If the goal were security, Israel would have built the fence a few km inside its borders. It could then be a mile high, patrolled on both sides by the IDF, mined with nuclear weapons, utterly impenetrable. Perfect security.
The problem would be that it would not take valuable Palestinian land and resources (including control of water), drive out the population, and lay the basis for still further expansion as Palestinians flee from the dungeons that are left, like the town of Qalqilya. So to interpret as a land grab seems appropriate.
Month: July 2004
Linklog
I’ve been wanting to start a Linklog for a long time to take the place of the occasional Link Dumps that I post and enable me to share links with you guys.
And well, today I finally got around to creating one. It’s somewhere on the left column.
The solution I opted for is a combination I put together using del.icio.us and feedroll.
I use del.icio.us to bookmark and comment interesting links I find when surfing and then feedroll to access my del.icio.us bookmarks rss and display them here.
It’s a simple clean solution which I think is very effective and cool.
I hope you enjoy the links I’ll be posting there 🙂
Jay Leno on presidential campaigns
These are some hilarious comments by Jay Leno on the presidential campaigns:
“What was it 91-92 degrees today? Man, I was sweatin’ like President Bush watching ‘Fahrenheit 9/11.”
“John Kerry has picked John Edwards as his running mate. … The New York Post reported John Kerry chose Dick Gephardt. But at the last second, John Kerry decided to go with a candidate with eyebrows.”
“As you know John Edwards is a former trial lawyer. Which is a smart move considering the last election was decided in court. Kerry may need him to step in and sue or something.”
“Political strategists said they thought Kerry was going to choose an older more financially successful running mate, ya know, like he did when he picked his wife.”
“The attacks have already started. ‘John Edwards is too inexperienced to be president; he’s too flashy; he’s not up to the job.’ And those are just the things John Kerry said in the primary!”
LOL…
Jay Leno rocks…
[Source: SFGate]
A Day To Remember
July 7th…
Now, that’s one day to remember for me…
July 7th 1998, in the summer course, after finishing my morning lectures, again I was faced with that scheduled hour of nothing to do.
No one I knew was free in that hour, everyone had lectures, and everytime I’d end up wandering around the University campus listening to my walkman or scribbling something down.
But not that day.
As I was walking from the faculty of science, past the square, past the university restaurant on my way to the languages center, there she was.
Ok before I get into that, I have to give you some background info.
Earlier in the year, towards the first semester and as I was sitting around with some friends of mine from the faculty of arts, I saw the most beautiful girl in the University of Jordan.
I didn’t know who she was, what her name was, what she did, nothing. All I knew is that I instantly fell for her.
I saw her more often from that day on, but she was always in a hurry going to a lecture or going home or something.
Anyway back to July 7th 1998.
There was that amazing girl and with her was a friend of mine.
They were walking my way too.
And we met, our common friend introduced us to each other, and things got better and better from that day on.
Now, that girl is my wife.
And that’s all because of that one fine day 😉
Kerry picks Edwards for VP
So, after keeping the media buzzing and speculating for months about who he will select as a VP candidate and keeping his whole selection process top secret, it’s finally out that Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry, has chosen his colleague Sen. John Edwards as his running mate for the 2004 presidential election.
Even though I don’t really believe that the choice of Vice President really affects the voting that much, I think it’s different this time.
The choice of Edwards is a really good and smart one.
I think that Edwards fills in the gaps and weaknesses that Kerry has. He’s more social, closer to the people, has a better sense of humour, spreads more enthusiasm and activity.
He somehow reminds me of Bill Clinton a bit.
And so, I think that while campaigning he’ll fill up the void in Kerry and make a stronger connection with the people and help get Kerry more votes to kick Bush out.
Ralph Nader: Conservatively Speaking
Just came across this really interesting interview with Ralph Nader (Thanks Mohsan) in which he talks about US foreign policy, Israeli lobbies, Israeli/Palestinian peace movements and lots more.
Here’s some of what he has to say:
“First of all, we have been supporting despots, dictators, and oligarchs in all those states for a variety of purposes. We supported Saddam Hussein. He was our anti-Communist dictator until 1990. (…) The other thing is that we are supporting the Israeli military regime with billions of dollars and ignoring both the Israeli peace movement and the Palestinian peace movement. (…) The subservience of our congressional and White House puppets to Israeli military policy has been consistent. (…) They’re almost all puppets. There are two sets: Congressional puppets and White House puppets. When the chief puppeteer comes to Washington, the puppets prance. (…) instead of focusing on how to bring a peaceful settlement, both parties concede their independent judgment to the pro-Israeli lobbies in this country”
Ralph Nader
[More: Ralph Nader: Conservatively Speaking]
[Via: Je Blog]
Greece 1 – Portugal 0
WOW…
That Euro 2004 final was really one hell of a match.
Portugal controlled the ball most of the time and put constant pressure on the Greece team, but still Greece (the surprise team of Euro 2004) played great, stood strong and won the game.
A 57th minute goal from Angelos Charisteas gave Greece the lead, and then it was virtually over as Greece’s defense became one great wall in front of the Portuguese.
It’s always great to see an underdog come into a world class tournament, take it by storm and win it leaving everyone’s jaws dropping.
Greece did exactly that.
The Greece football team is basiclaly an unknown, they’ve never made it to any important stage in any tournament and nobody thought they’d go anywhere this time either. But they were wrong.
I hear they’ll be putting up a sculpture of the German coach Otto Rehhagel who got them here in Athens.
I guess they’re that happy about it 🙂
Well, congratulations to Greece and hard luck to Portugal.
We Are What We Eat
It’s a common saying that We are what we eat. And in many ways it’s very true. But in these days do we really know what we’re eating?
Do we know what’s really in that burger?
Do we know what that pizza is truly made up of?
Do we know how healthy that fried chicken we’re eating was?
Do we know what kind of drugs, anti-biotics and hormones are in the meat, fruits and vegetables we buy and eat?
Do we know how healthy the animals or plants were before they were packaged for us?
No. We simply do not know all this. We just know that our food is not like it used to be. It’s unnatural now. How unnatural? No idea. How healthy? Is it healthy in the first place?
We hear of all the different stuff that’s happening. We hear about all the different reasons behind diseases like Mad cow disease and Birds Flu, …etc. We hear about the bad treatment of the animals, the bad conditions they’re in and the fact that they eat parts of other animals as well as each other’s remains.
It’s disgusting and revolting.
We hear about all the stuff that’s being done to vegetables and fruits, all the genetic tests being done on them, …etc.
Nowadays, neither fruits nor vegetables have any taste anymore. They’re merely tasteless different looking objects that we eat and try to convince ourselves we’re enjoying.
We are what we eat.
But we do not know what we’re eating, so we simply don’t know what we are!
We don’t know what the hell we’ve injected into our system during these years and years of eating this unnatural food that is being thrown at us.
We don’t know what kind of hormones, drugs, anti-biotics, diseases and more we’ve made part of us.
But we should know!
We should choose what’s good and healthy for us.
We should choose healthy natural organic old-fashioned food.
We should know what it is we’re eating.
We should know what we are!
Assuming Saddam’s Innocent
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Friday former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein should be assumed to be innocent in his trial.
Saddam Hussein Trial
Man, man, man…
Saddam Hussein was in court yesterday…
And what a show it was!
Saddam was very confident and extremely defiant. He was talking like he was still the President of Iraq, and he simply took control of the whole situation.
“This is all a theater” designed by President Bush, whom he called a criminal, to win re-election, he said.
He defended his invasion of Kuwait and questioned how an Iraqi judge could be asking him about it.
In short, he was very strong and unbroken.
I agree that Saddam is a criminal who deserves to be tried in a court of law for what he did.
I had a lot of Iraqi friends when I was in Jordan, and I knew how life was in Iraq not from the media, but from the people who lived it themselves.
It was a nightmare for these people. I had a friend who was afraid of going back to Iraq because they’d catch him and cut his ears off for not going into the army.
And I saw many families scattered and heard many tragedic stories about loss of family and friends.
Anyway, just like it’s always been, Saddam gets his charisma and popularity from his strength and his ability to defy his enemies.
To many arabs, Saddam was the last courageous arab man, the last person who could stand up to the US and defy them and mock them.
Everyone knew about the atrocities he committed in Iraq but still that would all be forgotten and they’d only see the side of Saddam that is strong and defiant, the side they loved him for.
Showing him in court yesterday and showing how he still is strong willed and defiant will only make people admire him for it.
I’ve heard that they showed the video so that people would know that he’s being tried by an Iraqi court and an Iraqi judge and that it would be fair. Well, people know that’s all an image, or theater as Saddam put it, and it’s obvious the US is the one pulling the strings from behind the curtains.
Of course, a lot of people are happy to see that he’s going to be tried for all he’s done, and hope that he gets the death penalty, and they don’t care who’s behind it as long as it’s done.
But some other people see a Saddam who is not willing to let go, who is still confident, who can’t be broken. And they will be awed by that and will admire him more. Something I’m sure the US and the interim Iraqi administration don’t want to see happening.