thisisbabylon.net

So today the Israeli election results were posted.

1. Kadima 28
2. Labor 20
3. Shas 13
4. Yisrael Beiteinu 12
5. [sic] Likud 11
6. Ichud Leumi / NRP 9
7. Gil 7
8. United Torah Judaism 6
9. Meretz 4
10. United Arab List 4
11. Balad 3
12. Hadash 3

The Amona evacuation was a shining xample of the policy of the current Israeli administration towards charedi Orthodox Jews. The first of up to 1,500 civil rights complaints was filed with the Israeli police, including reports by some female Amona residents that they were "sexually and verbally assaulted by male officers at the scene." [link to Amona video (8 1/2 minutes)]

And that was Olmert's doing. That's what we should xpect from Kadima.

Baruch Hashem we can count on our religious parties!

Arutz Sheva reported one particularly brazen UTJ (United Torah Judaism) MK as saying:

"In political matters, one need not consult with the Torah sages."

What? Charedi Jews vote for religious parties because they want to see Torah outlooks and viewpoints reflected in Israeli society. Time Magazine noted that peace took a backseat in this election to real-world assessments of the situation with the Palestinians, and in short, "the social agenda". This is certainly a time when you want to ask your rabbi.

Yediot Acharanot reported of a banned Shas ad and ridiculed it as "Rav Ovadia saying a vote for Shas gets you into heaven". Here's what really happened -- from their own article:

Retiring Shinui Knesset Member Ilan Shalgi condemned the comments of Shas Chairman Eli Yishai, and said that Yishai's comments should be condemned by all parties. "Promises of heaven and debasing a High Court judge are a dangerous combination for democracy," he said.

During the Shas ad, footage is shown of Rabbi Ovadia addressing enthused followers showing a Shas rally.

Rabbi Ovadia told his listeners about a man who reaches heavens and fears God's verdict. At that point, a white angel appears and tells the man he is heading to heaven for building a mikvah (Jewish ritual bath) and a synagogue. The man says he has not done any of that because he had no money, but later admits he did vote for Shas.

The angel's reply: "Exactly. And by sending emissaries who built mikvahs and synagogues and safeguarded the world of Torah, you're a party to mitvzot and your place is in heaven." Therefore, the rabbi explained, anyone who votes for Shas will end up in heaven.

Shas MK Eli Yishai said, "Those who silence the words of the Torah are the representatives of a world view which leans on hatred and the destruction of Judaism."

Olmert is expected to form a coalition out of some quite unlikely partners:

f the opinion polls are correct, then Ehud Olmert will be asked to form the next government and he will likely turn to the Labor Party and Shas, and then maybe to the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism (UTJ) and Meretz as well.

ein lanu 'al mi lhi'sha'en ela al Avinu she'ba'shamayim -- we really can only rely on our Father in Heaven.

Posted by Y-Love at 01:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

In my MySpace blog, I detailed a horrific tale of prisoner abuse going on at the Citrus County Prison in Florida where prisoners were forced to drink urine and to eat feces of other prisoners.

One author was apparently more bothered than I was, and wrote a book. And he gets to the bottom of what's causing the abuse.

In a phrase, corporate corruption. I'm sure no one is surprised.

Dr. Byron E. Price, an assistant professor of public administration at Rutgers University in Newark, NJ, wrote a book entitled "Merchandising Prisoners: Who Really Pays for Prison Privatization?" In his book, Dr. Price details some of the criminality behind corporations like Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).

The entry level salary for a corrections officer at a public prison is $23,000 a year, while entry level salaries are $17,000 at private institutions, according to the Corrections Yearbook, which is released each year by the National Institute of Justice. Also, the turnover rate for corrections officers in public prisons is 16 percent, compared to 52 percent in private prisons.

"When you think about it, they get a less qualified corrections officer because they pay less and they don't pay benefits," Price said. "They look to cut the bottom line because they want to make sure they maximize shareholder wealth."

Also, private prisons won't treat prisoners with HIV, and the state has to absorb that cost.

In Price's book, he also asserts that prisoner labor is used as a commodity. He cites statistics from a 2001 article released by the American Civil Liberties Union's Drug Policy Litigation Project.

The article said the black male slavery population in 1820 was 783,781 and in 2000, the projected black male inmate population providing free labor was 792,000.

Toby is still working for Massa.

And now other allegations of abuse at CCA-operated prisons are beginning to surface and cover-ups are beginning to be alleged, and CCA executives are even trying to silence people's lawyers.

They do what they do to keep more of us doing the dirty work.

In Babylon.

Posted by Y-Love at 01:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Is there no respect for human life in the Zimbabwean capitol?

Earlier this week, I reported about what was going on with the economic crisis, and that there had been an attempt on President Mugabe's life by opposition leaders. The perpetrators were summarily arrested.

ZWNews tells us the rest of their story:

"State security agents beat up and tortured four opposition activists arrested last week for allegedly possessing arms of war and tried to force them to confess plotting to assassinate President Robert Mugabe and overthrow his government, the activists' lawyers said at the weekend. "

"One of the defence lawyers, Chris Ndlovu, told Mutare magistrate Fabian Feshete that a team of secret service agents and soldiers took the four Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) activists to a military camp called Adams Barracks, about six kilometers east of the city. At the camp, the four were severely beaten up and tortured including on their private organs and at one time some of the MDC activists were forced to drink human urine."

"The magistrate however did not order an investigation into the allegations of torture and did not even appear to have taken official note of Ndlovu's complaints about the ill-treatment of his clients."

I make the statement: Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is the African tyrant to watch in 2006.

Posted by Y-Love at 12:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

A less publicized genocide is currently taking place in Zimbabwe.

Sub-saharan Africa is no stranger to corrupt government leaders. This is the region of the world that brought us Idi Amin, South African apartheid, and Rwanda just to name a few. But now a quiet genocide is killing potentially millions of people in this former "breadbasket" country (to quote the Guardian article), and not only is no one doing anything about it, the disgusting tyrant is being allowed to enforce his rule.

Zimbabwe's yearly inflation rate is now at 782 percent and the Zimbabwean dollar has been in a "freefall" since 2000, when President Mugabe ordered the seizure of 5,000 white owned farms in a redistribution program known as "fast-track land distribution". This scheme is now responsible for some of the worst labor exploitation in the modern world, where laborers on formerly white-owned farms make as little as $3 a month, compared to $55 a month for their private counterparts.

In 2000, one US dollar was worth 55 Zimbabwean dollars.

In 2006, one US dollar is worth 99,000 Zimbabwean dollars.

Food prices? Up 824 percent -- along with non-alcoholic beverages.

Cost of living in Zimbabwe is now $90 a month, more than twice most people's salaries.

4.3 million people in Zimbabwe are now dependent on international food aid. (This was the former "breadbasket" of Southern Africa.)

And this is not happening in a vacuum. One in 5 citizens has HIV and is unable to work. That's 2 and a half million people slowly dying, and annual inflation rates are going up 168% in a month?

Are, then, the attempts on his life the result of aggression or the result of desperation at the fact that no one one knows can afford to feed his or her family?

Could you imagine would would happen if a pack of cigarettes were $50? If a box of cereal were $30? How would America react?

There must be something we can do to curb this madman.

Posted by Y-Love at 02:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Al-Jazeera.com reports:

"On Thursday, acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced his plans to set Israel’s permanent borders by 2010 through unilateral withdrawals from the occupied West Bank. Meshaal, the Damascus-based political chief, described Olmert’s plan as a “declaration of war against the Palestinian people.”

"This is not a peace plan, but a war declaration, which will permit Israel to stay in the largest section of the West Bank, to maintain their wall and settlements, to refuse all concessions on Jerusalem and to reject the Palestinians' right of return,” Meshaal said.

Washington officials prefer a negotiated settlement in favor of any decisive action by Olmert.

This is another story to watch, as the fate of Jerusalem hangs in the balance.

Posted by Y-Love at 01:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

MSNBC detailed today the latest in a macabre trend that's apparently sweeping Japan.

Get online, meet a few of your friends, get together over a charcoal stove in a sealed car, and inhale carbon monoxide gas until you all pass out and die! Sounds like a fun time, no?

In Chichibu, in Saitama prefecture, just north of Tokyo:

In Saitama prefecture, just north of Tokyo, five men and one woman were found dead in an estate car. A police spokesman said that charcoal stoves were found in the car but declined to give further details. The charcoal generates carbon monoxide, a poisonous gas.

And apparently they weren't alone:

"Separately, a man and two women were found dead in a sealed car parked in the foothills of a mountain in Aomori prefecture, 280 miles north of Tokyo. Again, charcoal stoves were found in the car.
The three dead were undergoing treatment for mental illness and may have met in hospital, an Aomori police spokesman said." [link]

Excepting a few mental health patients, how do otherwise "normal" people get together for suicide? Apparently these people are meeting on the Internet. The phenomenon is actually alarming.

To quote the Daily Yomiuri:

"Ninety-one people committed suicide in groups after meeting each other via the Internet last year, up from 55 in 2004, the National Police Agency said Thursday, prompting Internet service providers to pass on details to the police about people who post suicide messages online.

According to the NPA, the number of Internet-related group suicides increased to 34 in 2005, up by 15 cases from the previous year. People in their 20s accounted for about 40 percent of these group suicides, or 38 people, while eight people were aged between 10 and 19. "

To quote Yumiko Misaki, director of the Tokyo Inochi no Denwa (Phone of Life), a suicide counseling service:

"Many people are too scared to die alone...so they reach each other through the Internet and make arrangements…And the worst thing is that people are often very influenced by reporting on this, so it's likely to keep on increasing."

Granted, we can talk about stressful societies and their ills, but on a practical level, people need resources.

In Japanese, their contact information is here, or here in English. This is a worthy cause, and a light at the end of the tunnel for many who lose their way.

Posted by Y-Love at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)