Anyone that believes Israel has dominion over that land as a birthright should be even stronger supporters of slavery reparations than NCOBRA. 

Palestinians on the Right Side of History
By BENNY MORRIS
Rockville, Md.

THERE is, from the historian's perch, something fitting about the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. I am not speaking about the fact that this appallingly overcrowded area has 1.3 million Arabs who need every inch of its 140 square miles to even begin to imagine a better life and who regard their former Jewish occupiers as nothing more than robbers.

I mean instead that for the greater part of ancient history - that past in which the Jewish people anchor their claim to Israel - the Gaza Strip was not part of the Jewish state. The embattled settlers may have screamed last week that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was expelling Jews from part of Eretz Yisrael, "the land of Israel." And the first Hebrew, the patriarch Abraham, may have understood God, at least on paper (or papyrus), to have included this narrow strip of territory in his promised domain.

Ariel Sharon's Statesmanship

Quote of note:

According to the Justice Ministry, the portions of the route approved to date - some of which will be built on state land, and some on private Palestinian land - are not substantially different from the original.

...The planned route would put the easternmost point of the fence around Ma'aleh Adumim some 25 kilometers from the Green Line, or about half the width of the West Bank. Both the Palestinians and the international community say it would therefore prevent the establishment of a viable Palestinian state, as it would impede territorial contiguity between the southern and northern West Bank.

...the planned route would leave grazing grounds, olive groves and some 250 wells that serve the Palestinian population on the Israeli side of the fence.

According to the cabinet's decision, the fence around Ma'aleh Adumim is slated to put some 67 square kilometers of the West Bank on the Israeli side.

With pullout past, IDF moves to fence Ma'aleh Adumim
By Meron Rapoport and Yuval Yoaz, Haaretz Correspondents

Some recent silliness in the comments has inspired me to make note of a couple of facts:

In 2002 there were 242 Israeli settlements and civilian land use sites in the West Bank, 42 in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, 25 in the Gaza Strip, and 29 in East Jerusalem. The Gaza Strip was the least gesture possible, and still wasn't done to conform with the UN resolutions they have been in defiance of for so long, but to consolidate their grip on the land.

Speech by PM Sharon to Jewish Agency Assembly

An essential step in ensuring the Jewish majority of the State of Israel is determining the borders of the state which will assure it an established Jewish majority, while also assuring the security of its citizens.

Is this 

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson has suggested that American agents assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop his country from becoming "a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism."

..."We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said Monday on the Christian Broadcast Network's "The 700 Club."

 Christian?

I'm suggesting this month's issue of of Scientific American be read, cover to cover, by everyone. It's a single theme issue, titled Crossroads for Planet Earth. It's the best description of the upcoming bottleneck I've seen for informing mainstream types. Complete and detailed.

Here's the introduction to the issue. Seriously, go buy it.

The Climax of Humanity
Demographically and economically, our era is unique in human history. Depending on how we manage the next few decades, we could usher in environmental sustainability--or collapse
By George Musser

The 21st century feels like a letdown. We were promised flying cars, space colonies and 15-hour workweeks. Robots were supposed to do our chores, except when they were organizing rebellions; children were supposed to learn about disease from history books; portable fusion reactors were supposed to be on sale at the Home Depot. Even dystopian visions of the future predicted leaps of technology and social organization that leave our era in the dust.

Looking beyond the blinking lights and whirring gizmos, though, the new century is shaping up as one of the most amazing periods in human history. Three great transitions set in motion by the Industrial Revolution are reaching their culmination. After several centuries of faster-than-exponential growth, the world's population is stabilizing. Judging from current trends, it will plateau at around nine billion people toward the middle of this century. Meanwhile extreme poverty is receding both as a percentage of population and in absolute numbers. If China and India continue to follow in the economic footsteps of Japan and South Korea, by 2050 the average Chinese will be as rich as the average Swiss is today; the average Indian, as rich as today's Israeli. As humanity grows in size and wealth, however, it increasingly presses against the limits of the planet. Already we pump out carbon dioxide three times as fast as the oceans and land can absorb it; midcentury is when climatologists think global warming will really begin to bite. At the rate things are going, the world's forests and fisheries will be exhausted even sooner.

These three concurrent, intertwined transitions--demographic, economic, environmental--are what historians of the future will remember when they look back on our age. They are transforming everything from geopolitics to the structure of families. And they pose problems on a scale that humans have little experience with. As Harvard University biologist E. O. Wilson puts it, we are about to pass through "the bottleneck," a period of maximum stress on natural resources and human ingenuity.

I went to the Scientific American website to find a specific thing (which I did) but there's these cool articles just laying around the place like magazines scattered on the floor.

Why are lightning bolts jagged instead of straight?
Chimps Found to Conform to Cultural Norms

and my favorite...

Americans and Chinese Differ in Their World View--Literally

A study of Chinese and American students has found that the two groups looked at scenes in photographs in distinct ways. The findings indicate that previously observed cultural differences in judgment and memory between East Asians and North Americans derive from differences in what they actually see.

Parent-trap snares recruiters
The tune changes at some homes when they hear 'sign here'
Thursday, August 11, 2005
By Jack Kelly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Staff Sgt. Jason Rivera, 26, a Marine recruiter in Pittsburgh, went to the home of a high school student who had expressed interest in joining the Marine Reserve to talk to his parents.

It was a large home in a well-to-do suburb north of the city. Two American flags adorned the yard. The prospect's mom greeted him wearing an American flag T-shirt.

"I want you to know we support you," she gushed.

Rivera soon reached the limits of her support.

"Military service isn't for our son. It isn't for our kind of people," she told him.

No Proof Found of Iran Arms Program
Uranium Traced to Pakistani Equipment
By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 23, 2005; A01

Traces of bomb-grade uranium found two years ago in Iran came from contaminated Pakistani equipment and are not evidence of a clandestine nuclear weapons program, a group of U.S. government experts and other international scientists has determined.

"The biggest smoking gun that everyone was waving is now eliminated with these conclusions," said a senior official who discussed the still-confidential findings on the condition of anonymity.

Scientists from the United States, France, Japan, Britain and Russia met in secret during the past nine months to pore over data collected by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to U.S. and foreign officials. Recently, the group, whose existence had not been previously reported, definitively matched samples of the highly enriched uranium -- a key ingredient for a nuclear weapon -- with centrifuge equipment turned over by the government of Pakistan.

The first sentence is a problem...the diversity committee should be unified in its view of diversity. Other than that, it's cool.

No ideologues, please
OUR OPINION: BROWARD SCHOOL BOARD SHOULD REVAMP DIVERSITY PANEL

If the Broward County School Board wants to keep its diversity committee, then the committee should be just that -- diverse in views, experience and racial and ethnic makeup. It should reflect the demographics of the county. There should be room on it for philosophies ranging from conservative to liberal and all points in between, but no ideologues, please. And if it is to have any other job besides monitoring the 2000 settlement agreement between Citizens Concerned About Our Children and the School Board, that task should be promoting tolerance and diversity in county schools.

In The Watts Riots, Burned Into Memory, Mr . Wilkins writes

I think the difference between McWhorter and me arises in large measure from our profoundly different perspectives on the event. He writes that he was born two months after the riots occurred and that his conclusions are based on his research on the subject. Mine are based largely on what I learned when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent me to Watts 40 years ago this month as a part of two federal teams -- one headed by former Florida governor LeRoy Collins and the next by then-deputy attorney general Ramsey Clark -- both charged with helping to end the violence and figuring out what had caused it.

Interesting discussion continues at Vision Circle

"Conservative" vs. "Liberal": We Can't Afford It

So, Lester is attempting to give me a cyber-spanking on ideology.

That's all well and good. I put words out there so if someone goes for them, that's cool. But let me clarify me thinking a bit if I may.

I'm going to ruin the surprise and tell you Darkstar's meaning. An objective statement of need (and we can ignore the internals of the statement for this discussion) would not say "you need a Democrat to do this" or "you need a Republican to do that."

Quote of note:

Connecticut's legal argument, based on a passage in the law that was first put forth by Republicans during the Clinton administration and forbids Washington from requiring states to spend their own funds to put federal policies into effect, follows a similar lawsuit filed in April by school districts in three states and the nation's largest teachers' union in April. But it goes further, arguing that Secretary Spellings has aggravated the harm to Connecticut by denying the states' requests to continue its alternate-year program, which the suit says has made Connecticut students among the highest-ranking in the nation.

"Federal funding to Connecticut for N.C.L.B. mandates is substantially less than the costs attributable to the federal requirements of the N.C.L.B. Act," the complaint says. "The secretary's insistence on every-grade standardized testing," the suit says, "is unsupported by significant scientific research, and is arbitrary, capricious and contrary to law." 

Connecticut Takes U.S. to Court Over Bush Education Initiative
By SAM DILLON

...and open thread.

I did listen to Rhymefest's It Got Ugly the other day. Now, I'm not the hip-hop kid by any stretch so I'm not reviewing it. I do recognize the skills though, and y'all always did like it when a brother riffed on some rock and made it all ghetto.

Same day I happened to check Jay-Z's final concert at my cousin's house.

Last week my daughter (who is more of a Lilith Fair type) found an indie rapper she likes a lot...the hip-hop sensibilities are there, the rap skills are there and the gansta content is not.

I find I like two specific phases of rap...the high end, where it phases into spoken word, and the merely presentational that doesn't take itself so seriously. I find I dislike the commercial, formulaic stuff and the stuff where the dance music is the primary attribute while pretending to be deep...don't ask for examples, I don't listen long enough to remember the names.

Quote of note:

Red tide sucks oxygen out of the water, suffocating sea life, and contains poisons that impair the nerves. Eighty-one lumbering sea turtles have been killed by red tide in less than three months, a fourfold increase over the usual amount, and another eight are gravely ill. Last week, the algae bloom was blamed for a newly discovered ''dead zone'' off Tampa that extends along 2,000 square miles of ocean floor, a soupy underwater graveyard the size of Delaware filled with dead sponges, sand dollars and reefs.

Virulent algae creates red tide of death
A virulent algae bloom is laying waste to huge expanses of the Gulf. Scientists are split on why it's so severe.
BY CARA BUCKLEY

The low-crawler referred to in an eariler post

I hope your disrespectful ass is satisfied

I understand some low-crawler referred to Mrs. King as "professional widow."

Coretta Scott King set to begin therapy
Stroke affected arm, leg and speech

By ERNIE SUGGS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/19/05

 ...has apologized.

This morning I find I don't give a damn about anything in the news. Minor exception for skin cells being changed to stem cells, but not enough to even trouble quoting.

The Boston Globe has a couple of special reports I want to read, A Week on Lyndhurst Street and How We Live Here Now, but that ought to take me a while...ten articles in all.

I'm sure I'll post something or other but right now... 

News Analysis: Being Liberal Now Means Being African American
By Phil Reiff and Jason Alderman

If American liberals had four legs and fur, they would have been put on the Endangered Species List following last year’s presidential election. Defining who is liberal has become a national sport among politicians, as Democrats frantically run from the moniker, while Republicans hurl the invective blindly at everyone on the other side of the aisle.

New research done by the Bay Area Center for Voting Research (BACVR) reveals who the real liberals in American are and the answer is not the tree-hugging, ponytail wearing ex-hippies you might expect. Instead, the new face of American liberalism is of a decidedly different hue. The nation’s remaining liberals are overwhelming African Americans.

Watch that link, it's to a Microsoft Word .doc file.

Leaving my reason for investigating this as an execise for the reader, let's try a thought experiment.

Quote of note:

It was in December 2002 that Lott uttered the words that led to his fall. ''I want to say this about my state," he told the guests at a 100th birthday party for Thurmond, the 1948 Dixiecrat candidate for president and longtime senator from South Carolina. ''When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."

Lott's remarks, reported in The Washington Post, were greeted with ''an audible gasp and general silence." With good reason. If the rest of the country had followed Mississippi's lead in 1948, the 34th president of the United States would have been an unabashed racist. ''All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army," Thurmond had declared, ''cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, our churches, and our places of recreation and amusement." He had bolted the Democratic Party for one whose platform vowed to maintain ''the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race."

Who but a racist or a witless clod would claim more than 50 years later that America's problems were caused by integration and civil rights? Not even Thurmond, who had long since recanted his segregationist views, would have said such a thing.

Lott's a slow learner
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist  |  August 21, 2005

MISSISSIPPI SENATOR Trent Lott's new memoir, ''Herding Cats: A Life in Politics" goes on sale this week, more than 2 1/2 years after he was ousted as the Senate's Republican leader. The experience, it would seem, has taught him nothing.

As Lott tells the tale, he lost his post because disloyal Senate colleagues exploited an ''innocent but thoughtless remark" he made about Strom Thurmond's segregationist presidential campaign of 1948. He fumes in particular over Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, who succeeded him as Republican leader.

''I considered Frist's power grab a personal betrayal," Lott writes in the new book, according to the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call. ''I felt, and still feel, that he was one of the main manipulators of the whole scenario."

Or even attending to:

One solution is to add another income by getting married -- to someone earning about $52,000. But based on median salaries, this could mean refusing to wed a number of workers, including police officers, accountants, carpenters, electricians, and plumbers.

The housing struggle
August 21, 2005

GOT MONEY? That's the increasingly pressing question facing Americans who want to buy homes. Median housing prices have risen 20 percent nationally from 2003 to 2005, but salaries are lagging, according to research from the Center for Housing Policy, a nonprofit organization in Washington.

Quote of note:

Hamas's political leaders welcomed the setting of the election date. Hassan Yousef, a Hamas leader in the West Bank, said his group was ready for its first national contest. In recent months, Hamas has made a strong showing in several rounds of municipal elections and was expected to do well in the parliament vote.

''We have prepared our list of candidates, and we have even reserved a seat for the Christian minorities," Yousef said.

Abbas sets Jan. 25 for legislative vote
By Ibrahim Barzak, Associated Press  |  August 21, 2005

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas yesterday set overdue legislative elections for Jan. 25, a move that could boost his international credibility and encourage his biggest political rival, Hamas, to hold its fire during Israel's ongoing Gaza pullout.

Quote of note:

The lawsuit also describes accusations that Sabolick lied about having Jewish ancestors, fell under the control of Satan and "abused" his wife by making her wear "tight jeans."

Fired Pastor Sues for $15 Million
Orange County church's former leader says false rumors of infidelity, molestation were spread about him. Officials deny claims.
By Roy Rivenburg and Donna Horowitz
Special to The Times
August 21, 2005

After flat-lining twice on the operating table, Pastor Joe Sabolick figured the worst chapter of his life was over.

But when he returned to his office at Calvary Chapel of Laguna Beach a few weeks later, the locks had been changed — and his handpicked church board, including his older brother, had fired him amid allegations that he embezzled money and was "fixated" on the wife and daughter of an assistant pastor.

Quote of note:

Disability insurance — now carried by more than 50 million Americans — generally promises to replace at least half of a person's wages in case of illness or injury. However, in a substantial number of cases, especially those involving workers with long-term or permanent disabilities, it doesn't deliver.

The chief reason — and one that affects not only disability but the whole universe of employer-provided benefits — is a series of court decisions dealing with the federal benefits law known as ERISA. The decisions have prevented states from extending almost any form of consumer protection to these benefits, and have severely limited individuals' ability to successfully sue their insurers.

The Safety Net She Believed In Was Pulled Away When She Fell
Debra Potter made a good living selling disability coverage. But like many working Americans, she learned the hard way that federal law now favors insurers.
By Peter G. Gosselin, Times Staff Writer