News – Sharon doubles back?

Israel/Palestine

Despite Sharon’s previous possible plans, more land is being grabbed on Gaza to expand one of Israel’s settlements. The order handed down to the Palestinians living there gave them a week to appeal, but Bulldozers were there in two days to start destroying crops. This is the sort of straight bullshit that leaves me doubting every world Sharon says and draining away sympathy I have for Israel. Not to mention raising unrest amongst the common people of Palestine, starting to sew more seeds for future action against Israel.

I couldn’t put my general outlook on this fence any better than this article has. Well, maybe I could, but we’ll leave it at this for now.

Palestinian worshipers and Israeli police clashed in Jerusalem after something got the Palestinian’s throwing stones. Fortunately there were no serious injuries.

A protest against the wall in the village of Biddu that started peaceful turned deadly, leaving two Palestinians dead. Six security personnel were reported injured. One can hardly fault these people for being upset, considering the damage this wall could do to their homes.

In the event of an actual Israel pullout from Gaza, Egypt might step in to prevent Hamas from filling the vacuum. But no decision on a pull out or who might take over has been finalized yet.

Iraq

Amongst other things, we now have the Pentagon investigating 100 cases of rape and sexual assault against female soldiers in Iraq. This is just.. hard to believe. Considering the locale, I’d think that causing this kind of havoc would be one of the last things these guys would be thinking about. Apparently some have no problem perpetrating such crimes.

Korea

The negotiations and accusations continue with regard to North Korea’s nuke program. Not too much real change, so not much to report save the gradually narrowing gap between disagreements.

Haiti

The French are urging Aristide to step down, considering the current situation is his fault in large part. Meanwhile Aristide is looking for help from the international community. This brought up an interesting thought to me. Considering that our country was freed and founded on revolution, when is it alright for us to step in and throw down a rebellion? Could we be arresting an uprising similar to what began America? Something to consider, though I don’t know if it fits. Depends on the rebels I suppose.

US

Bush has said he would settle for congress renewing only the tax cut items that expire this year. Apparently he’s having trouble convincing them to renew everything and the rest might have to wait ’til next year.

One of Bush’s big points to try and sell is that the country is safer. Personally, I don’t think it is and I’ll refer back to What is the Measure of Safety, my two part look at what I see as the current state of America and its security. I asked then if you feel safer and I’ll ask it again. Do you?

Of all the things to enter into focus in the race for Prez, Mel’s movie sneaks in there. Should it matter if Kerry goes to see that movie? Personally, I don’t think so.

Comes a Supreme Court case on when a US citizen must produce ID and when such requests can be denied.

The good news is that it seems the car market is shifting from the big, fat, wasteful Hummer to the more responsible hybrids, such as the Prias. All I can say is thank goodness the furor over those fat, lumbering hunks of crap has died down. We don’t really need those things on the highway. Now if only we could have the government giving tax incentives to buy hybrids rather than Hummers.

General

MyDoom has a new version. Version F, which is a file destructor. Watch out for unsolicited emails with attachments.

NASA scientists think that, with the help of the Mars rovers, they’re close to determining if Mars was once a wet, watery place. Bring on the science.

Massive, the software that brought the LotR mass battles to life has already started bringing in Academy gold for the trilogy this year. For technical achievement, LotR has been it fo movies in the last three years, including one of the best, if not the best, computer generated supporting character in the movies.

Today’s Papers has a new cancer drug, more on Catholic priests and their abusing, last night’s democratic debate and more in the one page news.

Amusements

Neurotically Yours: The Owner

Fark Photoshop Challenge: Combine two pictures of the same person from different time periods.

Fark Photoshop Challenge: Photoshop what kind of place these guys are about to enter

After a high speed chase, the chased man attacks police with his toy poodle