Haveil Havalim is at Soccer Dad. Home is where the heart is, I suppose.

This week’s Shire Network News is where it always is. My contribution is along the them of the more things change, the more they remain the same. I don’t even have to do a new podcast any more—events just keep repeating themselves. Well, Tom Paine’s interview is new, and so is everyone else’s. Go have a listen. Then send the link to a friend.

No, that wasn’t a suggestion. It was an order. No, wait, it was a suggestion. Watch this shiny chain. You are feeling sleepy… sleepy… sleepy. Now, go email the SNN link to all of your friends. On the count of three, you’ll wake up and remember nothing.

One, two, three.

And last, but not least, the Carnival of the Vanities, which I have hosted and taken part in, is four years old. Wow.

It’s after nine p.m. here, and Janet just sent me this YouTube video.

It’s “Tradition” from Fiddler on the Roof—in Japanese. By Japanese actors.

Hilarious.

The UN is so concerned over the fate of the palestinians:

The United Nations’ trade and development agency warned Tuesday that the Palestinian economy was declining dramatically, leading to a worsening this year of already high unemployment and poverty levels in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“The economy of the occupied Palestinian territory is on the verge of collapse,” the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development said, adding that “projections indicate economic decline to levels not seen for a generation.”

We’ve been hearing this same projection year-in, year-out, from this same body, from the EU, from the pro-palestinian groups and the media.

And yet, palestinian civilization (such that it is) has not collapsed. People are not starving. Mothers are not eating their children. The world is not readying great rock concerts to halt the famine in the palestinian territories, because there is no famine, no starvation, and no crisis. The situation is pretty much as it was last year, except the PA isn’t paying salaries—officially. Those people are getting money from somewhere, somehow. They are eating, aren’t they?

So what’s this all about?

Simple. It’s another step towards legitimizing the terrorists government of the palestinian territories. The move to a “unity government” is the sop that the world has needed to justify openly supporting the murderers of Jews and Israelis worldwide. The fiction is now becoming the official cover story: Since Fatah will once more be in control, terrorists are no longer running the PA.

The real fiction, of course, is that the world pretends Fatah is not full of terrorists, or that Fatah does not also want the destruction of Israel. Mahmoud Abbas is not as powerful as his predecessor, nor as well-known or popular, but he learned at the feet of his master how to manipulate the gullible fools of the EU, the UN, and the U.S.: Just say all the right words, in English, to the world media, and people will ignore the fact that your organization funds the terrorists who murder innocents.

The new deal between Fatah and Hamas has nothing to do with recognizing Israel, and nothing to do with stopping terror attacks. It has everything to do with getting the world to turn on the money spigot, because the pals have had to dig into their reserves lately, and they must be getting drained.

Funny, for a people whose economy is in ruin and about to collapse, they’re in awfully good shape, especially compared to, say, the Sudanese.

Don’t believe a word you read about Hamas recognizing Israel “implicitly,” or Fatah being a “moderating influence” on the PA. Hamas is still going to control the ministries of education and interior, both ministries that deal directly with the people. Hamas will continue the anti-Israel indoctrination of palestinian youth, and the brainwashing of the general population, into thinking that jihad is the answer.

The sad thing is, the world has been ready and waiting for a cover story they can run with, and it’s possible that this may finally be the one. I’m hoping for the usual palestinian intramural fighting to cause the usual meltdown. Word on the street is that the natives are getting restless: Hamas is finally polling poorly.

Of course, in office or out, they’re still murdering bastards.

Chipmunk Cheeks Nasrallah, may a Hellfire missile find him soon, says he won’t give up the IDF soldiers Hezbullah kidnapped for anything less than Samir Kuntar’s freedom.

Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah said on Tuesday that he expects a United Nations “Mediator” to visit Lebanon next week to try to secure a deal for the release of two Israeli soldiers it captured in July.

[...] Nasrallah told Jazeera no deal would be possible without the release of Samir Qantar, the longest held Lebanese prisoner in Israel. “You ask me will there be a deal without Samir, I say no,” he said. “Absolutely not.”

If Ehud Olmert releases Kuntar without first making sure there was an “accident” that resulted in Kuntar’s death, I’m thinking I’ll just change the theme of this weblog to fluffy bunnies and kittens, because I don’t think I could ever again write anything in support of an administration that would release a man so depraved he murdered a child’s father in front of her, to make him and her suffer more before their deaths. And then bragged about it.

The man deserves death. Israel needs to seriously rethink its stance on the death penalty. It would solve a lot of prisoner exchange problems. There would be no Samir Kuntar’s for terrorists to bargain over.

The man is a sociopath. For that matter, so is Nasrallah.

Of course, you won’t find anyone in the media screaming about how this violates UN Resolution 1501. They’re too busy insisting that Israel is doing so. It’s Israeli Double Standard Time, as always.

Since Meryl asked, The Carnival of the Cats takes a trip over to Begin Each Day As If It Were On Purpose for episode #129.

Oh, and the catmodel of the week is…

Thanks to Fader77 at Livejournal for sharing Pumpkin with us.

If you’d like to host the The Carnival of the Cats, let me know which week you’d like to host it.

And as for Meryl, I’d be happy to post this boilerplate announcement on this site while I’m posting it on IFOC, COTC, and Catcall.

I’ve been busy at work and too tired at home to do much.

My co-bloggers need to jump in and post about the CoTC, SNN, and HH. I have to run to work….

Just a short AP item about Gaza.

Israeli Soldier Killed in Gunbattle
JERUSALEM (AP) - Hamas militants killed an Israeli soldier early Tuesday during a gunbattle in the Gaza Strip, the army and Palestinian officials said.

The Israeli forces were just a few hundred yards inside Gaza when the firefight erupted, the army said. Hamas and allied militant group said their gunmen killed the soldier.

The Israeli army has been carrying out operations against militants in Gaza since June 25 when militants with ties to the ruling Hamas party captured an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid.

Three paragraphs, a quick bias report:

In the headline: “Israeli soldier killed in Gunbattle,” we have one. Israeli soldiers are always dying passively. Who killed him? Hamas. If the situation were reversed, the headline would have been, “Israel kills Palestinian in Gaza,” and you’d have had to wait three paragraphs to find out he was a terrorist.

The “gunbattle” described in Ynet:

An initial inquiry of the incident revealed that the tracker led the force to a shed where terrorists were thought to be hiding. At least two gunmen were apparently hiding at the place and opened fire at the force from a short range. The tracker was hit in his head and the terrorists managed to escape the scene.

And the inevitable “cross-border raid” description of the account of the murder of IDF soldiers and the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit.

Three paragraphs. The AP bias is firmly entrenched.