Anonymous group in Utah and their list of 'alleged' 1,300 illegal immigrants

It's hard to not wonder about how far people will go to try to target Hispanics after reading this story about an anonymoust group that claims from following people around they have a list of 1,300 illegal immigrants, (link). The list came with the demand that all of these on the list be deported immediately - (link) and contained information that is raising questions as to how exactly was this information obtained:

It is not known who produced the list, although Gov. Gary Herbert has called for an investigation to see if the list was compiled by someone with access to state databases containing personal information. The list contains birth dates, workplaces, addresses, phone numbers and Social Security numbers. Names of children are included. Several pregnant women have their exact due dates listed. All the names seem to be Hispanic.

"This is a way to terrorize people," said Tony Yapias, director of Proyecto Latino and a former state director of Hispanic affairs.

He spent much of Tuesday calling people on the list to warn them and to figure out who may have collected the information.

"I'm nauseated," he said through tears. "All of these people are terrified. I don't have words to describe how scared they are. It just breaks my heart what they are telling me."

It was reported today that at least 2 state employees were involved in helping to access information to create the list (link) - they were escorted from their jobs.

Rachel Corrie not allowed to pass through to Gaza

The Israeli government boarded the ship, took it to port, will supposedly inspect what was trying to be taken to Gaza and the Israeli government is claiming they will deliver it by land to the Gaza. Including the cement that has been prevented from being sent to Gaza.

It's also worth pointing out that there was an Al Jazeera reporter on the earlier flotilla ship where the deaths happened, he took video, it was confiscated and has not been returned. The only video being shown was taken by the Israeli government.

MV Rachel Corrie headed for Gaza

Another humanitarian effort, as reported by CNN is on it's way to the Gaza. While Israel has tried to state that the blockade is to prevent weapons, it's very clear there are no weapons being sent by those trying to help.

Unless of course the Israelis believe that Irish Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire and Former Assistant U.N. Secretary-General Denis Halliday would be involved in weapon smuggling. They have refused offers to offload their donations. Which makes sense since there is no guarantee Israel would ensure the materials made it to Gaza and if such offloading worked? There would be no need for people willing to risk their lives for items such as:

...550 tons of cement to help rebuild schools, homes and other buildings destroyed in Gaza.

Maguire said the ship is also carrying "tons" of writing materials donated by Norway, pharmaceuticals and medical equipment -- including wheelchairs donated by Scotland -- and toys.

There's no humanitarian crisis in Gaza? Really?

There are times I shake my head in wonderment at the rhetoric people put out there to try to justify the needless suffering and murder that is taking place. What's happening right now with Gaza is a perfect example.

The House Republican Conference just sent out an email that highlights what U.S. Congressman Mike Pence, Chairman of the House Republican Conference said to CNN, one part of it:

And let's be clear, there's not a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Israel allows to be transferred or transfers 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid into Gaza every week. The hospitals are fully stocked. The food markets are fully stocked. This flotilla was embarked on a mission to challenge the blockade. Security forces, Israeli defense forces challenged it, and violence ensued. But ultimately Israel has a right to defend itself.

Pence is not alone in that mantra, as this blog post by Sarah Posner points out.

It seems just about everywhere but in Israel or the U.S. it's realized that the Gaza blockade is causing a humanitarian crisis and it's wrong. From Brookings:

Third, the strong international reaction was in the first place connected to the circumstances of the episode itself: the use of force by a well-trained army against a flotilla of civilian international activists in international waters. However, the depth of the reaction cannot be divorced from the context: The blockade of Gaza has been almost universally opposed in the international community as being inhumane, and the Israelis who have argued that removing the blockade would reward Hamas have rejected the requests of everyone else, including the United States. While Gaza has not been front-page news in the United States since the end of the Gaza war in January 2009, the issue remained center stage, certainly in Arab and Muslim countries, but also elsewhere. It is hard to see that how the issue of the attack on the flotilla can be addressed without addressing the blockade itself.

It seems the way to avoid addressing the blockade itself is to try to perpetuate the myth that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza...

Making a hero out of a murderer?

Facebook once again proves that our nation is full of all kinds of people, including those that feel that flying a plane into an IRS building, killing and injuring people is not only okay but heroic. There are over 134 Facebook fan pages on Joe Stack, most proclaiming his beliefs as acceptable, a few claiming he is a hero. Those are being shut down and then reopened...One example from the Joe Stack American Hero fan page !:

Category:
Common Interest - Current Events
Description:
Joe Stack was a great American ! Dedicated to freedom ! Flying his plane into an IRS building was heroic indeed ! Joe Stack deserves to be recognized for his greatness ! Most americans are mindless drones of capitalism ! Happy to just get enough while slowly America drifts into 3rd world status !

Another example from Joe Stack - Patriot:

Category:
Common Interest - Philosophy
Description:
This sole purpose of this group is to acknowledge the revolutionary philosophies of Joe Stack, and the truths that he pointed out in his suicide note. It in no way encourages violence or even celebrates the violence he committed, but acknowledges his views were not that of a nut job, but an angry patriot who feels his country needs drastic change. Income Tax should be abolished! Our government is failing us!

There is some huge hypocrisy taking place when we as a nation who went to war because people who were angry at us flew a plane into a building with the aim of killing people but then have people making a hero out of someone who flew a plane into a building with the aim of killing people...

There are also those complaining about their free speech being violated by Facebook taking down sites glorifying Stack. There are also people giving the hosting owner of the website Stack used grief for taking down the site at the request of the FBI, link, where some actually believe that there is some conspiracy theory over this. That the FBI or some other governmental entity hacked into Stack's website to leave the suicide note.

There should be people fired over Blackwater case...

When you actually read the court opinion it seems as if some related to this case should be fired. Just one example from the beginning of the opinion of Judge Ricardo Urbina, emphasis mine:

From this extensive presentation of evidence and argument, the following conclusions
ineluctably emerge. In their zeal to bring charges against the defendants in this case, the prosecutors and investigators aggressively sought out statements the defendants had been compelled to make to government investigators in the immediate aftermath of the shooting and in the subsequent investigation. In so doing, the government’s trial team repeatedly disregarded the warnings of experienced, senior prosecutors, assigned to the case specifically to advise the trial team on Garrity and Kastigar issues, that this course of action threatened the viability of the prosecution. The government used the defendants’ compelled statements to guide its charging decisions, to formulate its theory of the case, to develop investigatory leads and, ultimately, to obtain the indictment in this case. The government’s key witnesses immersed themselves in the defendants’ compelled statements, and the evidence adduced at the Kastigar hearing plainly demonstrated that these compelled statements shaped portions of the witnesses’ testimony to the indicting grand jury.2 The explanations offered by the prosecutors and investigators in an attempt to justify their actions and persuade the court that they did not use the defendants’ compelled testimony were all too often contradictory, unbelievable and lacking in credibility.

When you read the full file, it's hard to believe that the amount of disregard for the actual process that was put into place to prevent the court case from being "tainted" could have not been purposeful. Another example:

In direct contravention of Hulser’s unequivocal warnings, in January and February 2008, the government’s trial team interviewed all of the DSS agents who had conducted the September 16, 2007 interviews and specifically inquired about the details of the defendants’ statements during those interviews.

The opinion is 90 pages long, but I really recommend reading it if you are interested in what happened. I also recommend reading this for those of you interested in what the current status of the civil suit that was filed against Blackwater.

Pondering Fort Hood...

I'm not sure if I believe that Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan yelled "Allahu Akbar" as he went on his recent murder spree at Fort Hood or not, I'm hesitant to automatically believe it since it's not been confirmed and it's not as if the initial reports of the shooting were accurate. It was initially stated the gunman was "neutralized" and it was believed more than one person was involved. I do not disbelieve that Hasan was harrassed, teased, called names, we live in a fairly cruel society where racism and bigotry still reign. I'm not sure however, that a psychiatrist, even one being sent to the Middle East, against his will, would murder people based on that alone. It's not as if he was being sent into combat...

This left me with thinking that there had to be more to this, I understand the desire of some to make Hasan a more sympathetic figure. In all of the cases I've followed, locally and otherwise, most times the family of the murderer shares with you their disbelief, telling you what a "great guy" the killer was. Very few say, "Yeah, we knew he'd turn out like that, it was a matter of when."

I'd like to think that William Murchison, is wrong in his opinion piece where he suggests:

It makes sense to ponder deeply -- I did not say "conclude," I said ponder deeply -- the possibility that in Maj. Nidal the Army had, unwittingly, in its bosom a treasonable viper; a supporter of Islamic jihad against the West and the United States; a soldier who, in violation of military oath and citizenship, opened fire on soldiers as he cried, "Allahu Akbar." "Allahu Akbar" is the familiar cry of Islamic terrorists all over the world as they pounce on the unwitting.

As I said, first I'd have to discount the "Allahu Akbar" portion, but even then, something happened to make Hasan decide to turn into a murderer. We may never know his real motivation, and in a way it is racist to assume since he was Muslim that he could have been some type of a psycho closet case Islamic terrorist that fooled us all. Yet when something happens we try to make sense of it, it's possible the bullying and harassment could have driven him to kill, others have, yet thousands have managed to endure and not turn into killers...

Shimon Peres thinks there can be peace with Palestine

That caught my attention as a headline, Peres: 'There Will Be Peace With the Palestinians' in my news reader. So, I headed over to read the three page article, thinking it would contain something new, or something that indicated that Israel's position had changed.

Some of the discussion centered around the Goldstone report, that acknowledges reality, both Israel and Hamas have done horrible things to each other, but Israel is the power, New York Times article referenced in Newsweek.

We can debate how much blame Hamas shares, it can not be said they have none, but what's most interesting is that Israel does not feel it should be investigated, that's not surprising. It is ironic for Peres to state that the UN is biased against Israel when the US and other nations have prevented any action from ever being taken against Israel and the simple numbers demonstrate which side has killed more. I don't dispute the fact there are some biased against Israel, and since they have been protected for so many years, it's understandable that other nations who have seen this happen for decades would try to push it. Of course, some of these countries have a less than perfect record themselves. Which is the irony to this, China and Russia don't want a similar focus on them, those who are pushing like Libya, have little room to talk about humanitarianism, and at the end of it all? Things in Palestine are still the same. People will die because they are blocked access to food and medical care, people's homes will be destroyed, their ability to earn an income that can be survived on destroyed but, supposedly there will be "peace out of necessity" which makes one wonder exactly what the definition of that type of peace would be when it would not involve stopping settlements and it would not involve any of the land issues...And more importantly, I think we all realize that the Goldstone report will be buried, because if the UN actually cared about what was right? There would have already been peace in not only Palestine but many other places on this earth...

Medical billing staff are the problem...

I've discovered one of the main stumbling blocks to getting the medical care or prescriptions you need isn't just the lack of health insurance or bad health insurance coverage -- it's getting past the medical billing people.

Let me share a true life adventure...Our insurance company changed the co-pay for our office visits before the date they were supposed to. So when I went to the doctor I paid what I was supposed to pay but the doctor's office claimed I owed an additional $15.00 before I was supposed to owe it. Then they started adding on late fees even though I called, explained and the insurance company said they would straighten it out.

So then I needed a prescription...since I hadn't paid my balance even though they knew why -- they wouldn't schedule an appointment or ask the doctor for a refill. This is a prescription I need to take, they didn't care. It was either pay the now up to $40.00 or not get my prescription. So, I started to have problems because all this time I'm out of my prescription. I was about ready to go to urgent care which would have been more than a regular office visit because these medical billing people were just plain rude over $40 mind you, that I wasn't even supposed to have to pay. I called the doctor's office today after hours and got to talk to one of the actual doctors. He apologized and told me that I should never have to go without my medication and that he would phone something in. When I went to pick it up? He phoned in two weeks worth...The soonest they told me they could get me in was three weeks...Which means it's either find a new doctors office or end up paying something I don't owe since even with the insurance company telling them I don't owe this they won't budge and still going a week without a prescription I'm supposed to take every day. While everyone is debating health care, there should be better rules in place when it comes to basic rights to medical care...

My immediate reaction is to wonder why people can't spend a few years in jail rather than counting on us to rescue them

When I read that quote from Ambassador James Dobbins, a former senior State Department official in this week's Newsweek I paused for a moment to think about it. Full quote in context:

Why were three idiots worth rescue missions by a former U.S. president and a serving U.S. senator? They weren't kidnapped; they weren't hostages. All three knowingly broke the laws of the countries they were in, and, in the process, brought harm to innocents. The pair caught inside North Korea put at risk members of the human-rights network that was helping them with their story. (The two have still to give their version of events; Brent Marcus, spokesman for their employer, Current TV, says the network is respecting their request to have time to reunite with their families.) Yettaw's adventure led to a further 18 months of house arrest for the iconic opposition leader, 64-year-old Aung San Suu Kyi, who has already been confined for 14 of the past 20 years.

"I'm not particularly sympathetic," says Ambassador James Dobbins, a former senior State Department official and now director of RAND's international-security programs. "My immediate reaction is to wonder why people can't spend a few years in jail rather than counting on us to rescue them when they do things that are obviously stupid as well as illegal—things for which we would put them in jail in many cases. I can imagine the State Department grinds its teeth in frustration every time they find a new American who's done something stupid and now requires a former president of the United States go rescue them." Not many get such VIP treatment, of course. There are, according to the State Department, 2,652 Americans in jails around the world. (Many doing time for drug offenses.) Why were these three singled out for heavyweight intervention?

It's interesting that we do leave that many Americans behind and that very few seem to realize that the Logan Act still exists which makes it a felony to US citizen to conduct foreign relations without authority. Which when you consider since it was first passed in 1799, and it has never been enforced, makes one wonder why it hasn't just been repealed...

Iran becomes world’s biggest prison for journalists

Reporters without Borders is reporting that 33 journalists and cyber-dissidents are being jailed in Iran. One of those is a Newsweek reporter. As the traditional media tries to figure out ways around Iran clampdown, this puts into perspective the request that was made much of that Twitter consider it's timing as to an update that would have put Twitter in Iran temporarily off line.

China leads the ranks with 30 journalists and 49 cyber-dissidents jailed...

James Von Brunn may have acted on his own, but he's hardly alone.

Newsweek has the story Really A Lone Wolf? that references a previous deeper look into some of the hate groups out there and some of the reasons why they think they are on the increase.

One point written there I wanted to explore:

Are attacks like this simply desperate one-time acts?
Within the white-supremacist movement there is a strong notion of leaderless resistance. The notion is this: look, we can take over the country just by having small cells or lone wolves commit key acts of violence because the rest of the country, at least the whites, will then go along with you. It's called the "propaganda of the deed"—you know who the enemies are, you go out yourself and hopefully people will take notice and act together in resistance.

These ideas were promoted by Louis Beam, a KKK member, and published in The Seditionist, his newsletter, in the early '90s. It came out around 1991, but the idea has been pushed in the white-supremacist movement for a long time since. He has been a big influence on the white-supremacist movement. He's a very scary guy. He was noteworthy because he was also part of the militia movement in the '90s. He's not the inventor of leaderless resistance, but he's remembered for being the most important modern proponent of leaderless resistance in the neo-Nazi world.

I've actually read some of Louis Beem's work, including Leaderless Resistance where he credits who was the original person who came up with the premise. He's been in the background and he hasn't been openly involved in the past few years. Though as pointed out in 2002 he's been known to disappear then re-appear.

According to Hatewatch:

Von Brunn runs the website holywesternempire.org, which was listed in 2008 as a hate site by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Von Brunn has a long history of associations with prominent neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers. In the 1980s or early 1990s, von Brunn was employed by Noontide Press, a part of the Holocaust denying Institute of Historical Review, which was then run by Willis Carto, one of America’s most prominent anti-Semites.

Von Brunn is the author of the 1999 book, “Kill the Best Gentiles,” a racist and anti-Semitic tome that argues that whites are seeing “today on the world stage a tragedy of enormous proportions: the calculated destruction of the White Race and the incomparable culture it represents. Europe, former fortress of the West, is now over-run by hordes of non-Whites and mongrels.” A raging anti-Semite, von Brunn blames “The Jews” for the destruction of the West. The book is dedicated to prominent neo-Nazis and racists including Revilo Oliver and Wilmot Robertson.

What's also interesting is the rush for many sites to pull information, from the Free Republic to Yahoo to Wikipedia, comments made by Von Brunn are disappearing at times temporarily other times permanently. It's as if trying to hide some of the public comments he made makes them go away. They don't...

Gee, it's finally realized the death penality costs more

I've been debating the premise of the death penalty for decades, online for at least seven years, with part of the argument aside from the human aspect that courts/juries/judges are not always right, that it actually costs more to go through the whole process to execute a prisoner than it does to institute a life in prison with no parole sentence.

So, when a friend sent me this link, To execute or not: A question of cost? it was no surprise to read that states are discovering what some of us have pointed out for years...

After decades of moral arguments reaching biblical proportions, after long, twisted journeys to the nation's highest court and back, the death penalty may be abandoned by several states for a reason having nothing to do with right or wrong:

Money.

Turns out, it is cheaper to imprison killers for life than to execute them, according to a series of recent surveys. Tens of millions of dollars cheaper, politicians are learning, during a tumbling recession when nearly every state faces job cuts and massive deficits.

Yes! It's all about the money! So kids, let's not execute those prisoners to make sure we reduce our bottom line.

I realize some will suggest the solution is to shorten the process, that would save money, but it could also lead to scenarios where someone who was not guilty was executed. I've spent a bit of time over the years reading the last words of those who have been sentenced to death. It's always struck me that in those last moments of life when if those being killed believe in a God that would be the moment they would seek absolution for their crimes. Yet, many insist with the very last words they are allowed to say that they are innocent, some admit their guilt. A few selected from just one of the websites out there that list this information:

"I am innocent, innocent, innocent. Something very wrong is taking place tonight! May God bless you all. I am ready."

"It's a good day to die. I walked in here like a man and I am leaving here like a man. I had a good life. I have known the love of a good woman, my wife. I have a good family. Thank you for your love. To [my victims'] family, I am sorry for the pain I caused you. If my death gives you any peace, so be it."

"I'm sorry and I really mean that - it's not just words. My life is all I can give. I stole two lives and I know it was precious to ya'll. That's the story of my whole, that's what alcohol will do for you. Oh, Jesus, Lord God, take me home. Precious Lord, take me home, Lord. Take me home, yes, Sir."

This is also the case with a recent execution in Virgina where the last words of Edward N. Bell were:

"You definitely have the wrong person. The truth will come out one day."

While none of those statements is evidence, even when a confession has been given as to the murder of others, it does create a scenario where we should wonder...I've often said/written in these debates regarding the death penalty that when you discover you've wrongly convicted a person and they are in jail, you can set them free, that while you can't give them their life back during the time they spent in prison; that if they have been executed, what can you do? Dig them up and apologize? It's rather pointless...

I won the E-Lottery! Whippee!

I realize that the reasons why asshats like this still send out these emails is because there are people stupid enough to believe they've won something. That also don't seem to grasp that normally when you win a lottery? You don't have to pay anything to collect. I'm in an evil enough mood to have some fun...

Here's the email:

This is to inform you that, you have been selected as one of our winner in this year
online E-lottery.that held last month January 2009. Cash on file: 250,000.00 GBP
for more information please contact the claims manager for full details.

Dr Christopher Logan
E-mail:claims_accountdepartmentsec@hotmail.com
Regards,
Mrs.Randall Smith(Online National Sweepstakes)

And in Gaza...

No big surprise, Israel is being accused of violating the ceasefire:

Israel’s continued truce violations are provocative and should be halted immediately, said a statement from the National Resistance Brigades (NRB), the armed wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) Friday.

Israel’s violations include the serious injury of two fishermen Thursday, repeated invasions from the border areas and artillery fire resulting in the death of three civilians since the Israeli ceasefire was called.

“These violations” said the NRB, “are provocative to the Palestinian resistance and if continued will force a response to the Israeli occupation.” The statement added that Israel is looking for a justification for re-launching its attacks on Gaza.

Also as no big surprise, Israeli officers accused of crimes in Gaza can expect to have legal representation.

Also no huge shocker, Hamas and Fatah are still at it. With Israel being blamed for not destroying Hamas...

How do you justify bombing a hospital, a UN relief headquarters and a media compound?

It amazes me that people can even try to defend this type of action:

In Tel Al-Hawa, Al-Quds Hospital went up in flames after it came under Israeli shelling. Workers at the Palestine Red Crescent facility said they fear the fire could cause an explosion due to the fuel stored in the hospital's warehouse.

Dr Bashar Murad, the head of emergency services at Al-Quds Hospital, told Ma’an that three Israeli missiles hit the hospital, two of them containing white phosphorus. Shrapnel from the bombs was scattered in the hospital but no one was injured. Fire has engulfed the hospital’s administration building, a storehouse, and a pharmacy.

Murad said that up to 600 people had fled Tel Al-Hawa and areas around the hospital.

Meanwhile, UN's relief agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, says Israeli shells struck their headquarters in Gaza City, injuring three workers. The compound includes the UNRWA offices, warehouses and a school. As many as 700 Palestinians had taken refuge in the compound, which is still on fire.

The United Nations is claiming that shells were laced with the controversial chemical weapon, white phosphorus.

Separately, Israeli forces attacked a media compound home to the Reuters news agency, NBC, and a number of Arab networks in Gaza City late on Thursday morning. Two journalists working for Abu Dhabi television were injured when at least one Israeli shell struck the building.

All three of these scenarios has been reported on by the mainstream media so it can't be said this is inaccurate reporting by Maan.

The death toll from the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip reached 1,033 on Wednesday evening, said Dr Mu’awiyah Hassanain, the director of Ambulance and Emergency Services in the Health Ministry in Gaza. Nearly a third of the dead are children. Over three hundred children...

Then there is this:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel said Monday that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had been forced to abstain from a United Nations resolution on Gaza that she helped draft, after Mr. Olmert placed a phone call to President Bush.

I said, ‘Get me President Bush on the phone,’ ‘ Mr. Olmert said in a speech in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, according to The Associated Press. ‘They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn’t care: ‘I need to talk to him now,’ ‘ Mr. Olmert continued. ‘He got off the podium and spoke to me.’

From what the News Writer shares, Mr. Olmert may be exaggerating his own power and importance, at our expense...

I don't think this defines "honesty" by a long shot...

I was sent this cartoon yesterday, it was named "Honesty" and came with the message:

Here's a political cartoon you're not likely to see in the world media. Yet, it sure 'hits the nail on the head.'

I don't know what definition of the word honesty they are using, but this is a real example of "honesty" in Gaza from Reuters:



These children were not killed by Hamas, they were killed by Israel. The whole mantra of Hamas is hiding within civilian populations on purpose is hard to argue from a point of logic for anyone that knows how small Gaza is and how many people are crowded within it. Trapped, unable to go anywhere and not even being safe in a UN marked school. I find it impossible to justify the murder of innocents based on Hamas rocket fire, it's over-kill. To borrow a line from The News Writer, "it’s not like shooting fish in barrel. It’s like dropping depth charges into the barrel."

Since December 27th, at least 940 Palestinians have been killed and over 4,400 have been wounded, countless others have had their homes totally destroyed with their only crime being they are trapped in Gaza. Some of those deaths and those wounded were babies, young children, Israel was not protecting them, they were murdering them. That's just counting this latest military operation, the number of dead children in the Gaza killed by Israel and who died because they were denied access to medical care is higher than those who died since December.

What else should be known about this cartoon if you are a parent in Northwestern Ohio is that those associated with the teaching profession, including Toledo Public Schools sent the cartoon out as a forward...

The additional message was to take this cartoon and "Spread it" - which I have just done.

Plastine News Agency reports on attacks on media...

Some of you will question Maan News Agency as a source, but I think what is being reported there considering the deaths and injuries that have happened to those who are journalists and working for media still in Gaza, be pointed out. Journalists see pattern in attacks on Gaza reporters makes some claims that if true, should be addressed:

In addition to an Israeli ban on international journalists entering Gaza in effect since November, there has been a rash of attacks on media in Gaza in the last 24 hours.

Late on Friday afternoon, an Israeli drone fired a missile at the roof of the Jawwhara media tower, where journalists were broadcasting live. Two people were injured in the attack. Witnesses in and near the building said the missile crashed through the roof of the building, into a stairwell, missing the camera crews by a few meters.

Journalist Ala Mortaji died Friday evening from wounds he sustained earlier in the day when Israeli tank shells hit his home in the Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City. Mortaji was a reporter for a local radio station, Alwan.

The home of another reporter, Samir Khalifah in the Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City, was badly damaged. The family said they narrowly escaped death, having moved to the lower floor of the home only a few hours before the Israeli attack and were thus able to flee the fire that broke out in the home when it was hit by Israeli bombs. Khalifa is employed by Sudan TV.

One Gazan journalist, Akrma As-Satari, an employee of the Iranian Al-Alam TV, one of the outfits in the Jawwhara building, sees a pattern in these attacks, connecting them with attacks on journalists in the field.

“The Israelis know for sure that there are media teams, and that there are rescue workers, who go to where there are injured people. They target an area once, then wait, then target it once more,” when journalists and ambulance crews arrive, he told Ma’an.

“I think they might be trying to eliminate eyewitnesses,” he said.

The bombing of the Jawwhara building raises further questions, since the roof of the building is clearly labeled “Press” and “TV.”

Israel is claiming they did not bomb the Jawwhara Building but as the article points out, no one else has that type of air capability, so if the reports that the building was bombed are true? It's hard to see who else could be responsible.

Ralph Nader letter to George Bush on Gaza crisis

Dear George W. Bush—

Cong. Barney Frank said recently that Barack Obama's declaration that "there is only one president at a time" over-estimated the number. He was referring to the economic crisis. But where are you on the Gaza crisis where the civilian population of Gaza, its civil servants and public facilities are being massacred and destroyed respectively by U.S built F-16s and U.S. built helicopter gunships.

The deliberate suspension of your power to stop this terrorizing of 1.5 million people, mostly refugees, blockaded for months by air, sea and land in their tiny slice of land, is in cowardly contrast to the position taken by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1956. That year he single handedly stopped the British, French and Israeli aircraft attack against Egypt during the Suez Canal dispute.

Fatalities in Gaza are already over 400 and injuries close to 2000 so far as is known. Total Palestinian civilian casualties are 400 times greater then the casualties incurred by Israelis. But why should anyone be surprised at your blanket support for Israel's attack given what you have done to a far greater number of civilians in Iraq and now in Afghanistan?

Confirmed visual reports show that Israeli warplanes and warships have destroyed or severely damaged police stations, homes, hospitals, pharmacies, mosques, fishing boats, and a range of public facilities providing electricity and other necessities.

Why should this trouble you at all? It violates international law, including the Geneva Conventions and the UN Charter. You too have repeatedly violated international law and committed serious constitutional transgressions.

Then there is the matter of the Israeli government blocking imports of critical medicines, equipment such as dialysis machines, fuel, food, water, spare parts and electricity at varying intensities for almost two years. The depleted UN aid mission there has called this illegal blockade a humanitarian crisis especially devastating to children, the aged and the infirm. Chronic malnutrition among children is rising rapidly. UN rations support eighty percent of this impoverished population.

How do these incontrovertible facts affect you? Do you have any empathy or what you have called Christian charity?

What would a vastly shrunken Texas turned in an encircled Gulag do up against the 4th most powerful military in the world? Would these embattled Texans be spending their time chopping wood?

Gideon Levy, the veteran Israeli columnist for Ha'aretz, called the Israeli attack a "brutal and violent operation" far beyond what was needed for protecting the people in its south. He added: "The diplomatic efforts were just in the beginning, and I believe we could have got to a new truce without this bloodshed…..to send dozens of jets to bomb a total helpless civilian society with hundreds of bombs-just today, they were burying five sisters. I mean, this is unheard of. This cannot go on like this. And this has nothing to do with self-defense or with retaliation even. It went out of proportion, exactly like two-and-a-half years ago in Lebanon."

Apparently, thousands of Israelis, including some army reservists, who have demonstrated against this destruction of Gaza agree with Mr. Levy. However, their courageous stands have not reached the mass media in the U.S. whose own reporters cannot even get into Gaza due to Israeli prohibitions on the international press.

Your spokespeople are making much ado about the breaking of the six month truce. Who is the occupier? Who is the most powerful military force? Who controls and blocks the necessities of life? Who has sent raiding missions across the border most often? Who has sent artillery shells and missiles at close range into populated areas? Who has refused the repeated comprehensive peace offerings of the Arab countries issued in 2002 if Israel would agree to return to the 1967 borders and agree to the creation of a small independent Palestinian state possessing just twenty two percent of the original Palestine?

The "wildly inaccurate rockets", as reporters describe them, coming from Hamas and other groups cannot compare with the modern precision armaments and human damage generated from the Israeli side.

There are no rockets coming from the West Bank into Israel. Yet the Israeli government is still sending raiders into that essentially occupied territory, still further entrenching its colonial outposts, still taking water and land and increasing the checkpoints This is going on despite a most amenable West Bank leader, Mahmoud Abbas, whom you have met with at the White House and praised repeatedly. Is it all vague words and no real initiatives with you and your emissary Condoleezza Rice?

Peace was possible, but you provided no leadership, preferring instead to comply with all wishes and demands by the Israeli government-even resupplying it with the still active cluster bombs in south Lebanon during the invasion of that country in 2006.

The arguments about who started the latest hostilities go on and on with Israel always blaming the Palestinians to justify all kinds of violence and harsh treatment against innocent civilians.

From the Palestinian standpoint, you would do well to remember the origins of this conflict which was the dispossession of their lands. To afford you some empathy, recall the oft-quoted comment by the founder of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, who told the Zionist leader, Nahum Goldmann:

"There has been anti-Semitism the Nazis Hitler Auschwitz but was that their [the Palestinians] fault? They only see one thing: We have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?"
Alfred North Whitehead once said: "Duty arises out of the power to alter the course of events." By that standard, you have shirked mightily your duty over the past eight years to bring peace to both Palestinians and Israelis and more security to a good part of the world.

The least you can do in your remaining days at the White House is adopt a modest profile in courage, and vigorously demand and secure a ceasefire and a solidly based truce. Then your successor, President-elect Obama can inherit something more than the usual self-censoring Washington puppet show that eschews a proper focus on the national interests of the United States.

Courtesy of Sabbah Blog.

UN school buildings that are clearly marked are bombed...

I didn't blog anything here or earlier today because it's getting harder and harder to cover what is happening in the Gaza and not wonder when is the responsibility going to be directed at Israel from our government and other governments? While CNN is pointing out that UN School buildings have been bombed they are also stating that Blair is stating that Hamas must stop smuggling weapons.

In other words, Blair wants them to stop arming themselves so that it's even easier for Israel to control them. That's not realistic as an expectation. Part of the problem is the continual lack of expecting any where close to an equal responsibility factor, Israel, the much more well armed and financed country is allowed to kill people without limit apparently, even including bombing buildings set up as shelters for people to flee too, that are clearly marked and nothing is done.

Hamas isn't stopping, if anything they are increasing, which means all that is happening is more and more innocent people, including children are going to be killed. I don't agree with all of this most recent article from Al Jazeera, Another round of bloodletting especially when it comes to the use of the word "neocon" since there are many who are not conservative who support Israel's position and blame Hamas solely, that's not just something that can be attributed to that one political group in the US. I do however agree with the feeling that more and more are realizing this is not just about Hamas and President Mahmoud Abbas faces even more loss of support.

CNN has updated their story with the claim from Israel that there was shots fired from these UN Schools, since they are not allowing any journalists into the area, it's very difficult to be able to get an unbiased report. Israel has been very stringent in trying to make sure that their side of this war is the one that receives the most credibility. It's hard to argue with photos of dead children, though our media for the most part does not show that.

CNN has just reported that Gaza hospital crowded with civilians, doctors say:

Israeli government officials claim Hamas is hiding fighters and weapons at the hospital, but the images from Shifa's emergency ward show families.

"We were hit with a rocket," a boy in the hospital said as his brother wandered in a daze, nursing an injury to his ear. Another child cried nearby, moaning for her mother as doctors tried to treat her injured limbs.

A nurse trying to set up an IV in another room said the hospital is treating five people from one family. Another woman wept for her 6-month-old child, who she said died after four days without food or water.

Maan News Agency has a breaking news headline that Israel will respond to US calls for a cease-fire within 24 hours, but CNN has nothing on the US ceasefire request. It's also being reported that Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations Ambassador Riyad Mansour has written a letter to the UN Security Council that claims excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force by Israel.

Maan has also reported that Venezuela has expelled the Israeli ambassador over the Gaza assault.

There are also unconfirmed reports of at least one Palestinian suicide bomber, Maan is reporting he blew himself up in an Israel tank, the Israelis are reporting that they identified the suicide bomber and killed him with no fatality to Israeli soldiers only a "light wounding," I'm frankly surprised with the ground invasion that this has not happened more frequently, it's been a known threat by Hamas that they had suicide bombers if an ground invasion took place.

Bottom line, it's a depressing situation to continue to cover, women and children dead, thousands wounded, families destroyed, homes destroyed and it's hard to see how either Israel or Hamas will come out as winners when this finally ends. Either way the ultimate victims are those who are stuck in the Gaza who can not even seek safe refuge in a marked UN building.