I Got Your Unbalanced And Distorted Right Here, Buddy

Conditions: Oddly Sunny.


Amnesty International Points The Finger.

In a report that has been called "unbalanced" and "distorted" by the Israeli military, Amnesty International has accused Israeli forces of war crimes in the 22-day war Israel launched on Palestinian territory back in December. Hamas too came in for charges of war crimes, but found a distinction in how each side treated civilians.

In numerous cases, Israeli troops forced Palestinians to stay in one room of their home while turning the rest of the house into a base and sniper position, "effectively using the families, both adults and children, as human shields and putting them at risk," the group said.

"Intentionally using civilians to shield a military objective, often referred to as using 'human shields' is a war crime," Amnesty said.

One Palestinian quoted in the report said Israeli troops forced him on three occasions to go into a house to check whether gunmen holed up inside were still alive.

The report said it found no evidence Palestinian fighters directed civilians to shield military objectives from attacks, forced them to stay in buildings used by militants, or prevented them from leaving commandeered buildings.

But it said Palestinian armed groups fired hundreds of rockets into southern Israel. "Such unlawful attacks constitute war crimes and are unacceptable," said Donatella Rovera, who led an Amnesty mission to Gaza and southern Israel.

Amnesty also accused Hamas of endangering Palestinian civilians by firing rockets from residential areas and storing weapons and ammunition there.

More than 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died during the offensive Israel launched in response to rocket fire by militants in the impoverished and overcrowded territory.

Amnesty said 300 children were among those killed.

And the response from the Israel military?

"The slant of their report indicates that the organisation succumbed to the manipulations of the Hamas terror organisation," it said in a statement.

The military insisted its forces used "fighting methods and advanced technology to minimise harm to the civilian population while engaging terrorists who were operating from densely populated areas and using the local population as 'human shields'."

It also accused Amnesty of ignoring "the blatant violations of international law perpetrated by Hamas."

- alternet.org/

That's great. A total inability to reconsider one's actions and a simple statement of how anyone making a criticism has obviously been corrupted by the bad guys will see you through, every time. And so, nothing changes.



Film Review: Transformers 2

Films like this really make you wonder what modern films are today? I know what they used to be, but I can't help but feel the definition has changed to be more along the lines of a barrage rather than a story. Shaking someone by the shoulders rather than talking to them. Or, as someone else wrote, being forced to watch paint dry while being hit over the head with a frying pan. This film of course runs as a sequel to the first film, noteworthy to me as being a great juvenile disappointment. The sequel however benefits from it's predecessor because we now know what to expect, or more precisely, what not to expect, and that's exactly what we get, and nothing more. Robots fight, and shit gets blowed up real good. Again.

As a sequel, we don't have to waste any time introducing the characters, or the concept. Not a lot of time was spent on the plot either, as this film is essentially a replay of the first. There's a thing that points to the location of another thing, and both sides want it, and Sam's the key to finding where it is. The big focus here is on the fallen, a type of robot that lived on earth thousands of years earlier and built a device under one of the great Giza pyramids that would destroy the sun. Now they're back to set it off, and it's up to Sam, girlfriend Mikaela, the good robots and the U.S military to save the day.

Michael Bay has his usual frenetic style of direction cranked to the usual '11' here, but strangely, unlike the first film, I felt the robot fights were a bit easier to make out. Maybe I just didn't care anymore. The C.G was better as well, a sequence with an enormous robot tearing off the top of the pyramid a particular highlight. So, again we have a somewhat simplistic and childish film about giant robots fighting each other. It's an extremely good looking film, exhausting to follow, not very funny, has some moments of emotion, but ultimately it's pure shallow wall to wall spectacle. I guess that's what people want. One annoying comic relief out of Five.


- Peace out.