Egypt: The Revolution Will Be Televised

Created by Tamer Shaaban. 

Violent clashes between police and demonstrators as over ten thousand gather on the streets of Cairo. The Egyptian population has endured a tyrants rule for far too long, millions struggle each day to find where their next meal is coming from. January 25th, 2011 marks the day when the people rise and take back what's rightfully there's. This isn't the end, but hopefully the beginning to a long awaited regime change! Send to everyone and let them know.

Song: "Into the Fire" - Thirteen Senses

Thanks to the following news sources for their footage
Daily News Egypt
The Guardian
CNN
New York Times
Al Masry Al Youm

BREAKING: Google to create massive new campus in Venice Beach

From the interwebs:

Google Inc., the ever-expanding Internet search giant, is establishing a beachhead in Venice.

In a rare bright spot for the region's sluggish economy, Google is leasing more than 100,000 square feet of office space in three buildings, including the famed Binoculars Building designed by Frank Gehry. Sitting in front of the building is a huge binocular sculpture created by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, perhaps befitting of the company's search theme.

The move is part of a major expansion by Google in Southern California and could set up a new center of operation in the region.

Google representatives confirmed Tuesday night that the company had signed a lease for the properties, saying its employees would begin moving into the offices this year. Google's new complex of buildings will have more square footage than its current facilities in Santa Monica, where the largest of the three buildings has 45,000 square feet and houses 300 employees.

"Los Angeles is a world-class city with a talented workforce, and we're thrilled to expand our presence as we enter our biggest hiring year in company's history," said Thomas Williams, a senior director of engineering at Google.

Opening a Venice campus is part of an ambitious hiring plan for the Mountain View, Calif., company, which earlier Tuesday announced it would add more than 6,000 workers this year.

The hiring spree comes as Google fights for top talent against upstart rivals including Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. — so a marquee location in Los Angeles could help the company score points with potential hires. In its recruiting efforts, Google has bragged that its Santa Monica offices "are strategically located just a few short blocks from sunny beaches" and benefit from "over 300 days of sunshine."

Although Google would not comment on the precise number of new employees the move would bring to the city, the new space is likely to become a de facto Los Angeles campus, consolidating employees at other nearby locations, according to real estate sources.

The landmark building at 340 Main St., which was completed in 1991, was Gehry's last major project in Los Angeles before the Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2003. First to occupy the building was another friend of Gehry's, ad man Jay Chiat, who headquartered his powerhouse Chiat/Day ad agency in the building. Chiat died in 2002.

Los Angeles city officials welcomed the news.

"I am ecstatic that Google will be opening offices in Venice," said Councilman Bill Rosendahl, whose district includes the properties, in a statement. "I am particularly happy that its large number of employees will be contributing to our local economy. This should be a huge boon to the restaurants and shops on Main Street, Rose Avenue and Abbot Kinney Boulevard."

President Obama to call for budget-wide spending freeze, including military spending

Well, this should be interesting.

Pursuing a path of deficit reduction and government reform, President Obama will tonight in his State of the Union address call for a ban on earmarks and he will propose an overall budget freeze, ABC News has learned.

The proposals come as the president prepares to tackle the deficit and debt and as he faces a House of Representatives in Republican hands, many of whose members include those affiliated with the Tea Party who may be willing to embrace both moves.

The president will propose some new spending in certain areas that address the speech’s theme of “How We Win the Future”: innovation, education and infrastructure. But those increases will be proposed as part of an overall budget freeze, which given the annual rate of growth is often seen in Washington, DC, budgeting as a cut.

The FY 2011 budget was $3.8 trillion. Last year President Obama proposed a three-year hard freeze on non-security discretionary spending, to save $250 billion over the next decade; this would be much broader.

As for earmarks, President Obama has long been critical of the process in which members of Congress insert their pet projects into legislation without having them first go through the normal appropriations process, but Congress has continued to put billions of dollars of such projects in bills that arrive at the president’s desk.

After the midterm elections, which President Obama called a “shellacking,” he cited earmarks as a reason why some voters may have gone for the GOP.

“I’m a strong believer that the earmarking process in Congress isn’t what the American people really want to see when it comes to making tough decisions about how taxpayer dollars are spent,” the president said. “And I, in the rush to get things done, had to sign a bunch of bills that had earmarks in them, which was contrary to what I had talked about. And I think folks look at that and they said, ‘Gosh, this feels like the same partisan squabbling, this seems like the same ways of doing business as happened before.’”

The president said it was his understanding than House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., was pushing a moratorium on earmarks and “that’s something I think we can work on together.”

Presumably, this means a spending freeze for that most sacred of Republican cows, the military.

The reactions to watch for tonight are the Establishment Republicans vs. Tea Party Republicans. Unlike their elite cousins, Tea Party Republicans aren't at all squeamish about freezing - or even cutting - military spending.

Back home, tea partiers clamoring for the debt-ridden government to slash spending say nothing should be off limits. Tea party-backed lawmakers echo that argument, and they're not exempting the military's multibillion-dollar budget in a time of war.
Mark Meckler, JennyBeth Martin
click image to enlarge

Tea Party Patriots co-founders Mark Meckler and Jenny Beth Martin hold a news conference in Washington on Nov. 3, 2010. Tea party groups say if the government is going to cut spending, the military budget needs to be part of the mix.

That demand is creating hard choices for the newest members of Congress, especially Republicans who owe their elections and solid House majority to the influential grass-roots movement. Cutting defense and canceling weapons could mean deep spending reductions and high marks from tea partiers as the nation wrestles with a $1.3 trillion deficit.

Yet it also could jeopardize thousands of jobs when unemployment is running high. Proponents of the cuts also could face criticism that they're trying to weaken national security in a post-Sept. 11 world.

House Republican leaders specifically exempted defense, homeland security and veterans' programs from spending cuts in their party's "Pledge to America" campaign manifesto last fall. But the House's new majority leader, Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., has said defense programs could join others on the cutting board.

The defense budget is about $700 billion annually. Few in Congress have been willing to make cuts as U.S. troops fight in Afghanistan and finish the operation in Iraq.

Popcorn anyone?

BREAKING: Keith Olbermann, "This is the Last Edition of Countdown (w/video)

Tonight, MSNBC announced that they and Olbermann "have ended their contract," and that Friday's "Countdown" show would be the last.

This announcement comes two days after the final approval of a controversial merger between NBC Universal, MSNBC's parent company and Comcast. Details about the cause of the split are not yet know.

Watch:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

From the NY Times:

9:43 p.m. | Updated Keith Olbermann, the highest-rated host on MSNBC, announced abruptly on the air Friday night that he is leaving “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” immediately.


The host, who has had a stormy relationship with the management of the network for some time, especially since he was suspended for two days last November, came to an agreement with NBC’s corporate management late this week to settle his contract and step down.


In a closing statement on his show, Mr. Olbermann said simply that it would be the last edition of the program. He offered no explanation other than on occasion, the show had become too much for him.

Mr. Olbermann thanked his viewers for their enthusiastic support of a show that had “gradually established its position as anti-establishment.”

In a statement, MSNBC said : “MSNBC and Keith Olbermann have ended their contract. The last broadcast of ‘Countdown with Keith Olbermann’ will be this evening. MSNBC thanks Keith for his integral role in MSNBC’s success and we wish him well in his future endeavors.”

MSNBC announced that “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” would replace “Countdown” at 8 p.m., with “The Ed Show” with Ed Schultz taking Mr. O’Donnell’s slot at 10 p.m. Mr. Olbermann did not discuss any future plans, but NBC executives said one term of his settlement will keep him from moving to another network for an extended period of time.

NBC executives said the move had nothing to do with the impending takeover of NBC Universal by Comcast.

Mr. Olbermann had signed a four-year contract extension in 2008 for an estimated $30 million. He hosted “Countdown” at 8 p.m. since 2003 and it became the foundation of the channel’s surge to status as the second-ranked news channel on cable television, after Fox News, surpassing the one-time leader CNN.

America, The Beautiful.

"Real America" isn't the fever-dream of gun-toting, government-hating, community-despising white-washed Christian suburbia conjured up by Sarah Palin and other right wing extremists, it's this:

"This is America, where a white Catholic male Republican judge was murdered on his way to greet a Democratic Jewish woman member of Congress, who was his friend. Her life was saved initially by a 20-year old Mexican-American gay college student, and eventually by a Korean-American combat surgeon, all eulogized by our African American President." 

-Mark Shields, PBS

Sarah Palin/Battle Hymn of the Republic Remixed

Too much fun not to share.

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness."

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction ... The chain reaction of evil -- hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars -- must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation."

Martin Luther King - 1963

Sarah Palin To Speak At Gun Event

I'm relived Sarah Palin has learned........well, exactly nothing.

Sarah Palin will be the keynote speaker at a huge convention of hunters later this month, organizers announced on Friday.

The former vice presidential candidate and possible 2012 presidential hopeful is headed to Safari Club International’s convention later this month in Reno, Nev. - one of the key early presidential primary states.

Organizers made the announcement that Palin would be appearing at the gun-related gathering less than a week after the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords that badly injured her and left six dead.

Palin is scheduled to keynote the pro-hunting group’s huge annual meeting on Jan. 29 - 20,000 are expected from around the world - with a speech on “her past hunting experiences and how politics affect the current state of hunting and fishing,” according to a Safari Club website. Tickets for the event are already sold out.

Since the shooting in Tucson, Palin has been tangled in controversy for her pro-gun rhetoric and use of gun crosshairs to identify Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’s (D-Ariz.) district on a map of pro-health reform House members.

All You Need To Know About The Radical Right's Reaction To Obama's Arizona Speech

"If there are rain puddles in heaven, Christina is jumping in them today."

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

President Obama's speech to the friends, family collegues of Gabrielle Giffords:

To the families of those we’ve lost; to all who called them friends; to the students of this university, the public servants gathered tonight, and the people of Tucson and Arizona: I have come here tonight as an American who, like all Americans, kneels to pray with you today, and will stand by you tomorrow.

There is nothing I can say that will fill the sudden hole torn in your hearts. But know this: the hopes of a nation are here tonight. We mourn with you for the fallen. We join you in your grief. And we add our faith to yours that Representative Gabrielle Giffords and the other living victims of this tragedy pull through.

As Scripture tells us:

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

the holy place where the Most High dwells.

God is within her, she will not fall;

God will help her at break of day.

On Saturday morning, Gabby, her staff, and many of her constituents gathered outside a supermarket to exercise their right to peaceful assembly and free speech. They were fulfilling a central tenet of the democracy envisioned by our founders – representatives of the people answering to their constituents, so as to carry their concerns to our nation’s capital. Gabby called it “Congress on Your Corner” – just an updated version of government of and by and for the people.

That is the quintessentially American scene that was shattered by a gunman’s bullets. And the six people who lost their lives on Saturday – they too represented what is best in America.

Judge John Roll served our legal system for nearly 40 years. A graduate of this university and its law school, Judge Roll was recommended for the federal bench by John McCain twenty years ago, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, and rose to become Arizona’s chief federal judge. His colleagues described him as the hardest-working judge within the Ninth Circuit. He was on his way back from attending Mass, as he did every day, when he decided to stop by and say hi to his Representative. John is survived by his loving wife, Maureen, his three sons, and his five grandchildren.

George and Dorothy Morris – “Dot” to her friends – were high school sweethearts who got married and had two daughters. They did everything together, traveling the open road in their RV, enjoying what their friends called a 50-year honeymoon. Saturday morning, they went by the Safeway to hear what their Congresswoman had to say. When gunfire rang out, George, a former Marine, instinctively tried to shield his wife. Both were shot. Dot passed away.

A New Jersey native, Phyllis Schneck retired to Tucson to beat the snow. But in the summer, she would return East, where her world revolved around her 3 children, 7 grandchildren, and 2 year-old great-granddaughter. A gifted quilter, she’d often work under her favorite tree, or sometimes sew aprons with the logos of the Jets and the Giants to give out at the church where she volunteered. A Republican, she took a liking to Gabby, and wanted to get to know her better.

Dorwan and Mavy Stoddard grew up in Tucson together – about seventy years ago. They moved apart and started their own respective families, but after both were widowed they found their way back here, to, as one of Mavy’s daughters put it, “be boyfriend and girlfriend again.” When they weren’t out on the road in their motor home, you could find them just up the road, helping folks in need at the Mountain Avenue Church of Christ. A retired construction worker, Dorwan spent his spare time fixing up the church along with their dog, Tux. His final act of selflessness was to dive on top of his wife, sacrificing his life for hers.

Everything Gabe Zimmerman did, he did with passion – but his true passion was people. As Gabby’s outreach director, he made the cares of thousands of her constituents his own, seeing to it that seniors got the Medicare benefits they had earned, that veterans got the medals and care they deserved, that government was working for ordinary folks. He died doing what he loved – talking with people and seeing how he could help. Gabe is survived by his parents, Ross and Emily, his brother, Ben, and his fiancée, Kelly, who he planned to marry next year.

And then there is nine year-old Christina Taylor Green. Christina was an A student, a dancer, a gymnast, and a swimmer. She often proclaimed that she wanted to be the first woman to play in the major leagues, and as the only girl on her Little League team, no one put it past her. She showed an appreciation for life uncommon for a girl her age, and would remind her mother, “We are so blessed. We have the best life.” And she’d pay those blessings back by participating in a charity that helped children who were less fortunate.

Our hearts are broken by their sudden passing. Our hearts are broken – and yet, our hearts also have reason for fullness.

Our hearts are full of hope and thanks for the 13 Americans who survived the shooting, including the congresswoman many of them went to see on Saturday. I have just come from the University Medical Center, just a mile from here, where our friend Gabby courageously fights to recover even as we speak. And I can tell you this – she knows we’re here and she knows we love her and she knows that we will be rooting for her throughout what will be a difficult journey.

Maisch, who wrestled away the killer’s ammunition, undoubtedly saving some lives. And we are grateful for the doctors and nurses and emergency medics who worked wonders to heal those who’d been hurt.

These men and women remind us that heroism is found not only on the fields of battle. They remind us that heroism does not require special training or physical strength. Heroism is here, all around us, in the hearts of so many of our fellow citizens, just waiting to be summoned – as it was on Saturday morning.

Their actions, their selflessness, also pose a challenge to each of us. It raises the question of what, beyond the prayers and expressions of concern, is required of us going forward. How can we honor the fallen? How can we be true to their memory?

You see, when a tragedy like this strikes, it is part of our nature to demand explanations – to try to impose some order on the chaos, and make sense out of that which seems senseless. Already we’ve seen a national conversation commence, not only about the motivations behind these killings, but about everything from the merits of gun safety laws to the adequacy of our mental health systems. Much of this process, of debating what might be done to prevent such tragedies in the future, is an essential ingredient in our exercise of self-government.

But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized – at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do – it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.

Scripture tells us that there is evil in the world, and that terrible things happen for reasons that defy human understanding. In the words of Job, “when I looked for light, then came darkness.” Bad things happen, and we must guard against simple explanations in the aftermath.

For the truth is that none of us can know exactly what triggered this vicious attack. None of us can know with any certainty what might have stopped those shots from being fired, or what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man’s mind.

So yes, we must examine all the facts behind this tragedy. We cannot and will not be passive in the face of such violence. We should be willing to challenge old assumptions in order to lessen the prospects of violence in the future.

But what we can’t do is use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on one another. As we discuss these issues, let each of us do so with a good dose of humility. Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame, let us use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together.

After all, that’s what most of us do when we lose someone in our family – especially if the loss is unexpected. We’re shaken from our routines, and forced to look inward. We reflect on the past. Did we spend enough time with an aging parent, we wonder. Did we express our gratitude for all the sacrifices they made for us? Did we tell a spouse just how desperately we loved them, not just once in awhile but every single day?

So sudden loss causes us to look backward – but it also forces us to look forward, to reflect on the present and the future, on the manner in which we live our lives and nurture our relationships with those who are still with us. We may ask ourselves if we’ve shown enough kindness and generosity and compassion to the people in our lives. Perhaps we question whether we are doing right by our children, or our community, and whether our priorities are in order. We recognize our own mortality, and are reminded that in the fleeting time we have on this earth, what matters is not wealth, or status, or power, or fame – but rather, how well we have loved, and what small part we have played in bettering the lives of others.

That process of reflection, of making sure we align our values with our actions – that, I believe, is what a tragedy like this requires. For those who were harmed, those who were killed – they are part of our family, an American family 300 million strong. We may not have known them personally, but we surely see ourselves in them. In George and Dot, in Dorwan and Mavy, we sense the abiding love we have for our own husbands, our own wives, our own life partners. Phyllis – she’s our mom or grandma; Gabe our brother or son. In Judge Roll, we recognize not only a man who prized his family and doing his job well, but also a man who embodied America’s fidelity to the law. In Gabby, we see a reflection of our public spiritedness, that desire to participate in that sometimes frustrating, sometimes contentious, but always necessary and never-ending process to form a more perfect union.

And in Christina…in Christina we see all of our children. So curious, so trusting, so energetic and full of magic.

So deserving of our love.

And so deserving of our good example. If this tragedy prompts reflection and debate, as it should, let’s make sure it’s worthy of those we have lost. Let’s make sure it’s not on the usual plane of politics and point scoring and pettiness that drifts away with the next news cycle.

The loss of these wonderful people should make every one of us strive to be better in our private lives – to be better friends and neighbors, co-workers and parents. And if, as has been discussed in recent days, their deaths help usher in more civility in our public discourse, let’s remember that it is not because a simple lack of civility caused this tragedy, but rather because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation, in a way that would make them proud. It should be because we want to live up to the example of public servants like John Roll and Gabby Giffords, who knew first and foremost that we are all Americans, and that we can question each other’s ideas without questioning each other’s love of country, and that our task, working together, is to constantly widen the circle of our concern so that we bequeath the American dream to future generations.

I believe we can be better. Those who died here, those who saved lives here – they help me believe. We may not be able to stop all evil in the world, but I know that how we treat one another is entirely up to us. I believe that for all our imperfections, we are full of decency and goodness, and that the forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us.

That’s what I believe, in part because that’s what a child like Christina Taylor Green believed. Imagine: here was a young girl who was just becoming aware of our democracy; just beginning to understand the obligations of citizenship; just starting to glimpse the fact that someday she too might play a part in shaping her nation’s future. She had been elected to her student council; she saw public service as something exciting, something hopeful. She was off to meet her congresswoman, someone she was sure was good and important and might be a role model. She saw all this through the eyes of a child, undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol that we adults all too often just take for granted.

I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it. All of us – we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children’s expectations.

Christina was given to us on September 11th, 2001, one of 50 babies born that day to be pictured in a book called “Faces of Hope.” On either side of her photo in that book were simple wishes for a child’s life. “I hope you help those in need,” read one. “I hope you know all of the words to the National Anthem and sing it with your hand over your heart. I hope you jump in rain puddles.”

If there are rain puddles in heaven, Christina is jumping in them today. And here on Earth, we place our hands over our hearts, and commit ourselves as Americans to forging a country that is forever worthy of her gentle, happy spirit.

May God bless and keep those we’ve lost in restful and eternal peace. May He love and watch over the survivors. And may He bless the United States of America.

"Blood Libel Is The Perfect Term For What The Left Is Doing"

It's not often I get email from readers - frankly I don't blog enough to get the attention. But this morning I received an email from "Jason", a Palin supporter who believes the term "blood libel" is the perfect metaphor to describe the Left's persecution of Sarah Palin.

Blood libel is the perfect term for what the Left is doing to the people of this country. You are implying, if not openly stating, that your political opponents somehow have blood on their hands for the events in Arizona. This is bizarre thinking, which is almost as bad as that exhibited by the madman in Tuscon.

Of course, you Leftists are using this as a cynical ploy to denigrate non-Leftists for quite some time. It is a way to shut down speech you don't like to hear - and no not "hate speech" but speech that is critical of the Left.

Take time to examine your own heart and stop spewing hatred for people you don't even know.

First of all, thanks to Jason for taking the time to reach out to me. I'll see if I can do his email justice with a coherent reply.

As I posted earlier, "blood libel" is exactly the wrong term for Sarah Palin to use, regardless of how you feel about the merits of her position. "Blood libel" historically refers to a false accusation that religious minorities, almost always Jews, murder children to use their blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals and holidays.

The libels typically allege that Jews require human blood for the baking of matzos for Passover. The accusations often assert that the blood of Christian children is especially coveted, and historically blood libel claims have often been made to account for otherwise unexplained deaths of children.

Blood Libel is one of the reasons I can't trace my family tree on my father's side any farther than the late 1800's in the Ukraine, because after that, those who couldn't escape were all murdered in pogroms.

So Jason, unless Sarah Palin literally believes the Left is accusing her of using the blood of Christian children for Passover matzoh, she might want to rethink her strategy here.

As to your next assertion that "Leftists" are using the Giffords' shooting as a cynical ploy to denigrate "non-Leftists",  I would challenge you to find any Democratic lawmaker or media type who has said Sarah Palin is directly responsible for her shooting. Instead, what is being discussed here, and rightly so I believe, is the vitriolic atmosphere that has grown up around our elected officials in the last couple of years, and how this creates a toxic atmosphere where the least-hinged amongst us might feel empowered to act.

Sarah Palin had the great misfortune to create a campaign that literally targeted her opponents, including Giffords, with gun crosshairs. Giffords' Republican opponent in the 2010 election, Jesse Kelly,  invited supporters to attend an event at a gun range where they could "remove" Gabrielle Giffords from office by shooting a fully automatic M16.

Do I believe either Palin and Kelly actually wanted Giffords dead or hoped to encourage others to kill her? No. But they denigrated and dehumanized her to the point where she stopped being just a political opponent with different views and became something "other", something evil, something to eliminated and destroyed.

While harsh words may be said on both side of the isle, only the Right has a body count. Only assassins on the Right have flown planes into IRS buildings, killed abortion doctors, opened fire on churches and killed parishioners because they couldn't kill "every Democrat in the Senate and House", or shot up a street because they thought Obama was going to take their guns away.

But it's not just the Left who have been the victims of this toxic atmosphere. Yesterday, three members of the Arizona state Republican party resigned because of constant harrassment from Arizona Tea Party members. After the Giffords shooting, they felt fearful for their lives. One of the officials is quoted as saying, 

"I wasn't going to resign but decided to quit after what happened Saturday. I love the Republican Party but I don't want to take a bullet for anyone."

Jason, Sarah Palin didn't chose to be connected to Gabrielle Giffords shooting, but she's chosen to paint herself as its victim, even as the real victims are being buried today and memorialized by President Obama.

If anyone needs to examine their heart, it's Sarah Palin.

God willing, she won't do it on Facebook.

Sarah Palin Accuses Critics Of "Blood Libel"

From Wikipedia:

Blood libel (also blood accusation) refers to a false accusation or claimthat religious minorities, almost always Jews, murder children to use their blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals and holidays. Historically, these claims have–alongside those ofwell poisoning and host desecration–been a major theme in European persecution of Jews.[4]


The libels typically allege that Jews require human blood for the baking of matzos for Passover. The accusations often assert that the blood of Christian children is especially coveted, and historically blood libel claims have often been made to account for otherwise unexplained deaths of children. 

This morning, Sarah Palin released an extensive statement on video and and on Facebook, "refudiating" her critics. At one point in the video she claims,

....within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn.

Palin is being too clever by half. She's deliberately using a short pithy phrase supporters and the mainstream media can latch onto, and repeat ad nauseum. But what she's done is misappropriated a term that has haunted Jews for centuries and made our own blood run cold.

That she, and they, don't even understand what "blood libel" really means is just grotesque. In fact, the use of "blood libel" against the Jews in Eastern Europe was a precursor to the Holocaust, and cost hundreds of thousands their lives in the late 1800's.

"Blood libel" is the reason I can't trace my family tree on my father's side back farther than the late 1800's in Disna Vilna, Ukraine.

That Palin would use it when one of the real victims in this tragedy, Gabrielle Giffords, is Jewish is beyond belief.

Here are but a few examples.

• 1840 Damascus affair: In February, at Damascus, a Catholic monk named Father Thomas and his servant were murdered. The accusation of ritual murder was brought against members of the Jewish community of Damascus

• 1840 Rhodes blood libel: The Jews of Rhodes, during the Ottoman Empire, were accused of murdering a Greek Christian boy. The libel was supported by the local governor and the European consuls posted to Rhodes. Several Jews were arrested and tortured, and the entire Jewish quarter was blockaded for twelve days. An investigation carried out by the central Ottoman government found the Jews to be innocent.

• In March 1879, ten Jewish men from a mountain village were brought to Kutaisi, Georgia to stand trial for the alleged kidnapping and murder of a Christian girl. The case attracted a great deal of attention in Russia (of which Georgia was then a part): "While periodicals as diverse in tendency as Herald of Europe and Saint Petersburg Notices expressed their amazement that medieval prejudice should have found a place in the modern judiciary of a civilized state, New Times hinted darkly of strange Jewish sects with unknown practices."The trial ended in acquittal, and the orientalist Daniel Chwolson published a refutation of the blood libel.

• 1882 Tiszaeszlár blood libel: The Jews of the village Tiszaeszlár, Hungary were accused with the ritual murder of a fourteen-year-old Christian girl, Eszter Solymosi. The case was one of the main causes of the rise of antisemitism in the country. The accused persons were eventually acquitted.

• In the 1899 Hilsner Affair, Leopold Hilsner, a Jewish vagabond, was accused of murdering a nineteen-year-old Christian woman, Anežka Hrůzová, with a slash to the throat. Despite the absurdity of the charge and the relatively progressive nature of society in Austri-Hungary, Hilsner was convicted and sentenced to death. He was later convicted of an additional unsolved murder, also involving a Christian woman. In 1901, the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Tomáš Masaryk, a prominent Austro-Czech philosophy professor and future president of Czechoslovakia, spearheaded Hilsner's defense. He was later blamed by Czech media because of this. In March 1918, Hilsner was pardoned by Austrian emperor Charles I. He was never exonerated, and the true guilty parties were never found.

• The 1903 Kishinev pogrom, an anti-Jewish revolt, started when an anti-Semitic newspaper wrote that a Christian Russian boy, Mikhail Rybachenko, was found murdered in the town of Dubossary, alleging that the Jews killed him in order to use the blood in preparation of matzo. Around 49 Jews were killed and hundreds were wounded, with over 700 houses being looted and destroyed.

• In the 1910 Shiraz blood libel, the Jews of Shiraz, Iran, were falsely accused of murdering a Muslim girl. The entire Jewish quarter was pillaged; the pogrom left 12 Jews dead and about 50 injured.

Antisemitic flier in Kiev, 1910: "Christians, take care of your children!!! It will be Jewish Passover on March 17."

• In Kiev, a Jewish factory manager, Menahem Mendel Beilis, was accused of murdering a Christian child and using his blood in matzos. He was acquitted by an all-Christian jury after a sensational trial in 1913.

• In 1928, the Jews of Massena, New York, were falsely accused of kidnapping and killing a Christian girl in the Massena blood libel.

• The 1946 Kielce pogrom against Holocaust survivors in Poland was sparked by an accusation of blood libel.

• King Faisal of Saudi Arabia (r. 1964–1975) made accusations against Parisian Jews which took the nature of a blood libel.

• The Matzah Of Zion was written by the Syrian Defense Minister, Mustafa Tlass in 1986. The book concentrates on two issues: renewed ritual murder accusations against the Jews in the Damascus affair of 1840, and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The book was cited at a United Nations conference in 1991 by a Syrian delegate.