kpete
kpete's JournalObama's op-ed in Haaretz: "Israel cannot be complete and it cannot be secure without peace"
Obama's op-ed in Haaretz: "Israel cannot be complete and it cannot be secure without peace"
As Air Force One prepared to touch down in the Holy Land last year, I looked out my window and was once again struck by the fact that Israel’s security can be measured in a matter of minutes and miles. I’ve seen what security means to those who live near the Blue Line, to children in Sderot who just want to grow up without fear, to families who’ve lost their homes and everything they have to Hezbollah’s and Hamas’s rockets.
And as a father myself, I cannot imagine the pain endured by the parents of Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaar and Eyal Yifrach, who were tragically kidnapped and murdered in June. I am also heartbroken by the senseless abduction and murder of Mohammed Hussein Abu Khdeir, whose life was stolen from him and his family. At this dangerous moment, all parties must protect the innocent and act with reasonableness and restraint, not vengeance and retribution.
From Harry Truman through today, the United States has always been Israel’s greatest friend. As I’ve said time and again, neither I nor the United States will ever waver in our commitment to the security of Israel and the Israeli people, and our support for peace will always remain a bedrock foundation of that commitment.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-peace-conference/1.603324 ...
Eugene Robinson: NSA’s misguided snooping--If you try to know everything--You end up knowing nothing
Eugene Robinson: NSA’s misguided snooping on innocent people
By Eugene Robinson
Even those who believe the National Security Agency’s vacuum-cleaner surveillance of electronic communications does not trample privacy rights should be troubled by this practical implication: If you try to know everything, you end up knowing nothing.
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The NSA seeks something like omniscience regarding electronic communications. But it is not enough to have a crucial tidbit of information stored on a server somewhere. For that information to be useful, it has to be identifiable and accessible. The more indiscriminately you amass data, the harder it is to find the relevant bits.
The NSA’s position is essentially that the bigger the haystack it can gather, the more needles it can find. But given the ever-increasing volume of electronic communications around the world, what sense does it make for the NSA to clutter its data banks with information about people — foreign and domestic — who pose no threat? Retaining this material, apparently for up to five years, is not just an invasion of the targets’ privacy but also a waste of the NSA’s capacity for storage and analysis.
If NSA officials are so confident they can manage the unimaginably vast quantities of data the agency is assembling, then why have they repeatedly given public assurances that Snowden — whom they frequently describe as a lowly analyst — had no access to the kind of sensitive data he gave to The Post? Does the agency really have any idea of what is already in its databases? Does the NSA know who might be sifting through this material? And for what purposes?
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the rest:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-nsas-misguided-snooping-on-innocent-people/2014/07/07/3f6cb7b8-05f8-11e4-8a6a-19355c7e870a_story.html
"So you'll have to take maximum advantage of my death…It should be worth a couple of million votes."
The 10 Most Hilarious Quotes From 'Blood Feud' Book About The Clintons And The Obamas
"Obviously you have to have a big state funeral for me, with as much pomp and circumstance as possible. … Wear your widow's weeds, so people will feel sympathy for you. Wear black for a decent mourning period and make my death an asset. The images on television of the funeral and the grieving widow in black will be priceless. … So you'll have to take maximum advantage of my death … It should be worth a couple of million votes."
the whole article is pretty funny, even if it seems full of bull:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/07/blood-feud-obama-clinton_n_5565199.html
Hate Cannot Drive Out Hate - ONLY Love Can Do That
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The uncle of the slain Israeli teenager Naftali Fraenkel offers his condolences to Hussein Abu Khdeir, whose 16-year-old son Mohammed was murdered last week by Jewish extremists.
Following the discovery of three Israeli teenagers who were abducted and killed in June, Palestinian youth Mohammed Abu Khdeir was brutally kidnapped and murdered in what appears to have been a revenge attack.
While some have resorted to aggression and threats of retribution, several family members of the murdered teens have come together to show their solidarity in this time of mourning.
Over the weekend Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat visited Rachel Fraenkel, the mother of slain Israeli teen Naftali, and during his visit Barkat spoke with Hussein Abu Khdeir, Mohammed's father, over the telephone. Barkat suggested Abu Khdeir speak with Yishai Fraenkel, Naftali's uncle, and the two men agreed.
Barkat relayed the experience on Facebook, saying that he had witnessed an “emotional and special telephone conversation between two families that have lost their sons.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/07/families-murdered-teens-israel_n_5563454.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/07/operation-change_n_5555591.html
The wireless “pill” ---Women Could Be Taking Their Birth Control Via Remote By 2018
Millennial women may soon have a new high-tech birth control option that beats the daily pill:a small remote-operated implant that lasts up to 16 years and can be turned on and off over a wireless connection.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is funding a project that aims to explore new forms of birth control, and the remote control implant would be the first hormone-based option that lasts more than five years.
Traditional birth control — namely the pill and condoms — have proven to be less effective because of improper use. Condom use as the sole form of birth control is on the decline, with only about 5 percent of men using them regularly. And it’s easy to forget to take a pill at the same time everyday (it’s also rendered ineffective if the woman is taking other medications such as antibiotics).
The wireless “pill” is set to hit the market by 2018 with pre-clinical trials starting next year, MIT Technology Review first reported. Women would get the chip implanted under the skin on the upper arm, abdomen or buttocks.
Using a wireless remote, women get a 30 micrograms daily dose of common birth control hormone levonorgestrel for up to 16 years with no need for refills. Patients would also be able to stop the birth control at any time without making a trip to the doctor to get the implant removed.
More:
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/07/07/3456884/birth-control-remote-control/
"We allow ourselves only 2 major political parties-1 of them is completely out of its fcking mind"
CRAZY LAND
By Charles P. Pierce
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The Republican party of the state of Texas, a state that went for Mitt Romney by over two million votes, would like to do away with the Federal Reserve, and any Supreme Court jurisdiction in any case involving the Bill Of Rights. And, yes, there's more.
The Republican Party of the state of Texas, a state in which north of 45 percent of the voters identify as Republicans, would like to bring back spanking.
It seems almost pointless to mention this but there is simply no state Democratic party in any of the 50 states that is so clearly, obviously demented. This is the Republican Party. Yuval Levin and Ramesh Ponnuru are not. In fact, I think all those bold conservative thinkers of whom the New York Times thinks so much should bring their Big Ideas down to the next Texas state Republican convention and see how far they get. John Boehner, and Mitch McConnell, and especially obvious anagram Reince Priebus, who nominally presides over Bedlam, need to be asked every day which parts of the Texas Republican platform they support and which parts they don't. They don't get to use the crazies to get elected and then hide behind fake Washington politesse when the howls from the hinterlands get too loud. We allow ourselves only two major political parties. One of them is completely out of its fcking mind. This is a national problem.
The Rest:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/Crazy_In_Texas
The WHAT in the White House?
The WHAT in the White House?
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The shocking headline in the WestView News is a reference to President Obama and sits at the top of Page 15 above an opinion piece that criticizes what it calls the anti-black “racism” of far-right voters.
The convoluted screed by author and journalist James Lincoln Collier is actually a pro-Obama piece — but that didn’t stop West Villagers from decrying the printing of the slur.
Columnist Alvin Hall wrote a piece called “The Headline Offends Me,” which ran below Collier’s column.
“It’s disrespectful in any context to refer to the president of the United States as the N-word,” said one West Villager, Eugene May
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http://nypost.com/2014/07/06/obama-called-the-n-word-in-west-village-newspapers-headline/
“Without a revolution based on humanist values-the Jewish tribe will not be worthy of its own state"
Israel’s paper of record, Haaretz, said that “Without a revolution based on humanist values, the Jewish tribe will not be worthy of its own state.”
Without a revolution based on humanist values, the Jewish tribe will not be worthy of its own state.
Abu Khdeir’s murderers are not “Jewish extremists.” They are the descendants and builders of a culture of hate and vengeance that is nurtured and fertilized by the guides of “the Jewish state”: Those for whom every Arab is a bitter enemy, simply because they are Arab; those who were silent at the Beitar Jerusalem games when the team’s fans shouted “death to Arabs” at Arab players; those who call for cleansing the state of its Arab minority, or at least to drive them out of the homes and cities of the Jews.
No less responsible for the murder are those who did not halt, with an iron hand, violence by Israeli soldiers against Palestinian civilians, and who failed to investigate complaints “due to lack of public interest.” The term “Jewish extremists” actually seems more appropriate for the small Jewish minority that is still horrified by these acts of violence and murder. But they too recognize, unfortunately, that they belong to a vengeful, vindictive Jewish tribe whose license to perpetrate horrors is based on the horrors that were done to it.
Is a cultural revolution possible or will Israel slip further into the abyss?
http://www.haaretz.com/mobile/.premium-1.603451
via: http://news.firedoglake.com/2014/07/07/israeli-police-caught-beating-american-teen-cousin-burned-alive-by-settlers/
another link:
http://seenthis.net/people/alaingresh
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