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Not for the weak stomached or the "civilized"..but appropriate. A two-state peace isn't the Arab goalby Jeff Jacoby
WHO FAVORS a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict?
Pope Benedict XVI called for a Palestinian state during his recent visit to the Holy Land, thereby aligning himself -- on this issue, at least -- with the editorial boards of The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times. And, for that matter, with most Israelis. A new poll shows 58 percent of the Israeli public backing a two-state solution; prominent supporters include Netanyahu's three predecessors -- former prime ministers Ehud Olmert, Ariel Sharon, and Ehud Barak -- as well as president Shimon Peres. The consensus, it would seem, is overwhelming. As Henri Guaino, a senior adviser to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, put it in speaking to reporters on Sunday: "Everyone wants peace. The whole world wants a Palestinian state." It isn't going to happen. International consensus or no, the two-state solution is a chimera. Peace will not be achieved by granting sovereignty to the Palestinians, because Palestinian sovereignty has never been the Arabs' goal. Time and time again, a two-state solution has been proposed. Time and time again, the Arabs have turned it down. In 1936, when Palestine was still under British rule, a royal commission headed by Lord Peel was sent to investigate the steadily worsening Arab violence. After a detailed inquiry, the Peel Commission concluded that "an irrepressible conflict has arisen between two national communities within the narrow bounds of one small country." It recommended a two-state solution -- a partition of the land into separate Arab and Jewish states. "Partition offers a chance of ultimate peace," the commission reported. "No other plan does."
In 1947, the Palestinians were again presented with a two-state proposal. Again they spurned it. Like the Peel Commission, the United Nations concluded that only a division of the land into adjacent states, one Arab and one Jewish, could put an end to the conflict. On Nov. 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly debated -- and by a vote of 33-13 adopted -- Resolution 181, partitioning Palestine on the basis of population. Had the Arabs accepted the UN decision, the Palestinian state that "the whole world wants" would today be 61 years old. Instead, the Arab League vowed to block Jewish sovereignty by waging "a war of extermination and a momentous massacre." Over and over this pattern has been repeated. Following its stunning victory in the 1967 Six Day War, Israel offered to exchange the land it had won for permanent peace with its neighbors. From their summit in Khartoum came the Arabs' notorious response: "No peace with Israel, no negotiations with Israel, no recognition of Israel." At Camp David in 2000, Ehud Barak offered the Palestinians virtually everything they claimed to be seeking -- a sovereign state with its capital in East Jerusalem, 97 percent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, tens of billions of dollars in "compensation" for the plight of Palestinian refugees. Yasser Arafat refused the offer, and launched the bloodiest wave of terrorism in Israel's history. To this day, the charters of Hamas and Fatah, the two main Palestinian factions, call for Israel's liquidation. "The whole world" may want peace and a Palestinian state, but the Palestinians want something very different. Until that changes, there is no two-state solution. (Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.) They say a secret is only a secret as long as only one knows it. Now that Joe knows, it's not a secret from anyone. http://www.foxnews.com/poli... What a dork...lol. Contrary to popular belief I do not post these articles to irritate the left. I post them because many people like me find them interesting and I'm just sharing with people of like mind. If you already know you're going to be irritated I have to wonder why you'd read it at all. Atfter all, I put his name at the top as a caveat.
This relates to a blurb I posted previously.
The party of Colin Powellby Jeff Jacoby http://www.jeffjacoby.com/5...
A PROMINENT SUPPORTER of Barack Obama told a Washington audience last week that "the Republican Party is in deep trouble" and "getting smaller and smaller" because its views are not in sync with those of mainstream Americans. Republicans would do better without the "nastiness" of Rush Limbaugh or the "very polarizing" Sarah Palin, the speaker said, and they would do well to realize that their philosophy of lower taxes and limited government has put them out of step with their fellow citizens. "Americans do want to pay taxes for services," he told his audience. "Americans are looking for more government in their life, not less." There is nothing particularly unusual about Democrats deprecating conservatism or endorsing big government, but these comments didn't come from a Democrat. The speaker was Colin Powell, who claims to be a Republican. There are times when party loyalty asks too much, JFK once said, but for Powell there rarely seems to be a time when it doesn't. Though he owes every lofty position he has held -- national security advisor, four-star general, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, secretary of state -- to Republican presidents, Republicans perpetually appear to rub him the wrong way: especially the conservative Republicans who constitute the party's base. This is not the first time Powell has urged the GOP to become more liberal. "There is nothing wrong with having socially conservative views," he said during a televised interview in December, but Republicans must "begin appealing to Hispanics, to blacks, to Asians . . . and not just try to influence them by Republican principles and dogma." He complained that Republicans "had moved further to the right" -- something he also complained about last October, when he went on "Meet the Press" to endorse the presidential candidacy of the most liberal member of the US Senate. Nor is this the first time Powell has denounced Limbaugh. "Can we continue to listen to Rush Limbaugh?" he asked on CNN a few weeks after throwing his support to Obama. "Is this really the kind of party that we want to be, when these kinds of spokespersons seem to appeal to our lesser instincts rather than our better instincts?" I wonder if Powell has ever actually listened to Limbaugh. Some years back, the liberal Washington Post columnist William Raspberry wrote a piece in which he compared Limbaugh to the racist politicians he remembered from his Mississippi youth. He accused him of "demagoguery" and of trafficking in "the raw meat of bigotry." Eleven days later, Raspberry took it back. "Rush, I'm sorry," he wrote. He admitted that he had written the first column without ever having tuned in to Limbaugh's program, and that his "opinions about him had come largely from other people." But when readers challenged him to listen to Limbaugh for a while and make up his own mind, he had done so -- and now regretted having so unfairly maligned the man. Limbaugh might be "smart-alecky," a "master of ridicule" who loved "to rattle liberal cages." But as Raspberry had to admit, he was certainly no hater or bigot. Perhaps if Powell spent less time reflexively deriding the country's most popular conservatives and more time listening to their message, he might admit something similar. But probably not. Powell's antipathy to the GOP's Reaganite roots has gone beyond the point of reason and reflection. What kind of Republican, after all, preaches that Americans "do want to pay taxes for services" and "are looking for more government in their life, not less"? (The opposite is true: In a nationwide poll last month, 62 percent of respondents said they prefer a government that offers fewer services and lower taxes; only 28 percent preferred more services and higher taxes.) What kind of Republican calls John McCain "my beloved friend" and acknowledges that he "would be a good president" -- then turns around and endorses the most liberal Democrat ever nominated for president? Republicans these days are in the midst of a debate over how best to rebuild their party, and there are honest differences over what Republicanism should mean.But there are also limits. Powell may sincerely believe that embracing bigger government, higher taxes, and Barack Obama is the formula for success, but most Republicans don't. Most Democrats, on the other hand, do. If party loyalty asks too much, maybe it's time for Powell to switch. (Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.) I was about to put this on his blog (where his name is there for all to see so I'm not violating his privacy) but the little coward has blocked me. Shwaine made it under the wire before he closed the gate but I doubt he'll allow it to stay. In answer to his nasty little note I'll say that TBC pays for us to blog and one of their main sources of revenue is advertising. I will always let people know it's against the papers TOS to advertise for free here. And yes Brian, that makes it MY business. As for me being a hater? The only people I hate are liars, thieves, and cheats. This young man fills two of those spots that I know of so yeah, I guess I'm a hater. "Bakersfield.com user Brian Emch wanted to tell you the following: "Grow up. Do you know how much it costs to pay for an ad in the paper? Why don't you mind your own business? Get a life, hater. " Nice job Brian.
At the heart of Little Pink House are two compelling women. One is Kelo, a fortysomething EMT-turned-nurse who had grown up in poverty and whose sole asset was the fixer-upper on the water she had fallen in love with at first sight. It was the only property she had ever owned and it meant the world to her. "I have never been happier in my life than I am now," she wrote on her first night in the house in 1997, "sitting on the porch rocker watching the water go by." The other central figure is Claire Gaudiani, the flamboyant and hard-driving president of Connecticut College, who agreed to lead the NLDC and made it her aim to carry out the most sweeping redevelopment in New London's history. A highly accomplished Renaissance woman, Gaudiani tended to be imperious and relentless when pursuing a goal. She insisted that redeveloping Fort Trumbull would be a boon to New London's poor -- she compared her mission at the NLDC to those of Jesus and Martin Luther King -- yet she seemed oblivious to the price Fort Trumbull's homeowners were being asked to pay. "Anything that's working in our great nation," she blithely declared, "is working because somebody left skin on the sidewalk." A key theme of Little Pink House
What they didn't have was the pull to prevent New London from dispossessing them for the sake of a powerful company and higher tax revenues. Such disparities are nearly always present when the eminent-domain power is abused -- a point that wasn't lost on the Kelo dissenters. "Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," Justice O'Connor wrote.
--------------------- More than 200 years before Kelo, Supreme Court Justice William Paterson characterized eminent domain as "the despotic power . . . of taking private property when state necessity requires." To seize private property absent such "state necessity" is worse than despotic, it is unconscionable. Unfortunately it is not uncommon; what happened in New London has happened innumerable times in recent years. In 2003, the Institute for Justice -- the libertarian public-interest law firm that represented the Kelo plaintiffs pro bono -- documented hundreds of examples of eminent domain being used to seize property for the benefit of politically favored businesses. The New London case was unusual only because it went to the Supreme Court. But the court's execrable decision wasn't the last word. Its effective repeal of the Fifth Amendment's Public Use Clause sparked a nationwide backlash and, as Benedict observes in an epilogue, galvanized a movement for reform at the state level:
Susette Kelo's little pink house still stands: It was moved last year to a new location in downtown New London, where it has been designated a historic landmark and has become the home of a local preservationist. The revival of Fort Trumbull, meanwhile, has yet to begin. Nearly four years after the Supreme Court allowed New London to confiscate homes and shops in the name of economic development, nothing has been built where the old neighborhood used to stand. (Jeff Jacoby is an op-ed columnist for The Boston Globe.) -- ## -- Related Topics: Property Rights
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Thursday, May 07, 2009 Reuters
DUBLIN — "When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head," Oscar-winning French composer Maurice Jarre once said, according to several newspapers reporting his death in March. However, the quotation was invented by an Irish student who posted it on the Wikipedia website in a hoax designed to show the dangers of relying too heavily on the Internet for information. Shane Fitzgerald made up quotes and entered them on Wikipedia — an encyclopedia edited by users — immediately after Jarre's death was first reported on March 30. The 22-year-old sociology and economics student at University College Dublin said he had expected blogs and perhaps small newspapers to use the quotes but did not believe major publications would rely on Wikipedia without further checks. "I was wrong. Quality newspapers in England, India, America and as far away as Australia had my words in their reports of Jarre's death," Fitzgerald wrote in an article in Thursday's Irish Times newspaper. Britain's Guardian was one title that had to correct its obituary, saying the fake quotes appeared to have originated on Wikipedia before being duplicated on other websites. "The moral of this story is not that journalists should avoid Wikipedia, but that they shouldn't use information they find there if it can't be traced back to a reliable primary source," said the Guardian's readers' editor Siobhain Butterworth. LOS ALAMITOS, Calif. — Pentagon brass got an eye-opener when they examined 2008 casualty figures: More Marines died stateside on motorcycles than were killed in Iraq or Afghanistan More here..... 'Monty Python' star Terry Jones is still making jokes at 67 - and children. The actor/comedian and his girlfriend Anna Soderstrom are expecting a child together.
According to the UK's Daily Telegraph, not everyone is pleased by the news. A source tells the publication, "He doesn't seem fazed by it, but everyone else is. If anything it's a classic case of male pride taking over. Getting a young filly (girl) pregnant shows there's life in the old dog yet. "Alison and the kids are a different proposition. For them it's devastating and humiliating. They'll never speak about it because they've got far too much dignity for that."
Liberal bias isn't killing newspapersby Jeff Jacoby http://www.jeffjacoby.com/5...
"I SURE HOPE you'll be out of a job soon," e-mails a friend, alluding to the Boston Globe's current excruciations. He really is a friend -- he has shown me and my family much warmth and kindness over the years -- and should I find myself without a job, I'm sure he would want to help in any way he could. But such is his antipathy to the Globe that he regards my potential unemployment as a price well worth paying for what he calls the "greater good" of the newspaper's demise. My friend is a conservative, and he is not alone in his views. To many on the right, the increasingly dire straits in which newspapers find themselves are something to cheer, or at any rate nothing to regret. The industry, they believe, is merely reaping in falling revenues and fleeing subscribers what it sowed in left-wing bias and unbalanced news coverage. "Good riddance to bad trash," crows one conservative blogger, linking gleefully to Warren Buffett's forecast of "nearly unending losses" for US newspapers, most of which the Omaha billionaire says he "would not buy at any price." "Good Riddance" is likewise James Srodes's message in the American Spectator, where he begins a column by "letting loose a small raspberry at the flood of handwringing going on over The Decline of the American Daily Newspaper." His disdain is echoed by readers, one of whom snorts: "Their pages are full of liberal tripe, lies about science and misbegotten theories of life. It's a wonder they sell any papers at all." Conservatives often accuse liberals, with reason, of clinging to emotion-based fantasies even when they are contradicted by real-world facts and results -- of preferring to see what they believe, rather than believe what they see. But the right has its shibboleths too, and one of them is that liberal bias explains why so many newspapers are hurting. "The newspaper industry is indeed failing before our eyes," writes Hugh Hewitt, a conservative activist and syndicated talk-show host who regularly inveighs against the liberal and Democratic agenda of the mainstream media, or MSM. "A great deal of that failure has to be because of the widespread and justified alienation of news consumers who do not trust the legions of 'journalists' working in MSM to be critical of the party of government. . . . Newspapers don't have to die. But suicide is the right term for continuing to try and package liberalism as news." I wish it were true. I wish the lack of ideological diversity that tends to characterize most major newspapers -- the reflexive support for Democrats, the distaste for religion and the military, the cheerleading for every liberal enthusiasm from gun control to gay marriage -- really did explain the industry's present woes. Because then newspaper companies would know just what it would take to recover: a re-orienting of their editorial views from left to center-right and the recruitment of editors and writers with a more conservative outlook. And if existing owners refused to make those changes, buyers prepared to do so would be lining up to take the failing papers off their hands. But if liberal media bias is the explanation, why are undeniably left-of-center papers like the Globe, The New York Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle attracting more readers than ever when visitors to their websites are taken into account? How does liberal bias explain the shutdown of Denver's more conservative Rocky Mountain News, but not the more liberal Denver Post? How does it explain the collapse of newspapers in lefty enclaves like Seattle and San Francisco? How does it explain why the great majority of Americans -- 60 percent, according to a recent CBS/New York Times poll -- get most of their news from television? Newspapers are in extremis not because of their political agenda, but because the world around them has been transformed. The growth of the Internet has left the traditional newspaper business model, with its vast physical plant and armies of writers, editors, photographers, pressmen, mailers, truck drivers, and salesmen, in a shambles. Craigslist and its ilk have vaporized what used to be the top profit center at most newspapers: classified advertising. A decades-long trend of falling readership, brought on by the rise of television, has been accelerated to warp speed by the explosion of websites and blogs offering news and opinion on every conceivable subject, 24 hours a day -- and usually for free. The culture has undergone a tectonic change. Only 15 percent of Americans younger than 40 now read a printed newspaper every day. It isn't political bias that keeps them away. Conservatives who insist otherwise are doing themselves no favors. (Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.) Related Topics: Conservatives and Conservatism, Media
Interior Minister Besir Atalay said 45 people were killed and six were wounded, and ruled out involvement of Kurdish rebels. He said he, along with the justice and agriculture ministers, would travel to the village early Tuesday. Anatolia news agency said the attack lasted 15 minutes. All initial reports said the assault happened during a wedding, though CNN-Turk television later said it took place during an engagement ceremony. http://www.foxnews.com/stor...
(emphasis for verification)
Saturday, May 02, 2009
CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez on Friday condemned a U.S. report that alleges Venezuela fails to cooperate in fighting terrorism and called on President Barack Obama to end the decades-long trade embargo against Cuba. Two weeks after Chavez and Obama exchanged smiles and handshakes at a summit in Trinidad and Tobago, the Venezuelan leader called the report "one more slander" that brings into question Obama's pledges of change.
"In the name of the Venezuelan people, I reject this new aggression by the U.S. empire," Chavez said.
http://www.foxnews.com/stor...
Student Says Teacher Scolded Him for Viewing FOXNews.com
http://www.foxnews.com/stor... Ahhh, nothing like a teacher being non partisan and unbiased. What's next? |
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"Promoting economic development is a traditional and long-accepted function of government," wrote Justice John Paul Stevens, in a rather bloodless majority opinion joined by Justices David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Anthony Kennedy. "[T]here is no basis for exempting economic development from our traditionally broad understanding of public purpose."
is the story of that fight, and it is told with verve and passion by journalist Jeff Benedict. Though not a neutral narrative -- Benedict doesn't hide his admiration for Kelo and the other property owners who battled to save their homes -- it is fair and deeply informed. To recreate the small-town political street fight that led to a notorious Supreme Court landmark, the author conducted hundreds of interviews over three years with nearly everyone who played a role in the case. He also reviewed a vast paper trail, from transcripts and government memos to private journals, letters, and e-mails.
