The vessel left Ireland carrying 550 tons of cement, educational materials, toys and medical equipment - the latest effort by peace activists to deliver food and break Israel's blockade of Gaza.

http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/02/new-aid-ship-heads-for-gaza-days-after-flotilla-raid/

I especially love the fact that it's named Rachel Corrie, a name that makes most Israeli and neocon heads explode.

This incident is going to truly test our "special relationship" with Israel and with the rest of the world. Turkey and Ireland have vowed that if Israel kills any of its citizens it will face "serious consequences." Unlike the U.S., where we do squat-all when Israel murders U.S. citizen and where, as per usual, the members of both parties outdid themselves in obsequiousness to our little psychopathic child in the Mideast:

American lawmakers in both parties today expressed support for Israel in the wake of growing international condemnation of the country following its deadly raid on a flotilla of aid ships bound for the Gaza Strip.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20006501-503544.html

But of course! Hey, we've looked the other way since the Liberty bombing, why would we stop now? Unfortunately for us, the rest of the world is fed up with having Israel and with our support of it, and we're not big enough to bully them around like we used to.

The Prime Minister of Turkey called for an emergency NATO meeting. We are bound by NATO treaty obligations to respond in force to any attack on members' ships in international waters. What will we do now--withdraw from NATO to make Israel happy?

PITTSBURGH -- President Barack Obama pressed Congress to scrap billions in oil company tax breaks and pass legislation to help the nation kick a dangerous "fossil fuel addiction" Wednesday, trying to channel disgust over the worsening oil disaster into a force for clean energy.

Seeking opportunity in a crisis, Obama argued for action in Congress as crews struggled into a seventh week to contain BP's mangled oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. He urged lawmakers to shift the tax-break money toward clean-energy research and approve a major energy bill, now stalled in the Senate, that would slap a price on carbon emissions.

"Our continued dependence on fossil fuels will jeopardize our national security," he declared. "It will smother our planet. And it will continue to put our economy and our environment at risk."

"If we refuse to take into account the full cost of our fossil fuel addiction -- if we don't factor in the environmental costs and national security costs and true economic costs -- we will have missed our best chance to seize a clean energy future," he said.

Obama faces serious difficulties in pushing for the bill he wants -- a shrinking legislative window in a divisive election year, the distracting nature of the oil spill crisis itself and the contentious idea of putting a price on carbon pollution.

link

I have been absent a while due to another battle with cancer.

This was/is my 4th time going under the knife to remove a rare form of germ cell cancer.   In 1997 @ 23 I was diagnosed with germ cell cancer and had a 12 pound tumor removed from my chest along with 4 rounds of chemotherapy.   I was lucky to survive that and then had 2 follow-up treatments for this disease in 2000 and 2003 which involved large surgeries and no chemo.  After almost 7 years of being cancer free my wife and i (who has been there with me since 1997) where shocked to find out a few weeks ago that I had developed another tumor in my T-10 vertebrae.   This type of germ cell is a rare form of testicular cancer that you are born with and my type always develops in the thoracic region or chest.

So once again I went under the knife and had the tumor removed along with the vertebrae and am now home recovering.

I hope to be back to normal in 6-8 weeks so I warn you I have a little more free time on my hands and you may see some more of my right wing/libertarian comments (drug enhanced) in the coming weeks.  

I want you all to know that I have really enjoyed the opinions and debate that this wonderful site (thanks jeralyn & BTD) has enabled me to experience since I first started logging on in 2000.  I really appreciate the opinions of my fellow TL bloggers and I look forward to reading your opinions, disagreeing, agreeing and commenting as I recover.

take care,

"The real question is: "Is the blockade itself lawful?'" says Douglas Guilfoyle, a specialist in international and maritime law at King's College London. "Everything else turns on that."

Mr. Guilfoyle says that under the international Law of Armed Conflict a state that has legally established a blockade can enforce it by boarding vessels in international waters that it reasonably expects might breach the blockade.

But a blockade itself is illegal, he says, "if it will cause excessive damage to the civilian population in relation to the military advantage gained... so therefore intercepting a vessel on the high seas to support or enforce the blockade would not be lawful."....

Israel already faces legal action at home. A group of Israeli lawyers petitioned Israel's high court hours after the operation, calling it "an act of piracy" involving hijacking, robbery, wrongful arrest, and kidnapping.

According to the linked article, the head of the CSI in Nebraska's largest county planted a speck of blood which was enough to keep two innocent people incarcerated for shotgunning a couple of other people to death.  Only after two other people confessed to the crime were the innocents freed.  The CSI guy will spend some time in prison;  he could not afford an appeal bond.

I just saw a video showing soldiers being attacked by "peace activists" with iron bar as the rappelled down from the 'copter and onto the deck.

A young Dutchman previously arrested in the 2005 disappearance of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway is the prime suspect in a weekend murder of a Peruvian woman, police said Wednesday.

Joran van der Sloot is being sought in the Sunday killing of 21-year-old Stephany Flores in a Lima hotel, Criminal police chief Gen. Cesar Guardia told a news conference. He said the suspect fled the country the next day by land to Chile.

The Dutch government said Interpol has issued an international arrest warrant for Van der Sloot.

just like be a barefoot kid in arkansas.