Irony

‘No Pride in Genocide’: S.F. march accuses LGBTQ parade of ‘pinkwashing’ Palestinians’ plight

Yep, gay pro-Palestinian protesters are protesting a gay pride march for being too "corporate", saying things like “All systems of oppression are connected.”. I hardly know where to start, so I'll just say this ....

Please, gay pro-Palestinian protesters, take your show on the road to Gaza. I'm sure those gay-hating right-wing religious extremist terrorists of Hamas will be happy to show you what oppression really looks like.

Liberals supporting a violent restrictive theocracy that murdered the opposition party, that poops on women and gay people, that rapes and kidnaps and tortures.

You must be so proud.

Post-birth abortions

First thing to say about post-birth aboerions is that they don't exist. Yet, for decades, the pro-life movement has perpetrated the lie that under Roe v Wade (and after) Democrats are performing abortions on babies - killing them - up to the day of birth and after they are born. The most recent mention of this lie was made by Trump at the debate.

Trump made false claims about ‘late-term abortion’ during the debate, experts say

[...] On Thursday, Trump repeated claims he made in 2016 regarding late-in-pregnancy abortions during a debate against then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

He claimed: “They will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month and even after birth.”

By definition, late-in-pregnancy abortions take place at or after 21 weeks of pregnancy. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, less than 1% of all abortions occur at this stage of pregnancy. More than 80% occur at or before nine weeks of pregnancy, and just 6% occur between 14 and 20 weeks of pregnancy, which is during the second trimester. Abortion does not involve ending the life of a born baby.

Any claim stating that it is is incorrect, Dr. Dara Kass, an emergency medicine physician in New York and a former regional director at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, told NBC News ...

I've mentioned this a million times on the blog, but here it is again ...

Abortions after birth ... an oxymoron at best ... did not exist under Roe and it does not exist in state laws now, certainly not in California law. Roe v Wade allowed for an abortion up until the time of viability (24 weeks), not up until birth (or after), and even then only when the mother's health or life are threatened.

Check for yourselves - Roe is online.

I blame the pro-life movement, mostly Catholic, for spreading these falsehoods. The Catholic chirch has forever spread the bald faced lie that God loves the "unborn" more than any other people, especially women and girls, and he would much rather see girls and women die than have a fetus die.

Where in heaven's name does this nutty idea come from? Not the Bible. It comes from the men in an organization that has spent centuries trying to keep women and girls barefoot and pregnant.

Think I'm exagerating? Here's an example from TIME magazine a few years ago ...

Nine-Year-Old’s Abortion Outrages Brazil’s Catholic Church

The case of the pregnant 9-year-old was shocking enough. But it was the response of the Catholic Church that infuriated many Brazilians. Archibishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho of the coastal city of Recife announced that the Vatican was excommunicating the family of a local girl who had been raped and impregnated with twins by her stepfather, because they had chosen to have the girl undergo an abortion. The Church excommunicated the doctors who performed the procedure as well ....

“They took the life of an innocent,” Sobrinho told TIME in a telephone interview. “Abortion is much more serious than killing an adult. An adult may or may not be an innocent, but an unborn child is most definitely innocent. Taking that life cannot be ignored.” ...

So God loves "innocent" people best? Fetuses are innocent in the same way a rock is innocent ... it can't consider options, it can't make choices, it can't act as a moral agent ... because it doesn't have a developed brain!

Sigh. I give up for now.

Biden should stay!

In the news ... Joe Biden Is a Good Man and a Good President. He Must Bow Out of the Race ... ‘The Movement to Convince Biden to Not Run Is Real’

Yes, the news is full of people wanting Joe Biden to get out of the race and allow Democrats to put forward someone more electable. Perhaps my governor, Gavin Newsom.

I think that is a terrible idea. Biden should continue as the Democratic choice - he has been, and still is, our best hope of defeating Trump.

And Biden certainly won't be kicked to the curb without protest, from himself but also from voters. Look at him here today at a rally in North Carolina - they love him ...



So, I will keep supporting Biden. And btw, being old is not a sound reason to be dumped.

The debate

Holy sh*t!

I feel kind of sick after watching it. Trump lied non-stop, made ridiculous stuff up out of whole cloth, refused to answer almost every question put to him, and all the while the crazy was rising off of him like an appalling cologne. I can't understand how people think Trump won the debate. I would not vote for that thing if it was the last mammal on earth.

Worth a 1000 words?

I saw this photo below in many posts today on Twitter. Disclaimer - I don't know if the photo is genuine or not, but if it is, it may help to explain the enmity between Israel and the UN.

Guterres and Arafat did know each other when Guterres was Prime Minister of Portugal. He mentions meeting him ... Press Conference by Secretary-General António Guterres at United Nations Headquarters.

In the photo we seem to see António Guterres, present Secretary-General of the United Nations, with Yasser Arafat, the founder of the PLO terrorist group, and with Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad), the leader of the armed wing of Fatah (PLO).

Just for reference, Black September, which perpetrated the Munich massacre in 1972, was formed out of the PLO.

In this photo, Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General, spends time with Khalil Ibrahim al-Wazir, also known as Abu Jihad, founder of the Fatah movement, and Yasser Arafat to his left. Both of them openly declared that they were at the head of terrorist organizations. pic.twitter.com/zcEyyi67P0

— Bella (@AshurBella) April 16, 2024

Take It Easy

This is one of my favorite songs by the Eagles ... I think it reminds me of something happy in the past. Didn't know until I was posting this that it was actually written by Jackson Browne ...

Famine?

Half-million Gazans face ‘catastrophic’ hunger levels, U.N.-backed report says

So is there a famine in Gaza now? I recall Cindy McCain being on Meet the Press a couple of months ago saying that there is a "full-blown famine" in northern Gaza. But that turned out not to be true.

When there was a famine in Somalaia in 1992, over 200,000 people died. It seems like if a lot of people were dying of starvation in Gaza, Hamas' media office would be sure to tell us.

You read all the time in the news that aid trucks are not being allowed into Gaza. This isn't true. One place to check on the number of aid trucks getting in is COGAT ...

Humanitarian aid and
- June 24 updates:

🚛299 Humanitarian aid trucks were transferred to Gaza today.

🚚240 trucks via the Kerem Shalom crossing.
🚚47 trucks via the Erez West Crossing.
🚚12 trucks via the Maritime route (JLOTS).

We will continue expanding our efforts to… pic.twitter.com/OOtXlVwI73

— COGAT (@cogatonline) June 24, 2024

More info ...

Check out the State Dept Press Briefing at the top of the post for details on the problems with getting food distributed to people in Gaza ... the aid is going in, but the UN is refusing to distribute it because of the violence and looting by Gazans.

Experts: Northern Gaza spared famine, but 'sustained risk' remains

Key food security org finds no famine in Gaza, says previous assumptions wrong

God help us!

I've tried really hard not to dwell on the probability that Trump will win the presidency. It is common knowledge that he represents a horrible combination of both stupidity and evilness. And that's depressing because it means that at least half of our population recognizes exactly what Trump is, and because of that actually wants him to come to power. My only comfort is that as a species, I think we're almost done.

Do your job

In the news ...

Red Cross says at least 22 killed as strike hits displaced civilians in Gaza as Israel expands operations

Really? The Red Cross? Would that be the same Red Cross that after 8 months has still not done its effing job of visiting and evaluating the wellness of the Israeli and American hostages held by Hamas terrorists? So they are actually there in Gaza? Just checking, because I though that maybe they had ceased to exist.

I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them.

History of the ICRC's refusal to visit hostages ...

ICRC chief reportedly refused to take photo with hostages’ families during Tel Aviv meeting

And ...

IDF says it’s investigating Red Cross claims strike hit Gaza office, killed 22

RIP: Donald Sutherland

Sad to see that Donald Sutherland has passed away.

I've seen a lot of his movies, in part because he was starting out right around the time that I was an avid movie-goer. He's done a lot of work! Some of his films I'd rather forget I ever saw, like Fellini's Casanova and Don't Look Now, but why dwell?

My absolute favorite of all of his movies is Invasion of the Body Snatchers ...

a 1978 American science-fiction horror film[1] directed by Philip Kaufman, and starring Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Veronica Cartwright, Jeff Goldblum, and Leonard Nimoy. Released on December 22, 1978, it is based on the 1955 novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney. The novel was previously adapted into the 1956 film of the same name. The plot involves a San Francisco health inspector and his colleague who over the course of a few days discover that humans are being replaced by alien duplicates; each is a perfect biological clone of the person replaced, but devoid of empathy and humanity.

Here's a clip showing Nimoy, Adams, Southerland, Cartwright and Goldblum. All the characters have seen a pod person but they don't understand what it is. They ask Nimoy's character, a psychiatrist and friend, to help them figure it out, not realizing that he has already been taken over and is a pod person himself (so disturbing to see Mr. Spock be a pod person ;) ...



I also thought Southerland did a good job in Klute ...

a 1971 American neo-noir psychological thriller film directed and produced by Alan J. Pakula, and starring Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Charles Cioffi, Nathan George, Dorothy Tristan, Roy Scheider, and Rita Gam. Its plot follows a high-priced New York City call girl who assists a detective from Pennsylvania in solving the missing person case of a john who may be stalking her.

And he was good in the really depressing Ordinary People as well ...

a 1980 American drama film directed by Robert Redford in his feature directorial debut. The screenplay by Alvin Sargent is based on the 1976 novel of the same name by Judith Guest. The film follows the disintegration of a wealthy family in Lake Forest, Illinois, following the accidental death of one of their two sons and the attempted suicide of the other. It stars Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Judd Hirsch, and Timothy Hutton.

He also had some good bit parts in other films too, like Backdraft, and Fallen.

A really good and versatile actor.

Screams Before Silence

Free to watch on YouTube is a film by Sheryl Sandberg, titled Screams Before Silence.

From The New York Times ...

Sheryl Sandberg Screams Back at the Silence

There is a scene in “Screams Before Silence,” the harrowing documentary about the rape and mutilation of Israeli women on Oct. 7, that I can’t get out of my head. It’s an interview that the former Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, the documentary’s presenter, conducted with Ayelet Levy Sachar, the mother of 19-year-old Naama Levy, whose kidnapping that morning was filmed by Hamas. The sight of her pajama bottoms, drenched in blood at the back, was one of the earliest indications that sexual brutality was part of Hamas’s playbook.

“They’re grabbing her by the hair, and she’s all, like, messed up and like, and I’m thinking of her hair, and like, in my mind I’m stroking her hair, like I’m always doing,” Levy Sachar said of the video of her daughter’s kidnapping. “We would like to think that this couldn’t be possible. That nobody would harm a young girl. But then you just see it there.” ....

And here's a bit about it from Wikipedia ...

Screams Before Silence is a documentary film led by American businesswoman Sheryl Sandberg, that explores the sexual violence by Hamas during the Hamas-led attack on Israel, on 7 October 2023, including events at the massacre at the Nova Festival and abductions to the Gaza Strip. The film was released for free on YouTube on 2 May 2024. Sandberg has described the film as the most important work of her life ....

One of the participants in the film is Amit Soussana who was abducted to Gaza and freed in the hostage release deal in November 2023. She described the sexual assault she experienced while being held by Hamas. Additionally, the film includes testimonies about rape and sexual assaults by members of ZAKA and other witnesses during the massacre at the Nova Festival and in other places in Israel where the attack took place.

And it's not over ... Girl, 12, gang-raped and called ‘dirty Jew’ by teenage boys in Paris suburb

Ciggy?

All I see in the news is that more food aid has to get into Gaza, that people are starving, and that it's all Israel's fault. But those statements seem to be questionable. It seems there is plenty of aid, it's getting into Gaza. But the UN and aid groups are not distributing it. Why not? Looting is one reason. By Gazans.

From The Wall Street Journal ...

At $25 Each, Cigarettes Are Turning Gaza Aid Trucks Into Targets

A group of Palestinian men approached a United Nations warehouse in central Gaza last week and demanded access to aid stored inside. The gang wasn’t interested in food, fuel or medicine. It wanted something it considered far more valuable: contraband cigarettes hidden in the humanitarian cargo.

The incident, described by a U.N. official, is emblematic of a significant new impediment to aid deliveries in the enclave. Rampant cigarette smuggling—fueled by high prices for tobacco—has become the latest manifestation of a breakdown in law and order that is slowing the delivery of lifesaving assistance ...

Juneteenth

Midnight Special

I never watched it when it was actually on tv but I do sometimes look up the videos. Here's one I like ...

Portland

- me at my wedding

It is just a few days past my wedding anniversary. Do people remember their wedding anniversary if they get divorced? I was looking through the family photos today and saw this. I think it's from gramma's photo album - I destroyed all of the ones of the wedding that I had myself.

The wedding was in a park in 1982. God, I look like the undead. Pale freckly flat-chested me, all alone. Prophetic.

It's ok, though. Here I am four years later in Portland, Oregon, with my sister, divorced but surviving and even happy sometimes ;) ...

Father's Day

Really like Pete. He was my initial choice for the Democratic presidential nominee, before it became obvious that Joe Biden was the only one with sufficient support to win. Pete would make an excellent future US president, and I'm sure he is a great dad too.

I never really knew my own father because my parents divorced when I was a toddler and we never saw or heard from him again. Two stepfathers followed. Father's day always feels a bit odd to me.

Rescue

Police release new footage showing the rescue of hostage Noa Argamani from Hamas captivity in the Gaza Strip last weekend. pic.twitter.com/bhcEX3CEZw

— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) June 15, 2024

We will recall that Israeli hostage Noa Argamani was kidnapped on Oct 7 ...

Deep sea mining

Like I didn't have enough to worry about :(

Yay!

The animals

The news has been so depressing lately. Not just the Israel/Hamas war, but the polirics here in the US too - I'm really afraid we're headed for another Trump presidency.

To take my mind off that, I watch cheerful stuff, usually about animals. I think it's the only thing keeping me (somewhat) sane. Here's some of the latest ...







Restores my faith in people and makes me smile :)

Jerks

I used to think young people were idealistic and bright.

Wake up

- Hamas leader said civilian death toll could benefit militant group in Gaza war, WSJ reports

Of course Hamas said that. All Hamas has to do is put civilians in harm's way, then sit back and watch the UN and Euripean doom Israel for them.

- Hamas changes to ceasefire deal are 'unworkable', says Blinken – video

Of course Hamas moved the goal posts. Every extra day this process takes brings them closer to what they want, without them having to give up anything.

- Rescued Israeli hostages were starved, beaten ‘almost every day’ in Hamas captivity: ‘Beyond comprehension’

Oh gee, how can this be possible when the hostages were living above ground with kindly families paid by Hamas?

When are people going to realize that Hamas and its collaborators in Gaza are f*cking terrorists? To expect them to be honest, responsible, decent is just insane. And these are the people the whole world trusts to give them an accurate Gazan death toll. Wake up.

Dead Silence

My latest choice of a science fiction novel from the public library is Dead Silence by S. A. Barnes ...

Here's the blurb from the Amazon page ...

A Best Book of 2022 by the New York Public Library • One of the Best SFF Books of 2022 (Gizmodo) • One of the Best SF Mysteries of 2022 (CrimeReads) • A GoodReads Choice Award finalist for Best Science Fiction!

Titanic meets Event Horizon in this SF horror novel in which a woman and her crew board a decades-lost luxury cruiser and find the wreckage of a nightmare that hasn't yet ended.

I'm just about to start it. More updates later. Event Horizon? ... eeeeek! :)

General McCaffrey

From retired general Barry McCaffrey, who I often see as a military expert on MSNBC ...

Brilliant operation by IDF. Four hostages rescued by Special Ops. Hamas a murderous, cruel terror group. Perhaps more can be saved. 7 Oct was a terrible assault on Israel. A strategic failure by IDF and Mossad. Never again. https://t.co/S3u8g4MMM7

— Barry R McCaffrey (@mccaffreyr3) June 11, 2024

No more war?

Israeli army spokesperson Peter Lerner is on This Week, being asked about the number of Palestinians said (by Hamas) to have been killed in the rescue of Israeli hostages from a residential area of Gaza.

OK, now I understand why the Biden administration won't try to rescue US hostages held prisoner by Hamas .... they don't want to harm any Palestinians. Memo to American hostages in Gaza: you are on your own. Or, in an even more disturbing turn of events: Biden admin has discussed potentially negotiating unilateral deal with Hamas to free U.S. hostages.

It is absurd to expect a hostage rescue mission in an active war zone full of civilians and also bad guys to have no collateral damage. Nobody wants civilian deaths, but the logical aternative is that no hostage missions will ever be attempted. In fact, no country would be allowed to fight even a "just" war.

When Hamas kidnapped over 200 Israelis, they knew the IDF would come looking for them. And knowing this, they put these hostages in apartments with families in a crowded civilian area. Hamas killed those Gazan civilians. And Hamas has managed at the same time to make the world hate the Israelis for sucessfully saving their citizens.

Details

From The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing. more details about the hostage rescue from military correspondent Emmanuel Fabian. He also comments on the Israeli strikes on two UNRWA schools a few days ago ...

Good news

For more details ...

IDF rescues 4 hostages from 8 months’ captivity in daytime operation in central Gaza

What good news. I especially rememner the news videos of Noa being kidnapped.

UNRWA schools

In most of the press, all we see on this is "Israel bombs school, killing x number of Palestinians".

The school was not, at this time, open and functioning as an actual school, full of kids, but was used as a shelter for people who have not left Rafah.

Let's recall that the UN itself said that nunerous UNRWA staff members took part in the Oct 7 attack on Israerl, so the idea of an UNRWA school housing terrorists is not unbelievable ... a past article at The Wall Street Journal: Intelligence Reveals Details of U.N. Agency Staff’s Links to Oct. 7 Attack

Hamas has claimed the Israeli strike killed a number of people. How many of those killed were Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters, and how many were civiliams? And why should we believe these numbers at all, when they are coming from Hamas?

D-Day

My grandfather was in the army during that time, went to France, but not at Normandy, and visited Versaille.

Hamas says no

- Hamas kidnapping Israeli civilians, Oct 7

It looks like Hamas is not going to agree to the most recent ceasefire/hostage deal (Hamas rejects Israel's ceasefire response, sticks to main demands). I'm not surprised.

People say it's because Hamas would not get anything out of the deal, but that isn't really true. They would get 6 weeks or more of a ceasefire in which to skitter away from Rafah and embed themselves throughout Gaza once again. Live to fight another day.

But they can't do this, can't accept the ceasefire, because they cannot release the hostages. I think that those hostages who are still left alive have been so horribly mistreated that Hamas does not want the world ... you know, the liberal world that sees them as plucky freedom fighters striving against Israeli apartheid ... to know whar rhey really are. The information war is so necessary to Hamas' survival.

Actually, I don't think Hamas need worry. The whole world saw what Hamas really was on Oct 7. The whole world learned that Hamas shot babies in their cribs, tied children together and burned them alive, cut women's breasts off as they were raping them, tortured and mutilated people so badly that authorities had trouble deciding not just who the victims were, but what they were.

And still, European nations support Hamas and American college students wear their scarves.

So the deal won't happen, Israel won't give up trying to destroy the monsters next door, and the world will take the side of terrorists.

What I can't figure out is why the US government seems to be doing nothing to rescue the hostages. We must know the only way to save them is to go and get them. Am I naive? Does that only happen in the movies? Are we so worried about pro-Palestinian sentiment that we will sit back and let them die in captivity?

Naftali Bennett

Former Prime Minister of Israel, Naftali Bennett, comments about the Biden-proposed peace plan on Meet the Press Now.

Biden's peace deal

Biden has spoken about a ceasefire/hostage release plan for the Israel/Hamas war, saying it is essentially the most recent plan put forth by Israel.

The actual document Biden is talking about is said to be four and a half pages long, so what he actually talked about leaves out a lot of detail. Still, here are the basics of the three-phase program he outlined (watch the video above) ...

1) Phase One would last six weeks. There would be a ceasefire, with Israel pulling back from populated areas in Gaza. Gazans could return to their homes throughout Gaza. A number of hostages held by Hamas would be released, and some of the dead hostages returned. Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel would be released. Humanistarian aid would be surged into Gaza.

2) Phase Two would start after the 6 weeks, or however long that bit takes. The ceasefire would become permanent and Israel would withdraw from Gaza. The remaining living hostages would be returned.

3) In Phase three, Gaza would begin reconstruction and be rebuilt. The remaining dead hostages would be returned.

That's it. It leaves a lot out and makes a lot of assumptions ... it's hard to know what's really going one.

Examples ...

Biden said that finally the Gazans would be free and independent and able to choose their own government. Well, they have been free since 2005 when Israel left Gaza, and they did choose their own government ... Hamas.

Biden said the US will make Hezbollah leave the north of Israel alone. How? If they have that ability, why haven't they used it already?

Biden touted the wonders of Israel getting to be in a security network with Prince Bone-saw. A deal in which, by the way, we give the Saudis their own nuclear program. What could go wrong?

But most importantly, one of the main objectives of Israel in this war has been the destruction of Hamas. This has been an essential part of any plan for the future. And in his speech, Biden said that as of right now, this has been accomplished, and Hamas is no longer a threat to Israel.

What?!

At this time, Hamas is still shooting rockets at Israel, still killing IDF soldiers in Gaza. The four + Hamas batallions in Rafah are still extant, and Hamas fighters have retaken various parts of Gaza after the IDF cleaned them out earlier. The leadership of Hamas ... including Yahya Sinwar ... is still alive and well and working at Israel's destruction. This plan is just going to leave Hamas ... the rapists and the torturors and the kidnappers and the murderers ... alive and unpinished and living in a nice new rebuilt Gaza.

But having said all that, this may be the only way to get the hostages back. If that can really happen ... and I have doubts ... then maybe it's worth it for Israel.

Listen to what David Horovitz of The Times of Israel has to say about the plan ...