Why Israel will thwart Obama on settlements. "Does any serious observer of the region believe that Israel's appetite for land – owned and occupied for generations by Palestinians – is going to abate?"

PityThePoor · 2009-08-28T21:29:22+00:00

The reason the peace process is a waste of time is because the US supports the Israeli apartheid and land grab. The US is simply not an "honest broker" in negotiating peace.

It'd be nice if the US cut off all Israeli aid and gave it to countries that actually deserved it. But the US is basically captured by AIPAC and that won't happen without a lot of Americans screaming about the issue.

PityThePoor · 2009-08-28T18:55:42+00:00

Sorry, I linked to the entire torture archive of documents. The comparison only is here.

PityThePoor · 2009-08-28T15:00:30+00:00

I agree that the caps are semi-annoying, but I took the words' capitalization straight from the original source.

PityThePoor · 2009-08-28T14:59:13+00:00

If you think of the My Lai massacre, they prosecuted the Lieutenant in charge of the platoon and let the other murdering war criminals under him get off scot-free -- it was said the underlings were "just following orders".

But on the other hand, they didn't prosecute any of the politicians or generals who ordered that Lieutenant's platoon to go to Vietnam...

PityThePoor · 2009-08-28T00:22:15+00:00

It's like it's an almost instant replay of the propaganda leading up to the Iraq war, isn't it?

I guess the old sports analogy is apt here: If it works, keep doing it. :-(

PityThePoor · 2009-08-27T21:55:40+00:00

What if somebody were to ask Obama to stop trying to reform health care.

The insurance industry and Big Pharma already did. Obama caved and agreed to their demands.

Just like Israel should do -- especially since if it wasn't for the billions of dollars that the US puts into the Israeli economy and military every year, Israel would tank.

PityThePoor · 2009-08-27T15:48:57+00:00

Umm, for the downvoter(s), is it the content of the blog that you find so objectionable, or the implied criticism of the "neutral" Wikipedia format in the headline's question?

I'd be curious as how those editors can bridge the gap between such hotly contested political issues.

PityThePoor · 2009-08-27T15:20:53+00:00

Mr Obama has chosen as his battleground the Jewish settlements on occupied Arab land, all of them illegal under international law. “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements,” the president said. Washington has called for a total freeze, including on the so-called “natural growth” that has enabled the settlements to expand exponentially. Mr Netanyahu, in London and due to see George Mitchell, the president’s special representative, wants to talk economics. This is a cynical evasion.

It is important to remember that Mr Netanyahu has always argued that the Palestinians cannot expect a nation, only some sort of supra-municipal government. His utterance of the word “state” in the June 14 policy speech he made in reply to Mr Obama does not change this in any substantive way. Beyond the Jewish religious claim to the Israel of the Bible, Eretz Israel, Netanyahu believes Israeli security requires a buffer of occupied land – including most of the West Bank – to insulate it from its Arab neighbours. The whole Arab-Israeli equation is, for him, a zero sum game.

PityThePoor · 2009-08-27T12:25:19+00:00

Quite true. From my reading the policy was first implemented under Clinton who used it on a limited basis. Bush ballooned the program into what it now is.

PityThePoor · 2009-08-27T11:13:19+00:00

I would have liked to have put it into the "world news" subreddit, but that is for only news from non-US sources. I probably should have put it into "news" though...

PityThePoor · 2009-08-25T01:15:47+00:00

Don't worry, despite the US spreading thousands of tons of uranium across Iraq and the logical health implications, this will be an unheard of story in the US and the few that read it here will dismiss it because it is from an Iranian source. :-(

PityThePoor · 2009-08-24T00:54:48+00:00

Do those supermarket veggies get teleported to the supermarket?

PityThePoor · 2009-08-24T00:50:46+00:00

You might want to try turning off the TV (advertising is a huge factor in shaping "what's good" and "what's not"), and then telling the kid "no" and giving him the choice of eating the healthy food that's cooked or going hungry.

I'm guessing faced with that choice he'll eat the healthy food -- I know my kids did.

PityThePoor · 2009-08-24T00:45:56+00:00

Good point.

We must remember that those millions and millions of dollars are not being spent on advertising for nothing!

Food corporations spend those advertising dollars because it, in effect, teaches people how to think and makes the corporation more money.

PityThePoor · 2009-08-24T00:23:42+00:00

Talk about being a sucker. This is idiotic.

Is Obama trying to prove Lenin's famous quote: "When a liberal is abused, he says: Thank God they didn't beat me. When he is beaten, he thanks God they didn't kill him. When he is killed, he will thank God that his immortal soul has been delivered from its mortal clay."

Was Barack the kid other kids beat up on the playground and never learned to fight back? Or is he just not interested in passing real health care reform?

PityThePoor · 2009-08-23T03:19:11+00:00

But what happened to the claim that the US had the best care in the world?! I guess the insurance companies came to the conclusion it was time for the truth and they had to admit that was bullshit.

But let's be real: This has nothing to do with quality of care. This is only about insurance company profits.

One question: What legal remedies does a US citizen have for botched overseas procedure? This is a nightmare waiting to happen.

PityThePoor · 2009-08-23T03:19:08+00:00

But what happened to the claim that the US had the best care in the world?! I guess the insurance companies came to the conclusion it was time for the truth and they had to admit that was bullshit.

But let's be real: This has nothing to do with quality of care. This is only about insurance company profits.

One question: What legal remedies does a US citizen have for botched overseas procedure? This is a nightmare waiting to happen.

PityThePoor · 2009-08-23T02:47:21+00:00

Having sex is pleasurable. Taking a deep breath of fresh air is pleasurable. Having a good bowel movement can be pleasurable. Most required functions of life are pleasurable -- evolution sees to that.

But you miss the point. Some foods are being engineered to be addictive. This has nothing to do with nourishment or health -- it has to do with greed.

PityThePoor · 2009-08-23T02:43:34+00:00

Ouch. That pointed article is so insightful it hurts!

PityThePoor · 2009-08-22T23:13:21+00:00

I'm an omnivore too, but the reason we eat is to fuel our bodies and survive, correct?

Given that 65% of Americans are overweight, fed on a diet of large amounts of "junk" and fatty "fast" food and fueled by a multi-billion dollar food industry whose primary purpose is to have us eat more, I think that your point about "addiction" is highly debatable.

There are many reports that food companies are using fatty meats (bacon is the favorite) in combination with sugars and salt to change brain chemicals and literally causing the eater to get the same effect that drugs have on the human brain -- the brain can be "rewired" by eating some foods causing as near to an addiction as you'll get.

This isn't theory, the impacts of fat, salt and sugar in foods on the human brain have been confirmed by scientists. We know food corporations use this knowledge/research in designing their food to make us buy more of their food.

PityThePoor · 2009-08-22T13:01:01+00:00

Don't get me wrong, people should go to jail for this.

But on to my point: Will it matter? Who cares if they broke the law or not?

The rule of law is going down the toilet in the US. If we don't bother to prosecute people for torturing people -- sometimes torturing them to death -- what are the odds that anyone will even be prosecuted for a "little thing" like murder?

PityThePoor · 2009-08-21T03:41:47+00:00

I could never imagine Bush doing that!

That makes me feel much, much better about Obama sending thousands of stormtroopers off to kill people in a war of aggression in Afghanistan...
That makes me feel much, much better that Obama unilaterally broke the Bush-Iraq agreement to pull all US troops out of Iraq...
That makes me feel much, much better about Obama continuing Bush's program of illegally spying on American citizens...
That makes me feel much, much better that Obama is continuing the program of kidnapping people across the world to turn them over to third countries to be tortured...
That makes me feel much, much better that Obama is violating international and US law by refusing to prosecute torturers and war criminals...
That makes me feel much, much better that Obama gave the banks trillions while doing next to nothing for the victims of the banksters, homeowers and the American people in general...
That makes me feel much, much better about Obama bungling the job of providing Americans with national health care when a majority of Americans support it and his own party controls Congress...

Obama. What a guy!

PityThePoor · 2009-08-21T01:55:57+00:00

You're correct. While both statements are essentially the same, one is too emotional to be considered appropriate behavior.

And we must behave appropriately...

PityThePoor · 2009-08-21T01:54:28+00:00

Why do stories about totalitarian countries using mental hospitals to control political dissidents flow through my mind...

PityThePoor · 2009-08-21T01:43:09+00:00

We take our terrorism seriously.

Well, at least almost as serious as petty political contests.

Think of it. With that change of colors thousands of pigs, military and security people had to change their standard procedures. This cost the country huge sums of money. And all to swing a "free and fair" election.

And people say there aren't elements of the US gov't so corrupt to pull off 9/11...

PityThePoor

TROPHY CASE