Probably just being red is not enough for Ken Livingstone. He went yellow recently, refusing to flash. Now he is adding another color, hailing the glorious achievements of sicklish Fidel.
Mr Livingstone was speaking at the weekend during a visit to Cuba on the first leg of a Latin American tour. He called Mr Castro's Communist revolution "one of the high points of the 20th century" and praised Mr Castro while on a trip to see a cricket match on the island.
Yep. The revolution was a high point indeed, the problem is that the life in Cuba has gone steadily downhill since this point. But Red Ken had acquired some in-depth knowledge of life in Cuba during the cricket match, no doubt, we should not worry then.
He said: "What's amazing here is you've got a country that's suffered an illegal economic blockade by the United States for almost half a century and yet it's been able to give its people the best standard of health care, brilliant education. To do this in the teeth of an almost economic war I think is a tribute to Fidel Castro and his government."
Medicine without medicines (no money to purchase), education without books (this specific democracy has a long list of forbidden literature, including names like Solzhenitzin, Havel, Kundera and many, many others), the "revolutionary police" infesting every corner, lack of basic foodstuffs... the list could go on, but this is all trifles to Red Ken in his eagerness to please his hosts:
He added: "And though Cuba's only got a fifth of the population of Britain, it gets as many medals in the Olympics as we do. So clearly they're doing something right here about engaging their young people in sport, and that's what I'm really interested in finding out about."
We do remember the astonishing successes of Soviets and East Germans in sport. Usually many of these successes went in tandem with the developments in some areas of biotechnology. Which is well developed in Cuba too, incidentally.
Yes, Red Ken has developed a rare case of myopia. But truly - one can't see far away when one's nose is stuck in someone's arse.
***
Sometimes we are so ensnared by the latest political fads that even the most insightful people use labels unthinkingly. Norm quoting from Head Heeb:
Appointing Lieberman to a senior ministry without requiring him to abjure his racism is...
Appointing Lieberman anywhere but as a public restroom attendant is a mistake, in my opinion. But let's take a look at the dictionary:
Noun: racism- The prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other races
- Discriminatory or abusive behavior towards members of another race
Besides - Jews and Arabs are of the same race, for crying out loud...
***
Offers Elliot Jager in JP:
And, assuming the Palestinians do deliver, devoting themselves for the next 10 years to rebuilding their morally, politically and economically devastated society, relearning humane values and rediscovering a spiritualism that's not fixated on blood, I predict they will find most Israelis willing to compromise - even to the point of helping create a Palestinian Arab state.
So, were I advising our premier, I'd urge him to invite Haniyeh to Jerusalem and start the hudna haggling.
Sounds attractive, but there must be a catch somewhere, besides the auspiciously dangerous nature of the
hudna itself. Yeah, here it comes:
If the other side can live without smuggling weapons and without training its young people for the next round of warfare, if it can retool its schools to teach hudna instead of intolerance, we should meet them halfway.
That is one big "if", Elliot.
***
It has rarely happened to a more deserving person.
But what does he have against hanging?
Doesn't matter - he will get used to it after the first time.
***
I could hardly believe that a day will come when I'll have to place a header like this. Lieberman is all I detest in a person: a right-wing extremist for whom "might is right" is the credo. A political product of Bibi's school, skilled in political skullduggery, with ethics of a magpie and all the charm of a rattlesnake.
But after reading an article in Guardian by the inimitable Jonathan Steele, I have decided that Avigdor pales compared to that stinker of a scribe, and something must be said on the subject. The same Steel who sung hosanna to Hamas, who keened for "politician" Basayev, found himself a new Satan in Avigdor Lieberman. Which by itself wouldn't bother me a lot, if only our scribe has not resorted to the lies and half-truths he puts to use so frequently.
To start with - the header of the article: "The rise of the rightwinger who takes his cue from Putin". One would expect an essay of parallels between the two, but Putin is mentioned only once in the article, in relation to the old trick of raising the elections threshold for small parties. But the headline does the trick: Lieberman is linked in your mind to Putin. No matter that Guardian rarely criticises Putin, unless it is about Chechnya - and you know why Chechnya is of interest to the Guardian.
But of course, the axis of the article is presentation of Lieberman as racist. The subtitle makes it quite clear from the start: "The return to power of Avigdor Lieberman and his anti-Arab racism is a mark of the point Israeli politics has now reached". Leave aside the fact that several openly racist parties in Europe (and in Britain) are raising to the levels unheard after the WW II. Forget for the moment the calls by Hezbollah leaders and their ilk elsewhere for extermination of all Jews (not all Israelis even) - it is Lieberman who is racist. So where is the proof of this statement?
Lieberman has described Tibi and other Israeli Arabs who have met Hamas officials as traitors. They should be executed, he said last year, just as the judges at Nuremberg condemned not only Nazi leaders but those who collaborated with them.
Lieberman is definitely a boorish extremist, this quote shows it just fine. But where is the proof of racism?
Lieberman also advocates stripping Arabs in north-eastern Israel of their citizenship and putting their areas under Palestinian rule. In return, Israel should take more land on the West Bank than even Olmert envisages.
The old separation story. Not so new and not exactly confined to the framework of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even a person so ideologically motivated as Steele could have turned a few pages of history books. Separation is an extremist idea, even if it was already carried out many times in many areas of the world. But does it prove Lieberman's racism? By the way, I do not remember Guardian calling Mahmoud the Mad racist for his daily calls for annihilation of Israel and/or removal of Jews to their countries of origin.
As if the above was insufficient, follows an interesting observation about the Lieberman's road to power:
He got his initial support from post-Soviet Russian immigrants, appealing to their anti-Arab racism and instinct for tough leadership.
Of course, there is no proof of this "anti-Arab racism" of Russian immigrants, but Steele does not need no steenkin' proof, does he? And knowing zilch about the background and problems of these immigrants, Steele doesn't bother his puny brain with a sociological research, of course.
I shall borrow a conclusion from
neffer - one of the commenters addressing Steele in the article comments area:
In fact, your position is a rather foolish and one sided position given that the Palestinian Arab position calls exactly for moving people - not merely determining their citizenship - by virtue of their religion.
Foolish and one sided - this is the life story of Jonathan Steele...
Cross-posted on
Yourish.com***
More than hundred years of experience (if you count FSB's predecessors such as Okhranka, Cheka, NKVD and KGB) are not to be trifled with. After all, who else mastered to such perfection the ancient art of persuasion that requires infinite patience and perseverance, when it is vitally important to squeeze a confession from a reticent and hardy customer?
And now the whole world is a witness to this exceptional ability of FSB coming to serve both science and spirituality. A rare moment of truth. Now it is the mysterious Turin shroud that decided to talk, after hundreds of years of fruitless attempts by lesser forces of science, religion and simple curiosity.
Experts from the Russian Federal Security Service, the FSB have studied the shroud of Turin and found proof of it being indeed an image of a crucified man with wounds that Jesus Christ could have. Criminologists of the Federal Security Service subjected the shroud, believed to be Christ's grave clothes, to a number of experiments. For the purity of experiment, the shroud with an imprint of a human body was studied as an ordinary corpus delicti, regardless of its historical value.
That's the only way: objectivity and impartiality. Cool heads and burning hearts, as it was bequeathed by the great
Iron Felix of the CheKa (PBUH).
Besides refuting the findings by American investigators (which is also a sacred part of years of tradition), FSB experts has shown their in-depth knowledge (naturally coming from the relevant experience), easily identifying the whipping marks, the blows on the nose and face, the marks on the back left by schlepping the cross and, of course, the traces of the nail wounds. I, for one, will not argue with this people and wouldn't lightly recommend this way to behave to anyone (well, almost anyone).
There is more, much more, and we get only a hint from another related
article:
The FSB experts also reproduced the process taking place in flax fabric fibers when coming in contact with human flesh. A volunteer from among the Institute's researchers, a man with long hair, a beard and moustaches, worked himself to sweat on trainers and was then covered with a flax fabric almost similar to that of the shroud and was held under it for several hours.
I am not sure this is a full report. I bet the volunteer (oh well...) went through a more evolved sequence of tests than the brief mention above allows. I only hope the nail wounds have healed by now.
It may be interesting to know what this volunteer youngster 'fessed up to while being kept under the shroud. Probably enough for a summary execution...
Cross-posted on
Yourish.com***
Yes, this is precisely what happened to our Environment Minister Gideon Ezra.
(You can see him in the picture above on a very environmental background).
And the superb idea Mr Ezra came up with is related to his exalted post, seeing as he is worried about pollution caused by the uncounted drivers roaming the streets of the big cities unfettered. The solution to the problem is simple, as most strokes of genius go: just reduce the number of parking lots in the cities, and the drivers will think twice before crashing the gates of our cities.
It is so simple one wants to cry beholding the beauty of the idea. I have indeed cried a bit. So had quite a few other ornery Israeli drivers that cannot live a day without infesting one or another city by their stinky polluting four wheeled monsters.
Of course, one might say that the idea is a typical example of negative reinforcement. But we must not judge harshly, after all Gideon Ezra comes from Shin Bet where the negative reinforcement was his middle name. One can even offer a few additional steps in the same direction:
- Random towing away of the private cars
- Random letting the air out of randomly chosen vehicles' wheels
- Arresting (randomly to start with) the ornery drivers who did not get the message and still try to pollute our cities
- If all else fails - connecting the exhaust pipes of the cars with the passenger compartment. This should resolve both the problem of pollution and parking in a single blow.
So the roadmap is clear, let's move with it. Wait, but what with the car used by the Hon. Minister himself?
In the same breath, however, Ezra explains that the absence of hybrid cars from the Knesset parking lot is due to their "excessive cost."
As for the environment minister's willingness to serve as a personal example, Ezra's media advisor says that the security needs of ministers do not allow for their use of hybrid vehicles like the Toyota Prius or the converted Honda Civic.
"They're too small," says the advisor.
I respectfully submit that this issue could be resolved too, following the general trend of negative reinforcement. Placement of police or army snipers in discreet positions near the ministries' buildings and the Knesset, with standing order to shoot at any moving car, should do wonders to the excessive mobility of our elected dignitaries and increase their working hours immeasurably. And, of course, reduce the air pollution - which is our main goal, lest we forget.
Yep. Let's proceed.
***
No, this is not what you may think, you dirty-minded you...
It is a creative idea by Gazan rocket scientists. It goes like this:
- First of all prepare and launch a few Qassams onto an Israeli city. In the name of Allah, of course.
- Then hide in a mosque when the bloodthirsty Israelis come to tell you not to launch any more Qassams. After all, these Jooz may be deterred by the holy spirit of the place. No matter that you used it as a regular shelter cum armory. That's all in the name of Allah too.
- When it appears that the mosque trick does not work this time, call the women and let them stand between you and the bloody Jooz. First of all it may deter the Jooz from shooting your asses off. And secondly, what is a woman in the eyes of Allah? There are a lot more where these came from, even if the cross-fire hits one or two, right?
Scum. Cowardly scum...
Cross-posted on
Yourish.com***
Here. Mostly true, although a bit one-sided. I am sure we men have one or two good features, although after reading this I am not able to find them easily. But even a dead snake can be useful for something, for crying our loud!
And why do they all hate Angelina Jolie? It is not like she steals their BFs at night, is it?
Or does she? Then why...? No, no way I am going to... Still... Oh, Angelina!
to Sonia.
***
France is known to be very tough where the internal security is concerned. Unlike their ministry of foreign affairs and other politicians that seem to have unlimited time and chutzpa to teach the rest of the world on subjects like humanity, equality and justice, their security outfits do not dwell too much on the political correctness of their actions.
The latest case that illustrates this no nonsense approach only too well is the dismissal of 43 baggage handlers at Paris' Charles de Gaulle (Roissy) and Orly airports.
All 43 baggage handlers turned out to be Muslims, prompting Islamic groups in France to rush to their defense, claiming anti-Muslim discrimination was the real intention of the French authorities.
Hmm... Does it teach us a lesson?
(For comic content read a related
piece on Islam Online).
Cross-posted on
Yourish.com
UPDATE: can we have some, or better all of these 43 baggage handlers here in Ben-Gurion airport? On the double, please - ours are on strike for two days in a row, and someone very important to me must land tomorrow. Please?
***
That's right, SimplyJews started about a year ago as another minuscule tentacle of the Elders' Hasbarah monster. While remaining pretty small and insignificant due to the chronic lack of funding and the department of field operations yanking our personnel off to all kinds of shady operations, SimplyJews gained some weight since then.
The number of blogs linked to: 75-80 according to TTLB and 108 - 118 according to Technorati (both are imprecise, so we could safely claim about 100). The rank in TTLB, that jumps up and down like a shaman possessed by a demon, has at least stabilized on Flappy Bird lately. The rank in Technorati is hovering between 24,000 and 26,000 with more than 1000 links accumulated during this year in total. A few days ago the accumulated number of hits passed the 60,000 mark with number of pages passing 94,000.
That's it with statistics. Otherwise - we have gained quite a few friends, not enough enemies, one stalker who simply does not know when to quit and a bug in our template (yes, that double appearance of the "Comment" and "Trackback" links is not a visual illusion, it is something that has to be ironed out with the Blogger support yet).
Plans for the next year: continue displeasing the general public both on the right and on the left, have more fun with the likes of Mulham Assir (PBUH) on one hand and quite a few bozos of the opposite ilk on the other. And whoring for more links, of course...
So beware. See you later.
***
"Where is the outrage over Lieberman?", Debra Delee asks in a JP article Where is the outrage over Lieberman? Addressing the US Jewish community and its "collective core values of democracy and equality, civility and civil rights".
I understand the sentiment and could add to it a few words in three languages regarding this sorry excuse for a MK, a minister and a human being. But I will refrain, since a lot was already said.
However, Debra, you must understand that for now Yvet/Avigdor is totally absorbed in what is supposed to be his life mission - elimination of Iranian threat. Most people agree that in Avigdor Mahmoud the Mad found a worthy opponent. Very soon we'll hear some exciting news about this fight of mental giants. And this fight will hopefully keep the two busy...
So here... Best regards, Debra, and do not worry.
***
I haven't had enough time to recover after the shock caused by Caroline Glick, and here comes another blow - from Debka this time.
According to Hamas' military plan, parts of which DEBKAfile's military sources are exclusively reporting, Hamas has come to the conclusion that firing rockets, particularly Qassams, at Israeli towns and villages is no longer effective and should be stopped. Instead of firing rockets, Hamas intends to open a barrage of around-the-clock heavy fire on Israel, using antitank missiles, short-range ground-to-ground missiles and artillery fire - similar to what Hizballah used during the Lebanon war - and mortar fire. The massive barrage of fire, Hamas believes, will prevent Israel from embarking on any military or civilian activity in a 2-km to 4-km buffer zone from the Gaza security fence. The intention is to transform all IDF bases and outposts, and all settlements in the Negev, into ghost towns, since any movement between them would entail heavy losses.
There is also a picture of the Russian anti-tank Metis M-9 launcher there:
This three-legged monster scared me shitless, I must admit - this on top of the agony of despair instilled by Caroline. I have dreamed this creature pursuing me during my afternoon workplace power nap, and it has even caused my fingers to stop imitating the usual feverish keyboard activity. At least I was told so by TheMaiden who supervises our Hasbarah cell.
Woe is upon me!
***
I realize by now that it was a major mistake to read this article by Caroline Glick so early in the day. Instead of starting the day with a leisurely cup of coffee, the usual comics pages and slowly getting into the daily routine of the Elders' Hasbara sweatshop, I let my roving eye to fall prey to that headline.
Yeah. Israel is encircled. We have borders on most sides, the blue Med to the West and just a pinch of the Red on the puny Southern tip. That's roughly the picture, if you catch my drift. We are limited by the top of the atmosphere from the above. Our ability to dig in deep into the ground is somewhat restricted by our digging machinery: even taking into account the deepest basements and all kinds of bunkers the military folks dig (just in case, you know), the average extent of our downward mobility remains the same slightly depressing six feet. On top of all these natural issues, we have our cousins surrounding us, most of them seeking this or other kind of redress for some real or imaginary mischief we have been associated with during the last five thousand years or so.
So yes, I was aware of all these existential problems and somehow came to a kind of equilibrium. I have managed to get through a day without going into a nervous breakdown more than, say, two or three times. I have learned not to chew my fingernails all the time, use an unbreakable steel pencil and the bumps on my forehead caused by knocking it on sharp corners are almost gone.
But here comes Caroline with that unfortunate article, and I realize that I am a mere baby in everything concerned with despair. Just look at it:
- Mahmoud the Mad is going to exterminate us in five to six months by his nukes, while Europeans cluck, Russians (aren't they Europeans too on the side?) deal and wheel and Bush adheres to the sanctions. And, of course, Olmert and Livni procrastinate.
- UNIFIL protects Hizballah, its German element is hostile and launches helicopters while its French element wants to use on IAF planes some anti-aircraft machinery they have, probably, just built and are itching to test out. Again, Olmert and Livni cheer the UNIFIL instead of ... what?
- Egypt, on their side (which one is it, let me see - ah, here it is) brought in 5,000 policemen, all armed to the teeth and just waiting for a whistle to descend on poor IDF like a ton of... whatever. Peretz, Olmert and Livni sleep on the job, and it is hard to decide what is more frightening.
- For some reason Caroline does not mention the red-toothed Syrians sitting on our fences ready to pounce (do Syrians pounce? Must check.) and the stealthy Jordanians skulking in the bushes on their (or, maybe, our too) side of the Jordan river. Probably the editor cut this part out due to excessive length. And Peretz, Olmert and Livni do what? Nada. Zilch. Gurnisht.
And now I am totally in despair, folks. No way to run and no means to hide. The only solution Caroline seems to offer is to circle our wagons and sit tight, but I don't even have a wagon - just that crappy Citroen!
I am closing the shop temporary due to total despondency and lack of Maalox.
So long...
***
