Men Not Invited 2

Even some prominent bloggers do not eschew the simple art of linking. Pity, of course, that they do not link to Simply Jews, that bastion of straight and insulting talk, but it could not be helped.

Figuring that a) sucking up to people cannot harm; b) the best people are those of female persuasion; c) the previous and first in the world carnival of female bloggers was a smasher and d) what the heck, we have decided to make the Men Not Invited carnival a regular feature here. Well, as far as regular features go in this world, of course.

So I am starting the roll of recent posts by this (superior in all ways) segment of the blogging world. There are no other preconditions to be included save one: be linked from Simply Jews. Of course, it would have been even better if same bloggers were linking to Simply Jews, but one cannot enforce this, so...

Adloyada, thinking about wedding styles, dispenses highest praise for Pootergeek with his Wedding photography blog. That last paragraph goes from merely highest praise to a degree of adoration that will make even a wooden mega-blogger jealous.

Yael of Aliyah! Step by Step seems to be recovering from tribulations of her family visiting, electric power problems, flooding etc. On the way she succeeds in saving a dog (why, for all felines' sake?). Reading Yael's blog is more thrilling than Le Carre and Crichton united, and the latest exploit (bruising her tongue) puts her up there at the summit, looking down at all the others. Also - I would like to know why does she mention only seven cats in the recent post? Where are the other 24? And no less important - why am I banned from commenting over there, getting this "Regex ID: 106 () appears to be an invalid regex string! Please fix it in the Blacklist control panel." message? Blacklist, eh?

After inquiring about the more or less permanent absence of Angua in the previous carnival, she produced this thought-provoking post on the Democrats' win in the elections. Only to disappear again. I shall be patient. Especially since that post I mentioned did not make the issue totally clear for me (but I do not have to vote in US).

A bout of flu got Rinat of Balagan all cranky and grouchy toward the new year's eve. By now she is, most probably, sharing her time between West Bank, Tel Aviv, Zimbabwe, Somalia and few other exciting regions of this globe. As usual, all at the same time. Waiting for a new dispatch.

Montchan is another cat lover from Sweden. No, from US. No, from Hong Kong. No, from South Africa. Anyway, go to her blog and try to figure it out by yourself. What is important for you to know, if you are a warlock with a condo in Cancun - just forget it - you don't have what it takes to get her. To understand more, and to see some amazing shots from Cape Verde, look in this general area.

That Broad of Cup of Love has done two interesting posts: one on our friend Chavez and one on thongs. Knowing something about the former, I have found the totally new for me data on the latter much more fascinating. And educational. Still, on the whole, I prefer thongs to Chavez, to be truthful.

Lesley of The Debris Field presents a strange object picked up On Giza Pyramid webcam and a huge object sighted over Cambridge, England. I, personally, would go with the former. Them Cambridge folks have still not been totally cured of that deadly habit of mixing their drinks. A person should stay with one kind of poison during any given evening (morning, whatever), is my motto.

Hak Mao of HakMao. Where do I start? Every post is a little gem. I wish I could express so much in so short a post. Like this one. Or this one. Or that one. Aside of this inexplicable obsession with cricket (bleh...), of course. But I still hope it is curable. She just needs a good poster* of this kind on a wall:


Sue Helen (temporary name till she breaks and discloses her real one) of I Was Trailer Trash has done a good one on the Florida swearing in a new gov'nor. Although, I must say, "pathetic" and "traditions" were two dead giveaways. It is not easy doing one's best to be trailer trash...

Irina of The Ignoble Experiment got some mysterious company lately. If I were in the society gossip business, I would say... nah. Anyway, as long as she and the Company remain true to their present photography style of film noir, their secrets remain safe (that was half joking).

Loud mouthed, crass, fashionable, fantabulous Tanisha of La Dolce Diva went underground since the end of October. I wish I knew what happened. Let's hope that she will resurface in 2007...

Kateland, aka TZH of The Last Amazon took the rumors on the impending Israeli nuclear strike on the Iranian nuclear installations more seriously than I did. She is optimistically stating that "... for the Israelis not to have a plan for a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be gross negligence on an unheard of scale even for the Israeli state." Ehehe... When gross negligence will be abolished as our middle name, maybe...

Meryl of... no, just Meryl dedicated two (2) posts to the Israeli preparations of the strike mentioned above. Since this motif is repeated in both Kateland and Meryl's posts, I just have to comment on this Sunday Times quote: "On a plasma screen, Shkedi will be able to see dozens of planes advance towards Iran...". It may be OK for Sunday Times, but since the last Lebanon bash that plasma screen became one huge joke here in our neck of the woods. One of the things IDF was used to is to see our chiefs up there in front of the troops. Now it is plasma screens... behind...

Mog of Mind of Mog: but first read this post by Meryl, it says it all. Mog needs help. At the moment, though, the blog is quite active. Mog, like many other bloggers, is worried about that "nuclear on nuclear" story. And I totally agree with her that people who don't dig cats (a temporary aberration, we all hope) would not be able to understand that.

I have started to key "Miriam of Miriam's ideas" but was immediately engrossed and then grossed out by the immense, simply unbelievable stupidity and lack of sensitivity displayed in this story she refers to. Then I was educated (somewhat) on libraries, one of my favorite places to be in, and chilled out somewhat. Anyway, thanks, Miriam.

Imshin of Not a Fish tells about (and shows) flash floods in Israel. By no means a phenomenon unique to Israel, but what is (probably) unique to us is the number of dolts that get swept and frequently killed by these floods. See "gross negligence" above in this post. She also let me know that beauty of a statement: "People that hate cats, will come back as mice in their next life." Already used it on a fellow blogger who is in denial re cats. He is still recovering... And yeah, I believe that the world is fair, at least in this regard. Only - why are the comments in her place closed to the public?

Lisa of On The Face: no, I have a grudge here. I keep checking on a daily basis on that promised post about the bloggers do in Herzliya. I need more input for a project related to it, and what now? Anyway, I'll wait for a while. But then, she is moving to another apartment... Oy vey...

Batya, she of many blogs, is telling in Shilo Musings about the bitter fate of a marathon runner from Bahrain who dared to break the taboo. She also reminded me about a distinguishing mark of many a new Oleh (repatriant):


How true. And, since I tend to disagree with Batya on many occasions, here is a point good for a minor disagreement: Batya dismisses the claim that the late President Ford was good to Israel. At least in one aspect I have to disagree: The Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which was signed into law by Ford in January 1975, helped hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews to escape, a good part of them to Israel. Yours truly was one of this bunch (although this specific case does not have to be counted as a positive one). So here.

Noorster of Shutterfool has disappeared lately under a technical pretext. One of the latest communications from her was about a problem with her laptop, strangely enough named Frank. I have to mention this, since she persists in calling her male cat Marzipan, causing him no end of identity issues, no doubt. I respectfully submit that switching the names between the two will settle both technical and psychological problems at once.

Tafka PP of Slightly Mad disappeared approximately at the same time as Noorster, which makes me wonder about the Silvester (New Year's Eve) debauchery and its lasting impact. Anyway, her two last posts: one on the Christmas countdown and the other on the charms of boycotts are inspiring and highly recommended.

Scribbles of Small Town Scribbles surfaced for a short post on January 2. Migraine is briefly mentioned, and I definitely start to see a trend here. So meanwhile enjoy this post about the non-existence of god and these two about different angles of Saddam's demise.

Liza of Something Something is a new discovery for me, but definitely something something. I have found her blog while rummaging for info on that Herzliya bash on Hasbara (a separate post on a related subject is brewing... oh well, for almost half an year now). This post gives you an idea of the capabilities. Wow.

Sonia Belle reviews some of the more exciting (keep you underage progeny away) movies of 2006 and briefly compares the late Saddam H. with the upcoming caudillo Hugo C. I am not sure that the latter has already grown into the former's dimensions. But a rope may be used to restrain as well as to hang someone...

Shoshana the Sweet Rose wonders about the dead end the ultra-Orthodox women find themselves at, as far as the ways and means of education are concerned. Unfortunately, I do not wonder, Shoshana. It is only too painfully clear. At least in Iran there is one woman driving a race car in rallies... Too bad... Anyhow, I agree that tagging people is a bad habit.

Deborah of The Thought Mill has already recovered from both the exams and the festivities (no hangovers for a Muskovite girl, unlike some frail Anglosaxy!) . She is catching up quickly, and aside of an obvious Photoshop con job on an old (but still funny) picture, has already posted quite a few good ones.

Rachel of Tinkerty Tonk, like Adloyada, has succumbed to the charms of Pootergeek (this bloke is surely becoming one huge international menace, needs to be sorted out somehow...). But I fully and readily agree with her on the subject of food: better to croak happily sated than to die of hunger, that's for sure. In the vicinity of a good library would be my preference (and it is not about sucking up, mind you). But no, I have not counted wrinkles on Barbara Walters' chest, besides I am afraid of her.

Allison of An Unsealed Room decided to leak some information about herself. And hey, what do ya'll know - Rubens is one of my favs too! Allison, like other two bloggers above, thinks that the Herzliya conference participants "did not make beautiful music together", but further details are not forthcoming (Lisa?).

The last (but far from the least, and the next MNI will start backwards in alphabetic order again, promise) - WestBankMama of West Bank Blog has a story about visiting an open market. Reminded me that STG family has been feeding of the tasteless supermarket produce for years, due to sheer laziness. Sad. But The Doldrums post made me wistful: unfortunately, from my xx years of experience, the moment we start complaining about inactivity, excrement hits the air conditioning here. I wish we had like a thousand boring years. But I know that WBM meant something else.

To conclude, I have borrowed a picture from Deborah:

This beautiful gal in the picture (Artemis, by the way, if anyone is interested) is always an excellent reminder to MMM (mere male mortals) that on one hand there is a freedom of expression, but in that other hand there always happens to be a sharp object. This to demonstrate again my absolute humility and to prepare an escape venue in case I have fouled up badly with some of the bloggers here.

(*)"Poster" in this sentence is not meant in the sense of a blogging person. Rather in the sense of an oblong piece of quality paper with a face (usually that of Che Guevara - see under "Poster boy") depicted on it. I am saying this to insure that HakMao does not decide to skin me and nail the proceeds to a wall.

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