terrorism – Page 5 – Shortwoman.com

Survival of the Shorties

Just so you know up front: I’m not big on April Fools jokes. The only thing I ever did was send a new maintenance guy to fix a toilet in a non-existent apartment. My boss was more amused by it than I was. Anyways, on to the Shorties!

Unemployment is Certainly No Joke: It’s high. There’s no sign that it will get better soon. We’re still losing jobs in this economy, and Spring Semester doesn’t end that long off now. Tim Geithner calls it “unacceptable” but hasn’t really offered a plan on what to do about it. Well then, as long as he’s clear on that! Perhaps we could have some sort of, I dunno, public job creation plan? Well, here’s an “ugly truth” about how you can buff your resume.

Something Approaching Justice: The terrorist who killed a doctor in the middle of a church because he happened to perform a medical procedure he didn’t like (and couldn’t have in any event) has been sentenced to life in prison. The soonest he could possibly get parole is 50 years.

Something Light: Barack Obama Looking at Awesome Things.

Doing Something: It’s better than doing nothing. School tries new ways of stopping bullies that don’t involve platitudes to the victims.

Maybe Doing Nothing Would Be Better?: A doctor talks about unnecessary tests. No, not because a doctor is covering his ass.

Something to do when you grow up: Perhaps something that begins with a K.

Something Old: a little history lesson regarding our nation’s banking issues.

Something Serious: It’s Autism Awareness Month.

Something you probably already suspected: Asset Forfeiture Laws can be horribly abused.

Something that will either horrify or amuse you: Scarface, as performed by pre-schoolers. Come on, it’s only 2 minutes and 11 seconds!

And finally, Something I Totally Do Not Need!: Hello Kitty Message Watches. Price, $620-800.

Thankfully, Murder Will Not Be Tolerated

Today, the terrorist who killed Dr. George Tiller was convicted of murder and assault. It took the jury 37 minutes to come to a verdict. The soonest he could possibly see parole is in 25 years — and given his age, it’s entirely possible he won’t be alive then. Thankfully, the judge did not allow this trial to become a circus, did not allow abortion to become a central issue, and did not allow the defense to argue voluntary manslaughter, because Dr. Tiller never posed any sort of threat whatsoever — not even an imaginary threat — to the defendant. It’s hard to argue that the someone you admit you’ve been stalking for 10 years posed a danger to you.

I will not glorify the terrorist by naming him. Let him die forgotten.

Now if we can only do something about the thousands of other people so mentally ill that they think murder for God is acceptable.

In Closing: we had positive GDP growth last quarter, but you’d never know it to look at reality (more evidence that the way it is currently measured is flawed); David Sirota on Disaster Porn; must read item on jobs and economic justice; now Ezra Klein says Rahm Emanuel makes him very pessimistic about health care reform! Gee, really Ezra? Rahm made me pessimistic a good solid year ago. Sometimes wonks can be insightful, but sometimes they can be nearsighted.

No Russian

Some of you may recognize that as the title of a controversial level of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, in which a group of Russian ultra-nationalist terrorists shoot up unarmed civilians in an airport terminal while pretending to be Americans in a bid to start a war. I thought about calling this post “No Terrorism” but decided that the meta-reference was a bit too obscure.

see more Epic Fails

A lot of people talk about stopping terror attacks no matter how rare they may be, preventing terrorists from having access to things with which they could hurt innocent people, and whatnot. What we do not have the stomach to talk about is preventing people from thinking terrorism is a good idea. In short, we don’t look at what causes terrorism.

Consider a place where there has been a catastrophe. It doesn’t matter right now what caused the catastrophe, only that the people are in dire conditions which continue to deteriorate for a whole year. Only 3% of factories still function, which means that unemployment is over 40%. A large portion of the residents have no electricity and no running water. The sewage plant doesn’t work. People have resorted to building homes — such as they are — with mud. International donors from all over the world have pledged thousands of millions of dollars to help rebuild the region, and sent such diverse supplies as building materials, medicines, textbooks for destroyed schools, and even food for the people who live there.

However, due to political problems, very little of this aid is reaching the people who need it. Nor is the problem related to bribes, kickbacks, or some other form of corruption as is common in so many parts of the world; unfortunately there is every indication that the intent is to prevent the region from rebuilding, by “imposing Kafkaesque rules that bar entry to vital reconstruction materials and items as bizarre as glass, most schoolbooks, honey and family-sized tubs of margarine.”

The troubled region I describe is Gaza. And the oppressive regime preventing a rebuilding effort is the United States’ staunch ally, Israel. It should be obvious to anybody with a functioning brain cell that, in the words of a UN official, “Palestinians are becoming more desperate and more extreme.” I challenge anyone to avoid becoming more desperate and extreme under such circumstances. Such things are the root cause of terrorism; when there is no non-violent way to change things, violent ways invariably arise. Just ask the Iranians about that.

There are those who will disagree with me, including all those who feel Israel can do no wrong, and those who consider the Bible infallible. If the Israelis are trying to finish the genocide laid out in Deuteronomy 20, let them be honest about it.

In Closing: Reproductive rights are human rights (and not incidentally, the most effective way to fight poverty world wide); two programs that teach kids to read and read well; obligatory health insurance reform items; a word about why your city is scaling back services; corporate control of food; “Centrist” Democrats eying retirement?; a practical joke for the FPS player in your life; JurassikPork gets even more cynical (and we love him for it); the role of innumeracy in our banking and foreclosure crises; the decade in food, and the decade in buzzwords.