Happy Passover, New York Times!

Interrupting the (hopefully temporary) silence for this extraordinary bit of news:

The New York Times on Saturday acknowledged publishing in Thursday’s international print edition an anti-Semitic political cartoon, reminiscent of the worst Arab, Soviet and Nazi works. It depicted President Trump as a blind man wearing a yarmulke and being led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the shape of a seeing eye dog wearing a collar adorned by a blue star of David.

The story checked out by several people, who bought the edition in question.

Fisk - alive and kicking, without fisking

For several years I have neglected the subject, somehow considering it being passe and not exciting at all anymore. After all these years.

Besides, there is that promise given by myself to myself 11 years ago:

It was already agreed in the blogger community that fisking Fisk has lost its appeal due to this specific target becoming too pathetic, senile and totally cooking on another planet. Barmy, in one word.

So, when a kind friend brought this to my attention, I have decided just to bring up a choice quote or two from the shining beacon of anti-Zionism. Here:

Two thousand five hundred miles separate the Israeli ministry of defence in Tel Aviv from the Indian ministry of defence in New Delhi, but there’s a reason why the usual cliche-stricken agency dispatches sound so similar.

And:

But it is difficult to see how Zionist nationalism will not leach into Hindu nationalism when Israel is supplying so many weapons to India – the latest of which India, which has enjoyed diplomatic relations with Israel since 1992, has already used against Islamists inside Pakistan.

And now, instead of fisking, let's just unleash the power of positive thinking: ain't India the biggest dog the Zionist tail has succeeded to wag so far?

At least, according to the much fisked thinker...

Gary Spedding or an appeal to the goddess of fairness

The gentleman in the picture is Gary Spedding*, mentioned in the headline. He was recently kicked out (BBC report) from Ben Gurion airport, back to wherever he has started his flight to Tel Aviv from. His report on Facebook** is placed at the end of the post here, for full disclosure. I would like to stress only one sentence from this report, the cry of an anguished innocent soul:

I invite Israeli authorities to respect legitimate democratic activities and process and permit me to continue with my journey.

Says BBC about the poor soul, being treated so unfairly:

A spokesman for the Israeli embassy in London said: "Mr Spedding's entry into Israel was denied due to his involvement in organising a violent protest in Queens University, Belfast, in which an Israeli representative was attacked, and others were forced to take shelter to prevent being hurt.

And here is the story, from 2011. Some choice quotes:

An Israeli law lecturer had to be rescued by security officers when a seminar was abandoned after being disrupted by pro-Palestinian demonstrators.

Solon Solomon, a former legal adviser to the Knesset Foreign Affairs committee, had been invited to speak to law school students at Queen's University in Belfast.

When the security team eventually moved him out of the university building, protesters attacked the car he was travelling in, punching the vehicle and attempting to smash its windows.

The protest was organised by Gary Spedding, president of the university's Palestine Solidarity Society. Mr Spedding works for the Holy Land Trust charity, which seeks to empower Palestinians in the West Bank.

You know, after reading the above, I can't get rid of a feeling that Gary Spedding wouldn't know legitimate democratic activities if the said activities bit him on his backside. And that Gary Spedding is a choice example of a hypocrite.

But it is neither here nor there. The important thing that he is back home and safe...

(*) Here is how he bills himself in Times of Israel, where he, apparently, is welcome to keep a blog:

Gary Spedding is a cross-party advocate and lobbyist on the Israel-Palestine conflict in the UK, Irish and European Parliaments and an applied peace and conflict researcher. He is a member of the UK’s Labour Party.

However, not being an expert on Gary Spedding, I shall let other people add to the above short blurb.
Here is a brief one.
And here is a longer one, in three parts!

(**) Here it goes:

Five years on, I have just been detained upon arrival at Israel’s Ben Gurion international airport. I have once again been refused entry. I will try to provide updates as I attempt to carry forward with my visit to Israel-Palestine.

I’ve spent the last five years banned from Israel. After having followed all stipulations required of me (including not attempting re-entry during the period of my ban). The main reason for my visit is to meet and catch up with Israeli and Palestinian friends and colleagues.

I do not believe that my political views and positions constitute a legitimate reason to deny my entry to Israel. I do not have a criminal record in any country, I do not post a security threat. It would be understandable if I held extreme views or dangerous tendencies - but I do not.

I wholeheartedly believe in peace, justice and equality for Israelis, Palestinians, Arabs and Jews in this land. It is my hope that this will be recognised and that I’ll be permitted to enter the same as any other UK passport holder without prejudice.

I invite Israeli authorities to respect legitimate democratic activities and process and permit me to continue with my journey.

Press release to follow if I still have access to my phone.

Craig Murray: sharing his dream with you

Craig Murray appeared on these pages several times. No need to rehash the sad story of a man supported here for a while becoming a man obsessed. So this is a short reminder of the latter:

The only potential resolution of the situation in Palestine must involve justice and dignity for all. That solution requires the abolition of apartheid Israel and its replacement by a unitary, democratic state blind to race and religion. That is no more impossible in Palestine than it was in South Africa.

There, there, nothing more to see here, move on, ladies and gentlemen.

Don't you ever change, Russia. Stay classy!

This opus, written by a Facebook user Natalya Kuzmina* in 2017, isn't remarkable in its content. Only in the diligence and verbosity of its creator. Her Russian is quite poor, by the way. But she speaks for many, possibly for a lot over there.

Do not purchase sausage, grounded meat, cutlets, frankfurters. They are made of ritually slain children, which disappear in millions every year.
Blood is pumped out (sic!) from the kids, and meat is processed and arrives to the shops' counters.
Our children are being stolen during the year, and sacrificed for important holidays Purim, Hanukkah, Pesach.
[They] could use the adults as well, but the best are children, since they are clean and innocent.
Such sacrifice of innocence is identified with the virginal sacrifice of Christ.
The children are also taken away by Juvenilka**  and sold to Judeans for organs.
Read Psalter every day for your relatives. The strongest prayer in God's eyes comes from Psalter, especially the night one.
This information will soon be removed from the Internet possibly, forward it to people.

Somehow it doesn't look like vegan propaganda leaflet to me...

(*) Don't try to look her up, there is a myriad of people with the same name (Наталья Кузьмина) он Facebook. The name isn't rare.
(**) A slang moniker for the children social services.

Jeremy Corbyn and English irony

After Update 4 to this post I was fairly sure that nothing could or should be added to it. However, this battleship  boat refuses to go to the bottom without another fight:

In a statement issued on Friday night, Corbyn said he had used the term Zionist “in the accurate political sense and not as a euphemism for Jewish people”. He added: “I am now more careful with how I might use the term ‘Zionist’ because a once self-identifying political term has been increasingly hijacked by antisemites as code for Jews.”

The man is pathetic and more stupid than I have previously imagined. But the help is coming, so here it is, finally, an official clarification on the "British Zionists" issue from Labour party think tank:

1. British Zionists should not be confused with Jews.

2. British Zionists, whether born in UK or residing for most of their years in UK, are easily identified by their lack of real English irony. A field manual for detecting the lack of irony is being written at the moment by His Excellency Glorious Leader Jeremy Corbyn and, as soon as it is finished, will be issued to all card carrying party members.

3. Jews, on the other hand, are easily identified by:

• Their big olfactory organs
• Their predilection for money, mind control and world domination
• Their religious dietary rituals, which include several dishes requiring, as their chief ingredient, blood donations by non-Jewish people.
• Sometimes the two horns they wear could be a giveaway, however the horns are retractable, as it was learned.

No special manual is required to identify Jews, use your senses!

Together we shall root out the scourge of antisemitism!

I don’t think I was actually involved in it

They used to say "I was just doing my job". But they weren't sophisticated enough, now they have a new formula.

Jeremy Corbyn: I was “present” when the wreath was laid “I don’t think I was actually involved in it.” pic.twitter.com/fNL7yXxIdE

— Ben (@Jamin2g) August 13, 2018

And since when it rains it pours:

Which occasion is perfectly described by Phillip Mark McGough:

I admit I was present but I don't think I actually knew this was the hand sign for the Muslim Brotherhood, a pan-Islamist organization dedicated to the establishment of a global caliphate and proscribed accordingly in various countries for its terrorist affiliations. At the time I thought I was attending a Star Trek convention. I have devoted my entire life to a lasting trilateral peace between the Federation, the Klingon Empire, and the Romulan Greater Co-prosperity Sphere.

Update: and now another awkward attempt at a spin by Corbyn: a confession mixed with denial. So he was laying a wreath, but it was in memory of the 1985 bombing by Israel.

So patently, pitifully and obviously a lie. Here is what says... Jeremy Corbyn, in Morning Star article he penned:

After wreaths were laid at the graves of those who died on that day and on the graves of others killed by Mossad agents in Paris in 1991, we moved to the poignant statue in the main avenue of the coastal town of Ben Arous, which was festooned with Palestinian and Tunisian flags.

And this post is, most probably, all you will ever need to know about the protagonist. And what better to summarize it all than another quote from Phillip Mark McGough:

Consider the following:

*Corbyn didn't know that "honoured guests" he invited to tea in Parliament were blood-libelling Jew-hating genocidal scum

*Corbyn didn't know that a mural he defended was brimming with grossly antisemitic caricatures straight out of the pages of Der Stürmer

*Corbyn didn't know that social media groups in which he actively and enthusiastically immersed himself for years were foaming with a truly toxic antisemitism

*Corbyn didn't know that many of his fellow speakers at the innumerable pro-Palestinian hate fests he's attended over the past four decades were antisemitic obsessives, even as he sat through their obsessively antisemitic speeches

*Corbyn didn't know that he was at a memorial service for the terrorists who tortured and murdered Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972 even though he flew to Tunisia to attend the same and was photographed holding a wreath over the aforementioned terrorists' graves while muttering an Arabic benediction in their memory

Bearing the foregoing in mind, there are three- and only three- possible explanations:

(1) Jeremy Corbyn is lying

(2) Jeremy Corbyn has dementia and needs immediate institutionalization, electroconvulsive shock therapy, and a brisk, hourly beating

(3) Jeremy Corbyn is being gaslighted by an evil alter ego, much like Roger Moore in the psychological/supernatural thriller "The Man Who Haunted Himself" [Basil Dearden, 1970]

Update 2: ridiculous as the series of mumbling denials have been to start with, now the denial has become even more so:

Labour claims that no perpetrators of the Munich massacre are buried where Jeremy Corbyn attended a wreath-laying ceremony have been cast into doubt by an article from a leading Palestinian political party. Fatah’s official Facebook page carries a tribute to Atef Bseiso, who is buried at the cemetery in Tunisia, stating that he was involved in planning the “Munich operation”.

The post also sets out how Bseiso worked with “security officials like Ali Hassan Salameh”, who was operations chief for Black September, the group behind the Munich attack which left 11 Israeli athletes dead. It then records how Bseiso was killed at The Meridian Hotel in Paris in 1992, with Israeli intelligence organisation Mossad accused of the assassination.

What now, Jeremy?

Update 3: Again, for documentation purposes only: Jeremy Corbyn’s secret trip to Israel to meet Hamas.

Jeremy Corbyn visited Israel and the West Bank in November 2010 with an Islamist lobby group to meet senior Hamas officials...

No Jew encountered on that visit. The cup of my happiness overflows... enough, really, it is becoming grotesque.

Update 4: not to prove something new we didn't already know from the above. Just to (I hope so) put an end to the endless tragicomedy.

They [British Zionists - go figure, right?] clearly have two problems. One is that they don’t want to study history, and secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, don’t understand English irony.

This from a totally humorless and tedious bore, who will know what irony is only if a blazing hot piece of it was pushed up his arse...

Update 5: but of course, nothing would end so quickly, not when the two powerful voices of support, which incidentally belong to two neo-Nazis, get into the fray:

Update 6: the ridiculousness of this all... now to the last defense of a scoundrel:

Jeremy Corbyn claimed that Israeli officials control the speeches made by British MPs, in bizarre comments that have been called an 'anti-Semitic conspiracy theory' which ‘casts Jews as sinister manipulators’, MailOnline can reveal.

The remarks were captured on video in 2010, at a meeting of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) in London. In a speech about the shooting of Turkish activists at sea by the Israeli commandos, the Labour leader said:

‘[British MPs] all turned up [to the debating chamber] with a pre-prepared script. I’m sure our friend Ron Prosor (the Israeli ambassador) wrote it.

Oh boy... will the wonders ever cease?

Update 7: the answer to the last question is - definitely no. Here comes a new one:

Jeremy Corbyn has said he does not believe it is anti-Semitic to describe the creation of Israel as racist in a move which last night saw his relationship with the Jewish community plumb to new depths.

This changes my view on behavior of excrement. I expect it to dry down an smell less with time. Not in this case, apparently.

Corbyn's pearls - for own collection

Really, one can get overdosed on so much crap, so this will be for my own archives. You don't have to... you know.

There seems to be a great deal of pressure on the BBC from the Israeli government and the Israeli embassy, and they are very assertive towards all journalists and to the BBC itself - they challenge every single thing on reporting the whole time.

"I think there is a bias towards saying that Israel is a democracy in the Middle East, that Israel has a right to exist, that Israel has its security concerns.

So, saying that we have a right to exist or, for that matter, to have own security concerns, is biased. What would be the unbiased version, I haste to inquire?

Oh boy, what a worm...

NKVD uniform circa 1943, for children - why do you wait?

A personal disclosure: I have little sympathy for the Stalin's prime butchers of NKVD. My reasons are, with all else, rather personal. In 1939 one of my late and beloved uncles, being of the socialist persuasion, illegally crossed the border to get to the socialist heaven of USSR, was promptly arrested, accused of spying and spent more than 15 years in the worst parts of GULAG. The folks in blue and red hats have done their considerable best by him.

Anyhow, we are in the blessed XXI century now, and Mother Russia was celebrating the Victory Day (May 9), as it does every year. This time, some enterprising Internet-based outfit decided to spice the celebration with a special gift for kids:

NKVD officer defending the Motherland

"The uniform is intended for military reconstructions, role games, Victory Day celebrations, theatrical productions, photo shoots," it says in the product description. It is noted that, in addition to the uniform, you can buy a belt, a holster, a sword belt, leather boots and epaulettes.

So, enough time has passed that some elements in Russia, nostalgic for the days of the murderous dictator, decided to start whitewashing the murderous vermin at the beck and call of the 'roach mustaches.

We are living, but can’t feel the land where we stay,
More than ten steps away you can’t hear what we say.
But if people would talk on occasion,
They should mention the Kremlin Caucasian.

His thick fingers are bulky and fat like live-baits,
And his accurate words are as heavy as weights.
Cucaracha’s moustaches are screaming,
And his boot-tops are shining and gleaming.

But around him a crowd of thin-necked henchmen,
And he plays with the services of these half-men.
Some are whistling, some meowing, some sniffing,
He’s alone booming, poking and whiffing.

He is forging his rules and decrees like horseshoes –
Into groins, into foreheads, in eyes, and eyebrows.
Every killing for him is delight,
And Ossetian torso is wide*.

This is the man NKVD served so loyally, and the bones of their victims are scattered all over the country in their silent millions.

Adds a blogger tverdyi_znak:

It might be good to hand all buyers a memo - from whom and how the soldiers of the NKVD protected the Motherland. Among the terrible enemies of the Motherland was, for example, Misha Shamonin, who was shot at Butovo landfill at the age of 13. And not just by mistake, but by law, which allowed the NKVD to incarcerate and kill children from the age of 12.

Misha Shamonin, executed at age 13.

The Russians are obviously trying to forget their past, as do many others. And some (too many) of them will not rest until the past is safely buried. Here is a response from an arch-patriotic Bell of Russia. It is a long screed, most of it in defense of the heroic soldiers of NKVD that were the first to defend the Motherland against the Nazi hordes. It is full of scorn and hate directed at the "libruls" who dare to show their indignation by the revolting marketing ploy. The hateful rhetoric raises to its peak at the end:

What the Russian liberals are doing, mocking the heroes of the Great Patriotic War, looks like rehabilitation of fascism, for which the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation provides for up to three years of imprisonment. Perhaps, when the Russian liberal public finally realizes that punishment for such things is inevitable, their desire to engage in sacrilege will begin to wane. Such kind of people, unfortunately, do not understand kind persuasion...

So much for kindness.

(*) Osip Mandelstam, 1933. The epigram that became his death sentence.

The proper progressive response to Iranian people

People are dying on the streets of Iranian cities. Not people with rifles or stones in their hands: just people who are unhappy with the extremist regime of Ayatollahs. Regime that prefers to spend their people's money on fomenting terror over the globe and producing more and more weaponry to become a regional superpower.

Accidentally, that same regime that the last POTUS, Barack Hussein Obama II, decided to befriend from the start of his first presidency. We all know how it ended: with a nuclear agreement hardly worth the paper it was written upon and with "Death to America" demos continuing and even increasing in frequency on the streets of Tehran.

And how do the Western progressive liberals respond to the unrest in Iran? My first jaw-dropping experience with that response was via an article in NYT:

How Can Trump Help Iran’s Protesters? Be Quiet.

The headline is quite sufficient to understand the trend, but here is what is probably the main passage of that (frankly revolting) opus:

One reason to worry that Mr. Trump may try to seize the moment by championing the protesters is that it has become an article of faith among President Barack Obama’s critics than in 2009 he missed a golden opportunity to do just that, when many Iranians took to the streets after a disputed election result. But it was never clear what difference American rhetorical support would have made then, other than allowing the Iranian government to depict the protesters as American lackeys, giving the security services more of a pretext to crack down violently.

Of course, this bit of circular logic (or poisonous wisdom, you name it) is applicable to any tyranny in this here world. And, if you learn a bit about the author of this dreck, one Philip Gordon, who appears to be "a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and an assistant secretary of state and White House coordinator for the Middle East during the Obama administration", you shall understand better the roots. You shall also understand better what kind of "assistants" the last POTUS has chosen - to sing hosannas to his international politicking...

But this is not about the POTUS, it is about people dying in the streets, to remind you. Something that should be protested and fought against. And I guess it will be vociferously protested if it were to happen on the streets of, say, San Francisco or London or Buda... no, it is too Eastern for the true progressives, let's say Berlin instead , OK?

Tehran is where all these brown people live, after all. They have their own customs and their own culture, they have that Religion of Peace thing that we are obliged to respect, so it is not our business to stick our noses where our noses definitely don't belong, right?

And speaking about the right: Mr Gordon here is a living proof, among many others, of how the modern progressive left has made the successful voyage to the place where the ultra-conservative paleocons with their non-involvement motto lay in wait for their victory. Now these two, ostensibly mutually exclusive gangs, could lay down together in the same bed.

Of course, Mr Gordon is only a single example. Here are more, from different (oh well...) media giants (headlines only, you can imagine the contents):

Iran: By supporting protests, Donald Trump may inadvertently be helping the government's cause

Trump's backing of Iranian protesters could backfire as Tehran cracks down

The progressive echo chamber at its full glory. And bless the fact that you can't smell the said glory as well...

And here is a slightly different source, one Iranian-British citizen, Aaron Bastani, a Labor activist:

Imploring y'all to desist with your wishes for a change (Remember, the CHANGE?), because the results will be frightful, not to mention the usual suspects fomenting unrest... sweet, ain't it?

Oh well, so what can we all learn from this progressive thing? Only this, I am afraid:

Berkeley's Hatem Bazian - the most dangerous professor in America?

There is a big difference between protecting freedom of speech and providing, like Berkeley does, a well paid platform for a hate preacher with academic credentials of dubious quality*.

This headline might be a tad too sensationalist, I feel, but it is not mine. I am not keeping a list of all dangerous American professors, of course. For all I know, it might be somebody else, a totally unknown one, from an obscure institution of higher education. One that is right now putting the final bits on the Doomsday Machine in his basement.

Professor Bazian, if you check his page at Berkeley's website, doesn't look very dangerous:

Hatem Bazian (Ph.D, Philosophy and Islamic Studies, UC Berkeley) teaches

• AAS 128AC: Islam in America: Communities and Institutions
• AAS 132: De-Constructing Islamophobia and Othering of Islam.

It is not that I would rush to enroll in these courses, but being one who is into "othering" all religions equally, I might have been inclined to take the AAS 132. To pick up a few useful tips, you know. Otherwise, what can I say: the two courses above are only a short sampler of the myriad of various "studies" that are taught all over US of A and produce hordes of unemployable (with good reason too) graduates with a vague smattering of "ejukayshen" on their pristine brains.

However, some people who do keep tabs on a few selected professors, are not stopping at the Berkeley's website. Canary Mission, for one, has done a sterling job of scrutinizing the good professor, with the result that is a must read. I shall quote only a few selected accomplishments of the man:

Bazian is a leader within the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. He declared September 23, 2014 an “International Day of Action” to call for a complete boycott of Israel on campuses across the United States on the eve of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah.

Bazian has linked the “liberation of Palestine” with Muslim theology and has reportedly promoted a verse in the Hadith calling for the murder of Jews to establish the “Islamic State of Palestine.”***

Bazian writes prolifically against Israel, publishing his work on his personal website and in other online sites including Mondoweiss and Electronic Intifada. He is the author of an anti-Israel book titled “Palestine … it is something colonial”.

Of course, there is more, much more in the article, but I don't want to spoil your reading any more. You shall learn that the learned professor should by now teach a most advanced Anti-Zionism course (909 or whatever the number is for such level), so successfully he has erased the thin line between the hated Zionists and the hated Jooz.

The picture of professor Bazian, drawn by the Canary Mission, doesn't require further details, methinks. However, a series of questions should be asked regarding Berkeley this famous institution of higher education, this prodigious production line of genius, second to none**. I realize that Berkeley has been for many (too many?) years a strongly left-leaning institution and goes from the left to more left as time goes.

First of all, seeing as how enormously frisky is professor Bazian in his extracurricular activities: isn't such a talented man, obviously a leader, seriously under-occupied by the university?
Then, if the answer to the previous question is negative, can't he be advised to seek a more fulfilling occupation elsewhere? I understand that he is, most probably, a tenured professor, but there are ways and means - if there is a will.
And, the last but not the least: while freedom of speech should be protected by all means, does such prodigious fountain of hate and incitement fit the requirements of an educational outfit of such a high standing?

To summarize: isn't it time to drum the professor of hate out of his lofty position?

(*) Even if we are talking about Berkeley's own graduate.
(**) If you believe this, for instance:

(***) In 1999, The Detroit News reported that Dr. Bazian had said, “The Day of Judgment will not happen until the trees and stones will say, ‘Oh Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.’”
Dr. Bazian denies that he ever said those words. “I would never use that statement,” Dr. Bazian told O’Reilly.

Spanish civil war and human garbage

Tosh McDonald - dreck in a T-shirt

There is nothing new in the notion that for a raving anti-Semite in the usual anti-Zionist guise nothing is sacred. As nothing is new in the notion that the British Labour party has lately become a welcoming safe harbor for this thriving mob of progressive thinkers.

For full disclosure: my beloved uncle was one of the many (disproportionately many) young Jews that went to Spain to fight against Franco, losing several of his good friends, enduring the fate of other "displaced persons" in the French camps, joining the Red Army and fighting with distinction till the demise of the Nazi regime.

So when I see how a piece of human refuse uses a solemn and politics-free occasion to throw his feces at Jews, it surely boils my blood. Wish I could have been there... But see for yourself.

Tosh McDonald:
The account below is by the gentleman representing Jewish soldiers at the wreath laying ceremony. @McDonaldTosh @ASLEFunion pic.twitter.com/fbjAi92Di4

— LAAS (@LabourAgainstAS) July 2, 2017

For better viewing of the Jewish gentleman's report, click on the image below:

Oh, and accidentally: tell me who your friends are...

More on Tosh McDonald.

And even more.

Vitaly Milonov and boiled Christians - a purely technical correction

Some, even many, people were discombobulated by Vitaly Milonov, a Russian MP who used his deep knowledge of history and genealogy to produce a memorable soundbite.

A pro-Kremlin Russian lawmaker came under fire Monday after saying the ancestors of local Jewish opposition figures in Saint-Petersburg “boiled Christians in cauldrons,” sparking indignation from Russia’s Jewish community.Vitaly Milonov, a Duma deputy known for his anti-gay initiatives, lashed out at the weekend at two local lawmakers leading a protest against handing over St. Isaac’s basilica, a top landmark in Russia’s second largest city, to the Russian Orthodox Church.

“Christians survived despite the fact that the ancestors of Boris Vishnevsky and Maksim Reznik boiled us in cauldrons and fed us to animals,” ultra-conservative Milonov said at a rally Sunday to support the controversial handover.

Well, I have to disappoint the budding historian: he got the boiling point incorrectly. Being of nomadic persuasion, we, the Red Sea pedestrians, have never wanted anything to do with cauldrons and other heavy kitchen implements. Not to mention the scarcity of water in our corner of the woods (figuratively speaking, there is mostly sand and stones where we are).

Our standard MO is catch it, kosher butcher it (which is a separate issue to be addressed) and cook it on an improvised spit, using spears, long swords or stout enough branch if lucky and there is a tree or two nearby. Of course, in case of emergency, tartar style could be used too. But there is a caveat or two to all this:

• First of all, the blood: any amateur Jew-baiter knows the blood is the most important part of the deal. Especially in desert conditions, I hope I don't have to expand on this.
• The game: of course, the preference is for children, as all above mentioned Jew-baiters and their aunt know. And, again, in the field, where a child is not available, a woman would be our second preference, for shaving your game in the desert is not an easy task.
• And the last but not the least: of course, there are some dietary restrictions. Even such a succulent and well-fed specimen as Mr Milonov will be a low priority game for us, due to his uncanny resemblance to a forbidden (if tasty) creature. If you know what I mean. If not:

So there.

P.S. As for feeding some people to the animals: well, see caveat 3. Sometimes there is no other choice, and the protein is valuable in the field.

Addendum: About Vitaly Milonov.

This priceless interview (in two parts, two and a half minutes in total), short as it is, should be a mandatory watching for a better picture of the illustrious gentleman.

A dollop of scandalous info about the gentleman:

On December 16, 2013 Fontanka.ru, a St. Petersburg website, published an article according to which a regional charitable organization "Orthodox World", which was co-foundes by Vitaly Milonov and his wife Eva Liburkina, was paid 9.64 million rubles (around 300 thousand USD at the time) from the city budget for the activities conducted by the charity in 2012. According to the report, these funds have bought 19,280 units of food packages, the distribution of which took place before the parliamentary and presidential elections in Krasnoselsky, Kirovsky and Petrograd districts of the city in the autumn of 2011 and the first half of 2012. However, the organization "Orthodox world" itself , according to the Federal Tax Service in St. Petersburg, has been registered only on June 5, 2012, thus the contract and the invoice were dated retroactively. President of the organization (and Milonov's assistant) Alexey Knyazev said that Milonov actively participates in the work of his organization and helps it.

Well, a politician...

Those who know Russian might enjoy this brief summary of our hero's life and deeds. I've decided not to translate it, due to the prevalence of Russian unparliamentary idioms that don't easily give in to translation attempts. Juicy.

Glenn Greenwald remains a blubbering idiot

I could care less about the far right and far left. The best deal would have been to place them together on an island and watch them exterminate one another. And yes, I am aware of the sad fact that today they will find so much in common that this unification project will miss its point.

But, as the Hon. Elder correctly writes, there always will be a somewhat pleasurable pastime of checking up on some blubbering idiots, to ensure they are what they are. This priceless quote does it:

Any party driven by antipathy toward Muslims will obviously find common cause with an Israeli government that has spent decades occupying, bombing, and denying basic political rights to Muslims.

I see... so, according to the blubbering idiot, the root cause of the whole I/P issue is Islamophobia (see how adept I am in using the modern lingo?).

Blubbering idiocy confirmed. Now read the whole post, linked above. It is good, I promise.

Has somebody checked on Norman Finkelstein's well-being lately?

I used to actively despise the man, but now I am only concerned. His obsession has transformed him into a really sick victim - of his own hate, of course - but nevertheless a victim. Check this out:



Pitiful.

Jeremy Corbyn Appears to Compare Israel to ISIS During Antisemitism Speech

That term "Appears" is taken obviously from a Guardian article so titled. I kept it for its irresistible cuteness. There are two reasons I post this. The first is for documentation: lots of Corbynistas hurriedly declared that the words of the Leader were invented or, at least, misinterpreted by the enemies of the people. So here it goes:

In prepared remarks, Corbyn said: “Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu government than our Muslim friends are for those of various self-styled Islamic states or organisations.”

After all it wasn't a slip of the tongue, so typical for a somewhat senile old Socialist (like this one, for instance), but a prepared remark. If Harriet Sherwood, the notorious anti-Israeli journo who penned the article, says so, you must believe it in this case.

Now to the other reason this should be kept for ever and ever:

Did Jeremy Corbyn really mention ISIS in a negative sense?

Fork me sideways...

The Independent way of publishing libel, Peter Yeung and modern journalism

To start with the conclusion: if you ever expected to see dry factual information, checked and double checked by the newspaper's staff, under the rubric "News" - you can now forget it. The brave new world of the modern media has made a big step over that red line that once separated news from opinions, not to mention fairy tales and libel.

And here is one of the tools of that tectonic change: Peter Yeung, whose bio is linked and who (if you don't want to click through) describes himself in Twitter format as "Freelance journalist @Guardian @BBC @Independent @Telegraph & others".

Said Mr Yeung published in the Indy an article, which headline and the mandatory for the topic picture are:

Of course, as its big brother, BBC, uses to, the online editor was wise enough to insert quotation marks in the headline, not that it makes no nevermind to any reader, does it? The story came originally from Al Jazeera. Since publication of that article, some water has passed under the bridge. Under some pressure from CAMERA, Al Jazeera modified the article, making it a bit more palatable. As you can see in the linked CAMERA report, Peter Yeung didn't respond to their inquiries at the time.

UK Media Watch also contributed to debunking of the libelous (save the quotation marks, of course) story. It is a worthy read by itself.

But, aside of a good debunking, linked above, UK Media Watch discovered an even better pearl, one that inexorably leads to the conclusion that starts this post. While being one of the tools in that media revolution, Peter Yeung appears to be a tool in the other sense of the word, so he blurted out what, most probably, is today's unwritten editorial policy of Indy:

@adirkrafman @Independent @cogat_israel the allegation still stands. It was never reported as fact

— Peter Yeung (@ptr_yeung) June 15, 2016

So how do you like them chickens? First you sell an allegation as a news item, then, since it's "only" an allegation, you might as well feel free not to correct it, when it appears to be a libelous one.

And all that is safely covered by a pair of quotation marks.

So there.

P.S. Did I mention that Indy employees and managers (freelancers included) are "the main providers of bicycle seats' sniffers, pedophiles, petty animal store thieves, flashers and vice squad stool pigeons - all at the same time"?

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Alison Chabloz without ad hominem attacks

Alison Chabloz as a product of our civilization is described sufficiently by Aussie Dave in his post Anti-Zionist-Not-Antisemite Of The Day: Alison Chabloz. My attention was recently attracted by the lady's response to the massacre of LGBT folks in Orlando. Here is her comment, in all its naked glory:

How should an average person react to this? Just to remind you who Alison Chabloz is:

If you are not familiar with the specific gesture on display above, here it is.

All in all, my personal response normally would have included a few words that, while richly deserved by the lady in question, could have made this response a string of ad hominem attacks, which, while fitting this here blog, are not really required in this case. I have chosen another way to respond, letting the images of Ms Chabloz speak for themselves. So here you go, without prejudice and ad hominem.

(Hat tip - Jennanne Simpson).

Warning: click "Read more" only if you are 18+, don't suffer from a heart disease and are not pregnant. Indifference to your mental state could be also a good indication for viewing.

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Roni Alsheikh - dancing with Torah in Auschwitz. Left, right, left, right...

The man in the picture, the one in the uniform amidst the pair of civilians, is our (relatively) new police chief, Roni Alsheikh. His ascent (?) to the new throne from the post of Shin Bet's deputy head wasn't easy due to resistance of the police hierarchy to appointment of an outsider, and I guess his life is not easy right now. Besides, who likes a cop?

Yep, no one likes a cop, but nothing would have prepared an innocent reader to the histrionics displayed by local ultra-lefties at the sight of the following scene. In the recording, Roni Alsheikh and a group of other cops and border policemen are dancing with the Torah scroll in Auschwitz, on the last Holocaust memorial day.



I have several examples here and here, but all this in Hebrew and I wouldn't bother with translations for now - just believe me that the fury at the "senseless, insensitive, expensive, ultra-religious, callous, [add your adjective] ritual" is simply overflowing. And the bile eruption is simply remarkable.

I might personally not find it in me to dance anywhere, Auschwitz included - that besides being an incorrigible atheist. But I do understand what Roni Alsheikh was up to there. Affirming our right and our love of life and sticking a finger into the eye of the Nazis (dead or alive) isn't something I would object to, the opposite is rather true. You can and even should dance in Auschwitz, see another example of doing just that (with explanation, too):



And this is definitely related to the subject of Alsheikh's appointment to his position. The said appointment was met by a similar eruption of bile. A short version could be seen here:

To make things short - the take over of the goverment [sic!] by fundamentalists.

a longer version belongs to the baron of deceit industry, our incomparable Gideon Levy.

Roni Alsheich is a man with a very dubious past. In a law-abiding country, no one would even imagine appointing him police commissioner. In Israel, they place a crown on his head. The national chorus sings his praises.

The two main elements on which Mr Levy builds his attack are: the [past] residence of Alsheikh in a settlement; and his service in Shin Bet. If you want to buy this logic, it is up to you. Then we should descend a bit more into the cesspool, where Richard Silverstein aka Doucheblogger resides:

And when we get to the bottom of that pit (or the gutter, if you will), you shall find there one Uri Avneri. If there ever was a pretendent to the title of the king of yellow journalism (with pink stripes in this case), here is one. And here comes his article on a site called Redress Information & Analysis. That site willingly hosts authors like Mr Avneri, Gilad Atzmon and other Holocaust deniers, with other Jew-hating rubbish. I don't provide a link in this case, you can easily find the article by its telling headline: "Roni Alsheikh, Israel’s ultra-primitive chief of police". And why does the esteemed yellow journo call Roni Alsheikh "ultra-primitive"? Here it goes:

So, unlike his younger colleague Mr Levy, the attack here is three-pronged:

1. His father is of Yemenite descent, his mother is Moroccan.
2. He is the first police chief to wear a kippah, or skullcap.
3. Also the first who was once a settler.

If you don't detect a strong stench of the good old-fashioned lefty Ashkenazi racism and/or the innate and totally undeserved superiority complex here, you have to check your sinuses asap... 'nuff said.

Now, compare all of the above to the demented response of an ultra-right-winger to the appointment of an Arab police officer, Jamal Hakroush, to the post of Deputy Inspector-General. Here it comes, in all its glory:

Granted, in this case the writing style and content might indicate a need for a chemical intervention, but how is this screed, in its essence, different from Mr Avneri's racist rant and Mr Levy's hatchet job?

All in all, without any prior prejudice against (or for) Roni Alsheikh, now I feel myself rather invested in the success of his stint as our chief cop. Good luck, Mr Alsheikh!

While Venezuela is dying - stay classy, Salon!

While the tragedy of the quasi-socialist regime, built chiefly on cheap slogans and once booming oil revenues, continues to strangle the life out of Venezuela, the gurus of Salon.com still find the spirit and the energy to produce some unbelievable crap hailing the illusory achievements of the late Comical Hugo.

When a country goes socialist and it craters, it is laughed off as a harmless and forgettable cautionary tale about the perils of command economics. When, by contrast, a country goes socialist and its economy does what Venezuela’s did, it is not perceived to be a laughing matter – and it is not so easy to write off or to ignore. It suddenly looks like a threat to the corporate capitalism, especially when said country has valuable oil resources that global powerhouses like the United States rely on.

I bet that David Sirota, the author of this article, will be received like a savior by the people dying in Venezuela's hospitals for lack of basic medicines (but surrounded by cohorts of willing Cuban doctors).

"harmless and forgettable cautionary tale"...

Go boil your stupid head, Mr Sirota. Maybe some compassion will seep in, although I tend to doubt it.

Update: it was an article from 2013. Nevertheless...