The best article I've seen recently on tazers... its spot on IMO.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/johann-hari-tasers-are-an-outrage-we-must-resist-1207401.html

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Another article of note...
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The sharp fall in construction means that builders can no longer get credit.

The Census Bureau reported a sharp drop in housing starts in November from a downwardly-revised October rate. The 625,000 annual rate of construction reported for November is 24.8 percent below the September rate. It is 47.0 percent below the November 2007 rate and it is 70.9 percent below the rate in November of 2005 at the peak of the building boom. In fact, the start reported for November is lower than any rate reported for the last fifty years.
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/data-bytes/housing-market-monitor/housing-starts-fall-through-the-floor/

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In Detroit Michigan the average house price is now down to $24,000 and they have 22% unemployment (higher than during the great depression). That is a bad sign for America coming from a city that used to be Americas economic engine only a decade ago.

I don't know the actual reason and I'm not trying to place blame, but why the hell would the ice oval not have been open for the Christmas Holidays? Here is a perfect opportunity to showcase our city with something that not every city has. Many friends and relatives where visiting over the holidays from the mainland and other areas of the province where they may not have something as great as this. I went to take a visiting family member there on Boxing day only to find it closed. I realize it takes manpower to operate the oval but are we really that short of staff to have it up and running? Would have been nice is all.

If I was a speculator on foreign events... then I would speculate that the Israeli atrocities taking place right now in Gaza are designed to get the international community to come in and police the Israeli theocracy of a two-state aparthide solution... with foreign troops taking up the act of carrying out their inhuman policies.

The world needs to tell Israel no to their agenda... it should be one country (even if of two states), with one set of human rights standard for all people and all religions... as one would expect of Canadian values (one person, one vote, all equal). We in Canada don't need to be part of the problem by condoning and possibly becoming an accessory to the Israeli crimes of blockade, starvation, and violence as a means to an end.

Our 'conservative' government needs to come clean and state what their moral position is on this (ditto for the other parties), so that Canadians can make informed decisions as to who should be running our country come Jan 27th.

Those atrocities in Gaza have potential to start ugly widespread long term violence at a time of global instability and Canadians have a right to know what their governments position is on this matter, and why they take that position, and how that position leads to Canadian values and security from terrorist reprisals (hopefully as a result of moral clarity).

I was under the impression that the ice oval was ran by volunteers. So therefore no one was around to volunteer so therefore it was closed or was the ice even finished at that point. I believe I saw an article in the paper about it and it surprised me how late in the season it was before the ice was being done.

Eagleone religious zeolots have been at each throats since the beginning of time. The bible is the biggest war story ever written. War, torture, sex, drugs, money, power, religion has it all.

If the Big 3 get some economic bail out from the government how about bailing out all the poor saps who bought $60,000 trucks and after 4 years still owe more than what they are selling the exact same truck for brand new.......

Israel has before used very aggressive retaliatory tactics, as in Lebanon a few years ago, under their mantra that they have the right to protect themselves. Does Gaza also have the right to defend itself?

I think the present situation there is at least partly due to it being the dying days of the Bush administration, which was so partisan in support of Israel rather than objectively pushing for negotiations and compromise by both parties. This lack of objectivity was seen in the removal and demonisation of the democratically elected Hamas government in the rest of Palestine, as an example.

Obama has not yet made clear what his policies will be, although I doubt if they will be substantially different, but I can just hear the argument to strike now as it may not be possible later.

For many people in the West there is a belief that Israel has a God given right to that part of the world. This is compounded by the Evangelical view that the "End Times" are signalled by the restoration of Israel in Palestine, an event which many religious people believe is going on now.

Unfortunately, that aspect of it is not made clear to the public even though it is a major component of the support for Israel in their dispute with Palestinians and approval by the US public for that support.

The Big quesion is...Will Tank Rizzo make it threw the whole year without getting banned?

I have not done my homework so I am throwing out a question. Was the state of Israel made up of taking land from other countries? If so, which were the countries involved?
Thanks anyone.

Firstly, Happy New Year to all. May everyone endure the challenges of the next few years.

With the advent of the internet, we have been given a window to the minds of others. What seemed to be a possible avenue for global exchange of thought and ideals, hopefully for the betterment of civilization seems to be increasingly favouring the negative. This being just one forum of millions portraying the peoples views and ideals of everyday life. Exampled and mirrored ceremoniously is the behaviour of so called religious zealots, having based lifes meaning through fictional scriptures. Evident on this site is the disdain we easily crawl into when disagreed with, usually responded to with an attack in some form or shape. Seems far to easy to engage in a form of retaliation instead of mediation.

Appears that a global recession hardly made an impact on our realizations. It is still the war of the have and have-nots.

While I hate to think it, the scriptures foresee a major event in the future. What will it really take for us to realize that we all need to work together?

Just a query. With all the action being taken against nations involved with civil war and atrocities against their people, why is there no involvement by the UN, or the significant war mongerer with respect to Israel? Are there not innocent men, women and children suffering atrocities of mankind? Is this a form of justifiable hyprocrisy?

"Just a query. With all the action being taken against nations involved with civil war and atrocities against their people, why is there no involvement by the UN, or the significant war mongerer with respect to Israel? Are there not innocent men, women and children suffering atrocities of mankind? Is this a form of justifiable hyprocrisy?"

It is at least debateable that they are only defending themselves against terrorists. After 9/11 how can we suggest that nations do not have the right to defend themselves against rocket attacks from rogue nations. Do the Isrealis hit hard? Yes. But when your enemy demonstrates time and time again that they do not value human life by using suicide bombers how else can you persuade them? Answer, you cant. I for one am careful not to judge them because we have at least relative safety in Canada. When you have to consider the possibility of a Hamas rocket hitting you at all times in Isreal how can you deny them the right to defend themselves? One day Canada will suffer a significant terror attack and after that you will all be alot more considerate towards Isreal and its right to defend itself by any means necessary.

Glad to see the city is finally painting the natural gas lines at the kin center rinks yellow. I guess someone finally figured out the previous colour red is typically designated for sprinkler or water suppression systems. The paint job does leave a little bit to be desired though. It would appear the person who painted the lines on the roads last summer has found him or herself a new task.

If there is blame to be dished out than I think Hamas should take most of it in the Gaza. Think of it if you had a neigbour who kept threating you and the police[UN] did nothing could you stand by while your family was being injuried. My self I think that Israel has showen some restraint.

Lamb: "Was the state of Israel made up of taking land from other countries?"

It all depends on how one looks at history and how far back. If it is o.k. to lay claim and re-occupy land that was one's homeland two-thousand years ago then it should be fair for all other nations in the world to go back that far (or more) and start to lay claims to land held in ancient times.

All the European colonial conquests in North and South America, Africa, India, the Middle East and so forth would have to be reversed.

And if one would just go back a couple of hundred years or so and start to lay claim to lost territories the USA would have to give back to Mexico all of California, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada and possibly more.

Germany would be reclaiming land taken away after WW1 and WW2 and on and on it would go.

Obviously when Jews returned en masse to Palestine there were other non-Jewish people living there already for many centuries and owning the land. There were also Jewish people living there peacefully together with Arabs for hundreds of years.

One obvious solution for the never ending conflict is a massive land swap involving some of the neighbouring Arab countries which would result in two states, Israel and Palestine, with Jerusalem being a neutral multi-religious enclave. The Vatican State is a good example of an enclave within Italy.

The swapping of land should result in the two states being separated by a wide stretch of land belonging to Egypt, ideally.

If no dramatically new different solution of the kind mentioned above is found then the war fare will continue.

Eagleone calls the retaliation for the long term ongoing rocket attacks against Isreal an atrocitie, give yer head a shake.

Lamb, the State of Israel was formed in 1948 when European Jews, whom many fundamentalist 'religious people' in the USA and elsewhere firmly, (but wrongly), believe are the descendents of "Biblical Israel", poured into the British mandated territory of Palestine as refugees after World War Two.

They joined Jews already there, many of whom had purchased property from the Palestinian Arab inhabitants in between WW I and WWII, the area having been promised by Britain's Foreign Secretary, Lord Balfour, in a deal with the large German-American-Jewish owned financial houses of Wall Street as a "homeland" for the Jews, to secure their support for the US entry into World War One, and continued financing of munitions purchased from the USA 'on credit' during that war.

After WW II, the Jews demanded the territory be "partitioned", with them taking the best parts of it. The Palestinians favoured a 'secular' single State, with equal rights for Muslims, Christians and Jews and opposed any partition. The country erupted into a civil war, with the Jews, emerging as the winners. The Palestinians were dispossesed into remnants of their former territories, and the two sides have been battling ever since.

By and large, the European Jews were NOT the descendents of the Jews who lived in that region in ancient times, but had ancestry from another people called the Khazars, who originally inhabited the region around the Black Sea, and had been converted by their king from a nation of penis worshippers to Judaism in the early Christian era.

They were later dispersed throughout eastern, and later, western Europe. They seem to have been unable to get along very well with the other inhabitants of any of the countries in which they settled in sizeable numbers.

Germany, surprisingly enough, was one country which extended them full citizenship rights well prior to World War One, while they were still subjected to great discrimination and persecution in France, Russia, and other European nations.

I always find it interesting how people in general follow along with whatever the mainstream media comes up with, with out ever checking the facts out for themselves. The internet has given us a huge window on the world but most people seem not to have figured out that opportunity. Mainstream media especially the BBC have a very anti-semantic slant.

Israel was formed on non organized lands. The inhabitants already there where to be absorbed into Israel or the surrounding counties but the existing warlords at the time would have nothing to do with that, as they would loose power. So the oppression of Philistines by philistines began, under the mask of look at how Israel is oppressing us. That is a very brief history. Also if one where to check Israel has not been the instigator of each fight they have been in. Oh by the way,

I cut myself off before I finished. While Arafat was keeping his people oppressed and poor in camps, he died a very rich man.

lostfait

The notion of 10 lives or 100 lives, or however many for 1, is a very common notion of dictatorial occupation forces in countries where partisans are operating and killing some of those occupation forces in a few successful skirmishes.

So, 5 got killed in an overnight raid.

Next day they round up 50 people, some of them partisans (otherwise known as terrorists to the occupuying forces), plus some collateral civilians, and declare to everyone that as long as the partisans keep operating the 10 eyes for one eye, and 10 teeth for one tooth the public executions will go on. With that they gun them down in public and leave the bodies to be taken care of by those citizens lucky to have escaped the wrath of the occupying force once more.

When the occupation ends through a victory of an armed force on the side of the occupied country, the notion of which group committed attrocities switches from the previous occupied to the previous occupiers. Their fate in the hands of the "liberating" forces will vary, depending on the situation.

Who is who is all relative and varies with time, sometimes switching back and forth from one generation to the next. One thing is for sure, the general concensus is that whose in the right is very much dependent on who is the strongest and who has the strongest friends.

"Israel was formed on non organized lands."

Sort of like North America, South America, New Zealand, Australia ..... and many more. I guess the difference with Israel is that they did not kill enough of the locals off since they had not "organized their lands" according to the standards of the occupiers.

Peace? in the middle east?
Peace in many parts of the world?
Peace within these countries and between other countries?
You would think that a few more of the billions of people on earth would demand a more effective response by the UN. This obviously would require more resources be provided from all countries.

But beyond the notion of attempting to stop something which has already grown to war or warlike conflict..which causes the losses and atrocities...which breeds the hate and revenge...which absolutely perpetuates the circle...somehow humanity must deal with this differently, because what the countries of military significance have done (in most cases)directly or through the UN, apparently has not served anyone but the arms dealers.

It sounds corny, but when young boys and girls are taught from home, from school and church that they are individually responsible for peacefull conduct... that they will not secumb to groups or factions which allow or promote unpeacefull conduct and that this can be the only beginning to the solution.

For the few who will not ever abide by peacefull conduct..they should be sent to antarctica, stripped naked and left there in groups on the ice... and the ultamate lesson be learned..that by embracing anyone would serve to live longer together in peace.

If anyone is interested in sitting down for a while with a little quiet time to read about another British Empire F*#* up, go to Wikipedia to see their opinion on the "British Mandate of Palestine" which is the immediate precursor to modern day Israel and its rule by the Jewish part of the Semite race as opposed to the Arab part of the Semite race.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Mandate_Palestine

Info from the above

In 1922, the British undertook the first census of the mandate. The population was 752,048, comprising 589,177 Muslims, 83,790 Jews, 71,464 Christians and 7,617 persons belonging to other groups.

http://www.nkusa.org/

This is a website worth visiting and reading the various articles. It shows that the Israel/Palestine conflict has many more aspects to it.

Is Seamutt talking about 'modern' Israel or 'ancient' Israel?

If it's modern Israel, he'll find that the lands must certainly have been "organized" enough for Jews to make purchases of them from the people already resident in Palestine after it ceased to be a part of the Ottoman Empire (Turkey), and was mandated to Britain to administer by the League of Nations.

Because many of those lands were "sold", to Jews who wanted to go and settle in that area. And those of many faiths who were quite anxious for that to happen, including King George V, contributed money to help make it happen.

The contributors names were all recorded in what became known as "The Golden Books of the Jews". They could not "buy" the whole area, however, since many of the Palestinians long resident there had no desire to sell.

In fact, the lands must have been "organized" enough for that to happen well prior to World War One. For a Zionist organization attempted to "buy" the whole area from the Sultan of Turkey in the late 19th century, and have him move the non-Jews out of there, so European Jews could move in. The Sultan turned them down.

He seemed to have a succession of never ending troubles after that, which culminated in his overthow by Kemal Attaturk. Many interesting 'co-incidences' in the history surrounding the whole subject.

I was just trying to keep it simple, there was no country as such.

Notice how the Canadian military has charged one of their own for murder of an unarmed man. Whereas the RCMP being a power onto themselves only, still cover up and lie about the murders their members have committed.

In 1945 the population was 1,764,520 with 1,061,270(60%)Muslim; 553,600(31%)Jewish; 135,550(8%)Christian and 14,100(1%)others.

Recently the population is 7.2 million with 76+% Jewish.

The world has watched as a Jewish state was created out of a piece of land which at the takeover by the British was 78% Muslim now almost the same percentage Jewish.

So, why is anyone wondering why there are still some partisans, militants, terrorists who are lobbing rockets into the Jewish portions of Israel? Israel is not the only place in the world where indiginous peoples are fighting to keep what they used to have and was removed against their will simply because they were the weaker and less popular.

Here's a semi-amusing story to break up this constant and monotonous Israeli/Palestine babble...

I was over at a friend's place over the holidays and heard him relay a story to someone else that I recognized that he previously posted on this site. And he's a regular contributor.

It made me realize that the very people you interact with on a day-to-day basis might be the same people you agree or disagree with daily on this website.

If much of the land on Vancouver Island was sold to Chinese interests, could China lay claim on Vancouver Island?

However, looking at land ownership in 1945, the Muslims owned the majority of land in 12 of 16 districts. In one district 85% was public ownership. In no district did Jewish people own more than 39%.

Was Alaska "organized" when the USA bought it from the Russians?

The land was "organized" hundreds of years before, at least during the Ottoman empire and probably before that.

Here is a link that shows us an interview by a person who is a little more knowledgeable about the Mideast situation than even the interviewer.

http://rising-hegemon.blogspot.com/2008/12/you-have-such-stunningly-superficial.html

The people the RCMP kill are all armed. The Polish fellow at YVR was armed with a manual office stapler. Bush was armed with his wrestling abilities.

The historical perspectives regarding Israel and palestine are very interesting, but I think they mostly miss the point. Historical reviews tend to hold one side or other responsible, rahther than help resolve conflicts, and I think that is a major part of the problem.

The facts are that Israel is not going to disappear, and it is going to remain a Jewish state, with minorities of other faiths. Similarly both of the Palestine territories are going to remain Muslim, populated by descendents of people with an ancestral interest in Israeli territory.

Neither side is going to win this conflict unless a major act of genocide takes place, and I strongly suspect this would not be allowed by the UN. So we are left with two possibilities.

Either the present situation will continue as it has for 50 years, with intermittant eruptions of violence to the detriment of both populations, or someone will develop some common sense and take political responsibility by using their economic and political influence to bring about long term discussions, without any preconditions, with the intent of one day resolving the conflict by a voluntary compromise acceptable to both parties.

Don't hold your breath for the latter.

Thanks for that link astro. A joy to watch someone of the stature of Brzezinski and Kissinger held to the limits of a reporter who is unprepared, and never will be, for a "discussion" with someone like that.

As Brzezinski stated, it is time to get off the pot with the Israelis and Palestinians. They have had their chance and have blown it. They are costing the world peace and what happens there influences that entire part of the world and more.

Clinton was the closest to getting an agreement at the end of his term. Bush has done nothing since. In fact, he has taken on his own policy with respect to other parts of the region to mirror that of Israel.

Welcome Mr. Obama to a world that needs a world leadership with some understanding of what a measured response is. Maybe the better part of the old USA will soon reappear.

Now if we can do the same with our position on the less globally siginificant Afghanistan, that would be great.

Ammonra. According to the CIA World Factbook, "Israel usually posts sizable trade deficits, which are covered by large transfer payments from abroad and by foreign loans."

Until Israel is cut off from such artificial subsidies, nothing will change. Those subsidies support not only status quo, but a continuing assault on Arab self determination.

Just imagine if Quebec and the French Canadians were to be treated that way by Canada.

Would Israel ever accept a Muslim "province" within Israel which would have as much control of its own matters within those territories as as Quebec has? Or would they all have to have a wall around them with a controlled access of what and who goes out and the ability to determine whether those living inside the walled-off territory needed humanitarian aid.

There will be peace in the middle east when they both learn to love their children more than they hate each other.

"Don't hold your breath for the latter."

If somebody would have told me in 1988 that Germany would be reunited a year later I would have seriously doubted his/her sanity!

Lo and Behold, it happened! The wall came down!

Anything can happen in Israel as soon as someone comes up with an acceptable compromise and when everybody has had their fill of war - the wall will come down!

I think the key reason that happened was because there was a change in leadership on the Soviet side and the people were willing to accept that change.

There was a change in Israel leadership as well at the time of the Tabla talks and proposal that came forward with the USA assistance. However, the leadership in both the USA and Israel changed at about the same time, before the agreement could be ratified and the new government elected in Israel reverted back to the old ways, presumably because the people voted that government in because of that reason. (am not sure and don't wish to spend the time researching it any more). At the same time, the new leadership in the USA was not interested in pursuing what had been achieved under the previous government.

So, back to square one.

I do not know what the young people in Israel think. That might be the only hope from the inside. That, and slowly cutting off aid without conditions attached.

If people like Brzezinski will be counselling Obama, there might be hope to put some pressure on the kids playing in the sandbox provided them by the rest of the world.

I appreciate all the feedback on Palestine and Israel and will do some further study on my own with all the info given here. I just hate to see the babies killed.

On another note, I hold all life precious. I have never watched hockey because of the violence. So now, I got interested in the junior hockey tournament and was proud of Canada's participation. Today I learn that a young man, Don Sanderson, aged 21 has died from brain injuries sustained in a fight in October. So now I am back to my own personal dilemna, I like the game of hockey but cannot condone the violence of it. Don Sanderson looks like a great Canadian boy/man and now is gone through senseless fighting which does nothing for the game.
I would like to see a ground swell of people concerned with this death who say "no to violence in hockey".

We can get rid of it -"yes, we can".

Hammas and Israel? Om the Mop & Pail they don't allow discussion of unfolding events. But cbc.ca sure does. I learned that there are a multitude of anti-Israel fans out there in cyber land. A lot of them are foreigners who haven't been here for a long time. I can't get over the lack of command of the English language and punctuation from the majority of the contributors. Just barely functionally illiterate anti-Semites. Anonymity sure creates license for hate. Judging by the dis allowing of comments on the Globe & Mail website I can understand their reasoning for it.

"If the Big 3 get some economic bail out from the government how about bailing out all the poor saps who bought $60,000 trucks and after 4 years still owe more than what they are selling the exact same truck for brand new"

Just my opinion, but if someone makes a conscious decision to purchase a vehicle for sixty thousand dollars, they should be the last person on the face of the earth asking the government for assistance, LOL.

From a historical perspective it was the Greek who originally owned the land around the current Israel/Palistine, and then when the Hebrews came and settled the area (including Jerusalem) they had a progrom to kill and remove all the Greek from the area... which they did and whole villages had their populations removed and replaced with Hebrews. The Greeks at that time were weak and couldn't get assistance from Greece proper after the 27 year Polopensian War that suicided the Greek culture and then Roman conquest.

So the Hebrew peoples ethnically cleansed the area of the Greek and claimed it as their new homeland. The few surviving Greek adopted the Hebrew ways but were still always persecuted as second hand citizens.

The Romans in 76AD finally had enough of the Hebrew atrocities and sent in Caesars old 10th division to bring Jerusalem back under Roman law, but the city decided to resist the 20,000 Romans outside their walls with the cities population of 1.7 million. For a while it looked as though the Hebrews would win because they fought like savages never before seen to fight like that and were committing what at the time were the worst atrocities of war (with that of the dead) the world had ever seen to that point.

The Romans were dismayed at the violence (which says a lot IMO) and resolved to bring those to justice once and for all... even in the city itself the Hebrew were divided amongst the zealots who wanted to fight.. and those that wanted to surrender to the Romans... and so war carried on inside the walls between the inhabitants of the city itself for nearly 2-years. Eventually exhausted by starvation and disease the zealot faction got the upper hand and so Rome had no choice left and was with renewed effort able to breach the walls and enter the city... when all was said and done the city was completely depopulated and all Hebrews were exiled from the lands of Palestine by Roman decree for the atrocities they had committed against the non Hebrew local populations. And this policy stood for nearly 2000 years.

In the 1800's a faction of European's that had taken up the Hebrew religion and called themselves Jews began to see the idea of Israel as an escape to a country they could call their own, because they were persecuted in their home countries because they had a ethnocentric supremacy belief that they were the chosen people to rule the world. Zionism and nazism were two ideologies that sprang from the same small town (zionism first followed by nazism) in the same year both competing to be the master race that would rule the world. We all know how that worked out.

The purpose of zionism as it was created by international bankers... was to create a loyal people that could be the vanguard to protect the international bankers... to create a people who fear the outside world so as to be easy to control and influence and most importantly to stick together in a conspiracy to control the world through finance... and if anyone gets in too much trouble to have a homeland they can retire to without fear of prosecution for their crimes committed elsewhere. Zionism drove the people to Israel, bought the lands for the Jewish settlers, financed the arming of the settlers, and facilitated the geo-politics to make the state happen. Zionism is about global domination first and foremost and the Palestinians stand in the way of their end goals... so must be removed at all costs from the zionist point of view. In 1900 only 8% of the population in Palestine was Jewish when this all started.

Fast forward to today and we have Obama's chief of staff, the man who controls what the president sees and hears, and who recommends the appointments for the president... This man Rahm Emanual served for the Israeli Defense forces (during the 1st Iraq war in 1991), rather than the American military in his youth. This is because his father was an Igrun terrorist that served an organization that killed British solders, bombed Palestinian homes, and poisoned their water wells to remove them from their land in the creation of Israel pre-1948... Igrun (fore runner to Mossad) is a branch of the Israeli government that is closely tied to the ruling Likud party and many including myself believe ifs the power and brains behind events such as 9/11 and other 5th column events throughout the creation of Israel pushing the Israeli agenda through terror.

Some claim Rahm Emanual is the acting Mossad chief for North America for Mossad Israeli Intelligence, and his father (Benjamin)was part of the assassin team that murdered Sweden's Count Bernadotte in 1948. Count Bernadotte was the UN envoy in Palestine who supported a one state solution for all the people of Palestine regardless of religious affiliation (Hamas policy) and opposed dividing the land along religion lines. The Emanual family (originally Auerback changed in 1938 when he went underground) was originally from the Ukraine and had no historical ties to Israel other than the work they could do for the bankers. Obama's by far his biggest contributors were the bankers of Wall Street, and so they both work for the same people... even more so than GW Bush.

So the long of the short is that we have an occupation with an agenda to create a homeland that will protect banksters from their crimes as they try to engineer a global takeover via finance and the military industrial complex. Everything in Palestine is planned to a t and the resistance of the Palestinians IMO can be attributed to their brutal occupation, land theft, loss of human rights, starvation, lose of access to clean water, and in their dispare they have no alternative but to make noise with bottle rockets for the most part when after they quietly protested for 30+ years the world took no notice of their plight. IMO we share their plight... zionism just haven't yet come for us in our homes... maybe the financial melt down is an end game that will wake the world up I don't know.

Time Will Tell

Just think of the Palestineans as Kurds, or Armenians, and others in Asia and Africa as well as the Americas.

None of those ethnic and indigenous groups were liked by their neighbours. Many have lost their homeland. The were hated, beaten, kept out of commerce, and massacred.

I find it incredulous that the very people, the Jews, who also suffered such hatred throughout the centuries and millenia and in the last century were killed by the millions by the Nazis, are people who are unable to live with others in their midst.

The "financial melt down" is all part of the plan, Eagle. It won't "wake up the world", but lull it further into a deeper sleep.

Harbinger:- "Anonymity sure creates license for hate."

It also opens a golden opportunity to plant the idea there are more anti-semites out there than may actually be the case.

This is all very scarey. I recall reading about the holocaust after the war and telling my Dad who had fought in the First World War, that what I was reading was just junk and why were papers ever allowed to print such lies. He said "no", it is all true. I then read everything I could including the biographies of Nazis my reading was extensive. Now when I witness what is happening today I think it is the halocaust happening all over again but now by the victims of the first one. None of this makes sense to me. How can life and love get so out of line?

I must just add that it seems to me that all of this perpetuated by men. Where are the women? Are they so subjugated that they have no say. Women are life givers and protectors and perhaps it is time they stepped forward and said enough is enough and we are not producing any more babies to be killed by all this nonsense.

Folks here is a thought, with vehicles getting more and fuel efficient and useful battery power just around the corner, think fuel taxes or lack of. Now how will the fiberals cover that lack of tax. Well the first step is the so called carbon tax under the cloak of globull worming. The next step will be taxing mileage. That is what Oregon is thinking of. Check this site http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090102/ap_on_re_us/mileage_tax

scary stuff

While the GPS monitoring is scary stuff, I have no problem with the mileage tax in theory. I believe that more of our government-owned assets should be user-maintained. If gas taxes in the future won't be enough to maintain roads, then what better way to make sure that the users of the roads pay for their upkeep than through a mileage tax? Why should someone who walks to work and/or shops locally pay the same to use the roads as someone who commutes 45 mins each way daily and shops at box malls? Something has to be used to calculate who uses roads the most, so what better than mileage?

"Women are life givers and protectors"

Golda Meir was a "freedom fighter" for the Israelis. One tough woman.

Don't forget that traditional Jewish families are often headed by matriarchs rather than patriarchs. Women are very influential in Jewish society. If they wanted the fighting to stop, the fighting would stop.

"Something has to be used to calculate who uses roads the most, so what better than mileage?"

The first part of that statement is not self evident and VERY disputable.

How about this statement?

"Something has to be used to calculate who uses the health system the most, so what better system than charging them directly for the cost of their use?"

or

"Something has to be used to calculate who uses the public school system the most. so waht bettere system than charging them directly for the amount they use the system?"

The person driving from a rural residence along mostly a gravel road should not be charged the same mileage rate as the individual driving on a two lane, ditched highway or the person driving on a 4 lane arterial urban road with bicycle strips, grassed medians and sidewalks.

When I grew up I was told that the gasoline tax paid for road building and maintenance. Whatever happened to that notion? Was it wrong information?