Palestine to Move to Dallas-Fort Worth: Dick Armey's Bold Plan

I'd guess it was the most explicit call for ethnic cleansing by a prominent American since Sherman's designation of the only good Indian being a dead one, or California's second governor, John McDougal's, declaration in his first message to the California legislature in 1851 to the effect that "A war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races till the Indian race becomes extinct." Mind you, Dick Armey wasn't calling for every Palestinian in the territories to be murdered, merely evicted to ... anywhere, so long as it's somewhere else.

Here's what happened. On May 1, on MSNBC's "Hardball," House Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey, puissant legislator from Fort Worth, Texas, called for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the occupied territories.

Armey said flatly that the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel -- in East Jerusalem, and the West Bank and Gaza Strip -- are Israel. Palestinians living in the West Bank should be removed.

Armey: "I'm content to have Israel grab the entire West Bank."

Dysart Woods

To the editor,

While the legal struggle to save Dysart Woods might be immensely complex, the current situation is simple: those who value our last .004 percent of remaining ancient forest in Ohio need to speak up fast or it will be gone. Please try to attend an upcoming public hearing at 2 p.m., Wednesday May 15 in Belmont County.

Ohio Valley Coal Company (OVCC) has pending permits to mine all of Dysart Woods and its watershed with longwall and room and pillar mining. Dysart Defenders’ expert hydrologist and forest ecologist both say this would be disastrous for the old growth forest and would take away its uniqueness of being a remnant original forest that can be studied as a benchmark for what used to cover 95 percent of Ohio.

Coalition: Farm Bill Amendment Weakens AWA

Farm Bill Amendment Weakens Animal Welfare Act To Exclude Most Animals Used in Labs from Humane Protection; Coalition Urges Defeat

Contact: Nancy Blaney of the Working Group to Preserve the Animal Welfare Act, 703-521-1689
Tina Nelson of the American Anti-Vivisection Society, 215-887-0816

WASHINGTON, May 2 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Today Congress will come one step closer to making the U.S. the only country with animal protection laws to exclude most research animals from the protection of the law. The Conference Report to the Farm Bill, which the House will consider today, includes an amendment offered by Senator Helms that denies the Animal Welfare Act's (AWA) requirements for humane care to 95 percent of research animals, i.e., birds, rats, and mice, from receiving humane care. Instead of using hearings and debates before making a significant and controversial change to the AWA, Senator Helms introduced an amendment that passed in the Senate by voice vote with only a few members present. This amendment is now part of the Farm Bill.

One of the reasons Congress broadened the AWA in 1970 was to

Permit to mine watershed of Dysart Woods hearing May 15

The Ohio Division of Mineral Resources scheduled a meeting May 15 at 2 p.m. at the Belmont Technical College Red Room for Ohio Valley Coal Company’s Permit D-0360-13 (-13 for short) which would allow access from the -7 permit area to the -12 permit area, which includes all of Dysart Woods including the old growth forest.

If granted, Ohio Valley Coal Company could argue that the state must issue the -12 permit to mine under Dysart Woods since it permitted the -13 entrance main to the -12 permit. Further, the permit includes more than 20 acres of mining in the watershed buffer zone of Dysart Woods, which the Lands Unsuitable Petition appeal requests to be made off limits to mining.

Dysart Woods is among the most endangered ecosystem in the world according to a 1996 U.S. Department of Interior report. A map of the proposed mining permit, and the already approved and appealed -9 permit is at

Meanwhile, the Ohio Division of Mineral Resources has yet to deem the -12 permit complete, which would undermine all of Dysart Woods, including all of the old growth forest areas with longwall and room and pillar mining.

Still Not Good Enough -- From Barbie to Botox

In a twist of fate, obituaries appeared for the inventor of the Barbie doll just as a $50 million advertising campaign got underway for an anti-wrinkle drug with a name that memorably combines the words "botulism" and "toxin." Expensive injections of Botox are already popular among women eager to remove lines from their faces. The ad blitz of mid-2002 is certain to boost the practice.

American women between the ages of 30 and 64 are the prime targets, and 90 percent of them will be hit with Botox pitches a minimum of 10 times. Launched with a paid layout in People magazine the first week of May ("It's not magic, it's Botox Cosmetic"), the print ads use before-and-after pictures. Network TV commercials are also part of the campaign.

To many minds, we live in a post-feminist era when denouncing sexist strictures is anachronistic. People who complain loudly about media images of women are apt to be derided for "political correctness." But another sort of PC -- what might be called "patriarchal correctness" -- continues to flourish today as a media mainstay, and not only in the realms of advertising and mass entertainment.

Terrorism and Israel

AUSTIN, Texas -- Great, now everyone who thinks Ariel Sharon is a screaming disaster for Israel has been read out of the pro-Israeli camp. This excommunication comes not from Israel -- where quite a few people think exactly that -- but from William Safire and his fellow grandees of the journalistic right, who apparently have no doubt about their own authority to decide who is for Israel and who is not. Some of us who think Sharon is a walking catastrophe have been under the apparently misguided impression that we, too, were devoted to Israel's best interests.

But ever since Attorney General John Ashcroft informed me that worrying about cancellation of the Constitution was the same thing as aiding terrorists, it has been clear to me that I mustn't think what I think. I need to be instructed what to think by people who think the way he does. This is the same attorney general who spent $8,000 to cover up the tits on a statue and who believes calico cats are a sign of the Devil, but I am not allowed to conclude that the attorney general is something of a nincompoop because that would aid terrorists.

Sharon's Final Solution for Palestinians?

Two years ago, less than 8 percent of those who took part in a Gallup poll among Jewish Israelis said they were in favor of what is politely called "transfer" - that is, the expulsion of perhaps two million Palestinians across the River Jordan. This month, that figure reached 44 percent.

Professor Martin van Creveld is Israel's best-known military historian. On April 28, Britain's conservative newspaper The Telegraph, published an article outlining what Van Creveld believes Sharon's near-term goal: "transfer," otherwise known as expulsion of the Palestinians.

According to Van Creveld, Sharon's plan is to drive two million Palestinians across the Jordan using the pretext of a U.S. attack on Iraq or a terrorist strike in Israel. This could trigger a vast mobilization to clear the occupied territories of their two million Arabs. Van Creveld notes that In September 1970, Van Creveld recalls, King Hussein of Jordan attacked the Palestinians in his kingdom, killing perhaps 5,000 to 10,000. Sharon, serving as Commanding Officer, Southern Front, argued that Israel's

The Bushies

AUSTIN, Texas -- Sometimes I forget how truly simpleminded the Bushies can be. The front-page of The New York Times reports, "The Bush administration seems to accept and even relish (Attorney General) Ashcroft's role as lightning rod on difficult criminal justice issues."

Since the attorney general has so amply demonstrated his clueless incompetence, it may seem difficult to plumb why it should be so. But it is precisely, you see, because liberals consider John Ashcroft a dangerous nincompoop that the administration thinks he's doing a good job. They really are that simple.

In the Texas Legislature, the press occasionally gives the If-He-Votes-Yes, I-Vote-No Award for some egregious example of this particular strain of non-thinking. Any halfway smart politician loves to have another pol in this position. That's when you introduce a resolution in favor of Motherhood just to watch the other guy vote against it.

It takes no great detective to see the pattern here. Before Sept. 11, Bush's entire foreign policy consisted of being Not Clinton. If

Media and the Hazards of Political Faith

Weeks before the 20th century ended, the pundit Michael Kinsley was uncommonly direct in a Time essay that defended the virtues of the World Trade Organization with these closing words: "But really, the WTO is OK. Do the math. Or take it on faith." Delivered by the flagship magazine of the Time Warner conglomerate (soon to merge with AOL), the message was more overt than usual: We should devoutly accept certain pronouncements as conclusive.

Such rigid faith is dangerous. It undermines critical thinking. And it's wide open for manipulation -- by mainstream news outlets as well as by some who present themselves as anti-establishment.

Many decades before the invention of television, the American historian Henry Adams was essentially correct when he wrote about the dominant media of the day: "The press is the hired agent of a monied system, and set up for no other purpose than to tell lies where their interests are involved." In substance, there is much truth to that observation in 2002.

But those who, with good reason, refuse to trust the corporate media are scarcely better off when they lower their standards to buy

Border Law and an Alcoholic Goat

MARATHON -- In the annals of West Texas law enforcement, few episodes rival the recent (well, relatively recent) unfortunate occurrence involving the mayor of Lajitas. As visitors to that border metropolis in the Big Bend are aware, the mayor of Lajitas is an alcoholic goat named Clay Henry.

The incumbent Mayor Henry is the third of his line, making this, we believe, the only democratically elected dynasty in the country. If you give the mayor a longneck bottle of beer, he'll swig it -- just like most of his constituents. The Sober Party ran a canine against him in the last election, but it didn't have a dog's chance.

So first thing one morning just a few months ago, Steve Houston, the county attorney, gets a call from Richard Hill, constable in Lajitas, announcing they're dealing with a serious situation: Someone castrated the mayor. A vet is en route at high speed from Alpine, but it's unclear whether the goat will live or not. Local feelings were running high against the perps. Some felt there was danger of a possible lynch mob. Constable Hill got right on it.

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