by j.d. crowe, mobile register

Blood libel (also blood accusation) refers to a false accusation or claim that religious minorities, almost always Jews, murder children to use their blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals and holidays. Historically, these claims have–alongside those of well poisoning and host desecration - been a major theme in European persecution of Jews.

The libels typically allege that Jews require human blood for the baking of matzos for Passover. The accusations often assert that the blood of Christian children is especially coveted, and historically blood libel claims have often been made to account for otherwise unexplained deaths of children. In some cases, the alleged victim of human sacrifice has become venerated as a martyr, a holy figure around whom a martyr cult might arise. A few of these have been even canonized as saints.

Finally, the real victim of the Tucson tragedy speaks up.

In a scathing Facebook post and web-video tirade, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin accused the media of “blood libel” against her for mentioning her infamous cross-hair map in the wake of the shooting in Tucson. Palin called journalists and pundits’ focus on her “reprehensible,” and said it “serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn.”

National Jewish Democratic Council: “Instead of dialing down the rhetoric at this difficult moment, Sarah Palin chose to accuse others trying to sort out the meaning of this tragedy of somehow engaging in a “blood libel” against her and others.
This is of course a particularly heinous term for American Jews, given that the repeated fiction of blood libels are directly responsible for the murder of so many Jews across centuries — and given that blood libels are so directly intertwined with deeply ingrained anti-Semitism around the globe, even today.”

Dorian de Wind heeft een Nederlandse vader en een Equadoriaanse moeder. Hij woonde tot zijn tiende in Equador, leerde Nederlands op de Antillen en vestigde zich uiteindelijk in de VS. Nu schrijft hij in het Engels. De laatste keer dat hij echt vloeiend was in een taal, was in het Spaans. Hij was tien jaar oud.
Ach, we doen het er maar mee Dorian.
Dit stuk verscheen recent in de Huffington Post. Hier meer van Dorian op drasties.

The Last Train to Auschwitz

Dorian de Wind - As the long freight train leaves the Nazi Westerbork transit camp and picks up speed across the flat Dutch countryside, Louis takes out the couple of sheets of paper he had stuffed in his pocket and begins to write his letter. He knows he has to hurry: It will not be very long before the train crosses the border into Germany.

Writing in Dutch, he starts:

Darling, I am on my way to an unknown destination. I sit here with 56 people in a freight car. I have to write on my knee while we are riding …

Louis finds it difficult to write, for it is very dark in the sealed freight wagon.

Still not knowing how close to the border the train is — his growing anxiety reflected in his worsening handwriting — Louis hastily ends the letter with words of hope that, “God willing,” he will see his loved ones again; with words of love, “a thousand kisses;” and with a request to his wife: “Omhels Loekie,” — Give Loekie, his little daughter, a hug.
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by bob englehart, the hartford courant

by nate beeler, the washington examiner

Weet u het nog? De carchase in Fort Worth waar heidense stadsbussen dagelijks op de hielen worden gezeten door een goddelijk truckje.
Op de bussen staat: ‘Millions of Americans are - Good without God’.
Op het truckje: ‘I still love you - God’.
Het is het front in de, door Fox News bedachte, ‘War on Christmas’. De oorlog die er omgaat of in de VS ‘Gelukkig Kerstfeest’ mag worden vervangen door ‘Prettige Feestdagen’ of niet.
Deze week vond er een discussie plaats tusen Bill O’Reilly en de Amerikaanse atheist David Silverman op Fox News waarin O’Reilly uitlegt hoe hij zo zeker weet dat God bestaat.

This week Bill O’Reilly explained on his Fox News show how he knows there is a God.
He was discussing religion with David Silverman of American Atheists who, according to O’Reilly, are running ’insulting’ ads calling religion a ’scam’.
Like: ‘Millions of Americans are Good without God’.

O’REILLY: I’ll tell you why [religion’s] not a scam, in my opinion: tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can’t explain that.SILVERMAN: Tide goes in, tide goes out?
O’REILLY: See, the water, the tide comes in and it goes out, Mr. Silverman. It always comes in, and always goes out. You can’t explain that.

Well Billo, we’ve known about this ‘water comes in and water goes out’ for some time now. In fact since Isaac Newton first accurately described and predicted tides by lunar cycles in his Principia, published in 1687.

The U.S. Labor Department released its employment data for December, showing that the economy ended the year by adding 113,000 private sector jobs. The unemployment rate went down sharply from 9.8 percent to 9.4 percent. The lowest rate since in 1,5 years. The drop was far better than the modest step-down economists had forecast. Still, 14.5 million Americans remain unemployed, and much more jobs have to be created for the country to pull itself out of the economic doldrums.
[read on] (more…)

As 2011 begins, what could be eerier than reading secret Soviet documents from the USSR’s Afghan debacle of the 1980s? It gives you chills to run across Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev at a Politburo meeting in October 1985, almost six years after Soviet troops first flooded into Afghanistan, reading letters aloud to his colleagues from embittered Soviet citizens (“The Politburo had made a mistake and must correct it as soon as possible — every day precious lives are lost.”); or, in November 1986, insisting to those same colleagues that the Afghan war must be ended in a year, “at maximum, two.”
Yet, with the gut-wrenching sureness history offers, you can’t help but know that, even two years later, even with a strong desire to leave (which has yet to surface among the Washington elite a decade into our own Afghan adventure), imperial pride and fear of loss of “credibility” would keep the Soviets fighting on to 1989. (Tom Engelhardt, Alternet)

Een artikel van Glenn Greenwald over de zogenaamd objectieve Amerikaanse pers. Bijna alles betreffende Irak was een hoax, behalve de dood van honderdduizenden Irakezen natuurlijk. Dit gaat over het door het Amerikaanse leger geensceneerde neerhalen van het beeld van Saddam Hoessein op Firdos Square in Bagdad. Dat zogenaamd door de Irakezen met groot gejuich werd ontvangen. “Men and women wept, and reached out to shake the hands of the marines, or simply touch their uniforms. “Thank you, mister!”", schreef een Amerikaanse journalist.
Een grote hoax.
Ook gaat het over de grote bewondering die er bestaat voor het Amerikaanse leger, in Amerika dan voornamelijk. Iedere dag eren de Amerikanen hun soldaten overal in de VS. Daar doet echt iedereen aan mee, ook de liberale media. Ja, zelfs op mijn favoriete progressieve blogs gebeurt dat. Pure blindheid. Hoe kan een normaal mens het leger nu iets vinden om te eren en te loven? Wat valt er te bewonderen aan mensen die jaren van hun leven geven om getraind te worden in het doodmaken van andere mensen? Daarvoor heb je een leger, om zoveel mogelijk mensen dood te maken. Mij lijkt het iets om je voor te schamen.
En puur militair heeft Amerika, voorzover ik het kan zien, ondanks dat ze de grootste bommen en granaten van de wereld hebben, de laatste decennia maar weinig oorlogen gewonnen. Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, allemaal mislukkingen. En om Irak een succes te noemen?

It was the media, rather than the government, that created the victory myth

GG - In this week’s New Yorker, Peter Maass — who was in Iraq covering the war at the time — examines the iconic, manufactured toppling of the Saddam statue in Baghdad’s Firdos Square, an event the American media relentlessly exploited in April, 2003, to propagandize citizens into believing that Iraqis were gleeful over the U.S. invasion and that the war was a smashing success. Acknowledging that the episode demonstrated that American troops had taken over the center of Baghdad, Maas nonetheless explains that “everything else the toppling was said to represent during repeated replays on television — victory for America, the end of the war, joy throughout Iraq — was a disservice to the truth.” [read on] (more…)

by rainer hachfeld, neues deutschland, germany

Het is weer tijd voor wortels. Hutspot, groentesoep, noem maar op. Wist u dat wortels van oorsprong uit Afghanistan komen en dat ze toen niet oranje waren? Tot de zeventiende eeuw hadden wortels slanke gele en paarse… ja wortels dus. Tenminste dat beweert Veggie girl, Esther Oertel uit Lakeport, Californie.
Wie ze oranje heeft gemaakt? Wie denkt u.
Verderop het recept van ‘honey-mint carrots’ - whatever that may be.

Carrots were first cultivated in Afghanistan in the 10th century

Lake County News - Surprisingly, carrots were not originally orange. Until the 17th century, carrots grown in Europe all had slender yellow or purple roots. The carrot’s orange color came about through the efforts of breeders in the Netherlands during the Dutch struggle for independence from Spain, when orange represented Dutch patriotism.
Today’s carrots may be found in a veritable rainbow of varying shades of red, yellow, purple, white, and, of course, the more common orange. A rare variety of pink-red carrot is grown in Northern India.
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Here are some facts about the reality of the Afghan war. When will President Obama accept that it’s not winnable. That is, not winnable by military force. Like most of the wars the United States of America has fought in Asia.
Afghanistan is America’s longest war. And it’ doesn’t seem that the U.S. is ready to see it for what it is, considering this kind of statements:

President Obama said Thursday that “we are on track to achieve our goals” in the Afghan war and to “start reducing our forces next July.”

That doesn’t seem correct when we look at the bleak conclusion of the National Intelligence Estimates, last year. That kind of optimism is in reality just undermining the administration’s credibility. Have a look at what the New York Times had to say in november last year:
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Verboort: A Priest and His People (Wildwood Publishers) - beschrijft de levens van de Nederlandse kolonisten die zich in 1875 vestigden op de plek waar nu het plaatsje Verboort ligt in Washington County, Oregon, U.S.A.

VERBOORT, Catholic Sentinel — A significant contribution to Oregon Catholic history has arrived in the form of a 400-page book by Father Scott Vandehey.
“They were our ancestors,” says Father Vandehey, who himself grew up in the region, in the Dutch-Catholic town of Roy. “They shared their deep faith, sacrificed their very lives and traveled great lengths in search of freedom, opportunity and a better life.”
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Het woord Nazi zal sinds WW II zelden zo vaak gevallen zijn in de VS als in 2010. Het was dan ook het jaar van Nazi-expert Glenn Beck. De man die een ongekend populaire show heeft op Fox News.
Waarom is Glenn Beck zo populair?
Omdat het een halve gare is, een dwaas waar heel wat steekjes aan loszitten, maar ook omdat hij iets heeft. Hij is op zijn manier spannend. Hij raaskalt, hij schreeuwt, hij preekt, hij huichelt, hij huilt als een kind… Hij is een tikkende tijdbom.
Zijn show is allereerst populair bij extreem rechtse mislukkelingen die hem serieus nemen. Maar ook verstandige mensen die wel eens willen lachen of griezelen, kijken er graag naar. Want je staat er versteld van wat hij allemaal durft te zeggen om het schorriemorrie in de VS op te hitsen tegen de democratisch verkozen regering van the U.S. of A.
Op de foto de briljante Jon Stewart van de Daily Show, het echte geweten van Amerika.

Scenes from the real America: Louisville, Kentucky
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Audio tapes from the Nixon White House were revealed earlier this month that captured a shocking exchange between President Richard Nixon and then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
In the tapes, Kissinger responds to an appeal made by Israeli leader Golda Meir to Soviet leaders to allow the emigration of Russian Jews to her country. He tells Nixon that the “emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.”
Since these comments were revealed to the public, there has been an uproar in the media, with the New York Times writing that the tapes showed that Kissinger was “brutally dismissive” of human rights concerns related to Soviet Jews. Now the former secretary of state has gone on a media offensive, attempting to save his public image among the media furor. In an op-ed piece published Sunday, Kissinger wrote that he was sorry he “made that remark 37 years ago,” and argued that it was taken out of context.
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Nu New START is getekend is er een nieuw plafond voor het aantal strategische (intercontinentale) atoomwapens dat Rusland en Amerika mogen opstellen. Onder Bush senior was afgesproken dat ze er 6.000 mochten hebben, te verdelen over ten hoogste 1600 raketten of vliegtuigen.
In praktijk is dat nu overigens al minder dan de helft.
En nu hebben Obama en Medvedev dus beloofd slechts 1500 à 1675 atoomkoppen, te plaatsen op ongeveer 800 raketten en vliegtuigen.
Maar aan de tactische wapens die in Europa liggen wordt niets gedaan. Die naar schatting 180 atoombommen zijn uiteraard nergens voor nodig en kunnen weg. Dat vindt ook de Amerikaan Matt Eckel van Foreign Policy Watch.
Er is overigens wel enige beweging, zelfs bij de NATO. Als het de ontwapening helpt, aldus minister Verhagen, zou hun eenzijdige verwijdering niet langer onbespreekbaar zijn. De weg naar global zero is lang, maar ondanks Iran, Pakistan, Israël, en Noord-Korea: het ruikt in Europa een beetje naar lente.

Away with 180 atombombs in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey

From the NYT:

Today, the United States retains about 500 tactical weapons, according to the figures released this year, and experts say about 180 of them are still stationed in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey. Russia has between 3,000 and 5,000 of them, depending on the estimate, and American officials have said Moscow moved more of them closer to NATO allies as recently as last spring in response to the deployment of American missile defense installations closer to its territory. [read on] (more…)

Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie, who befriended President Obama’s parents when they were university students here, has been in office for less than three weeks. But he is so incensed over the “birthers” — conspiracy theorists who assert Mr. Obama was born in Kenya and challenge his right to be president — that he is already seeking ways to change Hawaiian law or regulation to allow him to release additional proof that the president was born in a hospital here in 1961.
“It’s an insult to his mother and to his father, and I knew his mother and father — they were my friends, and I have an emotional interest in that,” Gov. Abercrombie said in a telephone interview late Thursday night. “It’s an emotional insult, it is disrespectful to the president, it is disrespectful to the office.” (New York Times)

callantsogervaart

Foto’s van de geweldige Ramirezi. Zien jullie het licht?
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Gallup Poll recorded the highest disapproval rating ever of Congress - the American Senate and the House - with 83 percent of Americans disapproving and only 13 percent approving of the job being done by lawmakers. Conservatives disapproved because… well, that’s what they do, liberals disapproved mainly because of the extension of the Bush tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.
However, even though the public approval of Congress has never been worse, the 111th Congress passed a historic volume of substantial legislation, whatever one might think about the merits of these achievements. Historian Alan Brinkley said yesterday that “[t]his is probably the most productive session of Congress since at least the ’60s,” for an article outlining the historic achievements of this session:
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by cardow, the ottawa citizen