Knight of Swords

This is biased towards Israel, because I learned the history of this war from Jewish sources. It starts to become less biased when I start taking things I remember from the news and rely less on what I read. It should at least give some impression of the history, without delving too deeply into the politics of the war. --------- The root of the whole thing stems from the Torah, which describes Israel as the Jewish Holy Land and Promised Land. Zionism (which began about 100 years ago), is a movement to create a Jewish state in Israel, which obviously with Jews being spread throughout the world, means for it to be possible, many Jews would have to move back to Israel. It really picked up after WW2, as there were obviously a lot of displaced Jews in Europe, who either had no home or refused to move back to areas where they had been persecuted. Britain, at the time, controlled the area where Israel is situated and invited Jews from around Europe to move to Israel. At this point it was still under British control. I'm a little bet sketchy on the details here, but I think shortly after the end of WW1, Britain endorsed the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine (by this point, there were maybe 20,000 Jews in that area) but reneged on this idea at the start of WW2. However, with the influx of Jews to the area over the period of the Third Reich and after WW2, Britain came under increasing militant pressure from Zionist groups in Palestine and lost a grip on the situation. The British decided to pull out and proposed a partition plan to divide Palestine between the Arabs and the Jews, with Jerusalem coming under UN control, as a kind of neutral zone. it was accepted by the UN but the Arabs rejected it. The Jews accepted it and proclaimed the birth of the State of Irsrael in 1948. Six Arab countries attacked Israel, were beaten and lost a lot of land the partition would have granted them. Israel started expelling Arabs from the annexed territories. The parts that are fought over nowadays, the West Bank and Gaza Strip (and Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula), were annexed by the Israelis in 1967 (the six day war). They basically launched a successful pre-emptive strike against Egypt, who were massing troops on the border and blockading an Israeli port. However, the areas that they annexed, they had also annexed about ten years before, but had been forced to give back by the International Community. There were undoubtedly tensions and plenty of border incidents, but it's highly likely that Israel were happy for this to persist as they could use it as an excuse to annex the areas they'd failed to hold ten years before. Nowadays, the situation is heavily unbalanced. The Israelis have far too much money for the Palestinians to compete. This causes two things. Firstly, suicide bombings - one of the few viable attack methods that Palestinians have against Israelis. Secondly, Arabs have been forced to recognise Israel as a nation. The Peace Process is a difficult one. In fact, I can't mention it without being heavily biased.

I once got chucked out of Ibrox. Apparently the police don't like being told to "awa and fuck the queen, ya dirty orange bastard." (note that I was about sixteen and didn't actually think I'd get caught). I probably shouldn't have done it, because it makes me out to be as bad as them, but it does piss you off when you look round and see weans with the "No Surrender 1690" scarves and so forth.

Just remember not to ask Reliance.

Haha, you have no idea how much I look like a hun.

If it's the truth then I'm assuming you have some proof?

It's an opinion.

The point being that you can't differentiate between a joke and political propoganda?

Care to elaborate?

I don't agree with that. If you don't like something that much, ignore it. If you start criticising someone, it only ever ends up in a long, protracted argument, which brings more and more people into the topic and more and more people get to see the thing you thought so unsuitable in the first place. At any rate, do you really think people on this forum are so stupid that they can't look at those pictures without wanting to burn an Arab? That's basically what the argument against posting those pictures comes down to.

I didn't find it particularly funny, but bloody hell, it's hardly anti-Muslim propoganda like some of you are saying. The reason this stuff gets blown out of proportion is not because of the person who posts it, it's because of the zealot-like PC nonsense that people come out with in reaction to it. Freedom of speech, eh?

I'm sure he's a very nice man once you get to know him.

Think they ditched the spaghetti logo before the 70s, but they get called 70s Strats.

Do any Diagnosis Murder fans ever stare in wonder at the piano that occasionally turns up in Community General? Dick Van Dyke is the new Mr T.

I think the banks were closed today, but all the buses seemed to be running at the right times. A kind of half-arsed holiday in Ayrshire.

Diagnosis Murder is unmissable. All that stuff, Quincy, Ironside etc (whichever happens to be on) is a good way to waste time in the middle of the afternoon, although I always grudge getting up so early to watch those programs.

I agree about assholes jumping around at gigs. I saw John Martyn at Carling Academy in Glasgow. It was a seated gig but people kept getting up to go and buy pints. Surely people can last a couple of hours without having to buy drink? Obviously not. If it's at the cinema, nobody has any worries about complaining when someone gets on your tits and puts you off the film, so what's the difference at a gig (especially considering you pay more for a gig than for the pictures). Mogwai was a lot better, everyone just stood and listened.

Is this heated?

First day back at uni after taking a year out. I probably won't go and sit on my arse instead.

Once you forget a word, it's hellish trying to remember it.

Improvise?

I'd advise against buying a muti-effects pedal. Never heard one (ranging from cheap to expensive) that I thought was worth the money. I think buying individual pedals is a better way to go because they're specifically designed for one thing and don't have to compromise the technology to increase the range of sounds whilst keeing the price down (which I'm sure is the problem with a lot of multi-effects units). In any case, Hedrix only used the fuzz face because you couldn't get a lot of gain with the old Marshalls. You're far better off buying a good modern Marshall (TSL is my favourite) and not trying to sound exactly like Hendrix because the best thing you'll ever get is people comparing you to Hendrix (which let's face it, is a lot to live up to). I believe the Vox Wah is good though, never used one but I've heard it rivals the Cry Baby (which I swear by).