Sunday Roundup - December 7, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media.  Today we look at Eric Garner's death, US deportations, Israeli politics, Senator Harkin on Obamacare, Ukraine, and in brief, South Sudan and Gaza.

Correction to December 3 post, "The Death of Michael Brown": The original post gave the distance from the shooter, Darren Wilson, to Michael Brown as 148 feet as estimated by an independent source.  148 feet was the distance from Darren Wilson's SUV to the point where Michael Brown had run as estimated by the independent source.

Eric Garner

Midtown New York, Dec. 5, Credit: REUTERS/Adrees Latif

A grand jury once again failed to indict after the death of an unarmed African-American at the hands of a white police officer.  The victim this time was Eric Garner and the place was New York City.  The case of New York Police Department officer David Pantaleo wasn’t supposed to be like Ferguson. There was a video showing how a simple stop for selling untaxed cigarettes turned into a chokehold — a move prohibited by the NYPD. The medical examiner ruled the incident a homicide. Eric Garner repeatedly shouted “I can’t breathe” just before he died.  Yet, as in Ferguson, the Staten Island grand jury voted not to indict Pantaleo for anything, leaving the nation — even legal experts – exasperated, frustrated, and grasping to understand why. [Think Progress, Dec. 3]  The White House announced a civil rights investigation as protesters took to the streets.  The US attorney general, Eric Holder, has announced a federal investigation into “potential civil rights violations” around the death of Eric Garner after a grand jury decided not to indict Daniel Pantaleo, the New York police officer who placed the unarmed black man in a chokehold.  Thousands of demonstrators disrupted New York City traffic into the early hours of Thursday after the grand jury verdict. Mostly peaceful protests had sprung up on Wednesday evening at locations throughout Manhattan, including Grand Central Terminal, Times Square and near Rockefeller Center, after the panel returned no indictment. [The Guardian, Dec. 4]  Protests in New York have continued into the weekend.  Protests over U.S. police violence against minorities, sparked by grand-jury decisions not to charge officers in two high-profile cases, were peaceful on their third night in New York although 20 arrests took place, authorities said on Saturday.  Protesters were arrested for disorderly conduct and blocking traffic on the city's FDR Drive, a major artery that runs along the eastern side of Manhattan....The wave of angry protests began on Wednesday when a New York grand jury declined to bring charges against white officer Daniel Pantaleo in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, a black 43-year-old father of six. [Reuters, Dec. 6]

Related
‘I can’t breathe’: Why Eric Garner protests are gaining momentum [Reuters, Dec. 5]  “Black Lives Matter” has become, like an earlier generation’s use of the terms “Freedom Now” and “We Shall Overcome,” an anthem for contemporary civil and human rights activism. The struggle for black equality historically and now, offers us all a chance to transform and save American democracy.

US Deportations
The American Civil Liberties Union released a report on Dec. 4 that underscores a troublesome pattern that has received far less attention [than Obama's immigration plan]: Of the 438,421 people deported in 2013, 83 percent received a summary removal, meaning that they were sent to their country of origin by US officials without a hearing. And according to the ACLU's research, many of these removals were illegal: Asylum seekers, unaccompanied kids, and others who may have qualified for relief routinely have been turned away.  There has been a backlog in the immigration court for many years and the deportations are being made using a 1996 law that, in theory, prevents immigration courts from being completely inundated while also providing safeguards...But according to the ACLU's findings, these protocols aren't often followed...No one, the ACLU included, seems to be able to provide a realistic solution to the immigration court backlog; it's undeniable that if all those requesting asylum were given a trial, the system would be further clogged.  [Mother Jones, Dec.4]

Israel
Benjamin Netanyahu's government collapsed after the ouster of two cabinet ministers who opposed the so-called "Jewish state" bill.  Three days after the Peace Now demonstration outside the Prime Minister’s home in Jerusalem, which featured a call for toppling and replacing Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, the government did in fact collapse. The Knesset is in the process of dissolving itself and its members have already agreed on a date for early elections.  Israelis will go to the polls on March 17, almost two full years before the end of the term of this government. [Americans for Peace Now, Dec. 3]  I'd like to share APN's optimism that the elections will bring to power an Israeli government committed to a two-state solution, but Israeli politics and public opinion continue to move to the right.  A new poll published Sunday in the Haaretz newspaper showed that while Netanyahu’s popularity is currently down, Israelis continue to support him over other prime ministerial candidates. Asked which politician is most suited to be prime minister, 35% answered Netanyahu....The same poll showed shrinking support for Lapid’s [the fired  finance minister's] centrist party and for the centrist-left-wing parties Hatnuah and Labor. The only parties to show gains are the right-wing Jewish Home and Israel Beiteinu Parties. [BuzzFeed, Dec. 3]
The UN overwhelmingly passed a non-binding resolution urging Israel to renounce possession of nuclear weapons and put its nuclear facilities under UN supervision and criticizing the country for not being part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  Israel possesses an estimated 80 nuclear weapons.  The resolution calls on Israel to "accede to that treaty without further delay, not to develop, produce, test or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons, to renounce possession of nuclear weapons," and put its nuclear facilities under the safeguard of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency...Israel, which is believed to have nuclear arms but has never admitted to it, has long been under fire from Arab countries in the region for not putting its alleged stockpile under international supervision.  The resolution, initiated by Egypt, was approved by 161 nations with only five voting against it and 18 abstentions.  [Russia Times, Dec. 3]

Senator Harkin:  We Should Have Passed Single-Payer
The coauthor of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act regrets that the filibuster-proof Senate of 2009 did not pass a single payer healthcare system instead.  Sen. Tom Harkin, one of the co-authors of the Affordable Care Act, now thinks Democrats may have been better off not passing it at all and holding out for a better bill.  The Iowa Democrat who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, laments the complexity of legislation the Senate passed five years ago.  He wonders in hindsight whether the law was made overly complicated to satisfy the political concerns of a few Democratic centrists who have since left Congress....Harkin, who is retiring at the end of this Congress, says in retrospect the Democratic-controlled Senate and House should have enacted a single-payer healthcare system or a public option to give the uninsured access to government-run health plans that compete with private insurance companies.  “We had the votes in ’09. We had a huge majority in the House, we had 60 votes in the Senate,” he said.  He believes Congress should have enacted “single-payer right from the get-go or at least put a public option would have simplified a lot....  We had the votes to do that and we blew it,” he said....Harkin...believes Obama and Democratic leaders could have enacted better policy had they stood up to three centrists who balked at the public option: Sens. Joe Lieberman (Conn.), a Democrat turned independent, Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.). [The Hill, Dec. 3]  

Ukraine
In spite of recent fighting near the Donetsk airport, there is hope for the shaky ceasefire in eastern Ukraine.  Ukraine and the pro-Russian rebels said Thursday they had agreed to halt fire on December 9 under the terms of a truce aimed at ending one of Europe's bloodiest conflicts in decades.  The unexpected announcement provides the latest glimmer of hope that fighting across the eastern rustbelt of the ex-Soviet nation was nearing to a close after eight months that saw 4,300 people killed and shattered Moscow's ties with the West....A source in [Ukrainian President] Poroshenko's office said the president's statement meant Ukraine would begin withdrawing heavy weapons from the eastern frontline on December 10 -- as long as the separatists also observed the truce....Several truce deals announced in the course of the war were broken within days by both rebels and Ukrainian soldiers who refused to listen to their political leaders. The head of the neighbouring self-proclaimed Lugansk People's Republic said a ceasefire that would begin in mid-December was discussed at the [September] Minsk negotiations. [AFP/ via Yahoo News, Dec. 4]

Related
"How can the West solve its Ukraine problem?" [BBC News, Dec. 3] Russia badly overplayed its hand last year ...The European Union is now risking the same thing by trying to bring Ukraine into the West without reference to economic reality or the willingness of European publics to bear the enormous costs involved.  The author lays out the economic and political reality in the Ukraine and the compromises needed by both sides for a lasting peace.

In Brief
South Sudan
The civil war in South Sudan claimed at least 50 000 lives so far [enca.com, Nov. 15]

"South Sudan: the impact of war and the importance of peace"  [The Guardian, Nov. 26] 
While South Sudan peace talks continue in Ethiopia and Tanzania, bitterly divided communities look for solutions closer to home.  The civil war in South Sudan has so far claimed at least 50,000 lives.

Gaza
U.N. begins inquiry into attacks and weapons in Gaza [Reuters, Dec. 3]

Project launched to clear Gaza rubble: UN begins clearing some 2.5 million tons of rubble from Strip, courtesy of $3.2 million donation from Sweden. [YNet/AP, Dec. 3]

Palestinian engineer has developed a replacement for cement to help the Gaza Strip deal with its housing crisis after the Israeli war [World Bulletin, Dec. 5] 
Since the July-August war, in which more than 2,100 Palestinians and 70 Israelis were killed, barely any progress has been made rebuilding the shattered territory, despite donors pledging $5 billion.  Israel tightly monitors the import of construction materials and equipment into Gaza, arguing that otherwise it could be used to rebuild tunnels used by Hamas who control the strip.  Palestinian officials and critics of Israeli policy say that has made it impossible to rebuild, leaving 40,000 of the strip's 1.8 million residents in temporary shelter and thousands more facing winter in barely habitable ruins. 

Sunday Roundup - August 31, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from outside the US corporate mainstream media.  Today we look at the Eurozone recession, discovery of traces of one of the first stars, the rise of ISIS, and Gaza.

Eurozone Recession
It's yet another reminder of the fallacy of deficit reduction and spending cuts in the midst of a recession. Unemployment in the Euro-zone remains high and it's not just a reflection of 25% unemployment in Greece and Spain. With the exception of Germany, none of the core European countries has had any recovery to speak of, with employment lower and unemployment substantially higher than before the crisis. The table below...shows the percentage change in GDP, employment and unemployment between the pre-crisis peak and the first quarter of 2014: 

(The Interpreter website, August 26)

Greece and Spain have been especially hard hit.  Speaking of the rampant unemployment in Greece, Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, in a blog for TheWorldPost, writes: The commitment to economic austerity policies by the "troika" - the European Central Bank, the European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund - hasn't wavered. Meanwhile, the country's unemployment rate has soared to yet another unexpected high. In a population of 9.3 million, 1.3 million are out of work....Employment has collapsed under measures demanded by the trio of lenders, and acquiesced to by three successive Greek governments. The trough is wider and longer than it was during the Great Depression...Greece has become a template for how an austerity regime crushes a workforce. The highest unemployment rate in Europe is the disastrous fallout of the world's most rigorously enforced fiscal tightening policy.  The solution? The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, which Papdimitriou leads, estimated what the outcomes would have been if Greece had enacted a broad employment program in 2012. Work would be dedicated to areas like physical and information infrastructure, the environment, social services, education, and culture.  At the low-midrange of the scale, Antonopoulos simulated the direct public creation of 300,000 jobs at today's wages. Multiplier effects - indirect results - increased the total gains to almost 400,000 mainly skilled positions. That is, government jobs would fuel the creation of those additional jobs in private industry.  Unemployment was reduced by roughly 30 percent. GDP rose about 4 percent.  Pointing out that jobs-targeted stimulus programs have succeeded worldwide in the past, Papadimitiou concludes: An international dialogue should begin now. It might open with an invitation to the Troika: Explain why Greece should not start a jobs guarantee policy today.

Traces of one of the first stars

The most massive stars in the early universe would eject material
 high in iron when they exploded. Astronomers can read the composition
 of the next generation of stars to determine what made up their ancestors.Credit: National Astronomical Observatory of Japan
(Image appeared in the space.com article)

A team working at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan has detected traces of one of the first stars formed in the early universe.  An ancient star in the halo surrounding the Milky Way galaxy appears to contain traces of material released by the death of one of the universe's first stars...The chemical signature of the ancient star suggests that it incorporated material blasted into space by a supernova explosion that marked the death of a huge star in the early universe — one that may have been 200 times more massive than the sun. The first stars in the cosmos, known as Population III stars, formed from the hydrogen and helium that dominated the early universe. Computer simulations suggest that the first stars formed 100 million to 250 million years after the Big Bang - or about 13.5 billion years ago.  Although massive first generation stars no longer exist, their descendants do.  Scientists studying the composition of a 13 billion year-old, second generation star just 1,000 light years from Earth determined that it was formed from the material blown off of a single massive ancient star.  [space.com, August 21]

The Rise of ISIS
The Democracy Now! website posted two interviews in August on the rise of ISIS.  

One is an interview with Vijay Prashad, professor of international studies at Trinity College and a columnist for Frontline, where he has been writing extensively about Islamic State.  There’s a very dangerous game going on here, both from Hillary Clinton, from the Republicans, from Tony Blair. They want to make the case that the Islamic State is a child of the Syrian war. They want to deny the fact that the Islamic State has its roots fundamentally in the destruction of the Iraqi state by the American invasion in 2003. You know, it’s very easy to destroy a state. It took the Iraqi people over a hundred years to build institutions; that was destroyed by the Americans in an afternoon. Once you destroy the state, you create a vacuum. For the first time on Iraqi soil, one saw al-Qaeda groups come in, and that was in 2004, when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was a Jordanian militant, comes into Tal Afar and creates al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia. You know, even bin Laden found him to be a bit unpalatable, because he was deeply sectarian and extraordinarily violent. The Americans tried to crush al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, but by 2006, despite the big surge, despite the bombing of Fallujah, Ramadi—you know, names that the American public now are quite familiar with—despite the razing of these cities, the Islamic State was born in 2006. It’s not yesterday’s creation. This was a product of the Iraq War. [Democracy Now!, August 25]

The second interview is with Patrick Cockburn, the Middle East correspondent for The Independent. Addressing the nonsense in Hillary Clinton's statements in her Atlantic interview, he writes: The idea, which is very widespread, that there was a moment that, with a few more guns and ammunition, that a moderate Syrian opposition could have taken over in Syria in 2011 or '12 or ’13, is just unreal. There are 14 provincial capitals of Syria. Assad held all of them until last year, when he lost one of them, Raqqa, to ISIS, not to any of these moderates. These moderates are an endangered species on the battlefields of Syria. The opposition is now dominated—military opposition is dominated by ISIS. They hold a third of the country. But the other military opposition are people like Jabhat al-Nusra, which is the official representative of al-Qaeda, of bin Laden's al-Qaeda, and some other jihadi organizations. So this is sort of fantasy that there was a moderate Syrian military opposition which, with a bit more support from Obama, could have taken power in Damascus. It was never going to happen. [Democracy Now!, August 13]

Gaza
The seven-week war against Gaza has stopped with the announcement Tuesday of an indefinite ceasefire.  As reported in The Guardian on August 26: The war in Gaza ended on Tuesday after Israel and the Palestinians agreed to halt fighting indefinitely, putting an end to seven weeks of catastrophic loss of life and destruction, but on terms which are likely to leave many on both sides of the conflict wondering what was achieved.  Hamas and Islamic Jihad – the main militant groups in Gaza – the Palestinian Authority and Israel agreed on an open-ended ceasefire beginning at 7pm on Tuesday evening....The terms of the deal – brokered by the Egyptian government, and reached on the 50th day of the conflict – appeared to be almost identical to those agreed at the end of the previous war 21 months ago. Israel will open crossings on its border to allow humanitarian aid and construction materials to enter Gaza, and will extend the permitted fishing zone to six miles off the coast of Gaza. The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt is also to be opened.

The Palestinian death toll is currently over 2,100 - 2,104 according to UN sources; 2,133 according to an article in The Guardian.  Wounded Palestinians number 10,890.  At least 70 percent of the Palestinian deaths were civilians.  The Israeli death toll is 70, including 6 civilians.  

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is coming to be more defined but the final tally will require weeks.  After being blockaded for seven years, 80% of Gazans were already receiving humanitarian aid prior to the war.  Here are some of the latest assessments of the post-war situation in Gaza:

As the ceasefire allows for more in-depth sectoral assessments to be conducted, it is clear that the scale of damage is unprecedented, with approximately 13 per cent of the housing stock affected. Five per cent of the housing stock is uninhabitable - an estimated 18,000 housing units have been either destroyed or severely damaged, leaving more than 108,000 people homeless. This is in addition to the pre-crisis housing deficit of 71,000 housing units, due to people living in overcrowded or inadequate conditions. The provision of temporary housing solutions to these people is one of the major challenges facing the local authorities and the humanitarian community in the coming period. [1]

Despite extensive repairs, electricity outages of 18 hours a day continue in most areas across Gaza. [1]

Only 10 per cent of the population have potable running water available daily. [1]

More than 1,000 children will suffer lifelong disabilities [2]

Water and sanitation: ...180,000 people have limited access to water. The lack of electricity and fuel also restrict water supply. The UN and other agencies are concerned about the risk of diseases related to lack of access to water. In fact, thousands of people live in overcrowded schools, shelters. This, coupled with the lack of water and poor sanitation, poses serious epidemic risks. [2]

Medical services and supplies:  serious shortages of drugs and medical supplies hamper health benefits, particularly those related to emergencies, surgical procedures and intensive care units. The 29 hospitals working, manage with backup generators require fuel. 15 hospitals and 16 health centres damaged require reconstruction. The lack of specialized surgeons limits medical support to the injured. [2]

Psychological damage: At least 373,000 children need psychosocial support. Thousands of ERW (explosive remnants of war) are in built-up areas, posing a significant risk to children, farmers, aid workers and internally displaced people returning home. [2]

[1] OCHA Situation Report, August 28 
[2] Independent Catholic News, August 27

Related
Humanitarian agencies warn of imminent water crisis in Gaza [MondoWeiss, July 23]
Israel War Aftermath: Epidemic feared in Gaza sheltering centers as skin infections spread [Informed Comment, August 28]

Top 5 Myths About the War Against Gaza
Hopefully, the ceasefire will last and the blockade of Gaza will eventually be lifted.  In the meantime, as some "news" agencies try to shift the responsibility for the destruction of Gaza and try to downplay or excuse the extent of civilian casualties, here are some facts to keep in front of you.  

True or False:

(1) Hamas' increased rocket attacks against Israel initiated the 2014 war.
False: The hostilities began with the targeted assassination of at least six members of Hamas and the arrest of 400 Palestinians.  To justify their attacks against Hamas and the arrests, Israel implicated Hamas in what was the action of a lone operator - the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers.  Even the Israeli government, having captured the perpetrator and destroyed his home, now admits this.

(2) The Israeli blockade violates international law.
True: Numerous human rights groups, including UN agencies, have spoken out against this collective punishment.  The European Union and the British Parliament have gone on record as asking for an end to the blockade.  Even some in the US media are beginning to agree: What Israel is doing in Gaza now is collective punishment. It is punishment for Gaza’s refusal to be a docile ghetto. It is punishment for the gall of Palestinians in unifying, and of Hamas and other factions in responding to Israel’s siege and its provocations with resistance, armed or otherwise, after Israel repeatedly reacted to unarmed protest with crushing force. Despite years of ceasefires and truces, the siege of Gaza has never been lifted. [The New Yorker, July 29]

(3) The Israeli blockade has devastated the economy in Gaza.

True: A 2012 UN report, when the blockade was just entering its 6th year, notes:

34% of Gaza’s workforce, including over half its youth, is unemployed.

44% of Gazans are food insecure and about 80% are aid recipients. 

In 2011, the GDP per capita was almost 17% below the equivalent figure in 2005, before the last Palestinian elections.

In 2011 less than one truckload of goods per day exited Gaza, less than 3% the average amount of exports during the first half of 2007.

35% of Gaza’s farmland and 85% of its fishing waters are totally or partially inaccessible due to Israeli imposed restrictions.

(4) Hamas overthrew the Palestinian Authority in Gaza in 2007.

False: Hamas came to power in the Occupied Territory of Gaza and the West Bank in the legislative elections of January, 2006. They won 76 of 132 legislative seats and a unity government was formed.  Subsequent maneuverings by Israel and the United States returned Fatah / the Palestinian Authority to power in the West Bank.  The Battle of Gaza (June 10-15, 2007) was a conflict in the struggle for power in Gaza between Fatah and Hamas.  Fatah could not dislodge Hamas.  Hamas fighters took control of the Gaza Strip and removed Fatah officials. The battle resulted in the dissolution of the unity government and the division of the Palestinian territories into two entities, the West Bank governed by the Palestinian National Authority, and Gaza governed by Hamas. The Israeli blockade began.

(5) The United States opposed the UN's Goldstone Report, which investigated war crimes committed during the Gaza War of 2009 ("Operation Cast Lead").

True:  The 574-page fact-finding report was opposed by the US Ambassador to the UN and the US Congress.  One can only wonder if the present war against Gaza would have occurred had those responsible for the war crimes documented in the Goldstone Report been held accountable at the time.  "Operation Cast Lead" resulted in the deaths of 1417 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.  Of the Palestinian deaths, 926 were non-combatants and 255 were police officers killed at police stations and not participating in hostilities.  Of the Israeli deaths, 3 were non-combatants.  

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly - April 2014

Maybe I've just been paying more attention but there seems to be a lot of breaking news in the past couple of weeks - much of it rotten, some of it good, and some of it downright ugly.  Let's start with a few good news items.

The Good

Score a few for the good guys in the battle against voter suppression. "A federal judge in Milwaukee struck down Tea Party Governor Scott Walker’s voter identification bill, agreeing with opponents that it unfairly targets poor and minority voters.  The long-awaited decision by United States District Judge Lynn Adelman officially invalidates the Wisconsin law....The ruling is an important step in protecting voting rights in this country.  [Americans Against the Tea Party website, April 29]  According to the Associated Press, "The ruling could set a precedent for similar legal challenges in Texas, North Carolina and elsewhere.  There are 31 states with laws in effect requiring voters to show some form of identification, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.  Seven states have strict photo ID requirements similar to the one a state judge struck down in Arkansas last week; that decision has been appealed to the Arkansas Supreme Court.  Pennsylvania’s Voter-ID law has been put on hold because of court challenges."  The Wisconsin Attorney General plans to appeal.  We'd better hope that the appeal doesn't get to the democracy-challenged Roberts' court before the November elections - we already know what that conservative majority think about the need to protect voting rights.

Voter ID law map is from burntorangereport.com website, Nov 27, 2013

Not all decisions made by the Roberts' court are bad.  Here's one that is actually good: the Supreme Court upheld the EPA's cross-state pollution law.  As reported in the Huffington Post/AP on April 29: "On Tuesday, the court upheld a rule adopted by the EPA in 2011 that would force polluting states to reduce smokestack emissions that contaminate the air in downwind states. Power companies and several states sued to block the rule, and a federal appeals court in Washington agreed with them in 2012.  The Supreme Court reversed that decision."  The vote was 6-2 with two conservative justices joining in the majority decision and one recusing himself.   

Our Earth Day 2014 post quoted Marc Barasch: "There are a million stories of our fellow creatures being kind to us for no good reason."  Here's a recent one from the waters off New Zealand.  "A group of dolphins apparently came to the aid of a British long-distance swimmer just in the nick of time.  Adam Walker was on a 16-mile swim in the choppy waters of New Zealand's Cook Strait on April 22 when he spotted a great white shark beneath him, Yahoo! News reports. A pod of 10 dolphins quickly surrounded him and stayed by his side until the shark swam off." [Huffington Post, April 26 - video]

The Bad
Harassment because she wants to develop a safer gun?  Yup, that was the reaction of some "gun enthusiasts" when Belinda Padilla attempted to market and sell a new .22-caliber handgun that uses a radio frequency-enabled stopwatch to identify the authorized user so no one else can fire it. From a Daily Kos post on April 28: "Someone posted her cellphone number on an online forum for gun enthusiasts....Then someone snapped pictures of the address where she has a P.O. box and put those online, too."  Hunter's commentary on the Daily Kos: "Her crime was the supposition that some gun owners might want a safer gun, which is all it took for a wave of outraged 'enthusiasts' to come surging toward her house like a tsunami of stupid...If we try to make a gun that your children can't find and play with and accidentally fire into some other child's skull, we will have lost an important piece of America. If we try to make a gun for police departments that only officers can fire and not people who might be attacking them, well now that takes some of the sport out of it, doesn't it?"

Gaza's Ark is a Palestinian ship that is being rebuilt in an attempt to challenge the Israeli blockade of Gaza.  The organizers (a group of Palestinian activists and international campaigners from Canada, Australia and the United States) are trying to export some Gaza-made goods to the outside world.  It was scheduled to set sail in mid June.  Now thanks to the attack, the trip will be delayed.  Al Jazeera reported on April 29th: "An explosion has damaged a boat docked at a fishing harbour in Gaza, nearly a month and a half before it was to set sail to defy Israel's naval blockade on the Gaza Strip.  The explosion happened early on Tuesday after "the guard received an anonymous call that the boat would explode in a few minutes," Mahfouz Kabariti, a spokesman for Gaza's Ark, the coalition that had funded the boat's building...After spending two years building the boat, Gaza's Ark had planned the boat's first sailing test next week.The explosion caused damage to the engine and the hull as it partly sank. Divers were sent to assess the extent of the damage." The humanitarian crisis caused by this blockade is making Gaza nearly uninhabitable.  Why the nations of the world allow it to continue is beyond comprehension.  It is collective punishment and, as such, a crime against international law.

The Ugly
Sarah Palin was at it again this past weekend.  Speaking to a crowd of NRA supporters, she advocated torture as form of baptism: "Well, if I were in charge, they would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists."  Besides offending Christians by comparing torture to a sacrament, Palin's comments are a cause of concern for another reason.  Conor Friedersdorf writes in a post on TheAtlantic.com that he wouldn't have subjected readers "to this especially inane nostalgia for Bush-era war crimes if not for what it could portend. Palin is a pandering publicity hound. She has a keen sense of what sorts of red meat the GOP base will eat up. For its part, the audience seemed receptive."

Last week Georgia's governor signed into law the worst gun-carrying legislation in the country.  "Included are provisions that allow residents who have concealed carry permits to take guns into some bars, churches, school zones, government buildings and certain parts of airports."  [CNN, April 23]  This in a state that already ranks ninth in the country for gun homicides.  So earlier this week, right in the spirit of the Georgia gun law, a gun-brandishing man showed up at a Little League game, intimidating parents and children.  A Raw Story April 26 post describes the scene: "A Georgia man panicked parents and children at a local park and baseball field by randomly walking around and displaying his gun to anyone he encountered in the parking lot.  According to witnesses who spoke with WSB-TV, the man wandered around the Forsythe County park last Tuesday night showing his gun to strangers, telling them “there’s nothing you can do about it.” Police report they received 22 calls to 911 reporting the man.  After deputies arrived, they questioned the man who produced a permit for the handgun. According to authorities, since the man made no verbal threats or gestures, they couldn’t arrest him or ask him to leave."  Not even a disorderly conduct charge?  I'm pretty sure the average Georgia drunk tank resident didn't do much worse than this guy.