Well, while everybody else was slaving away at their Shire Network News pieces, I was working on my round five piece for Podcast Pickle’s Pickle Tales is out with Round Five. It’s down to three storytellers: me and two other chumps.

The topic was some namby-pamby crap about World Peace, but they didn’t say which world that peace would break out on. So, I had a little fun… and the judges got whiny about it, it seems.

Pfeh. General Zwoporo can take care of them later.

Until then, the Pickle Tales feed has Round 5 available for download.

I want to warn y’all that my piece is a serious gut-buster, beverage-blowing laugh-riot. You will ruin your keyboard, monitor, pants, and even your car if you’re driving while listening.

Now, if you haven’t registered for their forums to vote for the best piece, please do so.

Then, listen to all three stories and vote for the best one by someone without the word “Ross” in their name.

Thanks for all your support, and we’ll see if I survive into the final round for the title.

Over at Jerusalem Board Games.

It’s called “Speed Dating at Haveil Havalim.”

Now that’s a scary concept.

If you want to know how Jews would be treated in the so-called “binational” state of Isratine, take a look at how Yemeni Jews are being treated today by their Muslim overlords:

Jewish residents of the Saada region in northern Yemen have received explicit threats to leave the area within 10 days from followers of radical cleric Hussein Badr Eddin al Houthi, according to the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan.

Following complaints from the threatened Jews, a meeting of the local authorities and the district’s sheikhs was held.

The Jews demanded they be treated as equal Yemenite citizens, and at the end of the meeting a religious verdict determining the relationship between them and the Muslims was given.

This verdict, which was also signed by Jews, did not guarantee them immunity from threats.

Yemenite defense forces have gone to great lengths to try and convince the Jews to stay in their towns. These attempts, however, have failed and the authorities were forced to provide financial aid for the Jews so they would be able to rent accomodation in safer areas.

So the big question is: Who wants to kill the few remaining Jews of Yemen?

“Al-Qaeda, I don’t know where they came from. Now they (the Jews) have seen these letters and are frightened, but what can they do? They have taken all they own, taken the kids, women and all, now they are at hotels. They are afraid, but said that for now they don’t want to immigrate.”

But it isn’t Al Qaeda threatening them. It’s the local “youths.”

Yihya Yousef Mousa, one of the Jews who fled their homes, said that the believers’ youth organization’s chief Yihya el Hadir told him that he and his friends did not want to see even one Jew in Saada.

According to Mousa, although they returned to their homes last Wednesday, the youth organization’s members continued to harass them, threaten them with kidnappings and steal their money and cars. “Where do they want us to go?” asked Mousa.

“The second threat was received after we returned home following official instructions. Four masked people approached us and told us that if we are still here by Friday, harm will come to us. The sheikhs of the area are the last ones who can do anything for us.”

The Yemeni Jewish community has been there for nearly two thousand years, according to some, and for two and a half millennia, according to others. But Islam, that religion of tolerance and peace, has apparently convinced some of its adherents that Jews cannot live in peace with Muslims.

Imagine that.

There were 55,000 Jews in Yemen prior to the establishment of Israel. Today, the number is in the hundreds. Soon, it may be zero.

Tell me this wouldn’t fit right into my Juvenile Scorn category:

“I went through Israel’s 60 years of history and I am telling you, there were tougher days,” he said.

“I am grateful to Nasrallah and to Ahmadinejad,” Peres added. “Nasrallah said that the people of Israel know how to learn a lesson and draw lessons from the events they go through, and I am grateful to Ahmadinejad for doing a great job. Without him the world would not unite in an anti-Persian policy.”

First, he disses the two nutjobs, then he thanks them sarcastically for helping Israel rally the world against the enemy in Iran.

Yep. That’s juvenile scorn.

On the other hand, he’s of the opinion that the Iranian issue can be settled diplomatically and economically. I think he’s dreaming, because the Russians are building the Iranian nuclear plants, and the Chinese want Iranian oil. The UN sanctions on Iran amount to very little right now, and Iran is still laughing at the world. They just refused entry to 38 UN inspectors from the IAEA.

At this point, I don’t see how a military solution will work. I think what is needed is some arm-twisting on the Russian and Chinese level to stop them from arming Iran. Which I suppose is what Peres means when he says economic and diplomatic means would work.

In an ideal world, Professor Pangloss.