING, DEATH LOVING, ZIONISTS THAT MADE HIM DO IT.

Northern Israeli city hit by rockets from Lebanon Thu Jul 13, 2006 12:35 AM EDT11 JERUSALEM (Reuters) - At least two Katyusha rockets fired from Lebanon slammed into the northern Israeli city of Nahariya on Thursday, wounding three civilians, the Israeli army said. The Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah said it had fired 60 rockets at Nahariya, a coastal city south of the Lebanese border. Israeli aircraft earlier attacked two runways at Beirut international airport, dramatically widening an assault against Lebanon a day after Hizbollah seized two Israeli soldiers and killed eight. The Israeli army said Hizbollah had also fired a number of rockets and mortars at other areas in northern Israel. One rocket landed in the Israeli town of Zarit, wounding one civilian. Another projectile damaged an Israeli airforce base near Mount Meron. Israel vowed on Wednesday a severe response to Hizbollah's cross-border attack.

Plato has a couple of dialogues about this and no clear consensus is ever reached. If a lie is going to save someone's life, I don't care, you should do it.

Why does it have to be federally funded though? I agree it shouldn't be banned by the government, but i think private organizations should be the ones researching stem cells

Has anyone bothered to notice what source this article came from. Not exactly unbiased. Here take your pick: http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20060706...20060717bishara http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/a...-news-a_section http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligen...06-061952-4503r http://english.pravda.ru/news/world/07-07-.../83055-Israel-0 Want more I will be happy to provide it.

why would america take over israel when we are just so happy to support every move they make...after all...israel is alot closer to the middle east than the U.S. is... I said if Israel was any country but themselves. America will always back Israel up. But if let's say Iran did this or China or Russia or any other country you want to pick, chances are America would be running around begging for sanctions or armed responses against this. The point is America is showing the world their double standards.

Israel does not Discriminate Between Civilians and Military; 24 Dead By Foreign News Desk Published: Friday, July 07, 2006 zaman.com Eleven months after pulling out from Gaza, Israel continued its wide-scale military operation in the region yesterday. Twenty-four people, including civilians and soldiers, were killed yesterday in the operation launched last week in retaliation for the abduction of an Israeli soldier. Operation ?Summer Rain? was changed to ?Gilad Sword? in honor of the kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Yesterday was bloodiest day in Palestine since the Israeli attack on the Han Yunus refugee camp in October 2004. Monitoring the region by helicopter after the murder of an Israeli soldier in clash with Hamas, the Israeli army hit the region of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, killing six civilians and leaving dozens wounded. Addressing the Palestinian people, the Hamas administration called for resistance to Israeli occupation in Palestine, a region already suffering from international embargos. Palestinian Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh, urged Muslim countries and international community to intervene to stop Israeli attacks. Hamas officials, speaking to mediators, reported they were ready to compromise provided that their offer of exchange with Gilad Shalit is accepted. Following the bloody events, Hamas declared a state of emergency in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian Interior Minister Said Siyam said, ?I urge all Palestinian security and defense forces to participate in the public defense, a moral, national and religious responsibility against the scared Zionist occupation and attacks.? Israeli special forces reportedly killed Huseyin Abu Acva, a lecturer at the Islamic University, at his home in the Tufah region, located in the center of Gaza. Acva had been the target of rocket attacks before, and Israeli special teams report he was killed in al-Fatah garb. While Hamas claimed al-Fatah killed Acva, religious head Abu Saban declared Israel was responsible for the murder. The event was titled ?unknown attack? in the Israeli press. Israel you are on notice. If you were any other country America would have invaded, taken over and replaced your goverment by now.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/07/washingt...serland&emc=rss Hate Groups Are Infiltrating the Military, Group Asserts Article Tools Sponsored By By JOHN KIFNER Published: July 7, 2006 A decade after the Pentagon declared a zero-tolerance policy for racist hate groups, recruiting shortfalls caused by the war in Iraq have allowed "large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists" to infiltrate the military, according to a watchdog organization. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist and right-wing militia groups, estimated that the numbers could run into the thousands, citing interviews with Defense Department investigators and reports and postings on racist Web sites and magazines. "We've got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad," the group quoted a Defense Department investigator as saying in a report to be posted today on its Web site, www.splcenter.org. "That's a problem." A Defense Department spokeswoman said officials there could not comment on the report because they had not yet seen it. The center called on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to appoint a task force to study the problem, declare a new zero tolerance policy and strictly enforce it. The report said that neo-Nazi groups like the National Alliance, whose founder, William Pierce, wrote "The Turner Diaries," the novel that was the inspiration and blueprint for Timothy J. McVeigh's bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, sought to enroll followers in the Army to get training for a race war. The groups are being abetted, the report said, by pressure on recruiters, particularly for the Army, to meet quotas that are more difficult to reach because of the growing unpopularity of the war in Iraq. The report quotes Scott Barfield, a Defense Department investigator, saying, "Recruiters are knowingly allowing neo-Nazis and white supremacists to join the armed forces, and commanders don't remove them from the military even after we positively identify them as extremists or gang members." Mr. Barfield said Army recruiters struggled last year to meet goals. "They don't want to make a big deal again about neo-Nazis in the military," he said, "because then parents who are already worried about their kids signing up and dying in Iraq are going to be even more reluctant about their kids enlisting if they feel they'll be exposed to gangs and white supremacists." The 1996 crackdown on extremists came after revelations that Mr. McVeigh had espoused far-right ideas when he was in the Army and recruited two fellow soldiers to aid his bomb plot. Those revelations were followed by a furor that developed when three white paratroopers were convicted of the random slaying of a black couple in order to win tattoos and 19 others were discharged for participating in neo-Nazi activities. The defense secretary at the time, William Perry, said the rules were meant to leave no room for racist and extremist activities within the military. But the report said Mr. Barfield, who is based at Fort Lewis, Wash., had said that he had provided evidence on 320 extremists there in the past year, but that only two had been discharged. He also said there was an online network of neo-Nazis. "They're communicating with each other about weapons, about recruiting, about keeping their identities secret, about organizing within the military," he said. "Several of these individuals have since been deployed to combat missions in Iraq." The report cited accounts by neo-Nazis of their infiltration of the military, including a discussion on the white supremacist Web site Stormfront. "There are others among you in the forces," one participant wrote. "You are never alone." An article in the National Alliance magazine Resistance urged skinheads to join the Army and insist on being assigned to light infantry units. The Southern Poverty Law Center identified the author as Steven Barry, who it said was a former Special Forces officer who was the alliance's "military unit coordinator." "Light infantry is your branch of choice because the coming race war and the ethnic cleansing to follow will be very much an infantryman's war," he wrote. "It will be house-to-house, neighborhood-by-neighborhood until your town or city is cleared and the alien races are driven into the countryside where they can be hunted down and 'cleansed.' " He concluded: "As a professional soldier, my goal is to fill the ranks of the United States Army with skinheads. As street brawlers, you will be useless in the coming race war. As trained infantrymen, you will join the ranks of the Aryan warrior brotherhood." Defense dollars at work. Personally I think this is great, let's share our hate groups around the world. What better way to show other countries that we love freedom of thought and speech than allowing our most off-color citizens to liberate them. Plus the neo-nazis and middle-easterners have at least one thing in common, Jews.

Mr. Colbert. There is a general rule against celebrity accounts in the bullpen. A while back, there were like 5 different celebrity accounts posting in here and it got distracting. It detracted from the quality discussions we occasionally have. I'm just giving you a heads up before you get a knock on the door from Admin and his hired goons(not implying that the moderators are hired goons..they arent actually paid ). Now please don't put me on notice. You won the battle. But I won the war.