AUSTRIA – shame on YOU

‘Austria is a small world within the bigger world which challenges it,” German dramatist Friedrich Hebbel once said. This quote rings true, especially today. Although it is true that the former empire is in many ways a veritable Garden of Eden – from a political, economic, ecological and cultural point of view it is one [...]

My Man Georgie Boy

World’s Most Worthless Money

Zimbabwe
As Americans worry about the rate of inflation exceeding 4 percent, we should consider Zimbabwe, where the inflation rate broke the shocking 100,000 percent mark and the country released a 10 million-dollar note (now valued below $4 on the black market). But Zimbabwe’s currency is hardly the only one inflated beyond reason

40 minuntes of pure Obama..

is it show or substance ? it’s hard to tell the difference anymore..
(Barack Obama speaks in Philadelphia, PA at Constitution Center, on matters not just of race and recent remarks but of the fundamental path by which America can work together to pursue a better future)

Reut Institute – Addressing 21st Century Zionism

Arab freedom can be delayed, not denied…

Interesting article by Emanuele Ottolenghi, head of the Transatlantic Institute.
http://transatlanticinstitute.org/html/pu_articles.html?id=368

Rules of the game, Palestinian-style

JPost article by Barry Rubin:
“…These tenets are fatal to the hope of getting a Palestinian state, of the Palestinian polity becoming more moderate, of ending terrorism, or stopping even officially sponsored PA incitement. Palestinians know these rules well; outsiders seem largely unaware of them. Exceptions can be found but few, and since these are considered [...]

think again

Victor Davis Hanson reviews the “Legacy of the Bush Administration”:
“…His administration will go down, say historians such as Columbia’s Eric Foner and Princeton’s Sean Wilentz, as a disaster. As Wilentz put it, “Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history…”
Hit the [...]

what men talk about

“…Men focus on subjects they can master: Studies show that there are five subjects that men discuss. They are, in order of importance: money, sports, women, politics, and cars…”
interesting article on jpost.com:Shmuley Boteach – “What men talk about”

so close to war

“Even more curious is that far from pushing the Syrians and Israelis to war, both seem determined to put a lid on the affair. One month after the event, the absence of hard information leads inexorably to the conclusion that the implications must have been enormous…”
Hit the pic or click here for the whole [...]

hillary beware

“Rudy Giuliani has a problem with the religious right. He’s too liberal, too modern and not Christian enough for them. But the former New York mayor knows that this weakness may help him to victory…”
hit the pic or click here for the whole article from Spiegel Online

Is that so? Fascinating….

“Taking advantage of a debilitating political crisis in Beirut, overstretched security forces and a lifeless economy, the Bekaa farmers this year have cultivated the largest hashish harvest since the war-torn 1980s when this fertile valley was awash with drug crops.”

oh tel aviv, i love you…

“Tel Aviv ist eine Reissbrettstadt, in der sich die Architekten ausgetobt haben. Und die Bewohner haben das Beste daraus gemacht: sie benützt, gebraucht, und diese Patina steht jeder Metropole. Tel Aviv hat eine legere Urbanität, die ihresgleichen sucht, mit unnachahmlicher Nonchalance bewegen sich ihre Einwohner zwischen Hochhaus, Bauhaus, Strandburg bauen. Dazu noch die Multikulturalität [...]

FOX – judy bachrach on fox news post inaguration

why he wanted to speak at columbia

Anne Applebaum:“Ahmadinejad’s agenda is different, though, from that of the traditional autocrat. His goal is not merely to hold power in Iran through sheer force, or even through a standard 20th-century personality cult. His goal is to undermine the American and Western democracy rhetoric that poses an ideological threat to the Iranian regime…”
Click here for [...]

columbia university showdown

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"I am with Israel" – Emilio Karim Dabul

“Israel, with all its imperfections, remains the beacon of light for the Middle East. For that reason, I wish to salute her, not only as one of America’s greatest allies in the war on terror, but as one of the true miracle countries of this time or any other…”Read on here:http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2007/09/19/2007-09-19_i_am_with_israel_one_arabamericans_salut.html
Another interesting text by the [...]

TED Talks: Steven Pinker: A brief history of violence

We live in violent times, an era of heightened warfare, genocide and senseless crime. Or so we’ve come to believe. Pinker charts a history of violence from Biblical times through the present, and says modern society has a little less to feel guilty about.

israeli reporter Itai Anghel joining an infantry unit into lebanon in 2006

part 1
part 2
part 3

"You Have Liberated a People" – by Fouad Ajami

“Peace has not come to Iraq, the feuds have not fully burned out, but the center holds. The best of Iraq’s technocrats, deputy prime minister Barham Saleh, spoke of the new economic vitality of the provinces, of the recovery of regions once lost to darkness and terror. I brought back with me from Iraq a [...]

the fascination of ambiguity

“Osirak II? Israel’s silence on Syria speaks volumes” – Bret Stephens in “OpinionJournal”
“Most telling has been Israel’s blanket censorship of the story – unprecedented in the experience of even the most veteran Israeli reporters – which has also been extended to its ordinarily hypertalkative politicians. In a country of open secrets, this is, for once, [...]

sanctions? not from germany…

“…a conference entitled “Iran: Business Opportunities for German Exporters” opens today in Darmstadt, Germany, under the auspices of the Hessian state government and an initiative of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. Germany exported about $5b. in good to Iran last year, representing a substantial growth in exports over the last six years.”Germany is [...]

Nuclear fungibility – JPost editorial

“The government deserves credit for sticking to its silence on the whole matter. There are times when it is better to act than to talk, and this seems to be one of them.We can assume that the IDF would not have recommended, nor the political echelon authorized, a risky operation in a foreign country if [...]

german public television channel on 9/11

“Germany’s ZDF public television network has sunk to an all-time low on its Web site. It has asked the public who was behind 9/11: Was it really Osama bin Laden or was it actually the US government?”
Read the whole commentary here, or hit the picture

the normality of global jihadi terrorism

“One of the most difficult things to understand about the 9/11/01 terrorist attack on the United States is why the terrorists did what they did. What drives people to kill themselves so spectacularly and commit mass murder at the same time?…”

hit the pic or click here for the whole text

Q&A with Dr. Boaz Ganor

Ahead of the ICT 7th International Conference: “Terrorism’s Global Impact” on September 8-11, 2007 at The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, Israel, co-founder and executive director of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), Dr. Boaz Ganor answers questions on terrorism“Terrorism is a dynamic phenomenon and terrorists are not just random psychotic killers. They are trying to [...]

oversexed but underfucked

Truth or dare

Talking about it is one thing, telling the truth quite another: consulting the experts, Karim El-Khashab dares divulge the taboo of taboos:

“Considering that marriage — an extremely expensive procedure — remains the only legitimate means to having sex, the figures might as well speak for themselves: seven million unemployed, nine million unmarried [...]

Mideast Rules to Live by – THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN (Dec 2006)

“For a long time, I let my hopes for a decent outcome in Iraq triumph over what I had learned reporting from Lebanon during its civil war. Those hopes vanished last summer. So, I’d like to offer President Bush my updated rules of Middle East reporting, which also apply to diplomacy, in hopes they’ll help [...]

Broder, oder!

Rhetorisches Roulette – der Schießbefehl! Geiseln, Gier & Gaddafi

deutsche entwicklungshilfe – Spiegel TV