It's sad that today there are still people running their lives (and ruining others) according to primitive fairy tales.
As a species we are dumber than dirt.
The Skeptic, Egypt (elijahzarwan.net/blog)A new day dawned in Cairo today. As it does every day.
And it started as it always does: with birds, schoolchildren and car horns. No national holiday here.
I’m looking forward to going out in the streets to hear the reaction. The best reaction I’ve heard so far: “Black Man Given Nation’s Worst Job.”
Bah humbug. I confess I’m moved.
JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in an interview published on Monday that Israel must withdraw from nearly all of the West Bank as well as East Jerusalem to attain peace with the Palestinians and that any occupied land it held onto would have to be exchanged for the same quantity of Israeli territory....Olmert was, of course, Prime Minister during the attacks on Lebanon in 2006 that resulted in severely under-reported (in the U.S., anyway) demolition of the country's infrastructure and the suffering of so many human beings. Since then, having stepped down after allegations of corruption launched a couple of investigations into his activities, he has apparently undergone a deep look into his own conscience and has begun to look reality in the face, without blinking this time.
“What I am saying to you now has not been said by any Israeli leader before me,” Mr. Olmert told the newspaper Yediot Aharonot in the interview on the occasion of the Jewish new year, observed from Monday evening till Wednesday evening. “The time has come to say these things.”
He said that traditional Israeli defense strategists had learned nothing from past experiences and that they seemed stuck in the considerations of the 1948 war of independence.
“With them, it is all about tanks and land and controlling territories and controlled territories and this hilltop and that hilltop,” he said. “All these things are worthless.”Having visited many parts of Israel and the West Bank in the mid-80s, I can report that most of the Israeli Jews I met just wanted to live in a peaceful two-state region, opposed the West Bank settlements, and were in favor of withdrawal from occupied territories. They themselves described the major political problem of their country to be the extent to which a minority of Right-wing religious extremists control the Knesset. One wonders when the people of Israel will finally take to the streets and demand Fairness For All and real movement towards peace. Perhaps Olmert's interview published Monday in Yehediot Ahronot can help ignite such a movement.
He added, “Who thinks seriously that if we sit on another hilltop, on another hundred meters, that this is what will make the difference for the State of Israel’s basic security?”
It wasn’t a television blackout of John McCain; it was worse: split-screen contrasts that at times made it seem as if Barack Obama was on a state visit while back home his opponent chafed at the perks and privileges of an incumbent commander in chief.
On Tuesday, Mr. McCain held a town hall-style meeting in Rochester, N.H. In the shadow of the ancient Temple of Hercules in Amman, Jordan, Mr. Obama solemnly described his vision for peace in the region while standing at a lectern, the Middle East sprawling out behind him. Reporters were cordoned in front of him like the White House press corps — except that an audio snag kept their questions inaudible.
All three cable news networks carried Mr. Obama's news conference live and in full. They showed only parts of Mr. McCain's forum and focused mostly on his reaction to Mr. Obama's statements. Even Fox News broke away from Mr. McCain midevent to cover the rescue of a bear cub wounded in a California fire and nicknamed Lil' Smokey.
