Observations 11.18

I really try not to take one side or the other in the whole Palestine, Israel, Jewish, Muslim historical mess. You really can't win no matter what you say and anybody that knows me can figure out how I feel. Last night an Israeli jet bombed a building housing international journalists and an Israeli missile killed 11 civilians bringing the current death toll in Gaza to over seventy. Another 660 have been injured including well over 200 children. As far as I can tell four Israelis have been killed so far by the dreaded Hamas rocket barrage.

You can call them terrorists, victims, innocents, or anything in between but it doesn't matter in the end. Dead is dead. These are the names of the Palestinian dead as of Sunday morning with their age where it was available. Also children under ten years old are italicized. As to what it means, make and up your own mind.

Abdula Muzanar, Amina Muzana, Suhaila Dalou, Raneen Al Dalou (22), Son of Suheil Hammad, Suheil Hammad (45), Hussam Abu Shaweesh (37), Abdallah Al-Mzannar, Tahani Al-Dalou (46), Samah Al-Dalou (25), Sulifa Al-Dalou (50), Nawal Abdelaal (52), Ahmad Essam Al-Nahhal (25), Tasneem Zuheir Al-Nahhal (13), Eyad Abu Khusa (18 months), Muhamed Abu Nuqira, Tamer Salamah Abu Sufyan (3), Gumana Salamah Abu Sufyan (1), Omar Mohammad Hmeid (26), Tamer
Al-Hemry, Samaher Qudieh (33), Mohammad Al-Louji, Awad Hamdi
An-Nahhal, Mokhlis Adwan, Hasan Isaed, Abdulrahman Al-Masri, Ahmad Al-Ja’bary (52), Marwan Abu Al-Qumsan (52), Osama Abdel Jawad, Ashraf Darwish, Ali Al-Mana’ma, Mohammad Al-Hamss (30), Ahmad Abu Musameh, Ayman Saleem, Khalid Khalil al-Shayer (28), Walid Abadleh (4), Hasan Salim al-Hulei (27), Ziad Farhan Abu Jalal (23), Majd Abu Jalal (33), Abu Jalal (43), Mahmoud Sa’ad-Allah (3), Tahrir Suleiman (22), Ismail Qandil (24), Fares al-Bassiouni (5), Oday Jamal Nasser (16), Tareq Jamal Naser (14), Haneen Tafesh (10 months), Walid al-Abadleh (18 months), Khaled Abu An-Nasr, Rami Hamamd, Hisham Mohammad Al-Ghalban, Wael Haidar Al-Ghalban, Habes Masbah (30), Mahmoud Abu Sawaween (65), Omar Jihad al-Mash-Harawi (11), Heba Adel
al-Mash-Harawi (18 and pregnant with twins), Essam Mahmoud Abu
al-Ma’za (19), Mohammad Hani Kaseeh (18), Ranaan Yousef Arafat (3), Mohammad Al-Hamss (30), Marwan Abu Al-Qumsan (52),
and Ahmad Al-Ja’bary (52).

11:00PM update - I'm not going to keep doing this but after an early Monday morning (Gaza time) airstrike leveled two homes I thought I would continue the list till the end of my day. The new names include five more children: Hussein Nasr (7), Jalal Naser (39), Ahmad Abu Amra, Samy Al-Ghfeir (22), Jamal Al-Dalou, Ibrahim Mohammed Jamal 
Al-Dalou (1), Yousef Mohammed Jamal Al-Dalou (10), Jamal Mohammed Jamal Al-Dalou (7), Mohammed Jamal Al-Dalou, Mohammed Bakr Al-Of (24), Mohammed Salama Jundeya, Hussein Jalal Nasser (8), Nabeel Ahmad Abu Amrra, Nawal Abed al-Ali, Saadiyya al-Theib,
and Atiyyeh Mubarak (54).

Sunday Observations 11.18

Thanksgiving is Thursday so I suppose it is officially the holiday season now. It's cold enough in the Village and I went ice skating last night but something still seems to be missing. Oh yes, the NHL is still pretending to be a league on the level of the NFL and there is still no major league hockey. Some Philadelphia Flyers players are going to play some of the hated Rangers in Atlantic City Saturday night to raise money for Sandy victims and my brother has tickets. This now makes my Thanksgiving dinner goal talking him into taking his loving older sister to the game instead of his girlfriend, something that could be interesting with her sitting there. We shall see, I'll just have to keep their wine glasses full.

Another sign of the season is that I have turned on my iTunes playlist of 500 Christmas tunes. Yeah I know, so not me and I sometimes really don't like the season at all. It's just that same old love/hate thing I have going with Christmas.

There was another bit of election news, this time from Oregon. Democrat Tina Kotek was elected state House Speaker by the state's Democrats on Thursday. She will be the first open lesbian to lead a state legislature. Openly gay people will lead the legislatures of five states now, up from two before the election.

Not much news on the secessionist front but there is this very important petition on the White House website now that I will post below. It has been there for a couple days now and the White House doesn't seem in any rush to remove it. Must be something about the Hostess CEO raising his yearly salary to $2.25 million than filing for bankruptcy and putting 18,000 out of work.

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:
Nationalize the Twinkie industry
"We the undersigned, hereby request Barack Obama to immediately Nationalize the Twinkie industry and prevent our nation from losing her sweet creamy center."
Created: Nov 16, 2012
SIGNATURES NEEDED BY DECEMBER 16, 2012
TO REACH GOAL OF 25,000: 22,125

I would scream "save the Twinkie" to finish but to be quite honest I hate the damn things. It would make a good sign for the Walmart Black Friday strikes though so I better get that copyrighted quick.