Top 5 Musicians

For music lovers and musicians:
Top 5
Vocalist:
1- Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden)
2- Tony Kakko (Sonata Arctica)
3- James LaBrie (Dream Theater)
4- Ray Alder (Fates Warning, Redemption)
5- Geoff Tate (Queensryche)

Drummer:
1- Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater)
2- Uli Kusch (ex-Helloween, ex-Masterplan)
3- Nikko McBrain (Iron Maiden)
4- The Rev (RIP - Avenged Sevenfold)
5- David Charlesworth (Dead Air Radio)

Bassist:
1- Steve Harris (Iron Maiden)
2- Geddy Lee (Rush)
3- John Myung (Dream Theater)
4- Flea (RHCP)
5- Justin Chancellor (Tool)

Keyboards/Piano:
1- Kevin Moore (ex_Dream Theater)
2- Heinrik Klingenberg (Sonata Arctica)
3- Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater)
4- Elton John
5- Derek Sherinian (Planet X, ex-Dream Theater)

Guitarist:
1- Janick Gers, Adrian Smith, Dave Murray (Iron Maiden)
2- John Petrucci (Dream Theater)
3- Eddie Van Halen
4- Mark Tremonti (Creed, Alter Bridge)
5- Jani Liimatainen (ex-Sonata Arctica)

Band:
1- Dream Theater
2- Sonata Arctica
3- Iron Maiden
4- Redemption
5- Masterplan

These are mine. What are yours?

Palestine, for the ill-educated masses

Helen Thomas, I think, represents the majority of Americans in their ignorance about the "state" of Palestine and the Jewish "occupation." Scratch that Americans part, since the rest of the world seems bent on saving the "Palestinians" from the evils of Israel, as evidenced by the strange "peace" missions to Gaza. (During which the "peaceful" protesters attacked Israeli military forces.)

Dear Helen and other morons: Jews have been living in that area for, oh, pretty much ever. Jews and Arabs have been getting along well since..Oh, wait. They have NEVER fucking gotten along well. When, after WWII, the UN decided to separate the Arabs and the Jews into two areas, there was massive violence from both the Jews and the Arabs that had BOTH been fucking living in the same areas.

So, telling the Jews to get out and go home is FUCKING STUPID and IGNORANT. They ARE home. After WWII, the US pushed for relocation of Holocaust survivors to the area to join their brethren who already lived there. They didn't invent a Jewish population, they just added displaced people who no longer wished to live in Europe.

Telling Jewish people to get out of Israel is akin to having asked black people to get out of South Africa, or Irish people to leave Northern Ireland.

Guess what? The Arabs were given their chances to form a state and failed to do so. They instead chose to be in a constant state of conflict with Israel, and now they are reaping the benefits of their choice.

Writer Larry Miller sums it up best:

"A brief overview of the situation is always valuable, so as a service to all who still don't get it, I now offer you the story of the Middle East in just a few paragraphs, which is all you Really need.

Here we go:

The Palestinians want their own country.

There's just one thing about that: There are no Palestinians.

It's a made up word. Israel was called Palestine for two thousand years.
Like "Wiccan," "Palestinian" sounds ancient but is really a modern invention. Before the Israelis won the land in war, Gaza was owned by Egypt, and there were no "Palestinians" then, and the West Bank Was owned by Jordan, and there were no "Palestinians" then. As soon as the Jews took over and started growing oranges as big as basketballs, what do you know, say hello to the Palestinians," weeping for Their deep bond with their lost "land" and "nation."

So for the sake of honesty, let's not use the word "Palestinian" any more to describe these delightful folks, who dance for joy at our Deaths until someone points out they're being taped. Instead, let's call them what they are: "Other Arabs Who Can't Accomplish Anything In Life And Would Rather Wrap Themselves In The Seductive Melodrama Of Eternal Struggle And Death."

I know that's a bit unwieldy to expect to see on CNN. How about this, then: "Adjacent Jew-Haters." Okay, so the Adjacent Jew-Haters want their own country. Oops, just one more thing: No, they don't.

They could 've had their own country any time in the last thirty years, Especially two years ago at Camp David. But if you have your own country, you have to have traffic lights and garbage trucks and Chambers of Commerce, and, worse, you actually have to Figure out some way to make a living. That's no fun. No, they want what all the other Jew-Haters in the region Want: Israel.

They also want a big pile of dead Jews, of course -- that's where the real fun is -- but mostly they want Israel.

Why? For one thing, trying to destroy Israel - or "The Zionist Entity" as their textbooks call it -- for the last fifty years has allowed the rulers of Arab countries to divert the attention of their own people away from the fact that they're the blue-ribbon most illiterate, poorest, and tribally backward on God's Earth, and if you've ever been around God's Earth, you know that's really saying something.

It makes me roll my eyes every time one of our pundits waxes poetic about. The great history and culture of the Muslim Mideast. Unless I'm missing something, the Arabs haven't given anything to the world since Algebra, and, by the way, thanks a hell of a lot for that one.

Chew this around and spit it out: Five hundred million Arabs; five million Jews.
Think of all the Arab countries as a football field, and Israel as a pack of matches sitting in the middle of it. And now these same folks swear that if Israel gives them half of that pack of matches, Everyone will be pals.

Really? Wow, what neat news. Hey, but what about the string of wars to obliterate the tiny country and the constant din of rabid blood oaths to drive every Jew into the sea? Oh, that? We were just kidding.

My friend Kevin Rooney made a gorgeous point the other day: Just reverse the Numbers. Imagine five hundred million Jews and five million Arabs. I was stunned at the simple brilliance of it.

Can anyone picture the Jews strapping belts of razor blades and dynamite to themselves? Of course not. Or marshaling every fiber and force at their disposal for generations to drive a tiny Arab State into the sea? Nonsense. Or dancing for joy at the murder of innocents? Impossible. Or spreading and believing horrible lies about the Arabs baking their bread with the blood of children? Disgusting. No, as you know, left to themselves in a world of peace, the Worst Jews would ever do to people is debate them to death.

Mr. Bush, God bless him, is walking a tightrope. I understand that with vital operations in Iraq and others, it's in our interest, as Americans, to try to stabilize our Arab allies as much as possible, and, after all, that can't be much harder than stabilizing a Roomful of supermodels who've just had their drugs taken away.

However, in any big-picture strategy, there's always a danger of Losing moral weight.

We've already lost some. After September 11 our president told us and the world he was going to root out all terrorists and the Countries that supported them. Beautiful. Then the Israelis, after months and months of having the equivalent of an Oklahoma City every week (and then every day) start to do the same thing we Did, and we tell them to show restraint.

If America were being attacked with an Oklahoma City every day, we would all very shortly be screaming for the administration to just be done with it and kill everything south of the Mediterranean and East of the Jordan.