I have been watching Penn and Teller

I love the guys :-)

But - I couldn't watch the 12 steps program. It's not fair to call it a cult, because no-one is forced in to the program, no-one is forced to stay and it doesn't cost anything. Sure, there are rules and certain amount of religiosity involved, and it doesn't work for everyone, but the world is full of people whose lives have been saved by 12 steps. I haven't heard of anyone whose life was harmed or lost to 12 steps movement. Perhaps they presented these people in the show, but I doubt that. I won't watch it.

Gun control... to me it's obvious the 2nd amendment is helplessly outdated. But, sure, let the USonians play with their guns and shoot each other.
What I don't understand is that most of the gun-toters are also Christian - and the kind of Christian who think they are the only RIGHT kind of Christians, who take the Bible as literary truth, demand "intelligent design" is taught in schools and other such crap, but if you quote them some Bible, they will tell you you're evil. :-> "Thou shall not kill", "But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil" and I'm pretty sure it says something about it being better for you to loose your hand than soul and something about rich men getting to heaven, but - I'm not Christian. I've just read the book. Unlike many Christians. ;-) Nevertheless, my point is, that according to how I understand the Greek Scriptures, it would be better for me to get mugged, raped and killed, than loose my soul by trying to kill another human being, how ever bad I judge that human being to be. I will survive any bodily harm and any loss of property, and if I die, I will meet my maker a bit earlier than I expected, but as not a bird falls from sky without God knowing it, why would I die without God's knowledge and acceptance of that? Isn't God the Lord of Life and Death? Isn't life God's gift? There are thousands of miraculous survival stories, people have survived shootings, beatings and stabbings that SHOULD have killed them... So, no, I find the gun-toting Christians to be weak in faith, and trusting more in gun than God, how ever they justify that. Gun might save your life and property, but it won't save your soul. (The fact that I am not Christian doesn't matter at all. You know I'm right. :-D)
I have lived my whole life in countries with very strict gun control laws, and I don't have any need to carry a gun with me. I have been wishing to have a gun so that I could shoot some of these antisemitic idiots around here though. I think it's a good thing I don't have a gun, because even though I don't think the world would loose anything if there was fewer idiots, but because I don't want to go to jail because of idiots. Also, I cannot know if one of these idiots is going to be the forefather of next Mozart :-D I love Mozart :-) (On the other hand, I'm also 100% sure of that even if the supposed forefather dies before he manages to breed, God will find someone else to forefather the next Mozart. I am not fatalist. God has a backup plan for every possible occasion.)

Then comes the endangered species act... We are presented to poor Lindy Mongiove, handicapped woman, who wanted to build herself a home, near her mother, church and community, but - alas - there was a bird living on her property and she isn't allowed to build her a house! O ve! She is currently living with a friend, showers in the backyard, poor woman. All because of a bird and ESA. Now, I have compassion to her, it cannot be easy to live in other's corners, when the only obstacle to own living is a bird, but - even though I think human rights trump the animal rights at any time, that it is more important to save the human species before any other species, that I would save a human in need before an animal in need, I don't think one human's discomfort due to her obstinacy is more important that trying to save endangered species. I also don't think 7 billion people have right to push all the other species off this planet, or say "I am a human so I have the right to live where you are living, because you are just an animal". People really don't need to turn any more wilderness into human habitat.
Why cannot she live with her mother? In the program she was saying she wanted to live near her mother, not her family, so I assume her mother lives alone in a house. Lindy is probably never going to marry and get children, she would be living alone - or with her personal assistant - all her life. She would end with two houses when her mother dies.
I'm sorry, Lindy, but I cannot see how your life was destroyed by ESA. Looks to me it was destroyed by your irrational wish to live in your own house, your stubbornness not to change the plan after it has turned out to be difficult or impossible to follow, and stupidity of not finding out if you may build on the property before purchasing it. I'm sure ESA isn't doing much good, I trust Penn and Teller (in spite of it all), but Lindy isn't a good example of a person whose life was destroyed by ESA.

Laughing at witches, new-age people, tarot readers, feng shui and alternative therapy methods like homeopathy or reflexology is all fine by me, even though I am one of the people they would be laughing at. I believe there is more in the life than what can be observed, measured and tested, but I have no problems with other people believing differently. I start getting "problems", when people find my beliefs "offensive", try to limit my right to believe any BS I want to believe in, try to force me to believe their beliefs, and punish me if I refuse, by getting verbally abusive and so on.

Thoughts about human rights

When I started hosting Human Rights Network at Care2 2004 I was very hopeful. I have always loved UN and the first thing I posted as a host was an effort to create discussion about the UN Declaration of Human Rights. I posted each article, and sat down to wait for responses. I thought every member of HRN was just as enthusiastic about human rights as I was, and I was expecting to be informed and educated about how the human rights are being violated all over the world, what can be done about it, what good is already being done - and no-one was interested in having the discussion.

During the following 4 years I tried to engage the members in different issues, but it just didn't work. If people wanted to talk, they would talk about
a) their own personal problems, or the problems their cousins, friends, family members had.
b) USA
c) their own personal pet peeves, like Tibet or Israel-Palestine. ESPECIALLY Israel-Palestine
d) animal rights

People just are not interested in human rights in general. What happens in Rwanda or Sudan is rather uninteresting. What happens in Israel, how ever small it is, is very interesting and people are ready to walk over corpses to scream at Israel. I have never understood this mentality.

The so-called Pro-Palestinians don't care one bit about Palestinians.

They are not the least interested on whether the aid from "Ships to Gaza" ever got to Palestine. The main interest is whether the ships got to Gaza. They could just as well send empty ships with the intention to break the blockade. It would cost less, and if Israel sank the ships they could invent hundreds of names of people on board who were "brutally murdered by Israeli pirates" or something. Frankly, they could sink the ship themselves, if it doesn't reach Gaza and THEN scream about the hundreds of INNOCENT CIVILIANS BRUTALLY MURDERED BY THE EVIL EUROPEAN COLONIAL POWER. That way they would reach the exact goal they want to reach.

It is tragicomic to watch how these so-called Pro-Palestinians make criminals of European politicians and peace prize winners, who don't even understand what is happening...
If two entities are at war with each other, it is the international law of wartime that counts.
According to this law, it is fully legal for Israel to put Gaza under blockade and stop every ship on its way to Gaza to go through the cargo. If they find nothing suspect and IF THEY ARE NOT RESISTED IN THIS, they must let the ship pass. If the ships won't stop and let the Israelis in for the inspection, if the Israelis are attacked in any way on the ship or from the ship, (yes, water cannons count), if they are obstructed, disturbed, hindered, stopped or refused to check the cargo in any way, the people on ship has turned from "civilian aid workers" to "unlawful combatants", and they may be detained by Israel and prosecuted under Israeli laws. Oops...

I posted "2010 crimes against humanity watch list"
Israel-Palestine doesn't even get to the list. You see, how ever black the so-called pro-Palestinians paint the situation, the situation is much worse in many other places here on earth. 2009 one Swedish idiot said Gaza war was "the genocide of the year". It's not even a genocide. At the same time, in Darfur millions of people have lost their homes, hundreds of thousands have been killed, people are being raped, mamed and tortured right and left, no-one is safe... but that about 1500 Palestinians were killed IN A WAR, that's much, much worse.

Really - the main factor of genocide is "aim to exterminate a group of people".
Now, Israel is one of the strongest military powers in the world. The so-called pro-Palestinians claim that Israel is ruthless, hateful, cruel and inhumane, only after to humiliate and kill Palestinians. Why haven't they done it already? If their goal would be to kill all Palestinians on earth, why don't they? What are they waiting for?
They could have done it in the 60's and 70's and no-one would have cared one bit.
They could do it now, and then have the country revolt against their leaders and leave the leaders to Hague to be condemned for crimes against humanity and genocide of the Palestinian people. That would leave the rest of Israel free from the "Palestinian problem".
They haven't done this, and there are no signs of that they would even consider this.

Apartheid, yes, inhumane treatment of people, yes, illegal actions, violating the international laws, failure to acceptably provide proper living conditions, food, water, shelter, protection, and so on and so forth - yes. Quite enough to prosecute Israel's leaders for crimes against humanity. But genocide? No.
Was what happened on Mavi Marmara a massacre? No. A massacre is "the unnecessary, indiscriminate killing of a large number of human beings, as in barbarous warfare or persecution or for revenge or plunder." At Mavi Marmara 10 men, who were involved in armed fighting, died. (Yes, armed - knives, slingshots and iron pipes count as arms. You can kill a person with those things.) Not "indiscriminate" killing of "unarmed people".
Was it an act of piracy? No. Piracy is "illegal violence at sea". Israel's violence was legal.
One can discuss if it was proportionate, but we know the Israeli soldiers had a reason to fear for their lives, so self-defense is a credible explanation.

One thing is sure - as we cannot accept Israel's investigation, because Israel is involved in the incident, we cannot accept the "eye witness reports" either, as they too were involved in the incident, and I'm sure one can find enough evidence of their negative attitude towards Israel. They would interpret anything they see to be negative for Israel, and, frankly, after having discussed with dozens if not hundreds of the so-called Pro-Palestinians, I haven't so far met more than one or two who actually CAN have a DISCUSSION - I'm sure they would lie, exaggerate the bad things, not mention the good things, cheat and deceive as much as they can, just to make Israel look bad. We have already seen this happen - "piracy", "massacre", "illegal attack", "innocent civilians", "unarmed aid workers" and what not.

Nevertheless, the Swedish newspapers had the Ships to Gaza as front page news FOR A WEEK.
During the same week following things happened:
They found a mass grave in Mexico
Six Turkish soldiers are killed in a rocket attack by assumably Kurdish rebels
A Christian bishop is murdered in his own garden by his driver in Turkey.
Gunmen storm a hospital in Pakistan and kill 5
At least 12 are killed and 25 injured in Cumbria shootings.
18 people were executed in Libya
15 die in a minibus accident in the Philippines
14 people die when a house collapses in Bangladesh. A couple of days later 109 people dies in a fire, at least 50 are injured.
3 people are killed and 6 wounded when a WWII bomb explodes in Germany
Hundreds of people are killed in a heatwave in South Asia.
A national peace conference opens in Kabul and is attacked by rockets, shootings and a suicide bomber.
At least 20 are killed and 60 injured in fighting between government forces and islamist militants in Somalia.
Third phase of MARS-500 project started.
Dozens die in landslides and flooding in china
163 people die from lead poisoning in Nigeria

Not one of these news was considered more important or interesting than bickering about Ships to Gaza. Of course it's more important to hear how a Swedish religion professor whines about how he lost his suitcase in the incident.

And then people tell me that *I* have weird values :-D

They want the rest of it, too...

The Palestinian people are Arabs, living on the "Fertile Crescent". The "Fertile Crescent" is about 635000 square kilometres. Of this everything but about 22.000 belongs to the Arabs. In the area lives 40 million people, of whom 17% (7 million) are Jewish, some 75% Arabs and the rest different minorities. That makes 75% of the population to controll 93% of the land - and they want the rest of it, too...

Imagine that the European invaders would have taken the Native North American nations to Europe. During the time of your absense the Native South American nations invaded your country. After some 2000 years you are "graciously given" Maryland, which you should be sharing with the descendants of the invaders, because they and their families have been living there for 2000 years.

Whose land is it, really?

Should you really need to share Maryland with the invaders?

Would you be European or Native American?
THAT is the situation in Middle East we are talking about.

So the people of Lakota has suffered about 3 times as long as the people of Palestine... but you have still 1750 years to go to reach the record set by the Jewish people. They were forced from their homeland and forced to live in servitude in foreign lands for 1900 years, forced to live in concentration camps called ghettos - or REAL concentration camps - experiencing wanton massacres and extrajudicial killings, abduction of their children and women, their beliefs, practices and culture outlawed, their rights heavily restricted, their holy artefacts burned, their ancestral holy places desecrated and destroyed, and when they finally after 1900 years were allowed to return to their ancestral home, they are called "greedy occupiers, invaders, thiefs of land" by the invaders...

Another stupid Usonian...

Well... "Rachel" was stopped, her cargo taken to Gaza, where Hamas would stop it.
I didn't know Rachel, but I think she killed herself. Or let's say, her stupidity killed herself. You don't sit in front of an armed bulldozer if you want to live.

Here's another stupid young Usonian girl. The picture series is from a video, about 1:05-1:10. It shows young palestinian men throwing stones at a roadblock in Jerusalem. I walked here some 20 years ago... no roadblocks, no stone throwing, no soldiers... Nevertheless, the white puffs are gas the israeli soldiers shoot at the stonethrowers. In the right side we can see a young woman dressed in black, standing and watching, probably her friends. The friends are hard to see, but we can see the woman start running in the middle of the road, disappear behind a block and then emerge dragging another figure. That figure is Emily Henochewicz, a Usonian art student, studying in Jerusalem, and on her free time participating in demonstrations. She is active in International Solidarity Movement. She - or at least her friends - are very active in the internet bashing Israel and telling everyone how horribly violent Israel is, especially towards the "peaceful Palestinians" (e.g. the young men throwing stones in this video). Nevertheless she doesn't have enough understanding to MOVE AWAY FROM THE STONE THROWING BOYS, even though she can see the Israeli military some 100 meters away. The video is filmed from about the point of the soldiers. We see what they saw. I didn't even notice the group of demonstrators in the middle of the road, before the man with the flag started moving towards left, after the stone-throwers.
The "pro-Palestinians" claim she was shot "at face"

"Emily was standing peacefully during a demonstration at Qalandiya checkpoint Monday when Border Police fired a large number of tear gas canisters directly at the heads of Emily and another ISM activist."

Witnesses told media outlets that Palestinian boys were throwing rocks at troops but said Henochowicz was standing aside and not participating in the violence.

large number = 4 - aside = behind the stone-throwers

“They clearly saw us,” said Sören Johanssen, a Swedish ISM volunteer standing with Henochowicz. “They clearly saw that we were internationals and it really looked as though they were trying to hit us. They fired many canisters at us in rapid succession. One landed on either side of Emily, then the third one hit her in the face.”

Yeah... the palestinian young men had wits to run when the soldiers started shooting, the "international volunteers" just stood there staring straight at the people they experienced were shooting at them - AIMING AT THEIR HEADS! I mean... can one get more stupid than this? Is it really worth loosing your eye - you, an artist, loose half your sight - to get a chance to bash Israel? Really? I mean... REALLY???

The stupid article goes on saying: "Israeli occupation forces boarded the Mavi Marmara, one of six ships on the Freedom Flotilla at 5 a.m. this morning, opening fire on the hundreds of unarmed civilians aboard. No-one aboard the ships were carrying weapons of any kind,"
There is video evidence of that they did not open fire on the "hundreds of unarmed civilians aboard", but as self defense, and that obviously metal sticks, knifes and slingshots are considered as "no weapons of any kind". *sigh*

So, another stupid Usonian gets hurt because she isn't thinking and using any self survival instinct. I remember when I came home from Israel... we weren't allowed to go to Eilat, because a French tourist had been killed there. I remember visiting Golan, we were told not to go off road because the land was still filled with landmines from the war... I remember watching the ruins of houses that had been fired at and what it made me feel... and how I threw myself on the ground when I, after having returned, heard a sharp bang... in Stockholm Central Station... And these people don't even have the wits to move away from the way of bulldozers, bullets and gas canisters.

Sigh.

Have a good life, Emily, and I hope you will think it was worth it when you're 60.

People don't think

Israel stopped the aid ships, boarded them and saw them to the harbor in Ashdod. What happened after that to the aid? I seem to be the only one interested. :-Z These so-called pro-Palestinians are only screaming about their own people being harmed as a consequence of their own violent attacks on Israeli soldiers.

"The Israelis roughed up and humiliated all of us — women, men and children," said Kuwaiti lawmaker Walid al-Tabtabai, who was on board one of the ships with other activists from Muslim countries.

Children? CHILDREN???
ARE YOU F-ING OUT OF YOUR MIND!!!
YOU DO NOT TAKE CHILDREN TO A MISSION LIKE THAT!

Social services should remove these children from their parents who are obviously too insane to be trusted to protect these children. Only complete idiots bring children to a war zone!

"The lawmaker claimed there "was not a single weapon with the passengers aboard all the ships."

Oh. So you are not only stupid, you are ignorant as well.
IF there had been no violence involved on board of Mavi Marmara, no-one had been hurt or killed. No-one was hurt or killed on board of the other ships where there were no weapons.
So, yes, I demand an IMPARTIAL investigation of what happened on board of Mavi Marmara, because that will reveal the FACT that the Israelis are tellign the truth of what happened. They were ambushed and violently attacked by these so called "peaceful activists".

Massacre is when you kill people who cannot defend themselves. It is not a massacre when people get killed in a fight. The activists on the ship started the fighting and therefore are responsible for all the deaths. If the investigation doesn't come to this conclusion, it is not impartial. :->

One can discuss whether the naval blockade is legal, but as it is now, there IS a naval blockade and as it is so, Israel has the right to stop and visit any ships trying to break the blockade, and it doesn't matter one bit whether they are on Israeli waters or international waters. It was not an attack, it was not an act of piracy (Come on!), it was not murder, slaughter or massacre.

Considering that during the five first months of 2010, there has been at least 57 rockets and mortars fired from Gaza to Israel, in my mind that counts as armed conflict, and as there is an armed conflict going on, there is legal justification for the Naval blockade.

BTW, it was only on March 18th when one of these attacks happened during the "European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs Lady Catherine Ashton" visit on Gaza strip, when the world reacted. THEN it was called "act of terror" and "violence against civilians". All the 56 other "acts of terror" and "violence against civilians" have passed unnoticed and uncondemned, even when people have been killed and damaged in these attacks.

My husband says "it doesn't matter what Israel does, it's condemned anyway, simply because it's Israel. Just drop all the Palestinians in Jordania, Egypt and Lebanon and get it over and done with."
I say "It's not enough. Israel must kill every Palestinian in the world and then give the people responsible - some hundred or thousand Israeli Jews - to the world to be sacrificed so that the rest of Israelis can live their lives in peace. The world has made it very clear. Israel cannot exist in peace as long as there are Palestinians in the world. So in order to be able to exist, Israel must see there are no Palestinians."
I ask again... Is this really what you want? You know what you think of Israel and what it is capable of. Do you really believe it won't do this, when you believe it is capable of all other kinds of atrocities? What would killing some 13.000.000 people be when it would guarantee peace in future to your children and all the Jews of the world? Especially if one doesn't consider these people to be people? You are playing with fire, and it might just end up burning you.

Palestinians don't want to be Israel's neighbors.
They want Israel to be Palestine, a Muslim nation, an Arab nation, in a racially and ideologically clean Middle-East.
Otherwise they would have accepted the partition plan or declared Palestine independent 1948-1967, when they actually held Jerusalem. They didn't do that. Ask yourself why... Unless you are one of the so-called "pro-Palestinians", because then you probably won't think about it, just invent a stupid accusation pushing the reason for that on Israel as well.
One of the stupidest responses one of the so called pro-Palestinians gave me to that question was that "it wasn't needed"... Palestinians are happy to be citizens of a Muslim, Arab nation, like Syria, Jordan or Lebanon.
Oh... I suppose this person hasn't discussed with Palestinians in Jordan and Lebanon... :-> Why would he, he believes they have it just fine there. That their only problem is homesickness, fear for their loved ones who live under the horrrrrrible scourge of Israel and natural upset for the human rights violations.
Idiot.