Observations 11.20

As I have said before I try and keep my opinions to myself when talking about the Palestinian situation, it's just a no win thing no matter what I think or say. Jews having been killing Muslims who have been killing Christians who have been killing Jews for two thousand years. Sadly I don't think that is ever going to completely change. It seems more wars have been fought over supposedly peaceful religions than any other reason.

It's a little bizarre watching a war unfold on Twitter. One minute you can read as the Alqassam Brigade tweets every time it fires a rocket at Israel and a moment later the IDF announcing something called the 'Iron Dome' shot the same rocket down. Than there is a man who tweets under the name "News of the Middle East" from Oklahoma of all places. That is one person who does piss me off because he is totally pro-Israel and his av is a photo of President Obama with the Israeli flag behind him. Talk about not so subtle propaganda, Goebbels himself couldn't have come up with something better than that.

This is one of those videos I stumble onto while randomly chasing links. I'm not completely sure what the 'Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)' movement is but it doesn't really matter for my purposes here. The video was published in September, long before the current round of fighting began, and watching it I can't help but wonder how the turmoil is effecting these students. What they are doing, how they are coping, if they are even alive today.

Gaza, Palestine Youth Send Message to BDS Activists


link

Published on Sep 20, 2012 by Shahd Abusalama
Young Palestinian activists in the Gaza Strip ask their peers in the United Kingdom and around the world to build the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and attend the UK Student Palestine Conference at the University of Manchester on Sunday, September 23.

Observations from the Gallery 11.20

Reuters: GAZA TRUCE WILL BE DECLARED AT 1900 GMT AND GO INTO EFFECT AT 2200 GMT - HAMAS OFFICIAL SAYS

A mobile news flash, the funny thing with this is that before I could even get it posted and IDF spokesman said that truce talks were ongoing and they were still hopeful. That as the Israeli air force intensified the bombardment of Gaza.

We shall see but I wont hold my breath.

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.