Anything that’s mobile, that moves in the zone, even if it’s a three year old, needs to be killed

From the Guardian: “An Israeli army officer who repeatedly shot a 13-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza dismissed a warning from another soldier that she was a child by saying he would have killed her even if she was three years old.” He is charged with conduct unbecoming an officer and illegal use of his weapon, i.e., emptying a 10-round magazine into her. When this incident happened, the Israeli military claimed that her book bag was mistaken for a bomb. In fact, the tapes show they thought no such thing, knew she was a little girl (they thought even younger), who was heading away from, not towards the army post. The officer who went to check on her reported back “I confirmed the kill,” meaning not that he checked her pulse, but that he shot her ten times, adding “Anything that’s mobile, that moves in the zone, even if it’s a three-year-old, needs to be killed. Over.” Over, indeed.

Gearing up for a probable spring general election on the slogan: “Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid,” Tony Blair announced his program in today’s Queen’s Speech: authoritarianism, authoritarianism, authoritarianism. Compulsory identity cards, compulsory drug testing of arrestees, with prosecutions for “possession” for those with drugs in their bloodstream, trials without juries for alleged terrorists, a British FBI. The only thing they’ve left out--so far--is color-coded alert levels. They think that “Middle England,” like “Middle America” and “Middle Earth,” just want security, and believe that if a terrorist tries to shoot them, the bullet will bounce off their ID cards. And just to ramp it up a little, “someone” leaked a story, almost certainly untrue, that the gov stopped Al Qaida flying planes into London skyscrapers a while back.

Various municipal and regional governments in Ukraine are lining up behind one or the other of the two Mr Y’s. Doesn’t look good. The US has finally decided to pick a side, warning the Ukrainian government not to certify the elections until investigations of the massive voter fraud, and warning the government “not to use or incite violence, and to allow free media to report accurately on the situation without intimidation or coercion.” Would have been nice if they’d said anything about violence, fraud and free media before and during the elections. Now, it’s a little late. This is the problem with being the sponsor of unfree elections in Afghanistan and Iraq: we have set the bar for “democratic elections” so low that we are not credible advocates of democracy in places like Ukraine. (Good set of Ukraine photos here.)

Russia has made particularly strong statements against American and European “interference” in the elections, although Putin himself went to campaign for Yanukovych. Mr Y and the other Mr Y are being described as pro-Russian and pro-Western, as if the Cold War had revived, stripped of any ideology, centered on power and trade and nothing more.

An online casino bought a 10-year old grilled cheese sandwich with an image of the Virgin Mary for only $28,000, with no mold, proving its divine nature, and a bite taken out of it, proving that the Virgin Mary is delicious.