LowerCaseRepublican

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0424-03.htm snip -- A photograph of a Palestinian boy tied to an Israeli police jeep has been handed to justice officials charged with investigating complaints over the use of "human shields" against demonstrators. The boy, 13-year-old Mohammed Bedwan, and three adult protesters were tied to border police vehicles last week during one of what have become almost daily demonstrations against the routing of the Israeli government's barrier through Palestinian land. And as for your claim I4E that Palestinians always use civilians to advance their cause...choke on this little piece of information: The [israeli] Supreme Court barred the use of Palestinians as human shields in 2002 after an incident in which soldiers forced the neighbor of a suspected militant to knock on his door and deliver their ultimatum to surrender. The militant shot and killed the man.

IlliniBob www.thememoryhole.org has the pictures. It just says what they are, the gallery of 300+ photos and the story of his FOIA request to get the photos. It's not anything political, just a source for people to see these photographs.

The pictures posted on the net are due to a Freedom of Information Act request by Russ Kick of the Memory Hole (www.memoryhole.org) The site isn't anti-war but it is a site that puts up information that any group tries to hide etc. He just FOIA's a lot of different documents and posts them up for the public to use. He's not anti-war as much as he is solely a 1st Amendment activist.

7-5 Twins now.

But it was Roman territory too for a time. So why isn't Italy taking control?

Yes, I'm sure the Red Cross and Jewish human rights groups have it in for Israel. Can we abuse the claim of anti-Semitism more when you don't have proof to the opposite of these facts? Cuz I don't think I've really seen you do it enough I4E.

Read the casualty reports from the IDF and the Red Crescent (aka Red Cross in that region) It's vastly disproportionate. Where were your facts again? Oh yeah...just guesses made because the US media doesn't cover Israel running over people with tanks, attacking schools, snipers shooting children etc. And if you're in a f***ing tank...a rock is not going to kill you. But whatever justification you can make in your mind to have a sniper shoot an 8 year old child...go for it. It's difficult to create an economy when your job is located past the checkpoint and IDF troops don't let you get to your job because they harass you for hours. They've done it to expectant mothers too. Or having Israel constantly level and buildings you do make be they "collateral damage" or not. Check out Ran HaCaren's columns for a lot more info. He's a Jew living and teaching in Tel Aviv and vastly against Zionism because it's destroying Israel. Here's a fun chart from an Israeli group B'Tselem For example, it turns out that over 80 Palestinian children, many shot in the head, were killed BEFORE the first Israeli child died. At least 127 Palestinians were killed before the first Jewish Israeli lost his life on Israeli land. (The Palestine Red Crescent Society, a very reliable medical organization gives this number as 147, but in the interest of using the same source for Israelis and Palestinians, we are using the more conservative numbers provided by the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem.) During the first month 121 Palestinians and 11 Israelis — virtually all either illegal settlers or soldiers on Palestinian territory — were killed. Included in the number of Palestinian dead are three Palestinian women and girls who died due to restrictions placed on their movement by the Israeli military: Ten-year old ’Ala Hamdan ’Abd al-’Aziz Ahmad died when her appendix burst after Israeli soldiers prevented her father from taking her to a hospital. Twenty-seven-year-old Na’im ’Attallah a-’Abd Ahmad Huas, a liver patient, died after Israeli soldiers prevented her from obtaining dialysis treatment at a hospital in Nablus. Masiona Hussein, age 60, a diabetes patient, died after being forced to travel to the hospital along treacherous paths because of physical roadblocks placed on the main roadways by Israeli forces. In addition, an important fact often left out of U.S. reports is that in this war the Israeli side is armed with high-tech, high-cost weaponry: a large arsenal of nuclear weapons, F-16s, helicopter gunships, top-of-the line tanks, sniper scopes, the best helmets and personal safety gear money can buy. Palestinians, on the other hand, whose land has been invaded by Israel (this fact is also usually omitted) are largely unarmed. Some have a small supply of rifles, handguns, and home-made mortars; very few have uniforms, helmets, etc. For Israel it is, basically, a turkey shoot. The only “weapon” that Israel fears is that tragic result of such an unequal conflict: the suicide bomber. One other critical fact that is also consistently omitted from U.S. coverage is the local connection: Israel’s power comes from the over $10 million per day that American taxpayers give it. This is more aid than goes to any other nation on earth. In fact, Israel, with a population of 6 million, receives more US tax dollars than all of Sub-Saharan Africa put together. Let's not condemn people like Baruch Goldstein...nah, where would the fun in that be right? Israel Uber Alles, right? Actually a lot of people were and are alive. They do have a right to return to their land. Your argument that "It took place in the past so they have no right." is goddamn moronic. Cuz that could be turned on its head and say "Yeah, well the Jews had it in the past so they have no right to get the land either." See how terrible the argument you made is?

So a country that murders only a few million people is better than countries who murder more millions? Just because there are bigger blood soaked murderering countries out there does not negate the blood on our hands.

They might not be targets but that doesn't lessen the anger and outrage that people have when they gotta pick their kid up in a plastic bag. Let's say a military operation blew up your home and killed your family. Oops. Collateral damage, we didn't mean to. Seem kinda hollow to you too?

And....? Israel had a nuke program and didn't feel the need to discuss it's capabilities to have a WMD with the rest of the world. Seeing how there was a crazy blood soaked tyrant in Iraq who supposedly hid WMD from the UN and the US...wouldn't it make sense for the US to invade this blood soaked butcher (Ariel Sharon...and he is a butcher, research Sabra and Shatila war crimes he committed) as well. I mean, if we are really worried about WMD and all.

Newsflash, shortie. The US funds the PLO as well. And hey, when you kinda sorta steal a person's land, occupy their country illegally, kill children with missiles and running them over with tanks, use F-16s to combat rock throwing kids...yeah that tends to come under the scope of the international community as a bit of overkill. Perhaps if you educated yourself as to what is going on in the region re: body counts, you'd see that a vastly disproportionate amount of Palestinian civilians are being harmed compared to Israelis. But the land grabbing occupying power Israelis are the good guys, right?

Yeah and our corporations totally don't use wage slave labor in foreign countries at all.

Yes and then I sent you a bunch of stuff to check out. You must also know that HAMAS is not totally a terrorist organization to the Palestinians. It's one of the few places where they can get food and other basic needs. You take out the head of an organization that is feeding kids, granted they do terrorist actions and people will be pissed because you cut off their means to get food. You know...block them from their jobs, cause massive unemployment, kill them off...they tend to get angry when you knock out their last crutch for survival and getting food.

A bit from HaCohen from 9/23/2003 The State of Israel has always been cynically exploiting allegations of anti-semitism, condemning purported and cooperating with actual anti-semites at will. Last week, to quote just a minor example, when the world was outraged by Italy's monarch Berlusconi's claim that his fascist predecessor Mussolini "had not killed anybody but just sent people to holidays in exile" – which comes fairly close to Holocaust denial – the only official Israeli reaction was that of an unnamed spokesman for the 2nd Minister in the Ministry of Finance, who mumbled that "If the words have been said (!), one can not agree with them, since History speaks for itself" (Ha'aretz 14.9, p.12 bottom). The reason for this ear-deafening outcry is simple: Berlusconi, like most right-wing extremists, has taken a decisive pro-Israel stand in Europe. So let him even deny the Holocaust if he likes, Israel will show understanding. After all, Israel was a closest ally of the most racist regime in the post-WWII era, South Africa's Apartheid: moral considerations have never played any role whatsoever in Israel's politics and diplomacy.

Just a couple days ago you were demanding the heads of random Palestinians, Mr. Genocidal Nationalist. You should read some works by Ran HaCohen. He teaches in Tel Aviv and is a Jew. But I'm sure you'd just say he was an anti-Semite because he dares to speak out against the IDF killing of unarmed civilians etc.

Don't you have some Apaches to go fly over funerals killing innocent people or something, I4E? You promote genocide of an entire race of people...but the supreme irony of it all is not lost on me because I figured you would be the last person promoting genocide. Remember Arbeit Macht Frei much?

Deutscheland Deutscheland uber alles... :puke f*** nationalism. Last time I checked, this is a round world. In the words of Doug Stanhope: " 'They blew up the WTC because they're jealous of the way we live!' No, they're not f***ing jealous. They just want us to stop f***ing with them! Why are we over there negotiating peace in the Middle East? Who the f*** are we? We have problems in our own country like the election dispute. You didn't see the emperor of Tunisia coming over here to settle that for us. They're not jealous of us. The US is like the fat, skanky, unwashed whore on Ricki Lake that the audience boos and she starts saying 'You're just jealous! You're just jealous of me and my spandex and my dirty ass!' It's the arrogance that gets us blown up."

I am opposed to the death penalty because I do not believe that the state can say "murder is wrong" yet condone sanctioned murders. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/FactSheet.pdf has a lot of info. Like Albert Camus said "Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated can be compared. For there to be an equivalency, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life." To perpetrate an execution at the hands of the state government is the supreme hypocricy. For a government to say that individuals taking life is illegal and morally bankrupt, then shouldn't this stand for the government as well? If they believe in the sanctity of life, then shouldn't it stand to reason that the state cannot violate such sanctity if it expects its people to do the same? Aside from the philosophical debate about capital punishment, there are plenty of practical reasons to oppose state sanctioned murder. As Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall stated: "The death penalty is no more effective a deterrent than life imprisonment...It is also evident that the burden of capital punishment falls upon the poor, the ignorant, and the underprivileged members of society." In the United States, the death penalty is often promoted as a way to deter violence and make society safer. Yet scientific studies have consistently failed to find convincing evidence that executions deter crime more effectively than alternative sentences. Not only is it not a deterrent but capital punishment is more expensive. Death penalty cases are much more expensive than other criminal cases and cost more than imprisonment for life with no possibility of parole. In California, capital trials are six times more costly than other murder trials. A study in Kansas indicated that a capital trial costs $116,700 more than an ordinary murder trial. Complex pre-trial motions, lengthy jury selections, and expenses for expert witnesses are all likely to add to the costs in death penalty cases. The irreversibility of the death sentence requires courts to follow heightened due process in the preparation and course of the trial. The separate sentencing phase of the trial can take even longer than the guilt or innocence phase of the trial. And defendants are much more likely to insist on a trial when they are facing a possible death sentence. After conviction, there are constitutionally mandated appeals which involve both prosecution and defense costs. Most of these costs occur in every case for which capital punishment is sought, regardless of the outcome. Thus, the true cost of the death penalty includes all the added expenses of the "unsuccessful" trials in which the death penalty is sought but not achieved. Moreover, if a defendant is convicted but not given the death sentence, the state will still incur the costs of life imprisonment, in addition to the increased trial expenses. For the states which employ the death penalty, this luxury comes at a high price. In Texas, a death penalty case costs taxpayers an average of $2.3 million, about three times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security level for 40 years. In Florida, each execution is costing the state $3.2 million. In financially strapped California, one report estimated that the state could save $90 million each year by abolishing capital punishment. The New York Department of Correctional Services estimated that implementing the death penalty would cost the state about $118 million annually. A recent study of death sentences in Philadelphia found that African American defendents were almost FOUR times more likely to receive the death penalty than were people of other ethnic origins who committed similar crimes. Over 80% of people executed since 1976 were convicted of killing white victims, although people of color make up more than half of all homicide victims in the US. A defendant who can afford his or her own attorney is much less likely to be sentenced to die. 95% of all people sentenced to death in the US could not afford their own attorney. In 1987, McCleskey v. Kemp, a Supreme Court case brought forth the famous Baldus study that revealed facts that proved the following: "(1) defendants charged with killing white victims in GA are 4.3 times as likely to be sentenced to death as defendants charged with killing blacks; (2) 6 of every 11 defendants convicted of killing a white person would not have received the death penalty if their victim had been black; and (3) cases involving black defendants and white victims are more likely to result in a death sentence than cases featuring any other racial combination of defendant and victim. This case was defeated by a 5-4 vote given the reason by Justice Powell: "McCleskey's claim, taken to its logical conclusion, throws into serious question the principles that underlie our entire criminal justice system." How true. McCleskey can't be correct or else the whole system would be incorrect. God forbid we fix it instead of allowing the incredibly biased and flawed system to murder more people.

Future terrorists? You f***ing make me sick, you genocidal assclown. You're nothing better than the militant Palestinian terrorists who want to destroy all Israelis. Pot. Meet Kettle.

Yankees won. They beat Lowe's ass.

At least there is no garbage on the field or pitchers charging the ump or managers getting thrown out for tirades that would be suited for a 6 year old in this game. That said. C'mon Reds! I got my two favorite teams: The Sox...and whomever plays the Cubs.

4> At the height of passion, cries out, "Tax me!!!" That was good.

Did anybody see today's PTI? I heard that the U of I was mentioned on there. Well, the 34 hour takeover of the Swanlund administration building regarding our Board of Trustees taking action regarding our mascot "Chief" Illiniwek. I wanted to know what was said if anybody knows. Thanks in advance.

Congrats, Bob.

Re: day games "85% of the f***ing world's working. The other 15 come out here [to Wrigley]." -- Lee Elia