I read the news today oh boy! Page 1,635

Quote: Paul Wimsett @ 30th July 2014, 12:28 PM BST

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10998498/Richard-Dawkins-in-storm-over-mild-date-rape-tweets.html

Why is Liberty stopping freedom of how we phrase things? Seems like a contradiction in policy? Mind you everything should allow some contradiction...

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That's the trouble with all absolutists - they only believe in black or white, no shades of grey ( no pun intended).
Whether it's Liberty, the Taliban, Zionists...
It's what makes them impossible to deal with, and why peace in Palestine is almost impossible.
Dawkins loves winding these sort of people up - it's too easy , really.

Quote: Lazzard @ 30th July 2014, 12:47 PM BST

That's the trouble with all absolutists - they only believe in black or white, no shades of grey ( no pun intended).

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I did enjoy the comment from Shami Chakrabarti:

".../and we all need to come to a consensus about this,"

...which I believe translates to 'you lot have to agree with me'.

Quote: sootyj @ 25th July 2014, 10:46 PM BST

Thanks rocker, though as they're substantially paid for by siphoned off aid money from the
UN you're paying for them.

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That's presumably in addition to using UN schools as their storage facilities and hiding tunnels in UN clinics.

like here

and here

Apologies if this is a bit spammy with links etc - or inappropriate. Will remove if necessary.

From a relative in Israel: "Why the so called "siege" of Gaza? Israel has no interest in keeping the people of Gaza in poverty. In fact, it is Israel's self interest to have prosperity in Gaza, because better education and economical growth makes people less desperate to act violently. Moreover, a prosperous neighbour may one day turn into a trade partner, and both sides would benefit. A siege, on the other hand, is costly, both in lives and in money.
The "siege" is due to the fact that materials passed to Gaza are NOT used to bolster the economy and help make life better for Palestinians. Rather, they are used to build rockets and dig tunnels kilomoters long and meters deep to kill more Israelis."

Similarly, why would the Israeli's put the lives of their soldiers in danger if they didn't deem it necessary and knowing that it'll be terrible PR as their casualties will always be lower? They have the firepower to use other less risky means. Whilst not excusing the violence, Israel's actions were in response to increased (indiscriminate) rocket attacks and discovery of attack tunnels to be used for atrocities against the Israeli civilian population.

Am I OK to go on? I feel a need to vent a few things myself. But a few comments and articles I thought were interesting in the meantime:

blog - Why don't I criticise Israel

opinion the role of journalists in Hamas war strategy media usage Hamas in a main hospital proportionate response thoughts

Lofthouse, agreed that any civilian deaths are a tragedy. But given similar casualties and brutality in other current conflicts, with the arsenal at their disposal the IDF don't appear to be in the same league (especially given the firepower vs casualties) as Syria/Iraq. Probably incompetent if they were trying to wipe out Gazans. It's also well-documented that they warn citizens to evacuate target areas and that Hamas has a human shield policy: OK, so it's a propaganda video and so's this but the principles are supported by the former head of UK forces in Afghanistan

Also (admittedly I haven't checked any of these figures myself but there's a link to the Al-Jazeera page publishing the names and ages) which suggests civilians aren't purposefully targeted: analysis

And clearly if you're intent on killing, you'll find a way regardless of state-of-the-art technology:

Syria death toll [/link]

I haven't looked into the figures on "shock and awe" a few years ago but did that avoid civilian casualties? I found this:
[link=http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jan/03/iraq-body-count-report-data]Iraq body count

Israeli medics are neutral in treating injured from all sides in conflicts: Lebanese woman hurt in previous war

Quote: Lazzard @ 30th July 2014, 12:47 PM BST

Dawkins loves winding these sort of people up - it's too easy , really.

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And if you can get wound up by the lazy, professional troll that is Dawkins, you know you have failed!

I couldn't read it all but I agree with Rob0.

Hamas are hiding behind women and children. It's despicable.

I don't agree with Israel's actions but they are being attacked by cowardly terrorists using propaganda to turn the world against them.

Quote: Chappers @ 31st July 2014, 5:52 PM BST

I couldn't read it all but I agree with Rob0.

Hamas are hiding behind women and children. It's despicable.

I don't agree with Israel's actions but they are being attacked by cowardly terrorists using propaganda to turn the world against them.

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Yet you willingly believe all Israels propaganda and lies ?

And you could class Hamas as terrorists

But what choice do they have? Their land is being turned into a third world ghetto by a rich powerful US backed bully

Are they supposed to just bend over and take it?

I personally wouldn't believe a single f**king word that comes out of netanyahu - he's a lying murdering twat

I hope one of Hamas' rockets makes a direct hit on his f**king house - see how the bastard likes it

I think both sides are lying and unfortunately it suits everyone except the actual gazans for them to live in misery.

Honestly I hope the Israeli economy takes a nose dive and they vote labour back in.

Of course the focus on Israel with free access to the press, does rather let Isis and Syria off the hook

'No sooner than the White House condemned the shelling of a United Nations-operated school in Gaza on Wednesday did news break that the Pentagon will supply the Israeli military with new ammunition to further their campaign on the war-ravaged city.

That afternoon, CNN reported that the United States military will be honoring a request from Israel for assistance in the midst of their weeks-long campaign against militants from Hamas residing in Gaza City.

According to the network, Pentagon officials have confirmed that the US will honor a request from Israel for several types of ammunition, including 120mm mortar rounds and 40mm ammunition for grenade launchers. The exchange will not be an emergency sale, the unnamed officials said, and is coming from a stockpile of weapons maintained by the US in Israel worth more than $1 billion.

-----------------------

According to Charles Freeman, former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, "Israel started Hamas. It was a project of Shin Bet [Isreali domestic intelligence agency], which had a feeling that they could use it to hem in the PLO."

One aspect of that strategy was the creation of the Village Leagues, over which Yassin and the Brotherhood exercised much influence. Israel trained about 200 members of the Leagues and recruited many paid informers.

New York Times Reporter David Shipler cites the Israeli military governor of Gaza as boasting that Israel expressly financed the fundamentalists against the PLO:

"Politically speaking, Islamic fundamentalists were sometimes regarded as useful to Israel, because they had conflicts with the secular supporters of the PLO. Violence between the two groups erupted occasionally on West Bank university campuses. Israeli military governor of the Gaza Strip, Brigadier General Yitzhak Segev, once told me how he had financed the Islamic movement as a counterweight to the PLO and the Communists. 'The Israeli Government gave me a budget and the military government gives to the mosques,' he said."

As Dreyfuss notes, "during the 1980s, the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza and the West Bank did not support resistance to the Israeli occupation. Most of its energy went to fighting the PLO, especially its more left-wing factions, on university campuses."

After the Palestinian uprising of 1987, the PLO accused Hamas and Yassin of acting "with the direct support of reactionary Arab regimes... in collusion with the Israeli occupation."

Yasser Arafat complained to an Italian newspaper: "Hamas is a creation of Israel, which at the time of Prime Minister Shamir, gave them money and more than 700 institutions, among them schools, universities and mosques."

Arafat also maintained that Israeli prime minister Rabin admitted to him in the presence of Hosni Mubarak that Israel had supported Hamas.

Source?

Quote: sootyj @ 31st July 2014, 7:23 PM BST

Source?

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Hmmm, Many possible:

Google["According to Charles Freeman, former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, "Israel started Hamas. It was a project of Shin Bet [Isreali domestic intelligence agency], which had a feeling that they could use it to hem in the PLO.""]

https://www.google.co.uk/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=KZjaU_mrK8PH8geAvoKICA&gws_rd=ssl#q=%22According+to+Charles+Freeman%2C+former+US+ambassador+to+Saudi+Arabia%2C+%22Israel+started+Hamas.+It+was+a+project+of+Shin+Bet+[Isreali+domestic+intelligence+agency]%2C+which+had+a+feeling+that+they+could+use+it+to+hem+in+the+PLO.%22%22

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dinosaurs shrank over 50 million years !

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/28563682

Fluffy dinosaurs

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/28479503

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cats are enemies of birds

Birds are descended from Dinosaurs

Zooo like cats

Zooo likes dinosaurs

Zooo must be perplexed.

Quote: Paul Wimsett @ 30th July 2014, 12:28 PM BST

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10998498/Richard-Dawkins-in-storm-over-mild-date-rape-tweets.html

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Regarding this subject, can someone please explain to me what Dawkins' critics object to about his remarks? I genuinely don't know what their viewpoint is.

There's always someone who objects to anything Dawkins says, is there not?

I think he really needs to shut his stupid gormless trap

As its seems to spout arse gravy on a regular basis

Like this gem

In a recent interview with the Times magazine, Richard Dawkins attempted to defend what he called "mild pedophilia," which, he says, he personally experienced as a young child and does not believe causes "lasting harm."
Dawkins went on to say that one of his former school masters "pulled me on his knee and put his hand inside my shorts," and that to condemn this "mild touching up" as sexual abuse today would somehow be unfair.
"I am very conscious that you can't condemn people of an earlier era by the standards of ours. Just as we don't look back at the 18th and 19th centuries and condemn people for racism in the same way as we would condemn a modern person for racism, I look back a few decades to my childhood and see things like caning, like mild pedophilia, and can't find it in me to condemn it by the same standards as I or anyone would today," he said.
Plus, he added, though his other classmates also experienced abuse at the hands of this teacher, "I don't think he did any of us lasting harm."
Child welfare experts responded to Dawkins' remarks with outrage -- and concern over their effect on survivors of abuse.

Dickhead

I hope the next person to interview him sticks their hands down his pants and yank his tickle tackle.