The best way to sell newspapers is by producing noisy headlines - this is commonplace. Sometimes, though, zeal of the editor may lead to a headline that really does not do justice to the article it leads. Take this one, for example:

Dream world a strange, scary place for liberals

No buts about it - the headline gets the desired attention. The article, however, is not exactly supporting the headline.

A dream researcher from John F. Kennedy University in California has discovered fundamental differences between the dream worlds of people on the ideological left and the ideological right.

Unquestionably interesting. For a person without a fixed political affiliation who is more concerned with having a good time, the article could become a turning point in his/her life. I would not recommend this article as a prime recruiting tool for conservatives on the strength of the headline alone.

The researcher took a look at several aspects of dreaming as reported by liberals and conservatives.

Among his findings, Kelly Bulkeley discovered that liberals are more restless sleepers and have a higher number of bizarre, surreal dreams - including fantasy settings and a wide variety of sexual encounters. Conservatives’ dreams were, on average, far more mundane and focused on realistic people, situations and settings.

Out of the 134 liberals who participated in the study, 91 per cent said they recently dreamed about sex; only 76 per cent of 100 conservative subjects admitted the same. But Mr. Bulkeley said the two political stripes showed very different tastes in dream partners.

Liberals were far more likely to have sexual dreams about strangers and a variety of partners, while liberal women showed a greater tendency towards same-sex fantasies than their conservative counterparts (24 versus four per cent).

Meanwhile, conservatives dream of mundane events and monogamous sex, writes Chris Lackner.

Another aspect of the research was nightmares:

Liberals showed slightly higher levels of nightmares than conservatives - a statistic at odds with a similar dream study Mr. Bulkeley conducted in the late 1990s.

The study includes some of the dreams recounted by liberals, such as the following nightmare: “I was at a presidential rally where George W. Bush was speaking. There was so much red, white and blue. Bush speaks: ‘There are those who say that we are giving up our civil liberties. But I say, we should be proud to sacrifice our freedoms for America!’ The crowd went wild, clapping, cheering and waving flags. I awoke in a cold sweat.”

Not surprisingly, Republicans had much more benign dreams about their commander-in-chief: “I was friends with George W. Bush and we were working together on his ranch. I was happy to be there.”

So, what do we have here? On one hand, conservatives may have a bit less nightmares and generally wake up better rested and refreshed. On the other - their dreams are quite colorless and are mostly from the realm of “more of the same”.

Liberals: on one hand, they are a bit more prone to nightmares (not much more, though). Their nightmares are very close to what a conservative will consider a happy dream, as it can be seen from the two examples above . On the other hand, their dreams have a lot of steamy and varied sex encounters, with frequency definitely higher than that of an average person’s visits to a cinema or to a video rental.

Taking these differences into account, I would say that the results of this research show a much better chance of a youngster being persuaded to go the liberal way, promised a life of variety and excitement, even if only in the dreamland.

Hmm… Maybe not only a youngster. I cannot say more, what with SWMBO watching over my shoulder here. Enough said…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

It was gloomy and quiet in the emperor’s palace in Constantinople since the evening of September 26, when the mail pigeon with a message from the Ottoman Sultan arrived.

The message reader clerk that was summoned by His Majesty to read the message, reported lately that it was at the following paragraph

Guided by the principles of Islam, the religion of moderation, tolerance, recognition of the other and all revealed religions, the Ministers believe that it is befitting to the Emperor to retract or redress the said statement, in demonstration of the correct spirit of Christianity in dealing with Islamic issues.

that the Emperor “lost it completely”, as the clerk put it. “He broke three priceless vases of Venetian glass, and then threw on the floor the unique Tupperware set he received the other day from the Russian ambassador and jumped on it… yes, simply jumped on it!” whispered the awed clerk.

Today the emperor summoned his Foreign Minister and sent him on a mission that will encompass all Muslim capitals of the world and includes wallowing in the mud, tearing hair, abasing self in any way required by the hosts and generally showing the deepest humiliation humanly (and inhumanly) possible.

“I simply cannot take it any more, Stavros,” said the emperor embracing his loyal Minister after handing him a protective suit (for wallowing), knees and elbows protectors (for crawling on stone floors) and soothing balm (for banging forehead on same floors). “Please do your best to satisfy these… these…”, the emperor succeeded to say before breaking up in tears.

According to the emperor’s favorite chambermaid, he requested that she purchase several burqas in different colors. No member of emperor’s household ventured an opinion regarding this strange request so far.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

Dear troll,

I know this is a difficult concept for you to wrap your brain around, because it is obvious that your Mommy and Daddy told you otherwise, but the world does not revolve around you. The fact that you submitted a comment and it did not immediately escape the moderation queue does not necessarily mean that you are being ignored. Some of us have real jobs; jobs in which we have no time to tend to our weblogs from work. I am one of those bloggers. Yes, I know, a blogger with a job is a concept that simply staggers the mind of so many out there; Aaron Sorkin took another potshot at bloggers only last week, in the second episode of his new TV show. It’s popular to denigrate bloggers. But no, really—I didn’t see your comment until long after I got home from work, as the second concept that you may find difficult to believe kicked in: I have a life outside the blog.

Although there are some poor slobs who have proclaimed proudly that they are their blog, that is not this blogger. If I had to stop blogging tomorrow and never take it up again, though I would miss it, I’d get over it and move on with my life. Honestly, I’d find something to do with the time I currently use to blog.

To your next comment: “Why don’t you simply say that this site is for Zionists only?”

Well, as a matter of fact, I did. Some time ago. Years, actually. On more than one occasion. Thousands, actually. This blog became an Israel and Jewish issues blog sometime in 2002. But since you only found my weblog through some search or link from some other blog, and obviously didn’t bother to read even the last week’s posts, your tiny little brain couldn’t contain the knowledge that yes, I freely admit my biases—and have since I first started blogging more than five years ago. On the other hand, your tiny little brain also couldn’t be bothered to read the lines above every single post’s comment box that say:

Leave a Reply. Keep it civil. Comments policy (please read).

It’s even linked. To this post. The one called “Comments Policy.” Where I also say:

This is a No Israel Bashing Zone. Read that post carefully. I mean it, and I will ban commenters who insist they have the right to say what they want.

And that one’s linked. To a post where I state clearly my pro-Israel policy, and my intolerance of anti-Israel (and anti-Zionist) comments, such as the ones you were ready to put on my weblog.

And if that isn’t enough for you, you could simply have searched around a bit and found this post, which I wrote in July, where I state quite clearly that this is a Zionist blog, a fact that is obvious, as I wrote, to anyone with an IQ over room temperature. Clearly, that group does not include you.

Really, you have to be an utter moron not to be able to figure out that my blog is pro-Israel. But for utter morons who can’t read a few simple posts, here are a few clues: The left-hand sidebar has a blogroll called “Jewish and Israeli bloggers.” There is also a large graphic of my award as the winner of the Best Overall Blog from the Jewish and Israeli Blog Awards. On the right sidebar is the Category list. A few categories that might tip you off to my Zionist tendencies: Anti-Semitism, Israel, Israeli Double Standard Time, Israel Derangement Syndrome, and maybe even Jew Cooties. Any of these might have tipped you off that I am a Zionist. All of them together, however, are clues that only the most stupid of trolls would miss. Reading comprehension wasn’t your best subject in school, was it?

I understand. Truly I do. They don’t work you too hard in the schools that taught you to hate Israel and all those who stand for Israel. Your brain atrophies in those schools, as is evident by the inability of most anti-Israel commenters to get beyond frothing madness and illiterate repetitions of Jew-hatred, or quoting Chomsky and other Israel-haters instead of thinking for yourself. Really, all you have to do is regurgitate the same-old, same-old to get that A in Middle Eastern Studies. I know. I understand. It’s hard in the real world, where suddenly Chomsky means nothing to your manager, who wants your project finished on time and in literate sentences. Life is hard out of college for the typical anti-Israel troll. I understand.

But you should understand this: The true comment troll exists for the amusement of the blog owner. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt the need to mock an idiot like you, and I thank you for the chance to exercise my Juvenile Scorn muscles. It’s been far too long, and better you than the subject I really wanted to aim for.

So when your comment wasn’t approved immediately, and you waited (gasp!) an entire hour and 35 minutes to start the insults, you made it easy for me to decide that you would never get a comment approved. When people insult me, I tend to dislike them. I’m funny that way. Must be the Zionist in me. (That was sarcasm, something else that trolls have a difficult time understanding.)

Oh. And yes, I expect you’ll try to frame an answer to this post and send it to me. Not to worry. That’s what Spam Karma is for. It kills trolls dead as I feed it their IP addresses.

Yours is there now.

In closing, don’t let the door hit you in the ass. It’s a Zionist door. You may catch Jew Cooties from it.

Yours in Zionism,

Meryl
Owner and operater of Yourish.com