The Distant Ocean

God's work apparently much different than we thought

Goldman Sachs arch-criminal Lloyd Blankfein:

"We’re very important," he says, abandoning self-flagellation. "We help companies to grow by helping them to raise capital. Companies that grow create wealth. This, in turn, allows people to have jobs that create more growth and more wealth. It’s a virtuous cycle." To drive home his point, he makes a remarkably bold claim. "We have a social purpose."

[...] He is, he says, just a banker "doing God’s work."

Then again, given God's fondness for smiting and various other acts of ultraviolence, maybe he's got something there.

"Palestinians contend"

From the L.A. Times:

Palestinians contend that a U.S.-backed 2003 peace plan obliges Israel to halt settlement growth.

From the 2003 peace plan (otherwise known as "A Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict", or the Roadmap for short):

Settlements

• GOI immediately dismantles settlement outposts erected since March 2001.
• Consistent with the Mitchell Report, GOI freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements).

In other words, Palestinians contend that the U.S.-backed 2003 peace plan which obliges Israel to halt settlement growth obliges Israel to halt settlement growth.  And in a similar vein, Palestinians no doubt contend that water is damp, the sun rises on a daily basis, and fire burns.  What is the L.A. Times supposed to do—just report these Palestinian contentions as facts?