The SOTT Report's Joe Quinn speaks with Ken O'Keefe in Athens following the abduction of members of the Road to Hope convoy that was attempting to bring much needed aid to the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza.
Society's Child
© John Wildbo
The lede on the Drudgereport most of Monday showed a Catholic nun being patted down at an airport security checkpoint, with the caption starkly declaring that "THE TERRORISTS HAVE WON."
He's right.
Ten years after 9/11, Americans who fly are facing a Faustian choice between subjecting themselves to a virtual (and potentially medically damaging) strip search conducted in questionable machines run by federal employees or a psychologically damaging pat-down of their bodies. Osama bin Ladin must be giggling himself silly this week.
But what should we expect in a society that requires adults to wear bicycle helmets while pedaling in the park, provides disclaimers of liability on TV advertisements, or prints warnings on fast-food coffee cups? The name of the game is zero risk. Not risk mitigation, or accepting responsibility for one's actions, but risk aversion. It's a failure to acknowledge that we can't protect against everything bad that can happen to us, so we must protect against everything we think might -- might -- be harmful at some point.
It's living in fear.
The correct response to this is out-rage - mass public outrage. Do not allow yourself to be cowed, that is precisely what they want.
© Unknown
The short film (7 minutes) entitled No Way Through brilliantly depicts the effects of mobility restrictions imposed by Israeli authorities and soldiers on Palestinians living the West Bank. These restrictions limit Palestinians access to health care, thus violating a fundamental human right.
Take Action to help people in the Occupied Palestinian Territories get justice.
© Quique Kierszenbaum
Eli Tzavieli has been harassed for renting part of his house in Safed to Arabs
Eli Tzavieli has been harassed for renting part of his house in Safed to Arabs
In the Israeli city of Safed, an 89-year-old man has been accused of treachery for welcoming Arab students. Catrina Stewart reports
First they threatened to burn his house down. Then they pinned leaflets to his front door, denouncing him as a Jewish traitor. But Eli Tzavieli, an 89-year-old Holocaust survivor, is defiant. His only "crime" is to rent out his rooms to three Arab students attending the college in Safed, a religious city in northern Israel that was until recently more famous for Jewish mysticism and Madonna.
A campaign waged by Shmuel Eliyahu, the town's radical head rabbi, culminating in a ruling barring residents from renting rooms to Israeli Arabs, means that Safed is fast emerging as a byword for racism.
"I'm not looking for trouble, but if there is a problem, I'll confront it," says Mr Tzavieli, a Jew who survived Nazi forced labour camps and whose parents perished in Auschwitz. "These [tenants] are great kids. And I'm doing my best to make them comfortable."
© Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
TSA Transportation Security Officers, in blue uniforms, screen airline passenger as they check-in at Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport, Monday, Nov. 15, 2010. U.S. officials are defending new anti-terrorism security procedures at the nation's airports that some travelers complain are overly invasive and intimate.
TSA Transportation Security Officers, in blue uniforms, screen airline passenger as they check-in at Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport, Monday, Nov. 15, 2010. U.S. officials are defending new anti-terrorism security procedures at the nation's airports that some travelers complain are overly invasive and intimate.
Mica, one of the authors of the original TSA bill, has recently written to the heads of more than 150 airports nationwide suggesting they opt out of TSA screening. "When the TSA was established, it was never envisioned that it would become a huge, unwieldy bureaucracy which was soon to grow to 67,000 employees," Mica writes. "As TSA has grown larger, more impersonal, and administratively top-heavy, I believe it is important that airports across the country consider utilizing the opt-out provision provided by law."
In addition to being large, impersonal, and top-heavy, what really worries critics is that the TSA has become dangerously ineffective. Its specialty is what those critics call "security theater" -- that is, a show of what appear to be stringent security measures designed to make passengers feel more secure without providing real security. "That's exactly what it is," says Mica. "It's a big Kabuki dance."
At the heart of the controversy over "body scanners" is a promise: The images of our naked bodies will never be public. U.S. Marshals in a Florida Federal courthouse saved 35,000 images on their scanner. These are those images.
A Gizmodo investigation has revealed 100 of the photographs saved by the Gen 2 millimeter wave scanner from Brijot Imaging Systems, Inc., obtained by a FOIA request after it was recently revealed that U.S. Marshals operating the machine in the Orlando, Florida courthouse had improperly-perhaps illegally-saved images of the scans of public servants and private citizens.
We understand that it will be controversial to release these photographs. But identifying features have been eliminated. And fortunately for those who walked through the scanner in Florida last year, this mismanaged machine used the less embarrassing imaging technique.
A Gizmodo investigation has revealed 100 of the photographs saved by the Gen 2 millimeter wave scanner from Brijot Imaging Systems, Inc., obtained by a FOIA request after it was recently revealed that U.S. Marshals operating the machine in the Orlando, Florida courthouse had improperly-perhaps illegally-saved images of the scans of public servants and private citizens.
We understand that it will be controversial to release these photographs. But identifying features have been eliminated. And fortunately for those who walked through the scanner in Florida last year, this mismanaged machine used the less embarrassing imaging technique.
© Fox News
Has Fox News Talkshow host Geraldo seen the light?
Has Fox News Talkshow host Geraldo seen the light?
Comment: You know you're in the Twilight Zone when Fox News sheds light on the most taboo topic in the US media. Watch as one of America's most famous talkshow host throws some crumbs of truth to the starving US masses...
© Unknown
James Blunt
James Blunt
Kosovo, June 1999. Serbia has withdrawn from the campaign. Hundreds of thousands of refugees wait over the border to return to their homes. A column of 30,000 Nato troops is advancing towards Pristina airfield - a crucial strategic position.
Unexpectedly, the Russian forces, reach the airfield first; Russia, Serbia's patron, is hoping to stake a claim in the occupation. The soldiers are pointing their weapons at the incoming Allied troops. "Destroy!" orders the US general over the radio - instructions from the very top. World War Three is on the cards. Enter crooner James Blunt. Crisis averted.
Blunt was then 25, a captain in the Life Guards and the lead officer at the front of the Nato column. He risked a court martial by refusing to obey those orders from General Wesley Clark to attack the Russian forces.
In a BBC radio interview last night, Blunt said: "I was given the direct command to overpower the 200 or so Russians who were there. I was the lead officer, with my troop of men behind us... The soldiers directly behind me were from the Parachute Regiment, so they're obviously game for the fight.
The military regime that rules Burma just released from house arrest the pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. The American media used the occasion of her release to get on Burma's case for the absence of the rule of law. I'm all for the brave lady, but if truth be known, "freedom and democracy" America needs her far worse than does Burma.
I'm not an expert on Burma, but the way I see it the objection to a military government is that the government is not accountable to law. Instead, such a regime behaves as it sees fit and issues edicts that advance its agenda. Burma's government can be criticized for not having a rule of law, but it cannot be criticized for ignoring its own laws. We might not like what the Burmese government does, but, precisely speaking, it is not behaving illegally.
In contrast, the United States government claims to be a government of laws, not of men, but when the executive branch violates the laws that constrain it, those responsible are not held accountable for their criminal actions. As accountability is the essence of the rule of law, the absence of accountability means the absence of the rule of law.
