ISRAELI AIRSTRIKES RESUME EARLY
Israel has resumed airstrikes only a day after it announced that it would suspend them for 48 hours after the international community reacted with shock at Israel’s illegal but “mistaken” bombing of 60 civillian refugees, the majority of whom were children. There is also talk of Israel widening the ground war in […]
CBS host Bob Scheiffer wonders why the hell we aren’t using old fashioned diplomacy to talk to Syria to work to solve the middle east crisis. He notes that the U.S. maintained diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union for the entire Cold War– so why can’t the current White House Administration manage to talk with […]
Tagged under site news for no particular reason
Any Slashdot readers here? A comment I just left just got rated a +5 Insightful (the highest possible rating) in this thread on embryonic stem cell research. Only 9 out of the 230+ people commenting in that thread got +5s. Woohoo! Plus I apparently ended up inciting a […]
Late last night a crazy Marxist friend and I were talking about various things, and knowing that my father was born Iranian, he linked me to an interesting entry on some linguistics blog he found. Here’s the short of it:
Back in January, the edict came down in Tehran that Danish pastries (shirini danmarki) should henceforth […]
Another week, here we go again…
The Middle East
Editor’s note: the situation in Lebanon has changed dramatically over the last 24 hours. Please check this important item, and then this important update to understand what the current situation is.
In short, the Israeli military illegally bombed a building holding 60 civilian refugees (of whom more than half […]
48-HOUR STAY ON BOMBING
After international outcry against the Israeli bombing of a small town in southern Lebanon, killing upwards of 50 civilians, the majority of them child refugees, Israel has decided to allow the UN to provide humanitarian aid to southern Lebanon and says it will not bomb the area for 48 hours. This is […]
NYT: “Dozens” killed by Israeli airstrikes today… attacked small, remote town, individual houses bombed, “deadliest single attack in the war”… Rice cancels her trip to Lebanon… Hezbollah says it will retaliate…
At least 28 civilians killed, 20 of them children… Some reports say as high as 50-57 killed… 60 people unaccounted for and believed dead… Half […]
You may remember that Ann Coulter (who has been making the talk show rounds for a few days) said Bill Clinton is obviously gay (video and explanation here). Well, David Letterman was quick to make jokes the following night on his late night show. Below is the video, which ends on a very funny note.
I hope everyone’s weekend is going well. Here’s today’s Daily Brief.
Domestic Politics
Minimum wage increase– The LA Times is pretty sure that the House bill forced by Republicans that couples a minimum wage increase with an Estate Tax reduction (a terrible combo) will “almost certainly” die in the Senate. 75% of Republicans support a minimum wage […]
Bill O’Reilly likes to say that the American Civil Liberties Union is a liberal organization, but the truth is that it has no political motivation: it protects the civil liberties of all kinds Americans in court. It won the right in court for black people to marry white people in the south in the 60s, […]
Hezbollah leaders have announced that they will agree to an immediate ceasefire if the Israeli military will. Meanwhile Israel (with the backing of the White House) has flatly rejected the immediate ceasefire plan proposed by the United Nations, which is suggested to last 72 hours in order for civillians to escape the violence.
Ever since 2001 when President Bush took office, the oil industry has been making the largest profits ever, and Americans have been forced to pay more at the pump. In 2000, oil prices per barrel were around 23 dollars a barrel. These days they are well upwards of 70 dollars and there’s talk of 100 […]
Less on the Middle East today, but expect a special briefing on gas prices later today…
The Middle East
500,000 Israeli civilians are now estimated to be living in bomb shelters, and an estimated 800,000 Lebanese civilians have fled their homes and are now considered refugees.
Despite media reports suggesting the contrary yesterday, President Bush and British Prime […]
Editor and Publisher has an article about the Israeli-girls-signing-bombs-to-be-dropped-on-Lebanon story, and quotes Tribune Media Services editor Roberty Koehler as writing in a column this week:
“Maybe the bombs that destroyed the home of the 8-year-old girl in the southern Lebanon village of Ayta Chaeb, quoted by an AP reporter from her hospital bed in Tyre, were […]
Heh, heh, heh. Click to watch local NYT FOX affiliate reporter Jodi Applegate get Punk’d by the Neistat brothers, a filmmaking duo (Wikipedia entry). And oh man did she freak out. Ohhhhhhh man. So angry. The NY Post even wrote about their stunt because the FOX reporter got so angry.
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