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SUPREME COURT RULES EARNINGS SHOULD BE PROTECTED AS "ART" In a surprise decision that exonerates dozens of major companies, the U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that corporate earnings statements should be protected as works of art, as they "create something from nothing."
"One plus one is two. That is math. That is science. But as we have seen, earnings and revenues are abstract and original concepts, ideas not bound by physical constraints or coarse realities, and must therefore be considered art," the Court wrote in its 7-2 decision.
The Flag of God
Pledging allegiance to fundamentalism A Christian socialist who turned his back on religion. That's the guy whose handiwork politicians of both parties and religious right leaders rushed to defend this past week.
Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister in upstate New York who sermonized against the materialism of the Gilded Age and who resigned from his church after businessmen cut off funding because of his socialist activities and lectures, wrote the Pledge of Allegiance in 1892. Now his words, composed for a magazine-sponsored school program celebrating the quadricentennial of Columbus Day, are treated as a sacred writ. Holy irony!
The Bad Taste is Timeless While Good Taste is Mere Fad Department
 thanks to reenhead.com
I'm speechless.
Tom Tommorrow Tom Tomorrow is one fine cartoonist. He is also one fine bloggist. Check out his latest...
Graphic Arts Plep hits the visual spot with some Japanese wood block prints whose subject matter is somewhat different then the Hiroshige and Hokusai genres.
Demons and Ghosts Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892) studied under the late Edo period print genius Utagawa Kuniyoshi, and was strongly influenced by his master's prints of warriors. His own bloody and brutal works soon attracted attention. He suffered a nervous breakdown at the beginning of the Meiji period, and his works from this period are both dramatic and somehow starkly silent. He is unique style of blending traditional Japanese subjects with western depiction methods, and his works have suddenly become quite famous in recent years. The images of the spirit world introduced here amply demonstrate this artist's particular quality. These prints were published from 1890 to the year of his death, 1892.
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The Moon ----------
Israel/Palestine
Marooned on his fantasy island, Bush stands firm Anybody who has done some foreign reporting knows that the views of correspondents on the nature of the crisis or war which has brought them to a particular place tend to be similar. Day- to-day experience, constant discussion, and the weight of numbers produce a consensus which only a few resist. Thus most of the correspondents who covered Vietnam felt that the war was in some way wrong, a feeling reflected in their stories, and thus today most of the correspondents who cover the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians would agree that Sharon is more of an obstacle to peace than Arafat. The point here is that the consensus is multinational and, especially, that there is not that much divergence between Americans and non-Americans.
The picture painted for readers of, for example, the New York Times, Le Monde, or the Guardian by the reporters on the spot in Israel and the territories is in essentials the same. Comment, put together in the metropolis, is a very different matter, as are the stories reporting on the views and decisions of policy makers in capitals, above all Washington. But this argument from journalism on the ground is of interest because it contradicts the notion that an almost genetic difference can now be seen between Americans, as citizens of the imperial centre, and non-Americans, and it reminds us that we have been in similar situations in the past, long before anybody was talking of the single superpower. The difference it suggests is not that between Americans and everybody else but between the sensible conclusions of people on the spot and the overly abstract, unreal and sometimes fantastical conclusions of people in power. ----------
It is generally accepted today that at this stage, the declared primary aim of Jewish settlement in the territories has already been achieved. As this was described by Hanoch Marmari in the heartfelt plea he published here two weeks ago (`You are sitting on the key,' Ha'aretz, June 14), it is the ideological settler who holds the key to our future. And indeed, if settlement is not ended once and for all by an unequivocal political decision and in the framework of a comprehensive peace agreement, Jewish settlement in the territories is a process that will continue until the last dunam of land in the West Bank is "redeemed," or until the last of the Arabs who refuses to accept the sentence of Jewish overlordship is thrown out. Thus, the war that has been imposed on us is an eternal war. Now, when settler leader Ze'ev Hever (Zambish) and his people have won allies like U.S. President George W. Bush and the Islamic terror people, each of whom in his own way and for his own reasons is positing unreasonable or insane conditions for ending the war, only the sky, in the West Bank, is the limit. ---------- Ariel Sharon is ecstatic and it's not clear why. Bush's thirteen-and-a-half minute speech, which Sharon was looking forward to so eagerly, has not changed things one iota. We're still deep in the muck. The tourists aren't coming. The economy is going downhill. Companies are going bankrupt. Personal safety is a joke. Every day, there are dozens of alerts, especially for mega-bombings of tall buildings and strategic sites.
Without all the noise of Operation Defensive Shield, the IDF has now reoccupied most of the West Bank and a genuine war is being waged in Palestinian Authority territory. It may have been a heck of a speech, but Bush offered Sharon nothing: No light, no end, no tunnel.
Dead Bugs Some more dead bugs for my collection. See big images at Dead Bugs
New mantra I keep repeating the following mantra over and over again hoping it might be true. It helps. You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. — Abraham Lincoln
The media can't control everything The Mix Is the Message #3: A Tale of Two Books There are two fast-selling books in the marketplace that are remarkable in their repudiation of the general feeling, often reinforced by the media, that George Bush enjoys enormous popularity and stands invincible in the wake of 9/11.
Both Michael Moore's "Stupid White Men" and Mark Crispin Miller's "Bush's Dyslexicon" are powerful, damning and even scornful of the President's standing and behavior. And surprise: these books are successful, in Moore's case, unbelievably so. But you wouldn't know it from media appearances, book reviews and bookstore readings.
Dead Bugs I found, and was given, some more dead bugs. I scanned 5 last night. I originally was referring to this series as Desiccated Insects. I found the first one on a window ledge and it was quite desiccated. Since then I have found recently deceased insects. I also wanted to include non-insects, such as spiders, so I will use the more inclusive popular term bugs. (Maybe that should be buuuugs?) And, while some may be desiccated, others are not so I will simply refer to the series as Dead Bugs
 My latest dead bug. This one is quite colorful. I have no idea what kind of bug it is. Go to my Dead Bugs page to get links to larger images.
Israel/Palestine
A Jewish demographic state
About three months ago Prof. Arnon Sofer sent an urgent letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The subject was the need for separation from the Palestinians. "Most of the inhabitants of Israel realize that there is only one solution in the face of our insane and suicidal neighbor - separation," wrote Sofer. "You should have known this months before they did, as the grave demographic data were put on your desk many months ago. In the absence of separation, the meaning of such a majority (of Arabs - L.G.) - is the end of the Jewish state of Israel. You should remember that on the same day as the Israel Defense Forces is investing efforts and succeeding in eliminating one terrorist or another, on that very same day, as on every day of the year, within the territories of western Israel, about 400 children are being born, some of whom will become new suicide terrorists! Do you realize this?"
At Bar-Ilan University there has been an examination, in a series of surveys, of attitudes toward basic values like peace, democracy and a Jewish state. At various points in time, the Jewish state has been perceived as the value of supreme importance. Peace and democracy alternate among themselves in secondary places after this value, in accordance with events in the background of the particular survey. This is no doubt the reason so many people avoid discussing the issue, as they are aware of the fact that behind "the demographic issue" there are masses of people whose very existence is defined as a problem.
"It's frightening when Jews talk about demography," says Dr. Amnon Raz- Krakotzkin of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. "There were those who believed that the ethnic cleansing of 1948 solved the problem. Now they are discovering to their dismay a reality in which the Jews will always be a minority in the Middle East." By "they," Raz-Krakotzkin means the Israeli left. As he sees it, the left's view of the world is based on a demographic principle, just like the worldview of transfer. Can anyone tell me how this discussion of a Jewish state, which talks about the removal of a "problem" population — the Arabs, is any different than the discussions, in a European country almost 70 years ago, of an Ayran state, which talked about the removal of a "problem" population — the Jews? Enquiring minds want to know.
Flag A U.S. federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is unconstitutional because it contains the phrase "under God," a decision blasted by Democrats, Republicans, and brand managers who say the United States is making a grave mistake in dropping its principal sponsor.
"Over the years, the U.S. under God has been a great draw for the major players — Einstein, Solzhenitsyn, John Lennon," said government marketing analyst Gil Treacle. "Without God's brand recognition and infinite marketing powers, you risk losing the marquis names to competitors. Then the networks don't renew, the money dries up, the fans revolt, and the next thing you know, you're Argentina."
Tour de France The sporting event of the year, for me, is the Tour de France. Football championships (European or American) are for wimps. There is nothing quite like the Tour. A little over a week to go for the prologue — July 6. The U.S. Postal team released its roster for the Tour de France on Monday, naming a mix of veterans and newcomers to defend the Tour championship of three-time winner Lance Armstrong.
Joining Armstrong at the start line of the Tour de France in Luxembourg on July 6 will be Americans George Hincapie and Floyd Landis, Spain's Roberto Heras and Jose Luis Rubiera, Colombia's Victor Hugo Pena, Russian Viatcheslav Ekimov, Czech Pavel Padrnos and Luxembourger Benoit Joachim.
"I have never been so excited about the team prior to the Tour and I've never seen such results in June," the release quoted Armstrong as saying. "It was a great month for the team. The team's well-rounded, motivated and experienced."
Photography
Cut & Paste The art of photomontage could be said to have started just after the First World War, but the manipulation of photographs already had a history going back to the invention of photography in the mid 19th century.
 thanks to Spitting Image
Astronomy
Color of the universe remains hazy
From Hubble Space Telescope pictures to the vocabulary used to describe the stars, astronomers and the media are coloring our universe, and they’ve been doing it for decades. While not intended to deceive, the efforts can range from the overly subjective to the absurd. thanks to Spitting Image
Architecture Yesterday was Gaudi's 150th birthday. I was an architecture student at the University of Washington (Seattle) in the early 60's. It was a nice conservative Bauhaus school. We learned to love Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, and Le Corbusier. But I also learned to love the art nouveau exuberance of Gaudi. Barcelona, the home to many Gaudi buildings, is on my list of places to see before I die, along with St. Peter's in Rome, and the Daytona 500.
Antoni Gaudi
Israel/Palestine Bush is Irrelevant and Must Go In a major policy shift, I have decided that George W. Bush is irrelevant and must be replaced as leader of the United States. Every week, an American somewhere murders, rapes, or brutalizes a foreigner. I hold the president personally responsible for every such attack.
With American citizens continuing to kill and attack people in other nations, Bush is clearly irrelevant to the world’s search for peace. I am ceasing all contacts with him, immediately. And I am calling upon the people of the United States to elect new and more effective leadership, right away. ----------
George W's bloody folly That was a fantastic speech. Quite literally, fantastic. George Bush's address on the Middle East, delivered outside the White House on Monday evening, consisted, from beginning to end, of fantasy. It bore so little relation to reality that diplomats around the world spent yesterday shaking their heads in disbelief, before sinking into gloom and despair. Our own Foreign Office tried gamely to spot the odd nugget of sense in the Bush text - but, they admitted, it was an uphill struggle. Israelis committed to a political resolution of the conflict were heartbroken. Even Shimon Peres, foreign minister in Ariel Sharon's coalition, reportedly called the speech "a fatal mistake", warning: "A bloodbath can be expected." The core of the president's message was that the Palestinians must embark on a sweeping process of internal reform before they can even think about getting back to the negotiating table. They must transform themselves into a democratic market economy, free of corruption and with a separate judiciary and legislature if they are to be considered eligible for statehood - which, when it comes, will be merely provisional.
Shall we count the ways in which this is completely absurd? George Bush is demanding that Palestine become Sweden before it can become Palestine: it must be stable, prosperous and boast constitutional arrangements which still elude Britain - our judiciary and legislature are not separate - let alone the Arab world before it can become even a state-in-waiting. ----------
Both sides are wrong A radio interviewer asked IDF Spokesman Ron Kitrey on Sunday about the three children killed in Jenin by Israeli soldiers in a tank (who also killed a 60-year-old civilian). The interviewer chose his words carefully. So carefully, that he asked Kitrey about the "youths" who were killed. These "youths" were 6-year-old Soujoud Turkey, Ahmed Ghazawi, also 6 years old, and his 12-year-old brother Jamil. The two brothers had been riding their bicycles in their neighborhood. They, like many others, thought that the curfew had been lifted for several hours. Soujoud Turkey had gone out with her father to buy bread.
The interviewer stammered slightly as he posed his question, perhaps because in these days of suicide bombings it is not considered politically correct to discuss Palestinian casualties. Turning them into "youths" was not a slip of the tongue. It reflects a phenomenon. Even before the suicide attacks became a daily routine, for Israeli society the IDF's Palestinian civilian victims simply evaporated, and they continue to evaporate. They are not perceived as relevant in the political and military contexts. ---------- Robert Fisk: I wonder why Bush doesn't let Sharon run his press office Mr Sharon, in his highly mendacious demand for Palestinian "'transparency", has demanded Palestinian reform must be neither cosmetic nor an attempt to preserve Arafat. And what does Mr Bush say? Why, that Palestinian reform "must be more than cosmetic changes or a veiled attempt to preserve the status quo". Why, I wonder, doesn't Mr Bush let Ariel Sharon run the White House press bureau? Not only would it be more honest we would at least be hearing the voice of Israel at first hand but it would spare the American President the ignominy of parroting everything he is told by the Israelis.
All that he offers to the Palestinians is a ghastly mockery of what the Palestinians are told to do by the Israelis. ---------- Israel chooses subjugation, not negotiation However, this is just another example of political expediency and a shameful unwillingness to face facts with no serious thought in either Washington or Jerusalem for the long-term consequences of the destruction of the present Palestinian regime. The Palestinians can be killed, imprisoned, starved and subjugated, but the Israelis of all people, must be aware that the human spirit cannot be destroyed. The right to a homeland and a sovereign state is the inalienable right of all people, including the Palestinians. The problem remains for Israel is that two determined peoples both claim the same piece of land and seem no closer than 54 years ago to finding a way to live and worktogether in peace.
Israel is losing the war against terrorism for the first time and no amount of military force will prevent the Islamic extremists from taking the lives of thousands more Israeli's, indeed all Jews around the world will increasingly become the target for Islamic terrorists bent on exacting revenge for the occupation of Palestine. Jewish businesses will undoubtedly be targeted as will those of its international supporters and the question of just how long Israel can stay on a war footing will be asked. Israel is bankrupt and only massive infusions of US dollars is keeping it afloat. The stress that will be put on an ailing economy, the holiday business and industry by thousands of reservists being called up to occupy Palestinian territory is already considerable. The threat to re-occupy more land and towns in response toeach new suicide bomb will only add to Israel's financial woes. ---------- Arafat Calls for Democratic Elections in the United States;World Reaction is Mixed Palestinian Authority President Yasir Arafat stunned the world yesterday by demanding that the United States hold democratic elections for a new Chief Executive before it attempts to continue in its role as broker between Israel and Palestine.
"Mr. Bush is tainted by his association with Jim- Crow-style selective disenfranchisement and executive strong-arm tactics in a southeastern province controlled by his brother," said Mr. Arafat, who was elected with 87% of the vote in 1996 elections in the West Bank and Gaza, declared to be free and fair by international observers, including former U.S. president Jimmy Carter. "Our count shows that he would have lost the election if his associates hadn't deprived so many thousands of African-Americans, an oppressed minority, of the right to vote. He is not the man to bring peace to the Middle East."
One nation, Pledge Declared Unconstitutional A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that the Pledge of Allegiance is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion and cannot be recited in schools.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 1954 act of Congress inserting the phrase "under God" after the words "one nation" in the pledge. The court said the phrase violates the so-called Establishment Clause in the Constitution that requires a separation of church and state. thanks to MetaFilter This is something that has bugged me for a long time. I can see the right wing Christians clutching at their hearts and shaking violently. Maybe their heads will explode.
More music I've gone through life without ever taking music lessons. Although I've never played music, it has always been very important in my life. I listen to Patsy Cline and Karlheinz Stockhausen, Bill Evans and the Dead Kennedys. I listen to a lot of different stuff. When I was in the 5th grade, around 1956, we were all herded into the cafeteria and given a musical aptitude test. I misunderstood some instructions and was not deemed suitable to take music. It was about two and a half years ago, after a TestingTesting, when the special guest for that show, Maria, asked me if I played. I told her my story and that I wanted to learn to play. She asked "What instrument?" I said "The Accordion." She said that she had one in her attic I could borrow. It had been her sister's.
 I finally called Vern Olsen yesterday and I take my first lesson Thursday.
Real Music The pictures are up for last night's TestingTesting.
 The music people used to listen to in their living rooms was live. Musicians would drop by and play with their friends. Music has come a long way — I'm not sure that it's all been good. Or fun. So much of the music today has a slickness about it that has removed all the fun and spontaneity from it. It's just another business. One of the reasons we started webcasting TestingTesting from my living room was to put the fun back into the music. Mistakes are allowed and playing well with others is encouraged. We have a special guest for each show and the House band plays along, or not, as it strikes everyones fancy. Monday's show was a classic TestingTesting. Musicians having fun playing music. Listen to it. When was the last time you went to a concert or show and heard the musicians laughing? Four guitars, two mandolins, a fiddle, a set of congas, and a living room. I made bread before the show and we ate it after the show with some glasses of wine, enjoying a beautiful summer evening. I can't imagine a finer evening of music.
Israel/Palestine Bush's "offer" of a Palestinian state disappoints but doesn't surprise. It disappoints because there was an opportunity to do something to stop the violence in Israel and Palestine. It doesn't surprise because Bush only took the position of his master — Sharon. The Israeli right wing is trumpeting this as a victory. How can anyone see this as a victory when it only guarantees more of the same violence on both sides? Last night's long--awaited speech by President Bush was to set the pace for the Palestinians and Israelis to step back from the vicious and bloody cycle of violence that has gripped them for nearly two years. Instead, President Bush and his administration have publicly adopted the Israeli agenda of battering the Palestinians into submission. President Bush's illusion that the Palestinian--Israeli conflict may be 'talked away' in a series of speeches is not only a poor example of leadership but seriously places U.S. interests in the region at high risk.
President Bush's administration has utterly failed to comprehend the Palestinian--Israeli conflict and in particular the Palestinian predicament today which is an Israeli re--occupation of the small parcels of land that were transferred to the Palestinian Authority under the Oslo Peace Accords. To add insult to injury, President Bush continues to mismanage U.S. policy with unprecedented unaccountability to the U.S. Congress or the world community. Bush's chronological attempts to address the crisis are as follows: ignore the conflict ---- failed, send Powell to the region -- failed, the Mitchell Report -- failed, the Tenet Plan -- failed, Bush's UN speech -- failed, Secretary of State Powell's policy speech in Kentucky -- failed, send General Zinni on multiple missions -- failed, and the most recent call for an international conference (completely ignored in Bush's latest speech) -- failed. If the creativity applied to avoiding real U.S. action were used to put an implementation mechanism in place to end the Israeli occupation the region would be well out of the conflict by now.
Bush Speech Ignores Bloody Reality One-sided offer that will change nothing
Tell a Vision So sad.
TestingTesting Last night's TestingTesting with Steve and Joanne was great. Lisa Toomey played as part of the House Band and Tishia's congas added a nice rhythm section. Barton's piece was wonderful, as usual. Pictures up tomorrow.
Bugs I started this series as a lark in reaction to some pretty flowers. The scary nature of the images precluded me from mentioning it to any but a few but I like them so much I am coming out of the closet with my...
 Part of the fascination is seeing the very small as very large. The scanner, at 2400 dpi, becomes a really big microscope. I will eventually print these.
TestingTesting TestingTesting is tonight. TT is a webcast that I do from my living room every 2 weeks. I have friends come over for some friendly living room music. Click on in and enter some comments in our show guestbook during the show and I will read them to the musicians. Now it is off to get everthing ready for the show.
Boring Family Stuff or TWA — The Next Generation This picture is of my kids some years ago. (You can see what they look like today.) Katie on the left, Robby center, and Jenny on the right.
 The TWA coveralls seemd to have been saved and they had my grandson Mikey wearing them this weekend.
 There is a picture somewhere, I am told, of Robyn wearing the same overalls a year ago. I would guess that this is something that only grandparents get excited about.
Evil weed
Vaccines may prevent nicotine addiction thanks to also not found in nature
Chickenpox Last monday I linked to a report of an outbreak of smallpox in Pakistan. This was of some concern since smallpox is a very deadly disease and has supposedly been eradicated. Turns out it still is eradicated.
'Smallpox' in Pakistan only chickenpox
Journalism Shou? celebrates birthday with scoop, escalating confusion feared After years of undercover research in the Middle East and in the Netherlands, Shou? reveals that despite what most people have always unconsciously been thinking, journalists are no different from ordinary people. With this revelation made public, experts fear an escalation of the confusion over what is happening in the world. The way an average journalist describes world events is not better, not more insightful and certainly not more trustworthy than the way your average neighbour describes world events, according to Shou?. The verbal intelligence of most journalists is above average, but this does not seem to help them in understanding better what is going on in the world.
"Oops," reacted a well-known media expert. "I'm afraid that people will now seriously start doubting their view of the world and the way that view is created. When people realise it is not all that simple, their behavior will probably become less predictable. Which in turn will make the world even more complicated, and journalism even less reliable. I fear a vicious circle. And for my position as an expert."
Fire! Era of the Big Fire Is Kindled at West's Doors The fires came early this year to the West, chasing people out of valleys in Colorado, rousting animals from late slumber in Alaska, choking the sky with smoke in Arizona woods that have so little moisture they seem kiln-dried.
The price of holding back nature has come home, fire officials say. A century- long policy of knocking down all fires has created fuel-filled forests that burn hotter and faster than ever. The era of big fires — and with it, the need for big government to contain them — is at hand, many firefighters say. Already, with 1.9 million acres burned by the first day of summer, wildfires across the West are burning twice the acreage of the 10-year average for this time of year. thanks to Politics in the Zeros
More delusions
15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense
Embarrassingly, in the 21st century, in the most scientifically advanced nation the world has ever known, creationists can still persuade politicians, judges and ordinary citizens that evolution is a flawed, poorly supported fantasy. They lobby for creationist ideas such as "intelligent design" to be taught as alternatives to evolution in science classrooms. As this article goes to press, the Ohio Board of Education is debating whether to mandate such a change. Some antievolutionists, such as Philip E. Johnson, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley and author of Darwin on Trial, admit that they intend for intelligent-design theory to serve as a "wedge" for reopening science classrooms to discussions of God. thanks to Unknown News
The end of the world I'm always amazed at the delusional ability of the human mind. Unfortunately, this is what seems to be driving US Middle East policy at the moment.
The Bible and the Apocalypse Or signs that the world may be coming to an end, and the last battle between good and evil is about to unfold?
For evangelical Christians with an interest in prophecy, the headlines always come with asterisks pointing to scriptural footnotes. That is how Todd Strandberg reads his paper. By day, he is fixing planes at Offutt Air Force Base in Bellevue, Neb. But in his off-hours, he's the webmaster at raptureready.com and the inventor of the Rapture Index, which he calls a "Dow Jones Industrial Average of End Time activity." Instead of stocks, it tracks prophecies: earthquakes, floods, plagues, crime, false prophets and economic measurements like unemployment that add to instability and civil unrest, thereby easing the way for the Antichrist. In other words, how close are we to the end of the world? The index hit an all-time high of 182 on Sept. 24, as the bandwidth nearly melted under the weight of 8 million visitors: any reading over 145, Strandberg says, means "Fasten your seat belt." thanks to Drudge Report
Israel/Palestine
Robert Fisk: Fatal vision: how Bush has given up on peace
Now, however, after six visits to the United States by Ariel Sharon – and after Bush was totally ignored by the Israelis when he demanded an immediate end to the West Bank invasion and an end to the siege of Palestinian towns – the President has had yet another vision, a rather scaled-down version of the earlier one. Now he dreams of an interim Palestinian state. But what does interim portend? Talal Salman, the editor of the Beirut daily As Safir, wrote in his newspaper last week that interim envisages "a provisional state on territory segmented like beehives'', with every town, village and refugee camp cut off by "a wall of tanks and permanent and moving checkpoints; with everything under helicopter surveillance ... with death squads monitoring intentions and dreams, targeting anyone they discover, determine, speculate or suspect may have explosive materials in their blood".
A provisional state is an innovation no one has ever heard of before. It's a state unrelated to its land or to its people. All other states are permanent. But the Palestinian state will be a stop-gap, according to President Bush, and thus its role or existence can be ended in a day or a year if its usefulness comes to an end. It does not need to find territory – after all, it is only interim – and permanent institutions such as an army (perish the thought), the luxury of independence, or sovereignty, or an economy, or foreign relations will be denied. This will be Israel's luxury. ---------- PM: IDF preparing 'massive operation' against Hamas in Gaza Sharon, speaking at a Likud faction meeting in the Knesset, said that Israel was "preparing to launch a massive operation in the Gaza Strip against the Hamas organization, the beginning of which we witnessed today," a reference to Monday morning's apparent assassination in the Strip, in which missile-firing IAF helicopter gunships killed two senior Hamas military commanders and four other people.
Sharon said that due to the recent increase in terror attacks and warnings of attacks, "a number of measures in the territories, beginning with a massive incursion into cities and remaining there indefinitely," will be carried out. ---------- Israel to deport the families of suicide bombers
Israel will deport families of suicide bombers from the West Bank to Gaza after demolishing their homes, it emerged yesterday, amid signs that the government was feeling increasingly impotent as the spate of suicide attacks continues.
Internet Radio Two excellent pieces on the RIAA's attempt to kill Internet Radio
Time for representation
Doc linked to this one...
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