All right, here let's try again! Third time is the charm, right? It appears that Blogger doesn't like Mozilla, since halfway through an edit I lost the menu bar and thus the post/post & publish buttons. Clicked the publish button a little further down, software acted like it did something, came back in via MSIE v5.01 and, voila, all I had written was gone. Lovely.

What I've been trying to write here is that I'm fascinated by the entire blog process as a movement. Most blogs have links to other web sites, all containing a huge variety of divergent points of view, and it is that very aspect that I enjoy. I despise censorship as a matter of principle. On the other hand, free speech does not guarantee an audience. Thus, you blog and people either read you or they don't. By a series of hits and misses, a community begins and off to the races we all go. Fascinating.

The New York Times (link requires registration) reports on the great confusion of the United Nations with U.N. Chief Tells Israel It Must End 'Illegal Occupation'. The article does correctly refer to these "occupied territories" as conquered by Israel in 1967. What is always forgotten is that there never has been a country called Palestine, that it was a territory designated with that name. Further, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, etc., were taken from invading countries because those countries consistently used these areas as paths of invasion into Israel! They were taken in self-defense to hold back future invasions (as in the 1973 war, six years after they were occupied). This noise about their being "occupied" is nonsene. They are conquered, taken during time of war, have a nice day. Unless, of course, you follow Arafat's Fatah movement's definition of occupied territories as all the land that the Jews have held since 1948, i.e. all of Israel. Far too honest for most of the press, I fear.