The White House Tuesday rebuked Israel for officially endorsing 1,500 new Jewish residences in Arab East Jerusalem, saying the action makes suspicious Israel’s pledge to peace talks and an independent Palestinian state. A number of European Union countries also condemned the Israeli move.

“We are deeply disappointed that Israel insists on continuing this pattern of provocative action,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said, according to the Washington Post. “These repeated announcements and plans of new construction run counter to the cause of peace. Israel’s leaders continually say that they support a path toward a two-state solution, yet these actions only put that goal further at risk.”

The Palestinians recently said that they expect all of the UN Security Council members, excluding the US, to denounce Israel's fresh announcements of constructing new homes in East Jerusalem.

The Obama administration’s statement delivered an unusual but hard blow to Israel, its top Midle East ally. However, Israelis think the US would not support a Security Council resolution or statement.

"(T)he confirmation process would be lengthy, disruptive, and costly -- to you and to our most pressing national and international priorities. That trade-off is simply not worth it to our country." -- Susan RiceSusan Rice, letter to President Obama

CNN is reporting that Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has “voluntarily” withdrawn her name from consideration as Hillary Clinton’s successor as secretary of state.

Rice has been under heavy, repeated, unrelenting, and unwarranted criticism from Republicans and right wing media over statements she made following the September attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. Those attacks took the lives of the Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other CIA operatives.

Her withdrawal came in the form of a letter dated Thursday, Dec. 13, 2012 to President Barack Obama. Here is the complete text of Rice's letter to the President. Obama promptly described Rice as "an extraordinarily capable, patriotic, and passionate public servant."

Clinton has said in the past that she would relinquish her office immediately upon the confirmation of a successor.

Come to Durango, and take a ride in one of Animas Transportation's cabs with a driver who is ostensibly from Philadelphia. Ask him where an interested party could obtain cocaine. This driver served seven years in canon City for dealing cocaine while a taxi driver in Aspen. after being paroled, he moved to Durango, and immediately began selling cocaine here. He made the mistake of losing his wallet near me one night: I looked through it and saw that he has innumerable high limit credit cards. Taxi drivers don't normally qualify for 100,000 dollar limit cards...Do they?

Watch him. Buy coke from him. Better yet, rip him off or blackmail him. Who's he gonna tell? The cops?

Coloradans, can you help Mainers fend off a Denver-based Big Gas attack on Penobscot Bay? DCP Midstream LLC, a BIG natural gas port, pipeline & megatank operator, is close to getting its OKs to transform and industrialize our bay's estuary, heart of the lobster ecosystem, by establishing the east coast's biggest Liquified Petroleum Gas terminal in the our bay's brackish estuary. Can you help us with actions in Denver?

The People of Maine's biggest bay, have been resisting fiercely, using every tool in the nonviolent handbook available. Demonstrations, confrontations, litigation, state/federal/local permit opposition, public hearings etc, etc have been ongoing for more than a year.

We must confront Power at its lair. But we cannot afford to send a delegation of Mainers to Denver to shame DCP outside their 25th floor corporate headquarters in the Republic Plaza building at 370 17th St. Suite 2500, Denver.

Coloradans, can you help Mainers fend off a Denver-based Big Gas attack on Penobscot Bay? DCP Midstream LLC, a BIG natural gas port, pipeline & megatank operator, is close to getting its OKs to transform and industrialize our bay's estuary, heart of the lobster ecosystem, by establishing the east coast's biggest Liquified Petroleum Gas terminal in the our bay's brackish estuary. Can you help us with actions in Denver?

The People of Maine's biggest bay, have been resisting fiercely, using every tool in the nonviolent handbook available. Demonstrations, confrontations, litigation, state/federal/local permit opposition, public hearings etc, etc have been ongoing for two years.

We must confront Power at its lair. But we cannot afford to send a delegation of Mainers to Denver to shame DCP outside their 25th floor corporate headquarters in the Republic Plaza building at 370 17th St. Suite 2500, Denver.

Coloradans, can you help Mainers fend off a Denver-based Big Gas attack on Penobscot Bay? DCP Midstream LLC, a BIG natural gas port, pipeline & megatank operator, is close to getting its OKs to transform and industrialize our bay's estuary, heart of the lobster ecosystem, by establishing the east coast's biggest Liquified Petroleum Gas terminal in the our bay's brackish estuary. Can you help us with actions in Denver?

The People of Maine's biggest bay, have been resisting fiercely, using every tool in the nonviolent handbook available. Demonstrations, confrontations, litigation, state/federal/local permit opposition, public hearings etc, etc have been ongoing for more than a year.

We must confront Power at its lair. But we cannot afford to send a delegation of Mainers to Denver to shame DCP outside their 25th floor corporate headquarters in the Republic Plaza building at 370 17th St. Suite 2500, Denver.

Coloradans, can you help Mainers fend off a Denver-based Big Gas attack on Penobscot Bay?  DCP Midstream LLC, a BIG natural gas port & megatank operator, is close to getting the final OKs to transform and industrialize our bay's estuary by establishing the east coast's biggest Liquified Petroleum Gas terminal. We need your help in Denver to confront Power at its lair. But sending a delegation of Mainers to Denver for a month or more is economically and logistically something we folks just can't affordCut. 

We ask  for support demonstrations/ flash happenings needed NOW in front of their corporate headquarters at the corner of Tremont and 17th Street in downtown Denver

The people of Maine's biggest bay have been resisting fiercely, using every tool in the nonviolent handbook available.  Demonstrations, confrontations, litigation, state/federal/local permit opposition, etc etc have been ongoing for more than a year.

We must, as always,

. Specifically, we would like to get a sympathy demonstration at the plaza in front of DCP midstream's headquarters

a host of Maine communities and people of the Penobscot Bay, Maine region write to you asking your help in bringing our serious concerns with a Denver-based energy company that

(this appears to be almost two years old, but, due to the course of events, it is circulating again)

Gaza Youth Breaks Out With a 'Manifesto for Change"

by Gaza Youth Breaks Out

GAZAN YOUTH’S MANIFESTO FOR CHANGE

Fuck Hamas. Fuck Israel. Fuck Fatah. Fuck UN. Fuck UNWRA. Fuck USA!

We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community! We want to scream and break this wall of silence, injustice and indifference like the Israeli F16’s breaking the wall of sound; scream with all the power in our souls in order to release this immense frustration that consumes us because of this fucking situation we live in; we are like lice between two nails living a nightmare inside a nightmare, no room for hope, no space for freedom. We are sick of being caught in this political struggle; sick of coal dark nights with airplanes circling above our homes; sick of innocent farmers getting shot in the buffer zone because they are taking care of their lands; sick of bearded guys walking around with their guns abusing their power, beating up or incarcerating young people demonstrating for what they believe in; sick of the wall of shame that separates us from the rest of our country and keeps us imprisoned in a stamp-sized piece of land; sick of being portrayed as terrorists, homemade fanatics with explosives in our pockets and evil in our eyes; sick of the indifference we meet from the international community, the so-called experts in expressing concerns and drafting resolutions but cowards in enforcing anything they agree on; we are sick and tired of living a shitty life, being kept in jail by Israel, beaten up by Hamas and completely ignored by the rest of the world.