RIP Richard Wright

Pink Floyd are probably my favourite rock band - their music was way ahead of its time and has indeed stood the test of time. Sadly their keyboard player, Richard Wright, has succumbed to cancer.

PINK Floyd keyboard player Richard Wright died yesterday after battling cancer.

Wright, 65, was a founding member of the legendary British rock act.

His spokesman said: "The family of Richard Wright announce with great sadness, that Richard died today after a short struggle with cancer."

A self-taught keyboard player and pianist, Wright met fellow band members Roger Waters and Nick Mason while at architecture school.

He was a founder member of The Pink Floyd Sound in 1965 and their previous incarnations, such as Sigma 6.

Wright is the second original member of the band to die recently, following the death of Syd Barrett last year.

In the early days of Pink Floyd, Wright, along with Barrett, was the group's dominant musical force.

Two of his best known works were The Great Gig In The Sky and Us And Them, both from 1973's classic Dark Side Of The Moon album.

Galloway cut to shreds

I can't abide George Galloway for his views and his aggressive attitude in interviews. Here we see him getting a taste of his own medicine. Excellent stuff.

BBC misinformation?

The meaning of the word stillborn, as far as I'm aware, is when a baby is born dead - it seems clear cut to me.

The BBC however has other ideas. According to this report on their website:-

An Israeli soldier has been removed from duty and jailed for two weeks for refusing to allow a Palestinian woman in labour to pass through a checkpoint.

The soldier was in command at the checkpoint outside the West Bank city of Nablus. The woman was trying to reach a hospital in the city.

She was forced to give birth at the checkpoint. Her baby was stillborn.

Strangely, further on in the report we get this:-

It took an ambulance from Nablus 50 minutes to get to the checkpoint. At which point the baby was dead.

"At which point the baby was dead". Surely if the baby was stillborn, it was dead before the ambulance even left Nablus or am I missing something here?

Ali G interviews the Beckhams

I know this clip of Ali G interviewing the Beckhams is quite old but I didn't actually see it at the time. Someone mentioned to to me the other day and I decided to have a look for it on Youtube. It's absolutely priceless.

The joy of Houmous

Anyone who's read up about quantum mechanics (I'm a novice in this regard) will know that the sub-atomic world is very strange indeed. It's a world where Newton's laws are meaningless and even a flummoxed Einstein was reduced to comment that "God does not play dice".

As we all know the Large Hadron Collider is about to be switched on. One of the aims of the project is to try and detect "God's particle" or the Higgs Boson particle which is supposed to explain why matter has mass.

The project has involved scientists from around the world - including Israel and Palestine it would seem. This from Ynetnews:

The project also brought about several unexpected collaborations, with Israeli scientists working side by side with Lebanese, Pakistani and Iranian counterparts. But one cooperative effort stood out the most, that of the warm bonds forged with a young Palestinian scientist from the Birzeit University.

When work on the project ended the Israeli team even organized a celebratory party together with the Lebanese and Palestinian scientists. Both Israeli and Palestinian flags were hung.

One day, Mikenberg recalled, suffering from joint hunger pangs for some decent hummus, the Lebanese, Palestinian and Israeli scientists "swung by Paris and scarfed some down, Israeli and Arab together. Science knows no borders and no enemies. It's a wonderful thing."

Iran's holocaust cartoons revisited

The infamous, and very tasteful, Iranian cartoon competition, about the Holocaust, included an entry from a staunch Palestinian supporting (anti-Zionist but not anti-Semitic, of course) Brazilian cartoonist, Carlos Latuff . As it happens, the party-of-god supporter, Norman Finklestein, showcases his cartoons on his website. Latuff's entry, which earned him second prize and the reward of $4000, depicts a despairing Palestinian lamenting the existance Israel's defensive wall.

Strange, why would someone get so upset about a defensive wall?

Keegan leaves Newcastle, again

Personally I don't blame him.

From what I've read in the press, players were bought and sold, without his prior knowledge nor his consent, at the behest of Newcastle's "Director of football" Dennis Wise.

My recollections of Dennis Wise, as a footballer, are that he was a mediocre, dirty player who did little for the image of the game of Football. Alex Ferguson once said of him that he could "start a fight in an empty house".

What are Newcastle FC thinking of when they give more weight to an apparent thug, rather than a footballing legend who'd achieved so much more for them in the past.

Btw I am not a Newcastle fan, but I've always admired their passion for attacking football, as embodied by Keegan's football philosophy.

I'd have Keegan over him any day. Anyway, this is the report:-

One of the most protracted, and painful, farewells in football was confirmed last night when Kevin Keegan finally resigned as the manager of Newcastle United. An increasingly acrimonious three-day stand-off between Keegan and Mike Ashley concluded with the club's billionaire owner refusing to be backed into a corner by the former England coach's demands before forcing him to walk out.

Arab students visit Israeli embassy in Washington

A good news story with regards to Arab/Israeli relations emanating from the US.

It's an open secret that Israel surreptitiously trades with its Arab neighbours (in a big way) in terms of commerce. Indeed, many wealthy Arabs (not to mention poor Azan's) seek and get medical treatment for life threatening diseases/conditions in Israeli hospitals. With that in mind, imagine the possible sea-change of opinions following this.

Dozens of students from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Bahrain, The United Arab Emirates and Qatar visited the Israeli embassy in Washington this week.

The Arab students, who arrived in Washington in the framework of a young international leadership training program sponsored by the US government, listened to diplomatic briefs from embassy employees and asked questions.

“It was a unique opportunity to explain Israel’s position first hand,” said Rafi Harpaz, director of Public Affairs at the embassy, in a report sent to the Foreign Ministry.

When the briefing was over, the Arab students, all from affluent homes, shook Harpaz’ hand and asked to take photos with him, telling the director it was their first time meeting an Israeli.

Each student received a PR kit that included brochures about Israel, photos and CDs.

Back seat lovers survive cliff plunge

This is a hilarious story from Ananova - especially the last line.

Two lovers ended up in hospital in Taiwan after their car plunged 150ft down a cliff face as they made love in the back seat.

Lin Gu, 25, and lover Lee Shin, 29, were left with broken bones and bruises after their car toppled over the edge of a hill in XinDian, reports Today News.

A spokesman for police who were called by witnesses said: "They had parked up close to the edge of the mountain and had left the handbrake off.

"When they started having sex the rocking motion started the car moving and it rolled off the hill. They were lucky they were not more seriously hurt."

The two lovers had driven to a deserted mountain road and parked but their movements made the car topple over the edge and roll down to the bottom of the valley.

Despite their injuries - and being covered with mud and grass - the couple managed to clamber back up to the road where the woman asked the man to keep walking while she sought help at a nearby house.

Homeowner Chen Chenggang said the woman pleaded with him not to reveal how the accident happened as her husband "would definitely sue for divorce".

Jaw dropping moment of the year

This from todays Haaretz.

Hamas' Christian convert: I've left a society that sanctifies terror

A moment before beginning his supper, Masab, son of West Bank Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef, glances at the friend who has accompanied him to the restaurant where we met. They whisper a few words and then say grace, thanking God and Jesus for putting food on their plates. It takes a few seconds to digest this sight: The son of a Hamas MP who is also the most popular figure in that extremist Islamic organization, a young man who assisted his father for years in his political activities, has become a rank-and-file Christian. "I'm now called Joseph," he says at the outset.

Masab knows that he has little hope of returning to visit the Holy Land in this lifetime. "I know that I'm endangering my life and am even liable to lose my father, but I hope that he'll understand this and that God will give him and my family patience and willingness to open their eyes to Jesus and to Christianity. Maybe one day I'll be able to return to Palestine and to Ramallah with Jesus, in the Kingdom of God."

Nor does he attempt to hide his affection for Israel, or his abhorrence of everything representing the surroundings in which he grew up: the nation, the religion, the organization

"Send regards to Israel, I miss it. I respect Israel and admire it as a country," he says. "You Jews should be aware: You will never, but never have peace with Hamas. Islam, as the ideology that guides them, will not allow them to achieve a peace agreement with the Jews. They believe that tradition says that the Prophet Mohammed fought against the Jews and that therefore they must continue to fight them to the death."

Is that the justification for the suicide attacks?

"More than that. An entire society sanctifies death and the suicide terrorists. In Palestinian culture a suicide terrorist becomes a hero, a martyr. Sheikhs tell their students about the 'heroism of the shaheeds.'"

And yet, in spite of the criticism of the place he left, California can't make the longings disappear.

"I miss Ramallah," he says. "People with an open mind. ... I mainly miss my mother, my brothers and sisters, but I know that it will be very difficult for me to return to Ramallah soon."

Saying of the day

A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.

- Baltasar Gracian

And now for some Radiohead...

Some of their music grates a bit but this is great song performed superbly.

Hugo Chávez's Jewish Problem

This is a classic example how extreme left meets extreme right.

Since Chávez took the oath of office at the beginning of 1999, there has been an unprecedented surge in anti-Semitism throughout Venezuela. Government-owned media outlets have published anti-Semitic tracts with increasing frequency. Pro-Chávez groups have publicly disseminated copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the early-20th-century czarist forgery outlining an alleged worldwide Jewish conspiracy to seize control of the world. Prominent Jewish figures have been publicly denounced for supposed disloyalty to the “Bolívarian” cause, and “Semitic banks” have been accused of plotting against the regime. Citing suspicions of such plots, Chávez’s government has gone so far as to stage raids on Jewish elementary schools and other places of meeting. The anti-Zionism expressed by the government is steadily spilling over into street-level anti-Semitism, in which synagogues are vandalized with a frequency and viciousness never before seen in the country.

[..]

As an alleged oppressor of the Palestinian Arabs, Israel has its own place of special infamy in Chávez’s world view. This latter theme has served him particularly well in his efforts to mobilize the sentiments of his rural constituents. Thus, during a 2005 speech marking Columbus’s discovery of the Americas, Chávez likened the plight of Venezuela’s Indians to that of Palestinians. Reminding his listeners of how their ancestors had been “murdered in their land” by “governments, economic sectors, and great land estates,” he thundered: “You were expelled from your homeland, like the heroic Palestinian people.”

All of these elements seem entirely derivative of Marxist-Leninist theorizing, with a strong admixture of post-colonialism à la Franz Fanon and Fidel Castro. But Chávez is not just another Latin American leftist on the Castro model. While the Cuban dictator may be his most important political influence, his greatest intellectual debt is to the Argentinian writer and thinker Norberto Ceresole: a man not of the Left but of the populist Right, a Holocaust denier, and a sworn enemy of Israel and the Jews.

[..]

The ingeniousness of Ceserole’s doctrine, as filtered through the sensibility of Hugo Chávez, resides in its blending of Marxist economics with two venerable anti-Semitic traditions. The first, still powerful in South America, derives from Catholic teachings about the historic Jewish responsibility for the death of Jesus. The second, encapsulated most notoriously in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, has flourished in both rightist and leftist variations throughout modern European history, resurfacing in our own time in the fulminations of extreme anti-Zionists. Chávez drew on both traditions in an address he delivered on Christmas Eve in 2004. Here he spoke ominously of certain “minorities, the descendants of those who crucified Christ,” who had “taken possession of the riches of the world.”

But there was an added element at play in this passage, which has to be quoted in full to be properly appreciated:

The world has enough for everybody, but it happened that some minorities—the descendants of those who crucified Christ, the descendants of those who ejected Bolívar from here and who crucified him in their own way in Santa Marta, over in Colombia—took possession of the riches of the world. A minority appropriated the world’s gold, the silver, the minerals, the waters, the good lands, the oil, and has concentrated the riches in a few hands.

Read it all.

Israeli saves 2 Palestinians from lynch mob

Here we have a heroic Israeli saving 2 Palestinians from a lynch mob

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3571913,00.html

Hatred in Jerusalem: Two Palestinians narrowly escaped a lynching attempt in Jerusalem Tuesday evening after they were assaulted by dozens of ultra-Orthodox Jews. The two Arabs were wounded, while a Jewish resident who protected them with his body was stabbed.

"Blood was boiling, and these crazy people almost killed me," the Jewish man told Ynet. The police are looking into the incident and searching for the attackers.

"Suddenly, while we were sitting shiva because my father-in-law passed away, two Palestinians stormed into the house bleeding and bruised, following by an angry mob," the Jewish man, who asked that his name not be published, told Ynet. "Dozens of ultra-Orthodox from the nearby yeshiva entered the backyard and severely beat up the two Palestinians, while we, still shocked, were trying to break it up and protect the Palestinians."

[..]

However, a mob then again came out of the yeshiva and started chasing the two Palestinians.

"They caught them and beat them up terribly," the Jewish man said. "My son and I were quick to protect them with our bodies…then, two Orthodox men arrived and one told us: 'You're saving Arabs?' they pulled out knives. I managed to grab the arm of one of them, yet the second one cut my stomach."

Hostage released for pizza

Bizarre new from down under:-

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1389697.html

An Australian prison guard held hostage for two days was released after a ransom demand for pizzas was met.

Up to 20 inmates at the Risdon Prison in Hobart, Tasmania, seized the guard in a protest over conditions in the maximum security jail.

Initially they made 24 demands to authorities, but eventually gave up their hostage after agreeing to 15 pizzas, Coke and garlic bread instead.

"At midnight, the final sticking point with the inmates was that they were requiring pizzas to be delivered. Our staff member was negotiated out with the delivery of 15 pizzas," Graeme Barber, Tasmania's director of prisons, told The Advocate newspaper.

The guard is recovering from his ordeal at home

Ban on intentional flatulence

You could not make this shit up - no pun intended.

CAMDEN (Feb 1): The Merriam Webster Dictionary definition for flatulence is brief: "flatus expelled through the anus." And while it's a natural bodily function, it seems some Camden-Rockport Middle School eighth-grade boys are taking it to new heights and making a game of seeing who can expel the loudest and grossest flatus.

"Strange, but true, thanks to a bunch of 8th grade boys, intentional farting has been banned from CRMS," the newsletter said. "It started out as a funny joke and eventually turned into a game. This is the first rule at CRMS that prevents the use of natural bodily functions. The penalty for intentional farting is a detention, so keep it to yourself!"

According to a group of seventh-grade students milling around downtown following Friday's storm-related early release, the eighth-graders' escapades are well known in the school.

"They would do it in science class and other places," said Jordan Tyler. "It's a natural occurrence and we all do it 16 times a day." (speak for yourself - ed)

http://knox.villagesoup.com/rewrite/108448.htm

I can't wait

This could be a very interesting collaboration :-

Mika: I want to work with Winehouse on her 'Jewish album'

Lebanese-born pop wonderboy Mika has offered to collaborate with Amy Winehouse should she come through with her rumored album of Hanukkah songs, the British newspaper The Sun has reported.

Mika, who has a Lebanese mother and American father, reportedly made the offer as "a statement."

The possibility of a Winehouse winter album was first mentioned last month, when producer Mark Ronson told Rolling Stone magazine that the two had discussed an album of Hanukkah and Christmas songs.

But the album may have to wait, as the Jewish songstress is currently in rehab for drug addiction, a fact which Mika acknowledges.

"I heard Amy will be recording an album of Jewish music once she gets well and I'd like to make a contribution to it," The Sun quoted Mika as saying.

"I really like her music. Think about this - me, a part-Lebanese artist working on a Jewish album. I think that's a nice statement.

"I'd like to make a statement some day."

Both Mika and Winehouse have earned critical and commercial success. Mika's debut album, Life in Cartoon Motion, has sold more than 4,000,000 copies worldwide, while Winehouse's Back to Black became a five-time platinum seller and garnered three Grammy nominations.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/950674.html

Saying of the day

How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.

- Benjamin Disraeli

Genius of Hendrix

This is Hendrix at his best IMHO, a classic from Woodstock

A noble initiative

I love reading these sorts of initiatives amongst Israelis and Palestinians, it makes light of how the msm portrays their everyday existance. From first hand I can say that Palestinians and Israelis interact and cooperate on a daily basis.

Read on....

We are a group of Israeli and Palestinian individuals who were actively involved in the cycle of violence in our area. The Israelis served as combat soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces and the Palestinians were involved in acts of violence in the name of Palestinian liberation.

We all used weapons against one another, and looked at each other only through weapon sights; however today we cooperate and commit ourselves to the following:

• We no longer believe that the conflict can be resolved through violence


• We believe that the blood bath will not end unless we act together to terminate the occupation and stop all forms of violence.


• We call for the establishment of a Palestinian State, alongside the State of Israel. The two states can exist in peace and security one by the other.


• We will use only non violent means to achieve our goals and call for both societies to end violence.
  

Read it all