Now as talk of regime change is being bandied about, and even worse being supported by propaganda from even the White House press secretary, this become pertinent. Anyway how do you destroy Hamas without wiping out thousands or more civilians.

I forgot to link this earlier.

15 dead bodies plus emaciated children finally recovered from Gaza area that the Red Cross had been trying to enter for 4 days. You can only do such war crimes when you've decided that the civilians in the area you are invading and/or controlling are not fully human. That's how you allow yourself to approve and/or conduct a genocide.

Only a little more ridiculous than the two state one as presented in 2000 and seemingly the ultimate goal of Israel. I'd describe that as Swiss Cheese with the Palestinians getting only the holes to live in.

Good news after a refusal by an airline last week to allow 9 Muslim passengers to take flight to Florida. Maybe we will get this sorted out sometime soon.

Ah, children can't heat water to help treat wounds on badly injured family members. Printing presses are terrorist weapons that can rightly be destroyed. Neither the Red Crescent nor even the Red Cross is allowed to take out the wounded. So Christians are terrorists too? Thanks for telling us. This is our ally? Someone please explain how.

Do not let Paris get her hands on one of these critters. The Chihuahuas would be history.

This is tragic. No one wants harm to individual workers on the whaling ships. It raises questions about the safety features on the vessels and the training given the crew. Do the rich people behind the Japanese whaling industry even care about the lives of their crew?

Coleman camp still plans to push for more absentee ballots to be counted. Since they were pushing for less of the absentee ballots to be counted earlier, I guess they're sorry they rejected their own voters. Now they just want a few hundred more counted, just enough to give them the victory they have been pretending they already have. Minneapolis St.Paul Star Tribune seems to agree with Reuters saying that Minnesota is planning on certifying a new senator tomorrow, and Al Franken is in the lead. Apparently they are letting us do the math.

I hate to tell you, Sir, but that's not a baby you're pushing out.

Seems to be timely news coming from Gaza itself.

Well, it's the first twitter feed on the subject I've found. I'll look for more.

Excerpt: If Republicans try a 1993-style strategy of attacking [President Obama] for promoting big government, they'll learn two things: Not only has the financial crisis discredited their economic theories, the racial subtext of anti-government rhetoric doesn't play the way it used to. Take away quote: It was a grand ride for a while, but in the end the Southern strategy led the Republicans into a cul-de-sac. What I didn't know: The Southern Strategy was behind even the Republicans feelings about the tax code.

Don't bet on it. The same media sources that took inordinate glee in pretending to discover that report was wrong are mostly still front and center and terrified the right wing will attack them.

Karzai's government is beginning to make the Taliban look less evil.

I don't know how that will work since, it seems that no kind of aid can be got to the people of Gaza. Israel doesn't allow it. People with connections to important aid groups have tried to get supplies, medicines and doctors in only to be threatened and even attacked by Israeli military boats. Before the latest action, Isreal was still the only route for aid to get to Gaza and they would often deny passage of any aid or goods according to their whim, which is why they ended up with homemade rockets flying out from Gaza.

I first learned of Gideon Levy when, during the Israel attack on Lebanon, he told us the dirty secret that while Israeli Jews had shelters to protect them from Lebanese rockets, the Arab citizens of Israel did not have access to similar reinforced protection. The subject of this piece by Mr. Levy is obvious.

What an analysis should be. Floyd shows via a Haaretz Report that this attack was planned months before it started and that missinformation offered by the Isreali government made sure that the start of the conflict would maximize civilian deaths. He also cites Greenwald, The Angry Arab and the latter's sources for more information, while bringing in history and the American mainstream news media's completely inept coverage of anything to do with Israel. The top comment has a great series of illustrations that show the loss of Palestinians' land down to the 2000 offer during negotiations which look a lot like what Israel plans on creating with or without a treaty.

Well, now they could declare victory and stop attacking Palestine. They can wring at least 2 months of gloating out of this and that will carry them through the election. I used to think there were some decent Israelis, Barak, and Livni for two, and some hope that their nation wouldn't truly become a fascist society. I don't believe that's possible now. Massive killing as a campaign tactic. Who'd have thought?

In a pre-Christmas speech, the Pope called for protection of gender roles. His aides rapidly told the press that this wasn't a strike against homosexuality. Yeah, right. It also sounds like a strike against any woman who wants to do something other than stay home and raise kids. Let's face it. The cardinals elected their John McCain.

Personally, the pertinent facts I'd like to learn is how the US govt. ignored engineers that tried to warn the Bush administration that foam falling off the shuttle was a serious problem. But I thought that this subject might be one the Tribune DC bureau with it's "run to the government to get the facts" tactics could actually handle.

Excerpt: According to a previously reliable source, Apple misrepresented the reasons behind Macworld and Jobs' keynote cancellation. Allegedly, the real cause is his rapidly declining health. In fact, it may be even worse than we imagined...

He's talking about the Bush administration.

Governors plan to save their way out of the crisis. See article for details. January project: Learn how your your governor is playing the Herbert Hoover game and spread the word about how dangerous this is. Friends, relatives, Internet, the Streets. Note that Krugman singles out California's governator for special recognition on the bad side, and that actually he really means to talk about 49 Hoovers, praising Ohio's Strickland. Krugman asks why state governments are asked to pay for national resources.

And actually started planning attack in June when he started buying guns. Pardo thought his mother was siding with his ex wife and had heard she had been invited to their holiday party. I read in another report I haven't linked to that his mom was one of those burned out of her home in the Oakridge Trailer Park in November. It's been a bad six weeks for her.

Excerpt: Yarrow said it was “unimaginable” that Saltsman, who was the highest paid Republican campaign manager during the 2008 primary when he served for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, “would seriously be considered” for the RNC top post.

Multiple personality?, suicidal?, bipolar?, didn't know what he was doing? Some say madoff will have a hard time proving non compus menthus.

Many of the same lenders who process federal loans also slam students into private loans with interest rates up to three times as high.