Last Call For Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down

We've finally reached the point where Israeli hard-liners have made American hard-liners look like complete wimps, as Times of Israel contributor Yochanan Gordon ponders whether or not Israel has the justification to exterminate every Palestinian in Gaza. (Hint: his answer is "yes.")

The Times of Israel scrubbed an inflammatory blog post on Friday after the writer was widely ridiculed and condemned for making a case for genocide.

In the post titled "When Genocide is Permissible," Yochanan Gordon framed his premise as "a question for all the humanitarians out there."

It's the most lunatic thing I've read in some time.  It makes our crazy warmongers look like Mother Teresa. And it gets a whole lot worse:

I wasn't aware of this, but it seems that the nature of warfare has undergone a major shift over the years. Where wars were usually waged to defeat the opposing side, today it seems - and judging by the number of foul calls it would indicate - that today's wars are fought to a draw. I mean, whoever heard of a timeout in war? An NBA Basketball game allows six timeouts for each team during the course of a game, but last I checked this is a war! We are at war with an enemy whose charter calls for the annihilation of our people. Nothing, then, can be considered disproportionate when we are fighting for our very right to live. 

The sad reality is that Israel gets it, but its hands are being tied by world leaders who over the past six years have insisted they are such good friends with the Jewish state, that they know more regarding its interests than even they do. But there's going to have to come a time where Israel feels threatened enough where it has no other choice but to defy international warnings - because this is life or death.

It's amazing.  His reasoning is exceedingly simple:  we have to exterminate all Palestinians in order to save Israel.  The irony of this is enough to power entire separate realities.

Hamas has stated forthrightly that it idealizes death as much as Israel celebrates life. What other way then is there to deal with an enemy of this nature other than obliterate them completely?

So at this point, I fully expect tens of thousands of Palestinian casualties in the coming days and weeks.   The news of a captured Israeli soldier just hours into what was the start of a 3-day cease fire has all but assured that thousands of Palestinians will now have to die as a result of Hamas and Israel.

The war will continue unabated now.  Regardless of what you think about Yochanan Gordon's idiocy, a lot of people are going to be slaughtered and very, very soon.

In Which Zandar Answers Your Burning Questions

Steve M. observes the chaos in the House GOP and its laughable border vote fiasco, the bill pulled by Boehner rather than he have it be defeated, and asks an excellent question:

I know I'm supposed to regard this as a tremendous black eye for Republicans, and for John Boehner in particular -- and obviously it is in the eyes of political insiders and mavens. But are any Republicans actually going to be punished for this in a way that's going to sting?

Not by Republican voters, that's for sure.

But here's my question: Which Republican is going to lose an election in November because of this? I assume the answer is "None of them." This makes House Republicans look like terrible public servants who accomplish nothing on behalf of the American people. But Americaalready regarded House Republicans that way before today, and they were poised to hold pretty much every seat they hold now, largely because of gerrymandering, while their party was -- and still is -- certain to gain seats in the Senate, quite possibly enough to gain control.

Does anyone seriously think any of that has changed?

In fact, these clowns have probably increased their appeal to the Fox-addled voting base of their party. And even if a handful of swing voters now have a blinding flash of insight and realize that Republican legislators are outright frauds, in what district is the race close enough to matter? Name me one.

I can't.  And that's a gigantic problem.  The irony is however if we don't vote and try to change it, it will never ever get any better, so I choose to go down swinging and hope that maybe I can get the word out to enough people for them to try to go down swinging too.  I can vote while I still can, and try to get others to vote too.

Eventually either enough of us will give a damn and we'll scrub the stables clean of filth, or we'll drown in the flood of crap.

Of Course They're Going After Birth Control

The forced birth loonies will never stop only outlawing abortion as a health care procedure.  Their true goal is to turn birth control into a luxury for the few, and the rest of those people need to close their legs, the sluts.

An anti-Abortion group in Minnesota has been campaigning against a new Planned Parenthood in Richfield, Minn., even though the clinic doesn't actually perform abortions, Cosmopolitan reported.

The clinic opened at the end of June, and since then Pro-Life Action Ministries (PLAM) has been vigorously objecting to it. The group has started a petition, held meetings and are now distributing flyers around town. 

They protested the grand opening and have kept a constant presence outside of the clinic to offer "sidewalk counseling," according to Cosmo. PLAM activists blasted the city's Chamber of Commerce for "advocating for abortion" by putting together a ribbon cutting for the building in which no abortions are performed.

Brian Gibson, executive director of Pro-Life Action Ministries, told Cosmo that the group only take issue with the clinic's role in providing abortions. The group argues that certain forms of birth control "can cause early abortions" and that emergency contraception drugs "function most often as abortion-inducing drugs."

The new Planned Parenthood opened up after the Centro de Salud clinic in South Minneapolis closed, potentially leaving a gap in services for the Hispanic community.

The group claims they have gotten a largely positive response to their efforts to protest the clinic and refer individuals to a Catholic crisis pregnancy center.

Believe me when I say the wealthy will always be able to afford abortions.  But this idiocy involving birth control equating to abortion is both stupid and very, very savvy.  The last couple of years especially, the push to make birth control as "bad" as abortion has worked, and a population of woman with unaffordable birth control will be less independent, less healthy, and less well-off.

That of course is the goal and has been for some time.

StupidiNews!

• Despite a 72 hour cease fire that went into effect this morning, fighting continues in Gaza and the agreement has fallen apart with both Israelis and Hamas blaming each other.
• The Senate has passed a $16.3 billion measure to overhaul the Department of Veterans Affairs in a 91-3 vote, sending the measure to President Obama's desk to be signed.
• A US aid worker infected with Ebola while working in West Africa will be flown to a special ward at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.
• Portugal's Esperito Santo family, one of the country's wealthiest banking families, is now reeling from a tax fraud scandal that could see the family's patriarch in prison for money laundering.
• The newest threat to catch your credit card number from stores is a program called "Backoff" that grabs information through legitimate remote services.