I am so jealous of the people at the Nov 5 Daily Show taping I don't even oh my God that impression no one is allowed to say Jon Stewart can't act ever again.

Jon Stewart's comedy news show The Daily Show is reportedly under fire from pro-Israeli groups for giving airtime to two pro-Palestinian figures on Wednesday night...

According to a letter reportedly written by Baltzer and circulated by blogger Eric Johnson, the show "was overwhelmed with angry emails and phone calls prior to the appearance, and up until the last minute it seemed like they might cancel..."

At one point during the interview, Barghouti asserted: "We [Palestinians] are struggling for liberty, we are struggling for justice. It's Palestinians who have been subjected to the longest occupation in history and a system of segregation that is totally unjust."

At that point, a voice in the audience could be heard shouting: "Liar!"

"Apparently we have Joe Wilson with us tonight," Stewart quipped, referring the US House representative who yelled "You lie!" during President Obama's address to Congress last month....

"Jon Stewart [had] a couple of disgraceful guests on his show on Wednesday night for a night of Israel bashing," wrote blogger Israel Matzav. "No, there's no pro-Israel counterpoint (perhaps he will try to convince us that ISM activist Baltzer - who is Jewish - is meant to provide balance)...."

TalkingPointsMemo blogger M.J. Rosenberg credits Stewart with starting a "sea change" in American media's coverage of the Middle Eastern conflict... "Not long ago, no mainstream media personality would ever allow himself to be associated with anyone who suggests that diplomacy, not war, is the way to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Being thought of as not 100% down with the government of Israel was a career killer. And, if it wasn't, media and show business figures believed it was and that was the same thing. That era ended with the rise of Jon Stewart, the most trusted television personality in America (and the only one the kids pay attention to). Stewart is the antithesis of the scared Jew.

Hey, hey guys. Guys.

This is why Jon Stewart is the most trusted name in news. I mean seriously.

First off. They were advocating peace and diplomacy. Peace and diplomacy = good the end.

Second. Bad journalism is indeed not giving both sides of the story EXCEPT OH HAY COMEDY SHOW NOT ACTUAL NEWS but since people insist on considering him an actual journalist then sure, he should give both sides. I'd also be angry if he were leaving out a rarely-heard viewpoint - oh wait, his guests were giving a rarely-heard viewpoint that night. Like the guy from TPM, seriously since when do you hear the Palestinian side except on Al-Jazeera?

I mean, yes, Hamas is fighting dirty, and yes, they have rejected proposed peace deals, but Hamas is also against a much, much stronger army and of course aren't going to fight in the open because then they'd get killed and then who'd protect their families, and of course they rejected those peace deals because why would someone accept a deal that wouldn't actually help them?

The problem is Palestine but the problem is also Israel. Because, y'know, it was Israel that forced the Palestinians out of their homes without even trying to negotiate some sort of shared deal even though the Palestinians also have a legitimate historical and cultural claim to the land. And it's Israel that refuses to do things like allow supplies over the border that could clean up the crazy "sewage tsunamis" that literally drown villages in trash because of all the rockets some of which are by the way constructed from the broken sewage pipes that caused the inundation in the first place.

Israel has a valid claim to the land. So does Palestine. Palestine is doing horrible stuff. So is Israel. An alliance with the United States is not a free pass to do whatever you want. If anything, an alliance with the United States should stop you from doing terrible things because seriously we talk so much about being morally superior and the leader in human rights and promotion of freedom and democracy, but you know what? If we let our allies do whatever they want regardless of the moral implications because it benefits us, who is going to listen us when we tell them to stop doing whatever they want because it benefits them?

Seriously, America. This isn't very hard. You want to be a moral leader? Start acting like one and make tough decisions. If an ally is doing something bad, stop them. Because if you can't get an ally to stop doing something bad, you're sure not going to be able to get an enemy to.

sauce via ontd_political

Other recommended articles on TIME.com include "Studies show water is wet," "New memoir brings shocking revelation: The Pope is Catholic."

My LiveJournal Trick-or-Treat Haul
rii-namuras goes trick-or-treating, dressed up as a taco.
ahoushi tricks you! You get an eraser.
albel tricks you! You get a 3.5-inch floppy disc.
decadentheaven gives you 1 teal grapefruit-flavoured pieces of chewing gum.
kanae_harlenn gives you 9 light orange cherry-flavoured pieces of taffy.
mcollinknight gives you 11 light orange mint-flavoured pieces of chewing gum.
noelleno gives you 10 white grape-flavoured nuggets.
pompi gives you 12 purple orange-flavoured gummy bats.
repmetsyrrah tricks you! You get a clothespin.
sougo tricks you! You lose 28 pieces of candy!
zestylime tricks you! You get an eraser.
rii-namuras ends up with 15 pieces of candy, an eraser, a 3.5-inch floppy disc, a clothespin, and an eraser.
Go trick-or-treating! Username:
Another fun meme brought to you by rfreebern.

CURSE YOU DEBS. ::shakes fist::

and is it horrible i don't mind being tricked and given erasers?

edit oh yeah happy birthday cygnet_rai!

My first Daily NaNo Warm-up. This particular one won't be filtered because I think I have only one person on my NaNo filter! But I'm going to filter the ones after this, as well as any planning and once NaNo starts the novel itself, so if you want on the filter comment here.

Anyway this actually takes place in my story-universe [urban fantasy set in Hong Kong], and the characters in or mentioned [aside from the student] are actually Seraff, Forsythe, and Eremyn, just with different names because they're undercover. James if Forsythe, Eremyn is Erin, and I just refer to Seraff as "Boss" [they usually call her "Director" in their world but that doesn't really work for the owner of a bookstore] because I haven't picked a name for her yet.

( James sighed and put the book down. )

Remember those two art pieces I finished last week and promised to post the next day? You can see them either at my website, deviantART here and here, or RedBubble [individual links aren't working, so that just goes to my gallery]

Current WIPs are the Seraff painting and two other notebook ones like the two above, one of a random kid and another of Seraff's brother Will [who doesn't live in Eramaire and thus doesn't have an Eraminian name like Seraff, if you were wondering].

All these fraught questions now arise because Apotex, the Canadian generic drug giant, has sent its final shipment of inexpensive AIDS medication to Africa. The company says that the five-year-old federal legislation meant to facilitate this process is impossible to work with, and the Harper government refuses to fix it.

But the legislation has proved so cumbersome that neither Apotex nor any other generic drug maker is prepared to participate any longer. Yet the Conservatives insist the program is working. They have rejected expert advice on how to simplify the legislation. So there will be no more Canadian shipments. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Africans may die.

Just. What. I MEAN JUST FIX THE LAW SERIOUSLY. Other governments why are you being stupid you're supposed to be an example now that America's starting to get really rather crazy. Have your conservatives been listening to our conservatives or something? Because they really shouldn't do that. I know we're just next door but seriously resist the madness. I mean at least find the quiet-but-rational ones instead of the screaming crazies.

SO. AS COLLINE AND I HAVE BEEN SAYING, REVENGE! Because clearly the rage must go somewhere! I'm American and not conservative so I guess they won't listen to me but still I must do my part.

sauce courtesy of mcollinknight

DEAR NCFCA GIRL THAT WON THAT FREEDOM PRIZE THINGY I SAW ON FACEBOOK:

I like that you're being rational and saying that patriotism doesn't mean thinking your country is perfect and actually means you should acknowledge its faults and do absolutely everything to solve them. I really do. BUT. FOR. THE. LAST. TIME. NATIONALISM AND PATRIOTISM ARE EXACTLY THE SAME. Nationalism is not a more extreme version of patriotism! For whatever reason Americans think nationalism is bad, perhaps because of it's connection to fascism and thus Nazism [but I think the word goes farther back than that?], but they needed a positive word for what they were [because they're nationalist!], so they came up with patriotism. That doesn't change the fact that they're the same thing, it's just that we use patriotism and the rest of the world uses nationalism.

AND ALSO. Nationalism is not inherently bad. It's patriotism. Which is good. And thus nationalism is also good. What is bad is as you said when it is taken to an extreme and makes you think America is perfect and stuff, which can happen with either nationalism or patriotism. THIS DOES NOT MEAN that you get to use nationalist as a derogatory term when it's what the rest of the world uses to describe what you think is not derogatory. It is just very confusing and when you use nationalism to describe all nationalistic extremists it's like using conservative to describe all conservative extremists and I know you guys don't like that so why are you doing it to the rest of the world?

Rabbi Shmuley sitting next to Fareed Zakaria on AC360. Most surreal thing ever.

And his title is "Community Organizer" I'm sorry Anderson but I just can't stop thinking of him as that guy on the Shalom in the Home show on Discovery Home and Health.

I, after three months, finally have a proper green ribbon on my wrist. The poor green hairband that was serving as a substitute is very thankful, because I don't think it could've lasted much longer.

I'm almost done with the highlighting of the Post American World - just have the last two chapters, one of which will be largely one color [it's pretty much history/fact based] and the other just amazingly glorious to read. And then I can move on finally to rereading How to Win a Cosmic War [and then Team of Rivals, and then the World is Flat, and then the Rise of the Creative Class, and then Sources of Japanese Tradition Vol. 1 and 2], and instead of doing the underlining/dogearing in the first read-through and then highlighting in the second, do it chapter-by-chapter instead - that is, underline/dogear a chapter, then go back and highlight it, then move on to the next, ect.

If you missed the earlier explanation of my system, it works like this [with varying degrees of copy-pasta]: First there's pencil underlining for important points. Then there's a red pen [because that's the color i notice most easily] for extra important quotes. Dog-earing on the top of the page indicates a subject matter that's important, whereas dog-earing on the bottom of the page marks the colored pencil quotes. Then with the highlighting there's purple for facts/statistics/history, blue for viewpoints/mindsets, pink for rhetoric/predictions, and green for uhhh actually I can't think of an English word for it, but like having something in purple or blue and then going "ACTUALLY IT'S REALLY LIKE THIS" and also for important points and things like that.

I have also re-introduced iTunes U to my library, and went through and found all the new awesome stuff they've put up since the last time I looked. And have about a thousand items currently in my library and another thousand queuing to download. Thankfully I have a lot of extra hard drive space saved for such an occasion, but this is still going to take a while to go through. But this is the price you pay for becoming smart.

1) I will list all of my original characters.
2) Pick a character and ask any five questions about him/her. Be sure to specify whether you would like responses to be OOC or IC.
3) Fun ensues!

Multiple Appearances
Alaenmor Seraff [/Kasai Shio/Seraph Aleanmor <-- previously names]
Alaenmor Forsythe
Alaenmor Eremyn
Alaenmor Gauseserael [Gauss/Gaussireyl Aleanmor - Blacktrail]

Blackroad
Alaenmor Sairemael [Saire - Blackroot]
Arestmor Lesaine [Greenstone]
Asermor Laikulain [Laikun - Redfang]
Asaelmor Resesy [Whitewatcher - thinking about renaming him]
Jame Drassel
Esmonde Elan
Melle Pathoral
Avier Leer
Kail Sena
Lyer Kel
Mesha Welin

Perceptions
Dramaj
Tommy/Tompkins
Ardem

Wait is that all? Oh well, have at it.

seriously guys it'll be fuuuuun. especially if you pick ic. doooo iiiiit.

This is just a quick photo, but...



Can't wait to get this in color and start painting it.

Last month we had a great deal of "WHY ARE YOU SUPPORTING OBAMA'S NAZI POLICIES BARNEY I DEMAND TO KNOW" at these town hall scream fest-ish thingys, and an apparent resurgence of people comparing events today to Nazi Germany. There are various applications of the OBAMA = HITLER analogy, all of which are stupid, and I will talk about all the ones I can think of and if you think of any others tell me and I will refute it for you.

Just the entire idea of Obama being facist. Because seriously guys "fascism comprises a radical and authoritarian nationalist political ideology and a corporatist economic ideology" [wikipedia gooooo!]. Now whenever Obama goes overseas to deliver a talk or stays home but still talks about other countries and he doesn't assert our superiority but instead says "Uh hey guys we might have made a mistake back there. Our bad, can you forgive us?", conservatives accuse him of apologizing for our Great and Wonderful Nation and HOW DARE HE DO THAT.

Now please let me direct you to the part of the definition that says that fascism is an "authoritarian nationalist political ideology." Now, nationalism is essentially what Americans refer to as patriotism, except only Americans can be patriots and everyone else is just nationalist because their pride in their country is unfounded since clearly America is the only One True Great and Wonderful Nation. Now this isn't to say that patriotism/nationalism is a bad thing, which it isn't, but in great quantities that result in you believing that everyone else is in fact inferior to you because you're American, you got yourself the makings of some fascist beliefs.

Which Obama doesn't actually have. He's apologizing for America's mistakes. If he were fascist, if he were Nazi, he'd believe that America is completely infallible and anyone who didn't agree, and anyone who didn't fit into his view of a perfect human being, should be bombed straight to hell. And that would apply to American citizens as well. And while Obama hasn't exactly been the ultra-transparent President he promised he'd be, he is far, far from some fascist dictator who arrests anyone who doesn't agree with him and brutally torture them until they're a fraction of what they once were and oh those guys who are different just kill them outright. In fact, he's been incredibly compromising and leans across the table all the time, even when it's to his extreme disadvantage to do so. The winning party doesn't have to consult the losing one on everything. The fact that they lost means that the nation doesn't want their policies, but even so Obama has been relentless in his bi-partisanship. A fascist wouldn't even bother - he'd just have the losing party arrested, or, if that isn't in his power, just ignore them. Because Obama could do that. But he isn't.

The idea that Hitler was elected by popular vote and so Obama should still be stopped even if a majority of Americans agree with him. The first part of this sentence is completely true. Hitler did have the popular vote, and an incredibly large number of the German people agreed with him even throughout the war. But to say that Obama's popularity doesn't count because Hitler was also popular completely doesn't work, because the situations were mindnumbingly different.

Germany was in a completely and utterly horrible situation when Hitler was elected. They had been humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles, which not only saddled them with a whole ton of reparations that were nigh impossible to pay, but also made them accept the entire guilt for the entire war, which in their defense is kinda ridiculous because seriously there are so many different ways you could interpret it and even so it wasn't all their fault, them and only them. So Germans were really fed up with being treated like dirt and oh there were these reparations that tore their economy to shreds, driving inflation so high you needed so much money to buy something you were carting around in wheelbarrows and did I mention trying to buy food?

And then Hitler came with his speeches, yes, his eloquent speeches, that basically said "WHY ARE WE LETTING THEM WALK ALL OVER US, GUYS. WE ARE CLEARLY SUPERIOR TO THEM. WHY DON'T WE RECLAIM THAT SUPERIORITY BY ELECTED ME?" and the German people were all like "...we're better than them. YEAH WE'RE WAY BETTER THAN THEM THANKS HITLER." and then they elected him. He told them they were the smartest most awesome human beings on the planet and how dare anyone try to deny it if they do I'll make sure they stop and acknowledge that WE'RE THE BEST and why wouldn't he be elected?

Now how on earth does this describe how Obama got elected. First off, he apologizes for mistakes as established before, which automatically disqualifies him. Second, we may be in a bad recession but we're not even at the Great Depression yet, much less where Germany was. Third, America may be widely disliked, even hated, for it's very extreme nationalism [manifested in unilateralism], but it's still the most powerful country in the world. Germany was definitely low-thought of, but because it had been humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles, not because it tried to solve every single little problem all by itself.

Not really said, but the idea that Obama = Hitler means that he's going to eventually commit genocide. Actually, he strongly supports diplomacy, constantly reaches for peace and understanding between all sorts of groups whether they be religious, ethnic, racial, or nations themselves, wants to pull out of Iraq, wants to fight but ultimately finish the Afghanistan war, and actually hasn't even vaguely hinted at starting another war or inciting violence at all. Plus he doesn't put down his dissenters, though he might express annoyance, but hasn't arrested anyone for wearing an anti-Obama t-shirt [::cough::] and for crying out loud people are bringing assault rifles to his events and he doesn't so much as say "Wait what why are you doing that?"

And actually I can't think of anything else. If I missed something tell me, and in general don't start crying Hitler until our economy goes so far down that you can't buy bread without an armful of bills, America is no longer a super power, and Obama starts arresting dissenters, killing people that are different, and displays extreme national pride.

I'm working on a series of paintings, at least four but maybe six, of some of my characters. I haven't decided on the size yet, but they'll be pretty big. Here's my current work on the composition of the first one, featuring Aserlath Seraff - it's in black and white, but the paintings themselves will be in color. The background will be a coat of arms, which I'm in the process of designing.

Debs that entry I promised on comparing today to 1930s Germany is on the way see:



BUT BUT BUT. BRB JOY.

The United States said on Friday it would accept Iran's offer of wide-ranging talks with major powers... The U.S. State Department made clear that [European Union foreign policy chief Javier] Solana wanted to arrange a meeting between Iran and senior officials from the six major powers that have been seeking to resolve the nuclear dispute with Tehran.

U.S. President Barack Obama came into office pledging a policy of engagement toward Iran and the State Department said it wanted the so-called P5+1 nations to meet Iranian officials now to see if they were willing to talk substantively... Obama has suggested Iran may face harsher international sanctions, possibly targeting its imports of gasoline, if it does not accept good-faith talks by the end of September.

U.S. IS PURSUING TALKS YAY. No more of this stupid "If you don't agree with us then we'll just ignore you!" stuff and thus Iran gets to do whatever it wants! Diplomacy is no longer a reward for good behavior. [/shamelessly stolen from Reza Aslan]

Awesome sauce is awesomesauce.

The gallery's now up at my website! It was so much easier to code using Lytebox rather than manually. :]

Website's [mostly] up!

Yay.