”As Herbert Spencer said, ‘There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance that principle is contempt prior to investigation.’” (May be a misattribution, is nontheless true.)

One could get tired of reading people who have formed opinions based upon spin, headlines and propaganda. Iraq is one recent thing. One poster even said that if one reads a book on the subject the author would be telling him how to think. And he'd prefer to think for himself. (That really is sort of funny.) Imagine that - if one reads a book on a subject the author is telling him how to think. No wonder he's afraid of communism or Islam being taught about in schools. Would suck him right in to learn. Best stick to science fiction.

A few of many. They describe the attitude of Israel toward the Palestinians very well. And it fits with the reality of a brutal, genocidal occupier who never intends to give back the land to it's owners. (Sound like any other Middle East aggressor?)

"Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that . . . I want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it." - Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, October 3, 2001, to Shimon Peres, as reported on Kol Yisrael radio. (Certainly the FBI's cover-up of the Israeli spy ring/phone tap scandal suggests that Mr. Sharon may not have been joking.)

"We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel... Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours." Rafael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces - Gad Becker, Yediot Ahronot 13 April 1983, New York Times 14 April 1983.

"We must do everything to ensure they [the Palestinian refugees] never do return" David Ben-Gurion, in his diary, 18 July 1948, quoted in Michael Bar Zohar's Ben-Gurion: the Armed Prophet, Prentice-Hall, 1967, p. 157.

Arf