Yep, the Guardian (UK) also released their list of albums of the decade. Hmm, I might should start working on mine too I think! Anyway, the whole top 50 can you view here. I still think it’s unbelievable that artists such as Sufjan Stevens and Bon Iver(and a bit Franz Ferdinand) get beaten by someone like Lily Allen. Come on people! Anyway, their top 10:

10. Burial – Untrue
9. Salif Keita – Moffou
8. Jay-Z – The Black Album
7. The White Stripes – Elephant
6. Amy Winehouse – Back to Black
5. Arcade Fire – Funeral
4. The Strokes – Is This It
3. Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
2. Radiohead – Kid A
1. The Streets – Original Pirate

.. (-.-)”

No blog de livros do Guardian, Jerome de Groot escreve sobre C. S. Lewis. Para ler aqui.

Minimum penalty is life in jail, under anti-homosexuality bill

From the Guardian newspaper

As a gay Ugandan, Frank Mugisha has endured insults from strangers, hate messages on his phone, police harassment and being outed in a tabloid as one of the country’s “top homos”. That may soon seem like the good old days.

Life imprisonment is the minimum punishment for anyone convicted of having gay sex, under an anti-homosexuality bill currently before Uganda’s parliament. If the accused person is HIV positive or a serial offender, or a “person of authority” over the other partner, or if the “victim” is under 18, a conviction will result in the death penalty.

Members of the public are obliged to report any homosexual activity to police with 24 hours or risk up to three years in jail – a scenario that human rights campaigners say will result in a witchhunt.Ugandans breaking the new law abroad will be subject to extradition requests.

“The bill is haunting us,” said Mugisha, 25, chairman of Sexual Minorities Uganda, a coalition of local lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex groups that will all be banned under the law. “If this passes we will have to leave the country.”

Human rights groups within and outside Uganda have condemned the proposed legislation, which is designed to strengthen colonial-era laws that already criminalise gay sex. The issue threatened to overshadow the Commonwealth heads of government meeting that ended in Trinidad and Tobagotoday, with the UK and Canada both expressing strong concerns. Ahead of the meeting Stephen Lewis, a former UN envoy on Aids in Africa, said the law “makes a mockery of Commonwealth principles” and has “a taste of fascism” about it.

But within Uganda deeply-rooted homophobia, aided by a US-linked evangelical campaign alleging that gay men are trying to “recruit” schoolchildren, and that homosexuality is a habit that can be “cured”, has ensured widespread public support for the bill.

President Yoweri Museveni appeared to add his backing earlier this month, warning youths in Kampala that he had heard that “European homosexuals are recruiting in Africa”, and saying gay relationships were against God’s will.

“We used to say Mr and Mrs, but now it is Mr and Mr. What is that now?” he said. In a interview with the Guardian, James Nsaba Buturo, the minister of state for ethics and integrity, said the government was determined to pass the legislation, ideally before the end of 2009, even if meant withdrawing from international treaties and conventions such as the UN’s Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and foregoing donor funding.

“We are talking about anal sex. Not even animals do that,” Butoro said, adding that he was personally caring for six “former homosexuals” who had been traumatised by the experience. “We believe there are limits to human rights.”

Homosexuality has always been a taboo subject in Uganda, and is considered by many to be an affront both to local culture and religion, which plays a strong role in family life. This negative stigma and the real threat of job loss means that no public personality has ever “come out”.

Even local HIV campaigns – which have been heavily influenced by the evangelical church with a bias towards abstinence over condom use – have deliberately avoided targeting gay men for both prevention and access to treatment.

“This means many gay men here think Aids is a non-issue, which is so dangerous,” said Mugisha, who together with a few colleagues, has risked arrest by agitating in recent years for a change in the HIV policy.

At the same time, some influential religious leaders have warned about the dangers of accepting liberal western attitudes towards homosexuality.

Both opponents and supporters agree that the impetus for the bill came in March during a seminar in Kampala to “expose the truth behind homosexuality and the homosexual agenda”.

The main speakers were three US evangelists: Scott Lively, Don Schmierer and Caleb Lee Brundidge. Lively is a noted anti-gay activist and president of Defend the Family International, a conservative Christian association, while Schmierer is an author who works with “homosexual recovery groups”. Brundidge is a “sexual reorientation coach” at the International Healing Foundation.

The seminar was organised by Stephen Langa, a Ugandan electrician turned pastor who runs the Family Life Network in Kampala and has been spreading the message that gays are targeting schoolchildren for “conversion”. “They give money to children to recruit schoolmates – once you have two children, the whole school is gone,” he said in an interview. Asked if there had been any court case to prove this was happening, he replied: “No, that’s why this law is needed.”

After the conference Langa arranged for a petition signed by thousands of concerned parents to be delivered to parliament in April. Within a few months the bill had been drawn up.

Christopher Senyonjo, a retired Anglican bishop, said the bill would push Uganda towards being a police state. “This law is being influenced by some evangelicals abroad,” he said. “There’s a lack of understanding about homosexuality – it’s not recruitment, it’s orientation.”

But among religious leaders of all faiths his is a rare voice. Langa, the pastor, said the only thing lacking in the legislation was a clause for “rehabilitation” of homosexuals, whom he “loves” and wants to help. Gay rights had the potential to destroy civilisation, as the west could soon find out, he said.

“As one parent told me: ‘We would rather live in grass huts with our morality than in skyscrapers among homosexuals’.”

Editor’s Comment: Although this is coming from the Christians, at least they are moving in the right direction, back towards Allah’s laws when it comes to homosexuality and its punishment.

May Allah grant them guidance, and bring them into the fold of Islam, if only they could see the disgusting homosexuality of many of the Christian priests we could maybe use this as a tool, as leverage to show them their beliefs on Christianity are wrong and to bring them into Islam – Allah willing.

First official confirmation of prisoner swap for Gilad Shalit captured in 2006

From the Guardian newspaper

Israel revealed for the first time today it is ready to release nearly 1,000 Palestinian prisoners to secure the freedom of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held captive in Gaza.

The government said it was preparing for the possible release of 450 prisoners, whose names were proposed by Hamas, in the first stage of what would be Israel’s biggest prisoner swap in more than 20 years. Once Shalit, who was captured near Gaza in June 2006, was freed then another 530 prisoners, whose names will be chosen by Israel, would be released. Although the approximate figures have been known for several weeks, this was the first time the government has officially confirmed the size of the deal and suggests real progress has been made towards a prisoner swap.

Indirect negotiations have continued for months between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group which is holding Shalit in Gaza.

Since July, German intelligence officers have been mediating in the talks.

The figures were contained in an Israeli government response to a high court petition brought by the families of Israeli victims of terrorist attacks who are opposed to the release of Palestinian prisoners. The announcement does not mean the deal has yet been reached. There are reportedly still disagreements over the names of prisoners to be freed and where they will go once they are released.

The Israeli government response has talked of the “possibility” of such a prisoner swap of 450 Palestinians “in principle” in return for Shalit’s freedom and the list of names has not been finalised, according to the websites of the Ha’aretz and Yedioth Ahronoth newspapers tonight.

The release of the prisoners was “being examined in detail in accordance with different considerations and based on rationales of security and values”, the government said.

“It should be stressed that contrary to the release of prisoners as part of a gesture and/or diplomatic agreement, this is an incident of bargaining, which can be seen as an ongoing terror attack, as part of which negotiations are being held to reach the lowest price possible as far as the state of Israel is concerned.”

Israel has already said that the cabinet will vote on any prisoner swap before it happens and in the past the names of prisoners to be released are published 48 hours in advance to allow for legal challenges. Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, will be in Germany tomorrow with several members of his cabinet for a special joint government meeting, which suggests a Shalit deal may be days away at the earliest. Palestinian officials have said it may yet be several weeks before a deal happens, if it happens at all.Shalit’s parents, Noam and Aviva, met with the Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman today[SUN] but were non-committal about the possibility of a deal. “I am not feeling encouraged nor am I ill at ease,” Noam Shalit was quoted as saying on his way into the meeting. “We are still waiting.”

Editor’s Comment: Leicester Islamic Standard welcomes the release of our brothers and sisters from the jails of the Jewish colonial occupiers.

Many of them, especially the women have suffered as they have been away from their families for a long time, away from their children, locked up without trial or charges being brought, abused and attacked by the evil zionists in their prison cells where they are defenseless, stipped of their hijab and dignity.

It should be remembered that Hamas, an Islamic movement has overwhelming popularity amongst the Palestinian people and where they do good deeds we should aid them, even if only in our Du’as and where they are mistaken we should make du’a for them even more.

Continuing a downward trend in popularity, we are pleased to report that the latest Seth Freedman thread generated a paltry 54 comments.

Here’s the latest Sethometer.

And if you haven’t had a chance yet, check out AKUS’s demolition of Freedman.

This is a guest post from Israelinurse

Last Thursday’s excellent piece by Isi Leibler on CiF elicited a tediously predictable barrage of every type of offensive comment in the book – a veritable Gala Performance of Guadianistas in their element.

First, we have the ‘one-liner’ school of philosophy:

WhattheDormousesaid

26 Nov 2009, 12:47PM

I always knew there was an alrternate universe where black is white and white is black.

Ladies and gentlemen Cif give you that very universe in this article.

ShropsLad

26 Nov 2009, 12:48PM

Israel Phosphorus Gaza Need we say anything more?

Then there’s the ‘chosen people’ trope:

Mach1

26 Nov 2009, 12:52PM

I?m quite happy to engage with moderate Jews with whom a constructive discussion is possible ? but not those from the extreme wing or those who refuse to accept bsimple facts .

Borrowing from Melanie Phillips definition of a moderate Arab:

My own personal litmus test is their attitude to Palestine and the Arabs in general. If they get that one right – that is, if they understand that fundamentally the Palestinians are the victim in the Middle East, that the Palestinians are a benign and unaggressive people and that the Jewish world has been brainwashed into a demented and paranoid hatred of the Arabs – then such people generally also get most other things the right way round too.

Next, the ‘Israel is a racist state’ libel, in all of its various permutations:

backtothepoint

26 Nov 2009, 12:57PM

I don’t even know where to begin. What a tissue of blatant lies!

Demonisation of Israel has become the surrogate for traditional Jew-hatred? The left and many liberals have succeeded in hijacking human rights groups to serve as vehicles to undermine the Jewish state? The automatic majority of Islamic and other radical states guarantees the passage of all anti-Israeli resolutions initiated at the UN? Israel has made more and more concessions over the last decade? Arab citzens in Israel have equal rights? Two Israeli prime ministers offered to cede virtually all of the territories gained in wars initiated by Israel’s enemies seeking to destroy it? The Sharon government unilaterally disengaged from Gaza?

The Minitruth propaganda and rewriting of history goes on. How did this almost surrealistic distortion of reality ever get published?

… most European states nevertheless apply double standards against the Jewish state.

That at least is true. Against the wishes of its people, Europe continues to arm the revolting apartheid State of Israel and fund its theft, massacres and repression with preferential trade agreements, while cynically denouncing, punishing and even militarily attacking States guilty of far lesser crimes.

This article is truly horrible.

PaulLambert

26 Nov 2009, 1:53PM

It’s a simply a truism that Israel, in it’s current form, is a discrimantory state. A state which denies the legal and moral right of return to their homeland for millions of Palestinian Arabs for no other reason than they are Arabs, rather than Jews. They’re being denied their rights on the basis of their ethnicity. How is that *not* discriminatory?

There are other forms of systematic and overt discrimination, like the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, which again denies Palestinian Arabs their basic rights based on nithing more than them being the wrong ethnicity.

All this without even getting into the discriminatory practices enforced in the Occupied Territories (settler only roads, house demolitions, Israeli law for settlers, military law for Palestinians, distribution of water resources, etc).

If you’re so concerned about people calling Israel a ‘racist’ or ‘apartheid’ state, why not campaign to bring an end to the laws and practices which give people reason to say this?

Followed by a dose of conspiracy theory:

corrocamino

26 Nov 2009, 2:03PM

My mistake. Zionism has no connection with Wall Street. There is no Jewish Mafia. And there were no Palestinians in Palestine.

And where would we be without the ever-popular ‘Giyus’ conspiracies too?

backtothepoint

26 Nov 2009, 2:25PM

@QuinceTree

And, please tell me you don’t honestly believe that the Israeli government is funding my views!

Now if you’d talked about the Israeli government funding you, I would have said I honestly didn’t know.

But as for your views, the answer is yes. Have you never heard of Hasbara? See the Guardian article below, about Israeli government propaganda on the Internet.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/nov/20/mondaymediasection.israel

backtothepoint

26 Nov 2009, 1:34PM

@QuinceTree

And so why does Israel gather so much ire – and yet humanity-loving Guardianistas don’t give two hoots abou the Congo?

I think you’ll find that “Guardianistas” care deeply about the Congo. One of the differences on CIF is that the Congolese government does not fund and orchestrate the mass presentation of official Congolese propaganda on CIF’s pages.

If you feel there are too many comments on this page, why are you posting? Or is it just you feel that anyone opposed to Israel’s criminal policies should not be posting?

Not to mention the ubiquitous ‘double standards’ method:

Gigolo

26 Nov 2009, 2:53PM

“in which demonisation of Israel has become the surrogate for traditional Jew hatred ? just as Jews in the middle ages were blamed for all the ills of mankind, so today the Jewish state is increasingly held responsible for the principal woes facing humanity.”

Really? OK, you go first – which of the principal woes facing humanity is Israel responsible for?
Hunger? Nope, Drought, nope, AIDS, nope…

Such ridiculous hyperbole does nothing to advance your cause.

The truth of the matter is that Israel is held up to rather more rigid scrutiny because it pretends to be a modern democracy, with a social and political environment similar to a modern European state.

That’s why we don’t get too hung up about say the antics in Yemen, beause we know that Yemen is just a glorified shit-hole full of armed bandits and nothing else, so our exectations aren’t too high.

But Israel pretends to be like us, only better. After all, God told you to kill all those peole, didn’t He, in order to ensure your nation’s racial purity?
So that’s all right, then…

As if all this did not suffice, we were also treated to a bit of celeb glitter in the form of none other than the newly re-vamped moderate himself:

Inayat

26 Nov 2009, 1:01PM

Contributor

*Liebler: ‘It is in this context that Israel remains the only country in the world whose very right to exist is challenged.’*

No, that would be Palestine.

No amount of star quality, however, is a match for the ever impressive, infinitely patient and delightfully precise Petra MB :

PetraMB

26 Nov 2009, 3:29PM

Contributor

Inayat got close to 100 endorsements for asserting that it is not Israel’s right to exist that is being challenged, but Palestine’s.

In 1947, the Palestinians were offered a state. They turned it down, because they thought that by refusing their state, they could also deny Israel’s right to exist. Accordingly, from 1948-1967, nobody talked about establishing a Palestinian state, even though the Westbank and Gaza were not occupied by Israel. The PLO was established in 1964, the territory they intended to “liberate” was Israel, i.e. they denied Israel’s right to exist. Until today, everybody who supports the so-called one-state solution is denying Israel’s right to exist.

The PLO got around to at least declaring that they accepted a Palestinian state alongside Israel in the late 1980s, i.e. 20 years ago. Not long after that, the Oslo process began, and the idea was that the PA would gradually build up the infrastructure for a Palestinian state. Most of the donor money given for that purpose vanished in Swiss bank accounts, and the only thing that was built up was a large number of armed militias, with more than 20 000 armed members. Serious negotiations for a final status agreement in Camp David and Taba 2000-01 failed when Arafat rejected the proposals; though some 2 years later, he said that this was a mistake:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/jun/22/israel

It took until Salaam Fayyad came into office barely 2 years ago before somebody finally got serious about building the institutional infrastructure for a Palestinian state, though it is by no means clear that this effort enjoys widespread popular support among Palestinians. A year ago, Olmert proposed a Palestinian state on the equivalent of 100 percent of the pre-1967 Westbank-Gaza territory, with East Jerusalem as Palestine’s capital, and a connection between the Westbank and Gaza. Abbas turned it down. Now he seems to regret it:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1124682.html

So, Inayat, who exactly is denying Palestine’s right to exist?

And every now and then, we have news reports like this one from earlier this year:

February

Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan reportedly said that the group will not recognize Israel nor meet the condition set by the Quartet, and noted that Clinton’s request was unacceptable to the Palestinians.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1235410738729&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

March

Former Fatah security commander Muhammad Dahlan on Tuesday called on Hamas not to recognize Israel’s right to exist, pointing out that Fatah had never recognized it.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1237114855755&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

June

Recognizing Israel is completely unacceptable.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2009/06/18/hamas_rejects_carter_plea_to_recognize_israel/

September

De facto Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Monday evening reiterated Hamas? refusal to recognize Israel

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=222841

So when people make statements that have no basis in fact, as Inayat did here, it’s kind of hard to see how this qualifies as “oh but it’s just legitimate criticism of Israel”.

It is, of course, entirely to be expected that a writer of Isi Leibler’s calibre should bring the CiF crowd out in force as he manages to shake their world view to the very core. It is probably also of no surprise to regular CiF watchers that the more eloquent the pro-Israel argument above the line, the more virulent the comments below.

But the last word has to go to ImranZeb, who seems to be pondering  the same questions as I when it comes to the mysterious connection between antisemites and bad spelling:

ImranZeb

26 Nov 2009, 2:37PM

Homeboy…

Were you on crack when you wroe this…

That israel is an illegal State which practices apartied & has a human rights record only equal to fascist China;that Palestinioan children ae killed as easily I I just drank taht cup of coffee may be a reason why people have a beef with Israel & your still on the ‘woe is me’ tip

Indeed, one does wonder…

HERMAN HESSE

AN HOUR AFTER MIDNIGHT

A REALM OF THE ARCHETYPE

“A soft and slow wave landed my curved hull boat between the rocks. The dreamer who inhabited under the skin of the shipwrecked abandoned the oarsman’s seat and extended his arms in the direction of the silent land. The purple cloak slip from my shoulders creasing down my hips. My arms and neck thin by so much oaring, and fasting; my hair now long and heavy covered my nape with it’s abundance. In the quiet green shaded waters of the bay my image reflected thick; however I could attest that the long voyage had turned my body flexible and lean, my now bronzed skin. Painful hours had carved in my cheeks a testimony of their danger, their defeat and my triumph. All the gray downs that witnessed grasping the boat with my sore members, all the storms that rippled the Oceans pointing to it’s depths had carved deep creases in my face and neck.

However I kept the clarity of my eyes within the wide orbs and my awake child like sights. They had been open through many nights in the look for the eternal stars; My eyes had penetrated deeply vigilant in the iridescent night in search of a coast or the sighting of a sail of a traveling boat. During many days they have not looked at land, and in very few occasions they have distantly sighted, smiling and with longing the greenery of the forest that passed port side, and starboard, the faint smoke of faraway hidden cities. At that moment those eyes reflected in the terse surface of the water they stared at me big, true and smiling.”

This is the beginning words for Herman Hesse’s An Hour After Midnight, translated in to English as An Hour Behind Midnight. During his time in Tübingen Hesse immersed himself in an atmosphere of Romantic Literature finding faith and inspiration in the world of beauty, and specifically the world of poetry. Hesse strived to familiarize himself with the history of literature, and the world of romanticism, and aestheticism. He read Schlegel, Brentano, Eichendorff, Schleiermacher, and his favorite, Novalis. He even went as far as to describe the acquisition of his two volumes of Novalis in a little novel titled: “The Novalis, from the papers of an old fashioned man“. This resonance with the Romantic Archetypes formed the background of Hesse’s first poems. It dominates in An Hour After Midnight, as also in parts of Hermann Lauscher, and was finally beginning to mellow down in Peter Camenzind. But in fact never goes away completely in all of his writings, impregnating them with the ethereal aura of a World beyond reality, the Realm of the Archetypes.

Here is an excerpt of Novalis:” Hymns to the Night” that captures with his Imagination a realm beyond ordinary reality that reaches towards the vision of the purity of the Archetype:

“Now I know when will come the last morning — when the Light no more scares away Night and Love — when sleep shall be without waking, and but one continuous dream. I feel in me a celestial exhaustion. Long and weariful was my pilgrimage to the holy grave, and crushing was the cross. The crystal wave, which, imperceptible to the ordinary sense, springs in the dark bosom of the mound against whose foot breaks the flood of the world, he who has tasted it, he who has stood on the mountain frontier of the world, and looked across into the new land, into the abode of the Night — truly he turns not again into the tumult of the world, into the land where dwells the Light in ceaseless unrest.”

However the most important thing is not to see Novalis as an old fashioned Romantic but as the "Priest" of a New Spirituality, as he claimed a Poet should be the Prophet of a mystical world view, a high standard of education, and the frequently perceptible pietistic influences are combined in Novalis’ attempt to reach a new concept of Christianity, faith, and God. He forever endeavors to align these with his own view of transcendental philosophy, which acquired the mysterious name "Magical idealism". Magical idealism draws heavily from the critical or transcendental Idealism of Kant and Fichte, and incorporates the artistic element central to Early German Romanticism The subject must strive to conform the external, natural world to its own will and genius; hence the term "magical". David Krell calls magical idealism "thaumaturgic idealism."

Now, this part Novalis wrote and it is important:

"The imagination places the world of the future either far above us, or far below, or in a relation of metempsychosis to ourselves. We dream of traveling through the universe – but is not the universe within ourselves? The depths of our spirit are unknown to us – the mysterious way leads inwards. Eternity with its worlds – the past and future – is in ourselves or nowhere. The external world is the world of shadows – it throws its shadow into the realm of light. At present this realm certainly seems to us so dark inside, lonely. shapeless. But how entirely different it will seem to us – when this gloom is past, and the body of shadows has moved away. We will experience greater enjoyment than ever, for our spirit has been deprived."

This exploration of the Universe within it is reached through a premeditated tune up of the Imagination towards a sensitive state of the Soul were the emotions manifest in the without, specially in Nature a return to the Archetypal of the perfect form, a sort of Gate to a Paradise on Earth reached through the contemplation of the beauty of Nature. Here again Herman Hesse:

“A wind come to meet me from the direction of the land, it come flying with displicence. It brought me a smell of wild plants, and an aroma of distant blooming orchards. Like in a spell I extended the arms towards it, and felt with pleasure it’s breath between the fingers, hands, and brow, so used to the sharp wind of the sea.

I pushed the gray boat dragging it over the sand. My right hand rub the hard curve of the boat, now made smooth by my constant grip. I walk in to the land and got near to the dense, and high bushes that formed a circular wall as far as the eye could see. I walk along it’ greenery, enjoying the warm bluish shade, light weaved yellow and green. The path took me to a field of soft vegetation that tenderly caressed with it’s silky flowers my knees.”

In this fashion Herman Hesse, in great length describe beautifully, and intimately every detail, and nuance of a primeval enchanted forest, flowery fields, greenery laden hills, and valleys flooding in sunlight, or shade until his arrival to the Realm of the Queen.

"In the deepest part of my being happiness grew along with pain, and my voice trembled as I start to sing. My fingers pulsated the fine strings; it was a long time since last time that I played, despite of that the rhythm, and the verses took hold of me with new vigor and generosity.

My song evoked a past Autumn many years ago when still an adolescent my eyes followed for the first time the gracious step, and silhouette of a young girl. I sang about the sunsets, and the nights when under the growing perfume of the silver linden trees carried my bittersweet longings with the hard beatings of the oars through dark lagoons; when many times I visited sand banks, trails, and forest spots were I would contemplate the beautiful first rays of the down. My song remembered the days that love made me ride fiery horses at full gallop. I remembered the many roses in bloom, the shady cottonwoods invaded by the perfume of the Jasmin…"

The Realm of the Queen it is this semi-Pagan paradise where the Archetype of the Mother-Lover resides, every woman it is the reflection of the ideal beloveds from our past, all rolled in to one, or many!

In a small chapter subtitled for Frau Gertrudis Herman Hesse pours in this woman the very Archetype of womanhood.

“You the most friendly of my deceased, you appear many times in the most lonely place in my Castle, near the small arch of an arched window. Your presence , inexplicable but benign endures beyond all the moments we were together linking our hands like a Star that no longer exist, but that it’s rays still come to us for a long time.

I can’t count the many times when strolling idle under the heavens of Vita Nova. I can’t tell the times I have lost all hope of ever seeing your apparition again. No other beauty, except of that sweet poem can compare with your’s. I think sometimes than in another Age being Dante in ecstasy you walked by his side, and since then only once more you have walk Earthly roads under the shade of my anxious youth. That I could see you with corporeal eyes, that your hand would rest on mine, that your light steps would touch the ground by my side, it is not this a Mercy from the Beyond? A blessed finger that rest in my forehead, a gate that provide access to Eternal Beauty?

Frequently, when sleep, in dreams I can see your physical beauty; I stare at your white fingers–what fine phalanx’s–from your noble hands, that rested on the piano’s keyboard! Or I see you contemplating alongside the window an evening sky that turns pale;the prodigious knowledge of beauty gave your eyes a deep shine. Your eyes had awaken in me numberless artistic dreams. They are maybe the most precious gift to my existence, they are stars of beauty, and truthfulness: severe eyes, but kind, infallible, judging; they give punishment and reward; they are enemies to the dastardly, the insignificant, and casual. They dictate norms, weight, pronounce judgments; they know to charm, with super abundance of happiness. What is Glory, favors, mankind praise,without the gleaming shine of approval of those pure lights?"

Herman Hesse in the chapter titled : Nocturne goes back to a recurrent Archetype of Medieval abandoned Castles, in the middle of a lake, surrounded by a forest, a ghost like apparition of an old guardian knight. What secret he guards? What past echoes of the ancient past this reveals? Is this not a look in to a Mythical Realm that lays thinly submerged in our Imagination?

"My horse stop, stretching it’s beautiful neck  neighs unto the twilight of the evening.

I salute you!

I salute you, my dark refuge of cedars, far from the world, untouched, with your dark belt, you carry in your bosom peace.

At the recondite thick center of cedars, there is a lake with a made out of granite Castle: A fortress made to endure eternity; on top of hard rock, rise colossal, flanked by enormous Norman towers, a single gate.

The gate on top of a stair made out of stones that descend in to the deep, dark lake. The Guardian gray, gelid, listen to my horse’s familiar steps, and recognize me. He goes out through the iron gate, and descend slowly through the moss covered stairs. Unties the heavy chain of the royal boat, with a single oar he slide silently over the dark mirror of the surface of the lake. He pick me up and return the boat to the castle, we anchor it using the heavy square chain.

We sat at the threshold of the gate, with the wind of the evening, the rumor coming from the top of the trees grows; The night slides over the trunks of the trees at the far side of the lake. The Guardian rest his head on his hands and looks in to the growing darkness with tranquility. In front of us the green, dark steps, and the quiet lake, surrounded by the ancient walls of the Sacred Forest that circle around the lake. Flying with soundless wings the hours go by.

Beyond the waters on top of the peaks a trembling glow, grows and rise, turns in to a bright light, and finally stands over the forest, flying over the sky: The full Moon. It’s rays conquer slowly the surface of the surface of the lake a bright beam lights up the lake with pure luminosity, the quiet, and deep lake now an immense mirror. The silver Moon gazes from it’s mysterious observatory.

Some artist through their Art can bring us close to the Realm of the Archetype that lays veiled from our eyes in the twilight of consciousness, sensitive souls can discover the gate of this Realm, Herman Hesse in An Hour After Midnight certainly show us that.

From the Guardian Newspaper

Luke Harding – Reporter for the Guardian and Observer

The north Caucasus has exploded in violent revolt, making Moscow’s Muslim south a growing threat

In the past two years, the simmering insurgency in Russia’s north Caucasus has exploded into open revolt. Daily attacks against government security forces and bomb explosions have become a part of everyday life.

Across Ingushetia, Chechnya, Dagestan and Karabino-Balkaria, Islamist fighters are waging a violent struggle to overthrow their local and federal rulers. Increasingly, they are winning. Friday’s apparent bombing of an express train between Moscow and St Petersburg raises the spectre that this conflict in Russia’s troublesome Muslim south is again spilling over into Russia’s vulnerable European heart. A second deadly attack similar to Friday’s explosion would confirm that after a deceptive five-year pause, Chechen terrorism is defiantly back.

Last night Alexei Malashenko, Russia’s leading expert on the restive north Caucasus, cautioned it was too early to tell if Chechens were behind Friday’s blast, but conceded: “There could be links between the explosion and radical Islamic activists.”

He said that the insurgency in Russia’s volatile south was now spiralling out of control. “The situation is very bad. It seems to me that the east part of the North Caucasus is in a state of civil war. Every day somebody is killed. There is a lack of stability.”

According to Malashenko, the Islamist fighters have a long-term goal of creating an Islamic caliphate in the region. In the short-term, however, they are simply seeking to provoke a popular uprising against the widely detested federal government and its corrupt local representatives.

The Kremlin fought two brutal wars in Chechnya between 1994 and 1996, and 1999 and 2005. In recent years, the Russian government has boasted it has pacified the territories. The attacks once waged by suicidal Chechen commanders have ceased. There has been no repeat of Beslan, the school in North Ossetia infamously seized by Chechens in September 2004, in which more than 330 people, mostly children, died.

However, the rebels appear to have regrouped, their numbers swelled by zealous teenage recruits. This year has seen a series of attacks, including an assassination attempt on Ingushetia’s Kremlin-appointed president, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, and the devastating bombing of a police station.

Most ominously, in the spring, veteran Chechen guerrilla leader Doku Umarov said he was reviving the notorious Riyadus Salikhin group, a suicide battalion of “Chechen martyrs”. The Kremlin regularly says Umarov has been killed. The evidence suggests he is still alive.

Editor’s Comment: Although we might disagree with some of the tactics used by the brothers and sisters in Chechnya, we should not forget what they have been through and not judge them as we haven’t been through what they have been through.

250,000 Chechens have been murdered, many women and children raped as the Russians let loose their most brutal Cossack regiments upon the civilian population.

Women are attacked, tortured, raped and sodomised just for wearing Hijab, and men disappear every day, kidnapped and tortured before being killed for the crime of making their Fajr salaat in the Masjid.

To put these numbers into perspective, Chechnya had a population of 1.25 Million before the Russians brutally attacked them for daring to want Allah’s law – the Shariah.

That is 1 in 5 of the population, the equivalent 5th of the population in the UK would be 12 Million, the same as wiping London off the map.

We pray Allah gives aid to the brave youth in this region and grants them success in bringing Allah’s law to this land, ameen.

Last week CiF Watch published Jewish Conspiracy on the Jewish Conspiracy Thread #3 – Day 1. In that post I wrote,

“The third article in the series covering the Oborne documentary on “Comment is Free” was an article by Jonathan Boyd that generated an astounding 509 comments before the “clean up crew” reduced the comment count to 472.

Because of the sheer volume of antisemitic commentary, we are splitting this post into two threads by “day 1″ and “day 2″.

This post covers day 2 of the thread.

Before we take a look at the comments, let me highlight this comment that caught my eye. Hope you’re taking note Daddy Rusbridger.

BenWhite

19 Nov 2009, 9:19AM

Contributor

In April 2002, at the height of the Palestinian intifada, media reports quickly began circulating that a massacre had been committed by the Israel Defence Forces in Jenin in the West Bank. Rumours circulated that hundreds of Palestinians had been killed. The BBC suggested 150. Saeb Erekat, interviewed on CNN, claimed 500. Yasser Abed Rabbo intimated 900…

In the final analysis, it was established that no such massacre took place in Jenin. The United Nations report into the fighting eventually concluded that, in actual fact, 52 Palestinians were killed, at least half of whom were militants.

During Israel’s invasion of Jenin in 2002 there was genuine confusion about the number of casualties (like in Gaza 2009, Israel restricted media access). On 9 April, the Israeli newspaper Ha?aretz published a story describing how Foreign Minister Shimon Peres was ?very worried? about the international reaction to events in Jenin, ?where more than 100 Palestinians have already been killed in fighting?, according to the newspaper. Peres was apparently referring to the battle ?as a ?massacre??.

The next day, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat appeared on CNN and estimated that the number of Palestinians killed since the start of Operation Defensive Shield across the West Bank ?could reach 500? (not in Jenin specifically). A BBC report the same day noted: ?Israel says 150 Palestinians died in Jenin?. On 12 April, an IDF spokesperson suggested ?hundreds of Palestinians? killed in Jenin, a figure later clarified to mean dead and injured.

Ironically, in citing the UN report on Jenin by way of some kind of vindication, you neglect to mention that the Israeli government obstructed and blocked that very same investigation.

Human Rights Watch published a report in May 2002, concluding that ?many of the civilian deaths? they documented ?amounted to unlawful or willful killings by the IDF?, with some cases amounting ?to summary executions?. HRW said that the IDF used Palestinians as human shields and employed ?indiscriminate and excessive force?, and that from an estimated 52 Palestinian deaths, at least 22 were civilians ?including children, physically disabled, and elderly people?.

Physicians for Human Rights reported on 30 April 2002 that 38 percent of all reported fatalities in Jenin were ?children under 15 years, women and men over the age of 50?.

We have no problem calling half a dozen victims in a high school shooting a ?massacre?, or indeed suicide bombings inside Israel. But Palestinians cannot possibly be victims of a massacre; only ?collateral damage?.

Spotted at guardian.co.uk

Luke Bainbridge
The Observer, Sunday 29 November 2009

At the start of the decade, he was already a multimillion-selling superstar back home in the States, but still best known in this country for the Annie-sampling Hard Knock Life. A string of stunning albums, including The Blueprint and The Black Album followed, but while critically acclaimed, they only just made the top 30 in the UK. He had his business empire encompassing Roc-A-Fella Records and his Rocawear clothing line, but Eminem and his protégé Kanye West were the household names here. But then? It might have helped that he had “the hottest chick in the game wearin’ [his] chain”, but it was the furore surrounding his ultimately triumphant Glastonbury appearance in 2008 that saw Shawn Carter make the jump from cultural icon to superstar in Britain.

In New York in late October, he’s on world-beating form, helped by news that, at 39, he now has more US No 1 albums than any other solo artist ever.

What do you think has been your crowning achievement of the Noughties? Right now? Right this second? Eleventh No 1 album, surpassing Elvis as the No 1 solo artist. I think that is a statement in itself, especially within hip-hop, where everything is about the gift of discovery – what’s new today. To be consistent and still have relevancy in hip-hop, to still be at the top of the game is a very difficult thing to achieve. You’re swimming upstream, fighting against the current. So I think The Blueprint was my most perfect album. I think Reasonable Doubt was my best album. And I think this [Blueprint 3] is the album I’m most proud of.

Do you have a favourite album of the decade? Oh man, let’s see. That’s very difficult. The Blueprint would be my favourite. Other than my album? Maybe Graduation [by Kanye West].

And you get some credit for that, too, having given Kanye his break… A bit! Ahahahhahaha! Does Glastonbury feel like a defining moment for you, now some time has passed? Yeah, I think it’s one of the highlights. I would put it up there because it felt like something new. Well, it felt like something old actually – but it felt like a chance to open the door for hip-hop again. It was almost like hip-hop had to prove itself yet again in that type of arena and performing there really brought it home.

Did it restore your affection for the UK as well?

Yeah – it was pretty much my evolution, I was pretty much on my way there anyway, but it definitely opened the doors and made it a natural transition.

Rock fans now have computer games like Guitar Hero. You’re involved with DJ Hero – will that have the same impact on your culture?

Definitely. I think we’re all frustrated DJs – we all make playlists for specific moments, whether it be the gym or a social setting. I just think we don’t have the technical skill to blend one song from the next. But I think this is the fun way to get into it, because at higher levels the game is challenging that way. You can challenge yourself; if you can do that then maybe you can take the next step into DJing.

What do you think the Noughties will be best remembered for?

Being the first generation to put a black man in office – and not just a black man, someone who’s right for the job to give a new face to America, as land of the free, home of the brave. I think at some point after 43 presidents we were becoming a bit hypocritical. I think that’s what this generation will be remembered for.

A year on, have you noticed a change in the country? Are things better now?

Here and abroad, the feeling has been restored. America was always this place where everybody wanted to be. And we were losing a bit of that. I think we finally turned the corner back on the road to being that nation that everyone looks to.

You talk about swimming upstream – where might you go next? I want to make it even more difficult; throw on some scuba diving gear, go 50,000 feet below and swim upstream!

How far can you push it?

It actually challenges me, it’s exciting to me, that’s the thing about being in music – I like swimming upstream. If I didn’t have to, I’d probably lose interest. It’s like being at school – when I was in 6th grade I was reading on a 12th-grade level. I lost my interest, I think that’s one of the reasons I didn’t graduate high school – it wasn’t interesting to me. As long as I’m being challenged, it’s exciting.

This is a guest post by AKUS

Freedman is back – after being consigned to the Siberia of CiF Belief, Freedman returned to his favorite topic – the evils of Israelis and their dastardly plans to occupy even more of the West Bank in an article condemning the plan to build a light rail commuter system in Jerusalem.

Freedman takes care, of course, in his usual hyperbolic and turgid prose, to give the naïve reader who knows nothing about Jerusalem or the West Bank, the impression that this is yet another new and vast expansion of settlement activity deep into occupied territory:

“The architects of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank are highly skilled at the art of needlework, deftly stitching up land inside Israel proper and disputed territory over the Green Line as though it was the most natural thing in the world.”

What has caught his eye this time is what he tries to cast as an incredibly evil Zionist plan to build – oh, horrors!! – a “green” urban light rail connection running from Mt. Herzl (more or less south of the Old City) and for about 5 km from the center of Jerusalem to a couple of suburbs, French Hill (HaGivah HaTzarfatit) and Pisgat Ze’ev to relieve the incredible congestion on the roads leading to those popular suburbs. Ultimately, it will have a total length of 22 km, according to the planning document, from Ein Kerem in the south to Neve Ya’akov in the North.

To give an indication of the distances involved in the section from downtown to the two suburbs Freedman is complaining about, I have added the attached map, erasing some of the many roads that densely pack that area for clarity. The more distant suburb, Pisgat Ze’ev, lies all of about 5 or 6 km from the city center and both suburbs are ALREADY CONNECTED by a congested web of roads to the rest of Jerusalem.

According to a planning document via a link provided by Freedman in an attempt to demonstrate the full iniquity of the scheme, this evil attempt to occupy even more of the West Bank has the following dreadful purposes:

• To encourage use of mass transportation;

• To promote operational efficiency and economic feasibility;

• Renewal and development of the city center;

• To reduce noise and air pollution;

• To bring pedestrians and businesses back to the city’s center;

• To relieve traffic congestion throughout the city

Never mind that these desirable goals are typical of those driving urban development in major cities around the world –only a sick mind could use this people-friendly initiative as yet another attempt to blacken Israel’s name.

Freedman’s own chutzpah comes to the fore when he does his best to mislead the reader into thinking that this is some new conspiratorial attempt to occupy additional territory on the WB:

“All that is required is a healthy dose of chutzpah, combined with a drip-drip effect in which a steady stream of expropriating activities are undertaken at a slow but relentless pace, in the hope that insufficient feathers are ruffled to put a halt to the overarching campaign of annexation…

Under the guise of a desire to ease traffic congestion on Jerusalem’s streets, the project bears all the hallmarks of previous efforts to stake a permanent and intractable claim to areas that once might have been considered as appropriate territory to concede as part of a permanent settlement with the Palestinians.”

Despite the impression Freedman tries to give, these are not new “settlements”, and there is nothing new about linking them to downtown Jerusalem – all that will be done is to provide alternative transport options to the citizens. The rail system will simply add a more eco- and people friend alternative transport system to relieve the horrendous road congestion between those suburbs and the downtown Jerusalem. This rail link adds nothing to settlement activity on the West Bank, and runs between long settled, existing suburbs connected to Jerusalem by major road arteries that Israel has repeatedly said are not negotiable and which were annexed by Israel in 1980.

There has never been the slightest intention on Israel’s part, whether Freedman or “the world” thinks this is wrong, to “concede” French Hill or Pisgat Zeev as part of a permanent agreement with the Palestinians, and it is foolish (or worse) to try to mislead the Guardian’s readers into thinking otherwise. Construction in French Hill began in 1969. I stayed with friends there in 1972 or 1973 when it was already a densely occupied suburb. It lies about 3 congested kilometers from the Old City and Central Jerusalem, a stone’s throw, so to speak, from Mt Scopus, and about 1 km at most over the Green Line. Pisgat Zeev was built between 1982 – 1985, and a quick search on Wiki gives the population as 50,000.

Of course, there will be those like Freedman who claim that even if these suburbs were built 1 mm over the old Green Line, let alone 1 km, that is 1 mm too much. Realistically, however, it is clear to all that these suburbs will remain part of Israel in the event that an agreement is ever reached with the Palestinians. Moreover, the impression that Freedman tries to give, of remote and geographically large areas, is, of course, totally false, as you can see from the map or by looking at maps of the area on-line.

Freedman calls for massive opposition to this railway, as if, without French Hill and Givat Zeev the Palestinians will never be able to form a state:

“…all interested parties should be doing their utmost to oppose anything that further cements an Israeli presence in the area. To sit back and do nothing is to be complicit with the insidious plans of those who seek never to accommodate Palestinian needs in terms of their statehood.”

As usual, the Guardian’s sub-head editors are only too eager to help take his plea for opposition a step further:

“The Jerusalem light railway is set to link to illegal settlements such as French Hill. Palestinians need help stopping it”

Perhaps the reason for Freedman’s ire is that this light rail system will only serve Jewish residents of the area and the Palestinians will not benefit? Not so, in fact.

Freedman, never shy about tooting his own horn, gives a link to one of his own articles from a year ago in which he wrote that Arabs are moving into French Hill without noticing the irony in the use of his own words:

“The district of French Hill, which is technically over the Green Line but in reality bears little resemblance to the typical “settlement” stereotype, has seen a steep rise in the number of Arabs seeking to move into its neighbourhood in recent years. Not wanting to be caught on the “wrong” side of the security wall, many Arab families have sought homes on the Israeli side of the barrier, in order to ensure their Israeli IDs aren’t revoked, as well as to avoid hours-long delays at checkpoints as they commute to and from work.”

Thus, this rail system will serve Arabs and Jews alike, who live in the mixed community of French Hill (and its sister community of Tzameret Habira, which is also experiencing an influx of Arab families, according to friends who live there) as well as ultra-orthodox trying to escape from the congestion of other suburbs.

The duplicity exhibited by Freedman in his latest attempt to blacken Israel’s name in the English press by taking advantage of the limited knowledge of the area that most CiF readers have was well summed up by this comment on the accompanying thread:

GaryWilson

26 Nov 2009, 5:33PM

Will someone please tell me what the point of this article is?

That Israel reunited Jerusalem forty years ago, and Seth Freedman just found out?

That Israel formally annexed the eastern part of the city that had been occupied by Jordan, and that the city has been subject to Israeli law for 30 years and Freedman just found that out?

That most countries do not recognize Israel’s annexation though they do recognize the de facto Israeli jurisdiction of the city, and Freedman has just found that out?

That Jerusalem is the most holy city in Judaism, and under Israeli rule has been open, for the first time in centuries, to worship by Jews, Moslems and Christians. and Freedman probably doesn’t know that?

That Jews have pined for centuries for their return to their holy city, the ancient capital of Israel, and Freedman must have known that for years?

That Jerusalem is the seat of Israel’s parliament, its government, it’s ministries and offices, and is therefore its capital, and Freedman must know that?

And that the Municipality of Jerusalem has been constructing the city for the past 40 years, during which the city’s population has grown by 350 percent, and the proportion of Arabs in the city has grown from 26.5% in 1967 to 30.5% in 2005, and Freedman probably doesn’t know this..

That despite all this, previous Israeli governments (under prime ministers Olmert and Barak) indicated a willingness to share Jerusalem with a future Palestinian state by handing Arab East Jerusalem over to the Palestinians, but the Palestinians have rejected the offer, and Freedman has yet to discover that?

So, considering all of this, what exactly is Freedman’s point?

[emphasis added]

Well, Gary – the point is that this despicable “as-a-Jew” will use any stick, no matter how feeble, to try to whip up  adulation from his one-time supporters, who are getting more and more disenchanted with his bias, pathetic commentary, and irrelevancy. Unfortunately for him and his dreams, his articles are increasingly ignored by those tired of him and his moaning, griping, whining, and hatred for anything and everything to do with Israel.

Yesterday Malcolm pointed the finger at Michael White’s unfortunate typo. That by-passed the wholly valid conclusion of White’s original piece (to which we shall return shortly).

Cameron got it wrong with his attempt to smear a couple of local authorities and the government with a scare about nursery schools linked to terrorism. Most of us knew or guessed that was a wrong’un at the time. Hizb ut-Tahrir were identified for a ban after the London atrocities. A Christmas Eve, 2005, Observer article, with a Gaby Hinscliff by-line, described why that didn’t happen:

Plans to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir, the radical Islamic group, have been dropped in the past few days following intense discussions between Number 10 and legal advisers. Counter-terrorism sources said Tony Blair had been warned that banning the group, which campaigns for Britain to become a caliphate – a country subject to Islamic law – would serve only as a recruiting agent if the group appealed against the move.

The sub-text there is that Hizb ut-Tahrir and all its works are on a very tight string to the securocrats. Yet Cameron blundered on.

Scapegoat time!

Which makes it Michael Gove’s turn to be fed to the reptiles. As he duly was in today’s Times:

Mr Gove unwittingly fed his leader a stinker. Mr Cameron had asked his trusted ally to help him to flesh out an attack on Labour’s failure to tackle extremist Muslim groups.

Seeing that two schools linked to Hizb ut Tahrir had received cash from the Early Years Pathfinder scheme which funds free nursery places, Mr Gove had mistakenly thought that it was part of the Preventing Violent Extremism pathfinder project that is supposed to tackle indoctrination. In fact the two schemes are entirely separate. The error meant that Mr Cameron was simply wrong to declare that the schools were receiving cash from an “anti-extremist” fund when he faced Mr Brown across the dispatch box.

The gaffe was all the more painful for the Tory leader because he had overruled a suggestion that all the key information be double-checked.

Flash Dave

Now that’s the same point Michael White considered the previous day:

Dave and Mike did something careless for which Tony Blair would have put them through the verbal mincer…

You can hear Blair silkily observing that “I don’t need any lessons from the right honourable gentleman about associating with extremist groups who get public funds,” can’t you? He’d have then got stuck into those dodgy Poles and Balts whom Skinhead Billy rounded up to form Dave’s new group of not-federalist-not-nice-either MEPs at Strasbourg.

Does it matter? Not a lot. But it’s a reminder that, repeated on a general election platform, with public emotions running high, a bad mistake is an amplified mistake. Being manifestly unfair to any particular group – except perhaps those brazen bankers – runs the risk of offending fair-minded people.

White winds up, extrapolating this Cameron line into:

you can’t help noticing a smell familiar to older readers: red-baiting.

Cameron in debate is remarkably sloppy (he proudly spent his time with the Bullingdon, not in the Union). Brown, by comparison, sticks far too closely to Citrine and Standing Orders. Because Cameron is allowed to get away with this fast-and-loose stuff, he pushes the limits further each time.

This was Cameron’s final sally in PMQs on 11th November:

Mr. Cameron: This Prime Minister told us, “No more boom and bust”, yet he presided over the biggest boom and the biggest bust; he told us that we were the best prepared for the recession, yet, unlike others, we are still in recession. He has given us the fastest rising unemployment and the biggest bust. Take the official figures for public spending, take off what you are planning to spend on unemployment benefit and on debt, and departmental spending is being cut by 0.7 per cent. The Prime Minister asks about policy; we have said what we would do about public sector pay and pensions. We have the courage of our convictions; the Prime Minister has neither courage nor convictions.

Grammarians and debaters will note that was supposed to be a “question”. One looks in vain for the question mark, or even the question indirect. Instead, the Speaker allowed Cameron to get away with a statement.

Watch this space

This is overweening pride, riding for a fall. Remember: you got fair warning of that from Michael White … and Malcolm Redfellow.

Sir Hubert Parry

The Guardian recently produced a poll asking readers to vote on the 1000 songs you must hear before you die.

The earliest song considered worthy making the list was Jerusalem, recorded in 1916 by Sir  Charles Hubert Hastings Parry.

The 1970’s was considered to be the decade which had produced the most songs of note with 258 of the total coming between ‘70 and ‘79.

Resulting songs categorised by decade

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the 1960’s was the second most popular decade whilst the current decade ranked fourth with 118 songs included in the list.

Bob Dylan

The list does not place any onus on ranking the songs into any order so, as such, it is impossible to state which song is the most popular.

However, Bob Dylan features most frequently in this list with 24 songs closely followed by The Beatles with 19 songs indicating the two acts are considered the most important of the last century.

The list opens up an interesting discussion as to which is the greatest song of all time.

Rolling Stone magazine created its own list in 2004.

All information was sourced from The Guardian Data Store.

Despite my mood being boosted by the Guardian London Graduate Fair, at which I spoke on a panel in October, the past few weeks have been tough going and it’s often been difficult to drag myself out of bed in the morning with seemingly little to look forward to. I had hoped that there would be an influx of new jobs coming up for me to use up my post-fair newly-found enthusiasm but nothing suitable has come up and days and even weeks have slipped by with no progress.

I’ve applied for just three full-time newspaper jobs since my last update; one for a reporter at the Bolton News, for which I am grossly under-qualified and frankly am embarrassed for wasting their time applying for, and for trainee reporter jobs at the Retford Times and at the John O’Groat Journal and the Caithness Courier, a twelve-hour train ride away in Wick in the very north of Scotland. I’ve not yet heard anything back from any of them.

I did however get a reply from the BBC’s Journalism Trainee Scheme, who politely wished me well but were unable to offer any feedback on why I was unsuccessful. I had planned to apply for ITV’s similar course but due to some terrible time-management and a lack of organisation somehow missed the deadline after only getting partly through the online application. I’d had it in my head I had another week — I need to keep a better diary in future.

An intriguing proposition I did throw my name into the hat for is to join the Guardian fans’ network for the 2010 football World Cup. However, although I genuinely believe myself to be an able candidate, I know there is going to be huge competition for the role so I’m not going to hold my breath.

Most recently, I responded to a post on journalism.co.uk advertising news correspondent jobs for Adfero’s DirectNews. Agency work isn’t something I’d ever really considered as my aim was always to be in a busy newsroom, but the chance to write a lot of copy on a daily basis and hone my news writing skills was something I didn’t feel I could turn down. I got an email back asking me to complete a news writing test, which I did earlier this week — it was basically two press release re-writes in an hour — and was then invited to a recruitment day in Manchester on Friday where there will be more assessments and, if I’m still in the running, interviews later in the day.

Researching the company has been difficult, mostly because of the numerous horror stories from ex-employees about their time there. It seems the turnover of staff is quite high which is rarely a good sign. But the chance to get lots of writing experience appeals to me and the job description did mention the chance to progress through the ranks swiftly. I really think it would be a good move for me. Although the work would no doubt be tough that doesn’t worry me. I think it would certainly develop my writing and the speed in which I can work, although admittedly my newsgathering skills may not progress with the job wholly office-based.

Meanwhile, I was asked by the site owner of the Back Page Football website if I’d like to write for them, so I’ve added them to the list of places I’m being published, with a semi-regular column. And I set up a blog where I can do some writing just really for myself, for fun, rather than the work I’ve been doing for various sites for free.

I also did a lot of research on post-grad courses to see if any were suitable for me. There are some very attractive NCTJ-accredited courses that would get me fully-qualified, but at over £5,000 the most reputable are well out of my price range. I tentatively enquired at Lambeth College, which I’d read good things about and was coincidentally the cheapest, but was informed that as I have already studied to NCTJ-level in some subjects and have passed half the exams already, it would not be suitable for me and they couldn’t offer me a place. I’m not sure where that leaves me as the response is likely to be similar from most places.

So at the moment everything is riding on Friday at Adfero. Wish me luck.

This is the latest of my pieces for the Guardian.

The latest Benny Morris thread provided a veritable collection of comments that underscore just why “Comment is Free” is a cesspit of antisemitic discourse.

One of the last comments in the thread provides a perfect example of the type of commenter that is attracted to “Comment is Free”:

GregoryFegel

25 Nov 2009, 7:47PM

These forums are moderated and censored because you do not have true freedom of speech in the UK.

Questioning the Holocaust is a crime in the UK. What happened during the 1940s that the Zionist-dominated UK government is trying so hard to hide?

Orwell’s England exists today and you are living in it.

And when we take a look at a comment posted on Stormfront, ask yourself if Gregory Fegel’s comment above is so different in substance.

Italo-Anglo-Pole

10-01-2008, 11:54 AM

Pretty long winded, but you bring up some good points.
One question I’ve always had with the Holocaust and the death camps is; Is it outside the realm of possibility to believe that a Zionist dominated government (the USSR) could have manipulated the facts, camps, etc. to make it appear as though there was a genocide to suit their political ambitions in the future? I’ve never heard any information as to what happened to the “extermination camps” after the Soviets controlled them for over four decades. Surely the Soviets could have toyed with the camps, if they wanted to. Also, Auschwitz was liberated in January ‘45, a month before the Yalta Conference. Surely Zionists, like Morgenthau, would have cited the discovered gas chambers, crematoria, etc. as grounds to implement his extreme policy. As far as I know he never did, I’ve been trying to find the minutes of the Yalta Conference to confirm this. Anyone have any thoughts or other information?

Anyway, let’s delve into the Morris thread and see how the comments there compare to other comments posted on Stormfront.

Well for starters, from the school of Holocaust denial, we have denial of a slightly different form – denial that Ahmadinejad threatened to wipe Israel off the map. Here’s a comment on the Benny Morris thread that engages in such discourse:

UnderminingOrthodoxy

24 Nov 2009, 1:54PM

From the article

Iran’s nuclear weapons programme

As far as i know, there is no credible evidence that they have one.

isotope

Ahmadinejad called for Israel’s annihilation

Did he really? Citation? Translated from the original Parsi by whom?

Now take a look at a similar comment from Stormfront:

dogsplayingcards //

Forum Member

Join Date: May 2009

Location: Uncle Bob’s Self Storage, GA

Posts: 2,392

Re: No peaceful solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions

---

What Dr. Ahmadinejad said was not to wipe Israel off the map, but to erase the current Likud party and it’s insane policies.
The mistranslation has become the money shot for all the Jew mouthpieces.

Then we have this very telling comment from lovemymod that makes a bit of a freudian slip with a reference to Hitler’s plan to deport the Jews to Madagascar:

lovemymod

24 Nov 2009, 7:21AM

wouldn’t it be absolutely wonderful if after the war Jews had set up their homeland in Madagascar.

not only would Madagascar not have been reduced to an ecological wasterland but we wouldn’t be having a mano-a-mano with Armagedon. choosing to settle in Israel might end up being the worst decision in history.

Now compare this with a comment from Stormfront about the Madagascar plan.

Legacy1992// Account Disabled Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: New Zealand Posts: 13

Hitler wanting to deport jews to madagascar As we all know Adolf Hitler was a man of peace and he deeply felt for his fellow officer for all of you who have been reading their TRUE history books and not that crap at high school, I was wanting to get some feedback of how Hitler was wanting to deport the jews to madagascar and not murder them. I have read meny books on WW2 and I am starting to think that most of the murders and so forth was the allies faults not the germans because Hitler did want peace the king of England wanted peace (the king also supported lord hallifax) So in a nut shell if England didnt interfere and the soviets were not backstabbers would of this whole mess happen??

And here’s an example of a comment from the Morris thread straight out of the Protocols:

WhatRecession

24 Nov 2009, 11:21AM

voiceofisrael
After we contain the nuclear problem (by ensuring that it doesn?t grow) we can get down to discussing how to reduce or even eliminate nuclear weapons in Britain, Russia, the US, France, China, India, and Pakistan, and possibly in Israel

“We”?

“We” arent on the same side. The Israelis are just war mongerers hell bent on making sure that the West is at war with every middle east country.

Here’s an equivalent comment on Stormfront:

BuffScotsman // “Friend of Stormfront“ Sustaining Member Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 2,070

Re: Iran And Israel Exchange Threats Of Destruction If it wasn’t for Israel and Jews constantly provoking other peoples and taking aggressive actions.. there would be hardly any conflict in the world.Most groups in the world want to be left alone, and dont’ want to rule over other people. Countries like China, Iran, Russia, Korea etc.. seem to all be able to get along with each other. And this is despite being radically different cultures, races and religions.

The next comment from the Morris thread reflects the knee jerk manner in which the guardianistas whitewash Iran’s atrocious record when it comes to “attacking other countries” painting Israel at the same time as some fanatical regime.

controv1

24 Nov 2009, 9:30AM

I see the prozionist trolls are out in force this morning.

Fact, Iran has never attacked another country except in self defence against Iraq, the latter being supported by the West with money and arms.

Nuclear weapons are already in the hands of racist zealots i.e. those who run Israel. We should fear those nutters far far more than any Iranian Mullah. This article is scaremongering rubbish and Morris should be ashamed of spreading the propaganda. There are no nuclear weapons in Iran and the IAEA have only queries on historical Iranian research activities [based on Western allegations] that they want answers for. If you have additional evidence, other than the Zionist bull you read, please send it to the IAEA. To attack Iran would be folly.

Israel should be subject to the same oversight as Iran when it comes to nuclear weapons. Why should they be exempted?

And it seems that on Stormfront there is similar sympathy for the Iranian regime.

Pure Noble BloodLine //

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Location: Moving to Valhalla

Posts: 2,716

Re: No peaceful solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions

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Quote:

Originally Posted by richyrichard What “nuclear ambitions”? Iran is a peace-loving country.

Well they are developing nuclear technologies for civilian power plants. There is no evidence they are attempting to build nuclear bombs even though our government, the media, and Israel likes to try and paint that picture.

But as the poster said above, as the muslim in the video said, it is ridiculous to allow Israel, the war monger, an arsenal of hundreds of nuclear weapons and to claim no other nation is allowed them for defensive purposes in case of an Israeli attack.

Then we have this next comment from the Morris thread that provides another useful insight into how the guardianistas whitewash the truth about the Iranian regime.

twitty

24 Nov 2009, 3:49PM

Iran is among the world’s great nations, anciently Persia & long civilized. Muslim by religion they are not Arabs.

Israel, remember, is a newcomer among the nations, a tiny country & supposedly a refuge for the persecuted Jews..

True enough that Ahmadinejad talks a war-mongering bluster about destroying Israel entirely — fool that he is. Equally true that Israel treats Palestinians as Nazi Germany treated Jews.

Collectives as such never learn & Netanyahu, a scholar’s son, is not the man to lead Israel into a promised land of peace & prosperity.

Now compare twitty’s comment with this:

Zundelful// Account Disabled Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 427

Re: No peaceful solution to Iran’s nuclear ambitions I hope that this doesn’t sound “fruity” but we need to stand arm-in-arm with our brother Ahmadinejad in this crisis, right now! ZOG and ZOG’s flunky nations want to nuke his nation, just because it is standing up to ZOG. Every sane White on the planet would want Ahmadinejad to have nuclear weapons. Iran is literally the only thing keeping ZOG from taking over the whole world right now.

Then we have this comment from Sumwon who wants to “de-zionise” Israel.

SUMWON

24 Nov 2009, 8:41AM

Mr. Morris, you’re looking through the wrong end of the telescope. The threat to the region is zionist Israel, not Iran. Iran has not invaded any of its neighbours. Israel is the potential aggressor as it has proved by having attacked its neighbours and having stolen Palestinian land through the aggression of the zionist terrorist groups of Irgun and the Haganah. It is is now stealing more land by ethnic cleansing through the illegal settlements and home destruction. If Israel has nuclear weapons (what are they for?) then Iran has every right to take steps to defend itself from Israel, the USA and its Nato army. Ironically, it is Israel, run by a zionist regime, which is the real threat to the region by its aggressive actions and which is endangering innocent jewish lives in Israel. For peace to emerge, Israel has to be de-zionised so that jews and arabs can live peaceably together as the children of Abraham.

And in case you were wondering where Sumwon got the idea of “de-zionisation” from, check this out:

Messiah // “Friend of Stormfront“ Sustaining Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: In the land where Zion has begun to flee Posts: 14,833

British Television Airs: Zionist Control of British Government 1940 – 2009 20Nov2009 Zionist Control of Britain’s Government: 1940-2009 by William A. Cook DateFriday, November 20, 2009 at 8:01AM AuthorGilad Atzmon “After so many years of setting the tone, bribing UK politicians and controlling the BBC they (Zionists) are used to being untouchable.” (Gilad Atzmon, “Britain Must de-Zionist Itself Immediately,” Nov. 17, 2009, MWC News). This week the British people listened to the Daily Mall’s Peter Oborne present, on Channel 4, his devastating account of the Jewish lobby’s control of their government. Now we know that virtually all the principal politicians in the UK of both parties, like their brothers across the lake in our House and Senate, take “contributions” from the Israeli lobby machine ensuring that the Anglo-American mid-east policies follow the dictates of the Israeli government. Gilad Atzmon responded to this report in his article “Britain must de-Zionise itself immediately,” noting that this control has been in place for so many years the lobby feels “untouchable.”

As an aside, notice how Stormfront has picked up the Oborne documentary with glee. I wonder why that is…

And how about this one.

yekdoseh

24 Nov 2009, 4:14PM

If you try that Mr Morris the Eastern Europeans masquerading as Jewish people currently occupying Palestine will not be doing so for very much longer.

Not so very different in substance from this:

The Mountain King//

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Re: Hourglass for Iran running out in Israel:Iran approaching it’s fate

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The Jews are suicidal. Please let it be the end of Israel.

Then we have this viciously antisemitic comment on the Morris thread that sparked a whole series of comments about whether Jews of Eastern European origin are actually Khazars.

Hornstein

24 Nov 2009, 1:50PM

SUMWON wrote:

For peace to emerge, Israel has to be de-zionised so that jews and arabs can live peaceably together as the children of Abraham.

I agree with your post but with the sentence above which is factually incorrect. The Ashkenazem are Khazars from Eastern Europe who converted to Judaism in the 8th century. Genetically they have more in common with the Huns, Uigurs and Magyars than they have with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

This is the same Benny Morris when accepting Zionists ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians in 1948, which many Israeli so called historians do not, brushes it aside as a necessity for the creation of Israel. He has no qualms about the death of millions of people, as long as they are not Zionist Jews,

No surprise that this is a popular topic of discussion on Stormfront.

ravencall //

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Join Date: Aug 2008

Posts: 654

Re: IMPORTANT. Ashkenazis are not Jews but Khazars.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by american SS Say what you will, but jews are jews.

Ashkenazis are not infact semitic, semitic Jews are dark skinned and have Arab racial features, they’re called Shepardic and Mizharahi Jews. Ashkenazis are Khazaric-European admixture thus they share more genes with Mygars, Huns, Turks, Armenians and Europeans rather than with Arabs.

If you can’t grasp that concept, good luck shooting those shadows.

That is a mistake Hitler made, he confused a tiny number of religious orthodox jews going about their business with a homeless, religionless rabble race of halfbreeds from the Christian/Muslim borderland in SE Europe, who go around the world causing disruption under the judaism flag. The word should be Khazar, not Jew.

And lest you think that the selection of comments from the Morris thread above were mere aberrations, here are a few more to sink your teeth into:

TonyPancake

24 Nov 2009, 6:56AM

I should imagine Iran is as perfectly entitled to nuclear self-defence as is Israel, Pakistan, Britain, France etc..

I should imagine Iran is as perfectly unentitled to nuclear self-defence as is Israel, Pakistan, Britain, France etc…

Iran wants its nukes partly as a diversion from internal conflicts, and Israel wants its nukes because Israel is Israel is Israel.

All nations get away with mass murder – Iran, Israel, the UK, the US – people are always defending this nation against that nation – but all they’re defending is the ruling class of those nations. I’m against Israel’s right to exist, along with Iran’s, etc. Identification with your ‘own’ nation is just as colonising of individual consciousness as the Israeli fascist settlers are of the land of their Arab neighbours. “The working class has no country…” Unfortunately, if the commodity economy continues to destroy the environment and if nuclear weapons continue to be in the hands of the various rulers (‘democratic’ or dictatorial) who most clearly identify with this economy, then it might well be that the working class will also have no world. All analysis that doesn’t recognise this basic banality is a Manichean “either/or” mentality which takes sides with mass murderers.

hideandseeker

24 Nov 2009, 9:24AM

If Iran presents such an existential threat to Israel, maybe someone can explain how it is that Iran’s Jewish minority appear to prefer to remain in Iran rather than accept Israel’s offer to migrate there for sanctuary…

Janissary

24 Nov 2009, 9:39AM

dangor

“UK, one of the most aggressive, self-centered and genocidal political entity in human history”

That’s just stupid. Read a histroy book for christ sake.

I must assume you are Israeli since many Israelis like to fantasise that they are anti-colonial heroes who liberated their “country” from the British imperial yoke rather than being racist colonists.

maceasy

24 Nov 2009, 10:01AM

What a crock of warmongering, misleading, threatening, belligerent, stupid self-destructive rubbish. If anyone doubted Israel’s paranoic messianism, here it is. Another desperate attempt to up the ante and prepare the ground for more Israeli extreme violence and destruction. Dr Strangelove is alive and well and lives in Israel.

JJ139

24 Nov 2009, 12:51PM

I fear history will just the imposition of a zionist state in Palestine to be the greatest mistake of the 2nd half of the 20th century and beyond

Author unknown [recreated from 1830's 24 Nov. 2009 1.10pm comment]

An apartheid, land grabbing, terrorist sponsoring bunch of nutjobs who follow just as vicious and violent Abrahamic faith as Islam, Israel is just as bad as the Arab dictatorships is posits itself as an alternative too and were it not for international observation would have committed it’s own holocaust on the Palestinians a long time ago.

GregoryFegel

25 Nov 2009, 7:26PM

Israel, the USA, the UK are the great enemies of peace, freedom, and justice in the world today.

Israel, the USA, the UK are using radioactive DU munitions to poison the entire planet. Israel, the USA, the UK are a grave threat to all of humanity and to the global environment, and to all species on the entire planet.

The elimination of Israeli, USA, and UK as political and economic entities will bring a great improvement for the entire world.

Global Warming is a hoax, but Israel, the USA, the UK are a very real threat to all life on earth.

Amazing how commenters on “Comment is Free” find such fertile ground to spread their racist filth. Then again this is the Guardian and we already know the rot goes all the way to the top.

Um artigo de Michel Faber, para ler no Guardian on-line. E quem ainda não conheça o livro de Robert Crumb, pode ver algumas das suas pranchas no site do mesmo jornal, aqui.

LINK (have a nice meal)