15 days until I join the world of people whose company pays for their healthcare costs, instead of being on my own.

Actually, 15 more days until I’m no longer one of the millions of uninsured Americans.

These are two complaints delivered to the Richmond Times-Dispatch as part of their “Your 2 Cents” program. I really like the Your 2 Cents thing, because it proves that you can’t make this stuff up.

Why does your paper persist in burying Heloise’s Household Hints in the classified section? The only reason I can think of is that you are hoping that while searching for it, women will end up browsing the ads and find all sorts of items that they want to purchase that they hadn’t previously realized they needed.

You end up wasting space in other parts of the paper advertising where it can be found. Why don’t you just move it to the Flair section where it would fit right in? — Betty Brand, Weems

---

Just because I would ban dangerous dogs and prohibit noisy dogs in residential areas does not mean I suggest any connection between said dogs and said groups. That is because I don’t put the value of dogs (pit bulls or otherwise) up on a par with the value of humans. I wonder if she does. How did that get past the Your 2 Cents editors?

Showcasing a few highly controlled pit bulls at a county fair is no more a remedy of their potential threats than showcasing firearms is a remedy for gun crime. And, I’d find it interesting to see who’d attempt to tout pit bulls in more progressive areas that now ban them, like Miami, Indianapolis, Denver, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Germany. — Lyman Flinn, Henrico

(Note: This post is old, taken from my spike file, but still amusing enough to share.)

Looks like even the terrorists are deserting them.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Hamas ended coalition talks Thursday after failing to secure a single party as a partner, but said it will form a government on its own - a scenario likely to ensure international isolation for the Islamic militants.

The new Cabinet, to be presented to parliament next week, must also win the approval of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has been telling Hamas, which swept January elections, that it must first renounce violence and accept interim peace accords with Israel.

Hamas has rejected those demands, also made by Israel, the United States and Europe, which label Hamas a terrorist group. Israel has already suspended monthly transfer of tens of millions of dollars in tax money to the Palestinians, and Western donors are considering cutting aid - a critical element in the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority’s budget.

I’m guessing that the PFLP’s incentives for working with Hamas just got themselves transferred to an Israeli jail. Bummer.

So Hamas is going to go it alone. It will be interesting to see this play out, to say the least.

A foul disease causing illness across the globe may be visiting Israel sooner rather than later:

Millionaire model and actress Paris Hilton could be the next big American star to visit Israel, according to a report Monday in Hebrew daily Ma’ariv. Hilton’s manager was approached by the Israeli branch of the Elite Modeling Agency to pose for a line of beachwear, said the report.

If she agrees to the assignment, then Hilton could be in Israel as soon as the end of this month. Hilton will also participate in the modeling agency’s three-year anniversary celebration at Tel Aviv hot spot Viskia. A spokesman for the Hilton hotel chain in Israel could not confirm whether Paris Hilton was visiting. He said: “There are always rumors that Paris Hilton will visit but we have no knowledge of a future reservation.”

No no no… not her. Did I say foul? I meant something fowl may be visitng Israel.

Israeli authorities were bracing for a potential outbreak of the deadly strain of avian flu Thursday, after more than one thousand poultry were found dead in southern Israel.

The suspected bird flu was found in birds at hen-houses on Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha in the western Negev. There are also reports of huge numbers of dead birds in nearby communities, including Kibbutz Holit.

Both Ein Hashlosha and Holit have been fully quarantined, and roadblocks have been erected on the main routes into the area.

Not to worry, Israel. After all, Syria said matter-of-factly in their state-run media that the Israeli-developed strain was genetically engineered to infect and kill only Arabs.

The state-run Syrian daily al-Thawra lately hinted that Israel developed the bird flu virus to harm the genes of its Arab neighbors.

An article published by the newspaper argues that Israel spread the virus in the Far East to mislead the world.

The newspaper backed its suspicions by citing a 1998 report in the Sunday Times that Israel is developing a biological “ethnic bomb” that would kill Arabs and not Jews.

According to the Times, Israeli scientists are trying to identify genes characteristic to Arabs and then develop viruses that attack these genes. The newspaper said the program is being carried out at the Institute for Biological Research in Nes Tsiona near Tel Aviv.

Whew. Isn’t that a relief?

Part one. Part two. Part four. Part five. Part six.

17. I generally eat only fresh or frozen vegetables, but I have a secret place in my heart for the vegetables of my childhood–Green Giant canned green beans and Niblets corn. Whenever they’re on sale at the supermarket, I can’t seem to resist buying them. Two for eighty-eight cents? I’m there! I don’t care that they have almost no nutritional value. I love ‘em.

Corollary to the above: I loathe peas. The garden peas, the shelled, rounded balls of green that are packaged in so many mind-boggling disgusting ways. I hate them canned, I hate them frozen, and I hate them designer frozen. The only peas I can eat are in the shell — sugar snap peas and snow peas. Keep those little green garden things. Ew. Ew. I say: Ew.

18. I can’t stand drunks. I’ve had more than my fair share of alcoholics in my friendships over the years. If you can’t stop at two or three drinks at a social occasion, I don’t want to know you. If you’re an angry drunk, I don’t want to know you. If you’re a weepy drunk, I don’t want to know you. If you’re a boring drunk, I don’t want to know you. In fact, if you’re a drunk, I don’t want to know you. However, when you get sober, I’ll be happy to be friends with you again. There are some who might call this being a fair-weather friend. Those people obviously don’t know any alcoholics.

19. I don’t panic in emergencies. I do what needs to be done, and when the emergency is all over, then I start shaking and wishing I had a cigarette or a drink. (I’m an ex-smoker.) I also have pretty good presence of mind. When the fire alarm went off quite suddenly while I was in class at the Chubb Institute, I grabbed my coat and unplugged my laptop as I got up to leave. No sense losing a $1500 laptop, and it was cold outside. I don’t believe in taking the chance that it was a false alarm, or wouldn’t burn down my classroom. It was a small fire somewhere else in the building, but still — I don’t feel that I wasted my effort.

20. I do not blush. I can’t remember the last time I blushed. It’s a phenomenon that occurs once every three to five years, perhaps. And when I do blush, it’s for really stupid things that no sane human being would blush over. Oh, I can be embarrassed. But you generally can’t see me blush.

21. The fried potato is God’s second-greatest gift to mankind. (The Torah is the first.) I worship the fried potato in all of its forms, and it is almost exclusively responsible for my weight gain this past year. Potato chips, latkes, Tater Tots, the myriad Ore-Ida products, homemade, store-bought, fast food — I really like fried potatoes. And fried onions. Ooh, and fried chicken, and fried vegetables, and fried squash blossoms, and, hell, I’m pretty convinced that if you bread and fry cardboard, it’d probably be good, too.

22. I don’t like pizza. Yeah, yeah, I’m un-American. But I don’t care for garlic much, don’t like tomato sauce, and I’m not fond of cheese. That leaves bread. I like bread.

23. When I really like something, I tend to go through obsessions. The Babylon 5 obsession was replaced by the Buffy/Angel obsession which was replaced by the Gilmore Girls obsession. Before that was Sisters and China Beach, and there will doubtless be new ones to come. Sometimes it’s a movie: T2 was a big enough obsession that it got me to exercise and work out in the hopes of looking a bit more like Linda Hamilton. Though I got to the point where I could carry four full bags of groceries up three flights of stairs without so much as needing an extra breath (hey, ex-smoker here, remember), I never did get anywhere close to her physique in the movie. Must have been the lack of a personal trainer and working out six hours a day on a program designed by Arnold Schwarzenegger. But hey, the movie’s still good.

Oh, I know why I go through these obessions. I figure it out about halfway through them. But it’s always too personal to tell.

24. When I was in high school, my then-best friend’s boyfriend got us tickets to see Leslie West and Mountain in Asbury Park. We hadn’t heard of the opening group. I remember thinking, “Wow, great guitar player, but man, that lead singer has a weird voice.” The little-known group was called Rush.

I still don’t own a single Rush album. All their stuff sounds alike to me.

25. I didn’t eat a tomato until I was in my twenties. Now I don’t consider a salad a salad unless it’s overflowing with them. I didn’t eat broccoli until I was in my twenties, either, and it’s one of my favorite vegetables now.

Israel’s newest Foreign Minister is speaking truth to journalists:

The Palestinians regular “modus operandi” is blaming Israel, so there is no need for the Jewish State to respond to such accusations, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Thursday in response to charges that the IDF’s Jericho raid Tuesday weakened PA leader Mahmoud Abbas’ position.

“The classic Palestinian concept is blaming Israel,” she said. “The Brits warned they were about to leave (the prison) and informed him (Abbas) about it, but he did nothing. On the deciding date he found himself in Vienna, called on the international community to intervene, and blamed Israel.”

“The person responsible for Abu Mazen’s (Abbas) status is Abu Mazen himself,” Livni said. “His position is not only dependent on Israel. His status hinges on his deeds, or failures.”

What a concept: The palestinians are to blame for their own problems. Way to go, Tzipi!

All this time, I thought it was the editors. Now I think it’s the Jerusalem bureau chief. Check this one out. It’s loaded for bear from the headline on down.

Prison Raid Shows Israel’s New Freedom
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel’s dramatic seizure of senior Palestinian militants from a West Bank jail highlights its new freedom of action with the internationally shunned Hamas poised to take over Palestinian government.

Tuesday’s raid also undercuts the authority of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, boosts the electoral prospects of acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and sends a strong warning to Hamas about failing to honor past accords.

Neither of those are the killer graf. This one is:

In one way, though, it lets Hamas off the hook. Hamas had intended to release the militants, but the raid allowed them to avoid the international outcry that almost surely would have followed had they done so.

Do you see the logic? Because Israel went in and got the terrorists who killed Ze’evi, Hamas didn’t have to face the world outcry it would have gotten for releasing five terrorists. Pay careful attention to that logic, because in the AP world, cause-and-effect are perfectly clear: It is always the fault of Israel and the West, never the fault of the murderers, thieves, and liars in the PA.

Israel, the United States and Britain blamed the Palestinian Authority for the 10-hour siege at a prison in the West Bank town of Jericho that left three Palestinians dead and culminated in the surrender of militant leader Ahmed Saadat and four of his alleged accomplices in the 2001 murder of an Israeli Cabinet minister.

Under a four-year-old agreement, Saadat and the other prisoners were held in a Palestinian jail monitored by U.S. and British guards. But the guards left Tuesday, a week after the United States and Britain warned Abbas they would go unless the Palestinians beefed up security.

Israel, the United States and Britain argued the Palestinians had failed to live up to their commitments under the Jericho accord.

The palestinians did fail to live up to their agreements. There is no argument on that part. There is only truth and falsehood, and the AP is lying if they’re telling you the pals kept their agreements. But wait, here’s the worst part of the cause-and-effect:

The guards’ departure triggered the Israeli raid and a spree of violent Palestinian protests and widespread kidnappings of foreigners.

Do you get the cause-and-effect? The Israeli raid was not triggered by the palestinian failure to keep the Jericho accord. It was not triggered by the leader of Hamas saying that they would free the murderers of Minister Ze’evi. It was not triggered by Mahmoud Abbas saying that he had no problem with the release of the murderers. The Israeli “raid” was triggered by the departure of the British guards.

Which also triggered the palestinian protests and kidnappings. See? The AP cause-and-effect: It’s never the fault of the pals. It’s always on Israel and the West (but usually just Israel, in these cases).

And yet there is still more. Observe:

With Hamas’ refusal to recognize Israel and renounce violence in the wake of its surprise Jan. 25 victory in parliamentary elections - and Israel’s insistence it will not do business with a Hamas government - many Israelis and Palestinians were wondering which agreement would unravel next.

Hamas has out-and-out said that they will not recognize previous agreements with Israel. There is nothing to unravel. One party is refusing to abide by precedent and law, the other has no contol over it.

Delicate understandings painstakingly brokered by the United States and Europe after Israel’s Gaza pullout last summer - including a new Gaza-Egypt border crossing monitored by European inspectors - could meet the same fate as the Jericho accord.

The prison raid “shows the new thrust, the new aim which is complete (Israeli) unilateralism, forget that there’s anybody on the other side,” said Diana Buttu, a former legal adviser to the Palestinian Authority.

Had enough yet? Do you see how this article utterly turns the issue on its head and blames Israel completely for everything? Well, wait. Because Gutkin isn’t done yet.

Hamas’ victory, added outgoing Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath, “has stopped any international pressure on Israel, and thus Israel feels it has a free hand to do anything it wants.”

Sure. Because it’s not like the UN Security Council isn’t currently working on a resolution condemning Israel for the raid on the jail. Right. Israel can do anything it wants, and all international pressure has stopped.

I’m going to stop now, because I’ve been yelling in Sarah’s ear while writing this. That, and I don’t want to give myself an aneurysm.