Netanyahu's comments on cleanliness came less than an hour after police recommended that Likud MK Yisrael Katz be charged with fraud and breach of trust.What could one learn from this gaffe? First of all, the importance of real time information flow. Secondly, that cleanliness is not a good criteria to measure politicians - after all, the quantity of dirt per party is simply proportional to the number of MKs in the party these days.
I have always been suspicious of all kinds of diets and other restrictions on my intake of food, drinks and drugs (of course, not classified as controlled substances - as if somebody, not being a deity, can claim control of substance). Now my suspicion is confirmed firmly and finally.
Researchers at Sweden's Karolinska University Hospital were approached by a 59-year old non-drinker after he registered positive for alcohol when blowing into an in-car ignition interlocking device that would not allow him to drive. As a glider pilot who supervised private aviation, the man had been surprised and upset about the positive result, which occurred while he was undergoing a weight loss program involving a very low calorie diet.Ha!
After about a week since his mysterious disappearance, Aaron aka Bagel Blogger is back in all the splendor of his magnificent template.
Here he is, and one of these days he will tell us what kind of a mission his blog was on.
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The whole story circulates too widely to comment on it, after all everyone and his mother in law already spent a few sleepless night waiting for the wall of seawater swallowing his dwelling. And everyone has already discussed with his mother in law the derision of some people (especially of Republican persuasion in US of A) about this famous water wall.
But it seems that, after getting that Oscar, Al Gore is not content with his cinematic achievements, trying to use the momentum for political advancement.Even though he has stated he does not intend to run again, polls suggest Mr Gore would be one of the favoured candidates among Democrats, challenging the popularity of Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
The first part of this quote is a consolation, the second a warning: it may happen. And the big question is whether the public will hand the job to the person who... how to say it mildly... reinvents more than just himself.
It has become rather an accepted practice in some "progressive" circles to counter the lies of the other side by even bigger lies and exaggerations, all "for the cause" (let's call it The Moore Principle). When some leftist journalists say that the truth does not matter anymore, when some documentary makers produce fairy tales, it seems only logical that a person with presidential aspirations and similar political leanings will pick up and use the same method. Look what some sober people are saying about Al Gore and his ride on the wave.
Some of Mr. Gore’s centrist detractors point to a report last month by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body that studies global warming. The panel went further than ever before in saying that humans were the main cause of the globe’s warming since 1950, part of Mr. Gore’s message that few scientists dispute. But it also portrayed climate change as a slow-motion process.I am not too good in non-metric units of measure, but I guess that a difference between 23 inches and 20 feet is a bit more than a centimetre or two. I would also guess that fear, even when not coupled with greed, is a very good brain stimulator and makes crowds much more receptive to the message and the messenger. And the messenger is right here, looming larger than life, waving his Oscar (what symbol stronger than this one was invented in US?) and, while not explicitly promising salvation, at least broadly hinting that he (of course) is the savior. The Moore principle at its finest.
It estimated that the world’s seas in this century would rise a maximum of 23 inches — down from earlier estimates. Mr. Gore, citing no particular time frame, envisions rises of up to 20 feet and depicts parts of New York, Florida and other heavily populated areas as sinking beneath the waves, implying, at least visually, that inundation is imminent.
Climate change alarmism is every bit as corrosive to public debates and public policy as climate change denial. Inattention to the truth, inconvenient or otherwise, is no better than propaganda.But Al Gore seems to be undisturbed by the people who, belonging to his camp, are worried about the price of "inattention to truth" (That's Terry Glavin, being more British than a Brit in this case - as far as understatement is concerned). This is the answer Gore offers his critics:
I am trying to communicate the essence of it in the lay language that I understand.So - maybe there is an opportunity here for the man? Like, for example, to improve his understanding and to start with purchasing a measuring tape to get an inkling of the difference between an inch and a foot.
This is John Terry, a centre back (or center back for heathens) of the English football team:
And this is what he said in an interview in Israel:Israeli team is one of the best in the world.
Now, there are several possible reasons for this amazing statement:
Those distraught women can be dangerous...A music producer told a US court he has six children on the way - all with different women.
Ricky Lackey was asked by a judge how many children he had during sentencing on an attempted theft charge.
Lackey, 25, of Cincinnati, told Hamilton County Judge Melba Marsh: "None, but I have six on the way."
"Are you marrying a woman with six children?" asked the confused judge.
"No, I be concubining," he replied, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Prosecutors said Lackey is the expectant father of six children with six different women. The women all are expected to deliver in August, September and October.
Lackey's lawyer, Stephen Wenke, stopped his client from saying more.
"This is what I refer to as hooters hasbara.", says Aussie Dave aka Israellycool, referring both to the decision of Hooters to open a first restaurant somewhere in Tel Aviv and to this:The beer 'n' babes magazine Maxim will send photographers to Israel next week for an Israeli women photo shoot that Foreign Ministry officials hope redefines what the magazine's hormone-charged readers think when they hear television reporters say "the situation in Israel is hot."
Well, this is the question of terminology. Some may consider the situation hot, but some will call it totally cool. Anyway, to give you some food for thought on the subject, here comes a potpourri of the relevant material, lovingly collected by some unnamed (unless you consider "alon9999" to be a name) connoisseur.
Warning: the contents are not what you would call strictly kosher!
Apparently the iron will of the public to let a few heads roll in the aftermath of the second Lebanon war makes the real investigation into the reasons for some failures close to impossible. Otherwise, there is no reasonable explanation to the unbelievable fact: the investigation of the failures in the logistics area, where lots of complaints on the lack of ammunition, food, even water were voiced, was undertaken by... the OC IDF Logistics and Medical Branch Maj.-Gen. Avi Mizrachi.Noting the poor quality of equipment found in emergency military warehouses during the second Lebanon war, OC IDF Logistics and Medical Branch Maj.-Gen. Avi Mizrachi announced Tuesday plans to invest NIS 2 billion to upgrade the equipment used by reservists in a time of war.
Speaking at a press conference at Tel Hashomer on Tuesday, Mizrachi said the emergency warehouses would undergo a complete overhaul - over a period of five years - and be stocked with new vests, helmets, weapons and uniforms.
Will it be at least reasonable to ask the general where exactly has he been in the years before the war? Because we know only too well what kind of advice he offered during the war:"If our soldiers deep in Lebanon are left without food and water, as far as I'm concerned they can break into local shops" (Technology and Logistics head, Maj.-Gen. Avi Mizrachi, finds an alternative to his branch, in an interview with Army Radio).
In another interview (no link, unfortunately), the same Avi Mizrachi displayed his philosofical inclinations by telling that logistics are ruled by Pareto principle. Which means that you succeed to do your job in 80% of the cases, more or less. Which also means that these 20% of our guys who found themselves without food, water or reliable equipment have Pareto to blame - instead of general Mizrachi.
And to add insult to injury, our learned general has some ideas for the future:
In addition, Mizrachi, who led a probe into the role the reservists played during the war, has recommended the creation of a three-year program in which reservists will train for a period of 10 days once every two years and enlist for operations and guard duty once every three years.I don't know, folks. Tell me what you want, but in my book a general like this should be court-martialled without delay and, hopefully, frog marched to the nearest wall and shot.
A new level of atrocity was reached recently by the terrorists in Iraq.
Insurgents detonated a bomb in a car carrying two children after using the children as decoys to get through a military checkpoint in Baghdad, an American general said Tuesday.There is no need to comment on this. Only one question haunts me now: is it the lowest in human behavior we are seeing, or, maybe, the future is preparing more?
American soldiers had stopped the car at the checkpoint but allowed it to pass after they seeing the two children in the back seat.
"Children in the back seat lower suspicion," he said, according to a transcript. "We let it move through. They parked the vehicle. The adults run out and detonate it with the children in back."
An Iranian woman who had been living with her two children at Moscow's international airport for nine months is free in Canada.
Zahra Kamalfar arrived at Vancouver International Airport on Thursday, after a flight from Europe. Surrounded by reporters and supporters, she burst out sobbing, then fainted, after being reunited with her brother, Nader Kamalfar, whom she hadn't seen in nearly 14 years.
This is, probably, one of the more remarkable expressions of public opinion in a presidential race:
If, indeed, as Obama himself says, his staff didn't have anything to do with this "Vote Different" clip, this is a grass-roots phenomena at its best.
Al Jazeera (the dot com variety - not to be mixed with the dot net one) made a big production out of the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed torture story. In an article titled "The torture of Sheikh Mohammed worked!", Al Jazeera says:UN investigations had previously concluded that the United States committed acts amounting to torture at Guantanamo, including force-feeding detainees as well as subjecting them to prolonged solitary confinement.
While this provides a weak support to the claims of torture, for once we are going with the folks of Al Jazeera. After all, where we'll all end up if we continue to ignore the voices of free press?
Specifically, it is clear that the unending stream of confessions by the subject is really getting out of hand, and very soon he may start to confess to all the dastardly deeds that by right belong to the realm of Elders. So we have decided to investigate the situation, sending our ace agent for the purpose. And the truth exceeded our expectations.
As you can see on the latest photo of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he was definitely force fed, since he does look as a stuffed goose.
But the most striking change is not that of the girth (after all, let's not forget the hectic and nerve-wracking way of life KSM used to enjoy before his capture, compared to the current serenity, regular meals and medical supervision). What is most amazing is the hair, of course. The pictures from our archives show the bald head of KSM:
And his bare hairless body (only a fragment, so do not get overexcited):
The lack of hair served him well in the sewers he used to frequent in his undercover activities.
So, the stark truth of the matter is that it is not only sleep deprivation, force feeding and solitary confinement - no, there is more. Of course, KSM served as a laboratory rat for one of the giant pharmaceutic concerns that is developing a new hair growing drug and was in dire need of testing volunteers. And of course, the process was tortuously painful, this is why KSM sings so freely.
And this is not the end of it, as our valiant agent discovered. Another stage of torture is being planned for KSM. It appears that another company, in cosmetic surgery this time, is going to try out its new widget for hair removal. We want to save our readers from the horrors of the new method, so we shall only say that the adhesive strips used by the female part of population pale into insignificance when compared to the new way. It is promising to become a bestseller!
Better him than us, that for sure...
Update: Fresh from the press, Al Jazeera reports on another prisoner singing his guts out:
A Guantanamo Bay detainee is said to have confessed to planning an attack on the USS Cole in 2000 and assisting with the bombing of two embassies in east Africa in 1998, according to a transcript released by the Pentagon.Now the picture of the suspect:
Wallid bin Attash told a military hearing that he bought explosives and recruited the team that rammed a boat into the ship.
This is how. No, it is not a new Polish joke, it is for real:
The Polish government is to ban discussions on homosexuality in schools and educational institutions across the country, with teachers facing the sack, fines or imprisonment.Yeah, well, whatever. Let's be silent about something and it will just go away. I hope Mr Giertych does not cover his head as well, in order not to see the "deviance". Cause a deviant might just happen to be around...
Mr Giertych, the leader of the ultra-conservative League of Polish Families, a junior coalition partner in the government of prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, said the aim of the proposed law would be to "prohibit the promotion of homosexuality and other deviance".
Poland's education minister, Roman Giertych, has said he hopes to introduce a similar ban across the entire EU.Be fun to watch...
Haaretz reported today on a poll that may be of some interest to inquiring minds.The poll's most dramatic finding was that 28 percent of local Arabs did not believe the Holocaust happened, and that among high-school and college graduates the figure was even higher: 33 percent.
I am not sure about the dramatic part: is it re the benefits of higher education?
Asked about Israel's war in Lebanon last summer, 48 percent of the Israeli Arabs polled said they believe Hezbollah's rocket attacks on northern Israel during that war were justified, even though numerous Arabs were killed and wounded as well.Er... so what is the big deal? If I do not like somebody, it makes it easier to say things about him/her... There must be some reason for the people polled to dislike us, obviously. And the following statement, no matter how absurd it may seem, only follows in the steps of the previous ones:
While 89 percent said they view Israel's bombing of Lebanon as a war crime, only 44 percent said they see Hezbollah's attacks on Israel as such.
Half of Israeli Arab respondents said Hezbollah's capture of the two Israeli soldiers, which sparked the fighting, was justified.Why? I am not sure this question was in the questionnaire. But could the reason why be that the Israeli Arab chieftains are brainwashing them quite relentlessly, like this:
MK Ahmed Tibi said he doubted some of the findings and said he cannot explain the numbers indicating support for Hezbollah, although he noted that usually there is no empathy for the aggressor, which he said was Israel.So - the learned Dr. Tibi cannot explain the numbers, but he can easily finger the aggressor, you see.
The poll also found that Israeli Arabs worry about their future: 62 percent worry that Israel could transfer their communities to the jurisdiction of a future Palestinian state. Sixty percent said they are concerned about a possible mass expulsion.Somebody is mightily confused here. And I suspect it is not me... Yeah.
Among the Arab respondents, 76 percent described Zionism as racist. But more than two-thirds said they would be content to live in the Jewish state, if it existed alongside a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.
