Another “Occupier” Raped, In Baltimore

(OWSExposed via Powerl Line) The Occupier crime wave continues. This time, a young woman was raped in Baltimore. She is now calling for Occupy Baltimore to be raided by police and shut down. What most angers her, she says, is that no one at Occupy Baltimore was willing to help her. Evidently that is what happens when you entrust your personal safety to leftists. The video below is a surprisingly hard-hitting story on a local TV channel. In addition to interviewing the rape victim, the reporters observed evidence of hard drug use and observed the general unattractiveness of the Occupiers:

Canada says it is cutting funding for UNESCO after cultural body admits Palestinians as member

TORONTO — Canada is joining the U.S. in cutting off funding for the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO because it approved a Palestinian bid for full membership.
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said Tuesday the decision is not in the best interests of peace in the Middle East, so Canada is freezing all future voluntary contributions to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
Canada contributes about $10 million a year to the agency.
The United States has also announced it will pull its $60 million in funding from UNESCO, which depends heavily on American funding.
The UNESCO vote represented a fallback plan for the Palestinian leadership after its bid for U.N. recognition as a state and full membership in the global body foundered in September.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

LOLZ... hey AP, SUE ME!

Scientists who said climate change sceptics had been proved wrong accused of hiding truth by colleague

(DailyMail.co.uk) It was hailed as the scientific study that ended the global warming debate once and for all – the research that, in the words of its director, ‘proved you should not be a sceptic, at least not any longer’.

Professor Richard Muller, of Berkeley University in California, and his colleagues from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures project team (BEST) claimed to have shown that the planet has warmed by almost a degree  centigrade since 1950 and is warming continually.
Published last week ahead of a major United Nations climate summit in Durban, South Africa, next month, their work was cited around the world as irrefutable evidence that only the most stringent measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions can save civilisation as we know it.

Hot topic: The plight of polar bears captures the hearts of many, but are the ice caps still shrinking?

It was cited uncritically by, among others, reporters and commentators from the BBC, The Independent, The Guardian, The Economist and numerous media outlets in America.
The Washington Post said the BEST study had ‘settled the climate change debate’ and showed that anyone who remained a sceptic was committing a ‘cynical fraud’.

But today The Mail on Sunday can reveal that a leading member of Prof Muller’s team has accused him of  trying to mislead the public by hiding the fact that BEST’s research shows global warming has stopped.
Prof Judith Curry, who chairs the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at America’s prestigious Georgia Institute of Technology, said that Prof Muller’s claim that he has proven global warming sceptics wrong was also a ‘huge mistake’, with no  scientific basis.
Prof Curry is a distinguished climate researcher with more than 30 years experience and the second named co-author of the BEST project’s four research papers.
Her comments, in an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, seem certain to ignite a furious academic row. She said this affair had to be compared to the notorious ‘Climategate’ scandal two years ago.

Poles apart: Former sceptic Prof Richard Muller, left, says the latest findings settle the climate debate once and for all. But Prof Judith Curry says such a claim is 'a mistake'

Like the scientists exposed then by leaked emails from East Anglia University’s Climatic Research Unit, her colleagues from the BEST project seem to be trying to ‘hide the decline’ in rates of global warming.
In fact, Prof Curry said, the project’s research data show there has been no increase in world temperatures since the end of the Nineties – a fact confirmed by a new analysis that The Mail on Sunday has obtained.
‘There is no scientific basis for saying that warming hasn’t stopped,’ she said. ‘To say that there is detracts from the credibility of the data, which is very unfortunate.’
However, Prof Muller denied warming was at a standstill.
‘We see no evidence of it [global warming] having slowed down,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. There was, he added, ‘no levelling off’.
A graph issued by the BEST project also suggests a continuing steep increase.

But a report to be published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation includes a graph of world average temperatures over the past ten years, drawn from the BEST project’s data and revealed on its website.
This graph shows that the trend of the last decade is absolutely flat, with no increase at all – though the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have carried on rising relentlessly.
‘This is nowhere near what the  climate models were predicting,’ Prof Curry said. ‘Whatever it is that’s going on here, it doesn’t look like it’s being dominated by CO2.’
Prof Muller also wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal. It was here, under the headline ‘The case against global warming scepticism’, that he proclaimed ‘there were good reasons for doubt until now’.

Media storm: Prof Muller's claims received uncritical coverage in the media this week

This, too, went around the world, with The Economist, among many others, stating there was now ‘little room for doubt’.
Such claims left Prof Curry horrified.

‘Of course this isn’t the end of scepticism,’ she said. ‘To say that is the biggest mistake he [Prof Muller] has made. When I saw he was saying that I just thought, “Oh my God”.’
In fact, she added, in the wake of the unexpected global warming standstill, many climate scientists who had previously rejected sceptics’ arguments were now taking them much more seriously.
They were finally addressing questions such as the influence of clouds, natural temperature cycles and solar radiation – as they should have done, she said, a long time ago.
Yesterday Prof Muller insisted that neither his claims that there has not been a standstill, nor the graph, were misleading because the project had made its raw data available on its  website, enabling others to draw their own graphs.
However, he admitted it was true that the BEST data suggested that world temperatures have not risen for about 13 years. But in his view, this might not be ‘statistically significant’,  although, he added, it was equally  possible that it was – a statement which left other scientists mystified.
‘I am baffled as to what he’s trying to do,’ Prof Curry said.
Prof Ross McKittrick, a climate statistics expert from Guelph University in Ontario, added: ‘You don’t look for statistically significant evidence of a standstill.
‘You look for statistically significant evidence of change.’
The BEST project, which has been lavishly funded, brings together experts from different fields from top American universities.
It was set up 18 months ago in an effort to devise a new and more accurate way of computing changes in world temperatures by using readings from some 39,000 weather stations on land, instead of adding sea temperatures as well.
Some scientists, Prof Muller included, believe that this should provide a more accurate indication of how the world is responding to carbon dioxide.
The oceans, they argue, warm more slowly and this is why earlier global measurements which also cover the sea – such as those from the Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University – have found no evidence of warming since the Nineties.
The usual way a high-profile project such as BEST would  publish its results would be in a scientific journal, following a  rigorous ‘peer review’ by other experts in the field.
The more eminent journals that publish climate research, such as Nature And Science, insist there must be no leaks to the media until this review is complete and if such leaks occur, they will automatically reject the research.
Earlier this year, the project completed four research papers.
As well as trends in world  temperatures, they looked at the extent to which temperature readings can be distorted by urban ‘heat islands’ and the influence of long-term temperature cycles in the oceans. The papers were submitted to the Journal of Geophysical Research.
But although Prof Curry is the second named author of all four papers, Prof Muller failed to  consult her before deciding to put them on the internet earlier this month, when the peer review process had barely started, and to issue a detailed press release at the same time.
He also briefed selected  journalists individually. ‘It is not how I would have played it,’ Prof Curry said. ‘I was informed only when I got a group email. I think they have made errors and I distance myself from what they did.
‘It would have been smart to consult me.’ She said it was unfortunate that although the Journal of Geophysical Research  had allowed Prof Muller to issue the papers, the reviewers were, under the journal’s policy, forbidden from public comment.
Prof McKittrick added: ‘The fact is that many of the people who are in a position to provide informed criticism of this work are currently bound by confidentiality agreements.
‘For the Berkeley team to have chosen this particular moment to launch a major international publicity blitz is a highly unethical sabotage of the peer review  process.’
In Prof Curry’s view, two of the papers were not ready to be  published, in part because they did not properly address the arguments of climate sceptics.
As for the graph disseminated to the media, she said: ‘This is “hide the decline” stuff. Our data show the pause, just as the other sets of data do. Muller is hiding the decline.
‘To say this is the end of scepticism is misleading, as is the  statement that warming hasn’t paused. It is also misleading to say, as he has, that the issue of heat islands has been settled.’
Prof Muller said she was ‘out of the loop’. He added: ‘I wasn’t even sent the press release before it was issued.’
Prof Muller defended his  behaviour yesterday, saying that all he was doing was ‘returning to traditional peer review’, issuing draft papers to give the whole ‘climate community’ a chance to comment.
As for the press release, he claimed he was ‘not seeking  publicity’, adding: ‘This is simply a way of getting the media to report this more accurately.’
He said his decision to publish was completely unrelated to the forthcoming United Nations  climate conference.
This, he said, was ‘irrelevant’, insisting that nothing could have been further from his mind than trying to influence it.

it's he said, she said... ooh juicy!

Saudi Prince Alwaleed, Bloomberg To Launch Arabic News Channel

To view the comprehensive profile of the Chairman HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud, (PDF format) Click Here (kingdom.com.sa) (foxbusiness.com) DUBAI (Zawya Dow Jones)--Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who heads Kingdom Holding Co. (4280.SA), said Tuesday he has inked an agreement with news service Bloomberg LP to launch a new Arabic language satellite news channel. Bloomberg will support the creation of five hours of financial and economic news programming throughout the day on the channel, called Alarab, the prince said in an emailed statement. The channel, whose headquarters haven't been announced yet, is expected to start operating next year. Alwaleed said Alarab will "focus editorially on the important shifts taking place across the Arab world, with an emphasis on freedom of speech and freedom of press." Prince Alwaleed, who owns 95% of Kingdom Holding, has focused his investments on banks, hotels and media companies, building sizable stakes in firms such as Citigroup Inc. (C), News Corp. (NWS), Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Time Warner Inc. (TWX). Over the past couple of years, the prince, who has been the Middle East's wealthiest businessman over the past 20 years, has again started seeking investors and acquisitions around the world after keeping a low profile in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.

News Corp. owns a 14% stake in Prince Alwaleed's media company, Rotana.

News Corp. also owns Dow Jones & Co., publisher of this newswire and The Wall Street Journal.

Talal has his chips all around the news dial.... all around the world. It pisses me off when leftists accuse me of being influenced by right wing media... I mean really... as if I were that stupid.... they really think I don't know.

Bank of America nixes $5 debit card fee

(Politico)In a win for President Barack Obama and Occupy Wall Street, Bank of America will abandon its plans to charge customers $5 per month to use debit cards.

“We have listened to our customers very closely over the last few weeks and recognize their concern with our proposed debit usage fee,” said David Darnell, co-chief operating officer, in a statement Tuesday. “Our customers’ voices are most important to us. As a result, we are not currently charging the fee and will not be moving forward with any additional plans to do so.”

wait a second. how is this a win for anyone? I'd prefer to see Bank of America fail and their competitor get all their business... the way it should of happened

Keep Wall Street Occupied

yeah, but I still have my squishy stress ball that came from one of those credit tables at college. P.S.: just cuz I think OWS is stupidity, does not mean I think the banks are good people.... hell most of those farts made a lot of money by electing Obama... (think Soros and southeast Asia... or at the very least think about MSNBC and how GE moved a lot of operations to China... I'm sure you know what i'm getting at)... my point being... yup... those fuckers screwed you. problem is you yokels think they broke the law. they didn't. they took advantage of you through Jimmy (Camel Fuck) Carter. I find it amusing that you think the banks came up with the idea to lend to poor people... I mean really! Anyhoo... by all means feel free to (LEGALLY) prank these jerks... because what you are asking for in this video is actually a real good idea... a billion times better an idea then the stupid idiots that are freezing their asses in the middle of a snow storm before Halloween. Trick or Treat suckers!

VIDEO: Man Beheaded in Saudi Arabia for 'Sorcery'

Your WIZARD is about to die.

(h/t Pat Dollard) At London's (dailymail.co.uk), "The moment man was publicly beheaded in a Saudi Arabian car park for being a 'sorcerer'."
Footage Surfaces of Saudi Arabian “Sorcerer” Being Publicly Beheaded – With Graphic Video."(American Power) Shocking footage has surfaced of a Sudanese man being publicly beheaded in Saudi Arabia for being a 'sorcerer'.Crouched on his knees and blindfolded, Abdul Hamid Bin Hussain Bin Moustafa al-Fakki was executed in a car park Medina, in the west of the country, as dozens looked on last month.The grainy footage - which MailOnline believes is too graphic to publish - shows the executioner lining his sword up on the back of Abdul Hamid's neck, before one swift stroke decapitates him.
An executioner lines up his sword on the back of the neck of 'sorcerer' Abdul Hamid Bin Hussain Bin Moustafa al-Fakki
The killer draws his sword back as dozens of people watch in the car park
The Sudanese man, who was killed on September 20, is believed to have been the 44th person executed in Saudi Arabia this year - and the 11th foreign national.
The total for 2011 is 17 more than for the whole of 2010.
Lebanese TV host Ali Hussain Sibat, who was sentenced to death over making predictions of the future on his show, had been scheduled to be beheaded on Friday.
His attorney May El Khansa said the execution did not take place on that day - but that did not mean Sibat has been given a reprieve.

It's about time: PalArab terrorist database to be compiled

From JPost:

The Almagor Victims of Terror Association plans to launch an online database of the terrorists with descriptions of their crimes in an effort to prevent future prisoner swaps, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
The head of Almagor, Meir Indor, believes by connecting the names of the terrorists to the specific terror attacks they committed, the public will be less likely to support prisoner swaps in the future.
“We are taking the law into our own hands so that terror victims can get updates on the terrorists who are responsible for specific attacks,” said Indor.
The database, called “Justice for Terror Victims,” will collect information that is available to the public, such as arrests and court transcripts, and compile it in a searchable database.
The Foreign Ministry and some private bloggers have partial lists, but this is the first initiative to have a comprehensive center of information.
More than a dozen volunteers working around the clock in shifts of three have already compiled full entries for 270 terrorists released as part of the Gilad Schalit deal.
It will be uploaded later this week onto the organization’s website, al-magor.com.
The prisoner list released ahead of the Schalit swap by the Prisons Service had dry descriptions for each of those released such as “involvement in unknown terror organization” and “assisted in murder.”
Indor believes that more specific descriptions, such as “the driver who brought the suicide bomber to Sbarro,” will resonate with the public on a deeper level and encourage more of an outcry against future swaps, which was fairly muted in the Schalit deal.
“Personalization works,” said Indor, noting that one reason the Schalit campaign was so successful was that it created an image of Schalit the average Israeli could relate to as a son and a soldier.
He added that the database, which will start with the terrorists released as part of the Schalit swap, will be updated if there are future swaps or if a terrorist is rearrested for committing similar crimes.

(elderofziyon.blogspot.com) I had put something quickly together based on information from the IDF, IPS and Wikipedia which as far as I know had been one of the better databases out there, but I am very glad that this is being done comprehensively.

this would probably not of convinced me that Shalit should of been traded for, but it is important to have... at the very least it would help me spell some of these guy's names consistently.

Goldstone - yes, Goldstone - defends Israel from "apartheid" slander [UPDATED]

(Israel Matzav: The education of R*I*C*H*A*R*D* G*O*L*D*S*T*O*N*E)

This passage made me wonder whether he gets it yet.

The situation in the West Bank is more complex. But here too there is no intent to maintain “an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group.” This is a critical distinction, even if Israel acts oppressively toward Palestinians there. South Africa’s enforced racial separation was intended to permanently benefit the white minority, to the detriment of other races. By contrast, Israel has agreed in concept to the existence of a Palestinian state in Gaza and almost all of the West Bank, and is calling for the Palestinians to negotiate the parameters.

So let me get this straight: Israel's rule in the West Bank Judea and Samaria is not “an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group” only because we have "agreed in concept to the existence of a 'Palestinian state' in Gaza and almost all of the West Bank?" And every country that does not agree to cut off part of its land is promoting apartheid? And every ethnic group that decides it's entitled to a 'state' is a victim of
apartheid if it doesn't get that state? And were we one day to decide that we have had enough of the 'Palestinians' being unwilling to negotiate with us (and we all know why they are unwilling to negotiate with us), and we withdraw whatever offers of 'statehood' have been made, would we then be practicing apartheid?
Goldstone still has a lot to learn.

From the New York Times, an op-ed by Richard Goldstone, author of the infamous Goldstone Report that slandered Israel:

THE Palestinian Authority’s request for full United Nations membership has put hope for any two-state solution under increasing pressure. The need for reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians has never been greater. So it is important to separate legitimate criticism of Israel from assaults that aim to isolate, demonize and delegitimize it.
One particularly pernicious and enduring canard that is surfacing again is that Israel pursues “apartheid” policies. In Cape Town starting on Saturday, a London-based nongovernmental organization called the Russell Tribunal on Palestine will hold a “hearing” on whether Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid. It is not a “tribunal.” The “evidence” is going to be one-sided and the members of the “jury” are critics whose harsh views of Israel are well known.
While “apartheid” can have broader meaning, its use is meant to evoke the situation in pre-1994 South Africa. It is an unfair and inaccurate slander against Israel, calculated to retard rather than advance peace negotiations.
I know all too well the cruelty of South Africa’s abhorrent apartheid system, under which human beings characterized as black had no rights to vote, hold political office, use “white” toilets or beaches, marry whites, live in whites-only areas or even be there without a “pass.” Blacks critically injured in car accidents were left to bleed to death if there was no “black” ambulance to rush them to a “black” hospital. “White” hospitals were prohibited from saving their lives.
In assessing the accusation that Israel pursues apartheid policies, which are by definition primarily about race or ethnicity, it is important first to distinguish between the situations in Israel, where Arabs are citizens, and in West Bank areas that remain under Israeli control in the absence of a peace agreement.
In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the 1998 Rome Statute: “Inhumane acts ... committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.” Israeli Arabs — 20 percent of Israel’s population — vote, have political parties and representatives in the Knesset and occupy positions of acclaim, including on its Supreme Court. Arab patients lie alongside Jewish patients in Israeli hospitals, receiving identical treatment.
To be sure, there is more de facto separation between Jewish and Arab populations than Israelis should accept. Much of it is chosen by the communities themselves. Some results from discrimination. But it is not apartheid, which consciously enshrines separation as an ideal. In Israel, equal rights are the law, the aspiration and the ideal; inequities are often successfully challenged in court.
The situation in the West Bank is more complex. But here too there is no intent to maintain “an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group.” This is a critical distinction, even if Israel acts oppressively toward Palestinians there. South Africa’s enforced racial separation was intended to permanently benefit the white minority, to the detriment of other races. By contrast, Israel has agreed in concept to the existence of a Palestinian state in Gaza and almost all of the West Bank, and is calling for the Palestinians to negotiate the parameters.
But until there is a two-state peace, or at least as long as Israel’s citizens remain under threat of attacks from the West Bank and Gaza, Israel will see roadblocks and similar measures as necessary for self-defense, even as Palestinians feel oppressed. As things stand, attacks from one side are met by counterattacks from the other. And the deep disputes, claims and counterclaims are only hardened when the offensive analogy of “apartheid” is invoked.
Those seeking to promote the myth of Israeli apartheid often point to clashes between heavily armed Israeli soldiers and stone-throwing Palestinians in the West Bank, or the building of what they call an “apartheid wall” and disparate treatment on West Bank roads. While such images may appear to invite a superficial comparison, it is disingenuous to use them to distort the reality. The security barrier was built to stop unrelenting terrorist attacks; while it has inflicted great hardship in places, the Israeli Supreme Court has ordered the state in many cases to reroute it to minimize unreasonable hardship. Road restrictions get more intrusive after violent attacks and are ameliorated when the threat is reduced.
Of course, the Palestinian people have national aspirations and human rights that all must respect. But those who conflate the situations in Israel and the West Bank and liken both to the old South Africa do a disservice to all who hope for justice and peace.
Jewish-Arab relations in Israel and the West Bank cannot be simplified to a narrative of Jewish discrimination. There is hostility and suspicion on both sides. Israel, unique among democracies, has been in a state of war with many of its neighbors who refuse to accept its existence. Even some Israeli Arabs, because they are citizens of Israel, have at times come under suspicion from other Arabs as a result of that longstanding enmity.
The mutual recognition and protection of the human dignity of all people is indispensable to bringing an end to hatred and anger. The charge that Israel is an apartheid state is a false and malicious one that precludes, rather than promotes, peace and harmony.

As night follows day, we can expect the rabid anti-Israel Left who embraced Goldstone as their messiah two years ago will issue vicious condemnations of this piece, and charge Goldstone with being a tool of the Zionist lobby, tomorrow.
But as bad as the Goldstone Report was - and its flaws were so numerous as to border on the malicious - it was not in the same league as the anti-Zionist Left who routinely accuse Israel of "apartheid." These people are not interested in facts or in arguments. They are inherently dishonest and their interest in the truth is nil. They have one purpose and one purpose only - to destroy Israel. It is mindless hate.
And it is a shame that their lies have gained such currency that someone like Goldstone even feels compelled to answer them.
If I had to do some armchair psychology, my guess is that he saw people used his report in ways he never intended, mostly people who didn't even bother to read it themselves. Very possibly, he did not want to be associated with such haters who pretended he was one of them, sort of like Benny Morris after his early works on Israel's history.

via elderofziyon.blogspot.com

Don't tell me there are no jobs

(h/t Jessica Gottlieb) (losangeles.craigslist.org)

Masturbating Dwarves with Down syndrome needed for Scorcese film (West side)

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Date: 2011-10-27, 12:43AM PDT
Reply to: job-mmccu-2671191154@craigslist.org

---

We need dwarves with long schlongs for a drug induced dream sequence in a new Scorcese film about the life and times of the famous European Vigo St Germain.
Send your headshots and reel for consideration.
For more information and to see a trailer for the movie. please go to :

http://player.vimeo.com/video/4739072

• Location: West side
• Compensation: open
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.
  
  PostingID: 2671191154

Canada to Reconsider its Support to UNESCO

(Israel National News) Canada contributes about $10 million Canadian a year to the agency. It was one of 14 nations that voted against the PA’s request in Monday’s vote. Israel, the U.S. and Germany voted against the move as well.

Earlier on Monday, the United States announced that it is cutting off funding to UNESCO.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland announced at a briefing that the administration had no choice in the matter, and would not make its $60 million payment in November to the agency.
Nuland noted that a longstanding law that prohibits U.S. support for any United Nations-affiliated body that accepts Palestinian Authority membership precludes funding the international body.
Meanwhile, it was reported Monday that Israel is considering ending its relationship with UNESCO over the decision to accept the PA as a member.
In a statement, the Foreign Ministry said that Israel was “reconsidering its future cooperation with UNESCO” in the wake of the PA's membership. (MORE)

Rice reveals concessions in 2008 peace talks

New memoir by former secretary of state reveals details on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks; was "impressed" by Olmert's desire for a deal.

(REBECCA ANNA STOIL, JPOST CORRESPONDENT) WASHINGTON – A new memoir by former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice will be released Tuesday, but the lengthy book has already raised uproars in Israel and abroad before it hits the shelves. Rice’s description of the failure of the 2008 peace talks demonstrated key silences regarding American understanding of the Palestinian position, as detailed in papers leaked to the press earlier this year.

Rice said that in spring of 2008 both she and then-president George W. Bush had “both been impressed by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s desire to get a deal.”
The former secretary of state recounted an evening in Jerusalem in May when she was asked to dine alone with Olmert. The then-prime minister presented her with an outline for a peace plan.
“I know what [Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas] needs. He needs something on refugees and on Jerusalem. I’ll give him enough land, maybe something like 94 percent with swaps. I have an idea about Jerusalem. There will be two capitals, one for us in west Jerusalem and one for the Palestinians in east Jerusalem.
The mayor of the joint-city council will be selected by population percentage. That means an Israeli mayor, so the deputy should be a Palestinian. We will continue to provide security for the Holy sites because we can assure access to them,” Olmert told her.
“I’ll accept some Palestinians into Israel, maybe five thousand.
I don’t want it to be called ‘family reunification’ because they have too many cousins; we won’t be able to control it. I’ve been thinking about how to administer the Old City. There should be a committee of people – not officials but wise people – from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinians, the United States and Israel. They will oversee the city but not in a political role,” he continued.
Rice recalled her incredulity: “Am I really hearing this? I wondered. Is the Israeli prime minister saying that he’ll divide Jerusalem and put an international body in charge of the Holy sites? Concentrate. Write this down. No, don’t write it down. What if it leaks? It can’t leak; it’s just the two of us.”
Rice said that she visited Abbas in Ramallah the next day. “I sketched out the details of Olmert’s proposal and told him how the prime minister wanted to proceed. Abbas started negotiating immediately. “I can’t tell four million Palestinians that only 5,000 of them can go home,” he said.”
While Rice is silent on the ensuing breakdown of talks – missing pieces are actually supplied by the Palestine Papers – documents memorializing 10 years of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations that were stolen from Saeb Erekat’s office and posted on al-Jazeera’s website last January.
Although Palestinian negotiators spoke publicly about compromise on refugees, privately they spoke of the “right of return” as a matter of individual choice that would have to be extended to each of over seven million people and with Palestinians retaining the open-ended right to try to negotiate additional “returns” beyond any number initially agreed upon in a peace treaty.
Abbas was simply unprepared to accept any offer that did not allow for the “right of return.”
Rice recounted how on September 16, 2008 Olmert presented Abbas with a groundbreaking offer for a two-state solution including a map outlining the territory of a Palestinian state. Rice confirmed reports that Olmert insisted that Abbas sign then and there, but that Abbas “demurred, wanting to consult his experts before signing.”
Olmert, Rice said, refused to give Abbas the map – a fact that the Palestinians have said proves that Olmert’s offer was not serious.
But the Palestine Papers indicate that on September 16, the Palestinians drew-up a map that seems to outline with great specificity the offer made by Olmert, in spite of the fact that they complained he would not give them a copy of the map.
Abbas asked for a meeting the next day with his advisers present.
The meeting the next day was never held – Rice did not say why, but Olmert has since said that he received a call from Saeb Erekat requesting that the meeting be postponed.
The US administration seems to have been unaware that in preparation for the September 16 meeting the PA was trying to generate escape plans from reaching a binding agreement with Olmert, while at the same time avoiding being blamed for not reaching a final status agreement.
“SE [PA Negotiator Saeb Erekat] thinks there are three ways [Abbas] could respond: (1) Give [Olmert] our Framework Agreement on Permanent Status, (2) Issue general communique about Annapolis progress, (3) Simply say no to the offer,” one September 9, 2008 memo from Hala Rasheed read.
“He wants us to think up other ways to respond. Whatever we propose, he wants to make sure that: (a) we are not blamed, (b) [negotiations] are uninterrupted, and (c) no submission is made that we cannot retract.”
A memo to other NSU members dated September 16 from Wassim Khazmo, a communications adviser on the PA negotiating team, revealed that Palestinians intended to treat the September 16 meeting as “ceremonial” rather than directed toward advancing negotiations and possibly reaching a peace agreement.
“In order to avoid the blame game, the President today is going with a positive attitude, where he will ask more questions from Olmert on his offer, and he will tell him that the Palestinians will respond later,” Khazmo wrote.
Khazmo was particularly concerned that Abbas avoid what he described as “Olmert’s media stunts.”
Even after the September 16 meeting failed to culminate in a peace deal, Rice said that she continued to push hard for talks, “worried that there might never be another chance like this one.”
Her memoirs, however, are silent on the revelation in the Palestine Papers that the Palestinians were concerned by her insistence on advancing the peace plan.

Philippines: MILF jihadists admit responsibility for killing 19 soldiers who intruded on "their" territory

Muslim rebels in the Philippines are ready to "fight back" after the government warned it would go after them if they sheltered outlaws, a spokesman said Monday.

Fighters from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) are prepared for a possible assault, their spokesman Von al-Haq said, adding the group remains committed to peace talks with the government.

Stop calling these Muslims... MILF. It really is misleading.

Latest member of the Zionist Attack Zoo: Puffer fish!

From the Daily Star Lebanon:

Before returning to Ain al-Mreisseh’s small port in the capital, fishermen take a moment to remove a few fish from their net, stab them and throw them overboard.
Fishermen say that all puffer fish invariably receive the same treatment, especially since the Agriculture Ministry issued a decree in July that bans catching,selling and consumption of the extremely toxic fish. The move came after at least seven people died and many were poisoned over the past few years after consuming it.
Playing cards with other fishermen in Ain al-Mreisseh is 66-year-old Adnan Oud, one of many who ate the fish without knowing the danger. A few hours after his meal he recalls, he suddenly “felt numb.”
“I couldn’t walk or raise my hand … I was worried I was having a stroke,” he says. Oud spent four days in a hospital and says doctors never discovered the cause of his illness. But he’s certain the puffer fish was responsible as the moment he felt better, he visited the friend he had shared his meal with, who reported similar symptoms. “I’ve been crawling up the stairs … I couldn’t even carry my tools,” Oud recalls his blacksmith friend telling him.
Oud says many fishermen were skeptical of his story. “Some didn’t believe us, so they fed the fish to the cats. None of them survived, except for one, now walking on two legs.”
“Since then, no one has eaten it,” he says. “But the sea is full of it, and there is no way to get rid of it.”
The puffer fish was first seen in the Eastern Mediterranean some eight years ago. Since then, American University of Beirut marine biology professor Michel Barriche says, “the number of puffer fish [in the Mediterranean sea] exploded” and there are now “millions and millions.”
“The introduction of the new species can be compared with rats, cockroaches,” he explains. “They can live in any environment and eat a wide variety of food.”
...One kind of puffer fish is well known in East Asia, especially in Japan where daredevils like to consume “fugu” fish, a dish that can lead to a fast and brutal death if prepared incorrectly.
A myth circulating among Lebanon’s fishermen says that the fish appeared in the Mediterranean after Israel, which was supposedly raising fugu in fish farms for Japan, released them into the sea when Japan had enough domestic supply of fugu.
The idea that Japan needs Israel to supply it with fish is hardly believable.

(h/t Serious Black)

via elderofziyon.blogspot.com

I have noticed that Jews do love sushi however... ya never know!

Breaking: AP reports on another 'suspicious [nuclear] site' in Syria

AP is reporting that the IAEA has discovered a 'suspicious' site in northwestern Syria. Pakistan is also involved.

U.N. investigators have identified a previously unknown complex in Syria that bolsters suspicions that the Syrian government worked with A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, to acquire technology that could make nuclear arms.
The buildings in northwest Syria closely match the design of a uranium enrichment plant provided to Libya when Moammar Gadhafi was trying to build nuclear weapons under Khan's guidance, officials told The Associated Press.
The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency also has obtained correspondence between Khan and a Syrian government official, Muhidin Issa, who proposed scientific cooperation and a visit to Khan's laboratories following Pakistan's successful nuclear test in 1998.
The complex, in the city of Al-Hasakah, now appears to be a cotton-spinning plant, and investigators have found no sign that it was ever used for nuclear production. But given that Israeli warplanes destroyed a suspected plutonium production reactor in Syria in 2007, the unlikely coincidence in design suggests Syria may have been pursuing two routes to an atomic bomb: uranium as well as plutonium.
Details of the Syria-Khan connection were provided to the AP by a senior diplomat with knowledge of IAEA investigations and a former U.N. investigator. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The Syrian government did not respond to a request for comment.
...
IAEA investigators homed in on the Al-Hasakah facility after an intensive analysis of satellite imagery in the Middle East, sparked by a belief that Khan had an additional government customer, which had not yet come to light. They identified the site, the largest industrial complex in Al-Hasakah, after a 2006 report in a Kuwaiti newspaper claimed Syria had a secret nuclear program in the city.
Satellite imagery of the Al-Hasakah complex revealed striking similarities to plans for a uranium enrichment facility that were seized during a Swiss investigation related to Khan. The Swiss were looking into the Tinner family — Urs Tinner, his brother Marco and their father, Friedrich — who are suspected of playing a crucial role in Khan's smuggling network.
Another set of the same plans was turned over to the IAEA after Libya abandoned its nuclear program. Libya told the IAEA it had ordered 10,000 gas centrifuges from Khan, most of which it intended for a facility that was to be built according to the plans. Centrifuges are used to enrich uranium in the weapons-making process.
The investigator said the layout of the Al-Hasakah facility matches the plans used in Libya almost exactly, with a large building surrounded by three smaller workshops in the same configurations. Investigators were struck that even the parking lots had similarities, with a covered area to shield cars from the sun.
But the investigator said he had seen no evidence that centrifuges were ever installed there. The Hasakah Spinning Co. has a website that shows photos of manufacturing equipment inside the facility and brags about its prices.
The IAEA asked to visit the site more than two years ago. But it has not pressed the issue, focusing its efforts on the bombed site.

By the way, this is not one of the three sites to which the IAEA was denied access by the Syrians in 2008.
Read the whole thing.
I wonder how many more nuclear facilities there are in this region that have not yet come to light. Hmmm.

via israelmatzav.blogspot.com

means we have to get our hands dirty in Syria now? They do have a chemical arsenal already.

Freedom of speech, Bir Zeit on the Hudson style

(israelmatzav.blogspot) This is too good to check. A classmate from Bir Zeit on the Hudson sent me a promo for something called Columbia conversations online. They're holding a two-day celebration of the launch of something called the Columbia Global Center in Istanbul, Turkey. The Columbia Alumni Association is presenting two webcasts as part of the celebration, one on Wednesday and one on Thursday, each at 11:30 am eastern time. The topic of the one on Wednesday is rich (Hat Tip: Merrill W).

Is the Internet Too Free?
Moderated by Dean Nicholas Lemann and Sheila Coronel
A panel discussion on the perils of—and prospects for—journalism online. Is the Internet a safe place for original and independent reporting? Or is it a threatened space? Are the freedoms that citizens and journalists enjoy online more myth than reality?

In case you are wondering, Nicolas Lemann is the dean of the Graduate school of Journalism. One would at least hope that his answer to the discussion question will be "no."
If any of you are interested in watching, go here.

I grew up in the neighborhood and using the Columbia gym to play basketball in. I suppose even though I didn't graduate there I felt like it was my school. We all know where they are going with this journalist lecture. They feel threatened because they can not control the content. I suppose you should too because I repost your stuff for my blog on mine, but at least I try to give credit... (though I admit I've made mistakes before, but I also know people use my site and don't give credit). I noticed this well known site who didn't give me a hat tip the other day and I said to myself.... what can I do? I don't want to scold the guy because I want to steal back from him. His theft is rather good. There has got to be some happy and fair moderation. Sometimes I subvert what you say by the repost because I don't always agree. That is threatening to the news standards, but it works both ways. Sometimes the news does do good things... and they are being punished.