It’s going to be an exciting couple of months for comet-watchers. Comet ISON is approaching the sun and, if it survives, it may create quite a show as it boomerangs back around toward us. Then, in January, Comet Siding Spring is going to come so close to Mars that the Martian environment will be enveloped in its tail. I’m glad that that is happening there, and not here.
Apparently, Sultan Qaboos bin Said, the monarch of Oman, played a a key role in the U.S.-Iran negotiations. He travels with his own orchestra.
A loya jirga in Afghanistan has approved a Bilateral Security Agreement with the United States and urged President Hamid Karzai to sign it. The Taliban referred to the agreement as “slavery.”
I don’t understand the point of rooting for the N.Y. Jets.
It looks like a winter storm is going to disrupt people’s travel plans on the East Coast.
When it comes to Iran, I feel like Benjamin Netanyahu is the boy who cried wolf. He keeps yelling “danger, danger,” but fewer and fewer people take him seriously. Frankly, I think all the hyperventilating might really about something else entirely.
How do you arrest a man 62 times for trespassing at his place of work? That’s messed up.
A philosophical question: if Al Sharpton says something that doesn’t fit the right-wing narrative, does it make a sound?
What’s on your mind today?
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“Sign or we will stop occupying your country!” Doesn’t seem to be much incentive there. It’s like a home invader saying, “Open the safe or I’ll leave!”
I’m a lifelong Chicago Cubs fan….wrong person to ask.
I’m taking an interest in following the results of the Jets games in order to follow the statistical lowlights of the current favorite for the title “Worst Starting Quaterback in the NFL”. Now that Jacksonville’s Blaine Gabbert is out, the Jets’ Geno Smith has really stepped up his fascinatingly horrible play.
I can’t decide if Netanyahu is more like the boy who cried wolf or chicken little of the sky is falling fame.
I think Bibi’s biggest problem with Iran is the fact that Iran has not recognized that Israel has a right to exist. Bibi believes that you cannot negotiate with Iran until they first recognize Israel’s right to exist. However, it seems the rest of the world thinks the more pressing issue is to control what Iran does with nuclear material. No one want to see any of it end up on the subway in Moscow, London, or Chicago because Israel and Iran aren’t friends.
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Neither of those assertions is true. Iran does recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the 1967 borders. And Iran is not engaged in terrorist activity. Hezbollah in Lebanon functions as a militia that guards southern Lebanon.
Iran is critical of Israel’s treatment of its occupied territories and sees Israel threatening to strike its military facilities within Iran.
Bibi’s problem is with distracting from the rapidly closing apartheid state in Israel. Iran within the inspection regime of the IAEA means that the only nation outside compliance with the non-proliferation treaty would be Israel, which has not even bothered to sign it.
Bibi is afraid of the political focus and pressure on Israel to limit and control Israel’s nuclear weapons.
The “Israel’s right to exist” language is what Israel has used for decades to avoid negotiation with its neighbors. That is not the fundamental issue between Israel and its neighbors; the fundamental issue is Israel’s treatment of Palestinians within Israel and within the occupied territories (or as Israel Likud puts it, “Greater Israel”).
Can we take the moral high ground while we occupy California, Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico? Not to mention Hawaii.
What Bibi really believes is that in a peaceful, post-conflict Israel, there is no place for somebody like him and his friends.
Fortunately for him, he has a great American accent, so he can just move here and become a teabagger (though he might have to change religions).
I have Cruz on my fantasy team. You guys have to beat Dallas and start throwing to him.
The Miami Herald story about that convenience store clerk arrested 62 times at his store is one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever heard. It’s hard to decide which part of the story is worst. The ones that come to mind:
Well past time for the DOJ to step in?
Kudos to that owner for speaking out and not just pretending it’s not his problem.
It sounds like that particular business is being targeted. Can they file a complaint with the DOJ?
I certainly hope so. The owner asked for the store to be taken off a group of businesses which had been cooperating with a Zero-Tolerance Policy crime program, and took the Policy sign down from the window. The police put the sign back up and stepped up their intimidation tactics.
Read how they’re treating the store owner when he’s driving in town:
“In December, Saleh was followed out of his parking lot by a Miami Gardens police officer, who stopped him after a few blocks. The officer, Carlos Velez, said he stopped Saleh because his tag light was out.
Two other squad cars arrived at the scene, bringing the total number of officers on the scene to six. A police dashboard camera captured it all.
“I thought, you know, there is a lot of serious crime in Miami Gardens,” Saleh said. “Why do they need six police officers on a car stop with a burned-out tag light?”
Another officer, Eddo Trimino, approached Saleh’s passenger side, opened the door and removed a gun that was in a bag containing the store’s money, Saleh said. They ran a check on the gun, which Saleh was licensed to carry.
They cited him for having a bad tag light, tinted windows and bald tires.
Before leaving, the unit’s then-sergeant, Martin Santiago, allegedly told Saleh:
“I’m going to get you mother-f—–,”
The next day, Saleh viewed video of his truck as it pulled out of the parking lot the night before.
His tag light was working.”
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/11/21/v-fullstory/3769823/in-miami-gardens-store-video-catches.html#
storylink=cpy
Jesus.
Very nice…
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