31 January 2007

Danny Seaman - the other side of Hasbara

The issue of Israeli Hasbara is being discussed more and more lately. It seems that the recognition of the simple fact that our PR sucks is becoming widespread. In researching Hasbara and consequently its persistent failures, a name kept popping up in a variety of articles. To be honest, I would have ignored this person had I not found so much material pointing in his direction. One side of Hasbara that made me curios, was the heat with which foreign journalist seemingly had it "in" for Israel on every reportable occurrence. Knowing that Palestinians have made an art form out of hosting foreign journalists, I couldn't figure out how Israel couldn't outperform them in this seemingly simple task. One can assume that if curtsey accompaniment is lavished on foreign Hacks by Palestinians hosts, these in turn can guide the reporters to see and write on suitable materials for the Palestinian Hasbara – which kind of makes simple sense. And so, I would like to focus on one single aspect of the Hasbara – the treatment journalists receive at the hands of our Government Press Office and its chief honcho, one Danny Seaman.

If you want to know how one, relatively small government office seemingly succeeds in destroying any attempt to improve the Israel’s image, here is the apparent formula:

  • Say things like: “How are journalists different from any other foreign workers?”;
  • Create an atmosphere of fear where no journalist, foreign or Israeli, dares to raise his voice in protest;
  • And as a result, cause more damage to the state of Israel than a concerted IAF bombing raid on the HQs of CNN, AFP, Reuters, AP and, of course, Al Jazeera, ever could
continue reading. It is a very long post, be warned!

Margolis: good actress, crap Jew, useful idiot

You can do yourself some good by reading about it here.

But then - you may become pissed off as well, so it is up to you.

***

On the policy of understatement

My friends (especially some of them that are more into newspaper business than I am) always try to calm me down when I go on a rave about the titles some articles carry. It is not the authors, they tell me, it is the editors who perpetrate these small crimes (mainly crimes of stupidity, which is not considered a crime in most places and cases anyhow). Still, I do like some moderate raving from time to time - gets your old red cells moving.

The title that got me raving this time is Hamas fails to condemn Eilat bomb that killed three from Inependent. I don't know whether this title is invented by a bored/stupid editor or by the author (Donald Macintyre), but it could not be farther from reality.

Macintyre himself does confuse the issue even more:

Hamas, which controls the Palestinian Authority, notably refrained from condemning the bombing, with one of its Gaza spokesmen, Fawzi Barhoum, calling it a "natural response" to Israeli military policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as its boycott of the authority. " So long as there is occupation, resistance is legitimate," he said.
So, the article offers a spectrum of options, from "fails to condemn" via "refrained from condemning" to "calling it a natural response".

I am an admirer of the British knack of understatement. Its pinnacles like this one from Wiki rarely fail to fill me with joy:
Event: British Admiral David Beatty had just watched two of his battle-cruisers explode and disintegrate under German fire at the Battle of Jutland, May 31, 1916. Comment: "There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today..."
But in the case of this Indy's article I seriously doubt whether pegging an outright support of the homicidal act as a failure to condemn it is an understatement.

Or just too much eagerness to embellish the stark and ugly reality of Hamas and what it stands for.

Bloody Indy - and this is an understatement of the century.

Cross-posted on Yourish.com

***

Thrice failed

AP wasn't my personal cup of tea, there are people who are much better in this specific subject.

But I have stumbled by an accident on an article Palestinian bomber had lost his daughter by one Sarah El Deeb, AP writer. The title triggered a chain of guesses even before I started to read the text: uhu, probably these Zionists deliberately (as usual, of course), shot the bomber's daughter to pieces, which act of murderous genocidal maniacs was the turning point in the life of the young idealistic Mohammed (this is the name of the bomber).

It appears that I was wrong:

The Palestinian who blew himself up in the Israeli resort of Eilat on Monday was unemployed, despondent over the death of his baby daughter and driven to avenge his best friend's killing by Israeli troops, relatives said.

Dozens of neighbors celebrated outside 20-year-old Mohammed Siksik's house after the fiery attack that killed him and three other people, waving his photo and praising him as a martyr. Inside, his mother greeted mourners with a smile.

"He told me: 'Meeting God is better for me than this whole world,'" said Rowayda Siksik, wearing a white veil.

She said her son told her only that he was going to carry out an operation inside Israel. "He said, 'Goodbye, I am going, mother. Forgive me.' I told him, 'God be with you.'"

Siksik never found steady work, getting by with occasional jobs with his father, installing tiles. "You can't find work in this place," his mother said. Her son lost his 7-month-old daughter to a nerve disease, she said.
A quick analysis of the above quote shows:
  • That the bomber's daughter has succumbed to a disease - not to a hail of Israeli bullets
  • That the bomber was unemployed
  • That at some unspecified time IDF killed his friend, for unspecified reasons
  • That dozens of neighbors (also called "mourners" further) celebrated the occasion
  • That the "bereaved" mother is greeting the "mourners" with a smile
  • That the above mentioned mother gave her son a blessing, sending him to commit the murders
I was trying for a moment to imagine an Israeli, some unemployed Moshe (we have quite a lot of unemployed too, unfortunately) whose daughter was taken from this life by a disease and whose friend was killed by a Palestinian bullet or bomb or by a Hizballah' rocket. I have tried to see Moshe building himself an explosive belt and going to Gaza or West Bank to blow himself up in a bakery or pizzeria or hotel.

I have failed.

But, assuming that our Moshe succeeds in this imaginary task, I have tried to imagine an AP (or CNN, or AFP, or Reuters) writer sitting down a day after the atrocity that has taken three innocent lives and writing an article that will be as full of understanding and sympathy to the plight of Moshe as the article we are talking about here is to the plight of Mohammad. I have tried to imagine an article that will not mention the perfidy of the insidious Zionists, the brainwashing that Moshe underwent in his synagogue (if our Moshe was religious, otherwise in his Zionist cell). I have tried to imagine that this article will not mention Moshe's innocent Arab victims in more than one measly sentence...

I have failed again.

And of course, I have made a supreme effort to imagine the Jewish crowd celebrating our Moshe's "martyrdom" near Moshe's house and his mother smilingly receiving the celebrating "mourners". And handing around video clips with Moshe bravely embracing that AK-47, with the Israeli flag on the background, berating the Palestinians and singing Hatikva just before embarking on his last murderous adventure.

I have failed again.

Oh, but I am reminded by the usual suspects - it is that occupation of Gaza...

Cross-posted on Yourish.com

***

29 January 2007

AP - moral relativism and body count

This is not a good day to squabble about politics or to nitpick. But this headline by AP got up my nose:

Suicide bombing kills 4 in Israel

I thought that another Israeli died since the bombing and looked closer at the text:
A Palestinian suicide bomber attacked a bakery Monday, killing himself and three people, police said. It was the first suicide bombing in Israel in nine months and the first ever to hit Eilat, Israel’s southernmost city.
No, the number of murdered Jews is still three. Of course, technically speaking, there was another dead body. But it is a technicality, with all due care about humanity and life. The youngster sent by his Islamic Jihad operators was dead after the last round of brainwashing and after his parents prayed for the "success" of his homicidal mission.

But in the smelly moral relativism of AP there is no much difference between the murderers and the victims.

And another detail: the stringer that sent this piece in is obviously an Israeli, one Revital Levy-Stein. Shame on you.

Cross-posted on Yourish.com

***

His mother and father prayed for him to succeed...

You would place a sentence like this quite naturally in some article about a sports event. Or about a career in arts, crafts, science.

But in this case mom and dad prayed for their son, one Mohammed Faisal al-Saqsaq from Gaza City, to succeed in blowing up himself with as many Jews as possible in a bakery in Eilat.

There must be something seriously wrong with this parental pair. And with the religion that encourages this kind of prayer.

Oh, but of course, this is the Zionist occupation of Gaza that causes all this...

Cross-posted on Yourish.com

***

Wow, this is a steamy one!

A nice Jewish boy, Mark Guterman, who is a Clinical Psychology PhD student working with Orit Avishai of the University of California at Berkeley, called for help with an extremely interesting survey he is conducting.

The site calls you to fill in the questionnaire to make a difference. I can tell you that the questionnaire makes a difference by itself. So there are at least two reasons to click here and to answer the questions, but remember - the Elders are watching, so the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth! And you acquire a lot of new ideas as you go, so your marriage will never be the same after you are done with the survey. It's a promise.

Them Berkeley folks...

***

28 January 2007

Too many Jews...

Ynet is telling about a newly discovered Jimboism:

Former US President Jimmy Carter once complained there were "too many Jews" on the government's Holocaust Memorial Council, Monroe Freedman, the council's former executive director, told WND in an exclusive interview.

Former US president also rejected Christian historian because name sounds 'too Jewish'...
Which immediately reminded me a joke told during the same period (1980 or a bit earlier) about Carter's kissing buddy - Leonid Brezhnev of the late USSR.

Some time before the 1980 Olympic games Brezhnev (B) calls one of his flunkies (F).

B: Listen, F - these forinners will swarm our capital soon, and we have to show them that our minorities are being well taken care of.

F: Minorities? We don't have no minorities in Moscow, comrade Brezhnev! Only good loyal Soviet citizens.

B: Oh, come on, you know whom I mean, these troublemakers...

F: Oh, you mean Jooz?

B: Right, F. Quick thinking.

F: So, comrade Brezhnev, should I remove them... for a while, that is?

B: No, you dummy, just the opposite. I want you to create 20, no, make it 30, synagogues, with all that Jooish stuff and attending worshippers. All that is needed to show the tourists that Jooz are free to pray to their hearts' content. You have a month to report back to me.

In a month:

F: Comrade Brezhnev, I have a report to make. Your order was implemented, but there was a snag...

B: What, didn' t you locate enough buildings?

F: No, buildings are fine, some closed churches were reopened and cleaned up a bit.

B: So what - a problem with the congregation?

F: No, that was easy - all highly trained and loyal KGB people, not a hitch on this front...

B: Now come on, what is the deal, man?

F: It is the rabbis, sir...

B: Wazzat - aren't they Soviet people? Aren't they loyal? Aren't they communists, for Lenin's sake?

F: Well, comrade Brezhnev, they are all Soviet citizens, loyal to the hilt and, of course, communists...

BUT THEY ARE ALL JEWS!!!

Cross-posted on Yourish.com

***

A small balloon that can

You would imagine that the goings on in Lebanon would keep Lebanese citizens' attention riveted. But, as it appears, this assumption is wrong.

An Israeli promotional campaign involving balloons caused panic among Lebanese civilians Saturday when the wind carried them over the border into southern Lebanon. The Lebanese media reported that some civilians were hospitalized after inhaling the gas in the balloons.

Lebanese sources said the balloons reached the southern Lebanese cities of Nabatiyeh and Tyre, and the Lebanese army warned civilians not to touch them. Some were brought to Italian UN troops for examination. Lebanon's official news agency claimed that they were "poisoned balloons" dispersed by IDF aircraft.


Poisoned balloons now. Oy vey. Will these Zionists ever stop inventing new ways of genocide?

And why do they use a newspaper logo on the balloons? It is clear - to blame the media after the fact...

***

27 January 2007

So, Google - we are watching

Via Andrew Ian Dodge: a stand-off between a lone blogger and the government of New Zealand.

Now Google is requested to pull a blog (CYFSWATCH) because it pissed off a government bozo or two.

The decision Google is to make will be an important precedent for freedom of speech as it applies to bloggers.

Let's keep an eye on this story.

***

Join your feeble voice in protest!

Because if this is not state terror, what is?

***

Canada: white supremacist saved by Jew

This JTA news item deserves to be copied in full:

A Canadian Jewish leader saved a white separatist who was attacked by protesters at a Halifax hotel. Jon Goldberg, head of the Atlantic Jewish Council, was attending Jared Taylor’s Jan. 16 speech on the costs of racial diversity and integration in North America. Aside from Goldberg, only protesters and journalists attended Taylor’s speech. The masked protesters shouted obscenities at Taylor, then shoved him into a hallway, at which point Goldberg intervened.

Goldberg surmised Taylor would be furious to learn he had been saved by a Jew.
Yeah. I have some news for Mr Goldberg. I am furious too. Guess why...

***

Blogging - pet peeves and other stuff

What is it that I dislike when reading other blogs?

  • The 8-letter "word verification" crap in comments. Come on, Blogger, if you cannot deal with spam, buy them Haloscan people - they do an excellent job, we barely have spam here ever. No spam filter is going to get rid of stalkers, haters and such anyway.
  • Templates with bright letters on dark background. If the deity were planning that we read the stuff this way, surely we would have been given white ink and black papyrus?
  • Blogs that start playing music at you suddenly, causing you to drop your coffee mug in your lap.
  • Blogs that demand registration to allow you to write the same irrelevant inanities in the comments section as you would have done anyway.
  • Blogs that do not open the linked pages in the new window, requiring you to go back each time you are done with that link (I know Meryl will say a few strong words about that).
  • Blogs that are so loaded with features, animation, embedded or linked crap that it takes half an hour just to open them. If I wanted a multi-media show, I would have gone to one of these special places.
Enough for now, I am getting riled up here. Now we are starting the Elders' stopwatch to give you all some time to mend your ways...

***

25 January 2007

Outdoing a pessimist

The article with a headline like Israel's image hits nadir is bound to attract attention. Even of a person like I, who always (and in all languages I know) mixes zenith with nadir.

Of course, it is no other than Sever Plotzker, who for some unknown reason is stubbornly called Plocker in Ynet articles. And he even looks like a pessimist:


And this is more or less the gist of what he says:

Israel is no longer viewed as a thriving, high tech superpower or even as a brutal occupation power. It is viewed in a completely different light:

It's seen as a declining and dysfunctional country whose president is about to face charges of rape, whose prime minister will be interrogated on suspicion of advancing his associates' interests, whose finance minister will be ousted from his post due to an affair involving finances and non-profit organizations, whose army chief already resigned due to the failures of the war, and whose defense minister will soon be forced to follow suit.
Ehehe... If I were an optimist, I would have known what to answer: just look at the half-full part of that glass:
  1. The MSM is a fickle mistress, and will forget our little transgressions soon
  2. We are still more than moderately high-tech
  3. And fairly brutal
  4. But the president is a real macho, just look at him here
  5. The care our PM shows to his near and dear is proof that he will take good care of all of us
  6. Our finance minister shows his acumen in the money movements
  7. We have now a brand new CoS with a brilliant smile
  8. And the defense minister going will be a cherry on top of this... er.. OK, you get the drift!
But, being a bigger pessimist than Sever P. ever will, I do not say all of the above. Instead, I can assure Sever that it will go downhill all the way from now on. See, Sever, as a pessimist you must know that there are people better in the pessimism business than you are. Right?

Cheer up, Sever!

***

Katsav indictment kicks off presidential race

This is what the media says. The body is still warm, so to say (it's a figger of speech), and the sharks are already circling.

Kadima's Peres is frontrunner in presidential race opinion polls show, representatives from Likud and Labor also aiming for presidency.
So why it is that my bookie refused to take my bloody money when I insisted I am going to put it all on the second place winner? And his living room furniture, his wife's diamond and his daughter's dental work is all my investment!

Polls shmolls. These polls will not settle the question of the winner, since it is only the 120 Knesset dwellers who are supposed to vote. And I want to appeal to their politicized unfeeling souls. Look at this man, people:


Look at his eyes full of anguish caused by this endless sequence of second places in any elections whatsoever. Look at the hope that still spring eternal in these eyes, anguish notwithstanding. For how many years do you want to continue this immoral and inhuman cruelty toward the man?

Do you know what? I wouldn't even try to bet on the second place anymore if you promise to show some humane consideration.

Deal?

***

24 January 2007

The price of progress

In his post Alternative histories Norm is arguing with Will Hutton's point of view on China so touchingly expressed in the Guardian's CiF article. (I have expressed my own disgust by Will Hutton and his ilk in a longish post here. )

Looking up to Norm as a moral compass and an impeccable example of academic style, I was not surprised by the subdued manner in which he takes Hutton to task. What caused me a second take, however, was the following sentence:

Achievements should certainly be noted where there are such, but if they're bought at an exorbitant, a gigantic, cost, then they can't be treated as unambiguously positive.
I know I am still incensed by Hutton's garbage and it may muddle my reception. However, it was still strange to find such an ambiguous statement by Norm. Does it mean that there is an acceptable price of progress (measured, of course, in human lives)? If 30 million lives is a price too exorbitant, is 3 million acceptable? Or 300 thousand?

Worse: does the sentence mean that we can consider the revolting idea of Hutton's "balance sheet", accepting in fact the mere principle of counterbalancing pure evil by economic/social progress? That our children and grandchildren will be taught a new version of history that embellishes the evil by addition of "but the economy flourished" or other such drivel?

I hope not, I hope that the moral relativism was not hidden in this message from Norm whose stance (to take torture as one example) does not allow trading absolute moral imperatives for a real or imaginary salvation in any form.

Tagging Norm.

***

Alessandra Mussolini - Reflections of an MCP

That is Male Chauvinist Pig - for the acronym challenged. And the purpose of the heading is to preempt the inevitable response from some rogue elements among our readers. Now to the subject.

Seeing some lively discussions about the rise of the fascist wing in the European parliament and the frequent mentions of the Italian feather in that wing - one Alessandra Mussolini, I have done some basic googling to educate myself on this interesting character. To confess to my ignorance: at first I got an impression that there are several persons with the same name, but that Wiki link settled my confusion.

It appears that Alessandra has passed at least one significant stage on her way to the political career. At first, she was quite successful as an actress and topless model, witness this (relatively prudent) Italian playboy cover*:


After a career in the movies (where, remarkably, she played a nun rescuing Jews from Benito Mussolini's fascists in The Assisi Underground), Alessandra discovered her gramps' genes and decided to move into politics. And this is how she looks now as a neo-fascist MEP:


What can I say (this is where the MCP butts in, pay attention!): I think I have liked her much better as a servant of Melpomene and Eros than as a servant of Benito's ghost cum politician. If this is any indication of my male chauvinism or remaining buds of dormant anti-feminism, I plead guilty and am ready to serve my time in a feminist-controlled institution of the jury's choice.

And to think that this lady is a niece of The Goddess!


Argh...

(*) To all who decides to google for other images of Alessandra, following my steps: make sure your underage relatives are busy elsewhere.

***

23 January 2007

AG Mazuz decides

Attorney General Menachem Mazuz decided Tuesday that President Moshe Katsav should face charges for alleged rape as well as sexual harassment, obstruction of justice, fraud and breach of trust. The sexual assault charges relate to the claims of four women who worked for Katsav during his terms as president or before that as a cabinet minister.
As supportive of the presumption of innocence principle as ever, we'll not deal with any predictions.

But that was surely a wild exaggeration!

***

Our Worst Ex-President

First of all - don't panic, it is not about the Israeli worst ex-president, for the simple reason that the jury is still out on the question. Besides, the current one seems...

Anyway, it is the title of an article by Joshua Muravchik about the ex-POTUS James Earl Carter in Commentary magazine. The article is a breathtaking history of Jimbo's shenanigans, so I made a few decisions re this post:

  • To focus on subjects unrelated to Israel. Too much words are spilled lately on the subject, including accusations of anti-Semitism. Indeed, some bloggers would do better throttling down a bit... The man is 82 years old, FFS! He is not anti-anything, rather pro-everything, which makes him cuter than any time before.
  • To avoid extensive quoting. The original article should be read as a whole, this post notwithstanding.
  • To prepare a picture gallery instead based on (some of) the Jimbo's bosom buddies, which gallery could serve as a teaching aid for the reading challenged youth.


So, to start with quoting:

...one of Carter’s personality tics, strange in a man who boasted so often of his honesty: a compulsion to engage in flattery. At times, this could manifest itself toward a rightist ally like the Shah of Iran. Just months before the outbreak of the revolution that culminated in his toppling, Carter declared in a toast that Iran was an “island of stability” thanks to the “love which your people give you.” But the impulse expressed itself most strongly toward leftist strongmen.

So let's embark on the tour of the photo gallery: Jimbo and the dictators. Barf bags at ready!

Jimbo and Shah of Iran


Jimbo and Josip Broz Tito

Carter hailed Yugoslav dictator Josip Broz Tito as “a man who believes in human rights”...

Jimbo and Polish Stalinist Edward Gierek

Visiting Poland, then ruled by the Stalinist hack Edward Gierek, he offered a toast to its “enlightened leaders” and declared that “our concept of human rights is preserved in Poland . . . much better than other European nations with which I am familiar.”

Jimbo and Romanian tyrant Nicolae Ceausescu

Our goals are the same... [ain't it delicious?]

Jimbo and North Korean Kim Il Sung

"The U.S. desires to live in peace and harmony with North Korea. We don't believe our different government systems should be an obstacle to full cooperation and friendship." The fruits of these "peace and harmony" will feed generations to come...

And now brace yourself and keep your young ones and/or pregnant ones away:

Jimbo and the Wet Kisser signing SALT II

From Wiki: An agreement to limit strategic launchers was reached in Vienna on June 18, 1979, and was signed by Leonid Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter. Six months after the signing, the Soviet Union deployed troops in Afghanistan...

I hope you have a picture now of what in many places would be sufficient legal grounds for a court martial and summary execution.

And this man continues to roam the world, generously sharing with us from the bottomless pool of his wisdom...

What can one say about the whole storm in a teacup? It seems that Jimbo is trying to deflect the arrows from all directions but one:

"I have been called a liar," Carter said at a town hall meeting on Saturday, the second day of a three-day symposium on his presidency at the University of Georgia. "I have been called an anti-Semite," he said. "I have been called a bigot. I have been called a plagiarist. I have been called a coward."

How about being called simply dumb?



to Andrew Ian Dodge.



***

Code review

Warning: the contents of this post are encoded to make it readable only by programmers!
To all others: move on, people, there is nothing for you to see.

Author: unknown.

Via: DB.

***

22 January 2007

Some moderate shvitz

But first of all we would like to thank the anonymous blogger who nominated Simply Jews for the People's Choice Jewish and Israeli Blog Awards. It means, among other interesting things, that out there still roams one person on whose nerves we didn't get yet. We promise to take care of this issue in the near future.

Now to some moderate shvitz.

Ain't we great? Ain't we the best? Ain't we awesome?

Nah... But we'll be there. One day.

And congratulations to all other participants and winners.

***

Haveil Havalim and the art of dating.

Yehuda, he of Board Games, definitely knows a thing or two about developing an intriguing narrative that will sweep you and drag you through the whole Haveil Havalim # 103, if you are not careful.

On the other hand, why would you want to be careful? Just go there and enjoy a free lesson in multicultural dating.

The only disappointment: they do not kiss and marry at the end. But to know who are "they", you have to go through each and every word...

***

Satisfying the entropy law

A serious deviation from the Second Law of thermodynamics occurred in the fair city of Minneapolis.

Joshua Hanson landed on his feet after crashing through a window at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Minneapolis and falling onto a roof overhang almost 200ft (60 metres) below. He suffered multiple broken bones and internal injuries and was in a critical condition in the city's Hennepin County Medical Centre last night.
A partial explanation comes from a police report:
According to Lt Barsness, Mr Hanson, of Blair, Wisconsin, was in Minneapolis with his friends to attend a darts convention and returned to the hotel at about 1.30am.
If you let your brain to use its power of free association, the following chain will become clear and inevitable: darts - beer - intoxication - inebriation - horsing around - accidents.

However, the last step of the chain, namely the accident, ended in a giant fluctuation from the law of entropy and must be settled to prevent undue disturbances in space/time continuum (whatever it means). So let's start fixing.
"This guy must have had a guardian angel on his shoulder," said Dale Barsness of the Minneapolis police department. Lt Barsness said that Mr Hanson, 29, had been drinking and was fooling around with friends in a corridor when he lost his balance and fell through the double glazed, floor-to-ceiling window.
Let's check first why that angel did not prevent Mr Hanson from the collision with the window in the first place, Mr Hanson. And let's leave theology to the experts.
Dr Steve Smith, who works in the emergency room, said it was rare for anybody to survive a fall from such a distance.
Everything is in your capable hands, Mr Smith. After all, Mr Hanson is still in the hospital, if you get the drift. Mind the space/time continuum...
Tom Mason, the Hyatt Regency's general manager, said the hotel would look at why the reinforced window, which was also protected by a metal bar, was not strong enough to hold Mr Hanson in.
One word only, Mr Mason: contractors. You better check all these windows. You can have a lot of volunteers from that darts convention, but do it on the ground: the angels come at a price these days.

OK, now that it's all settled, let's go back to that Middle East mess...

***

Yes, throw the book at the infidel!

A Muslim cleric in Australia, Faiz Muhammad, 30, has urged in a DVD that Muslims should teach their children to be soldiers for Islam, and characterized Jews as "children of monkeys and pigs."

Australian police have launched an investigation to determine whether the cleric was inciting terrorism through his call for jihad. This is the second time this week that a Muslim cleric in Australia has caused much consternation to Australians.
Not only should he be jailed for terrorism incitement but also for being an infidel who misinterprets Islamic teachings. It is clear even to a Muslim child that Jews cannot be children of monkeys and pigs, since it is Christians who are the children of pigs and Jews who are the children of monkeys.

Off with his head!

***

21 January 2007

It is so simple!

Unwillingness of some people to take a hint is sometimes too amazing.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- Florist Auvaroza Abraham's shop was broken into again. That's life, you might say. But not if it has happened more than 30 times.

The New Straits Times reported Sunday that the flower shop in Kuching, the capital of Sarawak state on Borneo Island, has been robbed four times this month alone, the latest on Saturday.

Auvaroza estimated her total losses so far at $56,300 in the serial burglaries since 2004.

Auvaroza has filed police reports 30 times but police have come to her shop to investigate only three times, the newspaper quoted the woman as saying.
Auvaroza, darling, a perfect solution is right here:

And don't thank us, just open a donut stand pronto.

***

Yet another Jimboism

To post about Carter's dhimmitude is becoming boring lately. But what can one do when almost every day a new pearl of ex-POTUS wisdom is uncovered:

January 15, 2007 -- Has a former president of the United States - a Nobel Peace Prize winner, no less - given his blessing to wanton murder and terrorist assaults against Israel?

Sure looks that way.

How else to read that astonishing statement on page 213 of Jimmy Carter's new anti-Israel screed, "Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid"?

To wit: "It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Roadmap for Peace are accepted by Israel." (Emphasis added.)
You don't have to read between the lines here.

Thankfully, no need to comment on this one either.

Cross-posted on Yourish.com



to Steve Decatur.




***

Tough luck

Or was it a tough duck?

A duck in the US state of Florida has survived gunshot wounds and a two-day stint in a refrigerator. A hunter shot the duck, wounding it in the wing and leg. Believing the bird was dead, he left it in his fridge at his home in Tallahassee. The hunter's wife got a fright when she opened the fridge and the duck lifted its head, a local veterinarian said.
There is a lesson somewhere in this story. What is clear, though: our hapless hunter has a low chance of enjoying the fruit (so to say) of his hard work:
Staff at the Goose Creek Animal Sanctuary who are treating the bird said it has a 75% chance of survival.
That means: 25% chance of seeing this, if I am not mistaken:



More chances of seeing this:


Next time wring their heads off to make sure your meal does not leave your fridge. And that you do not make yourself the laughing stock of all your hunter buddies...

***

20 January 2007

A new player in Israeli politics?

It definitely looks like the colorful, albeit a bit crazy, potpurri of Israeli political map got another player of significance.

Hezbollah head hails resignation

Hezbollah head Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah has welcomed the resignation of Israeli army chief Lt-Gen Dan Halutz in the wake of the two sides' summer conflict. Sheikh Nasrallah told his movement's al-Manar TV in Lebanon: "Any of them that don't resign will be forced out."
Hassan could definitely bring some new zest into the stagnating pool of same old names. I wonder which party will welcome him into its warm embrace? Or do I?

Likud Tables 'No Confidence' Following Halutz Resignation
The Likud faction in the Knesset tabled a no-confidence measure Wednesday, following IDF Chief of General Staff Halutz's resignation. The measure will be debated in the Knesset Plenum next Monday.
That could be a good idea, to think of it. Like the Likud's current honcho, Hassan could talk the socks off a deaf octogenarian. Unlike the Likud's current honcho, though, people whom Hassan wants assassinated, stay assassinated. So here...

***

And the dust finally settled

Venezuela's National Assembly has given initial approval to a bill granting the president the power to bypass congress and rule by decree for 18 months.

So there is not need for the mask anymore. The ugly face of the Caudillo is out in the open, for all to see, and do not be mislead by the suit and tie:


That's only for MSM consumption. The real one is here:


And no quantity of worshippers, including even such luminaries of freedom as Red Ken, could change the fact: a dictatorship is settling in behind the gun sights.
He has said he wants to nationalise key sectors of the economy and scrap limits on the terms a president can serve.
And as you can see, it is settling for good. Now don't say you weren't told...

***

19 January 2007

Another mass murderer in the Guardian's pantheon

Re-writing of history was done in different ways during different times. The good old way of razing whole cities (or city-states) with all the inhabitants is rarely used anymore. Probably today it is considered not economically wise and not enough environment-friendly.

There was a less drastic way of doing things in the ancient history: first of all you do away with that VIP you want to erase from the annals (and, of course, his/her family with all, even the most distant, relatives - just in case). Then you destroy his statues, pictures and any mention of his name in official correspondence. Then you can always ask "Jim who?" if the name is mentioned by a hapless somebody. Of course, you must make sure that this somebody goes through the steps described above.

After the advent of Gutenberg a new issue appeared - that of printed matter. The printed matter was widely disseminated and difficult to keep track of. But during the Hitler and Stalin era that issue was taken care of as well. In Germany the books were simply burned. In the blessed USSR, with its economic issues this method was found too expensive, and a replacement pages with erased names, texts and even faces were distributed to the libraries.

But today the whole re-writing business is flourishing on the wave of information and population overflow. Just because of the sheer quantity of printed material, TV and radio information streams and, of course, the great garbage bin of the humanity - the Internet - there is no need to destroy the older material. You just continue changing the data, more or less subtly, and the time will do its dirty work. Who out of 7 billion people will care enough to go to the archives and breath the dust, I ask you? And out of the very few who will - whose voice is strong enough to overcome the background noise of the countless scribes who are busy with their re-writing duties? And, after a few years, the accepted history of this planet will look different. Just as you like it.

A few years ago I have stumbled upon a nauseating article by a Guardian scribe, Seumas Milne. In this article Milne (an indoctrinated and nauseating character if I ever seen one, and yes, it is an ad hominem) probes the waters by trying to re-paint one of the last century monsters - one Joseph Stalin (or Koba the Dread or Uncle Joe) in a new shades of pink. The main motif of this exercise is "Yes, Stalin was cruel, but...". A sampler:

Despite the cruelties of the Stalin terror, there was no Soviet Treblinka, no extermination camps built to murder people in their millions. ... Part of the Soviet tragedy was that that victory was probably only possible because the country had undergone a forced industrial revolution in little more than a decade, in the very process of which the greatest crimes were committed.
Yeah. But knowing what kind of creature we deal with in case of Mr Milne, it is hardly surprising. One can always discount this garbage as a revolting, but natural, effluvium of a diseased mind.

But today the Guardian produced another opus in the same genre. Stalin being already established in the Guardian's pantheon of "great, but slightly sullied" leaders, somebody there decided that the time is ripe to add another murderer of a similar caliber. And now we have to deal with another, no less nauseous, exercise of embellishing Mao. Predictably, it is titled "Mao was cruel - but also laid the ground for today's China". With a subtitle "The crimes of communist China's founder shouldn't blind us to achievements which paved the way for its current modernisation".

I really don't want to go into analysis of this garbage. Suffice to say, that unlike the Milne's apologetics for Stalin, this time even the numbers of victims murdered by Mao and his henchmen are not mentioned. And to add the following attempt that stinks to high heaven:
The German sociologist Max Weber, in a famous essay, argued that statesmen facing these kinds of challenges - of winning a war or of master-minding economic development - have to be judged by different moral criteria.
Sure. Different moral criteria. Max Weber, Seumas Milne, Will Hutton... The trend is clear. Who is next in that row of apologists for the unspeakable? Because the titles are easy, we could work them out in advance:
  • "Genghis Khan was a cruel dictator, but he has improved his nation's mobility"
  • "Mussolini was a fascist, but the trains were on schedule"
  • "Hitler was a mass murderer, but the German economy flourished, not to forget the Beetle!"
  • "Pol Pot was cruel, but very environment friendly, fertilizing the fields by organic bodies"


Etc. Just make sure to distribute the work fairly between the queueing Guardian scribes. And to buy some deodorant for Guardian's offices.

***

Carter: no doubts at all now

The Ynet report: Carter: Palestinian rockets not terrorism removed the last shadow of doubt in my mind.

Former US President Jimmy Carter told al-Jazeera television he "was not equating Palestinian missiles with terrorism," during an appearance on the Arab satellite station on Sunday.
All of you who tried to explain his strange behavior by bias, corruption etc. - you can get down from the moral high horse. The man is obviously loopy. Barmy. A few tacos short of an enchilada. There is nothing to worry about but to make sure that he receives humane treatment, necessary medication and a padded room - just in case, because you never know with such characters...

To prove my point further, here comes another good one:
Responding to criticisms of his book, Carter added: "Most of the condemnations of my book came from Jewish American organizations, which think that I believe there is racial segregation inside Israel. I don't base it on that."
Should we expect a condemnation from the United Council of Eskimo Tribes instead? And what does he mean by "I don't base it on that.": segregation on Israel or Israel on segregation? Bonkers, I say. Gone to a very long lunch and forgot to return...

Unless, of course, somebody persuaded him that the rockets in question are not what they seem to be to an amateur observer. I hesitate to say this, but there were rumors indeed that Gazan rocket scientists strive to develop a mail delivery system that will reduce the transit time of post sent from Gaza to the West Bank. The rockets falling short of target on Sderot and other Jewish villages is just a temporary technical glitch that will be straightened out in due time.

There even are plans, hitherto undisclosed, I hear, to put a picture of a dove on each rocket. That to ensure that people of Sderot understand and accept these totally non-terrorist rockets. A competition for the best picture of a Palestinian dove is gearing up as we speak.

The only condition is that the dove must resemble Jimbo. Go figure...

***

18 January 2007

Ahmadinejad: Israel and the U.S. would not dare

Actually, he wanted to say: "Israel and the U.S. would not dare attack Iran", but it was a bit too long for a mere blog headline, so...

What it means is that Ah, my dinner jacket has started another (is it monthly or weekly, I wonder?) one in the long series of dick waving stand up performances. Look at me, he says:

Viewers, beware: the head in the above picture is the size of a peanut, albeit a big one - it may interfere with your size estimates.

"They well know the power of the Iranian people. I don't think they would ever dare to attack us, neither them nor their masters. They won't do such a stupid thing," Ahmadinejad told El Mundo during a visit to Nicaragua, referring to Israel.
It is rumored that in a private discussion after that interview Ah, my dinner jacket continued with his obsession with sizeism:

"Look how small both of them are in comparison", he exclaimed proudly.

Not to disabuse Mahmoud of this notion, the Elders would like to inquire about the nature of his activities as depicted in the following snapshot:

While not trying to cast any aspersions, we would like to be sure that there is nothing in these activities that his mom would be averse to seeing. In more details, that is. After all, the poor old lady had enough grief with the two previous snapshots:











To state it loud and clear: the Elders, as such, do not mind any way of... how to say it... expressing affection between two human beings, it is only the traditional ways Mahmoud mom is used to that are of concern to us. You see, in the latest news, directly related to Mahmoud indecent tonguing of the rabbi it says that the said rabbi's wife already left him and filed for a divorce...

Oh, and there is also that habit of mullahs to hang people in public places for not being traditional enough. Consider it and take care, Mahmoud.
***

No, really, Zeevik - welcome home!

The news fell on us like a... like a ton of marshmallow, to be precise.

MIAMI - A Florida court approved on Tuesday the plea bargain according to which Israel underworld kingpin Zeev Rosenstein will be convicted of conspiring to commit a crime and serve 12 years in an Israel prison.
To remind you what it's all about:
Tel Aviv District Police’s central unit had tried to put its hands on Rosenstein for some 20 years, and the mobster was eventually detained following a joint investigation by Israel Police and American law enforcement agencies over suspicions that he attempted to distribute a million Ecstasy tablets.
We are quite happy, indeed ecstatic to hear that Zeevik will soon be back home. We all think that he looks swell and that this short stay in Florida was good for him, just take a look:

Shaine punem, we all said. If you compare this picture with the old ones from the Israeli nick, you can easily see the improvement.

Er... now regarding that old post of ours... You see, Zeevik, after we have looked at it we have found there a sentence... Actually a part of a sentence that says "better you than me".

So, we want to make it absolutely clear: this is a typo! We swear that the original intention was to say "letter to you from me". Or something. In any case, we want to say that it is with deepest respect and admiration that we are watching your career and your plight in the hands of this heartless bureaucracy.

A measly million Ecstasy pills indeed. Feh. Whatever, you can count on us. Day and night.

***

17 January 2007

BBC - now it is getting personal

As long as it was just dirty politics, I didn't mind, but now somebody in this outfit overstepped his/her limits.

Publishing my snapshot (even without the mug part) without permission and in an article about obesity is a low blow, no questions about it. Obese? Pleasantly plump is what I hear from all.

And in an article about a new and, without doubt, fraudulent obesity cure. A gum based on instant glue, more likely.

It is war now, ladies and gentlemen (gentlemen, ha!)...

***

A mensch

Now - who is to follow this example?

***

Islamophobia? You bet!

There are no words to describe the indignity of the obviously staged trial starting in London these days. The mere names list of the six accused folks should make one sit up and pay attention to that obviously biased and perverted comedy of justice:

Muktar Ibrahim, Manfo Asiedu, Hussein Osman, Yassin Omar, Ramzi Mohammed and Adel Yahya deny the charges.
Not to mention the pictures:

And what does this kangaroo court see as their transgression?
Six men planned a series of "murderous suicide bombings" on 21 July 2005 in London, a court has heard. The prosecutor told how six bombs were made using a mix of liquid hydrogen peroxide, chapati flour, acetone and acid.

Each bomb was placed in a large plastic container and screws, tacks, washers or nuts, were taped to the outside to "maximise the possibility of injury", Mr Sweeney said.
Pish! Hydrogen peroxide that is used by everyone to bleach his/her hair, acetone to remove the nail polish, acid to fight the especially stubborn corns - this is the whole crime? And chapati flour for donuts, not to mention the screws, tacks, washers and nuts that served these poor penniless folks as decoration for these cosmetics sets?

Really - show me a defence lawyer (barrister, shmarrister - don't give me this shit) that could not win this case, and I shall show you a loser. Now - you want real criminals - I shall show you some real criminals. In a related article:
A court in Casablanca has given two Moroccan journalists suspended sentences for defaming Islam and breaching public morality. The journalists' weekly magazine, Nichane, had published an article entitled How Moroccans laugh at religion, sex and politics. The court banned publication of the magazine for two months and fined Driss Ksikes and Sanaa al-Aji about $8,000. The journalists said the jokes they published were in common usage.
Common usage, eh? Blasphemers that should be beheaded. What times we are living in...

***

BBC causes stutter - fact!

No need to rummage Snopes or to look for a needle in the Google haystack anymore, the fact is proved and clear to anyone. Here is a picture of the first victim of the cruel joke BBC played on some people:

This is a respectable (albeit French) historian, professor at Sorbonne. Here is his reaction when hearing these absolutely preposterous rumors about a possible unification of France and Britain:
Seeing these words for the first time, Henri Soutou, professor of contemporary history at Paris's Sorbonne University almost fell off his chair. Stammering repeatedly he said: "Really I am stuttering because this idea is so preposterous. The idea of joining the Commonwealth and accepting the headship of Her Majesty would not have gone down well. If this had been suggested more recently Mollet might have found himself in court."
I hope that BBC is in for a long and costly litigation now for this case of GBH. The situation with their practical jokers has clearly got out of hand. Even the cruellest psycho-war operators from the Elders' elite mindfuck group were aghast... There are some limits, you know.

And, speaking about Elders, the same article caused quite a lot of stuttering in our department as well. Take a look at this:
Tension was growing at this time along the border between Israel and Jordan. France was an ally of Israel and Britain of Jordan. If events got out of control there, French and British soldiers could soon be fighting each other.
Unlike the case of the professor, though, our psycho-med corps put an end to the symptoms very quickly. The injured operatives are back in service. But the Hasbarah department took the idea to heart, and is going to produce a "what if" movie about French and British armies fighting on the Jordan river. Jean-Paul Belmondo and Brad Pitt are already in Israel, scouting for the best location. An Italian general is being recruited as a military advisor, and professor Noam Chomsky, known for his strict adherence to historical facts will write the scenario. The official producers: Italy/Germany. The genre (either a musical or a slapstick comedy) - to be decided upon later.

Cross-posted on Yourish.com

***

16 January 2007

Oh, Indy...

That's a rare case of rude awakening: Independent with its (as usual) shrilly and pompous cover page:

And, after this broadside, two articles:


(Well, I suppose it suits Indy to present the phenomenon as a new political force. Doesn't point to their powers of observation, though.) And:


Granted, the folks described in the article are bigots and malcontents. But misfits? Not exactly, they fit into the landscape of EU quite nicely, thank you.

But I guess that now that Indy team has a way to develop their brain power and, on top of it, their emotional intelligence, the things will improve drastically for them.

Good luck.

***

AP - surely it is not a blooper?


This is a headline of an AP news item (via CNN).
A Buddhist man in restive southern Thailand was beheaded by suspected Muslim insurgents who left a note by the body warning Buddhists to leave the area that has been gripped by bloody violence for three years, police said.
A barbaric atrocity by itself, everyone (well, aside of the "insurgents" and their sympathizers) would undoubtedly agree.

If you are blessed by an above average eyesight, you would be able to see an additional, less newsworthy item in the next paragraph:
The man and his wife were working at a rubber plantation in Yala province when a group attacked them, shooting the man three times in the chest before beheading him and killing his wife, said police Lt. Kittiphong Phuduangjit.
Is AP so busy catering to the Muslim population that the fact that a woman was killed is mentioned in such a casual manner? In Buddhism there is no stress on the superiority of men, as far as I know, by the way.

And since Thailand is mentioned, it is worth a notice that the RoP heroic deeds described in the next quote are hardly a front page material.
Drive-by shootings and bombings occur almost daily in Thailand's three southernmost Muslim-majority provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani, where an Islamic insurgency that flared in January 2004 has killed more than 1,900 people.
Be interesting to know why?

Cross-posted on Yourish.com
***

Should egalitarians support Chávez?

Asks Francisco Rodríguez - assistant professor of economics and Latin American studies at Wesleyan University, and former chief economist of the Venezuelan National Assembly.

This is really a very unusual venue that professor Rodríguez is using - the infamous CiF. In any case, you would expect some attention to what the man is telling, since his bio makes what he says highly relevant, coming from a person who was a supporter of Chavez' reforms for some time. And the story he is telling is grim - even for people who suspected the rising caudillo from the beginning.

It wasn't just that the government did not understand the difference between dissenters and opponents - perhaps understandable in a climate of heightened political polarization. Nor that they seemed genuinely disinterested in anything that was not directly connected with their staying in power - also understandable when the opposition seems to only think about how to oust you from power. It was that they really didn't seem to care much about any of the reasons we were there: improving the well-being of the poor and making Venezuela an open, democratic society.
...
There is a broad gap, however, between what the government says it is doing for the poor and what is actually going on. Did you know that the percentage of underweight and underheight babies has actually increased in Venezuela during Chávez's administration? That, once you take out social security - which, in Venezuela, benefits mostly the middle and upper classes who work in the formal sector - the fraction of social spending in the government budget has actually decreased? That, despite the government's claim of having eradicated illiteracy, its own Household Surveys revealed more than one million illiterates in Venezuela at the close of 2005, barely down from pre-Chávez levels?
I have chosen on purpose the quotes that deal with economy, but the article tells more and is quite depressing. For a normal person, that is. And this gets us back to the question asked in the headline.

Unfortunately for professor, his choice of venue has proved (once again) to be self-defeating. Looking for egalitarians (or progressives mentioned in the subtitle) on CiF is a bad decision, and after a few positive remarks the flood of foulmouthed usual suspects begun in earnest.

Just a few examples to get you all going:
But Chavez's strong arm tactics seem almost gentlemanly compared to that thicko Bush and his redneck regime.

This stinks of CIA propaganda to me.

Subject US citizens to your neo-liberal economic theories by all means but you should not expect other nations/states to believe in your bullshit.

No one's property is being "taken" and the media and opposition remain amazingly free and vocal...much more than in the US.

So who's paying you then sonny? Oh I see a US college. Figures.

I wonder how much the author was paid to write the intial comment, and paid by who ?

Stupid right wing propagandists, please go away.
Ehehe. Enough for now. Looking for egalitarians and progressives in that cesspool...

Cross-posted on Yourish.com

***

15 January 2007

So fine the resolution

Hakmao usually is very economical with words, most of her posts are short and surgically precise. This post, Degrees of Separation, however, is one of the (very few) exceptions. The case of Michael Rosen vs. Gilad Atzmon and the associated crapola by SWP is analysed quite extensively.

No, this is not a fisk, of course (I couldn't be that suicidal, could I?) It is just that I would like to make two remarks beyond the scope of the comments box.

  1. Calling Jews Sans Frontières trenchant is a bit of a misnomer. Trenchant as "Having keenness and forcefulness and penetration in thought, expression, or intellect" couldn't be farther from the monotonous anti-Israeli bull disseminated daily by so called Levi99. With all the forcefulness and penetration of a 96 years old impotent with Parkinson disease.
  2. From where we sit here, the difference between the likes of Atzmon and the likes of Elf is purely academic, with all the consequences of this strong statement. While the former clearly crossed the border to the realm of brownshirt insanity, the latter is lurking in the vicinity of this border. For both of them the mere fact of State of Israel's existence is pure anathema. Both would like nothing more than for this state to disappear. It bothers both to no end to have to explain that they belong (at least genetically, although I could add a few words to that...) to the tribe that makes them feel so uncomfortable with their non-Jewish "liberal" friends. And as far as I can see, Atzmon's "anti-Semitism" is no more than a cry: "I am not one of them, I am one of you, folks, burn them out if you like and see if I care!". Compassion and mental care is what he needs, I say. Oh, and being squashed like a bug in the process.
  3. And re the links: why link to these creeps? After all, they feed on their notoriety, and every link adds to it.
  4. Otherwise - an exemplary post, many (up to a point, of course) kudos to Hakmao.
And of course, I cannot miss an opportunity for self-aggrandizement and to mention a few posts we have done on the subject. Not to be mixed with the seminal treatise by GideonSwort that should be read by all who visit this place (hint).

Hear, hear!

***

Hudna again - Hamas' style

Reading this article on ZNN by Ami Isseroff, I was amazed to see how an adept spin master can trick even the best of them. By "spin master" I mean Ahmed Yousef, a senior adviser to the Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniya.

While Ami's article is an excellent description of the hudna as it is applied to the current situation in Gaza, Ahmed Yousef succeeded in tricking Ami and, with him, obviously, a lot of NYT readers who accepted the definition of hudna invented by this senior spin master.

According to Yousef, hudna

A truce is referred to in Arabic as a “hudna.” Typically covering 10 years, a hudna is recognized in Islamic jurisprudence as a legitimate and binding contract. A hudna extends beyond the Western concept of a cease-fire and obliges the parties to use the period to seek a permanent, nonviolent resolution to their differences.
But is it really a classic definition of hudna? From that old post:
HUDNA - Arabic word often translated as "cease-fire.- Historically used as a tactic aimed at allowing the party declaring the hudna to regroup while tricking an enemy into lowering its guard. When the hudna expires, the party that declared it is stronger and the enemy weaker. The term comes from the story of the Muslim conquest of Mecca. Instead of a rapid victory, Muhammad made a ten-year treaty with the Kuraysh tribe. In 628 AD, after only two years of the ten-year treaty, Muhammad and his forces concluded that the Kuraysh were too weak to resist. The Muslims broke the treaty and took over all of Mecca without opposition.
Since it is obvious that people do not follow links, another excerpt from that post:
In January 2004, senior Hamas leader Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi offered a 10-year hudna in return for complete withdrawal from all territories captured in the Six Day War, and the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. Rantissi said the hudna was limited to ten years and represented a decision by the movement because it was "difficult to liberate all our land at this stage", the hudna would however not signal a recognition of the state of Israel."
As a side remark - it looks that Ismail Haniya is paying more attention to propaganda now. So, lest we be hudnawinked: let's be alert and not buy the Hamas' spin.

Cross-posted on Yourish.com

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