Tarnish Your Own Legacy

At a black church in Philadelphia, Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece joined Jerry Falwell and Rick Santorum to denounce critics of Samuel Alito.

He was once relevant, you are not.

The Year in Review

It’s been a fun year. I went to LA, NYC, Italy, Slovenia, Romania, Chicago, Pittsburgh, graduated from UVa, interned with the US State Department, consulted at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, moved into a townhouse in Arlington, right outside of Washington D.C., and just had an all around great year.

It was sad to see 2005 come and go, but that’s I guess how it is when you ‘age’ (though I am only 22). The years go by, and though I still feel like it’s 1997, it isn’t.

In other fun news, I published my first article, a piece on Russia, at Ablogistan. It wasn’t what I expected but wanted to address a few issues concisely and hopefully facilitate discussion on the matter.

Damnit

Well, I’m starting to realize that I’ve let the world (420 brah) affect my writing style a little too much. It’s hard to be cohesive and clear-headed when you get steamed about issues. Anyway, I promise some more clarity and thought-out ideas in the future.

In the mean time, is this you?

The Word Is Down

We got our official response from Google so we are on the prowl for a new advertiser. What do you guys recommend?

We’re looking for something unobtrusive and simple that will go along with our color scheme.

Look for more future updates — I know they are slow coming but a redesign is in the works as is some more personalities and dailies.

– The Administration

What do you call it?

From an interesting chat at the Washington Post on ‘Munich’, the new film from Steven Spielberg detailing the retribution done by Israeli security/intelligence forces following the killing of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes in 1972:

Walter Reich: Actually, the current Israeli counter-terrorism policy of “targeted assassinations” and building a security fence is working. The citizens of no country in the world face as serious a terrorism challenge as Israel does. Yet, despite the fact that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade are trying to carry out terrorist attacks almost constantly–with occasional breaks–there are fewer now that their leaders are being assassinated and the northern part of the fence has been erected (forcing terrorists to move south in order to get into Israel). This is a terrible situation–for both Palestinians and Israelis–but it’s working to stop terrorism. What would you do? What should any country do when it faces an enemy that says that it welcomes death, worships it even, and won’t stop blowing up civilians, all of whom it considers legitimate targets, until Israel is eradicated.

I think the most ironic part of this commentary is you could flip all of this around by substituting the word Palestine for Israel. I would say that average Palestinian faces just a big a threat from the Israeli military (and let us not forget about the occasional random crazy Israeli fuck who seems to like to go and play Duck Hunt with Palestinian civilians) as Israeli’s face from Palestinian terrorists. ‘Assassinations’, ‘targeted killings’, and ‘strategic operations’ only serve as a euphoneistic facades to cover up the idea of formal terrorism carried about by the military.

Secondly, did this man watch this summer as people had to be dragged out of the West Bank? What is being conviniently ignored is that a significant part of the Israeli population is opposed to a Palestinian state, are vehemently right-wing, racist, and dogmatic. There are extremes on both sides and are equally dangerous, considering Israel has a nuclear stockpile.

There is no innocence or guilt, and there is no need to distinguish or label acts of violence. The point is that a lot of people end up dead on both sides who probably could care less otherwise.