Believe it or not: Guardianistas really have a... to use North Korean terminology, a shining all embracing dictionary that provides undying field guidance (please, Yitzchak, do correct this poor example as you see fit, and I shall use the correction as it is) to anyone who dares to submit his/her text to The Guardian. And it is even viewable by mere mortals.
CiF Watch folks have done a job of reviewing it.
One ex-chief of Israel Security Agency, Yuval Diskin, joined the club of anti-Bibi/Barak speakers. Nothing new in our barely churning, but mostly stagnant political puddle. What he said is extensively quoted in this JP article, but could be roughly derived from this quote:
My main problem on this issue is that I don’t have faith in the current leadership of the State of Israel that has to lead us to an event as big as a war with Iran or a regional war. I might be saying very difficult things. I don’t believe in the prime minister or the defense minister. I really don’t believe in a leadership that makes decisions out of messianic feelings.Now I am not going into rights or wrongs of his opinion on Iran, this is not the subject of that post. The interesting part of the story is the response, obviously partly inspired by the offices of the two gentlemen Diskin describes so uncharitably. In addition to the linked above set of responses, I have got an earful of them on the radio this morning, and some of them are really mindboggling.
Learn more about the painful subject and donate, if you can, here.
Thanks to David All for the information.
The unbelievable exchange between an Al Jazeera reporter (on the left) and a Lebanese pro-Syrian journo settles the issue of Zionist Entity and its neighbors. As long as our neighbors need us so much as a most hated target in the world, we can rest easy.
Watch how AJ reporter loses patience with Lebanese journalist when the latter tries to use the Palestinians to avoid talking about the Syrian massacres.
The clip doesn't allow rescaling in some browsers, so for better watching go there.
Details are all here, so I can add only one or two remarks:
The news is somewhat disturbing:
Federal forest officials want visitors of a Colorado hot springs to be very careful about what's lurking inside a remote cabin nearby: Frozen cows. Rangers believe the cows wandered into the cabin near the popular Conundrum Hot Springs during a snowstorm but couldn't find their way out. Air Force Academy cadets found their frozen carcasses while snowshoeing in late March.What, in your opinion, would be the first thought of a warm-blooded reader? Steaks, of course. But the Rangers think in other terms:
Rangers want the carcasses gone before they thaw. Removal options include explosives or burning down the cabin.Blowing up tons of perfectly good beef? Not only it is a waste, but it will probably become a disaster on the scale of the famous and hilarious Oregon Whale Explosion:
The guy of Lee acting just like a puppy knowing no fear of a tiger is a half-wit and as disgusting as a rat, the officer noted.More of it here.
The collection below comes from one UPI front page - of April 23, 2012.
Police in Wisconsin said an unusually named man, Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop, was arrested on charges including a probation violation.I read the article at this link twice and looked at the picture of the suspect:
To: The Guardian's corrections and clarifications column editor, the correction writer, the editors, subeditors, proofreaders, lawyers, geography and realpolitik experts and other geniuses, fuckwits and assorted wankers who participated in preparation of a correction that states:
The caption on a photograph featuring passengers on a tram in Jerusalem observing a two-minute silence for Yom HaShoah, a day of remembrance for the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust, wrongly referred to the city as the Israeli capital. The Guardian style guide states: "Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel; Tel Aviv is" (Eyewitness, 20 April, page 24).Dear Sir/Madam/Other,
Welcome to the Watcher’s Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the ‘sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday.
Holy Gaea! Another Earth Day has come and gone. This cartoon (merci pour le lagniappe, Gerard) makes the salient point that the entire global warming,Gaea worshiping nonsense is merely the Left’s version of the worst excesses of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages – with the antics of Pope Gore and today’s scams like carbon trading and Solyndra in place of the sale of indulgences, benefices and paid for dispensations for the well heeled making it a perfect parallel.
Talk to any of these True Believers and disagree with what amounts to their religion and many of them would happily burn you at the stake as a heretic in a nanosecond if they weren’t worried about increasing their personal carbon footprints! Besides, it’s a lot more lucrative for them to simply tax you into oblivion and use the money for their much more deserving selves and their personal pet projects.
On another subject, this week’s contest is dedicated to Levon, who just made the passage. Rest in peace, dear soul.
Yes, that's still correct. The question is not whether there are judges but what is being done lately to take the sting out of their powers over some unruly legislators. Some short time ago I have posted a lengthy discourse on the issue of Supreme Court and the incessant attempts of our intemperate legislative arm, the Knesset, in two directions: to pass some exceptionally asinine bills and to ensure that the Supreme Court doesn't interfere with this activity.
Some time passed since and some changes occurred in the make-up of the Supreme Court. To immense satisfaction of more unbridled MKs, their nemesis, Judge Dorit Beinisch, the president of the Supreme Court, was replaced by a conservative Asher Grunis. Several other judges of a more conservative outlook were added to the team.
The changes should have made our MKs happy and content - but apparently it's not enough for many of them. Supported as they are by the minister of justice Yaakov Neeman, the Knesset is busily digging under a main foundation of the Supreme Court powers - the power to strike down laws, freshly passed by the Knesset, by declaring them unconstitutional*. While the Supreme Court very rarely uses this power, I hope I don't have to explain that it is vital for protecting the nation from its elected legislative branch. And, of course, this power is the mainstay of the Supreme Court independence from the executive and legislative branches, which independence is - you would agree - a guarantee of keeping the hard earned freedoms intact from some too frisky operators in the Knesset and/or government.
The idea, nurtured by Yaakov Neeman and his supporters in Knesset, is not exactly new. The previous version of the proposed law, that would allow Knesset to overturn the Supreme Court decision and to revive the stricken down bill, demanded 70 MKs votes for such revival. In the new version, proposed by Mr Neeman, this number is reduced to 65. Which, in effect, means that a controversial law, passed by the current coalition, will be promptly restored to life by same coalition, should such law be red-lighted by the Supreme Court. Effectively neutering the said Supreme Court.
And behold the surprise: the conservative Chief Justice, Asher Grunis, is unhappy with the idea:
The proposed bill in its present format, said Grunis, was very problematic and required in-depth discussion between all the relevant parties. He warned that passage of the bill with its current wording would be constitutionally damaging and would cause “weeping for generations to come.”If your require a translation of this quote from legalese, you can write to me off-line or imagine a brawl in a seaport pub... whatever. In fact, looking at the shenanigans of our esteemed MKs (see, for example, some references to Danny Danon in that previous post), it looks like the weeping could start earlier that hon. Judge predicts.
It is the duty of each side to express opposition to moves it does not approve of. But to defame and incite the Knesset – that is no one's right. Menachem Begin once declared: "There are judges in Jerusalem." Jerusalem – may I remind you – also has legislators.Don't we know it, dear Tzipi, don't we know it...and don't we sometimes wish that... oh well.
Sounds like a simple advice, doesn't it? At least in the case of one Saudi hacker:
A Saudi hacker who targeted Jewish and Israeli websites passed away from an asthma attack at the young age of 28, the UAE's Al-Bayan reported Saturday.Asthma, shmasthma - and how about that:
...Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon described the cyber attacks as terrorism and warned that Israel would "retaliate forcefully".Danny Ayalon say - Danny Ayalon do...
Every time I enter that Facebook page (I had the misfortune to register some time ago), I encounter these two ads, sometimes glued together, like below, sometimes separated by other similar examples of marketing prowess:
On a normal day I wouldn't do it, but this news was too touching:
Heartbroken customers lined up for meal at a closing San Francisco institution - a 100-year-old Chinese restaurant once known for having "the world's rudest waiter." Diners of decades past say he would verbally abuse patrons, slam down dishes, and chastise complainers.Of course, we are not going to open a replacement Chinese eatery with rude personnel in San Francisco, but what we offer is the next best thing: send us your picture, name and birthday and we'll address at you several choice expletives - and do it for all to see, via this blog. It is a free personalized service for now, so hurry. The more adventurous of you could send us a picture with your mom, dad or both. Or even with your beloved pet.
As an ex-programmer of too many years to count (and a good one as they said), I have checked the algorithm and am able to vouch for its completeness and correctness.
With a technical remark: according to the rules of structured programming, goto statement is a big no-no, but for such a short program it could be overlooked.
Good job, too.
Marine rescuers in California said they were unable to locate a gray whale last seen tangled in a fishing net off the coast of San Onofre.Anyway, the San Onofre Walmart reported a sharp increase in sales of toothpicks recently...
By this story:
Police in the US are baffled after a woman managed to drive her car into a telegraph pole in the middle of a wide-open desert. She somehow managed to plough straight into the middle of the 20ft pole, despite being surrounded by acres of empty desert in Rio Rancho, Sandoval, New Mexico.I am not a cop, so I know the answer. But I am not telling. I know only too well which side is my bread buttered on...
of The Telegraph is surely allowed to me:
Ah….April is the cruelest month, they say. But if it is, nothing’s surer except that you’ll read about all of it right here like you will nowhere else.
Welcome to the inner sanctum of the Watcher’s Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the ‘sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence anywhere. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the entire Council.Then we vote on the best two, with the results appearing on Friday in this very space.
This week’s contest is fondly dedicated to The Dark Lord…long may he continue to punish our enemies.
Council News:
This week, Crime Victims Media Report , Right Truth and The Mental Recession took advantage of my generous offer of link whorage and earned honorable mention status with some killer pieces.
You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.
Simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address ( which won’t be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category. and then return the favor by creating a post on your own site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week.
It’s a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members, while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?
So, let’s see what we have this week….
There is that old classic joke that goes (approximately) like this:
A man strolling along a park alley sees another man sitting peacefully on a bench with a nice cuddly dog sprawling on the grass nearby. "Does your dog bite?" the strolling man asks the sitting one. "Nope, sir, my dog doesn't bite" is the answer. The man bends down to pet the doggy and, of course, the latter promptly sinks its teeth in the man's hand. "Why did you lie, you ...!" shouts the injured man to the occupier of the bench. "But this is not my dog, sir!" answers the bench sitter indignantly.
That good old joke came to my mind while reading a widely discussed article To Save Israel, Boycott the Settlements by Peter Beinart, the man who from a relative obscurity of a staunch Israeli supporter rocketed to a lofty position of... but later about it, let's go back to the article.
The article, unlike the usual blunt demand for dismantling the Zionist entity in favor of one-state solution by the usual anti-Zionist crowd, is full of nuances. It drives several wedges: the first one (no doubt to soften the rest of the article) splits the ostensibly pro-Israeli Peter Beinart from the BDS gang with its call for boycotting Israel and its products as a whole and with its call for right of return for all Palestinian refugees and whatnot.
The next wedge is being driven between us, the good Israelis, residing behind the Green Line and the others - the settlers:
Every time an American newspaper calls Israel a democracy, we should urge it to include the caveat: only within the green line.Good Jooz, bad Jooz - does it sound familiar? And of course, American Jooz (are all of them considered equally good by Peter, I wonder?) should heed the distinction and boycott the bad ones.
If moderate settlers living near the green line resent being lumped in with their more ideologically driven counterparts deep in occupied territory, they should agitate for a two-state solution that would make possible their incorporation into democratic Israel.Could we, possibly, have a map colored by prof Beinart according to the geographical badness (moderation?) of said settlers?
More fundamentally, I am a committed Jew. I belong to an Orthodox synagogue, send my children...... etc.
For reasons of taking a break from blogging and temporary detachment from news sources, I have (thankfully) been unable to discuss the above. Thankfully, because Francis Sedgemore has succinctly and shortly (which I am usually unable to do) summarized the whole story.
Two remarks:
The cases that illustrate the suspicious, paranoid and sometimes brutal police mentality:
1. Men arrested after deputy finds calf in backseat
New Mexico authorities have arrested three men found with a 220-pound calf in the backseat of their car.So any time a person offers a ride to an animal, just being friendly to it, that person must be incarcerated? Even if the animal, as police confesses was "sharing the backseat with one of the alleged thieves"? Nah...
The Carlsbad Current Argus reports that the men are accused of cattle rustling. They were jailed on charges of suspicion of larceny of livestock, conspiracy, lack of a bill of sale and exporting livestock.
Police documents say Foley looked up employee photos in the agency database and then would go into the office during off hours and urinate on their chairs.A non-prejudiced observer would have immediately spotted the fact that Mr Foley was behaving in a way typical for feline species: scent-marking his favorite people's haunts. Had reason prevailed, Mr Fouley would have been packed off to a research facility for dissection and study. As it is, he is wasting in the nick.
An officer says he told three men who were walking on the street with a dog to move to the sidewalk, and that one looked like he might run away, so he asked for identification.So, nowadays walking on a street with a dog and "looking like he might run away" is enough to get arrested by an overzealous gendarme? Notice the following too:
Contreras identified himself as Emiliano Velesco, and a police database search found no matches. The officer then had a dispatcher run a check with the birthday he was given and the last name tattooed on the forearm.
Contreras had three warrants for failure to appear on charges including providing false information.The man has a problem with his name. Who knows, he may hate it because he fought with his parents. Or because he sees that name tattooed on himself too frequently. Or he just likes the name Emiliano Velesco - in fact, I like it too and will adopt it for my next meeting with a cop.
Baboons can recognize words.
Oh, well. That was obvious for some time, wasn't it?
The +972 journalist Mya Guarnieri, being an embedded reporter of the "flytilla" group reports from her front line position in Zurich, where she prepares to take a flight to Israel with some of the "activists". To save a piece of her reporting for posterity, I have made a snapshot (click to enlarge):
Just a quick item from the Commentator. It's not all bad news from Egypt - just most of it. Read it and hope.
By Brian Goldfarb.
Watch it:
Details.
A hungry bear, a man who texts walking around - everything was set up perfectly...
I think PETA should intervene and ship that man back to the aggrieved animal.
This post is not addressing various anti-Israeli or anti-Zionist groups, sub-groups or single individuals, save one category only: Jewish anti-Zionists and loosely affiliated with them "Israel? We could care less" Diaspora Jews.
This post was triggered, among other things, by a Ynet article about another malicious prank played by the Palestinian sympathizers of Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.
More than 200 Jewish students attending Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, were surprised to find "eviction notices" posted to their dorm room doors on Friday. The students later found out that the fake notices were placed by the Students for Justice in Palestine.So what, you might say, after all these feisty SJP youngsters didn't shoot any Jewish children like the young Arab "martyr" in Toulouse recently. They didn't assault or verbally abuse anyone, just played a harmless, albeit malicious prank. And they consider themselves being in the right, having noble goals in mind:
"We want to raise awareness about the plight of the Palestinians," chapter President Noor Fawzy said. "The intent is to expose Israel's illegal policies and give students a feel of what it's like to live under occupation."There might be various differing opinions about the plight, the policies and whatnot, although the Ynet article doesn't go into interpretation of the story, being more concerned with reporting facts (and many thanks to Ynet for that).
Sergey Kondrashev and his wife.
Russians claim that the former Russian capital is `Venice of the North`. Close, but no cigar. As a matter of fact, Saint Petersburg is Riyadh of the North.
They just enacted a law against `propaganda of gayness`. The other day St Petersburg police arrested an old pal of mine, lawyer Sergey Kondrashev. Why? Sergey is not gay, but he wrote and published a polite letter opposing the law. He also peacefully protested by making the following statement: `A friend of my family is a lesbian. We love and respect her. Her way of life is as normal as ours. He family is as good as ours`.
Further details can be found here (in Russian).
Please sign this on-line petition in support of Sergey.
And by the way... How come I don`t have any family friends like Sergey???
Whoever considered the Big Brother being dead, this will disabuse you of that idea.
This is from CNN's on-line front page:
Couldn't help noticing that one even on my vacation.
I would like to know who is his weed supplier. Must be some fabulous stuff...
So, while we were in New York, visiting the Manhatten branch of the family for Passover, I was wandering up Broadway and I came across a kerb-side stall selling Forward (I think I'd preferred to have found an English-language Ha'aretz. but, hey, you get what you can these days), so, of course, I bought it, thinking of my duty to the readers of Simply Jews. Who knows, I thought, there might just be something they will find interesting here. And, of course, there is. On the front page is an article on the latest polling of Jewish voting intentions in the upcoming Presidential election.
The interesting part is not that US Jewish voters are for Obama 62% to 30% (identical to a June 2008 poll, which widened to 78% to 21% in November of that year), but that what motivates them the most are social issues and not Israel. Israel comes way down the list: as the report notes, "A majority of 51% pointed to the economy as the issue most important to their vote, followed by gaps between rich and poor (15%), health care (10%) and the federal deficit (7%). Only 4% of Jewish voters said Israel was the most important issue for them when deciding who should get their vote."
Of course, the report is far more nuanced than that. It goes on to argue that "The data would suggest that the Republicans’ focus on attacking both Obama’s record on Israel and his troubled relations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was having little, if any, traction." I realise that this is of little comfort to those of you who don't rate Obama on Israel. However, think what it does to Mearsheimer and Walt and the likes of the thoroughly unpleasant Atzmon, and take what comfort you can from that.
As for us, we will be back in NYC on the second Tuesday of November 2012, hoping for a repeat of November 2008. Sorry about that. But Anne, of Anne's Opinions (another Israeli-based blog worth your attention), has graciously referred to me as a member of the "sane Left" - make of that what you will.
Read the whole article here. This issue of Forward also finally catches up with the UN Human Rights Council and its "probe" of the Settlement issue. We all know that's a code word for "condemning Israel in the Report - now go and write it up properly so it looks good". Old news, but at least it's there.
While I'm here (and I won't be for the next two weeks: we're off to Costa Rica, to look at the local wildlife: it's what's known as SKIing - Spending the Kids' Inheritance), there are a couple of heart-warming items from today's (10.4.12) London Evening Standard. The first concerns that supposed liberal-lefty, Ken Livingstone, who, it appears is losing ground to the supposed buffoon, Boris Johnson, in the Mayoral race to become the next mayor of London in May this year. Couldn't happen to a nicer bloke, I say (that's English irony, for those not used to the nuances of English as the British speak it). I didn't vote for Ken in 2008 and I won't be voting for him this year either. Anyone who calls himself a liberal, while (literally) embracing Abu Qaradawi, known homophobe, misogynist, Islamist and antisemite, deserves all he gets, electorally.
The other story is here. Abu Hamza, the one-handed (literally - he lost the hand in an explosion, but it's not clear quite how, despite his version, in the story) Islamist and Jihadi cleric, can be extradited to the US to stand trial on terrorism charges. The European Court of Human Rights says so. Victory for our human rights (the residents of London), I say. Roll on the plane to JFK carrying Abu Hamza, handcuffed to a couple of US Federal Marshals (Wyatt Earp did not live in vain), to appear before a US Federal Court. Unlike his victims, the most he can get is life imprisonment. They got death.
Oh, I almost forgot: this month's Atlantic has an interesting article on Rahm Emanuel, Obama's first Chief of Staff. almost hidden in there is an almost throwaway line about Emanuel trying to become America's first Jewish president. I wouldn't put it past both trying and even succeeding. Did you now that his father fought in Israel's War of Independence? Neither did I.
See you in May, folks.
By Brian Goldfarb.
By the editor: On the subject of poor Londoners having two alternatives, both unpleasant:
There is a bit of a difference between PETA's rather impotent well-wishing (and letting 90+% of animals in their shelters be killed) and encountering real (well, kind of) life.
Via Crazy Bald Guy.
To all our Christian friends. And something to mark this one:
Recommended viewing mode: full screen.
And: the blogging next week will be light.
Click on the picture to embiggen and check out the sun's image. The shot was taken with a regular camera in Finland, no Photoshop or other trickery applied.
