Tell me about your mother....
Good lord!
Who would have thought a little lettuce could do all that for you? It calms you down when you need calming and perks you up when you need perking (not that I am in any way insinuating that any of you three eggheads need perking).
"One pill makes you taller, and another makes you small.... Go ask Alice"
Oh, and the UK (with Ireland close) may be the best place, but investment dollars are positively fleeing Germany and France.
We have been lettuce experts for years. We have stored away 25 years of the lettuce perk. Need we say more?
As for investment dollars in Europe, no surprise- German and French unemployment is running at or near 10 percent.
By the way, any takers for a bet as to whether or not that fusion reactor deal is for real?
It's not the lettuce, it's the lettuce milk. Saying eating lettuce will stimulate your sex drive is like saying eating meat will fill you full of calcium.
I still say lettuce sucks the flavor out of other foods, and is therefore the enemy of all gourmands.
Oh, and since the author of the article on Israeli affirmative action went back to Byzantine and Roman times to highlight Jewish displacement, I'll go back even further:
King David (of the Jews) conquered Jerusalem in the 5th or 6th century BC (or BCE for you PCers out there). Before then, the Jews had no traditional claims to the city. David wanted a city for his capital that was not in any of the lands traditionally owned by any of the twelve tribes (to consolidate his power as leader of all 12 tribes without showing favoritism to any of them), so he went and conquered a city that no Jewish tribe owned.
Not that I necessarily agree with the Israeli Arabs' anti-zionist stance, but if we're going to go 2000 years back in history, we may as well go 2500 to get to the truth.
Fine Boomr, but then can that tribe that up and moved to America now lay claim to prime real estate in Manhattan?
Hmmmm?
Can they?
Suddenly, I feel Mormon...
Sure it can, and so can Israel now. Like I said, I'm not arguing in favor of the Israeli Arabs' position.
But the author used not just modern-day, international recognition of the borders of Israel as justification for Jewish "affirmative action" there; he used historical claim to the land. I'm just saying that if you're making the historical claim, you need to look at the complete history, not just what supports your argument.
The point, boomr, can be made with more recent history.
Virtually every country has come about as the result of conflict- virtually every country.
Israel (and a Palestinian state) was formed as the result of a UN partition- one not accepted by the Arab states. That Israel has to defend herself is not anomolous behavior.
If the Arab world were a football field, Israel would be about the size of a matchbook.
And that, we are told to believe, is the entire reason that the Arab world has failed as a society and economy.
My arguments are supported by reality.
"And that, we are told to believe, is the entire reason that the Arab world has failed as a society and economy."
Ok, esssplain it to the brown guy... how on God's mostly blue earth did you jump to that?
I was following pretty closely, actually agreeing, and then wham! (not the duo from the 80's). I am, once again, confusticated...
befuddled,
flabbergasted,
discombobulated...
tell me again... and use small words... how that follows...
please...
I, too, am not-quite-combobulated.
First, SC&A, I don't deny that countries emerge and become established through conflict. That's the usual route for nationmaking. So, in that vein, the fact that Israel disappeared for a couple thousand years there, until it was reestablished a half century ago, would be part of the natural progression of geopolitics, wouldn't it? So, those powers that destroyed the first incarnation of Israel would have as much HISTORICAL claim to the land as Israel, wouldn't they? Or. to take your argument to the extreme, if the Palestinians take Israel by force, wouldn't they also have a valid claim?
Second, I don't disagree with the way that Israel was formed or its need to defend itself. The article to which you cite, though, does not concern Israel's defense of itself; it concerns Israel's status as a democracy populated mostly by Jews vs. an institutionalized Jewish-majority state. The support this author provided was that the Jewish people have a historical (not just UN-partition historical, but 2000-year-old historical) claim to the region. My only argument was that if you keep going back in history, you'll see the Jewish people didn't have first claim to some of the parts of Israel it holds so dear.
"And that, we are told to believe, is the entire reason that the Arab world has failed as a society and economy."
Who's telling us that? Palestinians hate Israel because Israel is currently sitting on top of land that the Palestinians claim is their own (so it's not just a religious or racial conflict, but an inherently political one). The rest of the Muslim world hates Israel in part for the same reasons, in part for its religious intrusion on their hegemony from central Asia to North Africa, in part for its close ties to the decadent west (especially the US), in part for Israel's various military campaigns (whether for defense or offense) against its neighbors, and maybe only slightly because of some perceived economic effects.
What's more, I hardly think that the rulers (both political and religious) of the Arab world would concede that their societies and economies have failed. Especially so when you look at the amount of money amassed in the oil producing nations, so much in some countries that the natives don't even do the work to remove the oil from the ground and they have to ship in workers from other countries.
Serious stuff aside -- what, I get no love for the "sucks the flavor from food" comment?
Miguel, are you serious? How many times have the Arabs themselves said that Israel is at the root of the regions problems? If there were only no israel, then all would be well in the region.
"What's more, I hardly think that the rulers (both political and religious) of the Arab world would concede that their societies and economies have failed."
Visit MEMRI.org and read for yourself what they (Arabs) have to say on the matter.
At the risk of confusing myself further... that sounds like you think they say (please clarify if i'm wrong) something along the lines of "If there were no AIDS, everybody would be healthy..."
I know many Arabs hate Israel for a nearly-infinite variety of reasons. They have a right to; Israel can hate them right back.
I hate brussels sprouts even though they don't hate me... the question that troubles you (i understand) is the justification of current behavior.
I'll go even further and say the behavior you question would be wrong even if it was justified.
HOWEVER, having agreed on that point, I think your justification for that behavior being wrong holds about as little water as my 1973 Gremlin's radiator. It's green.
Now, knowing we agree, can we get back to convincing me why?
Miguel, I'm serious- that has been spewed by more than one govt controlled media outlet.
So, if the Caananites (or however the heck them dead folks spelled their names) came back and politely asked for Jerusalem, then the government of Israel would have to politely accept and move all involved out of Jerusalem?
Or how far does the claim for land go?
I hope they don't clone that neanderthal guy after all... or a lot of people in western france would suddenly be homeless...
Of course not, Miguel- they'd go to war.
However, as Abba Eban said after the 67 war, This was the first war in history where on the morrow, the victors sued for peace and the vanquished sued for war.'
Cute, but it makes no sense.
Once you win, of course you think you're done.
Once out of your house, of course you're itching to keep on fighting... you just call in the rest of your friends... To quote from Galaxy Quest: Never Surrender! &c.
Only the French would give up just cuz they lost. LOL...
No need for them to have lost to give up. "French rifles for sale. Never fired, only dropped once."
Commenting by HaloScan
