HAMISH ROBERTSON: Events in Moscow last week pointed to some strange conundrums in the Russian capital.

Why are some public buildings unable to bear the weight of snow in a city renowned for its severe winters, and why are Muscovites frantically stockpiling salt?

But in the past couple of weeks, salt has been disappearing from the shops, as Russians engage in a frenzy of panic buying.

As Emma Griffiths reports, the causes of this salt-scare are difficult to trace.

Nikolay is an elderly man carrying his shopping bags of cabbages. He has his theory.

“Zionists have triggered this crisis,” he says. “They’ve taken over the country and are now trying to arrange a salt crisis like they did before perestroika, when there were shortages of tobacco and washing powder. They do it all deliberately.”

So, we, the Jooz, have been caught again. Just in two short weeks we have:

• Blown up a famous mosque
• Spread the bird flu over half a world
• Incarcerated a saint of all Aryan people (and some non-Aryan I could mention, but wouldn’t - they are too sensitive lately), using Aryans to do so too
• Buried some nuclear dump over all the Muslim countries (the last time I am using the d-word for the next month or two, I swear!)
• And now, like babies, we are so easily caught stealing salt

OK, fine, time to ‘fess up. You see, we have made a terrible mistake, filling up most of the Dead Sea with crude oil. It’s right that we have now more oil than we’ll ever know what to do with. But the main source of the world salt is gone. Finished, kaput! Even if we ever get a way to dig the salt out, it will be so permeated by oil, no one will agree to lick it. Ever.

So, of course, our emissaries are buying up the salt all over the globe. Then we’ll start reselling it, and believe me, what you ever called the oil crisis will be a joke in comparison.

Hat tip: Judeosphere

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

Hi there, it’s your old friend Laurence Simon, and it’s time for another cra-

Wait a minute. This is Yourish.com, not IMAO.

Anyway, I figured I’d start things off here at Yourish.com with an oldie but goodie, the annual “Jews are dumping nuclear waste on holy Arab lands” gag, this time courtesy of those wacky fun-loving Syrians putting the “HA!” into Ha’aretz:

Syrian Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari told the 65-nation Conference on Disarmament that all Arab states were committed to creating a zone in the Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction.

“However, Israel, which has unambiguous support from major nuclear weapon states, continues to reject the will of the international community and dumps its nuclear waste in the Syrian Golan Heights,” said Ja’afari, the first speaker in Tuesday’s session.

Oh, you mean the same nuclear waste that the palestinians constantly accused Israel of dumping in Gaza? Wait… hold on… I’m sorry… I mean Jordan. Or did I mean West Bank?

Aha! I know… it’s not the Chinese dumping the sludge in Tibet, but Israel!

Man, that’s a lot of nuclear waste being dumped everywhere in the dead of night by those pesky Jews. How an earth do they manufacture so much to bury everywhere?

While y’all go out and get the batteries changed in your BS Detectors, let’s just play Syria’s game for funsies…

What? It was an accident? Oh, come on now. It can’t just be a coincidence that NASA didn’t fly the shuttle again until after Old Napkinhead kicked the bucket and got planted in the Mukatah’s parking lot. There’s got to be a conspiracy somewhere to explain everything.

As the great philosopher Clavin once said “They lie, I lie.”

(That’s Calvin as in Calvin and Hobbes, not John Calvin)

March 15 is just over two weeks away, so fire up those grills and ovens and get ready to eat meat for a good cause: To piss off PETA (history here).

Lair Simon has created a website where you can list your local gathering for others to join you.

I’m going to be at the Royal Dragon kosher Chinese restaurant in Rockville, MD on March 12 at 4 p.m. If you want a late lunch or early dinner, join me. RSVP via email so I can give them a count, or RSVP in these comments.

On the 15th, I’ll be joining Sarah and the kids — perhaps the entire family — for yummy cow, or tasty chicken. Maybe we’ll go to Brock’s BBQ for dinner. Hey, maybe Harrison could meet up with us.

I’ve put my March 12th gathering up. If the 15th gels into concrete plans, I’ll put that one up as well. C.J., if you’re still out there, you’re welcome to join us.

Lynn B. is in Israel this week, that lucky person, and she sent me an email that I simply have to share with you all:

Went to the Wall yesterday — a gorgeous sunny day (temperatures are running in the 60s and 70s here during the day but still cold at night) and they were having a swearing in ceremony for several hundred new soldiers who had just finished basic training. Quite impressive. They give each one of them a gun and a Tanach. Only in Israel.

Yes. Only in Israel. Am Yisrael Chai!

This analysis of Hamas’ election victory by Mark Lavie, who has been writing for the AP for years, deserves to be widely distributed.

It’s one of the few analyses that explicitly states Hamas will never — never – moderate, and it’s written by a man who was there at the birth of the organization.

My suggestion: Send the URL to your local newspaper and see if they’re interested in reprinting it. It deserves wide distribution.

It deserves to be on the op-ed pages of every major newspaper in America.

Now, nearly two decades later, Hamas has surprised itself and won a parliamentary election, putting itself in the position of official power in the West Bank and Gaza. And now the world is wondering – do they really mean all that?

The charter is not an old, dusty document written by an idealistic founding generation to be memorized in classrooms but forgotten in practice, like the Declaration of Independence. Most of the people who wrote it are still around (some have been assassinated by Israel). The charter guides them because it sums up their core beliefs.

But they are patient. They acknowledge that there is a powerful state of Israel, and they are relatively weak. They offer Israel a long-term cease-fire if it will just get out of all of the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem. The Palestinians would establish a state there and bide their time until the inevitable victory of their brand of Islam:

“The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews and kill them; until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!”

The deepest-held beliefs of Hamas dictate Israel’s destruction. It’s just a matter of timing.

Distribute this widely, please.

Welcome, Instapundit readers: Please send the URL of the article to your local newspapers. Just cut and paste:
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/news/editorial/13964502.htm

Also, feel free to look around while you’re here.

The Unbelievable Nincompoops came up with a scoop: it appears that security measures interfere with normal day-to-day life of people. Wow, what a discovery!

“Israel’s tightening of security procedures has exacted a heavy humanitarian toll in the territories since the Palestinian parliamentary elections last month, according to a United Nations report obtained by Haaretz on Monday.”

So the report links the security measures with the Palestinian parliamentary elections. So far so good. But then comes an example of these barbarous security measures:

“Israel’s three-week closure of the Karni crossing, the primary artery used to transport commercial supplies to and from the Gaza Strip, resulted in an estimated loss of $10.5 million, the agency said.”

“The UN says the closure of Karni forced the Palestinians to shut down all Gaza Strip flour mills and, as a consequence, led to the depletion of wheat grain stocks.”

And what, pray, caused the closure of the above mentioned crossing? Was it because of the above mentioned elections really? Or, maybe, just maybe, because of these three “civilians” with Kalashnikovs and hand grenades that tried to shoot their way through that crossing just before the closure?

And some optimists say that there are limits to stupidity…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

The LA Times editorial writers are utterly blind on the subject of Hamas. Please tell me that Michael Kinsley has nothing to do with this drivel:

On Hamas, patience
MAKING THE TRANSITION from critic to participant is always difficult. Leaders of Hamas, after their shocking win in Palestinian elections last month, find themselves undergoing just such a transformation. As they try to assemble a working government, all parties in the Middle East will need to resist the temptation not just of violence but of impatience.

Really? Patience? For what? To wait for Hamas to fully arm their “soldiers” (they did call for an army, don’t forget)? To wait for the first successful suicide bombing in Israel since Hamas was elected? For Hamas to stop lying to the press about negotiating with Israel? Oh, wait, they already have. The press just ignores it.

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