Pretty scary

Duncan and myself flew down to Washington DC to join the rally against the war in Iraq. I took plenty of pictures, some are available here.

The pictures had to be scaled down to 900x600 because the original files were too big to upload. If you want a particular picture in high resolution, mail me.

So compelled by Michael Moore's new movie I have decided to get myself a video camera and do a documentary about an interesting topic.

Interesting Read

Very interesting read from CommonDreams:

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/1025-07.htm

Another Fisk

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=2524

An awesome report on how media reports: Now and Then

Sean Penn on the Washington Post.

Sean Penn paid 56,000 dollars to publish a full page open letter to president Bush.

Arundhati Roy.

A beautiful talk by Arundhati Roy: transcription or Real Audio

Also make sure you listen to the follow up discussion with Howard Zinn.

Up

Loving my new Peter Gabriel UP CD.

The Monty Python on bombing for peace

IRA spied on Blair and Bush

This is priceless.

Israel's democracy.

There is a common error being spread among those who support the Israeli policies towards the invaded territories of Palestine: that the Israel administration is the only democracy in the middle east.

In fact, a quick look at the CIA Factbook shows that Lebanon, Egypt and Turkey are all republics. and Jordan is a constitutional monarchy.

But even if Israel were the only democracy has nothing to do with how the nation behaves. Its government repeatedly violates human rights of the Palestinian population. Of course, there are two ways of looking at the palestinian issue:

• (a) Israel is invading the Palestinian nation (which the UN claims they are since 1967), in which case every time people report that terrorists were shot by the IDF, it should just be assumed that Israel's invading army shot another indepence fighter. -or-

• (b) Palestinians have no nation, and are under the control of the Israeli administration. In which case the Israel administration is a racist adminisrtation that takes lands, property, lives and the rights from those who are not worthy enough.

Either way it does not look very possitively on the Israeli administration: either they are violating UN regulations and international law, or they are guilty of crimes against humanity (obMeme: Ariel Sharon was found responsible for the massacres of Sabra and Shatila, he is a sanguinary man).

Reading this article it is clear that Israel is fighting a war against the Palestinian population. The United Nations should intevene, deploy forces and restore the peace.

Anyways, the point is that we need to distinguish democracy from justice. The fact that you have a democratic process does not ensure justice. The popular proverb sums it up nicely: `The US has the best democracy money can buy'. That and corruption.

Israel's prime minister is a war criminal, how is this man going to even vaguely give peace to this region? The man is a monster.

I grew up with the image of my country having a terrible problem of corruption (which it does) and a lack of justice (which it does) and having a lot of injustice between the powerful and the poor. But the more I learn about the rest of the world, the more petty Mexico's offenses seem. My country is just an amateur when it comes to high grade corruption.

Dumb terms.

Oh, something else. The term `anti-semitism' is miss-used all the time, semites are:

Semites are peoples who speak Semitic languages; the group includes Arabs, Aramaeans, Jews, and many Ethiopians. In a Biblical sense, Semites are peoples whose ancestry can be traced back to Shem, Noah's eldest son. The ancient Semitic populations were pastoral Nomads who several centuries before the Christian Era were migrating in large numbers from Arabia to Mesopotamia, the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, and the Nile River delta. Jews and other Semites settled in villages in Judea, southern Palestine.

Present day speakers of Semitic languages are as diverse in physical, psychological, cultural, and sociological characteristics as are speakers of Indo European languages. The most prominent Semites today are Arabs and Jews. They are different in many ways, and they have absorbed a variety of European traits through centuries of migration and trade. The origin of Semitic languages, however, and many similarities in the stories of Islam and Judaism reflect a common ancient history.

So the term anti-semitism is being misused to mean `people who hate the jews' and by some clever propaganda extension to mean `people who dislike the Israel administration policies' .

Racially, those Palestinians that the Israel administration is happilly disposing of their flesh are just as semitic as those pulling the trigger.

Dictators in Latin America

Found these trading cards. Pinochet's card is interesting, and contains the following quote: "Democracy is the breeding ground of communism,".

The Church Report from the Freedom of Information Act contains all the fun details!

Richard Cumming's interesting background

Introducing the Chicken Hawks!

Legalized corruption by the Record Labels

Anyone who considers a pre-emptive strike policy, should be pre-emptively be put in a mental institution.

For some interesting history, look at Pilgers's new article. Pay special attention to the politician's speeches. This was scary.