borntohula

that analogy would be sound if the "child" were the sole aggressor, or if most of the western world wasn't pro-israel. your idea is flawed because it posits israel as simply a reactionary force, and one that does not instigate on its own, when history says otherwise (see: sabra and shatila massacre). also, it trivializes the pain and suffering of many israeli and palestinian people, many of whom were uninvolved with the conflict to begin with. i'm optimistic that these two forces can arrive at a solution, but more of an international presence needs to exist in israel in order to tackle the issue of their treatment of palestinians, and to ensure that more israeli settlements are not established near either gaza or the west bank. as much as you hear that the palestinians use civilian rooftops to shoot their rockets from, israel has similar practises in that they develop new settlements for families closer and closer to harm's way, pawns in a politician's game. to relinquish that land is to let the palestinians "win," so instead, they settle it, allowing for a few casualties here and there as well as international sympathy. bishop, did you know that the israeli military has bulldozed houses between rafah and the egyptian border, stationed military towers there instead, all to ensure that palestinians aren't allowed to trade with egypt? sure, trade includes everything, even weapons, but it also includes basic necessities like food. the situation has got to the point where palestinians now must tunnel underground in order to get even livestock or grains. what kind of existence is that? do they somehow "deserve" that? is that a measured response by israel? israel doesn't have to be egged on or aggravated to act out on the palestinians. it can do what it wants. but autonomy comes with a price: you're responsible for your own actions. palestine doesn't make israel do anything it hasn't already thought of, or hasn't been wanting to do for some time.

do you consider books on tape a kind of adaptation?

yeah he does look young. even mike watt (bottom of the picture) looks older than he does.

he was 60. the coroner isn't sure yet, but they think it was a heart attack.

by whom? it was made into a country after the first world war and the fall of the ottoman empire. i might be wrong... i always thought that after israel declared its independence, that palestine remained a separate country, and was not immediately encompassed within israel.

haha imagine the supergroups!

founding member of the stooges and one kick-ass guitarist. i've found there hasn't been much discussion here about the awesomeness of the stooges, or their influence, so this is your chance.

glad you liked deerhunter ,shiri. you should check out their prior album, cryptograms, it's very hazy and atmospheric, and very good. my top ten: portishead - third no age - nouns ponytail - ice cream spiritual wolf parade - at mt. zoomer tv on the radio - dear science deerhunter - microcastle women - s/t made out of babies - the ruiner sian alice group - 59.59 shearwater - rook the q-tip, genghis tron and be your own pet records were also delicious.

compared to any version, the live, full band version sucks. suddenly it became this muscular, "grunge" song and it was terrible to hear. he can play "kick out the jams" all he likes, but don't fuck with "eternal life."

agreed. hamas is the leading political power in palestine and was voted in democratically. if you're going to call them terrorists, even pensively in quotes, then the israeli forces are terrorists as well, especially given their devastating, heavy-handed approach at "defence." interestingly, it was the same kind of heavy-handedness on israel's behalf only two years ago that levelled much of lebanon, despite the fact that the lebanese and their government were not responsible for the acts that israel was supposedly responding to... and yet the international community sat there, quiet. certainly every nation has the right to defend itself as many of you keep reiterating, but you also have to consider the situation in gaza. it's the closest thing we've seen to apartheid in a very long time. like i said before, calling this most recent attack on gaza "israel defending itself" shows a complete lack of understanding of the history of this conflict, and the strife of the palestinians. i don't support what either side does, but i think that there is a huge humanitarian issue going on right now, and it's not the palestinians who are walling themselves in, shrinking their country, and increasing the amount of sanctions and limitations on their way of life. heck, is palestine even recognized internationally as a country anymore?

using the word "defend" kind of disregards the entire context of the situation, don't you think?

i don't know where it sits with me. i've never compiled one of those top ten lists before. i think it'd change too frequently, haha. for something from the 90s, it definitely surprised me by not sounding like it was from the 90s. okay, well it does a bit, but there's something about it that's timeless.

that last album was a major disappointment. i'm looking forward to his digital noise academy project though. it better come out soon, it's been in the can for too long now.

i think the coalition has served its purpose. 1) it got dion out faster than he would've had to leave, had it succeeded. he wasn't a bad guy, but clearly he was divisive to the liberal party, which isn't the best kind of leader to have when you're trying to form an alliance. i think the liberal party knew full well that the coalition wouldn't work. if it did, well then it proved that dion was a good leader and clearly capable of running the country, but if he failed, then he would be a scapegoat, and be forced from the leadership. problem solved. 2) pressured harper into acting, and (hopefully) re-thinking the budget. obviously it won't be a complete 180, because its still a conservative budget regardless, but i think that the pressure that the liberals and NDP have been applying to the tories will make them re-think things. that might be naive of me. when parliament resumes come january, clearly harper will present the budget as the item for the motion of confidence, making it difficult for the coalition to really continue successfully. i think that the liberals and NDPs will vote along with the budget, because if they don't they clearly do not have their interests of the country in mind (i'm obviously torn on this issue, not being a fan of harper or the conservatives, but i think any budget is better than no budget at this point). voting agaisnt the gov't would probabyl force an election, something we really can't afford at the moment, given that the last one cost $300 mil. the confidence vote will be over and harper will (miss)handle the economic crisis. come the next election, which will probably be in a year or two, ignatieff and the libs will use the fact that harper was prime minister during the beginning of the crisis as a measure to get him and the tories out, and will probably win the election with a minority. the coalition has put both the liberals and NDP in a better footing than they would've been otherwise.

i prefer grace to sketches because the former is a complete album while the latter is just incomplete songs that were intended for an album that was never finished. although, sketches does have some solid material, particularly "new years prayer." i like that one a lot. my favourite of his would have to be live at sin-e. it's great. just buckley on guitar. no fluff, no full-rock band bullshit. i saw a dvd of his recently, which was filmed during the latter part of his career, and he fucking shat on "eternal life" with a full band. it was terrible. they just blew right through it and thought that by making it heavier, it would make up for the fact that the song sounded awful. his singing and stuff was fine, but they just turned it into a boring, conventional rock song by speeding the thing up. jeff by himself is where its at. he does some great covers in the sin-e set as well. you guys should check it out if you haven't yet.

there have been countless people on this bored who have brought this topic up, but even though it might get a little tiresome, i never get tired of how terrible the video is for "cry."

i really don' think that's something that you can blindly assert. wherever i've lived, be it mississauga, barrie, sudbury and now toronto, people have been very aware of who their MP is. sometimes there's confusion if the party changes a candidate, but i've never not known who my candidate was, even once election time was over. i think he should step down because while his party was voted in, he clearly is standing in the way of getting things done. the last election was a farce and really didn't change much, either. it was a spectacle that we didn't really need. he needed to act on the economy, and hasn't bothered to yet. just because his party has been recently voted back in, that shouldn't wipe my mind clear of all that he's done in the past. i was suggesting that he could step down simply as a way for the cons to hold their power, and continue with parliament without proroguing it. with harper gone, the coalition would be appeased, and we could get to work on budget talks. now we have to wait six weeks for any sort of action, and he still has to have a confidence vote when he arrives back to parliament. so long as that vote is not over a budget, i imagine that the coalition will vote against him, which in that case, will probably force us into another election because as we've seen, the governor general clearly doesn't believe the coalition could govern. agreed. although ireally don't have much faith in him changing his tune at this point. i'll be surprised if they actually do have a budget ready at the end of the suspension. i don't really think she's a cunt. i was just mad because i know she has no power or influence and won't stand in the way of harper. she could if she wanted to, but i think if she let the coalition give it a go, she'd basically be responsible for any mistakes that they made. no one wants that on their heads.

as much as i like jon stewart, i think you should have better support for your beliefs than a satirical news show. harper is not necessarily further left than obama. it's a given that canadian politics are left of the americans, but harper and obama occupy the same kind of space. they're quite similar in terms of politics. they are very different still. it really depends on what the issue is. they see eye-to-eye on the war, but not things like health care or human rights. in terms of your statements above, i take it you never watched the debates that took place prior to the election this past october. on several occasions, harper was asked what his stance was on gay marriage, and he stated that he would not "undermine the tenets of a traditional marriage" meaning simply that he would not allow gays to marry. that, in bold lettering, spells to me that he does not support gay rights, that he does not see them as equal. secondly, your comment that "you're just upset because their political ideology doesn't coincide with your own" is bizarre, given that you're defending harper's politics because they're akin to your own. how is that any different? how can you criticize someone for being "upset" at a politician who doesn't reflect their beliefs? isn't that only normal? but what have they done that's so bad? lets see. most recently, they called an election that cost somewhere around $300 mil, just so they could be re-instated. that seems like excessive spending to me, especially in a time when our economy is incredibly weak. along the same lines, proroguing parliament until late january is equally a stupid decision. you know they're not going to be pouring over the books in the parliament library over those six weeks. they're going to be campaigning to canadians for their cause, costing us even more money, all the while their budget plan will still remain as mysterious as it is right now. they don't have a fucking clue. my personal favourite "harper moment" would be his handling of the hezbollah/israel crisis in 2006. in true israel-sympathizer fashion, harper stood still while israel was shelling lebanon in an effort to retaliate for the soldiers that hezbollah had captured. rather than intervene and perhaps come to the defence of lebanon, a country tied to the hezbollah but clearly not governed by it, he let them kill innocent lebanese, calling it a "measured response." give me a fucking break. how is debilitating an entire country's infrastructure a "measured response" when only two soldiers were captured? furthermore, how can you justify attacking a country in such a way when the lebanese gov't had nothing to do with hezbollah's actions? what i dislike most of all about his comment is how he is completely unaware of the conflict between israel and hezbollah, and how it dates back more than 20 years prior to the incident in 2006. measured to who? dude needs to take a refresher course on middle east conflicts before he takes a side. harper later tried to make up for his comment when he had learned that many canadians were there during the attacks, so he sent his private plane to lebanon to help them evacuate to canada, but that didn't help the fact that many were still left homeless and displaced. i could go on. i'm not saying that the liberals are a better solution, or have administered this country any better either. but this guy's made an awful lot of mistakes for the length of time he's been in office. fuck, obama's not even president yet and he's already done more than harper has this year.

anyone have any cheap gift ideas for christmas? i'm jamming econo this year.

don't make it sound like the tories are "new" to this whole thing. they've been in power for what, two years now? sure, they were re-elected, but the cabinet's the same, and most of the seats are as well. harper has had a long enough time to prove whether he can handle the job. i dont like the idea of dion being PM, but at least it'll only be for 5-7 months. at this point, anything is better than harper. he could always just step down, and let another conservative take his place. if he actually had concern for canada and his party, it'd be the smart thing to do. i think the coalition would back off at that point. but no. it looks like tomorrow morning he'll be taking this to the governor general and appealing her to let him prorogue parliament. i bet she'll let him too, the cunt.

regina seemed to be good early on, but has since released some really mediocre stuff. feist seems more consistent, but half the songs on the reminder were written at the time of let it die, so its a bit too early to tell how consistent she is at this point. i'm going with feist though. regina does write some unique stuff, but i tend to like feist's a bit more. again, consistency. but neither of them really have a solid place in my heart. cat power on the other hand...

that's alright. i can live without them. props on the "quick edit" function. that's handy.

i'm disappointed with it, given the kind of talent the dude recruited for this project... you'd think that they could come up with something a bit stronger and different than nu-metal inspired rawk. once axl rose started getting plastic surgery and started to take fashion advice from ali g, he was lost to us. christ, he was lost to us even before that. anyone heard use your illusion II? "civil war" is ok, but the rest is pretty awful. p.s. the results of the poll are hilarious.

i tried listening to them once, but i got bored with it. they were heavy and whatnot, but didn't keep me interested much.

probably the fact that you're able to do it from the main page, and do not have to click "log in" anymore. this new bored makes my day so much faster now. lulz. i think its pretty. kinda generic at this point, but in a shiny, impressive way. also, all the threads ever are apparently "new", but you said that should go away, so i believe you. also bring back the old smileys plz. dancing broccoli is key.