ProSemiteUndercover

U.S. Politics :: NARAL reeling from Obama endorsement

Author: Colorado Blue
Subject: NARAL reeling from Obama endorsement
Posted: May 17, 2008 00:37 (GMT -5)
Topic Replies: 0

By BETH FRERKING | 5/16/08 2:02 PM EST

With the clock running down on a long-fought primary, NARAL Pro-Choice America leaders sent state affiliates reeling this week by endorsing Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. It was seen as a gratuitous slap in the face to a longtime ally, and it sparked a fear even closer to home: that the move will alienate donors loyal to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

Many on this week�s conference call were stunned on learning the news, making urgent pleas for the group to remain neutral until after the June 3 Democratic primaries.

�It�s created a firestorm,� said NARAL Pro-Choice New York President Kelli Conlin, who was on the conference call. �Everyone was mystified ... saying, �What is the upside for the organization? And, frankly, [there was] a lot of concern about the donor base. ... There was real concern there would be a backlash.�

There was a backlash, and it was swift, starting with NARAL�s own website. At last count, there were more than 3,300 comments in an electronic chat about the endorsement, the overwhelming majority of them negative. �Shame shame shame!� read one, with many correspondents threatening never to support NARAL financially again. �No more donations from me!!!� wrote another.

snip

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10408.html

Well they lost me. Sheese. The primary season ISN'T OVER YET, hello?
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Never Again!

U.S. Politics :: The Obama Response to Bush

Author: Colorado Blue
Subject: The Obama Response to Bush
Posted: May 17, 2008 00:32 (GMT -5)
Topic Replies: 0

The Obama Response to Bush

I thought it was generally shrewd and well-executed. It's important in these situations not to whine at length about the cheap shot you've taken, but to swing back aggressively. Obama pretty much did that. He noted the egregiousness of Bush's breach of protocol, and McCain's hypocrisy in embracing the Knesset attack after all his civility-speak. But he pivoted pretty quickly to the greatest hits of Bush's foreign policy failures, which don't exactly evoke thoughts of safety and security.

Obama also seized the opportunity to tie McCain to Bush, which may be the biggest problem these periodic flare-ups pose for McCain. And he sounded pretty forceful--there wasn't a thing about his presentation that evoked Dukakis. My only gripe is that he was a little halting in spots and stepped on some choice lines as a result. But I doubt it'll take him long to get fluent with this new, more detailed foreign-policy indictment.

On a slightly more substantive note, I thought it was interesting that Obama hit Bush for the elections that brought Hamas to power. He's clearly right on this--it was the height of stupidity to hold elections in a place that's neither liberal nor democratic and to expect them to magically produce a liberal democracy. It's still boggles the mind that the administration didn't anticipate the Hamas victory.

snip

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_stump/archive/2008/05/16/the-obama-response-to-bush.aspx
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Never Again!

U.S. Politics :: Backlash Against Media Smears in the Heartland

Author: Colorado Blue
Subject: Backlash Against Media Smears in the Heartland
Posted: May 17, 2008 00:24 (GMT -5)
Topic Replies: 0

This is interesting:

The media narrative on the primaries in Indiana and West Virginia hinted at racism as the reason why Obama lost. There are plenty of Hoosiers and Mountaineers who won't take that charge lying down.

May 16, 2008 - by Ari Kaufman

On Tuesday, Washington Post associate editor Kevin Merida published a front page article ostensibly decrying racisim in Indiana and elsewhere based upon spurious evidence. Merida, an African-American and author of a 2007 book that was fiercely critical of Justice Clarence Thomas, displayed subjective journalism at its finest with this �news� story. He also revealed an agenda on the part of the mainstream media � used the following day by Ruben Navarrette of CNN.com � to demean and label as �racist� anyone not voting for Obama.

In his 2,000 word piece, Merida recalled his travels throughout the state, which included, as he pointed out to me via email, �hanging out at the Applebees bar in Kokomo and talking to Obama staff and volunteers.� He quotes local residents about their feelings towards Obama, regularly portraying their words along racial lines. The �story from the trail� he opens with is about a girl who actually postponed her sophomore year at college �to hopscotch America stumping for Barack Obama.� Her experience with someone who said �I�ll never vote for a black person� stands as the centerpiece of Merida�s theory of what towns in Indiana are about. In the first half of the article � which Merida, a veteran reporter, wisely realizes is all most readers read � he harps upon the �horrible response� and �anti-black sentiment� the Obama volunteers encountered near Wal-Mart and on street corners.

Ironically, later in the article, Merida notes that �Obama campaign officials say such incidents are isolated, that the experience of most volunteers and staffers has been overwhelmingly positive.� And he is even more generous by citing an Obama campaign statement in response to questions about encounters with racism that reads in part:

After campaigning for 15 months in nearly all 50 states, Barack Obama and our entire campaign have been nothing but impressed and encouraged by the core decency, kindness, and generosity of Americans from all walks of life. The last year has only reinforced Senator Obama�s view that this country is not as divided as our politics suggest.

snip

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/backlash-against-media-smears-in-the-heartland/
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Never Again!

U.S. Politics :: Conservative Gloominess

Author: Colorado Blue
Subject: Conservative Gloominess
Posted: May 17, 2008 00:16 (GMT -5)
Topic Replies: 0

Roger�s RulesMay 16th, 2008 9:26 am

Conservative gloominess
Support Pajamas Media; Visit Our AdvertisersWhen it comes to near-term Republican prospects, the punditocracy is divided. On the Left, it is doom, gloom, and gloat, as E. J. Dionne illustrates in a piece arguing that the G.O.P. is a �brand on the run.� On the right, it is doom, gloom, and gripe, as Peggy Noonan illustrates in a piece lamenting that Republicans are �busy dying.� �The brightest of them,� she writes, �see no immediate light. They�re frozen, not like a deer in the headlights but a deer in the darkness, his ears stiff at the sound. Crunch. Twig. Hunting party.�

What should we think of all these distress calls? I confess I disapprove of them. In the first place, I do not think they�re at all justified. What Victor Davis Hanson called �the echo chamber� has taken over. One creditable�or at least listened to�pundit or politician opines in a way the media likes and, presto, a new bit of conventional �wisdom� is born�or at least reinforced. A mere opinion, often ill-informed, frequently at wide variance with the truth, is repeated often enough, and it suddenly acquires the carapace of general currency that, at a distance, can easily be mistaken for fact.

Hanson was writing about the conventional �wisdom� on the war in Iraq, but the echo chamber is at work on other issues as well. One conspicuous example, I believe, is the fate of conservatism. More than two decades ago, Daniel Patrick Moynihan ruefully noted that Republicans had become �the party of ideas.� He was right about that, as recent American political history amply attests on issues from welfare and taxes to free markets and national security. But in the last couple of years, conservatives, especially conservatives in America and Europe, have seen their prospects fed into the echo chamber. Everywhere one looks, it seems, the fortunes of conservatism are�or are said to be�on the ebb. You can hardly open a newspaper or tune into a television news show without being warned (or, more often, without hearing celebratory shouts) that now, finally, at last, the forces of enlightenment and progress are once again on the ascendant, that conservative ideas and the people promulgating them are in rout. One saw this, for example, in the the aura of supposed inevitability�now conspicuously dissipated�that attended the campaign of Hillary Clinton a few months ago. People from every political persuasion simply took it for granted that the Presidency was hers for the asking. Why?

I have recently begun keeping a folder marked �Conservative Gloominess.� It is full of articles and animadversions by various hands: dire prognostications about who the next occupant of the White House will be, harrowing descriptions of disarray among conservatives, despairing portraits of U.S. or European society. What�s odd, or at least uncharacteristic about these bulletins from the abyss is not their substance�to be candid, I have written plenty of items that could justly be filed there�but their tone and what we might call their existential orientation. From time immemorial conservatives have delighted in writing works with titles like Leviathan, The Decline of the West, The Waste Land. Nevertheless, by habit and disposition conservatives tend, as a species, to be less gloomy than�than what? What shall we call those who occupy a position opposite that of conservatives? Not liberals, surely, since they are so often conspicuously illiberal, i.e., opposed to freedom and all its works. Indeed, when it comes to the word �liberal,� Russell Kirk came close to the truth when he observed that he was conservative because he was a liberal. In any event, whatever the opposite of conservatives should be called�perhaps John Fonte�s marvellous coinage �transnational progressives� is best�they tend to be gloomy, partly, I suspect, because of disappointed utopian ambitions.

snip

A good read:

http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerkimball/2008/05/16/conservative-gloominess/

Note: This last few years, watching the blogs, has caused me to question EVERYTHING. Therefore I will post from Conservative sources from time to time.

So sue me.

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Never Again!

Lebanon, Hezbollah and the Iranian Nuclear Threat :: Lebanon's Future by Michael Totten

Author: Colorado Blue
Subject: Lebanon's Future by Michael Totten
Posted: May 17, 2008 00:07 (GMT -5)
Topic Replies: 0

Lebanon's Future
Michael J. Totten
WEB ONLY

Lebanon will not become the next Gaza.

Commenters both inside and outside the country compared Hezbollah's invasion of West Beirut last week to the Hamas takeover of Gaza last year, which is perhaps understandable: that's what it looked like. If Lebanon's mainstream Sunni-dominated party--Saad Hariri's Future Movement--has a militia that is able and willing to fight, it didn't make much of an appearance. Hezbollah seized the western half of the city in a walk. Most journalists focused on this portion of the conflict because West Beirut is where almost every journalist in Lebanon lives and where almost every hotel for visiting journalists is located.

Far less attention has been paid to Hezbollah's military and strategic failure in the Chouf mountains southeast of Beirut where Lebanon's Druze community lives. Hezbollah picked a major fight there and lost. After three days of pitched battles, its gunmen were unable to conquer a single village--even when they brought out mortars and heavy artillery.

snip

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/lebanon-s-future-11376

Excellent piece as always.
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Never Again!

General Discussion :: RE: The obsession

Author: GabysPoppy
Subject: Re: The obsession
Posted: May 16, 2008 23:58 (GMT -5)
Topic Replies: 1

Colorado Blue wrote:

CAN ANYBODY EXPLAIN THE BRITISH PRESS TO ME? BBC and The Guardian in particular?

A WRAPPER FOR DEAD FISH
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We Stand as One
My Nickel's Worth

Lebanon, Hezbollah and the Iranian Nuclear Threat :: RE: The Betrayal of Lebanon (Brits got little news about this!)

Author: GabysPoppy
Posted: May 16, 2008 23:55 (GMT -5)
Topic Replies: 1

NO SURPRISES THERE

Barely a mention at the PIgsty or KAPO's forum either. Although the PIglets in passing blamed the USA for the mess in Lebanon but you would expect that.
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We Stand as One
My Nickel's Worth

U.S. Politics and Israel :: RE: Masada Shall Never Fall Again

Author: Colorado Blue
Posted: May 16, 2008 23:46 (GMT -5)
Topic Replies: 1

I'm baffled, actually, why the Democratic Party & Senator Obama decided to attack Bush on this speech.

Frankly it worries me that they did. I think it's a great speech.

The fact that people had a cow about it concerns me.

Indeed, it turned one member of my household into a Republican - not the speech but the response to it - and he isn't Jewish. But his father fought for Hitler.
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Never Again!

U.S. Politics and Israel :: Masada Shall Never Fall Again

Author: Colorado Blue
Subject: Masada Shall Never Fall Again
Posted: May 16, 2008 23:43 (GMT -5)
Topic Replies: 1

Today, President Bush gave a historic speech before the Knesset celebrating the birth of the Jewish state. Below is the full text.

President Peres and Mr. Prime Minister, Madam Speaker, thank very much for hosting this special session. President Beinish, Leader of the Opposition Netanyahu, Ministers, members of the Knesset, distinguished guests: Shalom. Laura and I are thrilled to be back in Israel. We have been deeply moved by the celebrations of the past two days. And this afternoon, I am honored to stand before one of the world�s great democratic assemblies and convey the wishes of the American people with these words: Yom Ha�atzmaut Sameach.

It is a rare privilege for the American President to speak to the Knesset. Although the Prime Minister told me there is something even rarer � to have just one person in this chamber speaking at a time. My only regret is that one of Israel�s greatest leaders is not here to share this moment. He is a warrior for the ages, a man of peace, a friend. The prayers of the American people are with Ariel Sharon.

We gather to mark a momentous occasion. Sixty years ago in Tel Aviv, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed Israel�s independence, founded on the �natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate.� What followed was more than the establishment of a new country. It was the redemption of an ancient promise given to Abraham and Moses and David � a homeland for the chosen people Eretz Yisrael.

Eleven minutes later, on the orders of President Harry Truman, the United States was proud to be the first nation to recognize Israel�s independence. And on this landmark anniversary, America is proud to be Israel�s closest ally and best friend in the world.

The alliance between our governments is unbreakable, yet the source of our friendship runs deeper than any treaty. It is grounded in the shared spirit of our people, the bonds of the Book, the ties of the soul. When William Bradford stepped off the Mayflower in 1620, he quoted the words of Jeremiah: �Come let us declare in Zion the word of God.� The founders of my country saw a new promised land and bestowed upon their towns names like Bethlehem and New Canaan. And in time, many Americans became passionate advocates for a Jewish state.

Centuries of suffering and sacrifice would pass before the dream was fulfilled. The Jewish people endured the agony of the pogroms, the tragedy of the Great War, and the horror of the Holocaust � what Elie Wiesel called �the kingdom of the night.� Soulless men took away lives and broke apart families. Yet they could not take away the spirit of the Jewish people, and they could not break the promise of God. When news of Israel�s freedom finally arrived, Golda Meir, a fearless woman raised in Wisconsin, could summon only tears. She later said: �For two thousand years we have waited for our deliverance. Now that it is here it is so great and wonderful that it surpasses human words.�

The joy of independence was tempered by the outbreak of battle, a struggle that has continued for six decades. Yet in spite of the violence, in defiance of the threats, Israel has built a thriving democracy in the heart of the Holy Land. You have welcomed immigrants from the four corners of the Earth. You have forged a free and modern society based on the love of liberty, a passion for justice, and a respect for human dignity. You have worked tirelessly for peace. You have fought valiantly for freedom.

My country�s admiration for Israel does not end there. When Americans look at Israel, we see a pioneer spirit that worked an agricultural miracle and now leads a high-tech revolution. We see world-class universities and a global leader in business and innovation and the arts. We see a resource more valuable than oil or gold: the talent and determination of a free people who refuse to let any obstacle stand in the way of their destiny.

I have been fortunate to see the character of Israel up close. I have touched the Western Wall, seen the sun reflected in the Sea of Galilee, I have prayed at Yad Vashem. And earlier today, I visited Masada, an inspiring monument to courage and sacrifice. At this historic site, Israeli soldiers swear an oath: �Masada shall never fall again.� Citizens of Israel: Masada shall never fall again, and America will be at your side.

This anniversary is a time to reflect on the past. It�s also an opportunity to look to the future. As we go forward, our alliance will be guided by clear principles � shared convictions rooted in moral clarity and unswayed by popularity polls or the shifting opinions of international elites.

We believe in the matchless value of every man, woman, and child. So we insist that the people of Israel have the right to a decent, normal, and peaceful life, just like the citizens of every other nation.

We believe that democracy is the only way to ensure human rights. So we consider it a source of shame that the United Nations routinely passes more human rights resolutions against the freest democracy in the Middle East than any other nation in the world.

We believe that religious liberty is fundamental to a civilized society. So we condemn anti-Semitism in all forms � whether by those who openly question Israel�s right to exist, or by others who quietly excuse them.

We believe that free people should strive and sacrifice for peace. So we applaud the courageous choices Israeli�s leaders have made. We also believe that nations have a right to defend themselves and that no nation should ever be forced to negotiate with killers pledged to its destruction.

We believe that targeting innocent lives to achieve political objectives is always and everywhere wrong. So we stand together against terror and extremism, and we will never let down our guard or lose our resolve.

The fight against terror and extremism is the defining challenge of our time. It is more than a clash of arms. It is a clash of visions, a great ideological struggle. On the one side are those who defend the ideals of justice and dignity with the power of reason and truth. On the other side are those who pursue a narrow vision of cruelty and control by committing murder, inciting fear, and spreading lies.

This struggle is waged with the technology of the 21st century, but at its core it is an ancient battle between good and evil. The killers claim the mantle of Islam, but they are not religious men. No one who prays to the God of Abraham could strap a suicide vest to an innocent child, or blow up guiltless guests at a Passover Seder, or fly planes into office buildings filled with unsuspecting workers. In truth, the men who carry out these savage acts serve no higher goal than their own desire for power. They accept no God before themselves. And they reserve a special hatred for the most ardent defenders of liberty, including Americans and Israelis.

And that is why the founding charter of Hamas calls for the �elimination� of Israel. And that is why the followers of Hezbollah chant �Death to Israel, Death to America!� That is why Osama bin Laden teaches that �the killing of Jews and Americans is one of the biggest duties.� And that is why the President of Iran dreams of returning the Middle East to the Middle Ages and calls for Israel to be wiped off the map.

There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in these men and try to explain away their words. It�s natural, but it is deadly wrong. As witnesses to evil in the past, we carry a solemn responsibility to take these words seriously. Jews and Americans have seen the consequences of disregarding the words of leaders who espouse hatred. And that is a mistake the world must not repeat in the 21st century.

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: �Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.� We have an obligation to call this what it is � the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

Some people suggest if the United States would just break ties with Israel, all our problems in the Middle East would go away. This is a tired argument that buys into the propaganda of the enemies of peace, and America utterly rejects it. Israel�s population may be just over 7 million. But when you confront terror and evil, you are 307 million strong, because the United States of America stands with you.

America stands with you in breaking up terrorist networks and denying the extremists sanctuary. America stands with you in firmly opposing Iran�s nuclear weapons ambitions. Permitting the world�s leading sponsor of terror to possess the world�s deadliest weapons would be an unforgivable betrayal for future generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

Ultimately, to prevail in this struggle, we must offer an alternative to the ideology of the extremists by extending our vision of justice and tolerance and freedom and hope. These values are the self-evident right of all people, of all religions, in all the world because they are a gift from the Almighty God. Securing these rights is also the surest way to secure peace. Leaders who are accountable to their people will not pursue endless confrontation and bloodshed. Young people with a place in their society and a voice in their future are less likely to search for meaning in radicalism. Societies where citizens can express their conscience and worship their God will not export violence, they will be partners in peace.

The fundamental insight, that freedom yields peace, is the great lesson of the 20th century. Now our task is to apply it to the 21st. Nowhere is this work more urgent than here in the Middle East. We must stand with the reformers working to break the old patterns of tyranny and despair. We must give voice to millions of ordinary people who dream of a better life in a free society. We must confront the moral relativism that views all forms of government as equally acceptable and thereby consigns whole societies to slavery. Above all, we must have faith in our values and ourselves and confidently pursue the expansion of liberty as the path to a peaceful future.

That future will be a dramatic departure from the Middle East of today. So as we mark 60 years from Israel�s founding, let us try to envision the region 60 years from now. This vision is not going to arrive easily or overnight; it will encounter violent resistance. But if we and future Presidents and future Knessets maintain our resolve and have faith in our ideals, here is the Middle East that we can see:

Israel will be celebrating the 120th anniversary as one of the world�s great democracies, a secure and flourishing homeland for the Jewish people. The Palestinian people will have the homeland they have long dreamed of and deserved � a democratic state that is governed by law, and respects human rights, and rejects terror. From Cairo to Riyadh to Baghdad and Beirut, people will live in free and independent societies, where a desire for peace is reinforced by ties of diplomacy and tourism and trade. Iran and Syria will be peaceful nations, with today�s oppression a distant memory and where people are free to speak their minds and develop their God-given talents. Al Qaeda and Hezbollah and Hamas will be defeated, as Muslims across the region recognize the emptiness of the terrorists� vision and the injustice of their cause.

Overall, the Middle East will be characterized by a new period of tolerance and integration. And this doesn�t mean that Israel and its neighbors will be best of friends. But when leaders across the region answer to their people, they will focus their energies on schools and jobs, not on rocket attacks and suicide bombings. With this change, Israel will open a new hopeful chapter in which its people can live a normal life, and the dream of Herzl and the founders of 1948 can be fully and finally realized.

This is a bold vision, and some will say it can never be achieved. But think about what we have witnessed in our own time. When Europe was destroying itself through total war and genocide, it was difficult to envision a continent that six decades later would be free and at peace. When Japanese pilots were flying suicide missions into American battleships, it seemed impossible that six decades later Japan would be a democracy, a lynchpin of security in Asia, and one of America�s closest friends. And when waves of refugees arrived here in the desert with nothing, surrounded by hostile armies, it was almost unimaginable that Israel would grow into one of the freest and most successful nations on the earth.

Yet each one of these transformations took place. And a future of transformation is possible in the Middle East, so long as a new generation of leaders has the courage to defeat the enemies of freedom, to make the hard choices necessary for peace, and stand firm on the solid rock of universal values.

Sixty years ago, on the eve of Israel�s independence, the last British soldiers departing Jerusalem stopped at a building in the Jewish quarter of the Old City. An officer knocked on the door and met a senior rabbi. The officer presented him with a short iron bar � the key to the Zion Gate � and said it was the first time in 18 centuries that a key to the gates of Jerusalem had belonged to a Jew. His hands trembling, the rabbi offered a prayer of thanksgiving to God, �Who had granted us life and permitted us to reach this day.� Then he turned to the officer, and uttered the words Jews had awaited for so long: �I accept this key in the name of my people.�

Over the past six decades, the Jewish people have established a state that would make that humble rabbi proud. You have raised a modern society in the Promised Land, a light unto the nations that preserves the legacy of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And you have built a mighty democracy that will endure forever and can always count on the United States of America to be at your side. God bless.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/masada-shall-never-fall-again-11375
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Never Again!

Humanitarian and Civil Rights :: Same Sex Couples Common in the Wild

Author: Colorado Blue
Subject: Same Sex Couples Common in the Wild
Posted: May 16, 2008 23:27 (GMT -5)
Topic Replies: 0

Clara Moskowitz
LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.com
Fri May 16, 5:31 PM ET

As gay couples celebrate their newfound right to marry in California and opposition groups rally to fight the ruling, many struggle with this question: Is homosexuality natural?

ADVERTISEMENT

On this issue, Nature has spoken: Same-sex lovin' is common in hundreds of species, scientists say.

Roy and Silo, two male chinstrap penguins at New York's Central Park Zoo, were a couple for about six years, during which they nurtured a fertilized egg together (given to them by a zookeeper) and raised the young chick that hatched.

According to University of Oslo zoologist Petter B�ckman, about 1,500 animal species are known to practice same-sex coupling, including bears, gorillas, flamingos, owls, salmon and many others.

If homosexuality is natural in the animal kingdom, then there is the question of why evolution hasn't eliminated this trait from the gene pool, since it doesn't lead to reproduction.

It may simply be for pleasure.

"Not every sexual act has a reproductive function," said Janet Mann, a biologist at Georgetown University who studies dolphins (homosexual behavior is very common in these marine mammals). "That's true of humans and non-humans."

Some scientists have proposed that being gay may serve its own evolutionary purpose.

"It could be a way that you strengthen bonds - that's one hypothesis," Mann told LiveScience. "Another is that it could be practice for heterosexual sex. Bottlenose dolphin calves mount each other a lot. That might benefit them later on."

Marlene Zuk, a biologist at the University of California, Riverside, suggested that gay individuals contribute to the gene pool of their community by nurturing their relatives' young without diverting resources by having their own offspring.

One thing that does seem to be exclusive to humans is homophobia.

"It's a very interesting question as to why anybody ever cares," Mann said. "There are different theories about why people find it threatening. Some think it disrupts male bonds, like you're not playing for the right team. The funny thing is that people say homosexuality is unnatural, that non-humans don't engage in homosexual behavior, but that's not true. Then they'll say it's base and animalistic."

Humans' resistance to the idea of homosexuality extends even to research on the behavior in animals. Scientists who study the topic are often accused of trying to forward an agenda, and their work can come under greater scrutiny than that of their colleagues who study other topics, Mann said

"It's kind of a shame because I think that probably is a reason why people don't look at it more," Mann said. "That's probably why we haven't gotten further. You would think we'd know more than we do by now."

Top 10 Gay Animals: Alternate Lifestyles in the Wild
Sex Quiz: Myths, Taboos and Bizarre Facts
Mom's Genetics Could Produce Gay Sons

Original Story: Same Sex Couples Common in the Wild

Visit LiveScience.com for more daily news, views and scientific inquiry with an original, provocative point of view.

snip

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080516/sc_livescience/samesexcouplescommoninthewild;_ylt=Ash2viOsJRW6YbSTLqs5AQMiANEA
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Never Again!

General Discussion :: The obsession

Author: Colorado Blue
Subject: The obsession
Posted: May 16, 2008 22:47 (GMT -5)
Topic Replies: 1

The Guardian�s hatred of Israel and the Jews truly is a fathomless � and unfathomable � well. The last few days around Israel�s 60th anniversary have seen a further escalation of its obsessive verbal pogrom. Today it published a piece by Samir el Youssef which turned the Arab attempt to exterminate Israel in 1948 into an attempt by Israel to exterminate Palestinian society (which did not then exist, as many Arabs have attested) but for which he magnanimously suggests Israel should be forgiven.

This follows a previous modest proposal by Ahmad Samih Khalidi of the need to choose between never-ending conflict and a new form of power sharing beyond the two state solution (ie the end of Israel); a series on Gaza�s heartbreaking human tragedies (Israel�s fault) plus a series of even more heartbreaking videos on the same; and for good measure the ex-editor of Haaretz, David Landau, (who recently shot to fame by telling Condoleezza Rice that Israel wanted to be �raped� by the US to impose a settlement with the Palestinians) bemoaning the �chasm' within Israeli society at the bottom of which were the indigenous poor.

Today also saw an interview with Daniel Barenboim, who in his moral and intellectual confusion sadly offers himself up as that most prized gift of all to Jew-haters: an Israeli Jew who attacks Israel, thus conferring immunity against the charge of prejudice. Barenboim is convinced that the golden innocence of the Israel of his youth has been replaced by Jewish imperialism and hate-fuelled belligerence which has erased the �fabled Jewish intellect� and created the Palestinian misery of Nablus. No acknowledgement of the fact that the Palestinians of Nablus and elsewhere are the architects of their own misery on account of their hatred of Israel, and that even the �fabled Jewish intellect� needs to defend itself against their unending murderous attacks. No, for Barenboim what eats away at him is this:
We wanted to own land that had never belonged to Jews and build settlements there. The Palestinians see this as imperialistic provocation, and rightly so. Their resistance is absolutely understandable - not the means they use to this end, not the violence nor the wanton inhumanity - but their �no�. We Israelis must finally find the courage to not react to this violence, the courage to stand by our history.
The tragedy is that Barenboim himself is falsifying that history, of which he seems to be totally unaware.

snip

Read the rest:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/705546/the-obsession.thtml

CAN ANYBODY EXPLAIN THE BRITISH PRESS TO ME? BBC and The Guardian in particular?
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Never Again!

Lebanon, Hezbollah and the Iranian Nuclear Threat :: The Betrayal of Lebanon (Brits got little news about this!)

Author: Colorado Blue
Subject: The Betrayal of Lebanon (Brits got little news about this!)
Posted: May 16, 2008 22:36 (GMT -5)
Topic Replies: 1

Astonishing - apparently the Hezbollah attacks in Lebanon received almost no coverage in Britain! Good heavens:

Friday, 16th May 2008
The betrayal of Lebanon
3:35pm
The most important global event in the past week has been the attempted Hezbollah putsch in Lebanon. Accordingly it has received next to no coverage in Britain, where as the citizenry so insightfully informed the world in 2006: �We are all Hezbollah now�. Those who rant obsessively about Israel�s �occupation� of the disputed territories are completely silent about Hezbollah�s invasion of Lebanon, its creeping state-within-a-state and its near-annihilation of Lebanon�s government which tried to stop the putsch and failed � despite that government being backed, as Walid Phares points out here, by an overwhelming sector of the public including most of the Sunnis, Christians and Druze plus a minority among the Shia, two thirds of the Lebanese Army, and a majority in Parliament. What coverage there has been has presented this development as yet another round in the schismatic internal politics of...

snip

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/

I remember that - the so-called "left" in Britain and the US marching around with Hezbollah flags - good lord.

At least here we got some news about this.

Holy s***.
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General Discussion :: I Hope Al Gore Is Hanging His Head

Author: Colorado Blue
Subject: I Hope Al Gore Is Hanging His Head
Posted: May 16, 2008 22:32 (GMT -5)
Topic Replies: 0

Posted by Daniel Hannan on 13 May 2008 at 23:02

Tags: Nobel Prize, Danny Kruger, Al Gore. Irena Sendler, Warsaw ghetto
I am ashamed to admit that I had never heard of Irena Sendler, whose obituary appeared in this morning�s paper. Hers is an awesomely humbling story, even by the standards of her heroic generation.

Polish Catholic, she spirited some 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw ghetto, displaying casual and extraordinary courage. She kept a list of the children she had saved, hoping one day to reunite them with their parents � although, in the event, almost all lost their families in Treblinka. In 1943, she was arrested by the Gestapo and tortured. Her legs and feet were broken, but she refused to give up her list. She was sentenced to death, but rescued, whereupon � almost unbelievably � she went back to work.

Here, though, is the sentence that leapt off the page at me: �Last year she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, eventually won by Al Gore.� Al Gore! I mean, nothing against the old lardbutt � it�s nice to see ex-politicians doing something they believe in rather than giving themselves over wholly to the getting of personal wealth � but making a film is not the same thing as donning a yellow star and smuggling babies past enemy soldiers.

Our generation, as Danny Kruger put it in the best tract of 2007, is moralistic rather than moral. We are better at holding opinions about what governments or multi-nationals should do than we are at doing the right thing by our neighbours. Having formed our opinions, we become self-righteous in a way that the Irena Sendlers of the world couldn�t understand.

�We who were rescuing children are not some kind of heroes�, she said towards the end of her life. �That term irritates me greatly. The opposite is true � I continue to have qualms of conscience that I did so little. I could have done more. This regret will follow me to my death.� There is a haunting sincerity to that statement. You can�t imagine Al Gore saying any such thing, can you?

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/politics/danielhannan/may08/irena.htm
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General Discussion :: The Heroes Still With Us (great piece)

Author: Colorado Blue
Subject: The Heroes Still With Us (great piece)
Posted: May 16, 2008 22:18 (GMT -5)
Topic Replies: 0

This is about the famous "Dam Busters" mission during WWII - but also, about the BBC article commemorating its anniversary - which notes:

Civilians killed

It shouldn�t be forgotten that hundreds of civilians died that night as floodwaters washed down the valleys below the dams, sweeping aside farms and villages.

***

Brett observes:

Now, I feel uneasy about this observation. First of all, we�re talking about WWII here, where almost the entire world was in a state of �total war�. Horrible as it is, civillian deaths were almost a given at that time. Is elevating this information from footnote to bold subheading the first step towards applying a dubious and revisionist anachronism? Secondly, I fear how soon it may be until we start debating whether those heroic airmen (including the more than one third who did not return from this mission) were in fact war criminals?

The prospect of this looming discourse fills me with dread: the mutterings of an ungrateful generation who no nothing of what it took to stop the march of Fascism.

I can�t help it. Another memory. This time of my grandmother berating the teenage me for putting more cheese on my sandwich than they would have had for a week �during the war�. I remember my smart-alec replies at the time with shame. What can someone of my generation really have to say to these surviving old-timers, these heroes, except �thank you�?

http://www.hurryupharry.org/2008/05/16/the-heros-still-with-us/

Related links:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1967597/Dambuster-veterans-reunite-for-the-last-time.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7404447.stm

***

Thoughts? If I hadn't seen that Seattle paper claiming Hitler wasn't "unreasonable," I wouldn't share Brett's nervousness. But the world seems to have a highly selective memory and sense of outrage. Millions are killed in Africa but nobody notices - on the other hand, Western "progressives" work themselves into a frenzy about Gaza and refer to it as the Warsaw Ghetto; American universities, like UC Irvine, say nothing about gross abuses of women yet accuse Israel of "genocide."

Something is amiss in the West. Is our sense of history becoming skewed, along with our ability to deal with challenges in the present?
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U.S. Politics :: RE: Huckabee is an IDIOT!

Author: Colorado Blue
Posted: May 16, 2008 21:59 (GMT -5)
Topic Replies: 2

babylady wrote:

this guy calls himself a christian. Jesus H. Christ.

first when asked if mormons were christians, he said he didn't know. then he asked "don't mormons believe jesus and the devil were cousins"? he knew the impact those remarks would have on romney.

nu?

Outrageous.
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Never Again!