Michael Collins

Time Magazine's Joe Klein is having an allergic reaction to free speech and public debate. The title of his latest column says it all: The Left's Idiocy on Health Reform. It's an ex cathedra pronouncement from a made man at one of the nation's oldest media properties.

What's got Joe so worked up?

Two things. He's upset at the lack of respect that internet based writers show for the mainstream media and Washington insiders. He's also beside himself that people are actually finding fault with the health care reform bill which many bloggers have the nerve to describe as just another government bailout for big business.

In the snarkier precincts of the left-wing blogosphere, mainstream journalists like me are often called villagers. Joe Klein, Dec. 30

That's some pretty nasty name calling isn't it. "Hey villager!" Accusing an entire class of people of idiocy pales by comparison. If I've ever read the term villager, I didn't pay enough attention to remember it. But let's take Joe's word that it's out there in all its rhetorical glory. According to Klein, leftist bloggers see villagers as "regurgitating spin spoon-fed by our sources or conjuring a witless conventional wisdom that has nothing to do with reality as it is lived outside the village." Now there's some idiocy – from Joe's keyboard to our screens.

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Mahmood Ali

In Bangladesh there are plenty of organizations which are receiving foreign funds under the pretext of helping the poor of Bangladesh. The International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B), is such a big one. It is essential to examine their works and demystify their role. Mahmood Ali attempts an exposure of the specific case with documetary arguments. He insists that the ICDDR,B spends money, collected in the name of poor, for purposes which have little to do with the diarrhoeal problem of the people of Bangladesh. We encourage our readers to write more on similar cases.

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Gilad Atzmon

One-quarter of Europeans believe that “Jews have too much influence“

31% agree that “Jews in general do not care about anything or anyone but their own kind.”

45.7% of the Europeans somewhat or strongly agree that “Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians.”

About 37.4% agree with the following statement: “Considering Israel’s policy, I can understand why people do not like Jews.”

According to new research conducted by Bielefeld University hatred towards Muslims decreased over the past year while hatred of Jews is growing. Israelis must be concerned. The sudden drop in European Islamophobia doesn’t fit into the Zionist global plan in which Muslims are cornered and ostracised as reactionaries while Israel is dropping bombs in the name of democracy and liberalism. According to the leading Israeli paper Ynet, “the level of resentment against most minorities declined – sexism considerably, Islamophobia slightly. There were only two exceptions: homophobia and anti-Semitism.”(1)

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