Abort this stupid law.

Reasonable people can disagree about when a zygote becomes a "human life" - that's a philosophical question. However, regardless of whether or not one believes a fetus is ethically equivalent to an adult, it doesn't obligate a mother to sacrifice her body autonomy for another, innocent or not.

Body autonomy is a critical component of the right to privacy protected by the Constitution, as decided in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), McFall v. Shimp (1978), and of course Roe v. Wade (1973). Consider a scenario where you are a perfect bone marrow match for a child with severe aplastic anemia; no other person on earth is a close enough match to save the child's life, and the child will certainly die without a bone marrow transplant from you. If you decided that you did not want to donate your marrow to save the child, for whatever reason, the state cannot demand the use of any part of your body for something to which you do not consent. It doesn't matter if the procedure required to complete the donation is trivial, or if the rationale for refusing is flimsy and arbitrary, or if the procedure is the only hope the child has to survive, or if the child is a genius or a saint or anything else - the decision to donate must be voluntary to be constitutional. This right is even extended to a person's body after they die; if they did not voluntarily commit to donate their organs while alive, their organs cannot be harvested after death, regardless of how useless those organs are to the deceased or many lives they would save. That's the law.

Use of a woman's uterus to save a life is no different from use of her bone marrow to save a life - it must be offered voluntarily. By all means, profess your belief that providing one's uterus to save the child is morally just, and refusing is morally wrong. That is a defensible philosophical position, regardless of who agrees and who disagrees. But legally, it must be the woman's choice to carry out the pregnancy. She may choose to carry the baby to term. She may choose not to. Either decision could be made for all the right reasons, all the wrong reasons, or anything in between. But it must be her choice, and protecting the right of body autonomy means the law is on her side. Supporting that precedent is what being pro-choice means.

Why the British don’t like Trump.

This is not mine, I copied and pasted from Alex Von Moltke.....it is excellently expressed:-

Someone on Quora asked "Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?" Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England wrote this magnificent response:

A few things spring to mind.

Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.

For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace - all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.

So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing - not once, ever.

I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility - for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.

But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is - his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.

Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.

And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults - he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.

There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface.

Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront.

Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.

And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.

Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that.

He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat.

He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.

And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully.

That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.

There are unspoken rules to this stuff - the Queensberry rules of basic decency - and he breaks them all. He punches downwards - which a gentleman should, would, could never do - and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless - and he kicks them when they are down.

So the fact that a significant minority - perhaps a third - of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think 'Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:

Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are. You don't need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man. This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.

After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.

God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid.

He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart.

In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws - he would make a Trump.

And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish:

'My God… what… have… I… created?'

If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.

Alzheimer's cure

The xenophobic misogynistic jester A.K.A as the Donald has at least it seems cured Alzheimer's disease as proven by the many women who suddenly remembered he assaulted them. Hopefully his comments about Hilary will jog her memory next time she is questioned under oath.

Apartheid Israel

30 Little Known Facts About Israel:

1. Did you know that non-Jewish Israelis cannot buy or lease land in Israel? A Jew from any country in the world is guaranteed citizenship in Israel, while the Palestinians who have been there for centuries are oppressed and persecuted. And Palestinian refugees are not allowed to return.

2. Did you know that instead of sewing an insignia on clothing to distinguish race (like the Germans did to the Jews WW2), Palestinian license plates in Israel are color coded to distinguish Jews from non-Jews?

3. Did you know that East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights are all considered by the entire world community, including the United States and the United Nations, to be occupied territory and NOT part of the State of Israel?

4. Did you know that Israel allots 85% of the water resources for Jews, and the remaining 15% is divided among all Palestinians in the territories? For example in Hebron, 85% of the water is set aside for about 400 Jewish settlers, while the remaining 15% is distributed among Hebron’s 120, 000 Palestinians? And the price to Palestinians is more than double.

5. Did you know that the United States awards Israel $5 billion in aid each year from American tax dollars?

6. Did you know that US aid to Israel ($1.8 billion annually in military aid alone) exceeds the aid the US grants to the entire African continent? This aid is used both to buy American weaponry and to buy arms made in Israel.

7. Did you know that Israel is awaiting an additional $4 billion worth of American military hardware, including new F-16s and Apache and Blackhawk helicopters. As Israel’s main ally and supporter internationally, the United States is committed to maintaining the Jewish state’s “qualitative edge” in weapons over its neighbours.

8. Did you know that the U.S. administration has notified Congress on numerous occasions that Israel has violated the rules on how US-supplied weapons are used? (In 1978, 1979 and 1982 during fighting in Lebanon, and once after Israel’s bombing of an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981.)

9. Did you know that Israel is the only country in the Middle East that refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and bars international inspections from its sites?

10. Did you know that high-ranking military officers in the Israeli Defence Forces have admitted publicly that unarmed prisoners of war have been summarily executed by the Israeli forces?

11. Did you know that Israel blew up an American diplomatic facility in Egypt and attacked a US warship in international waters (the USS Liberty), killing 33 and wounding 177 American sailors and the US did nothing about it? (Imagine if an Arab country did this!)

12. Did you know that Israel stands in defiance of 69 United Nations Security Council Resolutions?

13. Did you know that Israel is explicitly dedicated to the policy of maintaining a distinct Jewish character?

14. Did you know that Israel’s Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, was found by an Israeli court to be “personally and directly responsible” for the Sabra and Shatilla massacre in Lebanon where more than a thousand innocent Palestinian men, women, and children were axed to death or lined up and shot in cold blood?

15. Did you know that on May 20, 1990, a group of unarmed Palestinian labourers were lined up and murdered by an Israeli soldier as they sat waiting for transportation back to Gaza? The terrified labourers who gathered in an area of southern Israel known as Rishon Lezion (known to Palestinians by its Arabic name Oyon Qara) handed their ID cards to the Israeli soldier. The soldiers ordered the distressed labourers to kneel down and face the ground and unexpectedly showered them with a barrage of bullets, killing seven and wounding many others. Needless to say, the soldier was not charged with any crime.

16. Did you know that Israelis are permitted to run “Jews Only” job ads?

17. Did you know that the Israeli Foreign Ministry pays six US public relations firms to promote a “positive image” of Israel to the American public?

18. Did you know that Sharon’s coalition government includes a party–Molodet–which advocates ethnic cleansing by openly calling for the forced expulsion of all Palestinians from the occupied territories?

19. Did you know that recently-declassified documents indicate that David Ben-Gurion approved of the forced expulsion of Palestinians from all of Palestine in 1948?

20. Did you know that the former chief rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Ovadia Yossef, who is also a founder and spiritual leader of the religious Shas party (Israel’s third largest political party) openly advocates a ‘Final Solution’ to annihilate the Palestinians? Speaking at the widely broadcast sermon marking the last Passover, he declared of the Palestinians: “The Lord shall return their deeds on their own heads, waste their seed and exterminate them, devastate them and vanish them from this world. It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable.”

21. Did you know that Palestinian refugees make up the largest portion of the refugee population in the world?

22. Did you know that Palestinian Christians are considered the “living stones” of Christianity because they are the direct descendants of the disciples of Jesus Christ? And the Palestinian Christians stand united with their Muslim brethren in the struggle against the Israeli occupation. Unlike their occupiers Palestinians are not sectarian.

23. Did you know that despite a ban on torture by Israel’s High Court of Justice, torture has continued unabated by Shin Bet interrogators on Palestinian prisoners?

24. Did you know that despite every Israeli attempt to disrupt Palestinian education, Palestinians have the highest ratio of PhDs per capita in the world?

25. Did you know that the right of self-determination is guaranteed to every human being under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [December, 1948], yet Palestinians were/are expected to negotiate for this right under the Oslo Accords?

26. Did you know that despite what is widely perpetuated and written in the history books that the Arabs attacked Israel in the 1967 war, it was Israel who attacked the Arab countries first, capturing Jerusalem and the West Bank, and called the attack a pre-emptive strike?

27. Did you know that, as an occupying power, Israel has a particular responsibility under the Geneva Conventions to protect Palestinian civilians?

28. Did you know that Israeli soldiers have not stopped shooting, killing or bulldozing Palestinian homes since 1948?

29. Did you know that the Zionists have been trying to destroy Masjid al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock for the last 50 years by digging underground tunnels beneath the sites to weaken its foundation causing it to collapse? Renowned Israeli archeologists have confirmed there are no traces of the temple.

30. Nelson Mandela called the Israeli government an apartheid regime, just like South Africa used to be. Even worse.''

Think about it

I liked this so I decided to share.

For many years I had always said that I am not a moral person, however, I am an ethical person. But when I would say, "I am not a moral person," I would wait to see the person's reaction to my saying that before I added the "however, I am an ethical person."

Normally the person would wrinkle their brow and get this confused look on their face, and then I would commence to explain my thoughts on the difference between "morals vs. ethics." 

The reason I have chosen not to rule my life based on "morals" is that I think there is an extreme difference between morals and ethics. Before you say, "This is a semantics issue," let me explain. 

I really am not playing "the meaning of words game" here. In my mind I clearly see a big difference between making your decision based on "morals" and making your decisions of life based on your personal ethics. The dictionary has this to offer:

Ethics: choosing principles of conduct as a guiding philosophy.

Morals: conforming to a standard of right behavior.

Here is where I see the difference. Morals, to be sure, are rules and standards that we are told we must "conform" to when deciding what is "right" behavior. In other words, morals are dictated to us by either society or religion.

We are not free to think and choose. You either accept or you don't! We are taught by society and religion that you "shall not lie" or you should "give to the poor" or you must "love others as you would have others love you" or you must do something because it is "your moral obligation." The key issue with "morals" is that you are expected to "conform to a standard of right behavior" and not question that "conforming" or you are not a "moral" person. But again, where do these "morals" come from to which we are expected to "conform"? Yep, from society and/or religion, but not from YOU, and that's what bothers me.

Ethics, on the other hand, are "principles of conduct" that YOU CHOOSE to govern your life as a guiding philosophy that YOU have chosen for your life. Again, call it semantics if you want, but I see a big difference between "conforming" and "choosing." With MORALS the "thinking has been done;" with ETHICS there's a freedom to "think and choose" your personal philosophy for guiding the conduct of your life. I like to watch movies about the "mafia" or TV shows like the "Sopranos." The people on these shows are extremely devoted people to their families and religions, but they have somehow "morally justified" their actions of killing, stealing, and lying.

How is it that these extremely devoted family men and supposedly devoted members of the Catholic religion think that what they are doing is moral is a mystery to me. Yet they wear their "crosses," cross themselves, love their kids, and dedicate themselves to the "family" while killing people who get in the way. Now that's an interesting morality. But morals don't stop there. Think of all the hundreds of cultures who have totally different ideas of morality. Some cultures think it is perfectly fine to have as many wives as they want; some think only one wife is moral in the eyes of God.

Some cultures think that it is fine to steal if you need food; other cultures think that stealing is stealing and is never morally justified. Some cultures think that "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" judgment is fine; other cultures think that this type of moral thinking is barbaric. 

When you leave MORAL THINKING to society and religion, there is no such thing as "absolute morality." So, is there any such thing as a 100% MORAL PERSON? I think not, at least based on the criteria, culture, society, and religion telling us what our morals should be.

ETHICS are a totally another matter. With ethics, you are free to choose your personal philosophy of conduct to guide your life. You are not dependent on the judgment of society or religion "based in fear" when making your ethical decisions.

For example, I believe in telling the truth not because God may curse me, but because it is the right and best thing to do based on my personal ethics. I believe in being 100% faithful to my wife, not because adultery is a sin, but because being true to your wife is the smart and right thing to do.

It is a better and happier way to live, again not because God will send me to hell if I commit adultery, but because it is the right and best way to live my life based on my ethical way of seeing things. I believe in keeping the laws of the land, however, I am not living my life based on the rules of society and religion, but solely based on a pragmatic and ethical way of living. 

I don't refrain from stealing because I'm afraid I might go to jail. I don't steal because I have decided not to steal based on my ethics. I don't have to be commanded to give to the poor. I concern myself with giving to and helping the poor based on my ethics.I have the freedom to choose and if I am smart, I will choose personal ethics that will enrich my life and the lives of others. As with all other freedoms, there is always the risk that I will make ethical decisions that could cause me to drift over to the "dark side."

That's the problem with the freedom to choose or free agency. Anytime we allow people the freedom to choose, we also give them the freedom to make bad choices. If you want to make bad ethical decisions that will make you, and perhaps others, unhappy, then you can. However, if you want to make good ethical decision that will make you and others happier, you have the freedom to make those ethical decisions too. I choose personal ethics to govern my life that make me happier, while I strive to enrich the lives of others. It's the ethical thing to do based on my personal ethics. You don't have to tell me not to lie, not to steal, not to kill, not to commit adultery, etc. I have already made my ethical decisions to NOT do those things.

You don't have to tell me to give to the poor, love my neighbor and my enemies, use my free agency for good, etc. I have already made these personal ethical decisions. I choose my principles of personal conduct because I have thought about them. My ethics are my ethics, and yet interestingly enough, they almost always agree with society and religion. The only difference is I made these decisions.

My personal thinking determines my ethics. I made these ethical choices. Not because I was told by society or religion to think a certain way but because I thought it was the best way to live a complete and fulfilled life of happiness. Freedom to think is a great concept. We ought to use this freedom more often. Think about it.

How gullible are we?

This was found on the newsgroup: rec.humor.funny

H2O: Dangerous Chemical!

A student at Eagle Rock Junior High won first prize at the Greater Idaho Falls Science Fair, April 26. He was attempting to show how conditioned we have become to alarmists practicing junk science and spreading fear of everything in our environment. In his project he urged people to sign a petition demanding strict control or total elimination of the chemical "dihydrogen monoxide."

And for plenty of good reasons, since:

it can cause excessive sweating and vomiting

it is a major component in acid rain

it can cause severe burns in its gaseous state

accidental inhalation can kill you

it contributes to erosion

it decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes

it has been found in tumors of terminal cancer patients

He asked 50 people if they supported a ban of the chemical.

Forty-three (43) said yes,

six (6) were undecided,

and only one (1) knew that the chemical was water.

The title of his prize winning project was, "How Gullible Are We?"

He feels the conclusion is obvious.

If you listened to some leaders, you'd think Gaza was occupying Israel

Responses to five commonly heard pro-war talking points.

1) CLAIM: Israel avoids civilian casualties, but Hamas aims to kill civilians.RESPONSE: Hamas has crude weapons technology that lacks any targeting capability. As such, Hamas rocket attacks ipso facto violate the principle of distinction because all of its attacks are indiscriminate. This is not contested. Israel, however, would not be any more tolerant of Hamas if it strictly targeted military objects, as we have witnessed of late. Israel considers Hamas and any form of its resistance, armed or otherwise, to be illegitimate. In contrast, … with the use of drones, F-16s and an arsenal of modern weapon technology, Israel has the ability to target single individuals and therefore to avoid civilian casualties. But rather than avoid them, Israel has repeatedly targeted civilians as part of its military operations. 

Noura Erakat (July 22, 2014) Five Israeli Talking Points Debunked, The Nation 

2) CLAIM: Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005.RESPONSE:  Although in 2005 Israel removed approximately 8000 Jewish settlers who had been living in illegal colonies in Gaza under then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s so-called “disengagement” plan, Israel continues to exercise "unconsented-to effective control," the legal definition for qualifying as an occupying power. Israel continues to control Gaza’s airspace, coastline, and all of its entry and exit points except for one controlled by Egypt, which has cooperated with Israel in maintaining the siege and blockade of Gaza. This status has been affirmed by the Red Cross, Amnesty International, the U.N., and the U.S. State Department, among others.  

Institute for Middle East Understanding (July 31, 2014) Fact check: Israeli claims about the assault on Gaza

3) CLAIM: Gaza proves there can be no Palestinian stateRESPONSE: To grasp the perversity of using Gaza as an explanation for why Israel can’t risk a Palestinian state, it helps to realize that Sharon withdrew Gaza’s settlers in large measure because he didn’t want a Palestinian state.

Peter Beinart (July 30, 2014) What American Jews Haven’t Been Told About Gaza, Ha'aretz   

4) CLAIM: Hamas started this latest assault
RESPONSE: Israel’s assault on Gaza, as pointed out by analyst Nathan Thrall in the New York Times, was not triggered by Hamas’ rockets directed at Israel but by Israel’s determination to bring down the Palestinian unity government that was formed in early June, even though that government was committed to honoring all of the conditions imposed by the international community for recognition of its legitimacy.

Henry Siegman (July 22, 2014) Israel provoked this war. It's up to President Obama to stop it. Politico

 

5) CLAIM: Israel is acting under self defense. RESPONSE: All nations have a right of self-defense, including Israel. But that right may be exercised lawfully only in limited circumstances. Israel cannot validly claim self-defense in its recent onslaught against Gaza for two main reasons.

First…Israel remains an occupying power under international law, bound to protect the occupied civilian population. Israel can use force to defend itself, but no more than is necessary to quell disturbances. Hence this is not a war – rather, it is a top military power unleashing massive firepower against a penned and occupied Palestinian population. Second, self-defense cannot be claimed by a state that initiates violence, as Israel did in its crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank, arresting more than 400, searching 2,200 homes and other sites, and killing at least nine Palestinians.  
George Bisharat (July 22, 1014) Israel Has Overreacted to the Threats It Provoked The New York Times

Israel's historic use of human shields and war crimes

The use of civilian human shields is prohibited by Fourth Geneva Convention. Israel ratified this convention in 1951.

Israeli forces have a long history of using Palestinian civilians as human shields. From the years 2000 to 2005, they admitted to using human shields more than 1,200 times. This practice was banned by the Israeli Supreme Court in 2005, but human rights groups have accused the Israeli army of continuing to use it. During the Gaza massacre of 2008-2009 Israeli occupation forces were accused by Amnesty International, as well as former Israeli soldiers, of using Palestinian children as human shields. It continues till today

 The argument that Hamas is using human shields has no weight. There is no evidence that this is actually occurring en masse. Gaza is tiny. It is one of the most densely populated places on the planet. There is no place where Hamas could stockpile arms away from a population centre. Furthermore, the Israeli army continually uses human shields. Israel is so militarised that nearly every Israeli bus or fast-food joint has armed soldiers – soldiers are ubiquitous in Israeli society.

• The Israeli army has killed more than 1700 Palestinians so far in this latest reckless adventure Operation Protective edge .According to the United Nations, approximately 80% of those killed are civilians.
• A UN agency is housing 167 269 displaced Palestinians.
• Rocket fire from Gaza has killed two Israeli civilians and a Thai migrant worker.
• About 64 Israeli soldiers have been killed in combat, all as a result of the army’s ground invasion.
• More Gazan children were killed in the first week of bombing than the total number of Israelis killed by Hamas rockets in the past 13 years.
• Israel has bombed schools, hospitals, a clinic for the disabled, a UN refugee centre and more. You do the maths.

Rule 156 War crimes ,who is funding them?

Dear friends,

As a new round of violence kicks off in Israel-Palestine and more children are killed, it's not enough just to call for another ceasefire. It’s time to take definitive non-violent action to end this decades long nightmare. 

Our governments have failed -- while they have talked peace and passed UN resolutions, they and our companies have continued to aid, trade and invest in the violence. The only way to stop this hellish cycle of Israel confiscating Palestinian lands, daily collective punishment of innocent Palestinian families, Hamas firing rockets, and Israel bombing Gaza is to make the economic cost of this conflict too high to bear. 

We know it works -- when EU countries issued guidelines not to fund the illegal Israeli settlements it caused an earthquake in the cabinet, and when citizens successfully persuaded a Dutch pension fund, PGGM, to withdraw, it created a political storm.

This may not feel like a direct way to stop the current killing, but history tells us that raising the financial cost of oppression can pave a path to peace. Click to call on 6 key banks, pension funds and businesses to pull out -- If we all take smart action now and turn up the heat, they could withdraw, the Israeli economy will take a hit, and we can turn the calculation of the extremists politically profiting from this hell upside down:

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/israel_palestine_this_is_how_it_ends_short/?tbFFtbb

In the last five weeks three Israeli teenagers were murdered in the West Bank, a Palestinian boy was burnt alive, an American kid was brutally beaten up by Israeli police, and now over 40 Gazan kids have died in Israeli air strikes. This is not the “Middle East conflict”, it's becoming a war on children. And we are becoming numb to this global shame. 

The media makes out like this is an intractable conflict between two equal warring parties, but it is not. Palestinian extremists' attacks on innocent civilians must be condemned and ended but the root of the conflict lies elsewhere -- in the dispossession of the Palestinian people. Israel currently occupies, colonises, bombs, raids, and controls the water, trade and the borders of a legally free nation that has been recognised by the United Nations. In Gaza, Israel has created the largest open-air prison in the world, and then blockaded it. Now as bombs fall, the families, literally have no way to get out. 

These are war crimes and we wouldn't accept that anywhere else, why accept it in Palestine? Half a century ago Israel and its Arab neighbours went to war and Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza. Occupying territory after war happens all the time. But no military occupation should turn into a decades long tyranny which only fuels and benefits extremists who use terror to target the innocent. And who suffers? The majority of loving families on both sides that just want freedom and peace.

To many, particularly in Europe and North America, calling for companies to withdraw investments from financing or taking part in Israel's occupation of Palestine sounds completely biased. But it’s not -- this is the most potent non-violent strategy to end the ritual violence, ensure Israelis' security and achieve Palestinian freedom. Israel’s power and wealth dwarfs Palestine, and if it refuses to end its illegal occupation, the world must act to make the cost unbearable.

Dutch pension fund, ABP, invests in Israeli banks that help fund the colonisation of Palestine. Massive banks like Barclays invest in suppliers of Israeli arms and other occupation businesses. Computer giant Hewlett-Packard supplies sophisticated surveillance to control the movement of Palestinians. And Caterpillar provides bulldozers that are used to demolish Palestinian homes and farms. If we can create the biggest global call ever to get these companies to pull out, we will show clearly that the world will no longer be complicit in this bloodshed. The Palestinian people are calling on the world to support this path and progressive Israelis support it too. Let’s join them: 

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/israel_palestine_this_is_how_it_ends_short/?tbFFtbb

Our community has worked to bring peace, hope, and change to some of the world’s toughest conflicts, and often that means taking difficult positions to address the root cause. For years our community has looked for a political solution to this nightmare, but with this new round of horror unfolding in Gaza, the time has come to turn to sanctions and disinvestment to finally help end the horror for Israelis and Palestinians.

With hope and determination, 




MORE INFORMATION:

UN independent expert calls for boycott of businesses profiting from Israeli settlements (UN)
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=43376#.U7_ynqhMrRI

12 more EU countries warn against trade with Israeli settlements (Haaretz)
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.603030

Israelis, Palestinians Pro Peace Process, but Not Hopeful (Gallup)
http://www.gallup.com/poll/161456/israelis-palestinians-pro-peace-process-not-hopeful.aspx

Under pressure, a strong EU-Israel relationship faces uncertain future (Middle East Monitor)
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/articles/debate/9675-under-pressure-a-strong-eu-israel-relationshi...

Israel-Gaza conflict: 80 per cent of Palestinians killed by Israeli strikes are civilians, UN report says (The Independent)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israelgaza-conflict-80-per-cent-of-palestinians-killed-by-israeli-strikes-are-civilians-un-report-says-9606397.html

Rule 156. Definition of War Crimes (ICRC)
http://www.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_cha_chapter44_rule156

Palestinians: Most Gaza dead are children, women, elderly (Haaretz)
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.604443

Caught on Tape: US Teen Allegedly Beaten by Israeli Police (ABC News)
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/caught-tape-us-teen-tariq-abu-khdeir-allegedly-24449873

A policy of displacement (Visualizing Palestine)
http://visualizingpalestine.org/infograhic/a-policy-of-displacement

Exposing the Israeli Occupation Industry
http://www.whoprofits.org/

Additional sources for this campaign:
http://avaaz.org/en/israel_palestine_this_is_how_it_ends_sources_a/?blast

The Relentless Advance of the Gender-Benders Whatever Happened to Straight Fucking?

The Relentless Advance of the Gender-Benders
Whatever Happened to Straight Fucking?
This strange aspect of anthropology first bothered me in the 1990s, when a young man went to Court in California – where else? – because he wanted to marry his dog. And yes, it was definitely his dog, not a bitch. It was about this time that I and no doubt many others started wondering, for that matter, whatever happened to straight fucking in Hollywood. Were the increasingly unanchored morals of Hollywood having a contagious and queer effect in the wider population, or was marrying your dog itself a contagion, a human form of rabies, as in going the other way, up a blind alley, as it were.
The latest bout of this contagion has hit the UK, where the Scots have legalised gay marriage despite a 64% anti-vote, as the tyranny of the minorities sweeps aside the majority and normal democratic, and moral, conventions. (I have always harboured quiet doubts about the Scots, wearing skirts, no underpants and tossing their cabers for fun in public). In England, meanwhile, the heterosexual Prime Minister, and father of three and cheer-leader of the Conservative Party no less, is determined to enforce the presumed right of Homosexuals to marry in church, a policy not enunciated in the last Conservative Manifesto any more than it isn’t in the Bible.
As per usual, the English have been misled by their elected ones and have not been consulted. The greater part of his party’s rapidly declining membership see it as a further stab at the heart of the essential dignity of the church. That this is a policy that has been thrust up his blind side by his Coalition partners, the Lib-Dem bum-blasters, whose credo is what I’ve got is mine and what you’ve got is mine also, which all-inclusive doctrine doesn’t end on the outside of your bum, adds momentum to the notion that Cameron has lost his balls as well and has been well and truly Clegged over. There’s no stopping the nonsense, it seems, of the believers in the new doctrine of anal birth. It’s all about as daft as subsidising a Don Quixote wind-farm that can never make money, if you ask me.
Meanwhile, the Dean of St. Albans, Dr. Jeffrey John, a mance of a fruit if ever there was one, has accused the church of hypocrisy, and said “it doesn’t speak with integrity on this issue and should not be listened to”. He continued: “if a homosexual couple invite God into their relationship” - as queer une ménage-a-trois as can be imagined - “then of course he will bless you and sustain your love”, as in ‘of course helping you to keep it up forever, and ever, whirl’d without end, Ah men!’ The mind boggles at the scene as imagined by this Godless Dean, of him inviting God to do any such thing. This dean is clearly not a man to turn your back on, as he reaches for God in the same way that the rest of us reach for an aerosol can, in his case to squirt holiness into places where the sun doesn’t shine. My advice is not to listen to him on anything, as he doesn’t speak with integrity, or even with any notion of the sanctity pertaining to divine knowledge.

Our less-than-godly dean of dubious preferences should listen instead to the worldly advice of our great poet, W H Auden. He fled the criminality then attaching to his anal preferences at home and lived in Nazi Germany for the duration, for which absence Churchill duly exiled him from the land of the winners, the land then of straight-fucking heroes. (This recalls the honest but revealing reply of that queer phenomenon, the mother-fucking homosexual, who, when asked by the Conscientious Objection Review Board what he would do if he saw a German soldier raping his mother, wistfully replied: “O, I would come between them!”) Anyway, Auden was received with gratitude and open arms and legs in the Land of the Free-and-Easy, and an heiress was laid on for the necessary Green Card application. At the marriage of assumed heterosexual convenience in St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, the young John Montagu, himself later the Poet Laureate of Ireland, approached the master and asked him why he had felt it necessary to marry a rich woman who looked for all the world like the back end of a London bus. Auden looked at him aghast, and replied: “My dear boy: Buggers can’t be choosers!”
Now the swing-both-ways Lib-dems are targeting the House of Lords, an unreformed chamber of 99.9% heterosexuals who have rarely strayed beyond the Missionary Position. One or two Lords a’leaping have admittedly had the odd away game, like Lords Jellicoe and Chatham, but at least it involved straight fucking and, in any case, was in a flat overlooking that other Lords, that alternative shrine in Marylebone. And they didn’t claim it on expenses. Most Lords, however, wouldn’t know what a Texan Two-strap was even if it came supplied with its own batteries and a book of words on how to use it. Anything to do with AC/DC has always been safely beyond them. But for this Coalition of Closet Queens, the straight-fucking Lords as we know them must also go, and be replaced by a host of elected fruits of dubious provenance, so that they can suck on the public and pubic tit well into retirement.
And now the contagion, with a Gallic difference, has spread to Paris of all places, the City of Eternal Light and Endless Pussy, the throne of Madame Claude, no less. The prostitutes are up in arms and running a blockade in La Place Pigalle, as they have been outlawed! Madame Claude would turn in her grave, even as she put the price up of putting sex back in the sizzle of the young gentlemen’s Grand Tour. Whatever next? Paris without Madame Claude is a flower in the sky, the son of a barren woman, a mance without a bum to burgle. The Paris pros, however, have got France and Mr. Hollande - aka Monsieur Flanby (French) or Plan B (English) - over a barrel, if not by the balls as well: they are not paying their taxes worth €6.0 billion pa, and France is basically bust. Welcome back, Ladies, and may your Tickle Trunks floweth over. France needs you back in the value-added business of straight fucking!

And back in the Big Apple again, I recall the old coloured guy who was the shoeshine years ago outside of Christie’s on Park Avenue, telling me he was studying Buddhism. Suitably impressed, I asked him if he believed in the transmigration of the soul, and what would he like to come back as. He thought as he polished hard and looked up to the heavens, and then announced: “I want to come back as one o’ dem Le’byuns!” Astounded that anyone would ever want to come back as a Libyan, or even as a Lib-Dem for that matter, I asked him the Devil’s Question: Why? “Because they lika pussy like I lika der pussy, and they’ve got gooooed jobs!” Quite: now that did make perfect sense, once the dime had dropped. But how about that for a line of Pure Hollywood as we once knew it!

Rantings on the Hill

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