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In the sixteenth century, in a number of Dutch towns, factories were established which among their items produced "Majolica". This "Majolica" was made with a tin-glaze and found its origins in Italy and Spain.
The Dutch East Indian Company began importing porcelain from China in the seventeenth century. This porcelain, especially the blue and white became very popular.
The "Majolica" producing factories started at a certain moment to imitate this Chinese porcelain, because of several reasons. The imported Chinese porcelain meant competition. Civil war in China made that imports from China went down. Customers asked for specific items which due to distance took a long time to deliver and due to language problems the delivered item was not always what was ordered.
In Delft, in the seventeenth century 32 factories were producing Delftware. One of them was a factory called "de Paauw". These factories were often established in beerbreweries which had stopped their production.
In the nineteenth century due to competition from other factories like Wedgewood in England and lack of innovations, the highlight of Delftware had come to a close. Nowadays in Delft only a few companies still produce the entirely handpainted traditional Delftware.
Take black Americans, the most heavily Democratic constituency -- 88 percent to 11 percent for John Kerry in the 2004 NEP exit poll. Blacks have been voting for Democratic presidential candidates by similar margins since 1964, when Republican Barry Goldwater opposed the Civil Rights Act.
That was a big issue, then. And never mind that a higher proportion of Republicans than Democrats voted for the bill in Congress -- Goldwater did oppose it. But the Civil Rights Act has long since become uncontroversial, racial discrimination disapproved and integration of schools, workplaces and public accommodations widely accepted. Yet 40 years later, the image of the Republican Party as unsympathetic to equal rights for blacks seems to persist. Black voters seem still focused on a moment in history 40 years ago.
Or look at the antiwar constituency, an important part of the Democratic coalition in 2004. These voters denounce the war in Iraq in much the same terms, with much the same arguments, that they denounced, or have heard that their elders denounced, the American military effort in Vietnam. We're in a quagmire, committing atrocities, doomed to failure.
Right down to the signs and slogans, antiwar rallies seem a re-enactment of the tie-dyed past. In the waning days of the campaign, John Kerry and John Edwards slyly suggested that George W. Bush would bring back the military draft.
The war in Iraq is different from the war in Vietnam in so many respects that it is hard to know where to start listing the ways. But for some large portion of Democratic voters, it will forever be 1968.
The moral dimension of the proposed destruction of Israeli communities in Gaza and northern Samaria is one that has received scant attention over the past year since Sharon adopted the Labor Party's plan of retreat and expulsion as his own. Indeed, although it was one of the implicit assumptions of the 1993 Oslo process, the fact that a precondition for a final peace accord with the PLO was that all Jewish residents of Judea, Samaria and Gaza would be ethnically cleansed has rarely been mentioned. As for Sharon's withdrawal plan for Gaza and northern Samaria, everyone from US National Security Council Middle East Adviser Elliott Abrams to Labor Party leader Shimon Peres to Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak to British Prime Minister Tony Blair have all noted that the plan, if enacted, will provide a precedent for the destruction of all or most of the remaining Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria with their population of some 250,000 Israelis.
THIS WEEK, the public debate shifted its attention for the first time in 11 years to the question of whether it is moral to ethnically cleanse the territories of their Jewish residents and force all Israelis to live within the cease-fire lines from 1949. With the publication of an open letter from Binyamin Regional Council head Pinhas Wallerstein calling for mass civil disobedience against the proposed ethnic cleansing of Jews from Gaza and northern Samaria, the question of the morality of the plan has exploded onto the public stage....
... Israel is the first Western state to call for the forced removal of Jews from their homes,simply because they are Jews, since the Holocaust and that there is something morally atrocious about the notion that for peace to come –- to Israel and to those bombing Israel –- it is necessary for entire regions to be rendered Judenrein. And again, as leaders in Israel and throughout the world have stated, the expulsion from Gaza and northern Samaria is simply a preview of coming attractions for what awaits those who live in Judea and the rest of Samaria....
...There would be no reason for the IDF to be operating in Gaza if the Palestinians weren't conducting a war against Israel from Gaza. And there would be no question about the right of Jews to live in Gaza or northern Samaria or anywhere else they have lived for thousands of years if Palestinian nationalism weren't predicated on genocidal anti-Semitism.
"I think the natural instinct for most people in the political world is that they want people to like them. On the other hand, I think sometimes I take kind of a delight in who the critics are."
regimes that do not respect the rights of their own people will not respect the rights of their neighbors.
The link between the nature of a regime and its external behavior is not always understood. Democratic leaders, whose power is ultimately dependent on popular support, are held accountable for failing to improve the lives of their citizens. Therefore, they have a powerful incentive to keep their societies peaceful and prosperous.
On the other hand, the power of dictators is not dependent upon popular will. For them, staying in power is a function not of bettering the lives of their subjects but rather of controlling those lives. To justify the degree of repression necessary to sustain their illegitimate rule, dictators need to constantly mobilize their people against external enemies.
It is therefore not surprising that during the decade of the Oslo process, Arafat's Palestinian Authority used all the resources at its disposal to fan the flames of hatred against Israel. The media under his control incited the current generation of Palestinians against the Jewish state, and his PA-run schools ensured that the next generation would be even more poisoned with hate.
Investigators say they have received information that Rich and Ben Pollner, a New York-based oil trader who heads Taurus Oil, set up a series of companies in Liechtenstein and other countries that they used to put together deals between Saddam and his international supporters in the controversial oil-voucher scheme — which the dictator designed to win international support against U.S. sanctions at the United Nations.
Under the scam, hundreds of international political and financial figures from France, Russia and other countries were awarded middleman vouchers allowing them to purchase set quantities of Iraqi oil at discount rates.
These so-called "non-end users" could then resell the oil on the open market and make profits of up to 50 cents a barrel. Benon Sevan, who headed the U.N. oil-for-food program, is among those listed in Iraqi Oil Ministry documents as having been a recipient of the vouchers.
Investigators are also looking at Rich's fingerprints on several oil deals involving Russian political figures and businessmen. Rich has longstanding ties in Russia and has done several questionable commodities deals with Russian mafia figures and oligarchs, who seized control of vast Russian financial and natural resources after the collapse of the Soviet Union, sources said.
