Israeli War Crimes

The Guardian:

An investigation by a group of former Israeli soldiers has uncovered new evidence of the military’s conduct during the assault on Gaza two months ago. According to the group Breaking the Silence, the witness statements of the 15 soldiers who have come forward to describe their concerns over Operation Cast Lead appear to corroborate claims of random killings and vandalism carried out during the operation made by a separate group of anonymous servicemen during a seminar at a military college.Worrying new questions have also been raised about the culture of the Israeli military, indicating a high level of dehumanisation and disregard for Palestinians among the chain of command and even among the military rabbinate….

….An investigation by reporter Uri Blau, published on Friday in Haaretz, disclosed how Israeli soldiers were ordering T-shirts to mark the end of operations, featuring grotesque images including dead babies, mothers weeping by their children’s graves, a gun aimed at a child and bombed-out mosques.

h/t dad

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AIG Disaster

Even though my hysteria for Obama before the election was close to a 13 year old’s view of Troy Bolton I am happy to report that post-election I have no problem being irritated as hell with him. I was a bit worried that I was just going to be the mirror image of all the Bush, “he is our Supreme Leader do not talk bad of him or you are a Amerka hating communist” supporters. Nope.

This AIG bonus story is huge and it is going to get bigger. It seems like not only did the Treasury Department know about the bonuses they actually WANTED them in the legislation. Who knows why, although the large amounts of campaign cash Wall Street pours into DC is a good guess. Did people higher up in the Obama Administration know? We don’t know yet. I hope this story is a wake up call to Obama that he needs to practice what he preached on the campaign trail and sneaking this kind of bull shit into legislation is not going to fly this time. I really hope Treasury Secretary Geitner is forced out too before this is all over.

If you are interested, there is excellent reporting on the story both at Talking Points Memo and Firedoglake. {another reason the Left can be proud – do you remember even one Bush scandal where the right wing blogs/press actually actively investigated the administration?}

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One More Aida

Slightly green processing for the St. Patrick’s Day baby.

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Happy Birthday Aida

This photo was taken on the afternoon of March 17, 1998, a few hours after Aida was born. Because the birth was “natural” {not by choice, I had no drug options in Japan} I had an incredible buzz and couldn’t sit down let alone take a nap. After Eduardo woke up I teased him a bit for sleeping when I was the one who had actually given birth, to which in a classic Eduardo way he responded: “what are you talking about, I was on my feet the whole time, you got to be on your back!”

update: It looks like Eduardo has a mustache here. Absolutely not – it is the upper half of a goatee.

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Splash!

The kids missed babysitting at Don’s house on Saturday night due to lingering sickness and exhaustion from playing soccer. They were very bummed to miss swimming so we went for a special visit to Don’s place the next morning.

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Get Your Paws off my Body

No better way to start my day than watching three men talk about what I should do or shouldn’t do with my body. What is up with men who constantly say that Democrats need to talk more about birth control and less about abortions? Where have they been for the last 30 years? The problem is not Democrats – the problem is that a huge number of conservatives – especially those recently in power – DON’T EVEN BELIEVE IN SEX EDUCATION!!! As Sarah Palin found out – no sex education leads to babies. As Pablo would say; no duh.

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Don’t Divorce Us

I meant to post this on Valentine’s Day, but I missed the boat. Today I post it in honor of the California Supreme not only deliberating on whether Prop 8 is constitutional or not, but also if the 18,000 same-sex marriages performed in California before the November election will still be viewed as valid under California Laws. This video from the Courage Campaign is beautiful in its simplicity:

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We can add our own near and dear Michal-Lynn and Jen. Photo taken on their wedding day last summer:

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Really CNN?…….. Really?

This is the headline story on CNN.com right now:

The argument that led to singer Chris Brown’s arrest on felony assault charges began when his girlfriend found a text message on his cell phone from “a woman who Brown had a previous sexual relationship with,” according to a sworn police statement.

Not that anything else was happening in the world today…..

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Do Not Piss John Stewart Off.

Stewart starts with Santelli and moves on to just destroy CNBC.

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The Glue that Holds them Together

Yesterday for a warm-up I put the students in pairs and asked them to find 3 thing things they had in common. The first pair I asked to share with the class had one young man from Brazil and one from Switzerland. They came up with this:

We both like soccer.
We both like beer.
We both like girls.

Pretty much describes the male experience right there.

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