benjamin netanyahu

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Eye Of The Storm
London Calling
Iranians Continue To Protest Election, American Pols Continue To Bloviate
(Middle) Eastern Promises
Up In Arms

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marshmallory
08/28/09

In reply to Eye Of The Storm
He's just pissed he doesn't have sweet sunglasses like hers.
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andBegorrah
08/25/09

In reply to London Calling
Aw, white kids in keffiyeh always make me nostalgic for the start of a new semester.
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The Lone Scout
08/25/09

@andBegorrah: You say keffiyeh and I say shemagh;
Let's call the whole thing off!
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bowleserised
08/25/09

@andBegorrah: Over here in Deutschland, they're often worn by Neo-Nazis, which adds a dimension. You could say.
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FattyCatty
08/25/09

In reply to London Calling
I am ashamed to admit this, but at first I thought it was London, former ANTM contestant.

I think I need to be grounded from the TV for a year.
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Zombie Ms. Skittles
08/25/09

In reply to London Calling
She looks like a Saxon warrior queen.
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wtfox?!
08/25/09

@Zombie Ms. Skittles: Boudica!!!!
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commieginge
08/25/09

@Zombie Ms. Skittles: I was thinking pretty much the same thing, and promptly checked the comments hoping someone had said it. She looks seriously kick-ass.
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whynotshesaid
08/26/09

@Zombie Ms. Skittles: She totally reminds me of the women I used to know in Ren Faire.
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FurrierAndIves
06/15/09

In reply to Iranians Continue To Protest Election, American Pols Continue To Bloviate
Regulation of tobacco? I like it in theory sort of but not so much in practice. Like others have pointed out, we tried this before, remember prohibition?

How about this? In exchange no new legislation of tobacco regulations, we simply hook up the major tobacco companies w/the health providers?

Patient smokes, time passes, pathology develops: emphysema, cancer, CPD. Health care providers turn around and submit billing to the tobacco giants.

That way, those who profit from tobacco production are forced to ameliorate the negative side effects of the drug they market. Nice benefit to non-smokers; you don't have to chip in to pay for the self-destructive behaviors. Benefit to smokers: you continue to rcv health care benefits despite using destructive controlled substances. Benefit to major tobacco corporations: you will likely STILL make profits as you continue to market your product to the young, the poor, the uneducated, and all those people in the developing world whose concerns are often easily ignored by corporate America.
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Lymed
06/15/09

@FurrierAndIves: I really don't see how the reversal of a ban on alcohol is in any way similar to regulating tobacco. We are not talking about banning tobacco. We are talking about regulating tobacco. Prohibition may have been reversed, but we still regulate alcohol.
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ellaesther
06/15/09

In reply to Iranians Continue To Protest Election, American Pols Continue To Bloviate
Oh, DOMA.... Oh, Obama....

I suppose even magical unicorns aren't perfect, per se.

Government of, by, and for the people means ALL people. And we keep slowly but surely expanding the definition of "people" -- someday, please God, it will include the LGBT community.

(This "not perfect" clause would also explain the President's notion of administrative detention -- oops, my bad, that's the phrase for the internationally decried and insupportable Israeli habit of detaining people ad infinitum without needing to show cause. The POTUS wants "preventive detention." I'm sure it's quite different).
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Lymed
06/15/09

In reply to Iranians Continue To Protest Election, American Pols Continue To Bloviate
The WP article linked to on taxing health benefits is about other Democrats, particularly Senators, pressuring Obama to tax health benefits, not about Obama himself supporting the tax: "Yesterday, top administration officials pushed back forcefully against the tax, which Obama criticized during the campaign."
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ellaesther
06/15/09

In reply to Iranians Continue To Protest Election, American Pols Continue To Bloviate
Here is, word for word, the email I got from my dearest friend in Tel Aviv, a woman old enough to be my mother, who moved there from England out of Zionist conviction more than 40 years ago:

"Dear ellaesther,

Did you hear Netanyahu's "historic" speech last night? Same old Bibi. In case you didn't, here's the summary:

1. It's all their fault, not ours. We, and I personally, have strived unceasingly for peace. They have always rejected it.

2. First condition, they have to recognize publicly that Israel is the state of the Jews.

2. No right of return for refugees.

3. The "area" that will become the Palestinian state (a word he didn't use in this context) at the end of the negotiations will be totally demilitarized.

4. Jerusalem ours only.

Believe it or not, a lot of people seem to think this signals some kind of breakthrough.

What are they saying in America?

Love to you,

friend of ellaesther"

I don't have much to add, really....
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Wibbles
06/15/09

@ellaesther: What I hear out of the local deli is that we think that this was very "WTF, this makes no sense". It's very "Who elected Bush again? Was it you, Ohio?" in scope.
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ellaesther
06/15/09

@Wibbles: I'm afraid I don't follow...! But then I've only just started my coffee.
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EkaterinaBallerina
06/15/09

In reply to Iranians Continue To Protest Election, American Pols Continue To Bloviate
Ugh, I got in one of the worst fights I've ever had with my dad about the army's policy around gays/lesbians. He hates DADT as much as the next person but he tried to defend them letting in felons and rapists because he said the army would be guaranteed that they'd do their job (ie shoot people). It all went down hill from there because honestly, allowing people like that into the army only opens it up to more "friendly fire" deaths and mass-murders like the one Steven Green was just convicted of. They are not controllable and not reliable.

And for the record, my dad was arrested twice for protesting the Vietnam War and if he'd have been drafted, his mother was moving the family to Canada. So really, I have no idea why he defended it in the first place.
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tonightineed is actually Mrs. Ziegler-Spock
06/15/09

@EkaterinaBallerina: You know, I tend to think the criteria for the army/armed forces should be: mentally sound, physically fit.
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CissyPants
06/15/09

@EkaterinaBallerina: As one of "those people" I'm tired of everyone assuming that all felons are violent. Seeing that I'm a felon due to having 2 hits of acid 12 years ago, I would hardly say that I'm likely to have any "friendly fire" situations or anything happen. I've never even seen a gun.

NOT ALL FELONS ARE VIOLENT!!
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Lymed
06/15/09

@CissyPants: Thank you
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HannahBethD
06/15/09

@tonightineed is actually Mrs. Ziegler-Spock: You have to pass a psyche exam and a physical exam. But like many, many government procedures, it's not always reliable.
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missteenwordpower
06/15/09

In reply to Iranians Continue To Protest Election, American Pols Continue To Bloviate
Remind me, again, why we have to continue pandering to an increasingly tiny, increasingly crazy conservative right-wing? Didn't they lose? By, like, a lot?
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Devonna
06/15/09

@missteenwordpower is your sexy Ms. Magoo.: I don't get it either. I thought Obama was a savvier political operator than this.
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Majrhoulihan
06/15/09

@missteenwordpower is your sexy Ms. Magoo.: Did you catch the Harry Reid/Nancy Pelosi skit on SNL two weeks ago. It was about that issue exactly, and it was awesome.
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LaFemme
06/15/09

In reply to Iranians Continue To Protest Election, American Pols Continue To Bloviate
I will never really get why everyone makes a bid deal about not finding and capturing bin laden. To me, it seems so totally obvious that we haven't caputured him because we don't want to. All it would do is martyr him, and probably set off a firestorm of attacks around the world. He is mainly a spiritual leader at this point anyway, and cells are operating independently from his leadership, so it is not like capturing him would end anything or make us any safer. Additionally, tons of Americans who don't really "get" terrorism would think, "well hey, we got him! Glad this whole terrorism business is over!" So yeah. This whole hunt-him-down-and-kill him business was such cowboy Bush rhetoric, why have liberals bought into it, as if a capture would be some major coup?
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NefariousNewt
06/15/09

@LaFemme: Because we don't want to martyr him. We want him tried, convicted, and placed in a nice, tight, dark cell somewhere. I don't want him dead, but I do want him punished.
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LaFemme
06/15/09

@NefariousNewt: I guess. I just don't think it would make a difference. And all of his supporters would still view him as being unfairly persecuted by the West. I don't think it would do anything overall for trying to combat terrorism.
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la.donna.pietra
06/15/09

@LaFemme: Yeah, but it would 1) make me personally feel a lot better, and 2) show Bush up to be a wanker who couldn't even catch one dude.
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la.donna.pietra
06/15/09

@NefariousNewt: I want him plopped in a prison in New York. That's the most efficient way to get rid of him.
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morninggloria
06/15/09

In reply to Iranians Continue To Protest Election, American Pols Continue To Bloviate
"Dick" is such a perfect first name for the former Vice President.

It's like he has a built in nickname.
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morninggloria
06/15/09

In reply to Iranians Continue To Protest Election, American Pols Continue To Bloviate
I know some really stand up people who joined the armed forces for one reason or another, but I also know that of the ultra racist "let's go muddin' on the weekends" redneck and proud "from my cold dead hands" "why are my tax dollars paying for ESL for the Somolian refugees" people I knew in my high school, probably 75% of them joined the armed forces.
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tonightineed is actually Mrs. Ziegler-Spock
06/15/09

@morninggloria: Well, you just summarized the deep south cliche better than I could, and I am impressed. A friend of mine (who is similar in mindset to her husband, though in denial about how deep her racism etc runs) is married to a man exactly like that. He doesn't think african-americans should be in the army either, nor women. We could probably recruit his dog, though.
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dreamweave
06/15/09

@tonightineed is actually Mrs. Ziegler-Spock: just for the record, racist, muddin' xenophobes can be found all over the country, not just down south.
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morninggloria
06/15/09

@tonightineed is actually Mrs. Ziegler-Spock: The deep south cliche is present everywhere, even in northern Wisconsin (my old stomping grounds).

I can't tell you how many parties were thrown by my classmates that centered on drinking beer around some stuff that was on fire while someone drove their souped up truck through deep mud and occasionally got stuck.
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tonightineed is actually Mrs. Ziegler-Spock
06/15/09

@dreamweave: Well yes, of course. Growing up in the south, there are family members of mine in the midwest who are similar in action and viewpoint, I just tend to see more of it here because this is where I live.
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EkaterinaBallerina
06/15/09

@dreamweave: True. I walked out of the only debate club meeting I ever attended when the head tried to argue that women shouldn't be allowed in the army because they'd make men want to have sex with them all the time. I screamed that if that was the case, then maybe men shouldn't be in the army at all because they clearly had no self-control and walked out.

And this was at an East Coast private school and said man went on to an Ivy League education.
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badmutha
06/15/09

@morninggloria: It is my understanding that Levi almost married to Palin's daughter was one of these rednecks, and he is in Alaska!
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la.donna.pietra
06/15/09

@morninggloria: In defense of muddin', there is nothing inherently wrong with getting good American soil all over your domestic or import pickup.
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morninggloria
06/15/09

@la.donna.pietra: In my experience, muddin' has always accompanied high levels of red neckery.
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EkaterinaBallerina
06/15/09

In reply to Iranians Continue To Protest Election, American Pols Continue To Bloviate
"CIA Chief Leon Panetta thinks Dick Cheney wants someone to attack the U.S. just so he can say, "I told you so." "

Yes but the problem with this Dick, is that after 9/11, you tried to blame the intelligence failure on the Clinton administration. So I don't really see how, according to your books, that if something happens to this country within the next three months, it's Obama's fault.

Oh, righ, I know why. Nothing is ever your fault. You're completely blameless.
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dreamweave
06/15/09

In reply to Iranians Continue To Protest Election, American Pols Continue To Bloviate
Look, it's totally cool for you to have your very own house, I totally respect your right to this. In the meantime, I'm gonna build MY house in YOUR yard - I mean, I gotta be free!
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DangerMouse
06/15/09

@dreamweave: That is tempting as an idea, isn't it....
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