Bill Clinton: Netanyahu isn't interested in Mideast peace deal

Bill Clinton: Netanyahu isn't interested in Mideast peace deal - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is responsible for the inability to reach a peace deal that would end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, former U.S. President Bill Clinton said on Thursday.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Clinton Global Initiative conference in New York, the former U.S. president was quoted by Foreign Policy magazine as claiming that Netanyahu lost interest in the peace process as soon as two basic Israelis demands seemed to come into reach: a viable Palestinian leadership and the possibility of normalizing ties with the Arab world.

Obama blocked the face of Mongolian President Tsakhia Elbegdorj :)

I wondered why he raised his hand?
Weasel Zippers » Blog Archive » Hilarious: Obama Moronically Waves During Picture With World Leaders At UN Event…

Hilarious: Obama Moronically Waves During Picture With World Leaders At UN Event…

Intuitive vs Rational : Believer vs Atheist

The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?"
If you answer 10 cents, you tend to believe in God. But if you answer 5 cents which is the correct one, you might be an atheist :) Here is the explanation...so are you intuitive or rational? Well, whatever you are, we are all human :)

The intuitive answer to that question is 10 cents, since most people's first impulse is to knock $1 off the total. But people who use "reflective" reasoning to question their first impulse are more likely to get the correct answer: 5 cents.

Belief in God Boils Down to a Gut Feeling - Yahoo! News

For many people, believing in God comes down to a gut feeling that a benevolent deity is out there. A study now finds that gut feelings may be very important in determining who goes to church every Sunday and who avoids the pews.

People who are generally more intuitive in the way they think and make decisions are more likely to believe in God than those who ruminate over their choices, the researchers found. The findings suggest that basic differences in thinking style can influence religious belief.

"Some say we believe in God because our intuitions about how and why things happen lead us to see a divine purpose behind ordinary events that don't have obvious human causes," study researcher Amitai Shenhav of Harvard University said in a statement. "This led us to ask whether the strength of an individual's beliefs is influenced by how much they trust their natural intuitions versus stopping to reflect on those first instincts."

Shenhav and his colleagues investigated that question in a series of studies. In the first, 882 American adults answered online surveys about their belief in God. Next, the participants took a three-question math test with questions such as, "A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?"

The intuitive answer to that question is 10 cents, since most people's first impulse is to knock $1 off the total. But people who use "reflective" reasoning to question their first impulse are more likely to get the correct answer: 5 cents.

Sure enough, people who went with their intuition on the math test were found to be one-and-a-half times more likely to believe in God than those who got all the answers right. The results held even when taking factors such as education and income into account.

In a second study, 373 participants were told to write a paragraph about either successfully using their intuition or successfully reasoning their way to an answer. Those who wrote about the intuitive experience were more likely to say they were convinced of God's existence after the experiment, suggesting that triggering intuitive thinking boosts belief.

The researchers plan to investigate how genes and education influence thinking styles, but they're quick to note that neither intuition nor reflection is inherently superior.

"It's not that one way is better than the other," study researcher David Rand of Harvard said in a statement. "Intuitions are important and reflection is important, and you want some balance of the two. Where you are on that spectrum affects how you come out in terms of belief in God."

The research was published Sept. 19 online in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

Bebas VOA Kamboja since 22 Sept 2011

I just got info from a friend that we don't need a VOA anymore if we plan to travel to Cambodia. This new regulation is effectively implemented since yesterday. So, we will have less hassle. That country should do this long time ago when all other ASEAN countries have allowed their citizens to travel without visa.

IHSG down (4.100 to 3.400)

Less than in two months...the markets plunge so much....
Stock markets tumble after Operation Twist … and doubt | Business | guardian.co.uk

The US Federal Reserve's Operation Twist failed to bring calm to financial markets, which tumbled on Thursday as investors took fright at the US central bank's gloomy warning about the economic outlook.

The FTSE 100 index in London plunged 174 points in early trading, a 3.3% drop, with not a single riser in sight. In Asia, markets also suffered heavy losses, with the Nikkei closing down 2.1%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng tumbling 4.3% and Jakarta's stock market losing over 7%. Brent crude oil lost nearly $2 to $108.59 a barrel.

The sell-off came after the Fed unveiled a new $400bn bond-buying plan on Wednesday to ward off a double-dip recession, as it emerged that the Bank of England was also getting ready to pump more money into the British economy.

The Fed's open markets committee said the economic outlook had deteriorated sharply, noting there were "significant downside risks" to its economic forecasts and indicating that a full recovery was years away. "Recent indicators point to continuing weakness in overall labour market conditions, and the unemployment rate remains elevated."

This drove the Dow Jones down 2.5% on Wednesday while the Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 3%.

Kesal

Hey Air Asia and CIMB Niaga, mengapa bukan CIMB Clicks Indonesia yang muncul tetapi Cimb clicks Malaysia (.my). Apa yang tercantum di sini http://promo.cimbclicks.co.id/email/airasia/bahasa/index.htm tuh , ga muncul karena user name aku tdak akan sesuai dengan  CIMB Malaysia. Mengesalkan sehingga menggangggu proses pembookingan. Tolong, sistem dibenahi, jangan merugikan konsemen, tenaga dan waktu. KAlau perlu, semua yang punya account BAnk CIMB Niaga, dari negara manapun asalnya, acoountnya tetap satu..unuversal. Btw, masih kesal!

American Tax : Are rich taxed less than secretaries?

FACT CHECK: Yahoo! News

President Barack Obama says he wants to make sure millionaires are taxed at higher rates than their secretaries. The data say they already are.

"Warren Buffett's secretary shouldn't pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett. There is no justification for it," Obama said as he announced his deficit-reduction plan this week. "It is wrong that in the United States of America, a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker who earns $50,000 should pay higher tax rates than somebody pulling in $50 million."

On average, the wealthiest people in America pay a lot more taxes than the middle class or the poor, according to private and government data. They pay at a higher rate, and as a group, they contribute a much larger share of the overall taxes collected by the federal government.

The 10 percent of households with the highest incomes pay more than half of all federal taxes. They pay more than 70 percent of federal income taxes, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

In his White House address on Monday, Obama called on Congress to increase taxes by $1.5 trillion as part of a 10-year deficit reduction package totaling more than $3 trillion. He proposed that Congress overhaul the tax code and impose what he called the "Buffett rule," named for the billionaire investor.

The rule says, "People making more than $1 million a year should not pay a smaller share of their income in taxes than middle-class families pay." Buffett wrote in a recent piece for The New York Times that the tax rate he paid last year was lower than that paid by any of the other 20 people in his office.

"Middle-class families shouldn't pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires," Obama said. "That's pretty straightforward. It's hard to argue against that."

There may be individual millionaires who pay taxes at rates lower than middle-income workers. In 2009, 1,470 households filed tax returns with incomes above $1 million yet paid no federal income tax, according to the Internal Revenue Service. But that's less than 1 percent of the nearly 237,000 returns with incomes above $1 million.

This year, households making more than $1 million will pay an average of 29.1 percent of their income in federal taxes, including income taxes, payroll taxes and other taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank.

Households making between $50,000 and $75,000 will pay an average of 15 percent of their income in federal taxes.

Lower-income households will pay less. For example, households making between $40,000 and $50,000 will pay an average of 12.5 percent of their income in federal taxes. Households making between $20,000 and $30,000 will pay 5.7 percent.

The latest IRS figures are a few years older — and limited to federal income taxes — but show much the same thing. In 2009, taxpayers who made $1 million or more paid on average 24.4 percent of their income in federal income taxes, according to the IRS.

Those making $100,000 to $125,000 paid on average 9.9 percent in federal income taxes. Those making $50,000 to $60,000 paid an average of 6.3 percent.

Obama's claim hinges on the fact that, for high-income families and individuals, investment income is often taxed at a lower rate than wages. The top tax rate for dividends and capital gains is 15 percent. The top marginal tax rate for wages is 35 percent, though that is reserved for taxable income above $379,150.

With tax rates that high, why do so many people pay at lower rates? Because the tax code is riddled with more than $1 trillion in deductions, exemptions and credits, and they benefit people at every income level, according to data from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress' official scorekeeper on revenue issues.

The Tax Policy Center estimates that 46 percent of households, mostly low- and medium-income households, will pay no federal income taxes this year. Most, however, will pay other taxes, including Social Security payroll taxes.

"People who are doing quite well and worry about low-income people not paying any taxes bemoan the fact that they get so many tax breaks that they are zeroed out," said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center. "People at the bottom of the distribution say, 'But all of those rich guys are getting bigger tax breaks than we're getting,' which is also the case."

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was pressed at a White House briefing on the number of millionaires who pay taxes at a lower rate than middle-income families. He demurred, saying that people who make most of their money in wages pay taxes at a higher rate, while those who get most of their income from investments pay at lower rates.

"So it really depends on what is your profession, where's the source of your income, what's the specific circumstances you face, and the averages won't really capture that," Geithner said.

Poverty in America

When I read and watched the video of this article, I couldn't believe that this kind of poverty happened in America. No wonder, a guy in that video said "This is like in the 3rd world countries..but it is just 75 kilometers from Chicago".

Behind the poverty numbers: real lives, real pain - Yahoo! News

At a food pantry in a Chicago suburb, a 38-year-old mother of two breaks into tears.

She and her husband have been out of work for nearly two years. Their house and car are gone. So is their foothold in the middle class and, at times, their self-esteem.

"It's like there is no way out," says Kris Fallon.

She is trapped like so many others, destitute in the midst of America's abundance. Last week, the Census Bureau released new figures showing that nearly one in six Americans lives in poverty — a record 46.2 million people. The poverty rate, pegged at 15.1 percent, is the highest of any major industrialized nation, and many experts believe it could get worse before it abates.

The numbers are daunting — but they also can seem abstract and numbing without names and faces.

Associated Press reporters around the country went looking for the people behind the numbers. They were not hard to find.

There's Tim Cordova, laid off from his job as a manager at a McDonald's in New Mexico, and now living with his wife at a homeless shelter after a stretch where they slept in their Ford Focus.

There's Bill Ricker, a 74-year-old former repairman and pastor whose home is a dilapidated trailer in rural Maine. He scrapes by with a monthly $1,003 Social Security check. His ex-wife also is hard up; he lets her live in the other end of his trailer.

There's Brandi Wells, a single mom in West Virginia, struggling to find a job and care for her 10-month-old son. "I didn't realize that it could go so bad so fast," she says.

Snaptu: Palestinians' Political Calculus: Would Obama Take a Stand Against the Arab Spring?

Behind the bold decision by Palestinian leaders to press for full membership in the United Nations - with its risk of a U.S. veto in the Security Council - is the Palestinians' calculation of another risk: All the Obama administration stands to lose…

Click here to read the full story

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Cara Beli Emas Logam Mulia di PT Antam

source : here
Website for Logam Mulia, click here
Bagi yang tertarik bisnis Emas Batangan bisa membeli di pegadaian atau di PT Antam Unit Bisnis Logam Mulia. Di Pegadaian harga Emas-nya mengacu ke harga PT Antam Logam Mulia. Untuk Emas Batangan, janganlah membayangkan seperti yang ada di film-film dimana bentuknya sebesar batu bata dan bertumpuk-tumpuk, pada kenyataannya bentuknya kecil-kecil mulai dari pecahan 1 gram, 2 gram sampai 1 kg. Bentuk emas batangan yang umum lebih seperti nugget atau potongan coklat batangan yang kecil-kecil.

Untuk pembelian di PT. Logam Mulia berikut alamatnya:

http://www.logammulia.com/contact_us.htm

PT Antam Tbk, Unit Bisnis Pengolahan dan Pemurnian Logam Mulia

Address.
Jl. Pemuda – Jl. Raya Bekasi KM.18
Pulogadung, Jakarta 13210
Tel. (62 21) 475 7108
Fax. (62 21) 475 0665
Email. lm@logammulia.com

Unit Bisnis Pengolahan dan Pemurnian Logam Mulia SURABAYA

Address.
Jl. Genteng kali 67 B
Surabaya
Tel. (62 31) 5491868; 5491723
Fax. (62 31) 5357480

Daftar harga diupdate dua kali dalam sehari, bisa dilihat di:

http://www.logammulia.com/news.php?id=9

Prosedur pembayaran bisa dilihat di:

http://www.logammulia.com/news.php?id=19

PROSEDUR KETENTUAN PEMBAYARAN TRANSAKSI JUAL BELI BAGI PELANGGAN ATAU CALON PELANGGAN LOGAM MULIA

1. Pembayaran langsung di tempat :
Tunai maksimum sebesar Rp50.000.000,00 ( Lima Puluh Juta Rupiah ) selebihnya melalui transfer.
Debit ATM Mandiri dikenakan charge 1,1% maksimum total pembayaran Rp5.000.000,00 ( Lima Juta Rupiah ).
Debit ATM BCA :
- Platinum Rp75.000.000,00
- Gold Rp25.000.000,00
- Silver Rp15.000.000,00
Kartu Kredit berlogo VISA dikenakan charge 3,1%.
2. Pembayaran melalui transfer :
- Transfer antar Bank
- Transfer melalui internet Banking
- Transfer melalui ATM
3. Untuk pembayaran melalui transfer, harus dikonfirmasikan terlebih dahulu dengan Bagian Marketing melalui telepon (021) 299 80 900 atau (021) 475 7108. Bukti transfer atau setoran langsung dibawa atau di fax terlebih dahulu untuk proses pengambilan barang dengan dilengkapi keterangan transaksi Nama, No. Identitas dan No. telpon pelanggan yang bersangkutan guna memudahkan kami dalam mengidentifikasi pelanggan.

Pembayaran melalui transfer disarankan melalui Bank Mandiri atau BCA,untuk percepatan proses pemindahbukuan, namun apabila menggunakan bank lainnya dapat menggunakan fasilitas RTGS ke rekening kami sbb :
- Bank Mandiri Cabang Pulogadung A/C. No.125 0079000063 A/N. PT. Antam Tbk UBPP Logam Mulia.
- Bank BCA Cabang Kelapa Gading Villa A/C. No. 413.300.5393 A/N. PT. Aneka Tambang.

Biaya transfer menjadi beban pelanggan.

Penyerahan barang atau jasa dilakukan setelah transfer atau pembayaran dipastikan telah masuk ke rekening PT Antam UBPP Logam Mulia.

IHSG has dropped from its highest 4.195 to 3825

Pilih Saham Penggerak Pasar! - pasarmodal.inilah.com

Dalam sepekan ke depan, Satrio memperkirakan, laju IHSG berpeluang variatif (mixed) seiring pasar yang mencermati pergerakan bursa regional. Jika regional positif, IHSG pun berpeluang positif. “Yang jelas, indeks memiliki kisaran support kuat di level 3.700-3.800,” papar Satrio. “Koreksi indeks pekan lalu, sudah menguji level support ini dan ternyata kuat.”

Sementara itu, resistance indeks di level 3.825-3.850. Jika resistance tersebut mampu ditembus ke atas, IHSG bisa lari dengan mudah ke level resistance 3.950-4.000 lagi. “Sekarang, pasar tinggal melihat reversal naik IHSG yang sudah dimulai pada akhir perdagangan pekan lalu,” tutur Satrio.

Meskipun, kata Satrio, untuk mengofirmasinya, harus melihat bagaimana pergerakan indeks awal pekan ini, Senin (19/9). Dia menambahkan, jika awal pekan naik, IHSG berpeluang menguat dalam sepekan penuh.

Lebih jauh dia menjelaskan, pekan lalu, IHSG berhasil menyelematkan level support 3.700-3.800. Jika sepekan ke depan support ini masih terjaga, sangat positif bagi IHSG. Pasar bisa kembali berharap bahwa sebelum akhir tahun, indeks bisa mencetak rekor baru di atas level 4.200. “Sebab, level tertinggi terakhir di level 4.195,” ujarnya.

Don't blame us for rape, say miniskirted Jakarta women

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/dont-blame-us-rape-miniskirted-jakarta-women-114027825.html
Also read my previous post about Stupid Leader and Stupid Policy

Scores of women and children wearing colorful miniskirts and tight
leggings gathered in central Jakarta on Sunday, outraged by a public
official's comments that provocatively dressed women are to blame for
sexual assaults.

The protest was in response to remarks by the Indonesian capital
city's governor Fauzi Bowo, who said on Friday that women must not
wear revealing clothes to avoid being raped or victimized.

He quickly apologized, but his comments were publicized widely via
local media and Twitter.

The rally called on police and the Indonesian government to do more to
protect women and help the victims of sexual assault.

Women carried placards saying "Don't tell us how to dress, tell them
not to rape," and "My body is not porn, instead it's your dirty mind."

"Public officials should remain silent rather than making
discriminatory statements against women. They are supposed to be
sensitive and it is their job to find real solution to violence
against women," said Tunggal Prawestu, a spokeswoman for the event
organizers.

Earlier this month a woman was gang-raped in a minivan, a widely used
type of public transport, late at night. According to data from
Indonesia's National Commission for Women's Affairs, there have been
more than 100,000 cases of violence against women so far this year, of
which almost 4 percent were rape cases.

This year, cities around the world have seen 'SlutWalk' rallies,
mainly-female protests against sexual violence.

While most Indonesians practice a moderate form of Islam,
fundamentalists have been pushing hard to impose stricter Islamic
laws. In 2008, an anti-pornography law was passed to ban public
displays of nudity and "behavior that could incite lust."

Our capitalist system is near meltdown

The ailing euro is part of a wider crisis| Will Hutton | Comment is free | The Observer

Eighty years ago, faced with today's economic events, nobody would have been in any doubt: we would obviously be living through a crisis in capitalism. Instead, there is a collective unwillingness to call a spade a spade. This is variously a crisis of the European Union, a crisis of the euro, a debt crisis or a crisis of political will. It is all those things, but they are subplots of a much bigger story: the way capitalism has been conceived and practised for the last 30 years has hit the buffers. Unless and until that is recognised, western economies will be locked in stagnation which could even transmute into a major economic disaster.

Simply put, the world has trillions upon trillions of excessive private debt financed by too many different currencies whose risk is allegedly mitigated by even more trillions of financial bets which in aggregate do not minimise the systemic risk one iota. This entire financial edifice, underwritten by tiny amounts of capital, has been created over three decades backed by the theory that markets do not make mistakes. Capitalism is best conceived and practised, runs the theory, by hunter-gatherer bankers and entrepreneurs owing no allegiance to the state or society.

This is nonsense. Business and the state co-generate wealth in a system of complex mutual dependence. Markets are beset by mood swings and uncertainty which, if not offset by government action, lead to violent oscillations. Capitalism without responsibility or proportionality degrades into racketeering and exploitation. The prospect of limitless pay is an open invitation to bad, or even criminal, behaviour. Good capitalism cannot happen without referees to blow the whistle or robust frameworks in which markets can function; neither is reliably created by capitalism itself, hence the role of democratic government. Yet the world is trying to solve the legacy of the last 30 years as if none of this were true and, instead, that the practice and theories that created the mess are still valid.

US treasury secretary Tim Geithner, joining EU finance ministers in Poland as again they pondered how best to end the ongoing euro crisis, was at least recognising today's interdependencies between countries when he urged his fellow ministers to stop bickering because the markets were terrified by the threat of a catastrophic event – with all the risk that posed the US.

George Osborne was also right to declare that a strong euro was in Britain's interests. But worrying about how a failed euro might impact on yourself is old speak. What the markets need to hear is that western politicians – whether in the eurozone or not – see the euro as part of the potential solution to capitalism's current crisis, not its cause, and that they are prepared to do all in their power to support the reforms necessary to make the euro survive and take other measures vital to make the world financial system functional again. Geithner and Osborne must put some money where their mouths are.

The euro's critics, endlessly emphasising that it is a monetary straitjacket and that the best reform now would be its break-up, miss the point. It was not this so-called straitjacket that is the cause of today's euro crisis. It is the interaction of the euro system with a once-in-a-century crisis of capitalism that its designers and supporters, like its critics, never anticipated. Yes, what the crisis has exposed is that the eurozone needed a ¤1trillion-plus fund to recapitalise bust banks and underwrite sovereign debt write-downs; this was not written into the original treaty. And that the investment and retail banking arms of the EU's universal banks need to be ringfenced or formally separated, as Sir John Vickers's banking commission proposes for Britain –if they are to be remotely safe. But neither notion was a battle cry of the eurosceptics over the last 10 years.

In fact, the existence of the euro has, until now, been a bulwark against disaster. Suppose it had not been created and that the financial crisis in 2008 had broken over a Europe with multiple floating exchange rates and no European central bank – the eurosceptic utopia. The Irish, Portuguese, Greek, Spanish, Italian and French banking systems would have stood alone and they would have collapsed in a domino effect, interacting with the mega-crisis in Britain and the US. Even some German banks would not have been immune. There would have been a 1930s-scale slump, the break up of the EU and a rise in beggar-my-neighbour devaluations and trade protection.

We have not yet escaped that prospect. If the euro breaks up, the cascade of subsequent bank failures and debt write-downs will be no less threatening and Britain will be pulled into the vortex. The EU has created a "financial stabilisation facility" to try to hold the line. But there is no urgency in launching it; it is still not a proper fund but, rather, a stop-gap provider of borrowing facilities and it is too small. As bad, the German and French governments are wedded to collective European austerity; they want to impose long-term balanced budgets not only on themselves but chilling austerity on the unfortunate states which have to borrow to support their banks and bond markets.

An entire continent is to be blighted by lack of demand in the midst of a capitalist crisis, compounded by Britain's scorched earth, deficit-reduction plans. Already, many European banks are technically insolvent, recognised by Christine Lagarde, the IMF's new managing director, if not by the banks themselves.

Last week, the Bank of England joined the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan and the Swiss central bank in promising Europe's banks vital liquidity in dollars, easing the crisis for a while. Time has been bought; we are pitching in to save ourselves. But the outside world needs to go much further. Europe's stabilisation facility must become a fund with a capacity to lend and intervene to see off speculators: Britain, the US, Switzerland and Japan, along with China and oil-rich Arab states, need to contribute alongside Germany.

In return for coming to the relief of the German taxpayer, we should demand two key concessions: one, that Europe sets about ringfencing its universal banks' investment banking operations to make them less vulnerable; and second, that no international cash is forthcoming unless the EU commits to a formal plan for growth in which its stronger countries, notably Germany, promise to stimulate their economies. As part of the package, Britain should agree to defer its own deficit- reduction plans and to issue bonds denominated in euros to contribute to the new euro fund.

We are living through the most dangerous confluence of economic circumstances in modern times. Trying to pretend the interdependencies do not exist or that the collapse of the euro is the answer can only make matters worse. It is a straight choice: we do all we can to help each other or risk going down in what could be the worst economic contraction for a century.

A Palestinian state is a moral right

A Palestinian state is a moral right | Observer editorial | Comment is free | The Observer

For the Zionist movement seeking an independent state of Israel, desire became reality in November 1947, when the General Assembly of the United Nations passed Resolution 181 supporting the establishment of a Jewish state in a partitioned Palestine.

That state was declared on 14 May 1948 by David Ben-Gurion and the Jewish people's council in a Tel Aviv museum. The state of Israel was recognised that evening by President Truman of United States and by the Soviet Union a few days later.

More than six decades later, Palestinians, who at first refused to accept the partition plan of the newly minted UN, are seeking similar recognition, firstly in front of the Security Council, asking for their own state based on the 1967 borders free from occupation and settlement by half-a-million Israelis, able to determine their own affairs.

The idea of a Palestinian state should be uncontroversial. The United States supports the notion, as does the UK. Indeed, in his 2009 Cairo speech, President Barack Obama insisted: "Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's."

Yet Obama appears determined to veto the move towards Palestinian statehood, while Britain has hinted it is likely to abstain in a Security Council vote.

Should the Palestinian request fail at the Security Council, it will then go to the General Assembly, where it seems likely that close to 130 states will vote to support a Palestinian resolution which will be able only to grant an enhanced status to become the equivalent of the Vatican – an "observer state". It will, however, be a deeply symbolic moment providing a political, moral and diplomatic victory for the Palestinian cause that the world will find difficult to ignore.

It will, significantly, also allow Palestine to become a signatory to the International Criminal Court, permitting it to pursue claims against Israel.

While it seems certain that European countries such as France and Spain will support recognition, what is less clear is how the UK will vote in the General Assembly, amid increasing speculation that it might support an enhanced Palestinian status of "observer state" with the right to complain to the International Criminal Court, but only if cases cannot be raised retrospectively.

The objections to a Palestinian state – driven by Israel with the support of the US – are dangerous and transparently self-serving ones, not least in the midst of an Arab Spring where the US and Europe have tried to present themselves as being supporters of democracy, freedom and justice.

The only valid mechanism for the creation of a Palestinian state, this argument goes, is the ongoing peace process, but in fact it is a moribund peace process, which Israel has done its best to smother under the obstructionist leadership of Binyamin Netanyahu.

Equally contentious is the claim by some supporters of Israel that in seeking their own state through the declaration of the international community rather than direct talks, Palestinians are seeking to "delegitimise" Israel.

The reality is that what those opposing the moves at the UN are demanding is that Palestinians adhere to a non-existent peace process in the good faith that at some time it might be revived in the future under American guidance.

They also require Palestinians to refrain from moves that would expose the double standards of the White House and Congress which, while supporting a two-state solution in words, has not only failed to deliver one but now threatens actively to block that outcome.

Palestinians, this newspaper believes, are right to be wary of the vague promise that things might be better in a revived peace process at some unspecified time in the future. Despite Oslo and 20 years of peace negotiations, as comparison of maps makes only too clear, the space available for a Palestinian state has only shrunk with each passing decade as Israel has continued to appropriate more land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The actions of the Israeli army in the occupied territories, as the recent book of a decade's worth of soldiers' testimonies by the servicemen's group Breaking the Silence has recently demonstrated, have not changed in the desire to control and disrupt ordinary Palestinian life on a daily basis.

The truth is that the occupation has become self-sustaining, both for the Israeli army which is implementing the policy, and for a partly militarised society and its politicians, who cannot persuade themselves to bring the occupation to an end.

There are risks, inevitably, in taking the issue of statehood to the UN, even in the end if it is only for the upgrading of its observer status. Moves on statehood threaten the long-fractious relationship between Fatah and Hamas, the latter of which opposes the statehood moves, particularly in its stronghold, Gaza, raising the risk of more political violence between the rival factions.

There is the danger, too, that the tactic will feel like a damp squib on the day after when Palestinians wake up to see nothing in their lives has changed.

But already the strategy has shed important light on a Middle East peace process in which a United States that has long cast itself as an impartial broker (while vetoing every crticism of Israel raised at the UN) is a far from neutral referee, even as its influence in the region has appeared diminished.

That new reality was dramatised last week with the explicit threat by Saudi Arabia that its important relationship with the US will be downgraded should America choose to use its veto. As in November 1947, we stand at a crossroads of history.

As British ministers deliberate how they will vote in the Security Council, they are confronted with the choice between what is morally right – supporting a Palestinian state – and hypocrisy justified in the name of pragmatism.

The state of Israel was founded amid risk and uncertainty, which those who supported it fully recognised. They did not argue that a Jewish homeland was possible only in the most ideal and secure conditions. That argument should not be used to further delay Palestinian statehood.

via ScribeFire

Snaptu: Why the Australian passport category 'X' may not mark the spot | Jane Fae

Allowing a third option for intersex people, while well meaning, does confuse the separate issues of gender and sex

New rules in Australia in respect of transgender recognition and the acknowledgment – the first ever by any government – that…

Click here to read the full story

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Female Leaders Around The World

Helle Thorning-Schmidt: Neil Kinnock's daughter-in-law is Denmark's 1st female prime minister | Mail Online

Why Not Eat Insects?

Insects: the future of food? | Life and style | guardian.co.uk

Back in 1885, the same year that the first issue of Good Housekeeping appeared and the Statue of Liberty arrived in New York, British entomologist Vincent M Holt published a pamphlet entitled Why Not Eat Insects?

Alongside a recipe for wood-lice sauce (excellent with fish, apparently) and some example menus (curried cockchafers, anyone?), Holt spends much time agonising over the Western abhorrence for meals made from our scuttling insect cousins.

"Is it not a wonder", he asked, "that people do not look around them for the many gastronomic treasures lying neglected at their feet? Prejudice, prejudice, thy strength is enormous!" As Victorian kitchen classics go, this flimsy tract might not be viewed with the same affection as more famous works by Isabella Beeton or Agnes Marshall, but it's quite possible that Holt's time has at last arrived.

The UN appears to think so. Their Food and Agriculture Organisation is exploring the possibilities of insects providing a greater share of global food needs, and the statistics appear to suggest that a future of crunchy critter consumption isn't beyond the realms of possibility.

With the planet's population heading ever more rapidly towards the seven billion mark (we'll get there in October) and an ever-less-economical reliance on meat, farmed insects might just provide an answer. They produce much more meat per kilogram of feed than the more usual farmed animals do, and more of their body mass is edible.

What's more, they produce a fraction of the greenhouse gasses pumped out by cattle and are rich in minerals, vitamins and proteins. Just four locusts provide as much calcium as a glass of milk, while mopani worms, gram-for-gram, contain more protein than beef.

Insects are already eaten in four-fifths of nations, from the grasshopper tacos popular in Mexico to China, where almost anything goes. I once pointed at a piece of delicious, dripping honeycomb on display at a restaurant in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, and was somewhat surprised to be served a plateful of baby bees.

Elsewhere, western tourists are approaching the idea of insect and arachnid cuisine with more open minds. The consumption of a delicious Cambodian deep-fried tarantula was once the preserve of macho food tourists like Anthony Bourdain. Then the experience was added to the gap-year checklist alongside full moon parties in Koh Phangan and bungee jumps in Queenstown. The signs are that the "edible insect movement" is finally being treated much more seriously with chefs getting in on the act. Even the New Yorker, that bible of urban sophistication, recently devoted 6,500 words to the subject.

But insects taste terrible, right? Well, perhaps not. In his introduction to Man Eating Bugs‚ The Art and Science of Easting Insects author Peter Menzel writes that a toasted witchetty grub tastes like "a tender cheese omelette rolled in a smoky philo-dough shell" and that Ugandan termites are akin to "roasted peanut skins, only juicier".

Suspicious that Mr Menzel has a book-selling agenda that renders him incapable of saying bad things about such morsels, I make my way to the Natural History Museum in London's swinging Kensington, where an event is being held. It's called "Edible insects: food for the future? A tasting event with a difference", and a trio of experts are lined up to inform the uninformed.

There's the NHM's resident insect identifier Stuart Hine, Meredith Alexander, a "hunger expert" for the charity ActionAid, and Daniel Creedon, head chef at Archipelego, on whose menu chilli and garlic locusts nestle comfortably alongside chocolate-covered scorpions.

The first thing we discover is that we're already eating insects. And yes, that "we" includes you. That delicious bar of chocolate you've saved for later? In all probability it contains 60 or more insect fragments (a type of contamination known in the trade as "insect filth"). That sweetcorn? The average tin is home to a couple of sizeable larvae chunks. And frozen broccoli? You really, really don't want to know.

The knowledge that we're already seasoned insect eaters, albeit unwittingly, makes the food that follows easier to swallow for the assembled diners. The waxworm larvae have a very subtle sweetness, while the fried crickets leave a pleasantly nutty aftertaste. Toasted weaver ants taste of very little‚ not even toast, and the chocolate ant wafers are delicious but taste almost entirely of chocolate.

My favourite treat is an off-menu item, a scorpion dipped in chocolate and possessing a gentle alcoholic kick. The worst? No-one seems keen on the silkworm pupae. South Koreans buy these like crisps at convenience stores, but they don't go down well here. "Like rancid fish sauce", says Creedon.

In between courses it's Q&A time. Which wine works best with insects? The answer, apparently, is "beer". How many locusts would one need to eat for breakfast to replace two eggs? "About 74", says Hine, tongue firmly in cheek. Is the recent tourist predilection for spiders endangering the tarantula population? Can one eat insects or arachnids live? Are insects sentient beings capable of sensing cruelty? Hine suggests not, but a vegan in the audience argues that while insects might not be able to philosophise, you could say the same of most humans, obsessed as they are with the X-Factor and EastEnders. Yeah! In your face, science!

As the evening draws to a close, one gentleman rises from his seat, sheepishly makes his way forward, and offers the evening's host a small bowl containing a single silkworm pupa. It looks for all the world like some kind of demented courtship gesture. Reluctantly, she pops it in her mouth, and instinctively makes the kind of sour, scrunched face only worn by those with a desperate, sudden need for a glass of water and a toothbrush. At this very moment, assuming bugs haven't entirely consumed him, Vincent M Holt is probably spinning furiously in his grave.

Is college a scam? A YouTube video argues ‘yes.’ But better higher education, not less, is what's really needed.

Is college a scam? - Yahoo! News

Is a college education the biggest scam in US history?

That’s the conclusion of a YouTube video called “College Conspiracy” that’s drawn more than 2.1 million views online.

The theme has been picked up across that site, often by college students themselves, in videos with angry titles like “My Bachelor’s Degree is Worthless,” “College is a Rip-off,” and “College is an Evil Debt Trap.”

With a tough job market, students (and their parents) are making a tough calculation: What will I really learn in college? Will it cost me more in time and money than it’s worth?

One set of statistics shows that hundreds of thousands of college graduates today hold bottom-rung positions such as “waiter” or “cashier” that hardly need a degree in business administration. That’s a discouraging thought when a four-year-degree could easily cost $100,000 or more.

One argument being heard is that colleges and universities are too often in business to inflate their enrollments with students who don’t really belong there – a way to rake in money and create or keep jobs in academia.

And what about billionaire college dropouts, like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, whose rocket-ride to fame and fortune in his early 20s was shown in the movie “The Social Network”? Entrepreneur Peter Thiel, the cofounder of PayPal, has even paid a number of talented students $100,000 apiece to drop out of college – which he sees as a waste of their time – so that they can quickly begin careers as high-tech entrepreneurs.

It’s fine to question the conventional assumption that a college education is always a ticket to a better life. Not everyone is cut out for college, and post-high school vocational training is a better choice for some.

But the United States needs more well-educated college graduates, not fewer, to compete in the world economy. The era when high school dropouts or even high school graduates could find steady, good-paying jobs is fading – and quickly.

Those blue-collar jobs aren’t coming back in a high-tech world. For every genius who skips college and makes a fortune, there are thousands who miss out on the opportunity in a college education to vastly improve their own lives and build a stronger America.

Consider this: The current unemployment rate is 9.1 percent. But the unemployment rate for college graduates (bachelor’s or higher) is 4.3 percent, a number that has actually dropped from 5 percent a year ago. Unemployment for high school grads stands at 9.6 percent, while high school dropouts must contend with a 14.6 percent jobless rate.

Certainly colleges and universities must do a better job of providing young Americans with an education that will stand up to the demands of the 21st century. They also must look at how to make education more affordable. More use of online course instruction is one way to help bring down costs and open up access.

But today’s gloomy job picture can also blot out the big-picture benefits of college. On average, college graduates earn higher wages, pay more taxes, are more likely to vote, and are more likely to enjoy their jobs. They’re even more likely to read to their kids or take them to visit a museum or library.

The case for college still can be made on strictly financial terms. But that’s only part of the picture.

Snaptu: Do you take any notice of sell-by dates on food? | Open thread

Sell-by dates are to be dropped in an attempt to reduce the £12bn of food we bin yearly. Will this change your behaviour?

Sell-by dates on food packaging are going to be ditched to stop consumers throwing away food unnecessarily, the government has…

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