You know that Geico caveman commercial? The hilarious one where the Geico spokesman insults two cavemen and winds up having to take them out for an apology dinner?

There are three of them.

Update: YouTube removed some of them. Bummer.

First.

Second.

Last.

They’ll all show up in the YouTube sidebar, but there are the individual links just in case.

I love that last one. I can’t stop laughing, no matter how many times I’ve seen it.

Ha’aretz says Zakaria Zubeidi escaped the IDF when they surrounded his tent.

Jerusalem Post says Al-Arabiyya Television has reported him as killed.

So, like, does he get 36 virgins in Limbo?

The PA has finally come out into the open and admitted it is at war with Israel:

The Palestinian Interior Ministry announced Thursday evening a high state of alert among its security forces in Gaza.

Palestinian Interior Minister Said Siam called on security forces “to prepare to repel the Israeli attack in Gaza.”

Palestinian interior and national security spokesman Abu Hilal sounded more determined when he stated clearly that orders have been given to Palestinian police officers and security forces to fire on Israeli troops.

This is the first time that official Palestinian sources say that an order have been given to Palestinian security forces to open fire at IDF forces operating in Gaza.

An interior ministry spokesman said that “the officers and security force members should open fire at the invading Israeli forces.”

Oh, this is an interesting new twist. Now that the democratically-elected government of the palestinians has officially declared war, will the world insist that the Israelis “show restraint” and not harm the poor, poor, pitiful pals?

Well, yeah. Of course they will. Duh.

I spent all but the last four years of my life in New Jersey, and I have to say, I’m glad I’m not there any more. Not that I dislike the people specifically—there are just too many of them. Not that I like the state–it’s just too expensive. Taxes are too high. Sure, salaries are high, but so is the cost of living in the areas where I want to live. So here I am, in Richmond, VA, reading about the state of NJ shutting down because Gov. Corzine (the millionaire businessman) and the state legislature (many of whom are also millionaire businessmen) can’t agree on a budget. Because Corzine wants to raise the sales tax from 6% to 7%, instead of, say, cutting the bloated government of New Jersey, where I believe the number of public employees now outnumbers private employees.

And gee, this sounds so encouraging:

In an address to the state Legislature earlier in the morning, Corzine announced that he had put a new compromise on the table to end the budget stalemate with Roberts. The two have had a long stand-off with Corzine over the governor’s plan to raise the sales tax from 6 percent to 7 percent.

Aides to the governor said Corzine has offered a new plan that would provide 50 percent of the sales tax increase to property tax relief each year if voters approve it in a constitutional amendment. Using a constitutional amendment would mean lawmakers would be forced to use half the sales tax for property tax relief even if there is a big budget crunch. Roberts had wanted 100 percent of the sales tax increase dedicated to property tax reform.

Let me explain to non-New Jerseyans what the fictional “property tax rebate” is. Every year, instead of lowering taxes, the legislature keeps taxes high and “rebates” to homeowners (and renters) a portion of their property taxes. Now, ask the average citizen this question: Would you rather have $500 of your own money now, or would you rather give it to the government, wait a year, and then get it back?

What would YOU say?

And yet, not a single New Jersey politician has managed to find the stones to tell the taxpayers of NJ that the “property tax rebate” is a hoax. It has always been a hoax. Taxes in New Jersey don’t go down. The budget in NJ doesn’t go down.

At the heart of the conflict is Corzine’s demand for a sales tax hike to 7 percent, to fill a $1.1 billion hole in the budget. Roberts and other Assembly Democrats call the sales tax discriminatory.

Corzine, a former Wall Street executive, insists a sales tax hike will do the least harm to the economy. But he also has framed his position as a stand against the fiscal policies of the past, which have been blamed for putting wealthy New Jersey in a precarious fiscal position, with one of the highest debt loads of any state.

This is actually true. New Jersey had a Republican governor and a Republican legislature under Christie Whitman. They had the same thing under Tom Kean. Sixteen years of Republican government bloated the budget like, well, like they were Democrats. Although many conservatives say that New Jersey Republicans really are Democrats by another name. The other trend in New Jersey has been to elect millionaires to the top office. Kean, Whitman, Corzine—not a one of them ever used coupons growing up, I’m sure.

But the people of New Jersey are in a lose-lose situation. Because here’s what the Star Ledger’s editorial staff thinks makes a good compromise:

Instead of placing the $550 million in a fund that wouldn’t be tapped for year, why not add that to the property tax rebates this year?

In other words, here they go again.

At least Virginia is still cheaper than New Jersey. My part of it, anyway.

Anne Bayefsky has a new column about the unchangeable anti-Israel bias of the UN.

The widespread misrepresentation of the Council made its self-immolation in its first two weeks of operation even more striking. The Human Rights Council is now the U.N.’s lead human-rights body, and examples of egregious human-rights violations should not have been hard to find. In Darfur, there are three quarters of a million people beyond humanitarian reach, 2.5 million people displaced by the violence, 385,000 people in immediate risk of starvation, and over two million dead in 22 years of violence and deprivation. But it wasn’t genocide in Sudan that interested the Human Rights Council. Nor was it a billion Chinese without civil and political rights. Not 13 million women in Saudi Arabia whose lives depend on hiding from sight in public places and never being caught behind the wheel of an automobile. Not the dire human-rights conditions of 23 million people in North Korea. Not Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s incitement to genocide or his country’s legal system, which includes crucifixion, stoning and amputation.

No; there was only one country singled out by the U.N. Human Rights Council, and that was Israel. The Council decided that the program for the first session should focus discussion on five issues; the first one being the “human rights situation in the occupied Arab Territories, including Palestine.” (The rest were “support for the Abuja Peace Agreement,” and three thematic subjects.) The Council placed criticism of Israel permanently on the agenda of all future sessions. It gave only the special investigator on Israel what amounted to a permanent mandate. On its final day, the Council passed just one resolution condemning human-rights violations by any of the 192 U.N. members, and directed it at Israel. When it was all over, the Council decided to hold its first special (emergency) session within a few days — on Israel.

The numbers explain it all. There are 47 states on the Human Rights Council divided among five regional groups. Fifty-five percent are from the African and Asian regional groups. In the May election, the member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) garnered a majority on both the African and Asian regional groups, thereby giving them the balance of power. Since no criterion exists for Council membership other than geography, countries like China, Cuba, Russia, and Saudi Arabia were elected without difficulty. Furthermore, 32 of the 47 new Council members are from the so-called Group of 77, and when it comes to human rights, developing nations have proven themselves a highly effective protection racket.

[...] In other Council “improvements,” a decision by the Commission to hold a special session required a majority vote; at the Council, only one third of the members are required. On Friday, 21 of 47 members asked for a special session on Israel, thereby meeting the lower Council threshold. In fact, the 17 Islamic members alone satisfy the new requirement.

Read the rest.

What happens when you finance, teach, encourage, and otherwise promote suicide bombing?

Your enemy decides that your people are fair game for suicide bomb attacks.

A suicide car bomb tore through buses carrying Iranian pilgrims Thursday near a Shiite shrine in the holy Iraqi city of Kufa, killing at least 10 people and wounding 40, authorities said.

[...] Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi, called the bombing “barbaric terrorist act” and singled the Americans out for blame.

“The wrong approach of occupying Americans and their failure to be accountable in Iraq has spread violence and terrorism in this country. Terrorists, relying on America’s wrong approach, continue their crimes,” state-run television quoted Asefi as saying.

Perhaps if Iran hadn’t spent the last several decades teaching terrorists that it was a good thing to send suicide bombers against those they disagreed with, hated, or simply didn’t like, those Iranian pilgrims would be alive today.

The legacy of Arafat, combined with the willing aid of the Mullahs of Tehran, is what caused those deaths today. The fatwas issuing from mosques that say suicide bombing is legal is what caused those deaths today. Iran is complicit in its own people’s deaths. But of course, they will never step up and admit it was their policies that killed those pilgrims.

The pigeons have come home to roost, and that isn’t birdshit they’re dropping.

Israeli police will be ready and waiting to arrest and deport any ISM “peace” advocate who uses the typical ISM tactics to disrupt Israeli authorities.

The Israel Police is taking a tough stance against the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), which is planning a series of protests against the separation fence over the next month. The main policy decision includes the immediate deportation of violent protestors, without waiting for the full investigation of an indictment. The police recently decided to renew the guidelines regarding the questioning of Knesset members and public figures, in the event they join the demonstrations and break the law in doing so.

[...] The organization is planning widespread protests in the West Bank throughout the coming month in the Bili’in and Tel Rumeida areas, and perhaps others as well, as part of their “Summer of Peace.” Previous ISM demonstrations have turned into violent confrontations during which activists broke through Israel Defense Forces checkpoints, entered prohibited areas and tangled with Israeli security forces.

In light of previous incidents in which ISM activists have assaulted IDF soldiers and police officers, the Israel Police Investigations and Intelligence Division decided to adopt a “zero tolerance” policy. In addition to deporting lawbreakers, activists suspected of serious violence against security personnel or IDF property will be prosecuted.

Best build up those bail funds now, ISM creeps. The Israeli authorities will be waiting for you.

It is highly symbolic that, unlike the moronic anti-Israeli parrot of the previous post, an Arab journalist has the integrity and the courage to be truthful.

In his weekly column, veteran journalist Abed al-Rahman Rashad, CEO of the Arab news agency Al-Arabiya, demanded: “Those that are now asking for the help of Arab governments – shouldn’t they be asking themselves who asked the Arab nations for advice before they kidnapped the soldier, or carried out any other operations that would lead to a conflict which has no chance of success, and would incur enormous damages like the ones we see in Gaza?”

His is the lonely voice, true, but compare his risky and unpopular stance to the patronizing pontifical bull of Jonathan Steel and his ilk, and make up your minds.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

Goes to no other than Jonathan Steele for the following passage from the article Europe’s response to the siege of Gaza is shameful:

Finally, Israel must renounce violence, in particular the assassinations of Palestinian leaders. The number of civilians killed in these attacks this year alone far exceeds the number of Israeli victims since Hamas declared its ceasefire last year. The facts do not support the notion that Israel is “retaliating” to provocations.

To repeat: “far exceeds the number of Israeli victims since Hamas declared its ceasefire last year“. How do you like that “victims of a ceasefire”? If you know how to solve this moronic quandary, your desk in Guardian is waiting for you.

There is much more where it comes from, but this should be sufficient to show the true colors of Mr Steele.

Oh, and I liked very much that “European impotence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is of course an ancient problem.” Need you wonder about the reasons of the impotence, seeing that sample above?

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

Let’s take a look at what’s going on in Israel, site of the 2006 World Pride Parade.

The Sephardic Chief Rabbi is asking the Pope to help him block the parade in Jerusalem. (Wow, religion makes strange bedfellows, eh?)

The Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi wants the parade canceled, too.

Shas party minister Meshulam Nahari is objecting to a new program by the Education Minister to combat homophobia in Israel’s education system.

Three Christian organizations condemned the parade.

And the Muslim response?

Last week a Muslim leader, Knesset Member Ibrahim Sarsur (United Arab List-Ta’al), warned gays that “if they dare to approach the Temple Mount during the World Pride 2006 parade in Jerusalem they will do so over our dead bodies.”

There are degrees of intolerance. I think I’ll take the Jewish or Christian intolerance of gays over the Muslim intolerance.

And I will bet you that when this hits the mainstream media, any violence at the parade by religious Jews will be played up, while any violence by Muslims and Christians will be downplayed or ignored—as will the fact that Israel is the only nation in the Middle East where a Gay Pride parade could be held.

Update: Great minds think alike, and Lynn’s got a post on this as well.