News – Apartheid in Israel, Part Two

Middle East

Part two of the investigation into Israel’s similarities in policy to apartheid South Africa. This part focuses a lot on the past associations that Israel had with South Africa and the moral sacrifices Jews made to feel safe within the apartheid regime in South Africa. The history in this is very interesting as well as very sad.

Here we have letters with mexed reactions to the first part of the above investigation.

Israel decides to give the collected tax revenues they were holding to the Palestinians. That’s a good thing.

A Hamas leader says that likely one of their own will become the new PM of Palestine. That still leaves Abbas as president, which I think is a good thing.

Israeli raids into Palestine continue after the Sunday stabbing of an Israeli woman by a Palestinian. One wonders if this stabbing was actual terrorism or an incident of domestic crime. One wonders if anyone grasps that these raids will harm any hopes for peace.

Europe

As the rage over a Danish cartoon lingers on, Denmark starts to worry about it’s expatriates. It is currently a bad time for travel in the Middle East.

North America

The Treasury Department says that extending Bush’s tax cuts will cost the government tens of billions.

Public Broadcasting gets another cut.

The military budget? It’s getting even bigger, to the tune of nearly $30 billion more. Of course, this doesn’t include the money spent on Iraq/Afghanistan, even though it should be included as part of the military budget. And because of election time fears, congress will likely pass it passively. Bunch of yella bastards, they are.

Alberto Gonzalez reveals naught when it comes to Bush’s spying program, easily hiding behind the shield of vague secrecy. That’s the beauty of national security, you can hide things behind its veil, without having to explain why it’s being hidden. And if anyone questions, all you need do is raise the scaremongering to scare them off. The perfect tool for hiding whatever you want to hide.

Bush puts forward the Alaska drilling thing again, but this time with triple the fees from energy companies When in doubt, throw money at your detractors.

DHS wants to raise the security fee paid by passengers to pay for the bomb screening at airports, doubling it from $2.50 to $5.

A challenge to the existence of the ‘Ownership Society’.

General

The Blogs look at the cartoon riots, the NSA hearing and the passing of Betty Friedan.

Today’s Papers has Gonzalez responding to the question of why the White House didn’t come to congress about the whole FISA thing with “The short answer is that we didn’t think we needed to, quite frankly.”, details on the budget, details on the Gonzalez hearing and more in the one page news.

Amusements

Student — caught with his pants down masturbating in college library — explains to police that the connection in his dorm wasn’t fast enough

Fan of German soccer club wave giant penises at rivals, tell them to go f*ck themselves

Upset by what he paid for a new Ford Escape, man returns the vehicle to the dealership. Through the showroom. On fire

Naked guy decides to go for a walk in the rain, gets arrested, a friend comes down to the station to bail him out, starts screaming and tries to bite a cop. Just another Sunday night in Rhode Island

Just because you don’t support your country’s involvement in Iraq doesn’t mean you can deduct 10 percent off of your income taxes

Thought cartoon Mohammed was bad? Wait until the masses get stirred up by Superfly Christ

If you’re blowing up ballons for a superbowl party, remember 2 things. One, don’t use an explosive gas. Two, if you ignore number one, kiss your eardrums goodbye

Boca Raton police may issue charges against Joe Pesci for punching fan, who apparently felt the actor was some kind of clown here to amuse him

Alaskans relieved that the tsunami warning they woke up to was a mistake, but the guy who at the time was showing an intern how to issue a tsunami warning is swearing he didn’t do it

Deputy uses his dashboard-mounted video camera to zoom in on and record bikini-clad girls, hilarity ensues

Fark Photoshop Challenge: Photoshop this lion

Fark Photoshop Challenge: Theme: Into every life, a little rain must fall

Fark Photoshop Challenge: Photoshop: Possible reasons for global warming/crazy weather