Carnival of the Cats finishes the year with its 145th episode, heading to Watermark. The BlogDiva has rounded up quite an extravaganza for us to enjoy as the hours tick down.

Let’s not forget the Catmodel of the Week…

Why, it’s Skittles of The Whole Kitten and Kaboodle.

Folks who want a shot at being a Catmodel of the Week need to be a part of the banner at Carnival of the Cats. Just send me a 4 by 3 photo of your cat and your weblog link and I’ll add your cat to the banner.

Who knows… you may just see them here as a Catmodel of the Week!

(And thanks to WP’s scheduler, I’m not even going to be home when it posts.)

From my friend Gerard, 50 things that we know now that we didn’t know last year. Some excerpts, with snark, of course:

2. The part of the brain that regulates reasoning, impulse control and judgment is still under construction during puberty and doesn’t shift into autopilot until about age 25.

Yeah, kinda knew that about guys, but damn, us too? Say it isn’t so!

21. Two previously unknown forms of ice - dubbed by researchers as ice XIII and XIV - were discovered frozen at temperatures of around minus 160 degrees Celsius, or minus 256 Fahrenheit.

So we have gone beyond Ice-9, and Kurt Vonnegut will find it even more difficult to sleep at night.

32. Just 30 minutes of continuous kissing can diminish the body’s allergic reaction to pollen, relaxing the body and reducing production of histamine, a chemical cell given out in response to allergens.

Don’t you like the way they say, “Just 30 minutes”? I think, all in all, I’d rather have take an allergy pill once a day.

34. Scientists have discovered the fastest bite in the world, one so explosive it can be used to send the Latin American trap-jaw ant that performs it flying through the air to escape predators.

So this is even a better toy for Gracie than a clicker beetle? Too bad they don’t live in the U.S.

37. Marine biologists discovered a new species of shark that walks along the ocean floor on its fins.

Yeah, and in a few years, sucker’s going to figure out how to walk on land. Then where will we be? Who knew that SNL was prophetic?

39. The common pigeon can memorize 1,200 pictures.

Which, eerily, makes it smarter than the common Internet troll. On the other hand, it’s still a rat with wings.

And on that note, a happy New Year to all of my readers.

That is, as far as I can tell, the Arab attitude towards Israel. Read this interview with a Syrian journalist, and you have to wonder at the utter sense of entitlement these people feel; even more than us entitled Americans.

What about the scenario raised in Israel according to which Syria would agree to lease out the Golan Heights to Israel in exchange for recognition of Syria’s sovereignty over the region?

This is another excuse, another ploy the extent to which the Israelis are playing games and are not serious. There are seven wonders in the world, and the possibility of leasing out the Golan Heights is apparently one of them.

The Syrian stance is clear: We went to Madrid based on the territories for peace principle and Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. This must guide the negotiations; nothing else. Territories for peace – or more accurately, all of the territories for peace; this will prevent people from instilling any word games into international decisions. Leasing? The only chance this could ever happen is if a new Syrian regime comes to power on the back of an American tank. And this of course will not happen.

Why isn’t Syria ready for compromise on this issue? Why is Syria always expecting too much?

The Syrians have always said that peace is our strategic choice but the current status quo cannot continue. The Syrian people are sick of the whole thing not being serious, although it is committed to peace. As far as we are concerned things are not complicated, and the content of negotiations is not clear. The Israelis need to decide if they are ready or not – and let them stop looking for and making up excuses.

Nowhere in there is any acknowledgement that Syria lost the Golan Heights because it attacked Israel, and before that, was shelling Israeli towns and farms from the Golan.

Never give it back, Israel. Never.

Ehud Olmert is finally showing some sense. Herb Keinon says that the continuous rocket fire (eleven more on Friday, for instance) from Gaza is what stopped the release of palestinian prisoners.

The continued firing of Kassam rockets on the western Negev was the major reason Israel decided against releasing a symbolic number of Palestinian prisoners before the Muslim festival of Id al-Adha that began on Saturday, senior sources in the Prime Minister’s Office said after nightfall.

The sources said other considerations militating against the release were concern that freeing a couple of dozen prisoners, none of them the “heavyweight” security prisoners, would not have done anything to bolster PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on the Palestinian street, and the realization that contrary to what is generally believed, Israel has not “automatically” released prisoners before the holiday in the past.

Abbas, according to Israeli sources, brought up the idea of a symbolic release in last Saturday night’s meeting with Olmert, saying that it was traditional for Israel to free prisoners before the holiday.

Olmert, according to the officials, was noncommittal, saying he would bring up the possibility with the cabinet and consider the issue.

Of course, the spin from Abbas is that Olmert broke his promise. What promise? The one in Abbas’ head.

In fact, Abbas lied twice: There has never been a “tradition” of releasing prisoners on this Muslim holiday.

The officials also said that after looking into the matter it had became clear the last time such a release occurred before Id al-Adha was in 1991.

Abbas, who traveled to the Gaza Strip on Saturday for the first time since the outbreak of deadly Hamas-Fatah factional violence earlier this month, accused Olmert of breaking a promise to release prisoners ahead of the holiday. “Unfortunately, this didn’t happen, and we hope that he will fulfill his promise after the holiday,” Abbas told reporters.

Israeli officials said Olmert never made any commitment, telling Abbas only that he would look into the matter.

Shocked, shocked I am, to find that Abbas lied.

Speaking of lies, Hamas is claiming a “breakthrough” in talks about Gilad Shalit. Don’t buy it. They’ve played this game before.

The folks in B’Tselem are very nice, I am sure. Their souls bleed for every person hurt in this world, only on one condition - that the person not be Jewish. You see, Jooz are out of scope of this nice Jewish organization. Of course, there are some other outfits that worry about Jooz, so B’Tselem naturally leaves this angle to them.

And now B’Tselem issued another yearly report about the misdeeds of their fellow (?) Jooz. I have chosen to use the rendition of their report by Al Jazeera - for a better lighting, if you catch my drift.

From January to December 2006, the Israeli military killed 655 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem - a huge rise on last year.

The defining moment was the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, on June 26, after which the number of Palestinian civilians killed increased greatly.

Sarit Michaeli, communications director of B’Tselem, said: “Following the kidnapping of Corporal Shalit, Israel staged several operations inside Gaza where Israeli forces killed 405 Palestinians over six months.”

There is that elusive something in the passage above that didn’t ring any bells in the collective minds of Al Jazeera / B’Tselem scribes. Let’s see another example:

One issue relating to the rise in the number of Palestinians killed has been the increased Israeli military activity against Qassam rockets fired from the Palestinian territories.

“Most Palestinians were killed during military operations, of which Israeli military fire, attempting to hit Qassam rocket launchers in the territories, ends up killing civilians,” Michaeli said.

Still not a bell? even a tiny jingle? I am helpless then. And trying to preach something to Al Jazeera people who are blaming the Jooz for any shortcoming and any problem in the Arab world is difficult to useless. So let’s leave it at the hint level.

There is one more thing worth a mention in that Al Jazeera piece: the picture of a funeral in Gaza. Actually it is not the picture itself, it is the caption to the picture that stopped my breath:

Civilians often pay the price in so-called targeted killings of activists [EPA]

And why did it make me so excited? Simple: on May 1, 2006 I have offered the term “activist” as one of the operating nouns for the euphemistically bound mass media, for whom even the term “militant” seems too strong a replacement of the politically incorrect “terrorist”. And here we can observe it already in use. Will wonders ever cease?

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

Mog needs our help.

Just as y’all lent a hand to Meryl when Gracie was sick, Mog needs our help after being sick herself.

Update from Meryl: And please pass the word around.

The histrionics start with the headline, and there is no special need to continue reading this article by Arifa Akbar. Still, a few more sentences could not harm:

Yashir Nawab could hardly recognise himself. Gone were the east Londoner’s spiky haircut, Gucci shoes and Armani clothes. Yesterday, as he wandered among the throng of pilgrims towards Mina, near the holy city of Mecca, his head was shaven, and he had grown a beard. His only clothing was a simple white robe, to signify all Muslims are equal in the face of God.

On the other hand, reading more is vomit-inducing, so you are warned, dear reader.

There is a point that deserves a special notice. At the end of the article some helpful soul placed a list of what seems to Independent to be “Incidents of Islamophobia“. The list includes the following gems:

• Jack Straw, Leader of the Commons, angered many Muslims in October by stating that the veil is a “visible statement of separation and of difference” and said he asked women visiting his surgery to remove it.
• A Muslim classroom assistant suspended for wearing a veil in lessons was sacked in November. Aishah Azmi, 23, was asked to remove it after the school in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, said pupils found it hard to understand her.
• Between September 2001 and the end of August 2006 the police arrested 1,082 people on suspicion of offences under Terrorism Act 2000. Of these 664 were released without charge. Some 175 were charged with terrorism-related offences; 174 faced non-terrorism related charges; and 69 on immigration offences.
• Cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohamed published in a Danish newspaper provoked worldwide protests. A demonstration in London in February sparked outrage when placards gave out messages some said amounted to incitement to murder. Mizanur Rahman, a website designer, was later convicted of stirring racial hatred for carrying placards calling for non-Muslims to be “annihilated” and “beheaded” as he addressed more than 300 protesters outside the Danish embassy in London.

The whole enchilada smells strongly of phobia. I am not sure, though, that it is Islamophobia…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

Yeah, I know, this is going to get me a zillion search hits, but I found it over on YouTube. I knew I would.

For the faint-hearted. Trust me when I tell you that everyone will be able to watch this video and feel nothing but humor. Well, except Gumby fans.

Update: If you want the real one, here’s the hanging caught on cellphone.

Sic semper tyrannis.

The community of terrorists, terrorist sympathizes, and terror sponsors, to whom Saddam Hussein paid a bounty of at least $25,000 per suicide bomber, is mourning the death of their patron. Color me unsurprised, as these are also the people who celebrated 9/11.

They are not our friends. They have never been our friends.

The execution of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein sent many Palestinians into deep mourning Saturday as they struggled to come to terms with the demise of perhaps their most steadfast ally.

Unlike much of the rest of the world, where Saddam was viewed as a brutal dictator who oppressed his people and started regional wars, in the West Bank and Gaza he was seen as a generous benefactor unafraid to fight for the Palestinian cause - even to the end.

Purportedly, Saddam’s final words were, “Palestine is Arab.”

“We heard of his martyrdom, and I swear to God we were deeply shaken from within,” said Khadejeh Ahmad from the Qadora refugee camp in the West Bank. “Nobody was as supportive or stood with the Palestinians as he did.”

During the first Gulf War in 1991, the Palestinians cheered Saddam’s missile attacks on Israel, chanting “Beloved Saddam, strike Tel Aviv,” as the Scud missiles flew overhead.

Saddam further endeared himself to the Palestinians during the recent intifada with Israel by giving USD 25,000 to the family of each suicide bomber and USD 10,000 for each Palestinian killed in fighting. The stipends amounted to an estimated USD 35 million.

Too bad Israel doesn’t hang terrorists.

Saddam is hanging
He did some very bad things
Hussein, meet Hangman.

The clock is ticking
Today is Saddam’s death day
There won’t be presents

Join in, folks!

Update:

Saddam is dead now
It’s Tuna for Terrorists!
The cats are happy

Update 2:

Good point on TV
Remember Saddam’s victims
They rest easy now

Update 3: Geez, do so many of you have to be so gross?

Update 4:

Going to bed now
Comment moderation back
When Lair goes to bed

Translation: I turned off comment moderation for this post, and Lair Simon will turn it back on for me before he signs off.

I’ll approve all your haikus tomorrow morning.

Update 5:
Saddam is dead
palestinians mourn him
They are terrorists

Fox News has pictures
Saddam alive; Saddam dead
The picture is strange

Saddam is dead now
This will not stop violence
Never said it would

Tig was picture-perfect posing this afternoon, so I took a few shots of him. I’ve got that ruff shot I promised, but I can’t decide which is the better one. So I’m giving you both, and you can decide for yourselves.

I simply can’t decide between them, but boy, is that a come-hither look, or is that a come-hither look?

Whenever my friends and I were tired of talking about a subject (often after a serious discussion), someone would say, “So, how about those Yankees?” It was code for “Change the subject, this is boring/depressing/over with.)

Scanned the news today.

So, how about those Yankees?

Okay, I really almost never watch baseball anymore, and frankly get most of my Yankee news from Lair Simon’s baseball posts, which I actually sometimes even read (well, more than the gardening posts).

I ought to find a topic that Lair Simon doesn’t like so he can skip my posts on that topic. It seems only fair. Gardening and I are not friends. I like the results of gardens, but I have zero interest in actually planting one. In fact, the lone green thing in my apartment succumbed a month or so ago. One might say it succumbed to neglect, and that I was tired of it and just let it go in peace, but whatever you say, it succumbed, and now I don’t have to water the damned thing every day.

Of course, the way Lair Simon is, this post may be taken as some kind of challenge. It isn’t, but, well, Lair is about the most unpredictable person I know. I never know what he’s going to write about, and am often taken by surprise by some of the posts he puts up here.

It’s a good thing I like surprises. Well, okay, I don’t like surprise parties, because standing in the door and being shouted at by forty people on your thirtieth birthday when you were expecting just to see Janet’s husband? Not so nice. Heart-attack inducing shock. I swear, it took me half an hour to recover and finally figure out who was at the party.

But surprises that don’t include heart attack-inducing shock? I can deal with those.

They’re gonna hang him on Sunday. Or maybe even today.

Now I do want a Javascript clock. Dang, can’t find my old bookmarks.

Can we get a chorus of “Na na na na Hey Hey Goodbye,” please?

The world is too depressing, but Tig and Gracie aren’t.

This first picture is a shot of Tig who, moments before, was sitting up in an Edloe-like position. He has a very strange (and annoying) habit of actually pulling the water dish to him, rather than, say, moving forward the step he’d need to reach it. Sometimes, he pulls it over (hence the annoying part of this habit, particularly when the dish is full). The rest of his odd ritual is the way he encircles the bowl with his paws.

Gracie and I received some new tissue paper in the last week or so, and since green and purple go so wonderfully with her orange coat, I immediately added the paper to the top of her nest, which is, uh, getting rather ragged. That’s because she’s suddenly decided she has to scrunch it up and move it around, and, well, it’s tissue paper. She has claws, which remain untrimmed. She is asleep in her nest as I write this.

I shall be on the lookout for more fancy tissue paper on sale. Her nest got all messed up when she got sick, and has been reduced to just a few rumpled pieces of paper. Which, by the looks of it, is still plenty good enough for her.

About the only benefit of being between jobs for the moment is being home more often. The cats love it, and it enables me to keep an eye on Gracie, take the occasional nap with Tig, who will sleep in my lap for hours if I let him, and, well, just enjoy their silliness. They make me laugh every single day without fail. Especially Tig the Goofball. Really. I wish I’d been able to capture him ten seconds before I got the above shot. He was sitting up and bent over, pulling the water dish toward him. Lazybones.

Me-Ander calls it the End of an Era; no more 2 digit numbered Haveil Havalim. (Of course for those who use Roman Numerals, things are getting a whole lot easier, aren’t they?)

Read about:

The restoration of Barcelona’s Jewish Quarter.

The Mandolin man.

Walking for Israel!

And Jewish Super Hero trading cards.

As you can  guess we’re hoping that this upcoming week’s Haveil Havalim hosted at Bagel Blogger will be something special since it’s #100.

We’d like things to be just a little bit different (and hopefully, interesting) this time. Please submit a link to a current post and a post to something you wrote about about a year ago.

Thanks, as always to Meryl for allowing this public service announcement.

In response to a commenter in my previous post, I thought it wise to put this where it will be more widely read.

Facts about Jews in Islamic countries

While Jewish communities in Islamic countries fared better overall than those in Christian lands in Europe, Jews were no strangers to persecution and humiliation among the Arabs. As Princeton University historian Bernard Lewis has written: “The Golden Age of equal rights was a myth, and belief in it was a result, more than a cause, of Jewish sympathy for Islam.”22

Muhammad, the founder of Islam, traveled to Medina in 622 A.D. to attract followers to his new faith. When the Jews of Medina refused to recognize Muhammad as their Prophet, two of the major Jewish tribes were expelled. In 627, Muhammad’s followers killed between 600 and 900 of the men, and divided the surviving Jewish women and children amongst themselves.23

The Muslim attitude toward Jews is reflected in various verses throughout the Koran, the holy book of the Islamic faith. “They [the Children of Israel] were consigned to humiliation and wretchedness. They brought the wrath of God upon themselves, and this because they used to deny God’s signs and kill His Prophets unjustly and because they disobeyed and were transgressors” (Sura 2:61). According to the Koran, the Jews try to introduce corruption (5:64), have always been disobedient (5:78), and are enemies of Allah, the Prophet and the angels (2:97-98).

Jews were generally viewed with contempt by their Muslim neighbors; peaceful coexistence between the two groups involved the subordination and degradation of the Jews. In the ninth century, Baghdad’s Caliph al-Mutawakkil designated a yellow badge for Jews, setting a precedent that would be followed centuries later in Nazi Germany.24

At various times, Jews in Muslim lands lived in relative peace and thrived culturally and economically. The position of the Jews was never secure, however, and changes in the political or social climate would often lead to persecution, violence and death.

When Jews were perceived as having achieved too comfortable a position in Islamic society, anti-Semitism would surface, often with devastating results. On December 30, 1066, Joseph HaNagid, the Jewish vizier of Granada, Spain, was crucified by an Arab mob that proceeded to raze the Jewish quarter of the city and slaughter its 5,000 inhabitants. The riot was incited by Muslim preachers who had angrily objected to what they saw as inordinate Jewish political power.

Similarly, in 1465, Arab mobs in Fez slaughtered thousands of Jews, leaving only 11 alive, after a Jewish deputy vizier treated a Muslim woman in “an offensive manner.” The killings touched off a wave of similar massacres throughout Morocco.25

Other mass murders of Jews in Arab lands occurred in Morocco in the 8th century, where whole communities were wiped out by the Muslim ruler Idris I; North Africa in the 12th century, where the Almohads either forcibly converted or decimated several communities; Libya in 1785, where Ali Burzi Pasha murdered hundreds of Jews; Algiers, where Jews were massacred in 1805, 1815 and 1830; and Marrakesh, Morocco, where more than 300 hundred Jews were murdered between 1864 and 1880.26

Read it all. Because it puts paid to the myth that Muslims were tolerant of Jews.

This BBC article’s headline may not keep for long, so I have decided to make a snapshot for posterity.

Israel to resume militant strikes“. How do you like them chickens? “Militant strikes”. I wonder whether we are witnessing here the birth of a new term for any future IDF action. After all, it may be a new attempt to level the playing field according to BBC (secret) standards.

If the next IDF strike in Gaza succeeds in bagging a few rocket scientists, we’ll see the familiar “IDF killed x Palestinian civilians”, no doubt about it.

The international community has urged Mr Olmert to keep the ceasefire alive, but he has come under growing domestic pressure to respond to the rocket attacks, which have been increasing.

The international community does not give a flying fig about the 60+ Qassams launched during the month of the so called “cease-fire”, so I don’t think we should give anything different for the unbearable urges of “international community”.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

left in Saddam’s execution order.

I was going to put up a javascript clock, but this works just as well.

Update: Hundreds apply to be Saddam’s hangman.

Only hundreds?

Specifically, the British part of it.

Via Charles, the Brussels Journal points out this quote from Tony Blair on the Koran:

To me, the most remarkable thing about the Koran is how progressive it is. I write with great humility as a member of another faith. As an outsider, the Koran strikes me as a reforming book, trying to return Judaism and Christianity to their origins, much as reformers attempted to do with the Christian church centuries later. The Koran is inclusive. It extols science and knowledge and abhors superstition. It is practical and far ahead of its time in attitudes toward marriage, women, and governance.

Under its guidance, the spread of Islam and its dominance over previously Christian or pagan lands were breathtaking. Over centuries, Islam founded an empire and led the world in discovery, art, and culture. The standard-bearers of tolerance in the early Middle Ages were far more likely to be found in Muslim lands than in Christian ones.

That sound you heard was my jaw dropping to the floor. That Muslim empire that the Koran helped found? It was done by the sword. That claim that it was “far ahead of its time in attitudes toward marriage, women, and governance”? Bullshit. This is the book that states definitively that a woman’s testimony in court is worth only half that of a man’s. This is the book that allows a man to take four wives, but women may only have one husband.

Then there’s that whole “trying to return Judaism and Christianity to their origins.” Uh, hello, the Koran has absolutely nothing to do with “returning” Judaism to its “origins.” Judaism never got away from its origins. The Torah that we read in synagogue every Shabbat is virtually unchanged from the Torah that was read when Mohammed was wearing diapers. It’s the same Torah that Jesus studied as a child and adult. It has not changed in 2,700 years. How much closer to our origins do you think we need to be, Tony? Temple worship? Fine, just get rid of that mosque on the Temple Mount, and we’ll be happy to oblige.

I really hate it when people who are utterly ignorant of Judaism profess to tell us what Judaism is all about. And when it comes from the leader of a nation that sits on the UN Security Council—well, you just have to shake your head and wonder how any of his advisers could have read that and not said, “Er, Mr. Prime Minister, do you really want to put it quite like that?”

The above quote is excerpted from a Foreign Affairs article by Blair.

Some of you have been hitting my Amazon tipjar lately. Thanks a bunch! It helps keep Gracie in Fancy Feast. (Tig gets some too, but he sure doesn’t need it.)

You know, I’ve been saying that I’m writing the same things over and over again.

Go back in my archives and you’ll see exactly what I mean.

For real amusement, read to the end, click on “next” or “previous,” and see how little the situation has changed. Except for one very important thing: There are far, far fewer terror attacks since the fence was constructed.

By the way, Condi protested the fence from the get-go.

When is a cease fire not a cease fire?

When more than 60 rockets are launched on a daily to near-daily basis, destroying property and wounding civilians.

When is a war a “shaky truce”?

When only Israelis are targeted.

Israel decided on Wednesday to resume pinpoint attacks against Palestinian rocket-launching cells in Gaza, jeopardizing what is already a shaky, month-old truce with Gaza militants.

The decision came hours after a Palestinian rocket seriously wounded two Israeli teenage boys in Sderot, a town in southern Israel close to the Gaza border. Shortly after the new policy was announced, a rocket was fired from Gaza but no injuries were reported.

Although Israel said it remains committed to the truce, the decision to strike against rocket launchers clearly raises the tension.

Parse that last sentence. The rockets that wound Israelis are not “raising tensions.” But trying to kill the terrorists launching the attacks “clearly raises the tension.”

WTF is wrong with these people? WTF is WRONG with these people? WTF IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?

But wait, it gets worse.

What’s missing from this Reuters article about Israel resuming pinpoint attacks against terrorists? Any mention of the latest rocket attack, which seriously wounded two Israeli teenagers. “Youths,” they’d be called if they were palestinians wounded by the IDF.

Israel said on Wednesday it would resume attacks against Palestinian militants who fire rockets from the Gaza Strip but insisted it remained committed to a month-old ceasefire in the territory.

In a statement that appeared to rule out a major military offensive in Gaza, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s office said: “A directive has been given to the defense establishment to take pinpoint action against rocket-launching squads.”

The governing Palestinian Hamas movement said “there is a risk the calm will be blown away by the wind” if Israel resumes what the Islamic militant group termed assassinations.

“There has been almost complete (Israeli) restraint,” Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh said on Israel Radio. “We have changed this policy.”

Olmert has come under growing public criticism for failing to retaliate for more than 60 such attacks from the Gaza Strip since the November 26 truce.

Not a word about the wounded children. Not. A. Single. Word.

But in this Reuters factbox, they mention the wounded boys. Barely.

HOW LONG WILL THE CEASEFIRE HOLD?

The month-old truce faces its toughest test.

Israel had said it would show restraint despite continued rocket fire from Gaza, but Prime Minister Ehud Olmert approved the change of policy after a “Qassam” wounded two teenagers in southern Israel on Tuesday.

Although Israel said it remained committed to the truce, any deadly strike against militants in Gaza could quickly feed a spiral of violence that would put paid to the ceasefire.

If a Palestinian rocket killed an Israeli, then Olmert would be under even greater domestic pressure to take tough military action. He already faces accusations of weakness from some opponents.

WHAT HAS THE TRUCE DELIVERED?

The ceasefire halted an Israeli offensive in Gaza aimed at recovering a soldier captured in a cross-border raid and significantly reduced rocket fire from Gaza into Israel.

Liars. No, wait, they’re telling the truth. The cease fire did stop Israel from invading Gaza. So it was a win for the terrorists.

I can’t stand this Alice in Wonderland talk any more. It’s as if the entire news media has taken the Humpty Dumpty rule as their role model:

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

Obviously, to the media, “rocket attacks” means “truce” and “wounded Israelis” means “shaky cease fire”—no more, no less.

Mahmoud the Mad is boldly venturing into the realm of theology now:

In a greeting to the world’s Christians for the coming new year, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he expects both Jesus and the Shiite messianic figure, Imam Mahdi, to return and “wipe away oppression.”

Ahmadinejad then made a connection between Jesus and the Imam Mahdi, believed by Shiites to have disappeared as a child in A.D. 941. When the Mahdi returns, they contend, he will reign on earth for seven years before bringing about a final judgment and the end of the world.

“All I want to say is that the age of hardship, threat and spite will come to an end someday and, God willing, Jesus would return to the world along with the emergence of the descendant of the Islam’s holy prophet, Imam Mahdi, and wipe away every tinge of oppression, pain and agony from the face of the world,” Ahmadinejad said.

And how, knowing that the ways of the deity are mysterious, could MM be sure that the above mentioned cleansing procedure will not start with his, quite unattractive, persona?

One could never be too careful, Mahmoud…

spring is afoot
hidden Imam is cleaning
all kinds of garbage
celestial brush reigns
time to go packing, Mahmoud…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

After the two boys in Sderot were wounded by the Qassam yesterday, IDF gets the green light “to resume pinpoint operations targeting Qassam rocket launching cells“. The condition attached to this mandate is “to uphold the cease-fire in general“. Gives the green light a rather yellowish tint, I must say.

Peretz and senior IDF officials had called on Olmert to suspend the policy of restraint and let the army fire at Qassam rocket-launcher cells that can be identified during or shortly after operation.

During or shortly after will hardly help the victims of the Qassams that are already in the air. How about adding “before” to that time scale?

But of course, Bibi, happy camper at any time he is not holding the helm, has a solution to any problem:

“[The government] must stop [arms] smuggling, by taking control of key areas,” he said. When asked if this includes the Philadelphi Route, Netanyahu responded “definitely,” although he said the military presence there would not necessarily be permanent.

Not necessarily permanent… Where did I hear that last time? Sounds very familiar.

Netanyahu also called on the government to work to bring about the fall of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority government, and “halt all negotiations and all gestures, until a complete end to the terrorism.”

Can we have also an end to sloganeering with this enchilada?

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

Here’s a challenge: Go read this NY Times editorial and see if you can find a single reference to the messages—in the form of rockets loaded with ball-bearings that just destroyed two young boys’ legs—that palestinian terrorists have been sending Israel since the “cease-fire” took effect.

Israel’s Mixed Messages
The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, took some encouraging steps over the weekend to ease the frustrations Palestinians face at West Bank and Gaza checkpoints. He hoped in that way to strengthen Mahmoud Abbas, the embattled moderate who presides over the Palestinian Authority. Unfortunately, Israel’s defense minister, Amir Peretz, has undercut these moves by approving the first new West Bank settlement in more than a decade.

Israel’s space for peace diplomacy is tightly constrained. It must reckon with a Hamas-led Palestinian cabinet that denies its right to exist and rejects the very notion of a negotiated peace. Yet those facts of Mideast life do not justify authorizing a new settlement. That self-defeating move adds nothing to Israel’s security and needlessly complicates the quest for an eventual negotiated peace.

We hope Mr. Olmert or Israel’s Parliament can reverse Mr. Peretz’s damaging decision, taken in defiance of the international road map for Middle East peace, which Israel’s governing coalition has pledged to support.

Meanwhile, Mr. Olmert’s positive gestures still deserve recognition, although the hoped-for benefits to Mr. Abbas may now be lost. More than two dozen military checkpoints in the West Bank will be removed and Israel will take steps to ease the passage of goods in and out of the Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip. These steps should reduce the day-to-day humiliation and economic suffering of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Palestinians.

Yeah, that all-encompassing “humiliation” that the pals suffer by having to go through checkpoints—because it’s not like they’re not trying to smuggle in suicide belts and other weapons to murder more Israelis.

I’m about done with being able to post on Israeli issues. I am simply seeing the same scene played over and over again, on different days, and sometimes with different players.

I’m going to start assigning numbers, like in that old joke about the prisoners.

Let’s see, Israel being bashed for settlements and checkpoints with no mention whatsoever of the need for those checkpoints: We’ll call that 2. One will be the “exercise restraint” after the pals get a suicide belt through the area that was previously checkpointed, and Israeli civilians are murdered.

Cynical? Moi? Surely you jest.

Charles first noticed the AP comparing the number of soldiers killed in Iraq with the number of people killed in the 9/11 attacks. Of course, the first thought that comes to mind when you read an idiotic comparison like that is, “WTF?”

The U.S. military announced the deaths of seven American soldiers Tuesday, raising the U.S. death toll since the beginning of the Iraq war to at least 2,978 — five more than the number of people killed in the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S.

Then, I noticed that the AP seems to have added this little comparison to its stories as boilerplate.

Earlier Tuesday, the military also announced the deaths on Monday of three American soldiers. The U.S. military death toll to at least 2,978 five more than the number killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

But I wasn’t quite sure. Until I saw this story:

The latest U.S. deaths brought the number of members of the U.S. military killed since the start of the Iraq war in March 2003 to at least 2,978 five more than the number killed in the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

We now have the official AP boilerplate on Iraq casualties being compared to the number killed on 9/11. If someone can come up with a valid reason why these numbers should be compared, I’d love to hear it.

Can’t remember where I read it, but someone pointed out that’s like comparing the number of soldiers’ deaths in WWII to the number of casualties at Pearl Harbor (2,403: 2,335 US servicemen and 68 civilians). You may as well add that to the boilerplate. It makes as much sense. Let’s try it. And let’s add a comma where it belongs, something the AP copy editors haven’t managed to do:

Earlier Tuesday, the military also announced the deaths on Monday of three American soldiers. The U.S. military death toll to at least 2,978, 575 more than the number killed in the Dec. 11, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

Yep. Makes just as much sense as the comparison to 9/11.

And the quality of AP sinks lower and lower….

Update: And so does the quality of their copy editing. It occurs to me that the offending sentence is not a sentence. They should have put something like “This brings” to the final quoted sentence. As it stands, it’s completely ungrammatical. Way to go, MSM, with your layers and layers of professionals!

My sister-in-law sent me a Hanukkah card with a watercolor portrait of a man dancing in the midst of six dreidels. It’s from Michel & Co. I have found a website that I think may be theirs, but it’s in German, so I can’t do much with it. I sent them an email and we’ll see what happens.

I love, love, LOVE this card. Someone else sent it to me years ago (or maybe my sister-in-law sent it to me twice, but that turns out to be perfect, because I mislaid my other copy). I want a print of the watercolor.

Does anyone have any idea how I might track down this specific card or artist? There’s no artist’s name on it, which leads me to believe it was work-for-hire, so I probably have to go through the company.

I really love this painting, and want it hanging on my wall someday.

Looks like Mr. Friedman has finally been mugged by reality. This is from the man who so proudly announced to us the Saudi peace plan several years ago, refusing to believe he was being used for propaganda purposes.

I do believe he’s learned otherwise.

15 rules for understanding the Middle East
Rule 1: What people tell you in private in the Middle East is irrelevant. All that matters is what they will defend in public in their own language. Anything said to you in English, in private, doesn’t count. In Washington, officials lie in public and tell the truth off the record. In the Mideast, officials say what they really believe in public and tell you what you want to hear in private.

[... ]
Rule 3: If you can’t explain something to Middle Easterners with a conspiracy theory, then don’t try to explain it at all — they won’t believe it.

Rule 4: In the Middle East, never take a concession, except out of the mouth of the person doing the conceding. If I had a dollar for every time someone agreed to recognize Israel on behalf of Yasser Arafat, I could paper my walls.

Rule 5: Never lead your story out of Lebanon, Gaza or Iraq with a cease-fire; it will always be over before the next morning’s paper.

And my favorite:

Rule 11: The most underestimated emotion in Arab politics is humiliation. The Israeli-Arab conflict, for instance, is not just about borders. Israel’s mere existence is a daily humiliation to Muslims, who can’t understand how, if they have the superior religion, Israel can be so powerful. Al Jazeera’s editor, Ahmed Sheikh, said it best when he recently told the Swiss weekly Die Weltwoche: “It gnaws at the people in the Middle East that such a small country as Israel, with only about 7 million inhabitants, can defeat the Arab nation with its 350 million. That hurts our collective ego. The Palestinian problem is in the genes of every Arab. The West’s problem is that it does not understand this.”

Rule 12: Thus, the Israelis will always win, and the Palestinians will always make sure they never enjoy it. Everything else is just commentary.

Yep. He seems to have finally seen the light. But I think more proof is needed.

Why Americans are better than Islamists, Reason One:

They have fatwas.

We have WaWas.

I would like to report that except for still having to be on steroids and occasionally throwing up first thing in the morning, Gracie is fully recovered.

Because she’s just spent the last ten minutes yowling to go outside, and every time I get up, she walks away from the door. Yes, she just did it again—all I did was sit forward in my chair as if I were going to get up, and she ran away from the door. Seconds, mind you, after yowling to go out.

Oh, she’s recovered.

Stupid cat.

Ethiopian fighters are beating the Somali Islamists.

Islamic fighters were in a tactical retreat Tuesday, a senior Isl