BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

"Explosive" new Hersh scoop: Bush funneling money to Al Qaeda-related groups by Evan Derkacz So what could possibly be more "EXPLOSIVE" and "DEPRESSING" than the fact that the president is having a 24 hour attack plan drawn up for targets in Iran? Why, funding anti-Shiite Sunnis linked to Al Qaeda without Congressional approval and without appropriate appropriation, of course. Seymour Hersh's latest piece in the New Yorker reveals that the Pentagon is accelerating plans for an attack on Iran, that ex-Iran-Contra figure John Negroponte is moving to the State Dept because he's "too ethical" for the Pentagon and that the president is pushing the "absolute limit" of his authority in bypassing Congress and sowing the seeds of an even greater Middle East clusterfuck. For This Entire Post and Video CLICK HERE When I heard this on my daily talk-radio diet today, I almost fainted!! More horrible than we all imagined! - B.

Israel's surge of despair Top Israeli officials admit last summer's war against Hezbollah was a failure -- and denounce President Bush's actions in the Middle East. By Gregory Levey Hezbollah operatives plant explosives along the disputed border area between Lebanon and Israel. The Israeli military moves in and destroys them. Israeli and Lebanese forces engage in sporadic gun battles. It may sound like the prelude to the war waged last summer between the Israeli military and Hezbollah, but it happened just last week. Tensions are running high along the Israel-Lebanon border again, and political and intelligence analysts are predicting another major flare-up of hostilities this spring or summer, or perhaps even sooner. According to Israeli military intelligence, Hezbollah remains firmly rooted in Lebanon and has successfully rearmed -- the Iranian-backed Shiite militia now has even more missiles than it had before last summer's war. To many Israelis, it seems as if t

SILLY ME, I THOUGHT HE QUIT ALREADY!! LOL!! Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut fired a shot across the bow of the Senate's Democratic majority, warning them he may bolt the party and join the GOP if Congress votes to withhold funding for the war in Iraq. The move would give Republicans control of the Senate, since Democrats hold the majority by one vote. Lieberman, who calls himself an "independent Democrat," has been among the strongest supporters of the war on terror and President Bush's plan for a troop surge in Iraq. "I have no desire to change parties," Lieberman said in an interview published Thursday on politico.com. "If that ever happens, it is because I feel the majority of Democrats have gone in a direction that I don't feel comfortable with." Lieberman cited the upcoming showdown over new funding for the war could be a deciding factor that would lure him to the GOP. Several Democrats, led by Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, have bee

How Jewish piety sabotages Jewish self-defense by Francisco Gil-White A well rounded social scientific explanation for why so many innocent Jews have been murdered throughout history, and continue to be murdered today, requires an understanding of the forces that cause non-Jews to kill, naturally, but also an understanding of those forces within the Jewish community that make their self-defense less effective than it could be. This series is concerned with the second set of questions. In Part 1, 2, 3, and 4 of this series I examined the ways in which a good many Jewish leaders sabotage Jewish self-defense. In this installment and the next I will address certain disadvantages of ordinary Jews themselves when it comes to dealing with anti-Jewish terrorist attacks. Given that there are many significant differences between religious and secular Jews, it has seemed useful to me to examine them separately, so in this piece I will consider certain negative consequences of Jewish religious

Federal Court Reaffirms Immunity of Bloggers from Suits Brought Against Commenters Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act provides that "[no] provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider," and that "[n]o cause of action may be brought and no liability may be imposed under any State or local law that is inconsistent with this section." A recent decision of the First Circuit has reaffirmed the broad protection this statute provides to bloggers and message board administrators. In Universal Communication Systems v. Lycos, a company who had allegedly been victimized by defamatory statements on a message board regarding the value of its stock sued Lycos, which operated the board. The message board allowed users to post comments with minimal moderation, and no one from Lycos was responsible for the allegedly defamatory statements. THE REST OF

JIMMY CARTER'S ANTI-ISRAEL AGENDA By: Jonathan Feldstein You don't need to read former President Jimmy Carter's latest book about the Middle East to know what it says. The title, " Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid ," says it all. Nobody will be surprised that this is Carter's latest forum through which to bash Israel. After all, Carter has done so for the better part of the last three decades. And I've witnessed some of these criticisms firsthand. In the early 1980s, Emory gained international recognition with two major events. The first was the Woodruff gift, which helped to establish one of the largest endowments ever in higher education. The second was the decision by Jimmy Carter to establish his Carter Center at Emory. One of my early activities when I was a student at Emory in the 1980s was with the now-defunct student newspaper, The Voice. Early on, the Voice's editor published an article in which he described the Carter Center as "Jimmy Car

DRIVEN TO TEARS The Police How can you say that you're not responsible? What does it have to do with me? What is my reaction? What should it be? Confronted by this latest atrocity Driven to tears Hide my face in my hands, shame wells in my throat My comfortable existence is reduced To a shallow, meaningless party Seems that when some innocents die All we can offer them is a page in a some magazine Too many cam'ras and not enough food 'Cause this is what we've seen Driven to tears Protest is futile Nothing seems to get through What's to become of our world? Who knows what to do? Driven to tears Driven to tears Driven to tears

WAKE UP AND SMELL REAL DEAL ON FATIGUE By MARINA VATAJ SUFFERERS of chronic fatigue syndrome have long been sick and tired of having their illness dismissed by others. A bit of relief is in sight: Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a release not only legitimizing CFS as a real disease, but also launching a major awareness campaign. At least CFS patients won't have to explain to skeptics anymore that, yes, they really do have an illness. In addition to severe, prolonged fatigue, CFS symptoms include muscle and joint pain, sore throat, headaches, insomnia, impaired memory and even depression. Because the symptoms are so varied, diagnosis can often take years. More than 1 million Americans have CFS and can struggle with it for up to six months before discovering they even have a medical condition. Women are four times more likely to have CFS than men. "This physical disease is quite serious and causes profoundly incapacitating problems in those suffer

There is no New Anti-Semitism by Rabbi Michael Lerner The N.Y. Times reported on January 31 about the most recent attempt by the American Jewish Community to conflate intense criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. In a neat little example of slippery slope, the report on "Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism" written by Alvin H. Rosenfeld moves from exposing the actual anti-Semitism of those who deny Israel's right to exist—and hence deny to the Jewish people the same right to national self-determination that they grant to every other people on the planet (the anti-war group International Answer is a good example of that, though Rosenfeld doesn't cite them)—to those who powerfully and consistently attack Israel's policies toward Palestinians, see Israel as racist the way that it treats Israeli-Arabs (or even Sephardic Jews), or who analogize Israel's policies to those of apartheid as instituted by South Africa. The Anti-Defamation League spons

Essay Linking Liberal Jews and Anti-Semitism Sparks a Furor By PATRICIA COHEN The American Jewish Committee, an ardent defender of Israel, is known for speaking out against anti-Semitism, but this conservative advocacy group has recently stirred up a bitter and emotional debate with a new target: liberal Jews. An essay the committee features on its Web site, ajc.org, titled “ ‘Progressive’ Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism,” says a number of Jews, through their speaking and writing, are feeding a rise in virulent anti-Semitism by questioning whether Israel should even exist. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE