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Well tonight was back to work night. I didn’t sleep much today. It is so hard to readjust your body from sleeping nights to sleeping days after a weekend. Tomorrow morning I am going with Dawnell for an appointment with a surgeon. She wants me there, she has never had an operation and she is pretty freaked out about it. I don’t blame her. I have had a few operations and it doesn’t bother me, infact it is kind of nice with the drugs they give you before and after. Ah.. to have been of age and lived in the 60’s.
Gas prices have gotten so high, I am starting to wonder if I will be able to drive back and forth to work soon. I may have to buy a moped or scooter to get here. Somewhere someone is getting rich and it sure isn’t me.
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ILLEGAL SETTLEMENTS
Israel’s settlement activities have long been a major bone of contention in efforts to bring peace to the region. In December, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ordered his government not to start any new construction projects in the West Bank without his approval.
That announcement came after Palestinian officials expressed outrage that Israel’s proposed funding for 2008 included construction plans in Ma’aleh Adumim, which is part of the West Bank, and Har Homa, in a disputed area that Israel considers part of Jerusalem.
Ban expressed concern over Israel’s decision to resume construction, a U.N. statement attributed to Ban’s spokesman said.
“Any settlement expansion is contrary to Israel’s obligations under the road map and to international law. The secretary-general calls on the government of Israel to halt settlement expansion and reiterates that the fulfillment of road map obligations by both parties is an important measure underpinning the political process between them.”
President Bush said the obligations of both sides under the road map “are clear,” but he didn’t criticize Israel’s announcement.
Israel said the decision to increase the Gival Zeev settlement by 330 housing units was made nine years ago. On Sunday, Olmert gave final approval “for economic reasons that have to do with the developers,” his spokesman, Mark Regev, told CNN.
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ISRAELI LEBENSRAUM
If one examines the history of Israel, especially under Sharon, it is safe to state that their policy regarding the Palestinians is one where Israel draws so-called provisional security lines and the IDF is then deployed along them. These new lines always include land where Palestinians currently live and also lands occupied by settlers who took their property from Palestinians. Of course, the Israeli government always confirms its support for whatever US-sponsored peace plan is out there-plans that actually support the land theft that Tel Aviv desires.
[W]ithout consideration of “traditions” and prejudices, (our country) must find the courage to gather our people and their strength for an advance along the road that will lead this people from its present restricted living space to new land and soil, and hence also free it from the danger of vanishing from the earth or of serving others as a slave nation.-Mein Kampf
I use the word lebensraum with purpose. For those unfamiliar with the term, it is a German word that literally translates to “living space” or “room to live,” and was part of the program of Nazi Germany. Indeed, it was one Hitler’s reasons for his war on much of the territory to Germany’s east. However, its origins go deeper than Hitler’s program for a thousand year reich. In fact, the desire for more lebensraum for the Germanic people was part of the reasoning behind the drive for the unification of the German provinces in the late 1800s. As the idea progressed, it became a codeword for German colonialism-an area where Germany lagged behind its European competitors-France, England, Spain. After the German defeat in World War I, the Nazi movement and Hitler o not only shifted the meaning of the word away from the colonization of non-European lands; he also added an element of racism (beyond that implicit in the idea of a German nation) to its definition. In his book, Mein Kampf, Hitler argued that Russia and the eastern lands were subservient to the Jewish people and should therefore be conquered by the German nation to create a unity between the German people and land that he believed should be German. After all, went his argument, just as it was “Impossible for the Russian by himself to shake off the yoke of the Jew by his own resources, it is equally impossible for the Jew to maintain the mighty empire forever.”(Mein Kampf) So, to save Russia and the world from the Jews and make room for the German nation as he and many Germans saw it, Hitler began his war on Europe.
Ironically, Israel’s actions and words are eerie echoes of Hitler’s words regarding the Jews of Europe. In its pursuit of living space for the Jewish people, the Israeli project has always insisted that the Palestinians were incapable of ruling themselves and that the land where they lived was not really theirs. After all, goes the argument, Palestinians have no culture and they had no centralized government. Indeed, some of the more racist of Israel’s supporters argue that the Palestinians are not even a people, just another bunch of “dirty Arabs.”
This logic provides Sharon and his supporters to conclude that it is their right to take Palestinian land, which they have done and will continue to do. History has taught the Sharons of the Jewish people a lesson, albeit the wrong one.
The international community considers all Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land illegal.
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Al-QAIDA – DANCING IN THE STREETS
An Iowa Republican congressman on Monday defended his prediction that terrorists would celebrate if Democrat Barack Obama were elected president, despite a rebuke from aides to John McCain, the GOP’s apparent presidential nominee.
“(Obama will) certainly be viewed as a savior for them,” Rep. Steve King told The Associated Press. “That’s why you will see them supporting him, encouraging him.”
King said his offices have been bombarded with calls – positive and negative – since he said Friday that al-Qaida “would be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11 because they would declare victory in this war on terror.”
King cited Obama’s pledge to pull U.S. troops from Iraq, his father’s Muslim roots in Kenya and his middle name, Hussein, which King said has a meaning to terrorists.
Asked about the remarks as he campaigned in Mississippi, Obama said, “I think that Mr. King has it backwards. The fact that the continuation of a presence in Iraq as Senator McCain has suggested is exactly what, I think, will fan the flames of anti-American sentiment and make it more difficult for us to create a long-term and sustainable peace in the world.
“But I have to say that Mr. King and individuals like him thrive on offensive or controversial statements as a way to get in the papers, so I don’t take it too seriously. I would hope Senator McCain would want to distance himself from that kind of inflammatory and offensive remarks,” Obama said.
Aides to McCain also disavowed King’s comments.
“John McCain rejects the type of politics that degrades our civics … and obviously that extends to Congressman King’s statement,” spokesman Brian Rogers told The Associated Press.
Last month, McCain also denounced his introduction in Cincinnati by talk-show host Bill Cunningham, who referred to Obama three times as “Barack Hussein Obama.”
Obama supporters have claimed such tactics are being used to imply that he is a Muslim.
The Illinois senator, born in Hawaii to a white Kansas woman and a Kenyan man, is a Christian and has said he has little connection to the Islamic religion, though he acknowledges spending part of his childhood in largely Muslim Indonesia.
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DIDN’T FIT UNDER OVERPASS
But even the open road wasn’t big enough to handle Uribe’s dream of celebrating a budding romance and his success in losing about 440 pounds.
Uribe was halfway to a picnic near his Monterrey-area home on Sunday when one of the posts holding a sun-shielding tarp over his bed hit an overpass.
Uribe’s blood pressure dropped so much his doctors advised him not to go on and the celebration – being documented by about two dozen photographers and reporters from around the world – was canceled.
Uribe says despite the setback, he still hopes to go out with his girlfriend on June 11, when he will turn 43.
“We’ll just have to plan it better,” he said.
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DICK TO THE ARMPIT OF THE WORLD
Bush says he is sending Vice-President Dick Cheney to the Middle East next week. Bush said one of the reasons for the visit was to impress upon the Israelis and Palestinians the need to keep firm promises made on the peace process.
“His goal is to reassure people the US is committed to a vision of peace in the Middle East,” Mr Bush said.
Mr Cheney’s trip, which begins on Sunday, will take in Israel, the West Bank, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
It is expected the current high-level of oil prices, and the situation in Iraq will also be discussed.
It was not clear whether Mr Cheney would make another unannounced stop in Iraq.
The fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion of the country will fall during the week-long trip.
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“My pan plays down an unprecedented amount of our national debt.”
– George Bush during an address to Congress on the Budget
February 27, 2001
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315 Days Left
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Number of Operations Iraq Freedom and Enduring
Freedom casualties as confirmed by U.S. Central
Command: 4437
March 11th, 2008 at 09:42
[...] While Dickhead Cheney heads off to talk peace in the Middle East Ted shares how Israel is trying to defy peace by building illegal housing. [...]