Shame on you believers!

Belief in religion, any religion, is based not on any rational arguments but on fear -- fear of the consequences of not believing, be it the fires of hell or something else. Not only is the believer afraid to voice any doubts about his religion, he is also upset when an unbeliever does it. And so it is not surprising that so many doubters are at the receiving end of attacks from religious fanatics. The following are a few of the cases that have happened or are happening right now.

1: Alber Saber, Egypt.

Alber Saber, a 27-year-old atheist activist, a blogger, and an administrator of the Egyptian Atheists Facebook page, was arrested after a mob swarmed outside his home demanding his arrest for insulting religion. Saber was then attacked in prison, after a guard told the other prisoners what he had been charged with. On December 12 of this year, he was convicted of blasphemy, and sentenced to three years in prison.

2: Alexander Aan, Indonesia.

In January 2012 this civil servant was attacked by a mob after he criticized Islam on Facebook, saying he'd left the religion and become an atheist. Following the attack, Aan was arrested for insulting religion. He is now serving two and a half years in prison.

3: Phillipos Loizos, Greece.

In September 2012, Phillipos Loizos was arrested in Evia, Greece, for creating a Facebook page making fun of Elder Paisios, the late Greek Orthodox monk revered by many as a prophet -- a page referring to Paisios as Pastistios, a Greek beef dish.

4: Sanal Edamaruku, India.

He is president of the Indian Rationalist Association. He embarrassed the Catholic Church on national television when he debunked a supposed "miracle" by proving that a weeping Jesus on the cross was actually the result of a leaky drain. A group called the Association of Concerned Catholics filed a complaint against Edamaruku with the Mumbai police who issued an arrest warrant, charging him with "hurting the religious sentiments of a particular community." Edamaruku fled the country and is now in Finland.

5: Fazil Say, Turkey.

If you are into classical music you might have heard of Fazil Say. He is also an atheist. On June 1, 2012, he was arrested and charged with insulting Islamic values on twitter He faces a year in prison, despite the fact that the Turkish Constitution protects freedom of religious belief, guarantees equal protection under the law regardless of religion, and lists secularism as one of the Turkish republic's fundamental characteristics.

6: Jabeur Mejri and Ghazi Beji, Tunisia.

In March 2012 these two self-declared atheists were given prison sentences for posting cartoons of Muhammad on Facebook  Beji got the hell out of the country.  Mejri wasn't so lucky. He is currently in prison.

These incidents are just the tip of the iceberg. They don't include Mauritania, where leaving Islam means losing citizenship; Pakistan, where the government blocked all access to Twitter because of "blasphemous content"; Italy, where Minister for Foreign Affairs Franco Frattini called on Christians, Muslims and Jews to join together in the fight against the "threat" of atheism; Zambia, where the government requires Christian instruction in public schools; Poland, where pop musician Doda was fined $1,450 for saying that the Bible is full of "unbelievable tales"; Israel, where atheists or anyone else wanting a secular marriage have to leave the country to get married; the United States, where attendance at evangelical Christian events in the military is often mandatory; Sudan, where leaving Islam is punishable by death.

Do not have too much faith in doctors!

I am totally against going to doctors for operations or getting poisonous pills from them. What damage you have inflicted on your body through an unhealthy life-style cannot be corrected by cutting up your body. It is simply absurd to think otherwise. Regaining your health comes about through a change in your diet and the undertaking of physical exercise.


There is also the question of mistakes made by doctors. It has been found that in the U.S., for example, surgical errors occur more than 4000 times a year.

It is estimated that at least 39 times a week surgeons leave foreign objects inside their patients, things like towels and sponges. And some 20 times a week they perform the wrong surgery or operate on the wrong part of the body.

The ugly face of America.

By Tom Engelhardt 

America, the Sort of Country Your Mother Brought You Up to Avoid

On New Year's Eve 2003, Khaled el-Masri, an unemployed car salesman from Germany on vacation in Macedonia, was removed from a bus and kidnapped [4] by the CIA due to a confusion of names.  His evidently bore some similarity to an al-Qaeda suspect the Agency wanted to get its hands on.  Five months later, after spending time under brutal conditions in an “Afghan” prison called “the Salt Pit” (run by the CIA [5]), he was left at the side of a road in Albania.  In between, his life was a catalogue of horrors, torture, and abuse.

Last week, the European Court of Human Rights finally rendered a judgment in his favor, confirming the accuracy of the story he’s told for years about his sufferings, fining the Macedonian government for its role in his case, and concluding [6] for the first time in a court of law that “the CIA's rendition techniques amounted to torture.”  El-Masri’s attempt to bring a case in the U.S. legal system against “George Tenet, the former director of the C.I.A., three private airline companies, and 20 individuals identified only as John Doe” for his mistreatment was long ago thrown out [7], thanks to the “state secrets privilege” -- such a trial, so the government claimed, could compromise U.S. national security.  In this way, American courts, including the Supreme Court, typically avoided the subject of Bush administration and CIA torture tactics.
El-Masri was one of more than 9,000 individuals [8] who were then being held in a globe-spanning archipelago of injustice, a series of “black sites [9]” and borrowed prisons [10] (as well as borrowed torturers in many cases).  Some of those prisoners were, like el-Masri, innocent [11] of any crime whatsoever; some like him had been kidnapped [12] by the CIA; most, whether reasonable suspects or not, were charged with nothing.  The crown jewel of this system was, of course, the U.S. prison built in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which the present president promised [13] to close within a year of coming into office and which still couldn’t be more open.
If the former Soviet Union had built such an overseas gulag, run on the basis of torture and abuse, or if China did so today, there would be no question what Americans would have called it.  Official Washington, along with its attendant pundits and think tanks, would have made a professional living off denouncing it as typical of what to expect of such oppressive single-party states.  It would have been decried as a horror and a nightmare, an indefensible moral abomination, and a stain on humanity, no matter the information its torturers drew from the prisoners under their control.
And yet when Washington does it, the heated discussion in this country is largely about[14] just how “effective” torture techniques are in eliciting “useful” information.  Our courts generally avoid the subject and no one [15] has been prosecuted for its horrific acts.  In the meantime, a totally innocent man, whose name sounded like that of a terror suspect, was kidnapped, hooded, shackled, sodomized [6], flown to a prison in Afghanistan, held without recourse, beaten, tortured, slammed into walls, deprived of sleep [16], given inadequate food and water, endured total sensory deprivation, and then months later was released in a strange land without a helping hand of any sort.  No one in the U.S. government then or since has felt compelled to offer him an explanation, or recompense for what he went through, or an apology of any sort.  And with the exception of the usual suspects (like theAmerican Civil Liberties Union [16]), Americans seem to feel few regrets of any sort.
This, then, is what the United States became under George W. Bush and remains under Barack Obama -- the sort of country your mother brought you up to avoid.  It’s shameful [17].

What the American Media Won't Tell You About Israel.

by Noam Chomsky

An old man in Gaza held a placard that read: “You take my water, burn my olive trees, destroy my house, take my job, steal my land, imprison my father, kill my mother, bombard my country, starve us all, humiliate us all, but I am to blame: I shot a rocket back.”

The old man’s message provides the proper context for the latest episode in the savage punishment of Gaza. The crimes trace back to 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled from their homes in terror or were expelled to Gaza by conquering Israeli forces, who continued to truck Palestinians over the border for years after the official cease-fire.
The punishment took new forms when Israel conquered Gaza in 1967. From recent Israeli scholarship (primarily Avi Raz’s “The Bride and the Dowry: Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians in the Aftermath of the June 1967 War”), we learn that the government’s goal was to drive the refugees into the Sinai Peninsula – and, if feasible, the rest of the population too.
Expulsions from Gaza were carried out under the direct orders of Gen. Yeshayahu Gavish, commander of the Israel Defense Forces Southern Command. Expulsions from the West Bank were far more extreme, and Israel resorted to devious means to prevent the return of those expelled, in direct violation of U.N. Security Council orders.
The reasons were made clear in internal discussions immediately after the war. Golda Meir, later prime minister, informed her Labor Party colleagues that Israel should keep the Gaza Strip while “getting rid of its Arabs.” Defense Minister Moshe Dayan and others agreed.
Prime Minister Levi Eshkol explained that those expelled could not be allowed to return because “we cannot increase the Arab population in Israel” – referring to the newly occupied territories, already considered part of Israel.
In accord with this conception, all of Israel’s maps were changed, expunging the Green Line (the internationally recognized borders) – though publication of the maps was delayed to permit Abba Eban, an Israeli ambassador to the U.N., to attain what he called a “favorable impasse” at the General Assembly by concealing Israel’s intentions.
The goals of expulsion may remain alive today, and might be a factor in contributing to Egypt’s reluctance to open the border to free passage of people and goods barred by the U.S.-backed Israeli siege.
The current upsurge of U.S.-Israeli violence dates to January 2006, when Palestinians voted “the wrong way” in the first free election in the Arab world.
Israel and the U.S. reacted at once with harsh punishment of the miscreants, and preparation of a military coup to overthrow the elected government – the routine procedure. The punishment was radically intensified in 2007, when the coup attempt was beaten back and the elected Hamas government established full control over Gaza.
Ignoring immediate offers from Hamas for a truce after the 2006 election, Israel launched attacks that killed 660 Palestinians in 2006, most of whom were civilians (a third were minors). According to U.N. reports, 2,879 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire from April 2006 through July 2012, along with several dozen Israelis killed by fire from Gaza.
A short-lived truce in 2008 was honored by Hamas until Israel broke it in November. Ignoring further truce offers, Israel launched the murderous Cast Lead operation in December.
So matters have continued, while the U.S. and Israel also continue to reject Hamas calls for a long-term truce and a political settlement for a two-state solution in accord with the international consensus that the U.S. has blocked since 1976 when the U.S. vetoed a Security Council resolution to this effect, brought by the major Arab states.
This week, Washington devoted every effort to blocking a Palestinian initiative to upgrade its status at the U.N. but failed, in virtual international isolation as usual. The reasons were revealing: Palestine might approach the International Criminal Court about Israel’s U.S.-backed crimes.
One element of the unremitting torture of Gaza is Israel’s “buffer zone” within Gaza, from which Palestinians are barred entry to almost half of Gaza’s limited arable land.
From January 2012 to the launching of Israel’s latest killing spree on Nov. 14, Operation Pillar of Defense, one Israeli was killed by fire from Gaza while 78 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire.
The full story is naturally more complex, and uglier.
The first act of Operation Pillar of Defense was to murder Ahmed Jabari. Aluf Benn, editor of the newspaper Haaretz, describes him as Israel’s “subcontractor” and “border guard” in Gaza, who enforced relative quiet there for more than five years.
The pretext for the assassination was that during these five years Jabari had been creating a Hamas military force, with missiles from Iran. A more credible reason was provided by Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin, who had been involved in direct negotiations with Jabari for years, including plans for the eventual release of the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
Baskin reports that hours before he was assassinated, Jabari “received the draft of a permanent truce agreement with Israel, which included mechanisms for maintaining the cease-fire in the case of a flare-up between Israel and the factions in the Gaza Strip.”
A truce was then in place, called by Hamas on Nov. 12. Israel apparently exploited the truce, Reuters reports, directing attention to the Syrian border in the hope that Hamas leaders would relax their guard and be easier to assassinate.
Throughout these years, Gaza has been kept on a level of bare survival, imprisoned by land, sea and air. On the eve of the latest attack, the U.N. reported that 40 percent of essential drugs and more than half of essential medical items were out of stock.
In November one of the first in a series of hideous photos sent from Gaza showed a doctor holding the charred corpse of a murdered child. That one had a personal resonance. The doctor is the director and head of surgery at Khan Yunis hospital, which I had visited a few weeks earlier.
In writing about the trip I reported his passionate appeal for desperately needed medicine and surgical equipment. These are among the crimes of the U.S.-Israeli siege, and of Egyptian complicity.
The casualty rates from the November episode were about average: more than 160 Palestinian dead, including many children, and six Israelis.
Among the dead were three journalists. The official Israeli justification was that “The targets are people who have relevance to terror activity.” Reporting the “execution” in The New York Times, the reporter David Carr observed that “it has come to this: Killing members of the news media can be justified by a phrase as amorphous as ‘relevance to terror activity.’ ”
The massive destruction was all in Gaza. Israel used advanced U.S. military equipment and relied on U.S. diplomatic support, including the usual U.S. intervention efforts to block a Security Council call for a cease-fire.
With each such exploit, Israel’s global image erodes. The photos and videos of terror and devastation, and the character of the conflict, leave few remaining shreds of credibility to the self-declared “most moral army in the world,” at least among people whose eyes are open.
The pretexts for the assault were also the usual ones. We can put aside the predictable declarations of the perpetrators in Israel and Washington. But even decent people ask what Israel should do when attacked by a barrage of missiles. It’s a fair question, and there are straightforward answers.
One response would be to observe international law, which allows the use of force without Security Council authorization in exactly one case: in self-defense after informing the Security Council of an armed attack, until the Council acts, in accord with the U.N. Charter, Article 51.
Israel is well familiar with that Charter provision, which it invoked at the outbreak of the June 1967 war. But, of course, Israel’s appeal went nowhere when it was quickly ascertained that Israel had launched the attack. Israel did not follow this course in November, knowing what would be revealed in a Security Council debate.
Another narrow response would be to agree to a truce, as appeared quite possible before the operation was launched on Nov. 14.
There are more far-reaching responses. By coincidence, one is discussed in the current issue of the journal National Interest. Asia scholars Raffaello Pantucci and Alexandros Petersen describe China’s reaction after rioting in western Xinjiang province, “in which mobs of Uighurs marched around the city beating hapless Han (Chinese) to death.”
Chinese president Hu Jintao quickly flew to the province to take charge; senior leaders in the security establishment were fired; and a wide range of development projects were undertaken to address underlying causes of the unrest.
In Gaza, too, a civilized reaction is possible. The U.S. and Israel could end the merciless, unremitting assault, open the borders and provide for reconstruction – and if it were imaginable, reparations for decades of violence and repression.
The cease-fire agreement stated that the measures to implement the end of the siege and the targeting of residents in border areas “shall be dealt with after 24 hours from the start of the cease-fire.”
There is no sign of steps in this direction. Nor is there any indication of a U.S.-Israeli willingness to rescind their separation of Gaza from the West Bank in violation of the Oslo Accords, to end the illegal settlement and development programs in the West Bank that are designed to undermine a political settlement, or in any other way to abandon the rejectionism of the past decades.
Someday, and it must be soon, the world will respond to the plea issued by the distinguished Gazan human-rights lawyer Raji Sourani while the bombs were once again raining down on defenseless civilians in Gaza: “We demand justice and accountability. We dream of a normal life, in freedom and dignity.”

Obama Weaves Web of Deceit on Gaza War.

By Ira Chernus 

When Barack Obama finally spoke out publicly about the Israeli assault on Gaza, at a press conference [3], he wove an astonishingly thick web of deception and distortion.

I’m no Obama-basher. But when I see him bashing and trashing the truth so blatantly, I have to speak out. I have to express my pain, because I know that his misleading words will increase the risks to my loved ones and fellow Jews in Israel and the much greater risks to the victims of Israeli aggression in Gaza.
Of course to hear Obama tell it, it’s the Israelis who are the victims. “The precipitating event here that’s causing the current crisis … was an ever-escalating number of missiles” fired from Gaza into Israel, he said. “And there’s no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders.”
This is the same old tale Americans have been getting from their presidents, politicians, and press for decades: Those nasty Arabs, attacking Jews out of the blue for no good reason that we can see.
Not a word about Israel’s economic blockade, which has inflicted so much misery on the people of Gaza for so many years. Israel has turned Gaza into what Noam Chomsky [4] (who just returned from the Strip) calls “the world's largest open-air prison,” where the only relief from suffering comes from materials brought (or smuggled) across the border from Egypt.
From the Israeli side, there is only a systematic plan “to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger," as one cynical Israeli official put it.
And that’s literally what the Israelis have done. Israel controls all the transport bringing food into Gaza, “an average of only 67 trucks -- much less than half of the minimum requirement [for basic nutrition],” according to Jonathan Cook [5], a journalist based in Israel, who notes that more than 400 trucks a day were coming in before the blockade began. The result is chronic malnutrition. According to Middle East scholar Juan Cole, over half of of schoolchildren and two-thirds of infants suffer from anemia.
Medicines and medical equipment are in terribly short supply too. People die for lack of treatment. They are not allowed to make the short trip to Israel, with its high-quality medical facilities. Hospitals cannot be built (or rebuilt, after the massive 2008 Israeli attack on Gaza) because building materials are systematically kept from entering Gaza, too.
So the Palestinian victims of a stream of Israeli air attacks -- targeted assassination efforts that too often strike innocent bystanders -- cannot get the treatment they need either.
In 1967 Israel justified its preemptive attack on Egypt by claiming that Egypt’s blockade of one Israeli port was an act of war. How much more, then, is Israel’s ongoing blockade of the whole Gaza Strip an act of war. If Gazans shoot rockets in return it’s a result, not a cause, of the conflict.
In fact, though, the Hamas government in Gaza has been remarkably restrained in its retaliation over the years. When Obama said “a genuine peace process starts with no more missiles being fired into Israel’s territory” he got it exactly backwards. It was Israel that destroyed the chances for peace once again with its assassination of Ahmed Al-Jabari, the leader of Hamas’ military wing, who had enforced previous cease-fires [6] and was central innegotiations for a new one [7] when he was killed.
Why Israel wants to kill chances for peace is a matter for debate. That Israel kills chances for peace -- by killing Palestinians -- just when it seems that a truce might be at hand [8], or when Hamas has already been strictly observing [9]a truce, is a matter of historical record, which Obama completely ignored.
Instead, he put all the blame on Palestinians and made it sound beyond question that the Israelis are the victims: “We are fully supportive of Israel’s right to defend itself from missiles. … We will continue to support Israel’s right to defend itself.
This is the old myth of Israel’s insecurity [10]: poor little Israel, just trying to defend itself against ferocious neighbors who constantly imperil its very existence. The story has been told so often now that most Americans really can’t see the conflict any other way.
Perhaps Obama is equally blind to the true facts and speaks out of naïve ignorance. Or perhaps he knows the truth and is intentionally trying to deceive us. Either way, the result is to perpetuate the suffering -- suffering that he could stop.
It was one final mendacious note when Obama pretended, at his press conference, that he could only sit around and wait to see how things work out: “We are actively working with all the parties in the region. … We’re going to have to see what kind of progress we can make in the next 24, 36, 48 hours.”
In fact “it is clear who is boss,” as the highly respected Israeli foreign policy analyst Anshel Pfeffer [11] recently wrote. Israelis know perfectly well [12] that if Washington says “no” and really means it, the government in Jerusalem must stop. But “so far,” Pfeffer notes, “there is a clear American green light for Israel's operation.”
The American public lets their president give Israel that green light because the public swallows the story told by the president and the press.
Obama did say one true thing: If peace can come “without a ramping up of military activity in Gaza, that is preferable, that's not just preferable for the people of Gaza, it's also preferable for Israelis because if Israeli troops are in Gaza they're much more at risk of incurring fatalities or being wounded." Both sides suffer from this Israeli-initiated violence, though the people of Gaza suffer by far the most.
Israel’s biggest newspaper reports that peace is possible [13]. Hamas asks only for an end to Israel’s illegal blockade and attacks on Gaza. But Israel is demanding that Hamas must promise to prevent all rocket fire from Gaza (even by the groups beyond Hamas’ control), while Israel retains the right to continue the economic blockade indefinitely.
That’s not change any reasonable person can believe in. Nor is the president’s portrayal of the conflict a picture that any reasonable person should believe in.

Jews would have to vacate Palestine.

In response to my post about the cruelties committed by the

zionist state of Israel against the people of Palestine, a reader

asks: What now? My answer is that the only just solution is for

the Jews to go back to the countries they came from. What

country would tolerate foreigners barging into their country

and setting up their own state there?! Mark my words, sooner

or later the Palestinians would get their country back.

The cruelties perpetrated by Israel.

by Noam Chomsky

Even a single night in jail is enough to give a taste of what it means to be under the total control of some external force.
And it hardly takes more than a day in Gaza to appreciate what it must be like to try to survive in the world’s largest open-air prison, where some 1.5 million people on a roughly 140-square-mile strip of land are subject to random terror and arbitrary punishment, with no purpose other than to humiliate and degrade.
Such cruelty is to ensure that Palestinian hopes for a decent future will be crushed, and that the overwhelming global support for a diplomatic settlement granting basic human rights will be nullified. The Israeli political leadership has dramatically illustrated this commitment in the past few days, warning that they will “go crazy” if Palestinian rights are given even limited recognition by the U.N.
This threat to “go crazy” (“nishtagea”) – that is, launch a tough response – is deeply rooted, stretching back to the Labor governments of the 1950s, along with the related “Samson Complex”: If crossed, we will bring down the Temple walls around us.
Thirty years ago, Israeli political leaders, including some noted hawks, submitted to Prime Minister Menachem Begin a shocking report on how settlers on the West Bank regularly committed “terrorist acts” against Arabs there, with total impunity.
Disgusted, the prominent military-political analyst Yoram Peri wrote that the Israeli army’s task, it seemed, was not to defend the state, but “to demolish the rights of innocent people just because they are Araboushim (a harsh racial epithet) living in territories that God promised to us.”
Gazans have been singled out for particularly cruel punishment. Thirty years ago, in his memoir “The Third Way,” Raja Shehadeh, a lawyer, described the hopeless task of trying to protect fundamental human rights within a legal system designed to ensure failure, and his personal experience as a Samid, “a steadfast one,” who watched his home turned into a prison by brutal occupiers and could do nothing but somehow “endure.”
Since then, the situation has become much worse. The Oslo Accords, celebrated with much pomp in 1993, determined that Gaza and the West Bank are a single territorial entity. By that time, the U.S. and Israel had already initiated their program to separate Gaza and the West Bank, so as to block a diplomatic settlement and punish the Araboushim in both territories.
Punishment of Gazans became still more severe in January 2006, when they committed a major crime: They voted the “wrong way” in the first free election in the Arab world, electing Hamas.
Displaying their “yearning for democracy,” the U.S. and Israel, backed by the timid European Union, immediately imposed a brutal siege, along with military attacks. The U.S. turned at once to its standard operating procedure when a disobedient population elects the wrong government: Prepare a military coup to restore order.
Gazans committed a still greater crime a year later by blocking the coup attempt, leading to a sharp escalation of the siege and attacks. These culminated in winter 2008-09, with Operation Cast Lead, one of the most cowardly and vicious exercises of military force in recent memory: A defenseless civilian population, trapped, was subjected to relentless attack by one of the world’s most advanced military systems, reliant on U.S. arms and protected by U.S. diplomacy.
Of course, there were pretexts – there always are. The usual one, trotted out when needed, is “security”: in this case, against homemade rockets from Gaza.
In 2008, a truce was established between Israel and Hamas. Not a single Hamas rocket was fired until Israel broke the truce under cover of the U.S. election on Nov. 4, invading Gaza for no good reason and killing half a dozen Hamas members.
The Israeli government was advised by its highest intelligence officials that the truce could be renewed by easing the criminal blockade and ending military attacks. But the government of Ehud Olmert – himself reputedly a dove – rejected these options, resorting to its huge advantage in violence: Operation Cast Lead.
The internationally respected Gazan human-rights advocate Raji Sourani analyzed the pattern of attack under Cast Lead. The bombing was concentrated in the north, targeting defenseless civilians in the most densely populated areas, with no possible military basis. The goal, Sourani suggests, may have been to drive the intimidated population to the south, near the Egyptian border. But the Samidin stayed put.
A further goal might have been to drive them beyond the border. From the earliest days of the Zionist colonization it was argued that Arabs have no real reason to be in Palestine: They can be just as happy somewhere else, and should leave – politely “transferred,” the doves suggested.
This is surely no small concern in Egypt, and perhaps a reason why Egypt doesn’t open the border freely to civilians or even to desperately needed supplies.
Sourani and other knowledgeable sources have observed that the discipline of the Samidin conceals a powder keg that might explode at any time, unexpectedly, like the first Intifada in Gaza in 1987, after years of repression.
A necessarily superficial impression after spending several days in Gaza is amazement, not only at Gazans’ ability to go on with life but also at the vibrancy and vitality among young people, particularly at the university, where I attended an international conference.
But one can detect signs that the pressure may become too hard to bear. Reports indicate that there is simmering frustration among young people – a recognition that under the U.S.-Israeli occupation the future holds nothing for them.
Gaza has the look of a Third World country, with pockets of wealth surrounded by hideous poverty. It is not, however, undeveloped. Rather it is “de-developed,” and very systematically so, to borrow the term from Sara Roy, the leading academic specialist on Gaza.
The Gaza Strip could have become a prosperous Mediterranean region, with rich agriculture and a flourishing fishing industry, marvelous beaches and, as discovered a decade ago, good prospects for extensive natural gas supplies within its territorial waters. By coincidence or not, that’s when Israel intensified its naval blockade. The favorable prospects were aborted in 1948, when the Strip had to absorb a flood of Palestinian refugees who fled in terror or were forcefully expelled from what became Israel – in some cases months after the formal cease-fire Israel’s 1967 conquests and their aftermath administered further blows, with terrible crimes continuing to the present day.
The signs are easy to see, even on a brief visit. Sitting in a hotel near the shore, one can hear the machine-gun fire of Israeli gunboats driving fishermen out of Gaza’s territorial waters and toward land, forcing them to fish in waters that are heavily polluted because of U.S.-Israeli refusal to allow reconstruction of the sewage and power systems they destroyed.
The Oslo Accords laid plans for two desalination plants, a necessity in this arid region. One, an advanced facility, was built: in Israel. The second one is in Khan Yunis, in the south of Gaza. The engineer in charge at Khan Yunis explained that this plant was designed so that it can’t use seawater, but must rely on underground water, a cheaper process that further degrades the meager aquifer, guaranteeing severe problems in the future.
The water supply is still severely limited. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which cares for refugees but not other Gazans, recently released a report warning that damage to the aquifer may soon become “irreversible,” and that without quick remedial action, Gaza may cease to be a “livable place” by 2020.
Israel permits concrete to enter for UNRWA projects, but not for Gazans engaged in the huge reconstruction efforts. The limited heavy equipment mostly lies idle, since Israel does not permit materials for repair.
All this is part of the general program that Dov Weisglass, an adviser to Prime Minister Olmert, described after Palestinians failed to follow orders in the 2006 elections: “The idea,” he said, “is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.”
Recently, after several years of effort, the Israeli human rights organization Gisha succeeded in obtaining a court order for the government to release its records detailing plans for the “diet.” Jonathan Cook, a journalist based in Israel, summarizes them: “Health officials provided calculations of the minimum number of calories needed by Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants to avoid malnutrition. Those figures were then translated into truckloads of food Israel was supposed to allow in each day ... an average of only 67 trucks – much less than half of the minimum requirement – entered Gaza daily. This compared to more than 400 trucks before the blockade began.”
The result of imposing the diet, Middle East scholar Juan Cole observes, is that “about 10 percent of Palestinian children in Gaza under age 5 have had their growth stunted by malnutrition. ... In addition, anemia is widespread, affecting over two-thirds of infants, 58.6 percent of schoolchildren, and over a third of pregnant mothers.”
Sourani, the human-rights advocate, observes that “what has to be kept in mind is that the occupation and the absolute closure is an ongoing attack on the human dignity of the people in Gaza in particular and all Palestinians generally. It is systematic degradation, humiliation, isolation and fragmentation of the Palestinian people.”
This conclusion has been confirmed by many other sources. In The Lancet, a leading medical journal, Rajaie Batniji, a visiting Stanford physician, describes Gaza as “something of a laboratory for observing an absence of dignity,” a condition that has “devastating” effects on physical, mental and social well-being.
“The constant surveillance from the sky, collective punishment through blockade and isolation, the intrusion into homes and communications, and restrictions on those trying to travel, or marry, or work make it difficult to live a dignified life in Gaza,” Batniji writes. The Araboushim must be taught not to raise their heads.
There were hopes that Mohammed Morsi’s new government in Egypt, which is less in thrall to Israel than the western-backed Hosni Mubarak dictatorship was, might open the Rafah Crossing, Gaza’s sole access to the outside that is not subject to direct Israeli control. There has been a slight opening, but not much.
The journalist Laila el-Haddad writes that the reopening under Morsi “is simply a return to status quo of years past: Only Palestinians carrying an Israeli-approved Gaza ID card can use Rafah Crossing.” This excludes a great many Palestinians, including el-Haddad’s own family, where only one spouse has a card.
Furthermore, she continues, “the crossing does not lead to the West Bank, nor does it allow for the passage of goods, which are restricted to the Israeli-controlled crossings and subject to prohibitions on construction materials and export.”
The restricted Rafah Crossing doesn’t change the fact that “Gaza remains under tight maritime and aerial siege, and continues to be closed off to the Palestinians’ cultural, economic and academic capitals in the rest of the (Israeli-occupied territories), in violation of U.S.-Israeli obligations under the Oslo Accords.”
The effects are painfully evident. The director of the Khan Yunis hospital, who is also chief of surgery, describes with anger and passion how even medicines are lacking, which leaves doctors helpless and patients in agony.
One young woman reports on her late father’s illness. Though he would have been proud that she was the first woman in the refugee camp to gain an advanced degree, she says, he ``passed away after six months of fighting cancer, aged 60 years.
``Israeli occupation denied him a permit to go to Israeli hospitals for treatment. I had to suspend my study, work and life and go to sit next to his bed. We all sat, including my brother the physician and my sister the pharmacist, all powerless and hopeless, watching his suffering. He died during the inhumane blockade of Gaza in summer 2006 with very little access to health service.
“I think feeling powerless and hopeless is the most killing feeling that a human can ever have. It kills the spirit and breaks the heart. You can fight occupation but you cannot fight your feeling of being powerless. You can’t even ever dissolve that feeling.”
A visitor to Gaza can’t help feeling disgust at the obscenity of the occupation, compounded with guilt, because it is within our power to bring the suffering to an end and allow the Samidin to enjoy the lives of peace and dignity that they deserve.

Beer may be good for your teeth.

Some time back I was on a visit to the Phillipines and after 

about 4 months there I went to a dentist to have my teeth 

cleaned. To my surprise he told me that my teeth were fine, 

that I had not developed any calculus or tartar. Now that 

country is very good if you like beer; the brew there is of very 

good quality (unlike in Thailand, for example) and cheap too. 

So I had found myself drinking the stuff almost daily. I did not 

suspect at the time that my clean teeth were in any way linked 

to my consumption of beer until I remembered a fellow in 

Denmark who had once told me that he never had tartar. That 

man was a huge fan of beer.

After many years I learn now, through the internet, that both 

wine and beer are rich in compounds with antibacterial activity 

and such activity had nothing to do with their alcohol content. 

Some crazy religious beliefs.

1.      The foreskin of [a holy one] may lie safeguarded in reliquaries made of gold and crystal and inlayed with gems--or it may have ascended into the heavens all by itself. (2 [3])

2.      A race of giants once roamed the earth, the result of women and demi-gods interbreeding. (1, 6). They lived at the same time as fire breathing dragons. (1 [4])

3.      Evil spirits can take control of pigs. (1 [5])

4.      A talking donkey scolded a prophet. (1, 3 [6])

5.      A righteous man can control his wife’s access to eternal paradise. (6 [7])

6.      Brown skin is a punishment for disobeying God. (6 [7])

7.      A prophet once traveled between two cities on a miniature flying horse with the face of a woman and the tail of a peacock. (4 [8])

8.      [The Holy One] forbids a cat or dog receiving a blood transfusion and forbids blood meal being used as garden fertilizer. (7 [9])

9.      Sacred underwear protects believers from spiritual contamination and, according to some adherents, from fire and speeding bullets (6 [10])

10.  When certain rites are performed beforehand, bread turns into human flesh after it is swallowed. (2 [11])

11.  Invisible supernatural beings reveal themselves in mundane objects like oozing paint or cooking food. (2 [12])

12.  In the end times, [the Holy One’s] chosen people will be gathered together in Jackson County, Missouri. (6 [7])

13.  Believers can drink poison or get bit by snakes without being harmed. (1 [13])

14.  Sprinkling water on a newborn, if done correctly, can keep the baby from eons of suffering should he or she die prematurely. (2 [14])

15.  Waving a chicken over your head can take away your sins. (3 [15])

16.  [A holy one] climbed a mountain and could see the whole earth from the mountain peak. (1, 2 [16])

17.  Putting a dirty milk glass and a plate from a roast beef sandwich in the same dishwasher can contaminate your soul. (3 [17])

18.  There will be an afterlife in which exactly 144,000 people get to live eternally in Paradise. (8 [18])

19.  Each human being contains many alien spirits that were trapped in volcanos by hydrogen bombs. (5 [19])

20.  [A supernatural being] cares tremendously what you do with your penis. 1,2,3,4,6,7,8.

Key:  1-Evangelical or “Bible Believing” Christianity, 2-Catholic Christianity, 3-Judaism, 4-Islam, 5-Scientology, 6-Mormonism 7-Christian Science 8-Jehovah’s Witness

A question that wasn't asked during the presidential debate in America.

Why does the US continue to support Israel when it costs its taxpayers so much to do so? The support for the Zionist state is huge, not just the 3 billion dollars or so that is commonly believed it receives every year. The total cost of supporting Israel is actually some six times that figure, according to well informed sources.

Of course such a question would never have been allowed, given that the Jews exercise such a stranglehold over America's foreign policy. 

Supporting Israel also means the Americans are complicit in the crimes commited by the Zionists against the Palestinians. 

It is to be hoped that the Arab Spring reaches the corrupt shores of states like Saudi Arabia. That would be the beginning of the end of American influence in the region and the final death knell of the occupiers of Palestine. 

The horrors of solitary confinement in New York.

By Laura Gottesdiener 

October 5, 2012  |  

The cells are the size of a parking space. In the corner is a toilet and a open steel shower stall that emits water for 15-minute periods three times a week. Through a small slot in one wall, guards slide trays of food for breakfast, lunch and dinner--if they feel like it. Sometimes the food comes covered in hair. Other days the food doesn’t come at all. The cell remains locked for 23 hours a day. During the final hour, a door slides open, allowing one to walk into a smaller outdoor kennel enclosed by concrete walls or metal grates. The pen is too small to do anything except pace back and forth, stare at the sky and listen to the din of other caged men railing against their confinement.

These cages are the homes of nearly 4,500 men across the state of New York who are currently living in solitary confinement. About half live in these isolation cells alone, deprived of human contact for months, if not years, on end. The other half live doubled-up in these parking space-sized cells with another man. They watch each other eat, sleep, defecate, shower and slowly lose their minds. During their stay in solitary confinement, the men have no access to job training, education, regular mental care, or even basic human interactions. Perhaps most frighteningly--both to the public and to many of the inmates themselves--is that 2,000 of these men in solitary confinement are released directly from extreme isolation onto the streets of New York every single year

Jews and America

Jewish Dominance Of
America - Facts Are Facts
By Jonathan Silverman
11-21-4

 

(Parts of this article are excerpted from one written by Erne Hume and first posted in 1999 before the Christian/Jewish Zionist Neocons took control of the base direction/decisions of the US government fronted by George W. Bush)   The USA in 1999 is under that same degree of Jewish domination that Weimar Germany was under in 1929.   Sir Arthur Bryant, a respected historian of the 1920s, wrote that although Jews comprised only 1% of the German population, in 1924 in the Reichstag they constituted a 25% of the Social Democrats.   Jews controlled 57% of the metal trade, 22% of grain, and 39% of textiles. More than 50% of the Berlin Chamber of Commerce were Jewish, as were a spectacular 1,200 of the 1,474 members of the German Stock Exchange.   Of the 29 legitimate theaters in Berlin, 23 had Jewish directors. Authorship was almost a Jewish monopoly. In 1931, of 144 film scripts worked, 119 were written by Jews and 77 produced by them.   Look at Hollywood in 1999. Jews totally dominate the film industry. Although most of the films are vulgar, violent trash, the industry falls all over itself giving each other awards for producing such. Propaganda and 'message' films flow out of Hollywood and across TV screens. (Read 'How The Jews Invented Hollywood' by Neal Gabler)   The news and communications industry is a Jewish kingdom. How many Jewish bylines do you come across? From the NY Times to your local paper, from NPR to radio talk show hosts, you are being 'informed' by a specific group of people American society.   The American financial industry is essentially a Jewish franchise. From the Federal Reserve to banks and mortgage and other financing industries, the ownership is most often Jewish.   And the professions are so dominated by Jews, it is shocking. Open the phone book Yellow Pages and read through the Physicians and Attorneys sections...and prepare to be stunned.   Did you know an Israeli company does the entire billing for most of America's cell and regular phone systems? The company has total knowledge of who you talk to and for how long - at least.   Did you know an Israeli company created and installed and maintains the absolutely HIGHEST level of secure communications in the Pentagon and White House? Do you think someone might have built in a monitoring system?   Also, do a Google search and try to find and read the Fox News 3-part series by Carl Cameron on Israeli spying in America.   Look around. The USA of today very closely mirrors the Germany of 1929.   Is there anything 'wrong' with this? Not in principle, no. All people are deserving of the rewards of the energy they invest in achievement. The problem is one of monopoly and the exclusion of non-Jews via the self-promotion which predominates in most of today's Jewish-controlled America. If a Jew is up for a job against a non-Jew, and the one doing the hiring is Jewish, guess who gets the job.   Since Jews stick together as a group, they pull and shove each other up the ranks of corporations and pull strings ensuring members of their race are given first shot at student openings in the major universities and top jobs throughout the areas of their dominance in every type of business imaginable.   Bryant also wrote that in 1929 Germany, in law and medicine, Jews were vastly over represented. In Berlin in 1931, 42% of the city's doctors and 48% of its lawyers were Jews.   The Jews in Weimar Germany used their propaganda levers to ridicule German ideals and culture. They even slandered the memory of the fallen German soldiers of that terrible war, World War One.   During the horror days of the great inflation, Jews by and large remained wealthy people and prospered at the losses of the masses. They took expensive vacations while ordinary Germans starved.   Today, Jews control vast areas of wealth in America. Estimates range all the way up to 70%. Whatever the figure, it is huge and immensely out of proportion to their 2% of the population in American society.   Today, in 1999, the U.S.A. is totally dominated by Jews. Virtually every newspaper or magazine is owned by Jews. Their self-serving propaganda constantly fills the TV screen. The Federal government is totally under Jewish control. US military forces are the pawn of Israel. The banks, the markets are theirs. They systematically denigrate our Founding Fathers and our heritage and our Constitution.   Certainly, many non-Zionist Jews of America are waking up to the political and other manipulations they and most Jews are being controlled and influenced by. There are many, many wonderful Jews in American society but the facts are the facts...and monopolies of any sort aren't healthy in any society. Such monopolies led to the terrible years just before and during during WWII. Let's pray that never, ever happens again. Let's also pray that non-Jews learn from their fellow citizens about how to achieve and to prosper in our waning American culture. Alas, most gentiles are content with their lower rungs on the ladder and that 'content' will forever doom them to second class status in today's Jewish America.

 

Removing crap ware from computer.

One needs to be very careful what one downloads from the 

internet, especially free antivirus software. The software might 

be good and recommended by experts such as those on sites 

like CNET but what we are not told is that vendors of these 

softwares are not all honest. I have downloaded from 

companies like Innovative Solutions, only to find later that I 

could not uninstall them. Recently I installed Avira Free 

Antivirus, unaware that they had bundled it with crapware from 

a company called Ask.com. I was never asked if I wanted this 

shit and there was no easy way to get rid of it and Avira 

offered no help either. Then I remembered that Windows had 

SAFE MODE. I went into that, found my way into C/Program 

Files and deleted everything from Ask.com, and used my 

Glary Utilities (a wonderful program) and uninstalled the 

unwanted softwares. 

Why no outrage over American support for Israel?

Just imagine if the riots now taking place in the Muslim world were not about a movie insult to their religion but about unquestioned western support for the Zionist state of Israel? There would be an earth shaking re-think among the Americans and the Europeans, leading to a long delayed justice for the Palestinians!

Why are the Muslims so cowed when it comes to the illegal occupation of Palestine by Jewish invaders? It seems to me that if Muhammad were alive today he would tell his followers to stop shouting for him and instead re-direct their energies towards the liberation of Palestine, a land he also considered holy for the Muslims.

Israel -- a land of criminals.

People should think twice before deciding to visit Israel. It is a very dangerous place indeed. And that's not just me saying it. Countries such as the US (despite its strong relationship with that Zionist state), Canada, Japan, Austria, Australia and Britain have all advised their citizens to exercise caution while there. They speak of a primitive, crime-ridden country full of bad drivers, religious extremists, poor public transport and bad drinking water. On arrival at the airport visitors are subjected to prolonged questioning and thorough searches, detained and even arrested on suspicion of security-related offences, their electronic equipment being confiscated without being returned.

Denmark is one of the best countries to work in.

(From alternet.com)

"... Less than 2% of its workforce work those extra-long hours, and it is closest to gender parity of any country. Each day, Danes are able to spend about two-thirds of their hours sleeping, eating, taking care of themselves and chilling out--not bad at all. In fact, it's alsonumber one in global happiness by some measures.

One British couple moved to Denmark to start a family, and found themselves astounded by the improved life they were leading:

 Since moving from Finsbury Park in London to Copenhagen three years ago with my husband Duncan, our quality of life has skyrocketed and our once staunch London loyalism has been replaced by an almost embarrassing enthusiasm for everything "Dansk."

The greatest change has been the shift in work-life balance. Whereas previously we might snatch dinner once Duncan escaped from work at around nine, he now leaves his desk at five. Work later than 5:30 and the office is a morgue. Work at the weekend and the Danes think you are mad. The idea is that families have time to play and eat together at the end of the day, every day. And it works. Duncan bathes and puts our 14-month-old daughter Liv to bed most nights. They are best buddies as opposed to strangers who try to reacquaint at the weekend."

8 Atheist and Agnostic Scientists Who Changed the World

This article is by Greta Christina 

August 17, 2012  |  

It's common knowledge -- or it should be -- that atheists are among the most reviled and mistrusted groups in America. We consistently come in at the bottom of polls about who Americans would vote for [3], who they would trust [4], who they want to marry into their families [5], who they thinkshares their view of how the world should be [5].
But it's also the case that non-believers -- not atheists as a group, but certain individual atheists and other non-believers -- are among our most respected and beloved heroes. Not everyone knows that these people aren't religious, of course... but they're not. And scientists are among the most admired of those heroes. Maybe it's because scientists are more likely to be non-believers [6] than the general population... and the more advanced in their field they are, the more true that becomes [7]. Or maybe it's because great scientists -- American or not -- embody the old-fashioned American values of exploration and curiosity, the willingness to question and the passion for truth, persistence in pursuing dreams and courage in the face of adversity. (These values aren't uniquely American, of course -- but when people gas on about the American character, these ideals do tend to turn up in the conversation.)
So here are eight non-believing or agnostic scientists, whose work and lives and stories can inspire anyone -- atheist, religious, or other.
1) Stephen Hawking. What can I say? Dude can think. Dude is revising the entire way we think of the universe. Dude is on the cutting edge of explaining why the universe even exists. And dude doesn't believe in a personal God. He has written an entire book, The Grand Design [8], explaining that God isn't necessary to explain the origins of the universe. Quote [9]: "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going." He has described the most important point [10] of his book as being "that science can explain the universe, and that we don't need God to explain why there is something rather than nothing or why the laws of nature are what they are." He has said [10] that, "The scientific account is complete. Theology is unnecessary." And he can be quite passionate on the subject: he's said [11] that belief in Heaven or an afterlife "is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark." And no, he's not inspiring because he's disabled, and disabled people are here on Earth to overcome adversity and be courageous and give inspiration to the rest of us. Fuck that noise. Yes, of course, overcoming adversity is awesome. But Hawking would be inspiring if he came up with his ideas while doing one-handed push-ups.
2) Alan Turing. He's been called the founder of computer science, and the founder of artificial intelligence. The fact that you're reading these words on a computer -- the fact that you can send email, text your loved ones in an emergency, do your banking in seconds instead of hours, use your phone to look up weird facts at bars, and have access to every other way that computers have radically shaped and improved our lives -- is something you owe, in large part, to Alan Turing. But even more inspiring is the work he did cracking German codes during World War II. The cryptanalysis of the Enigma machines used by the Axis was "decisive to the Allied victory" -- those are the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower. And Turing was one of the most brilliant and most central people responsible for it. Turing's story is actually pretty sad. Despite the years of devoted work he did for his country -- work that arguably saved his country -- Turing was prosecuted for homosexuality (a crime at the time in England). He was given a choice between prison and chemical castration; chose the latter; and committed (probable) suicide two years later. The way he was treated by his country was despicable and tragic. But his story is also inspiring. And it gives the lie to the ridiculous notion that, without belief in God, people would have no meaning to their lives, no basis for ethics, and no reason to care about anyone other than themselves. Turing was an atheist -- he let go of his religion as a teenager, when a close friend died of tuberculosis and he decided materialism made more sense than religion -- and he devoted years of his life to his country, and to halting the spread of fascism.
3) Rosalind Franklin. Rosalind Franklin's story is also a bit sad. A researcher in biophysics, her work was crucial in Watson and Crick's discovery of the DNA double helix structure. In fact, according to Francis Crick, her data was "the data we actually used" [12] to formulate their hypothesis about the structure of DNA. But her data was obtained under less than ideal circumstances [13], by Watson and Crick without her knowledge, and she died without ever being properly credited for the work she did. But she's an inspiration as well. I mean... DNA. Come on. It's one of the most fundamental ways we have of understanding ourselves and our place in the world. She made understanding it possible. And she did this at a time when it was exceedingly difficult for women to even get into science, much less do groundbreaking, earth-shaking, brain-rearranging work in it. And yes. Big old non-believer. From one of her letters [14]: "I agree that faith is essential to success in life ... but I do not accept your definition of faith, i.e. belief in life after death. In my view, all that is necessary for faith is the belief that by doing our best we shall come nearer to success and that success in our aims (the improvement of the lot of mankind, present and future) is worth attaining ... I maintain that faith in this world is perfectly possible without faith in another world."
4) Neil deGrasse Tyson. I was a little reluctant to include Tyson in this list. Tyson doesn't call himself an atheist [15], he calls himself an agnostic, since he associates the word "atheist" with "activist atheist," and generally resists being identified with the atheist movement or any other "ism." (For the record: I think his definition of atheism is inaccurate and overly narrow.) But this isn't a list of inspiring atheist scientists. It's a list of inspiring non-believing scientists. Tyson is definitely a non-believer. In fact, his agnosticism, as he describes it, is pretty much indistinguishable from most atheists' atheism. And he's definitely inspiring. The fact that he's director of the Hayden Planetarium -- and that this is among the least well-known of his accomplishments -- is a good sign of just how awesome he is. He may be the best science communicator of our generation. He is extraordinary at explaining science to non-scientists, in a way that isn't patronizing or dumbing-down. He makes science seem exciting, fun, important, moving, joyful. All of which it is. And he communicates this joy to millions.
5) Alfred Kinsey. In the face of vehement hostility and vilification -- including a congressional investigation that resulted in loss of funding for his research -- biologist Alfred Kinsey dedicated his life to a scientific, evidence-based understanding of human sexuality. With its frank discussion of the realities and prevalence of homosexuality, bisexuality, premarital sex, extramarital sex, masturbation and more, his research radically changed the way we understand and experience our sex lives. And it both broke the ground and laid the groundwork for every scientific study of human sexuality since. Kinsey's passionate pursuit of truth, even when it defied convention; his passionate commitment to the advancement of knowledge that could demolish toxic misinformation about sex; his passionate devotion to the promotion of human happiness in some of the most pragmatic, down-to-earth ways imaginable... this can inspire us all. 6) Eugenie Scott. This woman kicks ass and takes names. Specifically, she kicks the asses and takes the names of people who are trying to teach religious creationism in the public schools. An anthropologist by training and trade, since 1987 she has been executive director of the National Center for Science Education [16] -- the leading organization working to keep evolution and climate science in public school science education, and working to keep creationism and climate change denial out of it. If you have kids in the public schools, she has dedicated her life to ensuring they get an actual, evidence-based science education -- and to ensuring that their religious training is left up to you, and isn't in the hands of the government. Like Neil deGrasse Tyson Eugenie Scott doesn't call herself an atheist. Instead, she calls herself a non-theist and humanist [17], and has said [17], "I believe there is nothing beyond matter and energy." That's plenty good enough for this list. Another non-believer who works like crazy to make this world a better place -- and who can inspire anyone to do the same.
7) Andrei Sakharov. Sakharov was a Soviet nuclear physicist, and was one of the developers of the Soviet atomic bomb. I know. Less than inspiring. But he is far better known as a Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights activist, free speech advocate, courageous dissident against Soviet repression, and tireless opponent of human rights violations everywhere. As a result of his writing and activism, he was stripped of his job, publicly denounced by the government, robbed of manuscripts by the KGB, arrested, internally exiled to Gorky, and force-fed during a hunger strike. He continued with his activism nonetheless... literally until the day he died [18]. And... oh, yeah. Atheist [19].  The child of a pious mother and a passionately atheist father, Sakharov became an atheist at age 14, and remained one for the rest of his life. In 1988 he was given the International Humanist Award by the International Humanist and Ethical Union.
8) Thomas Edison. Betcha didn't know this one was an non-believer! Well, he was. Quote [20]: "I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God." Quote [20]: "So far as religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake... Religion is all bunk." Quote [21]: "I cannot believe in the immortality of the soul....I am an aggregate of cells, as, for instance, New York City is an aggregate of individuals. Will New York City go to heaven?....No; nature made us -- nature did it all -- not the gods of the religions." I assume I don't have to explain why Thomas Edison is inspiring. So the next time someone tells you atheists have no morality... tell them about Andrei Sakharov. The next time someone tells you atheists have no meaning in their lives... tell them about Stephen Hawking. The next time someone tells you atheists don't care about anyone but themselves... tell them about Eugenie Scott. and Alfred Kinsey. The next time someone tells you atheists have no reason to work for the greater good... tell them about Alan Turing and Neil deGrasse Tyson. The next time someone tells you atheists can't change the world for the better... tell them about Rosalind Franklin and Thomas Edison. Atheists aren't just your neighbors and colleagues. We're not just your friends and family. Atheists are your heroes. And whether you're religious or not, atheists can inspire anyone.

The American race for the White House -- a contest between two frauds.

Who do you think is the better guy? Obama or Romney? I say neither. People who are really suitable for the post have no chance of being elected because they haven't got the money. In that country an election is a rich man's game and the poor are left helpless, wondering what the hell is going on around them. If a monkey were put up as a candidate, the American public would in frustration probably vote for the monkey, which would be very appropriate indeed since the White House has long had a reputation for monkey business.

GOING BACK IN TIME.

GOING BACK IN TIME.

Suppose it were possible to go back in time and peer into the 
lives of historical figures such as Jesus, Muhammad, Moses, 
and the Buddha? I bet we would get a few shocks that would 
turn our lives upside down. We would very likely see these 
saintly characters behaving in not so saintly ways. Jesus 
perhaps engaging in homosexual activities, Muhammad 
copulating with one female after another regardless of their 
age, Moses perhaps being cruel and revengeful and the Buddha perhaps falling out with his family and disappearing into the forest to live with animals.

The point I am trying to make is that we cannot be absolutely sure that what we believe is actually the truth.

The problems with drinking milk.

When I drink milk I get dandruff and earwax and have to pee

more often than usual. I learn from others on the net and

elsewhere that there are a host of other medical conditions

associated with milk drinking -- such as heartburn, migraines,

irritable bowel syndrome, colitis, eczema, acne, hives,

asthma, gall bladder issues, body aches, ear infections, colic,

"seasonal allergies," rhinitis, chronic sinus infections, etc.

So, guys, before rushing to the doctor try staying away from

dairy for a while and see if your health is restored.

How Food Affects Your Libido

Are These Foods Helping or Hindering Your Love Life?

By Jaime A. Heidel

Takeaways

• Soy is a mood-killer for men.
• Fast food should be avoided by both sexes.
• Dark chocolate is a potent aphrodisiac.

Sexual arousal is a natural, healthy part of human life. Sometimes, we're just not in the mood to be intimate. However, if lack of interest is more the rule than the exception for you, it might be time to investigate the cause of a dampened libido.

Depression, certain medications, age and health all have an effect on the desire for sex. So can food. In this article, we will take a look at how certain foods decrease sexual desire and how others can put you in the mood.

Mood-Killing Foods

Soy

Soy is of the most potent libido killers in men. Though men naturally have some of the female hormone, estrogen, eating soy can raise this level too high and dramatically decrease sex drive.

There are two natural drugs found in soy that cause this to happen. They are genistein and daidzein. In addition to lack of libido, men who consume soy on a regular basis may notice breast enlargement, decreased facial and body hair growth, bouts of crying and erectile dysfunction.

Vegetarian men are not the only ones affected. Bodybuilders and athletes who use protein shakes and bars would do well to read the label on their products to see if they contain soy.

Fast Food/Fried Food

Those who regularly eat fast food and fried food are at an increased risk of depression and, as most know, depression and lack of sex drive go hand-in-hand. Also, fast food is chock full of unhealthy trans fat, which has been linked to reduced testosterone levels and arteriosclerosis. Arteriosclerosis is a hardening of the arteries that prevents adequate blood flow to the sexual organs, leading to diminished responsiveness.

Alcohol

Although alcohol is commonly blamed for casual sexual encounters, it is not because polishing off an entire bottle of wine or six pack of beer puts you in the mood. It's just lowering your inhibitions. Excessive alcohol consumption decreases circulation, which can affect both male and female sexual responsiveness. Also, becoming drunk may bring on nausea and the sex you do have won't be very enjoyable anyway. Limit your alcohol intake to one or two drinks. It will be enough to help you relax without killing the mood.

Mood-Enhancing Foods

Dark Chocolate

There are two chemical compounds in dark chocolate that make this food a potent aphrodisiac: anandamide and phenylethylamine. These compounds cause the body to release the same endorphins triggered by sex and physical activity. Also, dark chocolate is said to be the only food that, when eaten, makes people feel as though they are "falling in love".

Sirloin Steak

Our brains contain a chemical called acetylcholine, which is responsible for sending sexual signals from our brains to our sex organs. A six-ounce serloin steak contains about 60-140 mg of a compound called "choline", which can help boost this natural chemical and stimulate sex drive. When choosing meat, opt for organic. Commercial meat is filled with growth hormones and antibiotics that can have the exact opposite effect on your sex life and health.

Blueberries

Blueberries are a magical little fruit. Not only are they rich in fiber but they help lower cholesterol and increase blood flow and circulation by relaxing necessary blood vessels. Have a serving of this fruit three times per week for best results.

If you're having less sexual desire than you'd like to have, take a closer look at what you're eating. Having a healthy, well-balanced body and mind is the first step to a satisfying sex life!