Emily Spence

The taxpayers of Mississippi, whether they condoned the action or not, bought their current or a former governor an eight seat plane for 3.7 million dollars. The state's authorizing fiscal managers, obviously, must have deemed it an essential for his office and ratified its purchase order. In addition, it costs approximately $1,200 to operate for each hour in use for trips by the present governor's family, associates and himself.

Despite its advantages, he, nonetheless, has decided to possibly recommend its being auctioned off to generate some additional revenue for his state even though the resale value won't be all that high in light of the poor surrounding economic circumstances. However, he, apparently, doesn't feel too "put out" by the thought of giving it up since the state government owns two or three other planes for "official" use that he can commandeer any time that he would elect to do so for his various excursions. (The background information concerning this plane, including the possibility of its sale, was briefly discussed on a recent news program aired in Massachusetts.)

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Mohammed Omer

Tunneling essential goods into the Gaza Strip. (Photo:
Iyad Albaba.)

Options are few in Rafah. As in other societies throughout history trapped behind walls or segregated in ghettos, the smuggling in of basic necessities, as well as weapons for defense, means the difference between life and death. In Gaza, tunneling dates back to the 1980s, when Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt. During the first intifada, which began in late 1987, tunnels were used as an underground railroad, transporting people out of Gaza, as well as serving as safe houses for resistance fighters, and storage spaces for weapons and supplies.

Since Israel imposed its siege on Gaza after Hamas won democratic legislative elections in January 2006, the number of Palestinians tied to some segment of the tunnel industry has grown in direct proportion to the increasing lack of availability of raw materials and basic necessities, including food, fuel and medicine. Palestinian sources estimate that some 6,000 people are employed as diggers in the hundreds of tunnels crisscrossing the Gaza-Egyptian border.

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Stephen Lendman

Its roots are from the late 19th century when Theodor Herzl founded modern Zionism at the First Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland in 1897.

In his book "Overcoming Zionism," Joel Kovel writes:

Zionism seeks "the restoration of tribalism in the guise of a modern, highly militaralized and aggressive state. (It) cut Jews off from (their) history and led to a fateful identity of interests with antisemitism (becoming) the only thing that united them. (It) fell into the ways of imperialist expansion and militarism, and showed signs of the fascist malignancy."

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Len Hart

Without a bullet that can be proven to have been at the scene of the crime, the government would have had no case against Lee Harvey Oswald, tried in absentia because he was murdered. Conveniently! The government needed a piece of hard evidence --a magic bullet'!

They got one! Conveniently!

The government needed a truly magical bullet that did magical things --the work of six or seven other bullets most which got beat up and misshapened, deformed in the line of duty. They got one!

Arlen Specter must be credited with ascribing magic properties to ordinary bullets that could smash bone and cartilage and emerge with nary a scratch! The government need a single bullet that could do the work of six or seven bullets! They got found one! Conveniently! Arlen Specter would pull a pull a 'magical theory' out of thin air while a friendly shill would pull an equally 'magic bullet' out of his ass.

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Robin Yassin-Kassab

In both Lebanon and Gaza, the resistance is still standing.
(Wesam Saleh/ MaanImages)

“What really protects our people and gain back our rights is the sincere Resistance and everything else is mere Illusion.” -Nasrallah

Hamas isn't Hizballah and Gaza isn't Lebanon. The resistance in Gaza -- which includes leftist and nationalist as well as Islamist forces -- doesn't have mountains to fight in. It has no strategic depth. It doesn't have Syria behind it to keep supply lines open; instead it has Israel's wall and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's goons. Lebanese civilians can flee north and east, while Gaza's repeat-refugees have no escape. The Lebanese have their farms, and supplies from outside; Gaza has been under total siege for years. Hizballah has remarkable discipline and is surely the best-trained, most disciplined force in the region. Although it has made great strides, Hamas is still undisciplined. Crucially, Hizballah has air-tight intelligence control in Lebanon, while Gaza contains collaborators like maggots in a corpse.

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Zahir Ebrahim

In reference to your article of January 13, 2009 'Bernanke: More bank bailouts needed', perhaps Dr. Bernanke, Ph.D. 1979 from my alma mater, has an altogether different agenda because he can't obviously be an imbecile. An expensive MIT education does not create crétins. It can however, create hectoring hegemons.

As Mr. Gerald Celente of Trends Research Institute recently observed to Alex Jones:

“We are going to go into a depression worse than the Great Depression, and here is why. There is a way to get out of this but not through fiscal or monetary stimulus”

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Eric Sommer

The time has come for a nationwide U.S. "March on Wall Street'. This march should be organized on a nation-wide basis inside the U.S. by the broadest possible coalition of progressive political organizations, trade unions, anti-poverty, anti-racist, anti-foreclosure, and environmental groups.. It should bring people from throughout the U.S. to culminate in a gigantic rally in Wall Street in New York.

The march can be organized around seven or so simple and clear points, such as:

1. Nationalize the Banking system and ban the use of exotic financial instruments such as derivatives.

2. Use nationalization to create Banking 'of, by, and for the people'

3. Use nationalization to ramp up the economy towards full employment.

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Michael Backman

[The Australian paper The Age subserviently scrubbed this article by Michael Backman. -In fact, ALL of his articles there now have been scrubbed ("Sorry, no articles matching Backman were found"). Below is the column in question.]

There's a memorable scene in the Stephen Spielberg film “Munich”. After the 1972 Munich Olympic Games killings of Israeli athletes, Prime Minister Golda Meir tells confidants she wants to show the plotters that killing Jews "is expensive". She then organises for the assassination of each of the plotters.

Today, it is Israel itself that has become expensive. Most directly, it is very expensive to the US, which subsidises and arms it.

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