Yes, we are the light unto the nations, and its' final

I had been somewhat dismissive of the ex-POTUS Carter re his demand that "State of Israel will fulfill its destiny as a light unto the nations". It is known that Jimmuh is one tenacious character and wouldn't leave us alone until we comply.

But I think that the dream came true already, it is just my waning powers of observation that were kind of in the way. Here it is:

Firefighter: Calif man hurt burning divorce papers

Sacramento firefighters say a man is seriously injured after he started a house fire while apparently burning his divorce papers....

The fire damaged the two-story duplex in Sacramento's West Natomas area. It sent the man to a Sacramento hospital with serious injuries including smoke inhalation. ...

Doucette says the fire was in an upstairs bedroom where the man also was found. Two cats were also found dead of smoke inhalation.

"So what?" are you obviously saying. What does a man who almost kills himself, burns a house and murders two innocent felines - all this because of a measly divorce - have to do with Israel being (or not, as the case may be) a light unto whatever?

Just wait a jiffy, here it comes:

Record 11th divorce granted to Jewish Israeli man

A 50-year-old man from Jerusalem has been granted a divorce for the 11th time, a new Israeli record for Jews according to a Rabbinical court.

He told the court he usually divorced his wives every two years and looked for a new bride immediately after.

I think there is no need to explain why we are already that light unto the nations. Case closed.

I hope Jimmuh will get off our backs now.

Rush Limbaugh dead? No, it's just chest pains.

Anyway, he is in Honolulu, and where are you, ghouls? Snowed down somewhere with your Twitter, I bet.

Anyhow - there are seven women around the South Pole mark (that's where the Earth axis is attached):

I bet they are plotting summat there, so prepare for the worst.

When Indians laugh at their chiefs

Likeness.ru, a Russian site that deals with "separated at birth" pairs, has quite a lot of funny and/or surprising pairs. If you sort the lists by popularity, the third and the seventh places respectively (as of today) are occupied by the following:



Update: upon second thought, some of you without Russian may have a difficulty with two of the pictures. So: the character on the left in the first set is a baby baboon; the character on the left in the second picture is the current Russian president.

I think its' all clear now.

Underwear bomb exposed

Could have been a headline of a sensational scoop about a new sex scandal. Now it's lost forever.
Is this item carrying the proud Calvin Klein label? Or Giorgio Armani? Certainly not ABC news in any case...

I am afraid we'll never know. There are some things that FBI never ever discloses, and this secret will go in the cupboard with Jimmy Hoffa's whereabouts and Area 51 details.

Well, at least it's not dirty. Whatever esle Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's mom taught him, he remembered the lesson about not going out in soiled undies. Otherwise:

And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

Or, in other words: undies that fizzled out.

Santa Galloway: not thirsty in the desert

Haaretz reports on the latest adventures of the Spiv:

More than 400 members of an international aid convoy to Gaza declared a hunger strike on Sunday to protest Egypt's refusal to allow them entry into the Hamas-ruled territory via the Red Sea. Alice Howard, a spokeswoman for British-based Viva Palestina, said the group was consuming only liquids, as it remained stranded in the Red Sea port of Aqaba.

At least it's not that hot in December, so the Santa Claus and his reindeers are not in acute danger of dehydration. As for hunger: one glass of beer brings with it about 200 calories. Assuming a daily caloric intake of a person at about 2000 calories, 10 glasses of beer will do as a liquid diet.

Another notice from the same article drew my attention:

Amongst the hunger strikers is an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor who came from the U.S. to participate in the planned Gaza Freedom March to commemorate last year's Gaza war.

Haaretz decided not to follow up on the name and pedigree of the Holocaust survivor in question. Which is a pity, because the name is Hedy Epstein and her "survival", not to speak about her peculiar affinity to any anti-Israeli do are remarkable.

While it is true that Epstein lost family in the camps (she mysteriously has photos that she cannot account for as to who took them, it would be interesting to find out if they are even genuine, but let's say they are), she nevertheless spent the war in safety in England as a child. Calling oneself "a Holocaust survivor" connotes images of someone who was in the camps him or herself, starved, beaten and ultimately facing a gas chamber. Ms. Epstein was none of these.

The International Solidarity Movement that employs and sends Ms. Epstein around has only one goal: To send a message that "See? The Jews have no right to a Jewish homeland. We can parade around a Jew who will agree with our aims and mitigate everything we say and do." She’s a world traveler, staying in nice hotels, putting out the ISM party line and getting paid for it. Nice work if you can get it.

More in that linked article (already two years old, but neither ISM nor Hedy seem to get the message).

Oh jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way...

A bit of gloom in the midst of holidays

Cleaning up my personal e-mail in-box, I have discovered that during the last two or three months I have received about 20 mails in three languages dealing with the same subject: what a person should do in the eventuality of a heart attack. The mails weren't spam, all were sent by my friends, colleagues and even relatives. Probably they all are trying to tell me something, although I couldn't figure out what it might be.

In any case, back to the e-mails. Being written in three languages I know, they differ in their wording slightly, but are almost identical in contents*, and every darn one of them carries the same sentence:

The majority of people (about 60%) who had a heart attack during their sleep, did not wake up.

And of course, being ambiguous as it is, the sentence was the only one that received my undivided attention. I didn't resolve the ambiguity, but after mulling on it somewhat fiercely, I have decided that both meanings are fine with me. No worries then.

(*) And for those of you who haven't received such an e-mail, here is the gist of it:

If that happens, immediately dissolve two aspirins in your mouth and swallow them with a bit of water. Afterwards:

• call 911
• phone a neighbor or a family member who lives very close by
• say"heart attack!"
• say that you have taken 2 aspirins.
• take a seat on a chair or sofa near the front door, and wait for their arrival and...
• do NOT lie down

(what a load of crapola!)

Umar/Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab: wealthy, quiet, unassuming

The headline is stolen from this Indy article. Doesn't surprise me at all: after each atrocity, be it a terrorist act or an especially gory murder, the neighbors tell exactly the same (well, "wealthy" is an occasional attribute, of course) story.

Reading another article, also from a British paper, I have stumbled on an interesting detail.

Mr Schuringa said he said he frisked the suspect and discovered his trousers were open and that he had a flaming object resembling a small, white shampoo bottle strapped to his left leg near his crotch.

The location of the explosive charge and the circumstances lead me to modify the above description of the subject to: wealthy, quiet, unassuming and ball-less. The expression "balls up" gained another meaning now.

What will he do with them 72 virgins in the eagerly expected paradise for AQ martyrs?

And, since AQ was mentioned: not a long time ago AQ scientists experimented with an assbomber. Apparently it proved to be a disappointment, thus the change of location, location, location...

PETN and interest in thereof

PETN or, in other words, Pentaerythritol tetranitrate, is a vital ingredient of the (in)-famous explosive Semtex. It was also the chief ingredient of the explosive charge used, thankfully without success, by the latest airplane bomber-to-be, Farouk Abdul Mutallab.

It is believed Farouk Abdul Mutallab had moulded a quantity of the explosive powder to his body, sewn into his underwear in a six inch packet. He then attempted to detonate the device using a syringe containing a liquid, which was later recovered on the aircraft by FBI agents. Officials believe tragedy was only averted because the makeshift detonator failed to work properly.

For curiosity sake, I have checked on Google Trends how the interest in PETN behaves, geographically speaking, and the result was somewhat surprising (click to enlarge):

It shows that Iran produces at least twice as much PETN-related traffic as the second to fourth contenders (India, Germany, Israel, Australia, Finland, USA). Taken in conjunction with the second ("Cities") and third ("Languages") columns of this survey, the result for a layman statistician like me pointed to somewhat grotesque picture of a rural Iranian proficient either in German or Finnish researching the uses of PETN...

It might be of interest that small (population-wise) countries like Israel and Finland generate significant traffic too, but then Google lumps Israelis and Palestinians in one statistical lump. Finns - who knows, perhaps they need high explosives to deal with tree stumps or summat.

You explain Switzerland, I get tired quickly.

Oh Bella, oh Belissima...

That Bella... Oy vey...

Abdul Mudallad and a new genus of Nigerian scam

The following text that arrived the usual way into our In box today may have a lot to do with the latest unpleasantness that occurred during that Northwest flight from Amsterdam. We are publishing only an excerpt of the whole letter.

My dear friend,

Good day and compliments. This letter will definitely come to you as a huge surprise, but I implore you to take the time to go through it carefully as the decision you make will go off a long way to determine the future of many people.

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is [omitted for clarity], I am the executor of the real estate of my brother, [omitted for clarity], untimely deceased the last winter as a result of an especially vicious attack of gout*.

The present democratic government is determined to portray all the good work of my late brother in a bad light and have gone as far as confiscating all his properties, freezing our accounts both within and outside Nigeria.

However, only the closest relatives, myself included, know about my brother's penchant for pyrotechnics. Indeed so strong was his attachment to this hobby that he secretly owned a factory producing fireworks.

Since the government agents are following our every move, we felt the need to call upon you as a reliable friend who will help us in profitably disposing of the huge stash of fireworks that has accumulated at the factory.

...

(*) The text at this point was unclear, it could have been "goat".

The Refugee Issue in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Behind any refugee there is a tragedy of lost roots, lost friends and relatives, lost livelihood. Many a charitable organization tries to help refugees in their plight and to assist them recovering whatever is possible of their life and dignity. However, there is one quirky outfit that under the guise of assistance does all it can to perpetuate the problem of one specific tribe. UNRWA.

At the insistence of the Arab states, the UN created a special agency, the UNRWA, to serve the Arab Palestinian refugees, and a special legal status for them, unlike that of any other refugees in the world. The rest of the world's refugees are covered by different legal definitions and served by a different agency, that does not perpetuate their refugee status. Only for Arab Palestinian refugees is refugee status inherited and passed from father to son and from mother to daughter, and even to spouses who "marry in" to the Palestinian refugee community and to their children. Who pays for this apparatus? You do. This presentation about The Refugee Problem outlines the differences in status for Palestinian Refugees and all others.

If, after seeing the presentation, you still harbor any doubts about UN, a small reminder: about 800,000 Jews fled or were expelled from Arab countries because of the creation of Israel. How many UN officials deal with this issue?

Yeah, right.

Open letter to former POTUS James Earl Carter

[Disclaimer]: the following document is deeply personal and is not and never has been related in any way whatsoever to any current or past government or any other official organ of Israel aka Zionist Entity. Or to Abe Foxman. The author of this document is strictly a private citizen* and will deny any connection with above mentioned. [End of disclaimer]

Dear Jimmuh (do you mind if I call you Jimmuh? why should you care anyway?),

I was deeply touched by your personal letter to the Israeli people. I almost (but not quite) wept like a baby reading that "Al Het" offer made in the true Christmas spirit**.

So I thought hard and without interruption for a whole night, and this is what I have to counter-offer (but first of all a question: why the heck do you think that Israelis as a whole and I in particular need this offer at all? Oh well, just wondering.) Now to the nitty-gritty.

In your esteemed letter you have expressed your wish for security, prosperity and happiness of Israel. Peachy, but there is one other point in the letter I want to stress: "the State of Israel will fulfill its destiny as a light unto the nations".

First of all, we don't never want to be no light unto no nations no more, let me make it as clear as possible. We want to deal with our own problems and to be left alone by all kinds of well- and not-so-well-wishers. And seeing as that guy, you know whom I mean, the one who helped to knock over your embassy in Tehran and now is a bosom buddy of some of your bosom buddies, that Mahmoud A. guy, wants to help us to become a kind of special light, I would say thanks but no thanks.

So I have a deal to offer to you, Jimmuh. On your side, you take away your apology, many thanks and all that but no need to bother. And of course, let's back off of that light unto nations business, it's too murky with all these different kinds of light, if you see what I mean. And just forget about us, OK?

On my side, I promise not to:

• mention your connections to all kinds of folks (see "bosom buddies")
• remind anyone the case of the homicidal rabbit
• publish barf-inducing pictures where you kiss some unspeakable bounders
• use words "Tehran embassy", "Kim Il Sung", "peanuts" and "failure" on a page where your name appears

If we got a deal, just nod.

Your STG

(*) Of course, aside of being one of the chief Hasbara operatives of the Elders' HQ, but this goes without saying.
(**) It cannot really be about Hanukkah spirit, since Hanukkah spirit is all about killing as many ancient Greeks as possible and then celebrate the deed by eating lots of kosher food. And we are totally out of ancient Greeks.

Rules for radicals, or how not to make a knish

First of all:

Knish:

(Yiddish) a baked or fried turnover filled with potato or meat or cheese; often eaten as a snack

Well, it goes to show how much the authors of that specific dictionary (WordWeb in this case) know about food in general and pedigree of knishes in particular. Even Wiki in its limited wisdom knows better. But enough on semantics. It's all about an excellent post Rules for radicals, or how not to make a knish by inimitable Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin, he of The Passing Parade blog. Mmm... something's wrong with this sentence, anyway, read this post.

Just one remark re that post:

1. People who prepare presentations for executives know the rule of thumb: never put more than 5 (some even say 3) bullets in one slide/page, since executive attention wonders away to its usual foci - sex, cars and alcohol be my bet. This superb post should be broken in about three or four smaller ones and fed to the White House (and other high windows I could mention) over appropriate time period for optimum digestion.
2. On the comparison of Sarah Palin's legs with those of Mahmoud the Mad and Vlad the Expaler: the former one never displays his body below his ugly mug, and Vlad, while frequently exposing his upper torso, keeps his lower body covered - probably due to some secret government installation down there. It could be educational to organize a leg competition between the three, but, alas, it will be difficult in our era of mutual distrust.

So yeah, go and read this post. Twice at least. Ya'll have a long vacation coming, so no excuses.

Merry Christmas!

And a happy new year to all our Christian friends.

Feline style this time.

Bibi Netanyahu: more spanking deserved?

It will be naive to expect a politician to behave straighter than, say, an average corkscrew. Still, most of that peculiar species try to hide their hanky panky behind some veil, even if formal.

Not so with Bibi. For several months he and his "associates" were busy digging under foundations of the rival Kadima party (which foundations, it must be said, are not too strong to start with, but it's an unrelated issue), having in mind a group desertion of Kadima by its MKs for Likud.

Even yesterday the fact was hotly denied:

...associates of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday slammed Livni for saying that the premier and his Likud party were trying to split up Kadima.

Even when one of the suspected renegades already 'fessed up.

Today, however, the gory details of the whole deal leaked for all to see.

At least six Kadima MKs signed a document with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's adviser Yitzhak Molho last week committing themselves to leave the party, sources close to Netanyahu confirmed on Wednesday night.

Netanyahu and his associates have negotiated with 15 Kadima MKs about leaving Kadima over the past three months and they hope to persuade 10, but just seven are needed in order to legally split off from the party.

And the price:

Each of the MKs who leave Kadima will become a minister, deputy minister or Knesset committee chairman.

Some local economist has already calculated the price of the first six deserters to the tax payer and the result is $10M, give or take a few millions (these are the expenses related to setting up three new minister's and three new deputy minister's offices).

But you know what: upon second thought I, as a taxpayer, consider it a small price to pay for this lesson of open and unashamed political debauchery. The show and the attached lesson were really worth it.

I am sure that in a few days after completion of the deal, Bibi will give a speech. In that speech the whole stinky business will be sincerely justified and presented to John Q. Public not only as a brilliant political achievement (which it might as well be, looking at the chilling corpse of Kadima) but as a thoroughly moral and straightforward act (which is surely ain't).

And you know what: John Q. Public will swallow it. And if a few wouldn't - well, they will surely forget it way before the next election.

So, Bibi - way to go!

Elijah Wood, Robin Williams, Pamela Racine

Not that I care about all of the above, but some sentences from today's Google hot search - related texts really cracked me up:Birds of a Feather:

Elijah Wood and Robin Williams are in talks...

Elijah Wood was spotted out in Long Island...

Birdwatchers time, isn't it? So for birdwatchers:

It's a rail. So relax.

Drink your bubbly or die

I am not a teetotaler, far from being so. I am trying to persuade myself that I am not a prude nor a puritan. However, the trend of "rehabilitation" of alcoholic beverages that is palpable for the last ten years or so seems to me a bit, how to say it gently - smelly. First of all some general statements on health advantages of alcohol are issued from time to time:

Research has found that moderate drinking significantly reduces the risk for a number of health problems.

And of course, every national drink is finding its own way to the list of beneficial liquids. Beer, to start with (and nary a nation doesn't produce at least one), was found to have at least 10 (ten!) health benefits, and this is according to a 2007 article. Red wine, of course, barged on the scene, waving the French tricolor, more or less at the same time. And who could remain indifferent to this:

Results of the tests indicated that Cabernet Sauvignon was at the top of the list, with Petit Syrah and Pinot Noir following closely behind.

Car makers could learn something from the crisp and authoritative style of that quote. Scientifically speaking, of course.

Whiskey (or whisky, if you will) didn't hesitate, but being a subtle and nuanced drink, single malt has chosen a subtle approach:

Do you notice that every time you have a lovely, long civilised dinner with a good friend that involves high quality single malt, drunk slowly and with appreciation, at some point during the evening you feel intensely, almost palpably happy?

I did notice, indeed, and practice this kind of happiness at any opportunity. And now to the latest entrant in the politically correct Health Benefits race - champagne:

Research at the Univ. of Reading in the UK suggests that two glasses of Champagne a day may be good for your heart and circulation. The researchers have found that drinking Champagne wine daily in moderate amounts improves the way blood vessels function.

There is more quasi-scientific balderdash in that article. Of course, the article, being short of necessity, doesn't go into details, such as: were student volunteers involved in the project or the research staff heroically offered themselves for the task?; what kind of bubbly was used for the study (I hope that the research grant allowed for the real stuff and not some Albanian plonk)?; were the subsequent burping, hangover and other aftereffects considered? and more...

So, who is next? What drink is not yet reinstated as a bringer of health (tequila is, if you have wondered, albeit in a humble way, and vodka is making some feeble attempts too)? I am waiting with bated breath for the next entrant. There is only so much liquid I can consume per day. Of course, I assume that consuming moderate quantities of several drinks per day (on condition that you don't mix them in one glass) adds up to the count of benefits...

To your good health! Cheers!

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In the service of Your Majesty or in the service of a terrorist organization?

It is so easy in this case: no need to invent headlines, no need to explain: everything set up so simple and clear, that the only thing to do is to remind self the definition of irony (which, they say, is so beloved by the Brits):

1. Witty language used to convey insults or scorn
2. Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs
3. A trope that involves incongruity between what is expected and what occurs

And now all that remains is to quote:

Hamas admits to being behind the legal proceedings initiated in Europe in which arrest warrants were issued for Israeli public figures for allegedly committing war crimes.

British newspaper speaks with Diya al-Din Madhoun, who heads the Hamas committee set up to coordinate the campaign to issue arrest warrants against Israeli public figures in European courts. 'All the political and military leaders of the occupation in our sights'.

The soft belly of democracy is not in danger already: it is being actively consumed by the predators who are so much more inventive than the slow and ponderous minds of the enlightened, fat and defenseless Western world.

Too bad.

Another service announcement

Like it's not enough that I have to get back to normal with all kinds of stuff piling up, there is a new comments system to cope with.

Thus: apologies for dust, dirt, technical glitches, frequent expletives etc. And if you have a problem with commenting, please let me know via simplyjews at gmail dot com. With details if humanly possible.

Thanks.

Venezuela's Chavez 'Still' Smells Sulfur After Obama Speech

This should be a headline that greets me on Fox News after a long period of abstinence...

Not that I am especially concerned about the olfactory problem experienced by the Caudillo, but it reminded me an old blonde joke:

A young woman went to her doctor complaining of pain. "Where are you hurting?" asked the doctor. "You have to help me, I hurt all over", said the woman. "What do you mean, all over?" asked the doctor, "be a little more specific."

The woman touched her right knee with her index finger and yelled, "Ow, that hurts." Then she touched her left cheek and again yelled, "Ouch! That hurts, too." Then she touched her right earlobe, "Ow, even THAT hurts", she cried.
The doctor looked at her thoughtfully for a moment and asked, "Are you a natural blonde?" "Why, yes," she said. "I thought so," said the doctor, "You have a broken finger."

Without casting additional unwarranted aspersions on the good an innocent caste of blondes, I would like to advise our intrepid Caudillo to change his clothes and to take a shower from time to time. After hobnobbing with Mahmoud the Mad, Baby Assad and their likes, one shouldn't be surprised if the sulfur stench sticks to one's body.

Not that a person in question this time doesn't dub in sulfur-related business himself. Oh well...